“Thank you, Brightness,” Shallan said, bowing her head.
Jasnah nodded, as if considering the matter closed. Shallan withdrew, walking quietly down the hallway and pulling the cord to ring for the porters.
Jasnah had all but promised to accept her at a later date. For most, that would be a great victory. Being trained by Jasnah Kholin—thought by some to be the finest living scholar—would have ensured a bright future. Shallan would have married extremely well, likely to the son of a highprince, and would have found new social circles open to her. Indeed, if Shallan had possessed the time to train under Jasnah, the sheer prestige of a Kholin affiliation might have been enough to save her house.
If only.
Eventually, Shallan made her way out of the Conclave; there were no gates on the front, just pillars set before the open maw. She was surprised to discover how dim it was outside. She trailed down the large steps, then took a smaller, more cultivated side path where she would be out of the way. Small shelves of ornamental shalebark had been grown along this walkway, and several species had let out fanlike tendrils to wave in the evening breeze. A few lazy lifespren—like specks of glowing green dust—flitted from one frond to the next.
Shallan leaned back against the stonelike plant, the tendrils pulling in and hiding. From this vantage, she could look down at Kharbranth, lights glowing beneath her like a cascade of fire streaming down the cliff face. The only other option for her and her brothers was to run. To abandon the family estates in Jah Keved and seek asylum. But where? Were there old allies her father hadn’t alienated?
There was that matter of the strange collection of maps they’d found in his study. What did they mean? He’d rarely spoken of his plans to his children. Even her father’s advisors knew very little. Helaran—her eldest brother—had known more, but he had vanished over a year ago, and her father had proclaimed him dead.
As always, thinking of her father made her feel ill, and the pain started to constrict her chest. She raised her freehand to her head, suddenly overwhelmed by the weight of House Davar’s situation, her part in it, and the secret she now carried, hidden ten heartbeats away.
“Ho, young miss!” a voice called. She turned, shocked to see Yalb standing up on a rocky shelf a short distance from the Conclave entrance. A group of men in guard uniforms sat on the rock around him.
“Yalb?” she said, aghast. He should have returned to his ship hours ago. She hurried over to stand below the short stone outcropping. “Why are you still here?”
“Oh,” he said, grinning, “I found myself a game of kabers here with these fine, upstanding gentlemen of the city guard. Figured officers of the law were right unlikely to cheat me, so we entered into a friendly-type game while I waited.”
“But you didn’t need to wait.”
“Didn’t need to win eighty chips off these fellows neither,” Yalb said with a laugh. “But I did both!”
The men sitting around him looked far less enthusiastic. Their uniforms were orange tabards tied about the middle with white sashes.
“Well, I suppose I should be leading you back to the ship, then,” Yalb said, reluctantly gathering up the spheres in the pile at his feet. They glowed with a variety of hues. Their light was small—each was only a chip—but it was impressive winnings.
Shallan stepped back as Yalb hopped off the rock shelf. His companions protested his departure, but he gestured to Shallan. “You’d have me leave a lighteyed woman of her stature to walk back to the ship on her own? I figured you for men of honor!”
That quieted their protests.
Yalb chuckled to himself, bowing to Shallan and leading her away down the path. He had a twinkle to his eyes. “Stormfather, but it’s fun to win against lawmen. I’ll have free drinks at the docks once this gets around.”
“You shouldn’t gamble,” Shallan said. “You shouldn’t try to guess the future. I didn’t give you that sphere so you could waste it on such practices.”
Yalb laughed. “It ain’t gambling if you know you’re going to win, young miss.”
“You cheated?” she hissed, horrified. She glanced back at the guardsmen, who had settled down to continue their game, lit by the spheres on the stones before them.
“Not so loud!” Yalb said in a low voice. However, he seemed very pleased with himself. “Cheating four guardsmen, now that’s a trick. Hardly believe I managed it!”
“I’m disappointed in you. This is not proper behavior.”
