“A man stood on a cliffside and watched his homeland fall into dust. The waters surged beneath, so far beneath. And he heard a child crying. They were his own tears.”
—Collected on the 4th of Tanates, year 1171, thirty seconds before death. Subject was a cobbler of some renown.
Kharbranth, City of Bells, was not a place that Shallan had ever imagined she would visit. Though she’d often dreamed of traveling, she’d expected to spend her early life sequestered in her family’s manor, only escaping through the books of her father’s library. She’d expected to marry one of her father’s allies, then spend the rest of her life sequestered in his manor.
But expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.
She found herself breathless, clutching her leather-bound drawing pad to her chest as longshoremen pulled the ship into the dock. Kharbranth was enormous. Built up the side of a steep incline, the city was wedge-shaped, as if it were built into a wide crack, with the open side toward the ocean. The buildings were blocky, with square windows, and appeared to have been constructed of some kind of mud or daub. Crem, perhaps? They were painted bright colors, reds and oranges most often, but occasional blues and yellows too.
She could hear the bells already, tinkling in the wind, ringing with pure voices. She had to strain her neck to look up toward the city’s loftiest rim; Kharbranth was like a mountain towering over her. How many people lived in a place like this? Thousands? Tens of thousands? She shivered again— daunted yet excited—then blinked pointedly, fixing the image of the city in her memory.
Sailors rushed about. The Wind’s pleasure was a narrow, single-masted vessel, barely large enough for her, the captain, his wife, and the half-dozen crew. It had seemed so small at first, but Captain Tozbek was a calm and cautious man, an excellent sailor, even if he was a pagan. He’d guided the ship with care along the coast, always finding a sheltered cove to ride out highstorms.
The captain oversaw the work as the men secured the mooring. Tozbek was a short man, even-shouldered with Shallan, and he wore his long white Thaylen eyebrows up in a curious spiked pattern. It was like he had two waving fans above his eyes, a foot long each. He wore a simple knit cap and a silver-buttoned black coat. She’d imagined him getting that scar on his jaw in a furious sea battle with pirates. The day before, she’d been disappointed to hear it had been caused by loose tackle during rough weather.
His wife, Ashlv, was already walking down the gangplank to register their vessel. The captain saw Shallan inspecting him, and so walked over. He was a business connection of her family’s, long trusted by her father. That was good, since the plan she and her brothers had concocted had contained no place for her bringing along a lady-in-waiting or nurse.
That plan made Shallan nervous. Very, very nervous. She hated being duplicitous. But the financial state of her house…They either needed a spectacular infusion of wealth or some other edge in local Veden house politics. Otherwise, they wouldn’t last the year.
First things first, Shallan thought, forcing herself to be calm. Find Jasnah Kholin. Assuming she hasn’t moved off without you again.
“I’ve sent a lad on your behalf, Brightness,” Tozbek said. “If the princess is still here, we shall soon know.”
Shallan nodded gratefully, still clutching her drawing pad. Out in the city, there were people everywhere. Some wore familiar clothing—trousers and shirts that laced up the front for the men, skirts and colorful blouses for the women. Those could have been from her homeland, Jah Keved. But
Kharbranth was a free city. A small, politically fragile city-state, it held little territory but had docks open to all ships that passed, and it asked no questions about nationality or status. People flowed to it.
That meant many of the people she saw were exotic. Those single- sheet wraps would mark a man or woman from Tashikk, far to the west. The long coats, enveloping down to the ankles, but open in the front like cloaks…where were those from? She’d rarely seen so many parshmen as she noted working the docks, carrying cargo on their backs. Like the parshmen her father had owned, these were stout and thick of limb, with their odd marbled skin—some parts pale or black, others a deep crimson. The mottled pattern was unique to each individual.
After chasing Jasnah Kholin from town to town for the better part of six months, Shallan was beginning to think she’d never catch the woman. Was the princess avoiding her? No, that didn’t seem likely—Shallan just wasn’t important enough to wait for. Brightness Jasnah Kholin was one of the most powerful women in the world. And one of the most infamous. She was the only member of a faithful royal house who was a professed heretic.
Shallan tried not to grow anxious. Most likely, they’d discover that Jasnah had moved on again. The Wind’s pleasure would dock for the night, and Shallan would negotiate a price with the captain—steeply discounted, because of her family’s investments in Tozbek’s shipping business—to take her to the next port.
Already, they were months past the time when Tozbek had expected to be rid of her. She’d never sensed resentment from him; his honor and loyalty kept him agreeing to her requests. However, his patience wouldn’t last forever, and neither would her money. She’d already used over half the spheres she’d brought with her. He wouldn’t abandon her in an unfamiliar city, of course, but he might regretfully insist on taking her back to Vedenar. “Captain!” a sailor said, rushing up the gangplank. He wore only a vest
and loose, baggy trousers, and had the darkly tanned skin of one who worked in the sun. “No message, sir. Dock registrar says that Jasnah hasn’t left yet.”
