“We need more information,” Jasnah said. “Captain Kaladin, how many people can you take with you to Alethkar?”
“I plan to fly at the front of a storm,” Kaladin said. “Like I did returning to Urithiru. It’s a bumpy ride, but maybe I can fly over the top of the winds. I need to test it. Anyway, I think I could bring a small group.”
“You won’t need a large force,” Dalinar said. “You, a few of your best squires. I’d send Adolin with you too, so you have another Shardbearer in an emergency. Six, perhaps? You, three of your men, the king, Adolin. Get past the enemy, sneak into the palace, and activate the Oathgate.”
“Pardon if this is out of line,” Kaladin said, “but Elhokar himself is the odd one. Why not just send me and Adolin? The king will probably slow us down.”
“The king needs to go for personal reasons. Will there be a problem between you?”
“I’ll do what is right, regardless of my feelings, sir. And … I might be beyond those feelings anyway, now.”
“This is too small,” Jasnah mumbled.
Shallan started, then glanced at her. “Too small?”
“Not ambitious enough,” Jasnah said more firmly. “By the Stormfather’s explanation, the Fused are immortal. Nothing stops their rebirth now that the Heralds have failed. This is our real problem. Our enemy has a near-endless supply of parshman bodies to inhabit, and judging by what the good captain has confirmed through experience, these Fused can access some kind of Surgebinding. How do we fight against that?”
Shallan looked up from her notepad, glancing toward the others in the room. Renarin still leaned forward, hands clasped, eyes on the floor. Navani and Dalinar were sharing a look. Kaladin continued to lean against the wall, arms folded, but he shifted his posture, uncomfortable.
“Well,” Dalinar finally said. “We’ll have to take this one goal at a time. First Kholinar.”
“Pardon, Uncle,” Jasnah said. “While I don’t disagree with that first step, now is not the time to think only of the immediate future. If we are to avoid a Desolation that breaks society, then we’ll need to use the past as our guide and make a plan.”
“She’s right,” Renarin whispered. “We’re facing something that killed the Almighty himself. We fight terrors that break the minds of men and ruin their souls. We can’t think small.” He ran his hands through his hair, which was marked by less yellow than his brother’s. “Almighty. We have to think big—but can we take it all in without going mad ourselves?”
Dalinar took a deep breath. “Jasnah, you have a suggestion of where to start this plan?”
“Yes. The answer is obvious. We need to find the Heralds.”
Kaladin nodded in agreement.
“Then,” Jasnah added, “we need to kill them.”
“What?” Kaladin demanded. “Woman, are you insane?”
“The Stormfather laid it out,” Jasnah said, unperturbed. “The Heralds made a pact. When they died, their souls traveled to Damnation and trapped the spirits of the Voidbringers, preventing them from returning.”
“Yeah. Then the Heralds were tortured until they broke.”
“The Stormfather said their pact was weakened, but did not say it was destroyed,” Jasnah said. “I suggest that we at least see if one of them is willing to return to Damnation. Perhaps they can still prevent the spirits of the enemy from being reborn. It’s either that, or we completely exterminate the parshmen so that the enemy has no hosts.” She met Kaladin’s eyes. “In the face of such an atrocity, I would consider the sacrifice of one or more Heralds to be a small price.”
“Storms!” Kaladin said, standing up straight. “Have you no sympathy?”
“I have plenty, bridgeman. Fortunately, I temper it with logic. Perhaps you should consider acquiring some at a future date.”
“Listen, Brightness,” Kaladin began. “I—”
“Enough, Captain,” Dalinar said. He gave Jasnah a glance. Both fell quiet, Jasnah without so much as a peep. Shallan had never seen her respond to someone with the respect she gave Dalinar.
“Jasnah,” Dalinar said. “Even if the pact of the Heralds still holds, we can’t know that they’d stay in Damnation—or the mechanics for locking away the Voidbringers there. That said, locating them seems like an excellent first step; they must know much that can greatly assist us. I will leave it to you, Jasnah, to plan out how to accomplish that.”