“It is if you’re a sailor, young miss.” He shrugged. “It’s what they right expected from me. Watched me like handlers of poisonous skyeels, they did. The game wasn’t about the cards—it was about them trying to figure how I was cheating and me trying to figure how to keep them from hauling me off. I think I might not have managed to walk away with my skin if you hadn’t arrived!” That didn’t seem to worry him much.
The roadway down to the docks was not nearly as busy as it had been earlier, but there were still a surprisingly large number of people about. The street was lit by oil lanterns—spheres would just have ended up in someone’s pouch—but many of the people about carried sphere lanterns, casting a rainbow of colored light on the roadway. The people were almost like spren, each a different hue, moving this way or that.
“So, young miss,” Yalb said, leading her carefully through the traffic. “You really want to go back? I just said what I did so I could extract myself from that game there.”
“Yes, I do want to go back, please.”
“And your princess?”
Shallan grimaced. “The meeting was…unproductive.”
“She didn’t take you? What’s wrong with her?”
“Chronic competence, I should guess. She’s been so successful in life that she has unrealistic expectations of others.”
Yalb frowned, guiding Shallan around a group of revelers stumbling drunkenly up the roadway. Wasn’t it a little early for that sort of thing? Yalb got a few steps ahead, turning and walking backward, looking at her. “That doesn’t make sense, young miss. What more could she want than you?”
“Much more, apparently.”
“But you’re perfect! Pardon my forwardness.”
“You’re walking backward.”
“Pardon my backwardness, then. You look good from any side, young miss, that you do.”
She found herself smiling. Tozbek’s sailors had far too high an opinion of her.
“You’d make an ideal ward,” he continued. “Genteel, pretty, refined and such. Don’t much like your opinion on gambling, but that’s to be expected. Wouldn’t be right for a proper woman not to scold a fellow for gambling. It’d be like the sun refusing to rise or the sea turning white.”
“Or Jasnah Kholin smiling.”
“Exactly! Anyway, you’re perfect.”
“It’s kind of you to say so.”
“Well, it’s true,” he said, putting hands on hips, stopping. “So that’s it? You’re going to give up?”
She gave him a perplexed stare. He stood there on the busy roadway, lit from above by a lantern burning yellow-orange, hands on his hips, white Thaylen eyebrows drooping along the sides of his face, bare-chested under his open vest. That was a posture no citizen, no matter how high ranked, had ever taken at her father’s mansion.
“I did try to persuade her,” Shallan said, blushing. “I went to her a second time, and she rejected me again.”
“Two times, eh? In cards, you always got to try a third hand. It wins the most often.”
Shallan frowned. “But that’s not really true. The laws of probability and statistics—”
“Don’t know much blustering math,” Yalb said, folding his arms. “But I do know the Passions. You win when you need it most, you see.”
The Passions. Pagan superstition. Of course, Jasnah had referred to glyphwards as superstition too, so perhaps it all came down to perspective.
Try a third time…Shallan shivered to consider Jasnah’s wrath if Shallan bothered her yet aga
in. She’d surely withdraw the offer to come study with her in the future.
But Shallan would never get to take that offer. It was like a glass sphere with no gemstone at the center. Pretty, but worthless. Was it not better to take one last chance at getting the position she needed now?
It wouldn’t work. Jasnah had made it quite clear that Shallan was not yet educated enough.
Not yet educated enough…
An idea sparked in Shallan’s head. She raised her safehand to her breast, standing on that roadway, considering the audacity of it. She’d likely get herself thrown from the city at Jasnah’s demand.
Yet if she returned home without trying every avenue, could she face her brothers? They depended on her. For once in her life, someone needed Shallan. That responsibility excited her. And terrified her.
“I need a book merchant,” she found herself saying, voice wavering slightly.
Yalb raised an eyebrow at her.
“Third hand wins the most. Do you think you can find me a book merchant who is open at this hour?”
