“Taking the Dawnshard, known to bind any creature voidish or mortal, he crawled up the steps crafted for Heralds, ten strides tall apiece, toward the grand temple above.”
—From The Poem of Ista. I have found no modern explanation of what these “Dawnshards” are. They seem ignored by scholars, though talk of them was obviously prevalent among those recording the early mythologies.
It was not uncommon for us to meet native peoples while traveling through the Unclaimed Hills, Shallan read. These ancient lands were once one of the Silver Kingdoms, after all. One must wonder if the great-shelled beasts lived among them back then, or if the creatures have come to inhabit the wilderness left by humankind’s passing.
She settled back in her chair, the humid air warm around her. To her left, Jasnah Kholin floated quietly in the pool inset in the floor of the bathing chamber. Jasnah liked to soak in the bath, and Shallan couldn’t blame her.
During most of Shallan’s life, bathing had been an ordeal involving dozens of parshmen carting heated buckets of water, followed by a quick scrub in the brass tub before the water cooled.
Kharbranth’s palace offered far more luxury. The stone pool in the ground resembled a small personal lake, luxuriously warmed by clever
fabrials that produced heat. Shallan didn’t know much about fabrials yet, though part of her was very intrigued. This type was becoming increasingly common. Just the other day, the Conclave staff had sent Jasnah one to heat her chambers.
The water didn’t have to be carried in but came out of pipes. At the turn of a lever, water flowed in. It was warm when it entered, and was kept heated by the fabrials set into the sides of the pool. Shallan had bathed in the chamber herself, and it was absolutely marvelous.
The practical decor was of rock decorated with small colorful stones set in mortar up the sides of the walls. Shallan sat beside the pool, fully dressed, reading as she waited on Jasnah’s needs. The book was Gavilar’s account— as spoken to Jasnah herself years ago—after his first meeting with the strange parshmen later known as the Parshendi.
Occasionally, during our explorations, we’d meet with natives, she read.
Not parshmen. Natan people, with their pale bluish skin, wide noses, and wool-like white hair. In exchange for gifts of food, they would point us to the hunting grounds of greatshells.
Then we met the parshmen. I’d been on a half-dozen expeditions to Natanatan, but never had I seen anything like this! Parshmen, living on their own? All logic, experience, and science declared that to be an impossibility.
Parshmen need the hand of civilized peoples to guide them. This has been proven time and time again. Leave one out in the wilderness, and it will just sit there, doing nothing, until someone comes along to give it orders.
Yet here was a group who could hunt, make weapons, build buildings, and—indeed—create their own civilization. We soon realized that this single discovery could expand, perhaps overthrow, all we understood about our gentle servants.
Shallan moved her eyes down to the bottom of the page where— separated by a line—the undertext was written in a small, cramped script.
Most books dictated by men had an undertext, notes added by the woman or ardent who scribed the book. By unspoken agreement, the undertext was never shared out loud. Here, a wife would sometimes clarify—or even contradict—the account of her husband. The only way to preserve such honesty for future scholars was to maintain the sanctity and secrecy of the writing.
It should be noted, Jasnah had written in the undertext to this passage, that I have adapted my father’s words—by his own instruction—to make them
more appropriate for recording. That meant she made his dictation sound more scholarly and impressive. In addition, by most accounts, King Gavilar originally ignored these strange, self-sufficient parshmen. It was only after explanation by his scholars and scribes that he understood the import of what he’d discovered. This inclusion is not meant to highlight my father’s ignorance; he was, and is, a warrior. His attention was not on the anthropological import of our expedition, but upon the hunt that was to be its culmination.
Shallan closed the cover, thoughtful. The volume was from Jasnah’s own collection—the Palanaeum had several copies, but Shallan wasn’t allowed to bring the Palanaeum’s books into a bathing chamber.
Jasnah’s clothing lay on a bench at the side of the room. Atop the folded garments, a small golden pouch held the Soulcaster. Shallan glanced at Jasnah. The princess floated face-up in the pool, black hair fanning out behind her in the water, her eyes closed. Her daily bath was the one time she seemed to relax completely. She looked much younger now, stripped of both clothing and intensity, floating like a child resting after a day of active swimming.