“What … what of the Unmade?” Renarin said. “There will be others, like the creature we found down here.”
“Navani has been researching them,” Dalinar said.
“We need to go even farther, Uncle,” Jasnah said. “We need to watch the movements of the Voidbringers. Our only hope is to defeat their armies so soundly that even if their leaders are constantly reborn, they lack the manpower to overwhelm us.”
“Protecting Alethkar,” Kaladin said, “doesn’t have to mean completely crushing the parshmen and—”
“If you wish, Captain,” Jasnah snapped, “I can get you some mink kits to cuddle while the adults plan. None of us want to talk about this, but that does not make it any less inevitable.”
“I’d love that,” Kaladin responded. “In turn, I’ll get you some eels to cuddle. You’ll feel right at home.”
Jasnah, curiously, smiled. “Let me ask this, Captain. Do you think ignoring the movement of Voidbringer troops would be wise?”
“Probably not,” he admitted.
“And do you think, perhaps, that you could train your squire Windrunners to fly up high and scout for us? If spanreeds are proving unreliable these days, we’ll need another method of watching the enemy. I’d happily cuddle skyeels, as you offer, if your team would be willing to spend some time imitating them.”
Kaladin looked to Dalinar, who nodded appreciatively.
“Excellent,” Jasnah said. “Uncle, your coalition of monarchs is a superb idea. We need to pen the enemy in and prevent them from overrunning all of Roshar. If…”
She trailed off. Shallan paused, looking at the doodle she’d been doing. Actually, it was a bit more complex than a doodle. It was … kind of a full sketch of Kaladin’s face, with passionate eyes and a determined expression. Jasnah had noticed a creationspren in the form of a small gemstone that had appeared on the top of her page, and Shallan blushed, shooing it away.
“Perhaps,” Jasnah said, glancing at Shallan’s sketchbook, “we could do with a short break, Uncle.”
“If you wish,” he said. “I could use something to drink.”
They broke up, Dalinar and Navani chatting softly as they went to check with the guards and servants in the main hallway. Shallan watched them go with a sense of longing, as she felt Jasnah loom over her.
“Let us chat,” Jasnah said, nodding toward the far end of the long, rectangular room.
Shallan sighed, closed her notebook, and followed Jasnah to the other end, near a pattern of tiles on the wall. This far from the spheres brought for the meeting, the lighting was dim.
“May I?” Jasnah said, holding out her hand for Shallan’s notebook.
She relinquished it.
“A fine depiction of the young captain,” Jasnah said. “I see … three lines of notes here? After you were pointedly instructed to take the minutes.”
“We should have sent for a scribe.”
“We had a scribe. To take notes is not a lowly task, Shallan. It is a service you can provide.”
“If it’s not a lowly task,” Shallan said, “then perhaps you should have done it.”
Jasnah closed the sketchpad and fixed Shallan with a calm, level stare. The type that made Shallan squirm.
“I remember,” Jasnah said, “a nervous, desperate young woman. Frantic to earn my goodwill.”
Shallan didn’t reply.
“I understand,” Jasnah said, “that you have enjoyed independence. What you accomplished here is remarkable, Shallan. You even seem to have earned my uncle’s trust—a challenging task.”
“Then maybe we can ju
st call the wardship finished, eh?” Shallan said. “I mean, I’m a full Radiant now.”
“Radiant, yes,” Jasnah said. “Full? Where’s your armor?”
“Um … armor?”
Jasnah sighed softly, opening up the sketchpad again. “Shallan,” she said in a strangely … comforting tone. “I’m impressed. I am impressed, truly. But what I’ve heard of you recently is troubling. You’ve ingratiated yourself with my family, and made good on the causal betrothal to Adolin. Yet here you are with wandering eyes, as this sketch testifies.”
“I—”
“You skip meetings that Dalinar calls,” Jasnah continued, soft but immovable. “When you do go, you sit at the back and barely pay attention. He tells me that half the time, you find an excuse to slip out early.