“Kharbranth is a major port, young miss,” he said with a laugh. “Stores stay open late. Just wait here.” He dashed off into the evening crowd, leaving her with an anxious protest on her lips.
She sighed, then seated herself in a demure posture on the stone base of a lantern pole. It should be safe. She saw other lighteyed women passing on the street, though they were often carried in palanquins or those small, hand-pulled vehicles. She even saw the occasional real carriage, though only the very wealthy could afford to keep horses.
A few minutes later, Yalb popped out of the crowd as if from nowhere and waved for her to follow. She rose and hurried to him.
“Should we get a porter?” she asked as he led her to a large side street that ran laterally across the city’s hill. She stepped carefully; her skirt was long enough that she worried about tearing the hem on the stone. The strip at the bottom was designed to be easily replaced, but Shallan could hardly afford to waste spheres on such things.
“Nah,” Yalb said. “It’s right here.” He pointed along another cross street. This one had a row of shops climbing up the steep slope, each with a sign hanging out front bearing the glyphpair for book, and those glyphs were often styled into the shape of a book. Illiterate servants who might be sent to a shop had to be able to recognize them.
“Merchants of the same type like to clump together,” Yalb said, rubbing his chin. “Seems dumb to me, but I guess merchants are like fish. Where you find one, you’ll find others.”
“The same could be said of ideas,” Shallan said, counting. Six different shops. All were lit with Stormlight in the windows, cool and even.
“Third one on the left,” Yalb said, pointing. “Merchant’s name is Artmyrn. My sources say he’s the best.” It was a Thaylen name. Likely Yalb had asked others from his homeland, and they had pointed him here.
She nodded to Yalb and they climbed up the steep stone street to the shop. Yalb didn’t enter with her; she’d noticed that many men were uncomfortable around books and reading, even those who weren’t Vorin.
She pushed through the door—stout wood set with two crystal panels—and stepped into a warm room, uncertain what to expect. She’d never gone into a store to purchase anything; she’d either sent servants, or the merchants had come to her.
The room inside looked very inviting, with large, comfortable easy chairs beside a hearth. Flamespren danced on burning logs there, and the floor was wood. Seamless wood; it had probably been Soulcast that way directly from the stone beneath. Lavish indeed.
A woman stood behind a counter at the back of the room. She wore an embroidered skirt and blouse, rather than the sleek, silk, one-piece havah that Shallan wore. She was darkeyed, but she was obviously affluent. In Vorin kingdoms, she’d likely be of the first or second nahn. Thaylens had their own system of ranks. At least they weren’t completely pagan—they respected eye color, and the woman wore a glove on her safehand.
There weren’t many books in the place. A few on the counter, one on a stand beside the chairs. A clock ticked on the wall, its underside hung with a dozen shimmering silver bells. This looked more like a person’s home than a shop.
The woman slid a marker into her book, smiling at Shallan. It was a smooth, eager smile. Almost predatory. “Please, Brightness, sit,” she said, waving toward the chairs. The woman had curled her long, white Thaylen eyebrows so they hung down the sides of her face like locks from her bangs.
Shallan sat hesitantly as the woman rang a bell on the underside of the counter. Soon, a portly man waddled into the room wearing a vest that seemed ready to burst from the stress of holding in his girth. His hair was greying, and he kept his eyebrows combed back, over his ears.
“Ah,” he said, clapping ample hands, “dear young woman. Are you in the market for a nice novel? Some leisure reading to pass the cruel hours while you are separated from a lost love? Or perhaps a book on geography, with details of exotic locations?” He had a slightly condescending tone and spoke in her native Veden.
“I—No, thank you. I need an extensive set of books on history and three on philosophy.” She thought back, trying to recall the names Jasnah had used. “Something by Placini, Gabrathin, Yustara, Manaline, or Shauka-daughter-Hasweth.”
