Brandon Sanderson - [Stormlight Archive 01]
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implied it would have been much better for the throne had Jezenrosh
remained where Elhokar—and more importantly Jasnah—could have kept
better watch over him.
Shinri excused herself as the conversation turned toward less interesting
topics. Jasnah had asked that Shinri attend any functions to which she was invited—apparently, Jasnah herself was invited to so few that she needed
Shinri’s ears to go on her behalf. There was only so much, however, that
one could endure. Shinri set her cup on the bench and left the sitting circle, walking through the monolithic, overgrown pillars toward the garden’s
exit. Outside, her litter-bearers waited to return her to the palace, but she waved them away. Accustomed to their lady’s eccentricities, the men simply lifted their litter obediently, returning to the palace alone.
Shinri regarded the streets of Ral Eram. During the war, ‘streets’
had been made between tents and had been filled with soldiers; it was
almost overwhelming to be in a place with proper buildings, markets, and
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streetgoers. She looked over her options, picked a direction, and began to walk.
The whim to walk the streets often took her. Once, as a child, she had
scampered wildly, ignoring the propriety of her birth. Though she had long since overcome such silliness, she had learned that remaining in her rooms when she felt like walking would only make her nervous and irritable.
Much better to be moving, strolling through the streets with new pathways
opening around her, her slippered feet taking her where they willed.
Ral Eram was a beautiful city. Aged like a wise grandfather, the ancient
streets and stone buildings were kept free from cromstone and refuse.
Structures stood with broad columns and firm lines, following the archi-
tecture of Epoch Kingdom times. The city was busy as well; King Elhokar’s
army was slowly traveling through the Oathgates and making its way down
the ramps to the foot of the mountains, where it would gather for final
accounting before dismissing the volunteer portions.
Merchants had gathered eagerly, knowing that the men would receive
bonus pay now that the war was finished. Along with the merchants came
families seeking to visit loved ones, and the regular stormleavings that
aggregated around any large group of soldiers. Shinri strolled through
streets both crowded and ignored, paying little attention to the people but enjoying the pathways they created.
Did the changes in herself bother her? Innocence, in its own way, was
contentment. A life of balls and gossip did not bring images of death and
injury. But she couldn’t ignore what she had seen. Like an Awakener’s
crystal, the light of dissatisfaction had been roused within her, and she
found herself dissatisfied with her new life. Could she really be satisfied with an existence whose purpose stretched no farther than looking pretty
for the next feast, even if she were married to a man such as Tethren?
Jasnah had purpose. Conniving though the woman might be, Jasnah
always found something to occupy her talents. She was ever working. What
others saw as social occasions, Jasnah viewed as an avenue toward potential alliances. Jasnah’s was not the life Shinri would choose for herself, but at least it had meaning. Jasnah’s battle plans had driven Alethkar’s armies
to victory, and her political abilities had solidified Elhokar’s place on the throne during the tempestuous years following their father’s death. Shinri had little doubt that if Jezenrosh was planning to overthrow the king,
Jasnah would discover and foil his schemes.
What could Shinri find for herself that was similarly fulfilling? She
paused, realizing that she had found her way to the front of the city. The
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city gates were open, and the massive walls of Ral Eram—Awakened from
stone to dark steel during the Epoch Kingdom days—stood as if pouting
at their ineffectiveness as hundreds of people streamed in and out of the
city. Through the gates, Shinri could see the landscape beyond. Ral Eram
huddled on a short plateau abutting the mountainside itself, and the view
beyond the walls was expansive.
Empty plains and foothills expanded before her. The wilderness below
was a place without roads. Or, Shinri thought, a place with nothing but
roads. Each way you travel is a new path, each direction a new choice. She was struck by a sudden desire to flee the city, to leave its women to their gossips both clever and frivolous. She wanted to pull the hairsticks free from her braids, cast off the binding cloth of her talla, and see a place far away. What would the noblemen merchants below think, to see Shinri run wildly past,
bursting free of those city walls? It would breach their perfection, having one of their own abandon decorum in such a way. The thought was enough
to make her smile.
It was, of course, insane. She couldn’t survive alone—the hills outside
Ral Eram were stormlands, and Shinri wouldn’t even have the beginnings
of an inkling how to gather food or care for herself. She was a product of noble society; she knew how to consume resources and spit out intrigue as
a byproduct. The impulse to leave was lunacy.
Perhaps this is how that poor madman felt, Shinri thought, on that day—
whenever it was—when he finally gave himself up to insanity.
Shinri shook her head, stooping down to gather some pebbles from a
crack near a stone wall. Stuffing the chips of stone in her sleeve pocket, she turned her feet toward another path, wandering in the general direction of the palace. As she walked, she began to hum to herself. It had been a time since she sang the songs of her childhood, but—as always—the tunes came
back without effort. However, as always, the words themselves were lost to her. She contented herself to the humming as she walked.