“You investigated the presence of an Unmade in the tower, and frightened it off basically alone. Yet you never explained how you found it when Dalinar’s soldiers could not.” She met Shallan’s eyes. “You’ve always hidden things from me. Some of those secrets were very damaging, and I find myself unwilling to believe you don’t have others.”
Shallan bit her lip, but nodded.
“That was an invitation,” Jasnah said, “to talk to me.”
Shallan nodded again. She wasn’t working with the Ghostbloods. That was Veil. And Jasnah didn’t need to know about Veil. Jasnah couldn’t know about Veil.
“Very well,” Jasnah said with a sigh. “Your wardship is not finished, and won’t be until I’m convinced that you can meet minimum requirements of scholarship—such as taking shorthand notes during an important conference. Your path as a Radiant is another matter. I don’t know that I can guide you; each order was distinctive in its approach. But as a young man will not be excused from his geography lessons simply because he has achieved competence with the sword, I will not release you from your duties to me simply because you have discovered your powers as a Radiant.”
Jasnah handed back the sketchpad and walked toward the ring of chairs. She settled next to Renarin, prodding him gently to speak with her. He looked up for the first time since the meeting had begun and nodded, saying something Shallan couldn’t hear.
“Mmmm…” Pattern said. “She is wise.”
“That’s perhaps her most infuriating feature,” Shallan said. “Storms. She makes me feel like a child.”
“Mmm.”
“Worst part is, she’s probably right,” Shallan said. “Around her, I do act more like a child. It’s like part of me wants to let her take care of everything. And I hate, hate, hate that about myself.”
“Is there a solution?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps … act like an adult?”
Shallan put her hands to her face, groaning softly and rubbing her eyes with her fingers. She’d basically asked for that, hadn’t she? “Come on,” she said, “let’s go to the rest of the meeting. As much as I want an excuse to get out of here.”
“Mmm…” Pattern said. “Something about this room…”
“What?” Shallan asked.
“Something…” Pattern said in his buzzing way. “It has memories, Shallan.”
Memories. Did he mean in Shadesmar? She’d avoided traveling there—that was at least one thing in which she’d listened to Jasnah.
She made her way back to her seat, and after a moment’s thought, slipped Jasnah a quick note. Pattern says this room has memories. Worth investigating in Shadesmar?
Jasnah regarded the note, then wrote back.
I’ve found that we should not ignore the offhand comments of our spren. Press him; I will investigate this place. Thank you for the suggestion.
The meeting started again, and now turned to discussion of specific kingdoms around Roshar. Jasnah was most keen on getting the Shin to join them. The Shattered Plains held the easternmost of the Oathgates, and that was already under Alethi control. If they could gain access to the one farthest to the west, they could travel the breadth of Roshar—from the entry point of the highstorms to the entry point of the Everstorms—in a heartbeat.
They didn’t talk tactics too specifically; that was a masculine art, and Dalinar would want his highprinces and generals to discuss the battlefields. Still, Shallan didn’t fail to notice the tactical terms Jasnah used now and then.
In things like this, Shallan had difficulty understanding the woman. In some ways, Jasnah seemed fiercely masculine. She studied whatever she pleased, and she talked tactics as easily as she talked poetry. She could be aggressive, even cold—Shallan had seen her straight-up execute thieves who had tried to rob her. Beyond that … well, it probably was best not to speculate on things with no meaning, but people did talk. Jasnah had turned down every suitor for her hand, including some very attractive and influential men. People wondered. Was she perhaps simply not interested?
All of this should have resulted in a person who was decidedly unfeminine. Yet Jasnah wore the finest makeup, and wore it well, with shadowed eyes and bright red lips. She kept her safehand covered, and preferred intricate and fetching styles of braids from her hairdresser. Her writings and her mind made her the very model of Vorin femininity.
Next to Jasnah, Shallan felt pale, stupid, and completely lacking in curves. What would it be like, to be so confident? So beautiful, yet so unconstrained, all at once? Surely, Jasnah Kholin had far fewer problems in life than Shallan. At the very least, she created far fewer for herself than Shallan did.
