The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, The)

by Brandon Sanderson

  She drew her lips into a line. “All right, fine. But I still want to know more about the Voidbringers.”

  He shrugged as she guided him into an archive room, filled with shelves of books. “I told you the basics, Shallan. The Voidbringers were an embodiment of evil. We fought them off ninety and nine times, led by the Heralds and their chosen knights, the ten orders we call the Knights Radiant. Finally, Aharietiam came, the Last Desolation. The Voidbringers were cast back into the Tranquiline Halls. The Heralds followed to force them out of heaven as well, and Roshar’s Heraldic Epochs ended. Mankind entered the Era of Solitude. The modern era.”

  “But why is everything from before so fragmented?”

  “This was thousands and thousands of years ago, Shallan,” Kabsal said. “Before history, before men even knew how to forge steel. We had to be given Shardblades, otherwise we would have had to fight the Voidbringers with clubs.”

  “And yet we had the Silver Kingdoms and the Knights Radiant.”

  “Formed and led by the Heralds.”

  Shallan frowned, counting off rows of shelves. She stopped at the correct one, handed her lantern to Kabsal, then walked down the aisle and plucked the biography off the shelf. Kabsal followed her, holding up the lanterns.

  “There’s more to this,” Shallan said. “Otherwise, Jasnah wouldn’t be digging so hard.”

  “I can tell you why she’s doing it,” he said.

  Shallan glanced at him.

  “Don’t you see?” he said. “She’s trying to prove that the Voidbringers weren’t real. She wants to demonstrate that this was all a fabrication of the Radiants.” He stepped forward and turned to face her, the lanternlight rebounding from the books to either side, making his face pale. “She wants to prove once and for all that the devotaries—and Vorinism—are a gigantic fraud. That’s what this is all about.”

  “Maybe,” Shallan said thoughtfully. It did seem to fit. What better goal for an avowed heretic? Undermining foolish beliefs and disproving religion? It explained why Jasnah would study something as seemingly inconsequential as the Voidbringers. Find the right evidence in the historical records, and Jasnah might well be able to prove herself right.

  “Haven’t we been scourged enough?” Kabsal said, eyes angry. “The ardents are no threat to her. We’re not a threat to anyone these days. We can’t own property…Damnation, we’re property ourselves. We dance to the whims of the citylords and warlords, afraid to tell them the truths of their sins for fear of retribution. We’re whitespines without tusks or claws, expected to sit at our master’s feet and offer praise. Yet this is real. It’s all real, and they ignore us and—”

  He cut off suddenly, glancing at her, lips tight, jaw clenched. She’d never seen such fervor, such fury from the pleasant ardent. She wouldn’t have thought him capable of it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, turning from her, leading the way back down the aisle.

  “It’s all right,” she said, hurrying after him, suddenly feeling depressed. Shallan had expected to find something grander, something more mysterious, behind Jasnah’s secretive research. Could it all really just be about proving Vorinism false?

  They walked in silence out to the balcony. And there, she realized she had to tell him. “Kabsal, I’m leaving.”

  He looked at her, surprised.

  “I’ve had news from my family,” she said. “I can’t speak of it, but I can stay no longer.”

  “Something about your father?”

  “Why? Have you heard something?”

  “Only that he’s been reclusive lately. More than normal.”

  She suppressed a flinch. News had gotten this far? “I’m sorry to go so suddenly.”

  “You’ll return?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked into her eyes, searching. “Do you know when you’ll be leaving?” he said in a suddenly cool voice.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Well then,” he said. “Will you at least do me the honor of sketching me? You’ve never given me a likeness, though you’ve done many of the other ardents.”

  She started, realizing that was true. Despite their time together, she’d never done a sketch of Kabsal. She raised her freehand to her mouth. “I’m sorry!”

  He seemed taken aback. “I didn’t mean it bitterly, Shallan. It’s really not that important—”

  “Yes it is,” she said, grabbing his hand, towing him along the walkway. “I left my drawing things up above. Come on.” She hurried him to the lift, instructing the parshmen to carry them up. As the lift began to rise, Kabsal looked at her hand in his. She dropped it hastily.