Her emotions would recenter. She hadn’t really been back for very
long—she just had to give herself more time. The old inclinations would
fade, and she would find pleasure in courtly life again. She could tell herself this with confidence, for the great stabilizing factor was returning. Tethren.
When she saw his proud, noble face again—when he smiled at her as he
had before, this time seeing her as a woman and not a child—then things
would return to the way they had been before.
She eventually approached the ramp up to the palace. Here, her pathway
options narrowed drastically. The palace was built on a smaller plateau a
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short distance above the city, and the only way up to it was via a pair of stone ramps—one on each side of the palace. Shinri trailed up the eastern
one. The stones were slick and clean, the blood that had been spilled on
both ramps long ago had since been washed away by the raging of count-
less highstorms. Though the Aleth claimed prevention as their reason for
conquering the First Capital some fifteen years before, the rest of Roshar had a less-idyl ic view of the ‘liberation’ of Ral Eram. Alethkar made a hefty profit off of traffic through the Oathgates. Though the nation now spoke
of honor and defending against tyranny, pointing out its resistance of the Tyrant Jarnah, there were scars in its past that did not bear up beneath
heavy scrutiny.
The palace complex was enormous, built to hold the courts of ten Epoch
Kings, not just one. As a child barely past her Charan, the youthful Shinri
had gotten lost in its plush corridors on tensets of occasions. Even still, she only wandered the far wings when she knew she had a great deal of time to
find her way back. Time she did not have this day. As tempting as those
untraveled pathways were, she turned her attention toward locating Lady
Jasnah. Her mistress would wish to know of the day’s events, especially
Lady Tenent’s suggestion that Shinri transfer her wardship to another
noblewoman.
Lines of striped carpet pointed her down the center of the corridors, so
Shinri stayed to the peripheries, making her way through the Aleth wing
of the palace. Lady Jasnah’s rooms did not reflect her recent loss in prestige; they were among the most lavish and well-placed in all of the palace. Of
course, the king’s sister could hardly be located anywhere else. Lady Jasnah was in her study, her guards standing by the walls, minor female attendants chatting quietly at a table a short distance away. The Lady Kholin herself sat at a round table set near the center of the room, sorting through stacks of papers. She glanced up when Shinri entered, then immediately turned
her attention back to her research.
Shinri walked forward and seated herself on a stool at Jasnah’s table. The room was stuffily well-appointed, like most in the palace. The floor rug
was monochrome blue, and was so clean that Shinri didn’t doubt that the
palace staff had crawled across it picking each and every bit of dirt from its follicles, just so it would be perfect for Lady Jasnah’s return. The walls were well lit, and Shinri found it strange that she should wish them to be tent canvas instead of stone.
“What is that you’re humming?” Jasnah asked, not looking up from her
notes.
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Shinri paused, realizing that she had still been quietly singing. She
flushed. “Nothing, my lady,” she said. “Just another song from my childhood.”
“Your singing made quite a stir at the feast,” Jasnah noted. “Now that
we’ve returned to civilization, perhaps it is time to resume your lessons.
Talents unused quickly become detriments when everyone realizes that
your current skill fails to agree with your reputation.”
So like Jasnah, Shiri thought. Concerned for the utilitarian use of the talent; completely unmindful of its beauty.
“Well?” Jasnah asked, not looking up from her notes. “How was tea?”
“It went mostly as expected,” Shinri said, idly removing the handful of
pebbles from her left sleeve pocket. “Though Lady Tenet did something odd.
She cornered me and suggested that I switch my wardship to another lady.”
Jasnah nodded, taking the news in with her customary calmness. “I
expected that would come today,” she noted. “It was only a matter of time.”
Shinri started. “You knew what they would do?” she asked. “Why didn’t
you warn me?”
“You had to be free to make your own decision when the offer came,”
Jasnah said. “I presume, since you are telling me what happened, that you
have decided to reject the proposal.”
Shinri felt a chill. You taught me too well, Jasnah. I see what you are doing.
You were testing me. That’s why you didn’t tell me—you wanted to see what I would do. By the Bondkeeper! Can’t you let yourself trust anyone?
Jasnah picked through her papers as if ignorant, or uncaring, of Shinri’s
realization.
I defended you today, Shinri thought. She forced herself to remain calm, and waved for an attendant to bring her some tea. Nice, mild, feminine
tea. Shinri took a sip, then idly rolled the pebbles in her hand, occasionally letting one drop to the carpet below.
Jasnah shook her head. “I need something more than this,” she mumbled,
waving her hand over the sheets of paper. “I need to see the royal ledgers themselves. I won’t know what that woman’s up to until I can read first-hand what she has been spending my brother’s money on. And would you
stop that?” she said, referring to Shinri’s pebbles. “I can’t believe you’ve started dropping rocks on the floor again. I thought you had gotten over
that years ago.”
