“Surely it’s more than that.”
Perhaps in another life it could have been. She was sure some of them saw her as a colleague. Many, however, just saw her as the woman who sponsored them so she’d have new fabrials to show off at parties. Perhaps she was just that. A lighteyed lady of rank had to have some hobbies, didn’t she?
“I assume you’re here to escort me to the meeting?” The highprinces, abuzz about the assassin’s attack, had demanded that Elhokar meet with them today.
Adolin nodded, twitching and glancing over his shoulder as he heard a noise, instinctively stepping protectively to put himself between Navani and whatever it was. The noise, however, was just some workers taking the side off one of Dalinar’s massive rolling bridges. Those were the main purpose of these grounds; she’d merely appropriated the area for her test.
She held her arm out to him. “You’re as bad as your father.”
“Perhaps I am,” he said, taking her arm. That Plated hand of his might have made some women uncomfortable, but she’d been around Plate far, far more often than most.
They started down the wide steps together. “Aunt,” he said. “Have you been, uh, doing anything to encourage my father’s advances? Between you two, I mean.” For a boy who spent half his life flirting with anything in a dress, he certainly did blush a lot when he said that.
“Encourage him?” Navani said. “I did more than that, child. I practically had to seduce the man. Your father is certainly stubborn.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Adolin said dryly. “You realize how much more difficult you’ve made his position? He’s trying to force the other highprinces to follow the Codes using the social constraints of honor, yet he’s pointedly ignoring something similar.”
“A bothersome tradition.”
“You seem content to ignore only the ones you find bothersome, while expecting us to follow all the others.”
“Of course,” Navani said, smiling. “You haven’t figured that out before now?”
Adolin’s expression grew grim.
“Don’t sulk,” Navani said. “You’re free from the causal for now, as Jasnah has apparently decided to gallivant off someplace. I won’t have the chance to marry you off quite yet, at least not until she reappears.” Knowing her, that could be tomorrow—or it could be months from now.
“I’m not sulking,” Adolin said.
“Of course you aren’t,” she said, patting his armored arm as they reached the bottom of the steps. “Let’s get to the palace. I don’t know if your father will be able to delay the meeting for us if we’re tardy.”
And when they were spoken of by the common folk, the Releasers claimed to be misjudged because of the dreadful nature of their power; and when they dealt with others, always were they firm in their claim that other epithets, notably “Dustbringers,” often heard in the common speech, were unacceptable substitutions, in particular for their similarity to the word “Voidbringers.” They did also exercise anger in great prejudice regarding it, though to many who speak, there was little difference between these two assemblies.
—From Words of Radiance, chapter 17, page 11
Shallan awoke as a new woman.
She wasn’t yet completely certain who that woman was, but she knew who that woman was not. She was not the same frightened girl who had suffered the storms of a broken home. She was not the same naive woman who had tried to steal from Jasnah Kholin. She was not the same woman who had been deceived by Kabsal and then Tyn.
That did not mean she was not still frightened or naive. She was both. But she was also tired. Tired of being shoved around, tired of being misled, tired of being dismissed. During the trip with Tvlakv, she’d pretended she could lead and take charge. She no longer felt the need to pretend.
She knelt beside one of Tyn’s trunks. She’d resisted letting the men break it open—she wanted a few trunks for keeping clothing—but her search of the tent hadn’t found the proper key.
“Pattern,” she said. “Can you look inside of this? Squeeze in through the keyhole?”
“Mmm . . .” Pattern moved onto the side of the trunk, then shrank down to be the size of her thumbnail. He moved in easily. She heard his voice from inside. “Dark.”
“Drat,” she said, fishing out a sphere and holding it up to the keyhole. “Does that help?”
“I see a pattern,” he said.
“A pattern? What kind of—”
Click.
Shallan started, then reached to lift the lid of the trunk. Pattern buzzed happily inside.
“You unlocked it.”
“A pattern,” he said happily.