  “You’re a very confusing woman,” he said stiffly.

  “I warned you.” She held the retrieved book close to her breast. “I believe you said you had me figured out.”

  “I rescind that statement.” He looked at her. “You’re really leaving?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry. Kabsal…I’m not what you think I am.”

  “I think you’re a beautiful, intelligent woman.”

  “Well, you have the woman part right.”

  “Your father is sick, isn’t he?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I can see why you’d want to return to be with him,” Kabsal said. “But surely you won’t abandon your wardship forever. You’ll be back with Jasnah.”

  “And she won’t be staying in Kharbranth forever. She’s been moving from place to place almost constantly for the last two years.”

  He looked ahead, staring out the front of the lift as they rose. Soon, they had to transfer to another lift to carry them up the next group of floors. “I shouldn’t have been spending time with you,” he finally said. “The senior ardents think I’m too distracted. They never like it when one of us starts looking outside the ardentia.”

  “Your right to court is protected.”

  “We’re property. A man’s rights can be protected at the same time that he is discouraged from exercising them. I’ve avoided work, I’ve disobeyed my superiors…In courting you, I’ve also courted trouble.”

  “I didn’t ask you for any of that.”

  “You didn’t discourage me.”

  She had no response for that, other than to feel a rising worry. A hint of panic, a desire to run away and hide. During her years of near-solitude on her father’s estate, she had never dreamed of a relationship like this one. Is that what this is? she thought, panic swelling. A relationship? Her intentions in coming to Kharbranth had seemed so straightforward. How had she gotten to the point where she risked breaking a man’s heart?

  And, to her shame, she admitted to herself that she would miss the research more than Kabsal. Was she a horrible person for feeling that way? She was fond of him. He was pleasant. Interesting.

  He looked at her, and there was longing in his eyes. He seemed…Stormfather, he seemed to really be in love with her. Shouldn’t she be falling in love with him too? She didn’t think she was. She was just confused.

  When they reached the top of the Palanaeum’s system of lifts, she practically ran out into the Veil. Kabsal followed, but they needed another lift up to Jasnah’s alcove, and soon she found herself trapped with him once more.

  “I could come,” Kabsal said softly. “Return with you to Jah Keved.”

  Shallan’s panic increased. She barely knew him. Yes, they had chatted frequently, but rarely about the important things. If he left the ardentia, he’d be demoted to tenth dahn, almost as low as a darkeyes. He’d be without money or house, in almost as bad a position as her family.

  Her family. What would her brothers say if she brought a virtual stranger back with her? Another man to become part of their problems, privy to their secrets?

  “I can see from your expression that it’s not an option,” Kabsal said. “It seems that I’ve misinterpreted some very important things.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Shallan said quickly. “It’s just…Oh, Kabsal. How can you expect to make sense of m
y actions when even I can’t make sense of them?” She touched his arm, turning him toward her. “I have been dishonest with you. And with Jasnah. And, most infuriatingly, with myself. I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged, obviously trying to feign nonchalance. “At least I’ll get a sketch. Won’t I?”

  She nodded as the lift finally shuddered to a halt. She walked down the dark hallway, Kabsal following with the lanterns. Jasnah looked up appraisingly as Shallan entered their alcove, but did not ask why she’d taken so long. Shallan found herself blushing as she gathered her drawing tools. Kabsal hesitated in the doorway. He’d left a basket of bread and jam on the desk. The top of it was still wrapped with a cloth; Jasnah hadn’t touched it, though he always offered her some as a peace offering. Without jam, since Jasnah hated it.

  “Where should I sit?” Kabsal asked.

  “Just stand there,” Shallan said, sitting down, propping her sketchpad against her legs and holding it still with her covered safehand. She looked up at him, leaning with one hand against the doorframe. Head shaved, light grey robe draped around him, sleeves short, waist tied with a white sash. Eyes confused. She blinked, taking a Memory, then began to sketch.

