“I can’t say that I have.”
“It’s not easy.” Bang! “Blades make a very thin cut. The rocks still press against one another. It’s hard to grasp or move them.” Bang! “It’s more complicated than it seems.” Bang! “This is the best way.”
Navani dusted a few chips of stone from her dress. “And more messy, I see.”
Bang!
“So, are you going to apologize?” she asked.
“For?”
“For missing our appointment.”
Dalinar froze in midswing. He’d completely forgotten that, at the feast when she’d first returned, he’d agreed to have Navani read for him today. He hadn’t told his scribes of the appointment. He turned toward her, chagrined. He’d been angered because Thanadal had canceled their appointment, but at least he had thought to send a messenger.
Navani stood with arms folded, safehand tucked away, sleek dress seeming to burn with sunlight. She bore a hint of a smile on her lips. By standing her up, he’d put himself-by honor-in her power.
“I’m truly sorry,” he said. “I’ve had some difficult things to consider lately, but that doesn’t excuse forgetting you.”
“I know. I’ll ponder a way to let you make up for the lapse. But for now, you should know that one of your spanreeds is flashing.”
“What? Which one?”
“Your scribes say it is the one bound to my daughter.”
Jasnah! It had been weeks since they’d last communicated; the messages he’d sent her had prompted only the tersest of answers. When Jasnah was deeply immersed in one of her projects, she often ignored all else. If she was sending to him now, either she’d discovered something or she was taking a break to renew her contacts.
Dalinar turned to look down the latrine. He’d nearly completed it; and he realized he’d been unconsciously planning to make his final decision once he reached the end. He itched to continue working.
But if Jasnah wanted to converse…
He needed to talk with her. Perhaps he could persuade her to return to the Shattered Plains. He would feel a lot more secure about abdicating if he knew that she would come watch over Elhokar and Adolin.
Dalinar tossed aside his hammer-his pounding had bent the haft a good thirty degrees and the head was a misshapen lump-and jumped out of the ditch. He’d have a new weapon forged; that was not unusual for Shardbearers.
“Your pardon, Mathana,” Dalinar said, “but I fear I must beg your leave so soon after begging your forgiveness. I must receive this communication.”
He bowed to her and turned to hurry away.
“Actually,” Navani said from behind, “I think I’ll beg something of you. It has been months since I’ve spoken with my daughter. I’ll join you, if you’ll permit it.”
He hesitated, but he couldn’t deny her so soon after giving her offense. “Of course.” He waited as Navani walked to her palanquin and settled herself. The bearers lifted it, and Dalinar struck out again, the bearers and Navani’s borrowed wards walking close.
“You are a kind man, Dalinar Kholin,” Navani said, that same sly smile on her lips as she sat back in the cushioned chair. “I’m afraid that I’m compelled to find you fascinating.”
“My sense of honor makes me easy to manipulate,” Dalinar said, eyes forward. Dealing with her was not something he needed right now. “I know it does. No need to toy with me, Navani.”
She laughed softly. “I’m not trying to take advantage of you, Dalinar, I-” She paused. “Well, perhaps I am taking advantage of you just a little. But I’m not ‘toying’ with you. This last year in particular, you’ve begun to be the person the others all claim that they are. Can’t you see how intriguing that makes you?”
“I don’t do it to be intriguing.”
“If you did, it wouldn’t work!” She leaned toward him. “Do you know why I picked Gavilar instead of you all those years ago?”
Blast. Her comments-her presence-were like a goblet of darkwine poured into the middle of his crystal thoughts. The clarity he’d sought in hard labor was quickly vanishing. Did she have to be so forward? He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he picked up his pace and hoped that she’d see he didn’t want to discuss the topic.
It was no use. “I didn’t pick him because he would become king, Dalinar. Though that’s what everyone says. I chose him because you frightened me. That intensity of yours…it scared your brother too, you know.”
He said nothing.
“It’s still in there,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes. But you’ve wrapped armor around it, a glistening set of Shardplate to contain it. That is part of what I find fascinating.”
He stopped, looking at her. The palanquin bearers halted. “This would not work, Navani,” he said softly.
