She gathered up the pictures she’d drawn and put them upside-down on the desk, trying not to look at them. She didn’t want those to be seen by the maid. Finally, she left, taking her portfolio. She felt that she needed to get outside and escape for a while. Draw something other than death and murder. The conversation with Nan Balat had only served to upset her more.
“Brightness?” the maid asked.
Shallan froze, but the maid held up a basket. “This was dropped off for you with the master-servants.”
She hesitantly accepted it, looking inside. Bread and jam. A note, tied to one of the jars, read: Bluebar jam. If you like it, it means you’re mysterious, reserved, and thoughtful. It was signed Kabsal.
Shallan placed the basket’s handle in the crook of her safearm’s elbow. Kabsal. Maybe she should go find him. She always felt better after a conversation with him.
But no. She was going to leave; she couldn’t keep stringing him, or herself, along. She was afraid of where the relationship was going. Instead, she made her way to the main cavern and then to the Conclave’s exit. She walked out into the sunlight and took a deep breath, looking up into the sky as servants and attendants parted around her, swarming in and out of the Conclave. She held her portfolio close, feeling the cool breeze on her cheeks and the contrasting warmth of the sunlight pressing down on her hair and forehead.
In the end, the most disturbing part was that Jasnah had been right. Shallan’s world of simple answers had been a foolish, childish place. She’d clung to the hope that she could find truth, and use it to explain—perhaps justify—what she had done back in Jah Keved. But if there was such a thing as truth, it was far more complicated and murky than she’d assumed.
Some problems didn’t seem to have any good answers. Just a lot of wrong ones. She could choose the source of her guilt, but she couldn’t choose to be rid of that guilt entirely.
Two hours—and about twenty quick sketches—later, Shallan felt far more relaxed.
She sat in the palace gardens, sketchpad in her lap, drawing snails. The gardens weren’t as extensive as her father’s, but they were far more varied, not to mention blessedly secluded. Like many modern gardens, they were designed with walls of cultivated shalebark. This one’s made a maze of living stone. They were short enough that, when standing, she could see the way back to the entrance. But if she sat down on one of the numerous benches, she could feel alone and unseen.
She’d asked a groundskeeper the name of the most prominent shalebark plant; he’d called it “plated stone.” A fitting name, as it grew in thin round sections that piled atop one another, like plates in a cupboard. From the sides, it looked like weathered rock that exposed hundreds of thin strata. Tiny little tendrils grew up out of pores, waving in the wind. The stonelike casings had a bluish shade, but the tendrils were yellowish.
Her current subject was a snail with a low horizontal shell edged with little ridges. When she tapped, it would flatten itself into a rift in the shalebark, appearing to become part of the plated stone. It blended in perfectly. When she let it move, it nibbled at the shalebark—but didn’t chew it away.
It’s cleaning the shalebark, she realized, continuing her sketch. Eating off the lichen and mold. Indeed, a cleaner trail extended behind it.
Patches of a different kind of shalebark—with fingerlike protrusions growing up into the air from a central knob—grew alongside the plated stone. When she looked closely, she noted little cremlings—thin and multilegged—crawling along it, eating at it. Were they too cleaning it?
Curious, she thought, beginning a sketch of the miniature cremlings. They had carapaces shaded like the shalebark’s fingers, while the snail’s shell was a near duplicate of the yellow and blue colorings of the plated stone. It was as if they had been designed by the Almighty in pairs, the plant giving safety to the animal, the animal cleaning the plant.
A few lifespren—tiny, glowing green specks—floated around the shalebark mounds. Some danced amid the rifts in the bark, others in the air like dust motes zigzagging up, only to fall again.
She used a finer-tipped charcoal pencil to scribble some thoughts about the relationship between the animals and the plants. She didn’t know of any books that spoke of relationships like this one. Scholars seemed to prefer studying big, dynamic animals, like greatshells or whitespines. But this seemed a beautiful, wondrous discovery to Shallan.
Snails and plants can help one another, she thought. But I betray Jasnah.
She glanced toward her safehand, and the pouch hidden inside. She felt more secure having the Soulcaster near. She hadn’t yet dared try to use it. She’d been too nervous about the theft, and had worried about using the object near Jasnah. Now, however, she was in a nook deep within the maze, with only one curving entrance into her dead end. She stood up casually, looking around. No one else was in the gardens, and she was far enough inside that it would take minutes for anyone to get to her.
Shallan sat back down, setting aside her drawing pad and pencil. I might as well see if I can figure out how to use it, she thought. Maybe there’s no need to keep searching the Palanaeum for a solution. So long as she stood up and glanced about periodically, she could be certain she wouldn’t be approached or seen by accident.
She removed the forbidden device. It was heavy in her hand. Solid. Taking a deep breath, she looped the chains over her fingers and around her wrist, the gemstones set against the back of her hand. The metal was cold, the chains loose. She flexed her hand, pulling the fabrial tight.
She’d anticipated a feeling of power. Prickles on her skin, perhaps, or a sense of strength and might. But there was nothing.