Thirty-four years old. That seemed ancient in some regards—some women Jasnah’s age had children as old as Shallan. And yet it was also young. Young enough that Jasnah was praised for her beauty, young enough that men declared it a shame she wasn’t yet married.
Shallan glanced at the pile of clothing. She carried the broken fabrial in her safepouch. She could swap them here and now. It was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Jasnah now trusted her enough to relax, soaking in the bathing chamber without worrying about her fabrial.
Could Shallan really do it? Could she betray this woman who had taken her in?
Considering what I’ve done before, she thought, this is nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time she betrayed someone who trusted her.
She stood up. To the side, Jasnah cracked an eye.
Blast, Shallan thought, tucking the book under her arm, pacing, trying to look thoughtful. Jasnah watched her. Not suspiciously. Curiously.
“Why did your father want to make a treaty with the Parshendi?”
Shallan found herself asking as she walked.
“Why wouldn’t he want to?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Of course it is. It’s just not one that tells you anything.”
“It would help, Brightness, if you would give me a useful answer.”
“Then ask a useful question.”
Shallan set her jaw. “What did the Parshendi have that King Gavilar wanted?”
Jasnah smiled, closing her eyes again. “Closer. But you can probably
guess the answer to that.”
“Shards.”
Jasnah nodded, still relaxed in the water.
“The text doesn’t mention them,” Shallan said.
“My father didn’t speak of them,” Jasnah said. “But from things he said…well, I now suspect that they motivated the treaty.”
“Can you be sure he knew, though? Maybe he just wanted the gemhearts.”
“Perhaps,” Jasnah said. “The Parshendi seemed amused at our interest in the gemstones woven into their beards.” She smiled. “You should have seen our shock when we discovered where they’d gotten them. When the lanceryn died off during the scouring of Aimia, we thought we’d seen the last gemhearts of large size. And yet here was another great-shelled beast with them, living in a land not too distant from Kholinar itself.
“Anyway, the Parshendi were willing to share them with us, so long as they could still hunt them too. To them, if you took the trouble to hunt the chasmfiends, their gemhearts were yours. I doubt a treaty would have been needed for that. And yet, just before leaving to return to Alethkar, my father suddenly began talking fervently of the need for an agreement.”
“So what happened? What changed?”
“I can’t be certain. However, he once described the strange actions of a Parshendi warrior during a chasmfiend hunt. Instead of reaching for his spear when the greatshell appeared, this man held his hand to the side in a very suspicious way. Only my father saw it; I suspected he believed the man planned to summon a Blade. The Parshendi realized what he was doing, and stopped himself. My father didn’t speak of it further, and I assume he didn’t want the world’s eyes on the Shattered Plains any more than they already were.”
Shallan tapped her book. “It seems tenuous. If he was sure about the Blades, he must have seen more.”
“I suspect so as well. But I studied the treaty carefully, after his death.
The clauses for favored trade status and mutual border crossing could very well have been a step toward folding the Parshendi into Alethkar as a nation.
It certainly would have prevented the Parshendi from trading their Shards to other kingdoms without coming to us first. Perhaps that was all he wanted to do.”
“But why kill him?” Shallan said, arms crossed, strolling in the direction of Jasnah’s folded clothing. “Did the Parshendi realize that he intended to have their Shardblades, and so struck at him preemptively?”
“Uncertain,” Jasnah said. She sounded skeptical. Why did she think the Parshendi killed Gavilar? Shallan nearly asked, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t get any more out of Jasnah. The woman expected Shallan to think, discover, and draw conclusions on her own.
Shallan stopped beside the bench. The pouch holding the Soulcaster was open, the drawstrings loose. She could see the precious artifact curled up inside. The swap would be easy. She had used a large chunk of her money to buy gemstones that matched Jasnah’s, and had put them into the broken Soulcaster. The two were now exactly identical.
She still hadn’t learned anything about using the fabrial; she’d tried to find a way to ask, but Jasnah avoided speaking of the Soulcaster. Pushing harder would be suspicious. Shallan would have to get information elsewhere. Perhaps from Kabsal, or maybe from a book in the Palanaeum.