“Wouldn’t it?”
He shook his head. “I will not dishonor my brother’s memory.” He regarded her sternly, and she eventually nodded.
When he continued walking, she said nothing, though she did eye him slyly from time to time. Eventually, they reached his personal complex, marked by fluttering blue banners with the glyphpair khokh and linil, the former drawn in the shape of a crown, the second forming a tower. Dalinar’s mother had drawn the original design, the same his signet ring bore, though Elhokar used a sword and crown instead.
The soldiers at the entrance to his complex saluted, and Dalinar waited for Navani to join him before entering. The cavernous interior was lit by infused sapphires. Once they reached his sitting chamber, he was again struck by just how lavish it had gotten over the months.
Three of his clerks waited with their attending girls. All six stood up when he entered. Adolin was also there.
Dalinar frowned at the youth. “Shouldn’t you be seeing to the inspections?”
Adolin started. “Father, I finished those hours ago.”
“You did?” Stormfather! How long did I spend pounding on those stones?
“Father,” Adolin said, stepping up to him. “Can we speak privately for a moment?” As usual, Adolin’s black-peppered blond hair was an unruly mop. He’d changed from his Plate and bathed, and now he wore a fashionable-though battle-worthy-uniform with a long blue coat, buttoned at the sides, and straight, stiff brown trousers beneath.
“I’m not ready to discuss that as yet, son,” Dalinar said softly. “I need a little more time.”
Adolin studied him, eyes concerned. He will make a fine highprince, Dalinar thought. He’s been reared to it in a way that I never was.
“All right then,” Adolin said. “But there’s something else I want to ask you.” He pointed toward one of the clerks, a woman with auburn hair and only a few strands of black. She was lithe and long-necked, wearing a green dress, her hair arranged high on her head in a complex set of braids held together with four traditional steel hair-spikes.
“This is Danlan Morakotha,” Adolin said softly to Dalinar. “She came into camp yesterday to spend a few months with her father, Brightlord Morakotha. She has been calling on me recently, and I took the liberty of offering her a position among your clerks while she is here.”
Dalinar blinked. “What about…”
“Malasha?” Adolin sighed. “Didn’t work out.”
“And this one?” Dalinar asked, voice hushed, yet incredulous. “How long did you say she’s been in camp? Since yesterday? And you’ve already got her calling on you?”
Adolin shrugged. “Well, I do have a reputation to maintain.”
Dalinar sighed, eyeing Navani, who stood close enough to hear. She pretended-for propriety-that she wasn’t listening in. “You know, it is customary to eventually choose just one woman to court.” You’re going to need a good wife, son. Perhaps very soon.
“When I’m old and boring, perhaps,” Adolin said, smiling at the young woman. She was pretty. But only in camp one day? Blood of my ancestors, Dalinar thought. He’d spent three years courting the woman who’d eventually become his wife. Even if he couldn’t remember her face, he did reme
mber how persistently he’d pursued her.
Surely he’d loved her. All emotion regarding her was gone, wiped from his mind by forces he should never have tempted. Unfortunately, he did remember how much he’d desired Navani, years before meeting the woman who would become his wife.
Stop that, he told himself. Moments ago, he’d been on the brink of deciding to abdicate his seat as highprince. It was no time to let Navani distract him.
“Brightness Danlan Morakotha,” he said to the young woman. “You are welcome among my clerks. I understand that I’ve received a communication?”
“Indeed, Brightlord,” the woman said, curtsying. She nodded to the line of five spanreeds sitting on his bookshelf, set upright in pen holders. The spanreeds looked like ordinary writing reeds, except that each had a small infused ruby affixed. The one on the far right pulsed slowly.
Litima was there, and though she had seniority, she nodded for Danlan to fetch the spanreed. The young woman hurried to the bookshelf and moved the still-blinking reed to the small writing desk beside the lectern. She carefully clipped a piece of paper onto the writing board and put the ink vial into its hole, twisting it snugly into place and then pulling the stopper. Lighteyed women were very proficient at working with just their freehand.
She sat down, looking up at him, seeming slightly nervous. Dalinar didn’t trust her, of course-she could easily be a spy for one of the other highprinces. Unfortunately, there weren’t any women in camp he trusted completely, not with Jasnah gone.