“You can move things?”
“Push a little here and there,” he said. “Very little strength on this side. Mmm . . .”
The trunk was filled with clothing and had a pouch of spheres in a black cloth bag. Both would be very useful. Shallan searched through and found a dress with fine embroidery and a modern cut. Tyn needed it, of course, for times when she pretended to be of a higher status. Shallan put it on, found it loose through the bust but otherwise acceptable, then did her face and hair at the mirror using the dead woman’s makeup and brushes.
When she left the tent that morning, she felt—for the first time in what seemed ages—like a true lighteyed woman. That was well, for today she would finally reach the Shattered Plains. And, hopefully, destiny.
She strode out into the morning light. Her men worked alongside the caravan’s parshmen to break down camp. With Tyn’s guards dead, the only armed force in the camp belonged to Shallan.
Vathah fell into step beside her. “We burned the bodies last night as you instructed, Brightness. And another guard patrol stopped by this morning while you were getting ready. They obviously wanted us to know that they intend to keep the peace. If someone camps in this spot and finds the bones of Tyn and her soldiers in the ashes, it could lead to questions. I don’t know that the caravan workers will keep your secret if asked.”
“Thank you,” Shallan said. “Have one of the men gather the bones into a sack. I’ll deal with them.”
Had she really just said that?
Vathah nodded curtly, as if this were the expected answer. “Some of the men are uncomfortable, now that we’re so close to the warcamps.”
“Do you still think I’m incapable of keeping my promises to them?”
He actually smiled. “No. I think I’ve been right convinced, Brightness.”
“Well then?”
“I’ll reassure them,” he said.
“Excellent.” They parted ways as Shallan sought out Macob. When she found him, the bearded, aging caravan trademaster bowed to her with far more respect than he’d ever shown her before. He’d already heard about the Shardblade.
“I will need one of your men to run down to the warcamps and find me a palanquin,” Shallan said. “Sending one of my soldiers is currently impossible.” She wouldn’t risk them being recognized and imprisoned.
“Certainly,” Macob said, voice stiff. “The price will be . . .”
She gave him a pointed stare.
“. . . paid out of my own purse, as thanks to you for a safe arrival.” He put an odd emphasis on the word safe, as if it were of questionable merit in the sentence.
“And the price for your discretion?” Shallan asked.
“My discretion can always be assured, Brightness,” the man said. “And my lips are not the ones that should trouble you.”
True enough.
He climbed up into his wagon. “One of my men will run on ahead, and we will send a palanquin back for you. With that, I bid you farewell. I hope it is not insulting for me to say, Brightness, that I hope we never meet again.”
“Then our views in that regard are in agreement.”
He nodded to her and tapped his chull. The wagon rolled away.
“I listened to them last night,” Pattern said with a buzzing, excited voice from the back of her dress. “Is nonexistence really such a fascinatin
g concept to humans?”
“They spoke of death, did they?” Shallan asked.
“They kept wondering if you would ‘come for them.’ I realize that nonexistence is not something to look forward to, but they talked on, and on, and on about it. Fascinating indeed.”
“Well, keep your ears open, Pattern. I suspect this day is going to only get more interesting.” She walked back toward the tent.
“But, I don’t have ears,” he said. “Ah yes. A metaphor? Such delicious lies. I will remember that idiom.”
* * *
The Alethi warcamps were so much more than Shallan had expected them to be. Ten compact cities in a row, each casting up smoke from thousands of fires. Lines of caravans streamed in and out, passing the crater rims that made up their walls. Each camp flew hundreds of banners proclaiming the presence of high-ranked lighteyes.
As the palanquin carried her down a slope, she was truly stunned at the magnitude of the population. Stormfather! She’d once considered the regional fair on her father’s lands to be a huge gathering. How many mouths were there to feed down below? How much water did they require from each highstorm?