Regardless, the time was upon her. Shallan found her hand going to her safepouch, and she felt inside of it, running her fingers along the chains of her broken fabrial. Her heart beat faster. She glanced at Jasnah, but the woman was just lying there, floating, eyes closed. What if she opened her eyes?
Don’t think of that! Shallan told herself. Just do it. Make the swap. It’s so close….
“You are progressing more quickly than I had assumed you would,”
Jasnah said suddenly.
Shallan spun, but Jasnah’s eyes were still closed. “I was wrong to judge you so harshly because of your prior education. I myself have often said that passion outperforms upbringing. You have the determination and the capacity to become a respected scholar, Shallan. I realize that the answers seem slow in coming, but continue your research. You will have them eventually.”
Shallan stood for a moment, hand in her pouch, heart thumping uncontrollably. She felt sick. I can’t do it, she realized. Stormfather, but I’m a
fool. I came all of this way…and now I can’t do it!
She pulled her hand from her pouch and stalked back across the bathing chamber to her chair. What was she going to tell her brothers? Had she just doomed her family? She sat down, setting her book aside and sighing, prompting Jasnah to open her eyes. Jasnah watched her, then righted herself in the water and gestured for the hairsoap.
Gritting her teeth, Shallan stood up and fetched the soap tray for Jasnah, bringing it over and squatting down to proffer it. Jasnah took the powdery hairsoap and mashed it in her hand, lathering it before putting it into her sleek black hair with both hands. Even naked, Jasnah Kholin was composed and in control.
“Perhaps we have spent too much time indoors of late,” the princess said. “You look penned up, Shallan. Anxious.”
“I’m fine,” Shallan said brusquely.
“Hum, yes. As evidenced by your perfectly reasonable, relaxed tone.
Perhaps we need to shift some of your training from history to something more hands-on, more visceral.”
“Like natural science?” Shallan asked, perking up.
Jasnah tilted her head back. Shallan knelt down on a towel beside the pool, then reached down with her freehand, massaging the soap into her mistress’s lush tresses.
“I was thinking philosophy,” Jasnah said.
Shallan blinked. “Philosophy? What good is that?” Isn’t it the art of saying nothing with as many words as possible?
“Philosophy is an important field of study,” Jasnah said sternly.
“Particularly if you’re going to be involved in court politics. The nature of morality must be considered, and preferably before one is exposed to situations where a moral decision is required.”
“Yes, Brightness. Though I fail to see how philosophy is more ‘hands- on’ than history.”
“History, by definition, cannot be experienced directly. As it is happening, it is the present, and that is philosophy’s realm.”
“That’s just a matter of definition.”
“Yes,” Jasnah said, “all words have a tendency to be subject to how they are defined.”
“I suppose,” Shallan said, leaning back, letting Jasnah dunk her hair to clean off the soap.
The princess began scrubbing her skin with mildly abrasive soap. “That was a particularly bland response, Shallan. What happened to your wit?”
Shallan glanced at the bench and its precious fabrial. After all this time, she had proven too weak to do what needed to be done. “My wit is on temporary hiatus, Brightness,” she said. “Pending review by its colleagues,
sincerity and temerity.”
Jasnah raised an eyebrow at her.
Shallan sat back on her heels, still kneeling on the towel. “How do you know what is right, Jasnah? If you don’t listen to the devotaries, how do you decide?”
“That depends upon one’s philosophy. What is most important to you?”
“I don’t know. Can’t you tell me?”
“No,” Jasnah replied. “If I gave you the answers, I’d be no better than
the devotaries, prescribing beliefs.”
“They aren’t evil, Jasnah.”
“Except when they try to rule the world.”
Shallan drew her lips into a thin line. The War of Loss had destroyed the Hierocracy, shattering Vorinism into the devotaries. That was the inevitable result of a religion trying to rule. The devotaries were to teach morals, not enforce them. Enforcement was for the lighteyes.
“You say you can’t give me answers,” Shallan said. “But can’t I ask for the advice of someone wise? Someone who’s gone before? Why write our philosophies, draw our conclusions, if not to influence others? You yourself told me that information is worthless unless we use it to make judgments.”