“I am ready, Brightlord,” Danlan said. She had a breathy, husky voice. Just the type that attracted Adolin. He hoped she wasn’t as vapid as those he usually picked.
“Proceed,” Dalinar said, waving Navani toward one of the room’s plush easy chairs. The other clerks sat back down on their bench.
Danlan turned the spanreed’s gemstone one notch, indicating that the request had been acknowledged. Then she checked the levels on the sides of the writing board-small vials of oil with bubbles at the center, which allowed her to make the board perfectly flat. Finally, she inked the reed and placed it on the dot at the top left of the page. Holding it upright, she twisted the gemstone setting one more time with her thumb. Then she removed her hand.
The reed remained in place, tip against the paper, hovering as if held in a phantom hand. Then it began to write, mimicking the exact movements Jasnah made miles away, writing with a reed conjoined to this one.
Dalinar stood beside the writing table, armored arms folded. He could see that his proximity made Danlan nervous, but he was too anxious to sit.
Jasnah had elegant handwriting, of course-Jasnah rarely did anything without taking the time to perfect it. Dalinar leaned forward as the familiar-yet indecipherable-lines appeared on the page in stark violet. Faint wisps of reddish smoke floated up from the gemstone.
The pen stopped writing, freezing in place.
“‘Uncle,’” Danlan read, “‘I presume that you are well.’”
“Indeed,” Dalinar replied. “I am well cared for by those around me.” The words were code indicating that he didn’t trust-or at least didn’t know-everyone listening. Jasnah would be careful not to send anything too sensitive.
Danlan took the pen and twisted the gemstone, then wrote out the words, sending them across the ocean to Jasnah. Was she still in Tukar? After Danlan finished writing, she returned it to the dot at the top left-the spot where the pens were both to be placed so Jasnah could continue the conversation-then turned the gemstone back to the previous setting.
“‘As I expected, I have found my way to Kharbranth,’” Danlan read. “‘The secrets I seek are too obscure to be contained even in the Palanaeum, but I find hints. Tantalizing fragments. Is Elhokar well?’”
Hints? Fragments? Of what? She had a penchant for drama, Jasnah did, though she wasn’t as flamboyant about it as the king.
“Your brother tried very hard to get himself killed by a chasmfiend a few weeks back,” Dalinar replied. Adolin smiled at that, leaning with his shoulder against the bookcase. “But evidently the Heralds watch over him. He is well, though your presence here is sorely missed. I’m certain he could use your counsel. He is relying heavily on Brightness Lalai to act as clerk.”
Perhaps that would make Jasnah return. There was little love lost between herself and Sadeas’s cousin, who was the king’s head scribe in the queen’s absence.
Danlan scratched away, writing the words. To the side, Navani cleared her throat.
“Oh,” Dalinar said, “add this: Your mother is here in the warcamps again.”
A short time later, the pen wrote of its own volition. “‘Send my mother my respect. Keep her at arm’s length, Uncle. She bites.’”
From the side, Navani sniffed, and Dalinar realized he hadn’t signaled that Navani was actually listening. He blushed as Danlan continued speaking. “‘I cannot speak of my work via spanreed, but I’m growing increasingly concerned. There is something here, hidden by the sheer number of accrued pages in the historical record.’”
Jasnah was a Veristitalian. She’d explained it to him once; they were an order of scholars who tried to find the truth in the past. They wished to create unbiased, factual accounts of what had happened in order to extrapolate what to do in the future. He wasn’t clear on why they thought themselves different from regular historians.
“Will you be returning?” Dalinar asked.
“‘I cannot say,’” Danlan read after the reply came. “‘I do not dare stop my research. But a time may soon come when I dare not stay away either.’”
What? Dalinar thought.
“‘Regardless,’” Danlan continued, “‘I have some questions for you. I need you to describe for me again what happened when you met that first Parshendi patrol seven years ago.’”