“Ha!” the captain said, turning to Shallan. “The hunt is over!” “Bless the Heralds,” Shallan said softly.
The captain smiled, flamboyant eyebrows looking like streaks of light coming from his eyes. “It must be your beautiful face that brought us this
favorable wind! The windspren themselves were entranced by you, Brightness Shallan, and led us here!”
Shallan blushed, considering a response that wasn’t particularly proper. “Ah!” the captain said, pointing at her. “I can see you have a reply—I
see it in your eyes, young miss! Spit it out. Words aren’t meant to be kept inside, you see. They are free creatures, and if locked away will unsettle the stomach.”
“It’s not polite,” Shallan protested.
Tozbek bellowed a laugh. “Months of travel, and still you claim that! I keep telling you that we’re sailors! We forgot how to be polite the moment we set first foot on a ship; we’re far beyond redemption now.”
She smiled. She’d been trained by stern nurses and tutors to hold her tongue—unfortunately, her brothers had been even more determined in encouraging her to do the opposite. She’d made a habit of entertaining them with witty comments when nobody else was near. She thought fondly of hours spent by the crackling greatroom hearth, the younger three of her four brothers huddled around her, listening as she made sport of their father’s newest sycophant or a traveling ardent. She’d often fabricated silly versions of conversations to fill the mouths of people they could see, but not hear.
That had established in her what her nurses had referred to as an “insolent streak.” And the sailors were even more appreciative of a witty comment than her brothers had been.
“Well,” Shallan said to the captain, blushing but still eager to speak, “I was just thinking this: You say that my beauty coaxed the winds to deliver us to Kharbranth with haste. But wouldn’t that imply that on other trips, my lack of beauty was to blame for us arriving late?”
“Well…er…”
“So in reality,” Shallan said, “you’re telling me I’m beautiful precisely one-sixth of the time.”
“Nonsense! Young miss, you’re like a morning sunrise, you are!”
“Like a sunrise? By that you mean entirely too crimson”—she pulled at her long red hair—“and prone to making men grouchy when they see me?”
He laughed, and several of the sailors nearby joined in. “All right then,” Captain Tozbek said, “you’re like a flower.”
She grimaced. “I’m allergic to flowers.” He raised an eyebrow.
“No, really,” she admitted. “I think they’re quite captivating. But if you were to give me a bouquet, you’d soon find me in a fit so energetic that it would have you searching the walls for stray freckles I might have blown free with the force of my sneezes.”
“Well, be that true, I still say you’re as pretty as a flower.”
“If I am, then young men my age must be afflicted with the same allergy—for they keep their distance from me noticeably.” She winced. “Now, see, I told you this wasn’t polite. Young women should not act in such an irritable way.”
“Ah, young miss,” the captain said, tipping his knit cap toward her. “The lads and I will miss your clever tongue. I’m not sure what we’ll do without you.”
“Sail, likely,” she said. “And eat, and sing, and watch the waves. All the things you do now, only you shall have rather more time to accomplish all of it, as you won’t be stumbling across a youthful girl as she sits on your deck sketching and mumbling to herself. But you have my thanks, Captain, for a trip that was wonderful—if somewhat exaggerated in length.”
He tipped his cap to her in acknowledgment.
Shallan grinned—she hadn’t expected being out on her own to be so liberating. Her brothers had worried that she’d be frightened. They saw her as timid because she didn’t like to argue and remained quiet when large groups were talking. And perhaps she was timid—being away from Jah Keved was daunting. But it was also wonderful. She’d filled three sketchbooks with pictures of the creatures and people she’d seen, and while her worry over her house’s finances was a perpetual cloud, it was balanced by the sheer delight of experience.
Tozbek began making dock arrangements for his ship. He was a good man. As for his praise of her supposed beauty, she took that for what it was. A kind, if overstated, mark of affection. She was pale-skinned in an era when Alethi tan was seen as the mark of true beauty, and though she had light blue eyes, her impure family line was manifest in her auburn-red hair. Not a single lock of proper black. Her freckles had faded as she reached young womanhood—Heralds be blessed—but there were still some visible, dusting her cheeks and nose.
“Young miss,” the captain said to her after conferring with his men, “Your Brightness Jasnah, she’ll undoubtedly be at the Conclave, you see.”
“Oh, where the Palanaeum is?”
“Yes, yes. And the king lives there too. It’s the center of the city, so to speak. Except it’s on the top.” He scratched his chin. “Well, anyway, Brightness Jasnah Kholin is sister to a king; she will stay nowhere else, not in Kharbranth. Yalb here will show you the way. We can deliver your trunk later.”
“Many thanks, Captain,” she said. “Shaylor mkabat nour.” The winds have brought us safely. A phrase of thanks in the Thaylen language.