  It was one of the most awkward experiences of her life. She didn’t tell Kabsal that he could move, and so he held the pose. He didn’t speak. Perhaps he thought it would spoil the picture. Shallan found her hand shaking as she sketched, though—thankfully—she managed to hold back tears.

  Tears, she thought, doing the final lines of the wall around Kabsal. Why should I cry? I’m not the one who just got rejected. Can’t my emotions make sense once in a while?

  “Here,” she said, pulling the page free and holding it up. “It will smudge unless you spray it with lacquer.”

  Kabsal hesitated, then walked over, taking the picture in reverent fingers. “It’s wonderful,” he whispered. He looked up, then hurried to his lantern, opening it and pulling out the garnet broam inside. “Here,” he said, proffering it. “Payment.”

  “I can’t take that! For one thing, it’s not yours.” As an ardent, anything Kabsal carried would belong to the king.

  “Please,” Kabsal said. “I want to give you something.”

  “The picture is a gift,” she said. “If you pay me for it, then I haven’t given you anything.”

  “Then I’ll commission another,” he said, pressing the glowing sphere into her fingers. “I’ll take the first likeness for free, but do another for me, please. One of the two of us together.”

  She paused. She rarely did sketches of herself. They felt strange to draw. “All right.” She took the sphere, then furtively tucked it into her safepouch, beside her Soulcaster. It was a little odd to carry something so heavy there, but she’d gotten accustomed to the bulge and weight.

  “Jasnah, do you have a mirror?” she asked.

  The other woman sighed audibly, obviously annoyed by the distraction. She felt through her things, taking out a mirror. Kabsal fetched it.

  “Hold it up beside your head,” Shallan said, “so I can see myself.”

  He walked back over, doing so, looking confused.

  “Angle it to the side a little,” Shallan said, “all right, there.” She blinked, freezing in her mind the image of her face beside his. “Have a seat. You don’t need the mirror any longer. I just wanted it for reference—it helps me for some reason to place my features into the scene I want to sketch. I’ll put myself sitting beside you.”

  He sat on the floor, and Shallan began to work, using it to distract herself from her conflicting emotions. Guilt at not feeling as strongly for Kabsal as he did for her, yet sorrow that she wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. And above it all, anxiety about the Soulcaster.

  Sketching herself in beside him was challenging. She worked furiously, blending the reality of Kabsal sitting and a fiction of herself, in her flower-embroidered dress, sitting with her legs to the side. The face in the mirror became her reference point, and she built her head around it. Too narrow to be beautiful, with hair too light, cheeks dotted with freckles.

  The Soulcaster, she thought. Being here in Kharbranth with it is a danger. But leaving is dangerous too. Could there be a third option? What if I sent it away?

  She hesitated, charcoal pencil hovering above the picture. Dared she send the fabrial—packaged, delivered to Tozbek in secret—back to Jah Keved without her? She wouldn’t have to worry about being incriminated if her room or person were searched, though she’d want to destroy all pictures she’d drawn of Jasnah with the Soulcaster. And she wouldn’t risk suspicion by vanishing when Jasnah discovered her Soulcaster didn’t work.

  She continued her drawing, increasingly withdrawn into her thoughts, letting her fingers work. If she sent the Soulcaster back alone, then she could stay in Kharbranth. It was a golden, tempting prospect, but one that threw her emotions further into a jumbled mess. She’d been preparing herself to leave for so long. What would she do about Kabsal? And Jasnah. Could Shallan really remain here, accepting Jasnah’s freely given tutelage, after what she’d done?

  Yes, Shallan thought. Yes, I could.

  The fervency of that emotion surprised her. She would live with the guilt, day by day, if it meant continuing to learn. It was terribly selfish of her, and she was ashamed of it. But she would do it for a little longer, at least. She’d have to go back eventually, of course. She couldn’t leave her brothers to face danger alone. They needed her.

  Selfishness, followed by courage. She was nearly as surprised by the latter as she had been by the former. Neither was something she often associated with who she was. But she was coming to realize that she hadn’t known who she was. Not until she left Jah Keved and everything familiar, everything she’d been expected to be.