Her palanquin lurched. She’d left the wagon behind; the chulls belonged to Macob. She’d try to sell the wagon, if it remained when she sent her men for it later. For now, she rode the palanquin, which was carried by parshmen under the watchful eyes of a lighteyed man who owned them and rented out the vehicle. He strolled along ahead. The irony of being carried on the backs of Voidbringers as she entered the warcamps was not lost on her.
Behind the vehicle marched Vathah and her eighteen guards, then her five slaves, who carried her trunks. She’d dressed them in shoes and clothing from the merchants, but you couldn’t cover up months of slavery with a new outfit—and the soldiers weren’t much better. Their uniforms had only been washed when a highstorm hit, and that was more of a douse than a wash. The occasional whiff she got of them was why she had them marching behind her palanquin.
She hoped she wasn’t as bad. She had Tyn’s perfume, but the Alethi elite preferred frequent bathing and a clean scent—part of the wisdom of the Heralds. Wash with the coming highstorm, both servant and brightlord, to ward away rotspren and purify the body.
She’d done what she could with some pails of water, but did not have the luxury of stopping to prepare more properly. She needed the protection of a highprince, and quickly. Now that she had arrived, the immensity of her tasks struck her afresh: Discover what Jasnah had been looking for on the Shattered Plains. Use the information there to persuade the Alethi leadership to take measures against the parshmen. Investigate the people Tyn had been meeting with and . . . do what? Scam them somehow? Find out what they knew about Urithiru, deflect their attention away from her brothers, and perhaps find a way to repay them for what they’d done to Jasnah?
So much to do. She would need resources. Dalinar Kholin was her best hope for that.
“But will he take me in?” she whispered.
“Mmmm?” Pattern said from the seat nearby.
“I will need him as a patron. If Tyn’s sources know that Jasnah is dead, then Dalinar probably knows as well. How will he react to my unexpected arrival? Will he take her books, pat me on the head, and send me back to Jah Keved? The Kholin house has no need of a bond to a minor Veden like me. And I . . . I’m just rambling out loud, aren’t I?”
“Mmmm,” Pattern said. He sounded drowsy, though she didn’t know if spren could get tired.
Her anxiety grew as her procession approached the warcamps. Tyn had been adamant that Shallan not ask for Dalinar’s protection, as that would make her beholden to him. Shallan had killed the woman, but she still respected Tyn’s opinion. Was there merit to what she’d said about Dalinar?
A knock came at her palanquin window. “We’re going to have the parshmen put you down for a bit,” Vathah said. “Need to ask around and see where the highprince is.”
“Fine.”
She waited impatiently. They must have sent the palanquin owner on the errand—Vathah was as nervous as she was at the idea of sending one of his men into the warcamps alone. She eventually heard a muffled conversation outside, and Vathah returned, his boots scraping rock. She drew back the curtain, looking up at him.
“Dalinar Kholin is with the king,” Vathah said. “The whole lot of the highprinces are there.” He looked disturbed as he turned toward the warcamps. “Something’s on the winds, Brightness.” He squinted. “Too many patrols. Lots of soldiers out. The palanquin owner won’t say, but from the sound of it, something happened recently. Something deadly.”
“Take me to the king, then,” Shallan said.
Vathah raised an eyebrow at her. The king of Alethkar was arguably the most powerful man in the world. “You aren’t going to kill him, are you?” Vathah asked softly, leaning down.
“What?”
“I figure it’s one reason a woman would have . . . you know.” He didn’t meet her eyes. “Get close, summon the thing, have it through a man’s chest before anyone knows what happened.”
“I’m not going to kill your king,” she said, amused.
“Wouldn’t care if you did,” Vathah said softly. “Almost hope you would. He’s a child wearing his father’s clothes, that one is. Everything’s gotten worse for Alethkar since he took the throne. But my men, we’d have a hard time getting away if you did something like that. Hard time indeed.”
“I will keep my promise.”
He nodded, and she let the drapes fall back down over the palanquin window. Stormfather. Give a woman a Shardblade, get her close . . . Had anyone ever tried that? They must have, though thinking about it made her sick.