Jasnah smiled, dunking her arms and washing off the soap. Shallan caught a victorious glimmer in her eye. She wasn’t necessarily advocating ideas because she believed them; she just wanted to push Shallan. It was infuriating. How was Shallan to know what Jasnah really thought if she adopted conflicting points of view like this?
“You act as if there were one answer,” Jasnah said, gesturing to Shallan to fetch a towel and climbing from the pool. “A single, eternally perfect response.”
Shallan hastily complied, bearing a large, fluffy towel. “Isn’t that what philosophy is about? Finding the answers? Seeking the truth, the real meaning of things?”
Toweling off, Jasnah raised an eyebrow at her.
“What?” Shallan asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“I believe it is time for a field exercise,” Jasnah said. “Outside of the
Palanaeum.”
“Now?” Shallan asked. “It’s so late!”
“I told you philosophy was a hands-on art,” Jasnah said, wrapping the towel around herself, then reaching down and taking the Soulcaster out of its pouch. She slipped the chains around her fingers, securing the gemstones to the back of her hand. “I’ll prove it to you. Come, help me dress.”
As a child, Shallan had relished those evenings when she’d been able to slip away into the gardens. When the blanket of darkness rested atop the grounds, they had seemed a different place entirely. In those shadows, she’d been able to imagine that the rockbuds, shalebark, and trees were some foreign fauna.
The scrapings of cremlings climbing out of cracks had become the footsteps of mysterious people from far-off lands. Large-eyed traders from Shinovar, a greatshell rider from Kadrix, or a narrowboat sailor from the Purelake.
She didn’t have those same imaginings when walking Kharbranth at night. Imagining dark wanderers in the night had once been an intriguing game—but here, dark wanderers were likely to be real. Instead of becoming a mysterious, intriguing place at night, Kharbranth seemed much the same to her—just more dangerous.
Jasnah ignored the calls of rickshaw pullers and palanquin porters. She walked slowly in a beautiful dress of violet and gold, Shallan following in blue silk. Jasnah hadn’t taken time to have her hair done following her bath, and she wore it loose, cascading across her shoulders, almost scandalous in its freedom.
They walked the Ralinsa—the main thoroughfare that led down the hillside in switchbacks, connecting Conclave and port. Despite the late hour, the roadway was crowded, and many of the men who walked here seemed to bear the night inside of them. They were gruff er, more shadowed of face.
Shouts still rang through the city, but those carried the night in them too, measured by the roughness of their words and the sharpness of their tones.
The steep, slanted hillside that formed the city was no less crowded with
buildings than always, yet these too seemed to draw in the night. Blackened, like stones burned by a fire. Hollow remains.
The bells still rang. In the darkness, each ring was a tiny scream. They made the wind more present, a living thing that caused a chiming cacophony each time it passed. A breeze rose, and an avalanche of sound came tumbling across the Ralinsa. Shallan nearly found herself ducking before it.
“Brightness,” Shallan said. “Shouldn’t we call for a palanquin?”
“A palanquin might inhibit the lesson.”
“I’ll be all right learning that lesson during the day, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Jasnah stopped, looking off the Ralinsa and toward a darker side street.
“What do you think of that roadway, Shallan?”
“It doesn’t look particularly appealing to me.”
“And yet,” Jasnah said, “it is the most direct route from the Ralinsa to
the theater district.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“We aren’t ‘going’ anywhere,” Jasnah said, taking off down the side street. “We are acting, pondering, and learning.”
Shallan followed nervously. The night swallowed them; only the occasional light from late-night taverns and shops offered illumination.
Jasnah wore her black, fingerless glove over her Soulcaster, hiding the light of its gemstones.
Shallan found herself creeping. Her slippered feet could feel every change in the ground underfoot, each pebble and crack. She looked about nervously as they passed a group of workers gathered around a tavern doorway. They were darkeyes, of course. In the night, that distinction seemed more profound.
“Brightness?” Shallan asked in a hushed tone.