“Heavy reading for one so young,” the man said, nodding to the woman, who was probably his wife. She ducked into the back room. He’d use her for reading; even if he could read himself, he wouldn’t want to off end customers by doing so in their presence. He would handle the money; commerce was a masculine art in most situations.
“Now, why is a young flower like yourself bothering herself with such topics?” the merchant said, easing himself down into the chair across from her. “Can’t I interest you in a nice romantic novel? They are my specialty, you see. Young women from across the city come to me, and I always carry the best.”
His tone set her on edge. It was galling enough to know she was a sheltered child. Was it really necessary to remind her of it? “A romantic novel,” she said, holding her satchel close to her chest. “Yes, perhaps that would be nice. Do you by chance have a copy of Nearer the Flame?”
The merchant blinked. Nearer the Flame was written from the viewpoint of a man who slowly descended into madness after watching his children starve.
“Are you certain you want something so, er, ambitious?” the man asked.
“Is ambition such an unseemly attribute in a young woman?”
“Well, no, I suppose not.” He smiled again—the thick, toothy smile of a merchant trying to put someone at ease. “I can see you are a woman of discriminating taste.”
“I am,” Shallan said, voice firm though her heart fluttered. Was she destined to get into an argument with everyone she met? “I do like my meals prepared very carefully, as my palate is quite delicate.”
“Pardon. I meant that you have discriminating taste in books.”
“I’ve never eaten one, actually.”
“Brightness, I believe you are having sport with me.”
“Not yet I’m not. I haven’t even really begun.”
“I—”
“Now,” she said, “you were right to compare the mind and the stomach.”
“But—”
“Too many of us,” she said, “take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes. Wouldn’t you say?”
He nodded, perhaps not trusting her to let him speak without interrupting. Shallan knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she was letting herself go too far—that she was tense and frustrated after her interactions with Jasnah.
She didn’t care at the moment. “Discriminating,” she said, testing the world. “I’m not certain I agree with your choice of words. To discriminate is to maintain prejudice against. To be exclusive. Can a person afford to be exclusive with what they ingest? Whether we speak of food or of thoughts?”
“I think they m
ust be,” the merchant said. “Isn’t that what you just said?”
“I said we should take thought for what we read or eat. Not that we should be exclusive. Tell me, what do you think would happen to a person who ate only sweets?”
“I know well,” the man said. “I have a sister-in-law who periodically upsets her stomach by doing that.”
“See, she was too discriminating. The body needs many different foods to remain healthy. And the mind needs many different ideas to remain sharp. Wouldn’t you agree? And so if I were to read only these silly romances you presume that my ambition can handle, my mind would grow sick as surely as your sister-in-law’s stomach. Yes, I should think that the metaphor is a solid one. You are quite clever, Master Artmyrn.”
His smile returned.
“Of course,” she noted, not smiling back, “being talked down to upsets both the mind and the stomach. So nice of you to give a poignant object lesson to accompany your brilliant metaphor. Do you treat all of your customers this way?”
“Brightness…I believe you stray into sarcasm.”
“Funny. I thought I’d run straight into it, screaming at the top of my lungs.”
He blushed and stood. “I’ll go help my wife.” He hurriedly withdrew.
She sat back, and realized she was annoyed at herself for letting her frustration boil out. It was just what her nurses had warned her about. A young woman had to mind her words. Her father’s intemperate tongue had earned their house a regrettable reputation; would she add to it?
She calmed herself, enjoying the warmth and watching the dancing flamespren until the merchant and his wife returned, bearing several stacks of books. The merchant took his seat again, and his wife pulled over a stool, setting the tomes on the floor and then showing them one at a time as her husband spoke.
“For history, we have two choices,” the merchant said, condescension—and friendliness—gone. “Times and Passage, by Rencalt, is a single volume survey of Rosharan history since the Hierocracy.” His wife held up a red, cloth-bound volume. “I told my wife that you would likely be insulted by such a shallow option, but she insisted.”
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