“I’m sorry, my lady,” Shinri said, putting the pebbles back in her sleeve
pocket.
“I need you alert, Shinri,” Jasnah said. “Something is happening here in
the palace, more than Nanavah would wish us to know. They went after
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you because you are the last ally I have. Stealing my ward from me would
be a master stroke, a final proof that I have been defeated. Lady Tenet is little more than the queen’s errandwoman now—Nanavah was behind the
suggestion that you reassign your wardship, I promise you that. And, since the queen saw fit to try turning you, it means she still feels threatened
by me. That means she’s hiding something.” Jasnah clenched her jaw in
thought. “I need to see those ledgers.”
“Nanavah is technical y the First Scribe,” Shinri said. “And it appears that the king has begun enforcing her position. You’d need her permission to
access the royal ledgers.”
Jasnah’s mouth thinned. “Perhaps,” she said, thinking for a moment.
Then she turned back to her papers. “Here,” she said, selecting a sealed
letter from the stack. “This came for you a short time ago.”
Shinri recognized the glyph on the front immediately—a stylized
nen in the form of a flower, the symbol used by Tethren’s sister. She was the one he usually used as a scribe. Shinri sighed in relief, accepting the letter from Jasnah with an eager hand—the blatant emotion earning her
a small frown of displeasure. For the moment, Shinri didn’t care. Tethren
had finally written her. Everything would be all right. Within his smile,
she could rejoin the perfection of the court, perhaps banish the worries of her childhood.
She broke the seal, and read the letter. Then she read it again. She was
too stunned to try for a third.
“Everything well with Prince Tethren?” Jasnah asked distractedly. “I
told you it would be.”
“Everything is . . . pleasant, my lady,” Shinri said quietly. “Very pleasant.”
A few seconds later the letter floated lazily to the floor, then a handful of brown pebbles dropped on top of it, scattering brown cromdust across
its surface. Neither pebbles nor dust did much to obscure the words, how-
ever; words which proclaimed Prince Tethren Rienar’s ship sunk during a
summer highstorm, all hands lost.
chapter 12
MERIN 3
Merin stood uncomfortably, trying not to blush in embarrassment
as the tailor pulled out yet another seasilk cloth—this one red—and
draped it over Merin’s shoulders. The thick-mustached man turned, eye-
brows upraised questioningly.
Aredor tapped his cheek musingly. The room was well-lit and crafted
of typical Kholinar granite, with woven mats on the floor and decorative
pillars along the walls. Aredor leaned against one of the room’s pillars,
watching the tailor work.
“Well, ladies?” Aredor asked, turning to the six young women who sat,
arrayed in bright-colored tallahs and jewel-riddled hairbuns, to his side.
“Better,” one of the women said. Merin still struggled to remember all of
their names—he thought her name was Irinah. A creature with dark hair
and a plump face, she was the daughter of one of Lord Dalenar’s trusted
Sha
rdbearers.
“I agree,” said the one with light hair and a greenish dress. Rahnel, he
thought. “But he doesn’t look good in colors that bright. Try something
darker, master tailor.”
The other women agreed, nodding and chatting among themselves.
Merin flushed at the attention as the tailor removed the cloth and waved
at his aides to bring him some other choices. It seemed ridiculous to Merin that people could spend so much time worrying about clothing. Before the
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colors, Merin had spent the better part of an hour trying on different cuts of shirts and trousers behind the changing screen, then presenting each
new combination for Aredor and the women to judge.
Yet Aredor and the ladies didn’t seem to find the experience boring. As a
matter of fact, they appeared to be enjoying themselves immeasurably. Of
course, they weren’t the ones standing on tired legs while the entire room gawked—if it hadn’t been for his military training, Merin was certain his
legs would have given out long before.
“Hang in there, Merin,” Aredor said, reading Merin’s expression with a
chuckle. “You’ll be glad for the effort—these ladies are the finest judges of apparel in the court. When they’re finished with you, your wardrobe will
be the envy of the city.”
The women laughed demurely at the compliment. It seemed to Merin that
they were paying more attention to Aredor than the clothing selections.
That, however, was not a problem—better Aredor than Merin.
“It certainly is good to have you back in the court, Lord Aredor,” Irinah
said as the tailor draped another cloth across Merin’s shoulders, letting it fall around his body like a cloak. Irinah seemed the leader of the women, though from what Merin understood, she was one of the lesser ranked of them.
That was another thing he couldn’t quite figure out, though—noble ranks.
“Oh?” Aredor said with a raised eyebrow. “I wasn’t certain the court
would even notice my absence.”
“Lord Aredor!” one of the other ladies said with indignance. “Why, the
court wasn’t the same without you!”
Aredor chuckled, nodding toward Merin. “Don’t get distracted, ladies.”