“When we are young,” Jasnah said, “we want simple answers. There is no greater indication of youth, perhaps, than the desire for everything to be as it should. As it has ever been.”
Shallan frowned, still watching the men by the tavern over her shoulder.
“The older we grow,” Jasnah said, “the more we question. We begin to ask why. And yet, we still want the answers to be simple. We assume that the people around us—adults, leaders—will have those answers. Whatever they give often satisfies us.”
“I was never satisfied,” Shallan said softly. “I wanted more.”
“You were mature,” Jasnah said. “What you describe happens to most of us, as we age. Indeed, it seems to me that aging, wisdom, and wondering are synonymous. The older we grow, the more likely we are to reject the simple answers. Unless someone gets in our way and demands they be accepted regardless.” Jasnah’s eyes narrowed. “You wonder why I reject the
devotaries.”
“I do.”
“Most of them seek to stop the questions.” Jasnah halted. Then she briefly pulled back her glove, using the light beneath to reveal the street around her. The gemstones on her hand—larger than broams—blazed like torches, red, white, and grey.
“Is it wise to be showing your wealth like that, Brightness?” Shallan said, speaking very softly and glancing about her.
“No,” Jasnah said. “It is most certainly not. Particularly not here. You see, this street has gained a particular reputation lately. On three separate occasions during the last two months, theatergoers who chose this route to the main road were accosted by footpads. In each case, the people were
murdered.”
Shallan felt herself grow pale.
“The city watch,” Jasnah said, “has done nothing. Taravangian has sent them several pointed reprimands, but the captain of the watch is cousin to a very influential lighteyes in the city, and Taravangian is not a terribly powerful king. Some suspect that there is more going on, that the footpads might be bribing the watch. The politics of it are irrelevant at the moment for, as you can see, no members of the watch are guarding the place, despite its reputation.”
Jasnah pulled her glove back on, plunging the roadway back into darkness. Shallan blinked, her eyes adjusting.
“How foolish,” Jasnah said, “would you say it is for us to come here, two undefended women wearing costly clothing and bearing riches?”
“Very foolish. Jasnah, can we go? Please. Whatever lesson you have in mind isn’t worth this.”
Jasnah drew her lips into a line, then looked toward a narrow, darker alleyway off the road they were on. It was almost completely black now that Jasnah had replaced her glove.
“You’re at an interesting place in your life, Shallan,” Jasnah said, flexing her hand. “You are old enough to wonder, to ask, to reject what is
presented to you simply because it was presented to you. But you also cling to the idealism of youth. You feel there must be some single, all-defining Truth—and you think that once you find it, all that once confused you will suddenly make sense.”
“I…” Shallan wanted to argue, but Jasnah’s words were tellingly accurate. The terrible things Shallan had done, the terrible thing she had planned to do, haunted her. Was it possible to do something horrible in the name of accomplishing something wonderful?
Jasnah walked into the narrow alleyway.
“Jasnah!” Shallan said. “What are you doing?”
“This is philosophy in action, child,” Jasnah said. “Come with me.”
Shallan hesitated at the mouth of the alleyway, her heart thumping, her thoughts muddled. The wind blew and bells rang, like frozen raindrops shattering against the stones. In a moment of decision, she rushed after Jasnah, preferring company, even in the dark, to being alone. The shrouded glimmer of the Soulcaster was barely enough to light their way, and Shallan followed in Jasnah’s shadow.
Noise from behind. Shallan turned with a start to see several dark forms crowding into the alley. “Oh, Stormfather,” she whispered. Why? Why was Jasnah doing this?
Shaking, Shallan grabbed at Jasnah’s dress with her freehand. Other shadows were moving in front of them, from the far side of the alley. They grew closer, grunting, splashing through foul, stagnant puddles. Chill water had already soaked Shallan’s slippers.
Jasnah stopped moving. The frail light of her cloaked Soulcaster reflected off metal in the hands of their stalkers. Swords or knives.
These men meant murder. You didn’t rob women like Shallan and Jasnah, women with powerful connections, then leave them alive as witnesses. Men like these were not the gentlemen bandits of romantic stories.
They lived each day knowing that if they were caught, they would be hanged.