The palanquin turned northward. Passing the warcamps took a long time; they were enormous. Eventually, she peeked out and saw a tall hill to the left with a building sculpted from—and onto—the stone of the top. A palace?
What if she did convince Brightlord Dalinar to take her in and trust her with Jasnah’s research? What would she be in Dalinar’s household? A lesser scribe, to be tucked aside and ignored? That was how she’d spent most of her life. She found herself suddenly, passionately determined not to let it happen again. She needed the freedom and the funding to investigate Urithiru and Jasnah’s murder. Shallan would accept nothing else. She could accept nothing else.
So make it happen, she thought.
Would that it were so easy as wishing. As the palanquin turned up the switchbacks leading to the palace, her new satchel—from Tyn’s things—shook and hit her foot. She picked it up and flipped through the pages inside, finding the crinkled sketch of Bluth as she’d imagined him. A hero instead of a slaver.
“Mmmmm . . .” Pattern said from the seat beside her.
“This picture is a lie,” Shallan said.
“Yes.”
“And yet it isn’t. This is what he became, at the end. To a small degree.”
“Yes.”
“So what is the lie, and what is the truth?”
Pattern hummed softly to himself, like a contented axehound before the hearth. Shallan fingered the picture, smoothing it. Then she pulled out a sketchpad and a pencil, and started drawing. It was a difficult task in the lurching palanquin; this would not be her finest drawing. Still, her fingers moved across the sketch with an intensity she hadn’t felt in weeks.
Broad lines at first, to fix the image in her head. She wasn’t copying a Memory this time. She was searching for something nebulous: a lie that could be real if she could just imagine it correctly.
She scratched frantically at the paper, hunkering down, and soon stopped feeling the rhythm of the porters’ steps. She saw only the drawing, knew only the emotions she bled onto that page. Jasnah’s determination. Tyn’s confidence. A sense of rightness that she could not describe, but which she drew from her brother Helaran, the best person she’d ever known.
It all poured from her into the pencil and onto the page. Streaks and lines that became shadows and patterns that becam
e figures and faces. A quick sketch, hurried, yet one alive. It depicted Shallan as a confident young woman standing before Dalinar Kholin, as she imagined him. She’d put him in Shardplate as he, and those around him, studied Shallan with penetrating consternation. She stood strong, hand raised toward them as she spoke with confidence and power. No trembling here. No fear of confrontation.
This is what I would have been, Shallan thought, if I had not been raised in a household of fear. So this is what I will be today.
It wasn’t a lie. It was a different truth.
A knock came at the palanquin’s door. It had stopped moving; she’d barely noticed. With a nod to herself, she folded the sketch and slipped it into the pocket of her safehand sleeve. Then she stepped out of the vehicle and onto cold rock. She felt invigorated, and realized she had sucked in a tiny amount of Stormlight without meaning to.
The palace was both finer and more mundane than she might have expected. Certainly, this was a warcamp, and so the king’s seat wouldn’t match the majesty of the royal dwellings of Kharbranth. At the same time, it was amazing that such a structure could have been crafted here, away from the culture and resources of Alethkar proper. The towering stone fortress of sculpted rock, several stories high, perched at the pinnacle of the hill.
“Vathah, Gaz,” she said. “Attend me. The rest of you, take up position here. I will send word.”
They saluted her; she wasn’t certain if that was appropriate or not. She strode forward, and noticed with amusement that she’d chosen one of the tallest of the deserters and one of the shortest to accompany her, and so when they flanked her, it created an even slope of height: Vathah, herself, Gaz. Had she really just chosen her guards based on aesthetic appeal?
The front gates of the palace complex faced west, and here Shallan found a large group of guards standing before open doors that led to a deep tunnel of a corridor into the hill itself. Sixteen guards at the door? She had read that King Elhokar was paranoid, but this seemed excessive.
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