  Her sketching grew more and more fervent. She finished the figures and moved to the background. Quick, bold lines became the floor and the archway behind. A scribbled dark smudge for the side of the desk, casting a shadow. Crisp, thin lines for the lantern sitting on the floor. Sweeping, breezelike lines to form the legs and robes of the creature standing behind—

  Shallan froze, fingers drawing an unintended line of charcoal, breaking away from the figure she’d sketched directly behind Kabsal. A figure that wasn’t really there, a figure with a sharp, angular symbol hovering above its collar instead of a head.

  Shallan stood, throwing back her chair, sketchpad and charcoal pencil clutched in the fingers of her freehand.

  “Shallan?” Kabsal said, standing.

  She’d done it again. Why? The peace she’d begun to feel during the sketching evaporated in a heartbeat, and her heart started to race. The pressures returned. Kabsal. Jasnah. Her brothers. Decisions, choices, problems.

  “Is everything all right?” Kabsal said, taking a step toward her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I made a mistake.”

  He frowned. To the side, Jasnah looked up, brow wrinkled.

  “It’s all right,” Kabsal said. “Look, let’s have some bread and jam. We can calm down, then you could finish it. I don’t care about a—”

  “I need to go,” Shallan cut in, feeling suffocated. “I’m sorry.”

  She brushed past the dumbfounded ardent, hurrying from the alcove, giving a wide berth to the place where the figure stood in her sketch. What was wrong with her?

  She rushed to the lift, calling for the parshmen to lower her. She glanced over her shoulder. Kabsal stood in the hallway, looking after her. Shallan reached the lift, drawing pad clutched in her hand, her heart racing. Calm yourself, she thought, leaning back against the lift platform’s wooden railing as the parshmen began to take her down. She looked up at the empty landing above her.

  And found herself blinking, memorizing that scene. She began sketching again.

  She drew with concise motions, sketchpad held against her safearm. For illumination, she had just two very small spheres at either side, where the taut ropes quivered. She moved without thought, just drawing, staring upward.
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  She looked down at what she had drawn. Two figures stood on the landing above, wearing the too-straight robes, like cloth made from metal. They leaned down, watching her go.

  She looked up again. The landing was empty. What’s happening to me? she thought with increasing horror. When the lift hit the ground, she scrambled away, her skirt fluttering. She all but ran to the exit of the Veil, hesitating beside the doorway, ignoring the master-servants and ardents who gave her confused looks.

  Where to go? Sweat trickled down the sides of her face. Where to run when you were going mad?

  She cut into the main cavern’s crowd. It was late afternoon, and the dinner rush had begun—servants pushing dining carts, lighteyes strolling to their rooms, scholars walking with hands behind their backs. Shallan dashed through their midst, her hair coming free of its bun, the hairspike dropping to the rock behind her with a high-pitched clink. Her loose red hair streamed behind. She reached the hallway leading to their rooms, panting, hair askew, and glanced over her shoulder. Amid the flow of traffic she’d left a trail of people looking after her in confusion.

  Almost against her will, she blinked and took a Memory. She raised her pad again, gripping her charcoal pencil in slick fingers, quickly sketching the crowded cavern scene. Just faint impressions. Men of lines, women of curves, walls of sloping rock, carpeted floor, bursts of light in sphere lanterns on the walls.

  And five symbol-headed figures in black, too-stiff robes and cloaks. Each had a different symbol, twisted and unfamiliar to her, hanging above a neckless torso. The creatures wove through the crowd unseen. Like predators. Focused on Shallan.

  I’m just imagining it, she tried to tell herself. I’m overtaxed, too many things weighing on me. Did they represent her guilt? The stress of betraying Jasnah and lying to Kabsal? The things she had done before leaving Jah Keved?

  She tried to stand there, waiting, but her fingers refused to remain still. She blinked, then started drawing again on a new sheet. She finished with a shaking hand. The figures were almost to her, angular not-heads hanging horrifically where faces should have been.

  Logic warned that she was overreacting, but no matter what she told herself, she couldn’t believe it. These were real. And they were coming for her.