Paralyzed by fear, Shallan couldn’t even scream.
Stormfather, Stormfather, Stormfather!
“And now,” Jasnah said, voice hard and grim, “the lesson.” She whipped off her glove.
The sudden light was nearly blinding. Shallan raised a hand against it, stumbling back against the alley wall. There were four men around them. Not the men from the tavern entrance, but others. Men she hadn’t noticed
watching them. She could see the knives now, and she could also see the
murder in their eyes.
Her scream finally broke free.
The men grunted at the glare, but shoved their way forward. A thick- chested man with a dark beard came up to Jasnah, weapon raised. She calmly reached her hand out—fingers splayed—and pressed it against his chest as he swung a knife. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat.
Jasnah’s hand sank into the man’s skin, and he froze. A second later he burned.
No, he became fire. Transformed into flames in an eyeblink. Rising around Jasnah’s hand, they formed the outline of a man with head thrown back and mouth open. For just a moment, the blaze of the man’s death outshone Jasnah’s gemstones.
Shallan’s scream trailed off. The figure of flames was strangely beautiful. It was gone in a moment, the fire dissipating into the night air, leaving an orange afterimage in Shallan’s eyes.
The other three men began to curse, scrambling away, tripping over one another in their panic. One fell. Jasnah turned casually, brushing his shoulder with her fingers as he struggled to his knees. He became crystal, a figure of pure, flawless quartz—his clothing transformed along with him. The diamond in Jasnah’s Soulcaster faded, but there was still plenty of Stormlight left to send rainbow sparkles through the transformed corpse.
The other two men fled in opposite directions. Jasnah took a deep breath, closing her eyes, lifting her hand above her head. Shallan held her safehand to her breast, stunned, confused. Terrified.
Stormlight shot from Jasnah’s hand like twin bolts of lightning, symmetrical. One struck each of the footpads and they popped, puffing into smoke. Their empty clothing dropped to the ground. With a sharp snap, the smokestone crystal on Jasnah’s Soulcaster cracked, its light vanishing, leaving her with just the diamond and the ruby.
The remains of the two footpads rose into the air, small billows of greasy vapor. Jasnah opened her eyes, looking eerily calm. She tugged her glove back on—using her safehand to hold it against her stomach and sliding her freehand fingers in. Then she calmly walked back the way they had come.
She left the crystal corpse kneeling with hand upraised. Frozen forever.
Shallan pried herself off the wall and hastened after Jasnah, sickened and amazed. Ardents were forbidden to use their Soulcasters on people. They
rarely even used them in front of others. And how had Jasnah struck down two men at a distance? From everything Shallan had read—what little there was to find—Soulcasting required physical contact.
Too overwhelmed to demand answers, she stood silent—freehand held to the side of her head, trying to control her trembling and her gasping breaths—as Jasnah called for a palanquin. One came eventually, and the two women climbed in.
The bearers carried them toward the Ralinsa, their steps jostling Shallan and Jasnah, who sat across from one another in the palanquin. Jasnah idly popped the broken smokestone from her Soulcaster, then tucked it into a pocket. It could be sold to a gemsmith, who could cut smaller gemstones from the salvaged pieces.
“That was horrible,” Shallan finally said, hand still held to her breast. “It was one of the most awful things I’ve ever experienced. You killed four men.”
“Four men who were planning to beat, rob, kill, and possibly rape us.”
“You tempted them into coming for us!”
“Did I force them to commit any crimes?”
“You showed off your gemstones.”
“Can a woman not walk with her possessions down the street of a city?”
“At night?” Shallan asked. “Through a rough area? Displaying wealth?
You all but asked for what happened!”
“Does that make it right?” Jasnah said, leaning forward. “Do you condone what the men were planning to do?”
“Of course not. But that doesn’t make what you did right either!”
“And yet, those men are off the street. The people of this city are that much safer. The issue that Taravangian has been so worried about has been solved, and no more theatergoers will fall to those thugs. How many lives did I just save?”
“I know how many you just took,” Shallan said. “And through the power of something that should be holy!”
“Philosophy in action. An important lesson for you.”