Dalinar frowned. Despite the Plate’s augmentation, his digging had left him feeling tired. But he didn’t dare sit on one of the room’s chairs while wearing his Plate. He took off one of his gauntlets, though, and ran his hand through his hair. He wasn’t fond of this topic, but part of him was glad of the distraction. A reason to hold off on making a decision that would change his life forever.
Danlan looked at him, prepared to dictate his words. Why did Jasnah want this story again? Hadn’t she written an account of these very events in her biography of her father?
Well, she would eventually tell him why, and-if her past revelations were any indication-her current project would be of great worth. He wished Elhokar had received a measure of his sister’s wisdom.
“These are painful memories, Jasnah. I wish I’d never convinced your father to go on that expedition. If we’d never discovered the Parshendi, then they couldn’t have assassinated him. The first meeting happened when we were exploring a forest that wasn’t on the maps. This was south of the Shattered Plains, in a valley about two weeks’ march from the Drying Sea.”
During Gavilar’s youth, only two things had thrilled him-conquest and hunting. When he hadn’t been seeking one, it had been the other. Suggesting the hunt had seemed rational at the time. Gavilar had been acting oddly, losing his thirst for battle. Men had started to say that he was weak. Dalinar had wanted to remind his brother of the good times in their youth. Hence the hunt for a legendary chasmfiend.
“Your father wasn’t with me when I ran across them,” Dalinar continued, thinking back. Camping on humid, forested hills. Interrogating Natan natives via translators. Looking for scat or broken trees. “I was leading scouts up a tributary of the Deathbend River while your father scouted downstream. We found the Parshendi camped on the other side. I didn’t believe it at first. Parshmen. Camped, free and organized. And they carried weapons. Not crude ones, either. Swords, spears with carved hafts…”
He trailed off. Gavilar hadn’t believed either, when Dalinar told him. There was no such thing as a free parshman tribe. They were servants, and always had been servants.
“‘Did they have Shardblades then?’” Danlan said. Dalinar
hadn’t realized that Jasnah had made a response.
“No.”
A scratched reply eventually came. “‘But they have them now. When did you first see a Parshendi Shardbearer?’”
“After Gavilar’s death,” Dalinar said.
He made the connection. They’d always wondered why Gavilar had wanted a treaty with the Parshendi. They wouldn’t have needed one just to harvest the greatshells on the Shattered Plains; the Parshendi hadn’t lived on the Plains then.
Dalinar felt a chill. Could his brother have known that these Parshendi had access to Shardblades? Had he made the treaty hoping to get out of them where they’d found the weapons?
Is it his death? Dalinar wondered. Is that the secret Jasnah’s looking for? She’d never shown Elhokar’s dedication to vengeance, but she thought differently from her brother. Revenge wouldn’t drive her. But questions. Yes, questions would.
“‘One more thing, Uncle,’” Danlan read. “‘Then I can go back to digging through this labyrinth of a library. At times, I feel like a cairn robber, sifting through the bones of those long dead. Regardless. The Parshendi, you once mentioned how quickly they seemed to learn our language.’”
“Yes,” Dalinar said. “In a matter of days, we were speaking and communicating quite well. Remarkable.” Who would have thought that parshmen, of all people, had the wit for such a marvel? Most he’d known didn’t do much speaking at all.
“‘What were the first things they spoke to you about?’” Danlan said. “‘The very first questions they asked? Can you remember?’”
Dalinar closed his eyes, remembering days with the Parshendi camped just across the river from them. Gavilar had become fascinated by them. “They wanted to see our maps.”
“Did they mention the Voidbringers?”
Voidbringers? “Not that I recall. Why?”
“‘I’d rather not say right now. However, I want to show you something. Have your scribe get out a new sheet of paper.’”
Danlan affixed a new page to the writing board. She put the pen to the corner and let go. It rose and began to scratch back and forth in quick, bold strokes. It was a drawing. Dalinar stood up and stepped closer, and Adolin crowded near. Reed and ink wasn’t the best medium, and drawing across spans wasn’t precise. The pen leaked tiny globs of ink in places it wouldn’t have on the other side, and though the inkwell was in the exact same place-allowing Jasnah to re-ink both her reed and Dalinar’s at the same time-his reed sometimes ran out before the one on the other side.
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