It was about this point that Shallan realized she’d missed a good fifteen minutes of the meeting, and had again lapsed in her note-taking. Blushing furiously, she huddled up on her chair and did her best to remain focused for the rest of the meeting. At the end, she presented a sheet of formal shorthand to Jasnah.
The woman looked it over, then cocked a perfectly shaped eyebrow at the line at the center where Shallan had grown distracted. Dalinar said some stuff here, the line read. It was very important and useful, so I’m sure you remember it without needing a reminder.
Shallan smiled apologetically and shrugged.
“Please write this out in longhand,” Jasnah said, handing it back. “Have a copy sent to my mother and to my brother’s head scribe.”
Shallan took it as a dismissal and rushed away. She felt like a student who had just been released from lessons, which angered her. At the same time, she wanted to run off and immediately do as Jasnah had asked, to renew her mistress’s faith in her, which angered her even more.
She ran up the steps out of the tower’s basement, using Stormlight to prevent fatigue. The different sides within her clashed, snapping at each other. She imagined months spent under Jasnah’s watchful care, training to become a mousy scribe as her father had always wanted.
She remembered the days in Kharbranth, when she’d been so uncertain, so timid. She couldn’t return to that. She wouldn’t. But what to do instead?
When she finally reached her rooms, Pattern was buzzing at her. She tossed aside her sketchpad and satchel, digging out Veil’s coat and hat. Veil would know what to do.
However, pinned to the inside of Veil’s coat was a sheet of paper. Shallan froze, then looked around the room, suddenly anxious. Hesitantly, she unpinned the sheet and unfolded it.
The top read:
You have accomplished the task we set out for you. You have investigated the Unmade, and not only learned something of it, but also frightened it away. As promised, here is your reward.
The following letter explains the truth about your deceased brother, Nan Helaran, acolyte of the Radiant order of the Skybreakers.
As for Uli Da, it was obvious from the outset that she was going to be a problem. Good riddance.
There are at least two major institutions on Roshar, other than ourselves, which presaged the return of the Voidbringers and the Desolations, the letter read.
You are familiar with the first of these, the men who call themselves the Sons of Honor. The old king of Alethkar—the Blackthorn’s brother, Gavilar Kholin—was
a driving force in their expansion. He brought Meridas Amaram into their fold.
As you no doubt discovered upon infiltrating Amaram’s mansion in the warcamps, the Sons of Honor explicitly worked for the return of the Desolations. They believed that only the Voidbringers would cause the Heralds to show themselves—and they believed that a Desolation would restore both the Knights Radiant and the classical strength of the Vorin church. King Gavilar’s efforts to rekindle the Desolations are likely the true reason he was assassinated. Though there were many in the palace that night who had reason to see him dead.
A second group who knew the Desolations might return are the Skybreakers. Led by the ancient Herald Nalan’Elin—often simply called Nale—the Skybreakers are the only order of Radiants that did not betray its oaths during the Recreance. They have maintained a continuous clandestine line from ancient days.
Nale believed that men speaking the Words of other orders would hasten the return of the Voidbringers. We do not know how this could possibly be true, but as a Herald, Nale has access to knowledge and understanding beyond us.
You should know that the Heralds are no longer to be seen as allies to man. Those that are not completely insane have been broken. Nale himself is ruthless, without pity or mercy. He has spent the last two decades—perhaps much longer—dealing with anyone close to bonding a spren. Sometimes he recruited these people, bonding them to highspren and making them Skybreakers. Others he eliminated. If the person had already bonded a spren, then Nale usually went in person to dispatch them. If not, he sent a minion.
A minion like your brother Helaran.
Your mother had intimate contact with a Skybreaker acolyte, and you know the result of that relationship. Your brother was recruited because Nale was impressed with him. Nale may also have learned, through means we do not understand, that a member of your house was close to bonding a spren. If this is true, they came to believe that Helaran was the one they wanted. They recruited him with displays of great power and Shards.
Helaran had not yet proved himself worthy of a spren bond. Nale is exacting with his recruits. Likely, Helaran was sent to kill Amaram as a test—either that or he took it upon himself as a way of proving his worthiness for knighthood.
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