She tapped the three gemstones—she’d placed her smokestone into the third setting. Some other fabrials, like spanreeds, worked when you tapped the stones. But that was foolish, as she’d never seen Jasnah do that. The woman just closed her eyes and touched something, Soulcasting it. Smoke, crystal, and fire were what this Soulcaster was best at. Only once had she seen Jasnah create anything else.
Hesitant, Shallan took a piece of broken shalebark from the base of one of the plants. She held it up in her freehand, then closed her eyes.
Become smoke! she commanded.
Nothing happened.
Become crystal! she commanded instead.
She cracked an eye. There was no change.
Fire. Burn! You’re fire! You—
She paused, realizing the stupidity of that. A mysteriously burned hand? No, that wouldn’t be at all suspicious. Instead, she focused on crystal. She closed her eyes again, holding the image of a piece of quartz in her mind. She tried to will the shalebark to change.
Nothing happened, so she just tried focusing, imagining the shalebark transforming. After a few minutes of failure, she tried making the pouch change instead, then tried the bench, then tried one of her hairs. Nothing worked.
Shallan checked to make certain she was still alone, then sat down, frustrated. Nan Balat had asked Luesh how the devices worked, and he’d said that it was easier to show than explain. He’d promised to give them answers if she actually managed to steal Jasnah’s.
Now he was dead. Was she doomed to carry this one back to her family, only to immediately give it away to those dangerous men, never using it to gain wealth to protect her house? All because they didn’t know how to activate it?
The other fabrials she’d used had been simple to activate, but those were constructed by contemporary artifabrians. Soulcasters were fabrials from ancient times. They wouldn’t employ modern methods of activation. She stared at the glowing gemstones suspended on the back of her hand. How would she figure out the method of using a tool thousands of years old, one forbidden to any but ardents?
She slid the Soulcaster back into her safepouch. It seemed she was back to searching the Palanaeum. That or asking Kabsal. But would she manage that without looking suspicious? She broke out his bread and jam, eating and thinking idly. If Kabsal didn’t know, and if she couldn’t find the answers by the time she left Kharbranth, were there other options? If she took the artifact to the Veden king—or maybe the ardents—might they be able to protect her family in exchange for the gift? After all, she couldn’t really be blamed for stealing from a heretic, and so long as Jasnah didn’t know who had the Soulcaster, they would be safe.
For some reason, that made her feel even worse. Stealing the Soulcaster to save her family was one thing, but turning it over to the very ardents whom Jasnah disdained? It seemed a greater betrayal.
Yet another difficult decision. Well then, she thought, it’s a good thing Jasnah is so determined to train me in how to deal with those. By the time all this is done, I should be quite the expert….
“Death upon the lips. Sound upon the air. Char upon the skin.”
—From “The Last Desolation” by Ambrian, line 335.
Kaladin stumbled into the light, shading his eyes against the burning sun, his bare feet feeling the transition from cold indoor stone to sun-warmed stone outside. The air was lightly humid, not muggy as it had been in previous weeks.
He rested his hand on the wooden doorframe, his legs quivering rebelliously, his arms feeling as if he’d carried a bridge for three days straight. He breathed deeply. His side should have blazed with pain, but he felt only a residual soreness. Some of his deeper cuts were still scabbed over, but the smaller ones had vanished completely. His head was surprisingly clear. He didn’t even have a headache.
He rounded the side of the barrack, feeling stronger with each step, though he kept his hand on the wall. Lopen followed behind; the Herdazian had been watching over Kaladin when he awoke.
I should be dead, Kaladin thought. What is going on?
On the other side of the barrack he was surprised to find the men carrying their bridge in daily practice. Rock ran at the front center, giving the marching beat as Kaladin had once done. They reached the other side of the lumberyard and turned around, charging back. Only when they were almost past the barrack did one of the men in front—Moash—notice Kaladin. He froze, nearly causing the entire bridge crew to trip.
“What is wrong with you?” Torfin yelled from behind, head enveloped by the wood of the bridge.
Moash didn’t listen. He ducked out from under the bridge, looking at Kaladin with wide eyes. Rock gave a hasty shout for the men to put down the bridge. More saw him, adopting the same reverent expressions as Moash. Hobber and Peet, their wounds sufficiently healed, had started practicing with the others. That was good. They’d be drawing pay again.
The men walked up to Kaladin, silent in their leather vests. They kept their distance, hesitant, as if he were fragile. Or holy. Kaladin was bare-chested, his nearly healed wounds exposed, and wore only his knee-length bridgeman’s trousers.
“You really need to practice what to do if one of you trips or stumbles, men,” Kaladin said. “When Moash stopped abruptly, you all about fell over. That could be a disaster on the field.”
They stared at him, incredulous, and he couldn’t help but smile. In a moment, they crowded around him, laughing and thumping him on the back. It wasn’t an entirely appropriate welcome for a sick man, particularly when Rock did it, but Kaladin did appreciate their enthusiasm.