“You did all this just to prove a point,” Shallan said softly. “You did this to prove to me that you could. Damnation, Jasnah, how could you do something like that?”
Jasnah didn’t reply. Shallan stared at the woman, searching for emotion in those expressionless eyes. Stormfather. Did I ever really know this
woman? Who is she, really?
Jasnah leaned back, watching the city pass. “I did not do this just to prove a point, child. I have been feeling for some time that I took advantage of His Majesty’s hospitality. He doesn’t realize how much trouble he could face for allying himself with me. Besides, men like those…” There was something in her voice, an edge Shallan had never heard before.
What was done to you? Shallan wondered with horror. And who did it?
“Regardless,” Jasnah continued, “tonight’s actions came about because I chose this path, not because of anything I felt you needed to see. However, the opportunity also presented a chance for instruction, for questions. Am I a monster or am I a hero? Did I just slaughter four men, or did I stop four murderers from walking the streets? Does one deserve to have evil done to her by consequence of putting herself where evil can reach her? Did I have a right to defend myself? Or was I just looking for an excuse to end lives?”
“I don’t know,” Shallan whispered.
“You will spend the next week researching it and thinking on it. If you wish to be a scholar—a true scholar who changes the world—then you will need to face questions like this. There will be times when you must make decisions that churn your stomach, Shallan Davar. I’ll have you ready to make those decisions.”
Jasnah fell silent, looking out the side as the palanquin bearers marched them up to the Conclave. Too troubled to say more, Shallan suffered the rest of the trip in silence. She followed Jasnah through the hushed hallways to their rooms, passing scholars on their way to the Palanaeum for some midnight study.
Inside their rooms, Shallan helped Jasnah undress, though she hated touching the woman. She shouldn’t have felt that way. The men Jasnah had killed were terrible creatures, and she had little doubt that they would have killed her. But it wasn’t the act itself so much as the cold callousness of it that bothered her.
Still feeling numb, Shallan fetched Jasnah a sleeping robe as the woman removed her jewelry and set it on the dressing table. “You could have let the other three get away,” Shallan said, walking back toward Jasnah, who had sat down to brush her hair. “You only needed to kill one of them.”
“No, I didn’t,” Jasnah said.
“Why? They would have been too frightened to do something like that again.”
“You don’t know that. I sincerely wanted those men gone. A careless barmaid walking home the wrong way cannot protect herself, but I can. And I will.”
“You have no authority to do so, not in someone else’s city.”
“True,” Jasnah said. “Another point to consider, I suppose.” She raised the brush to her hair, pointedly turning away from Shallan. She closed her eyes, as if to shut Shallan out.
The Soulcaster sat on the dressing table beside Jasnah’s earrings.
Shallan gritted her teeth, holding the soft, silken robe. Jasnah sat in her white underdress, brushing her hair.
There will be times when you must make decisions that churn your
stomach, Shallan Davar….
I’ve faced them already.
I’m facing one now.
How dare Jasnah do this? How dare she make Shallan a part of it? How dare she use something beautiful and holy as a device for destruction?
Jasnah didn’t deserve to own the Soulcaster.
With a swift move of her hand, Shallan tucked the folded robe under her safearm, then shoved her hand into her safepouch and popped out the intact smokestone from her father’s Soulcaster. She stepped up to the dressing table, and—using the motion of placing the robe onto the table as a cover— made the exchange. She slid the working Soulcaster into her safehand within its sleeve, stepping back as Jasnah opened her eyes and glanced at the robe, which now sat innocently beside the nonfunctional Soulcaster.
Shallan’s breath caught in her throat.
Jasnah closed her eyes again, handing the brush toward Shallan. “Fifty strokes tonight, Shallan. It has been a fatiguing day.”
Shallan moved by rote, brushing her mistress’s hair while clutching the stolen Soulcaster in her hidden safehand, panicked that Jasnah would notice the swap at any moment.
She didn’t. Not when she put on her robe. Not when she tucked the broken Soulcaster away in her jewelry case and locked it with a key she wore around her neck as she slept.
Shallan walked from the room stunned, in turmoil. Exhausted, sickened,
confused.
But undiscovered.