The captain smiled broadly. “Mkai bade fortenthis!”
She had no idea what that meant. Her Thaylen was quite good when she was reading, but hearing it spoken was something else entirely. She smiled at him, which seemed the proper response, for he laughed, gesturing to one of his sailors.
“We’ll wait here in this dock for two days,” he told her. “There is a highstorm coming tomorrow, you see, so we cannot leave. If the situation with the Brightness Jasnah does not proceed as hoped, we’ll take you back to Jah Keved.”
“Thank you again.”
“’Tis nothing, young miss,” he said. “Nothing but what we’d be doing anyway. We can take on goods here and all. Besides, that’s a right nice likeness of my wife you gave me for my cabin. Right nice.”
He strode over to Yalb, giving him instructions. Shallan waited, putting her drawing pad back into her leather portfolio. Yalb. The name was difficult for her Veden tongue to pronounce. Why were the Thaylens so fond of mashing letters together, without proper vowels?
Yalb waved for her. She moved to follow.
“Be careful with yourself, lass,” the captain warned as she passed. “Even a safe city like Kharbranth hides dangers. Keep your wits about you.”
“I should think I’d prefer my wits inside my skull, Captain,” she replied, carefully stepping onto the gangplank. “If I keep them ‘about me’ instead, then someone has gotten entirely too close to my head with a cudgel.”
The captain laughed, waving her farewell as she made her way down the gangplank, holding the railing with her freehand. Like all Vorin women, she kept her left hand—her safehand—covered, exposing only her freehand. Common darkeyed women would wear a glove, but a woman of her rank was expected to show more modesty than that. In her case, she kept her
safehand covered by the oversized cuff of her left sleeve, which was buttoned closed.
The dress was of a traditional Vorin cut, formfitting through the bust, shoulders, and waist, with a flowing skirt below. It was blue silk with chull- shell buttons up the sides, and she carried her satchel by pressing it to her chest with her safehand while holding the railing with her freehand.
She stepped off the gangplank into the furious activity of the docks, messengers running this way and that, women in red coats tracking cargos on ledgers. Kharbranth was a Vorin kingdom, like Alethkar and like Shallan’s own Jah Keved. They weren’t pagans here, and writing was a feminine art; men learned only glyphs, leaving letters and reading to their wives and sisters.
She hadn’t asked, but she was certain Captain Tozbek could read. She’d seen him holding books; it had made her uncomfortable. Reading was an unseemly trait in a man. At least, men who weren’t ardents.
“You wanna ride?” Yalb asked her, his rural Thaylen dialect so thick she could barely make out the words.
“Yes, please.”
He nodded and rushed off, leaving her on the docks, surrounded by a group of parshmen who were laboriously moving wooden crates from one pier to another. Parshmen were thick-witted, but they made excellent workers. Never complaining, always doing as they were told. Her father had preferred them to regular slaves.
Were the Alethi really fighting parshmen out on the Shattered Plains? That seemed so odd to Shallan. Parshmen didn’t fight. They were docile and practically mute. Of course, from what she’d heard, the ones out on the Shattered Plains—the Parshendi, they were called—were physically different from regular parshmen. Stronger, taller, keener of mind. Perhaps they weren’t really parshmen at all, but distant relatives of some kind.
To her surprise, she could see signs of animal life all around the docks. A few skyeels undulated through the air, searching for rats or fish. Tiny crabs hid between cracks in the dock’s boards, and a cluster of haspers clung to the dock’s thick logs. In a street inland of the docks, a prowling mink skulked in the shadows, watching for morsels that might be dropped.
She couldn’t resist pulling open her portfolio and beginning a sketch of a pouncing skyeel. Wasn’t it afraid of all the people? She held her sketchpad with her safehand, hidden fingers wrapping around the top as she
used a charcoal pencil to draw. Before she was finished, her guide returned with a man pulling a curious contraption with two large wheels and a canopy-covered seat. She hesitantly lowered her sketchpad. She’d expected a palanquin.
The man pulling the machine was short and dark-skinned, with a wide smile and full lips. He gestured for Shallan to sit, and she did so with the modest grace her nurses had drilled into her. The driver asked her a question in a clipped, terse-sounding language she didn’t recognize.
“What was that?” she asked Yalb.
“He wants to know if you’d like to be pulled the long way or the short way.” Yalb scratched his head. “I’m not right sure what the difference is.”
“I suspect one takes longer,” Shallan said.
“Oh, you are a clever one.” Yalb said something to the porter in that same clipped language, and the man responded.
“The long way gives a good view of the city,” Yalb said. “The short way goes straight up to the Conclave. Not many good views, he says. I guess he noticed you were new to the city.”
“Do I stand out that much?” Shallan asked, flushing. “Eh, no, of course not, Brightness.”
“And by that you mean that I’m as obvious as a wart on a queen’s nose.”
Yalb laughed. “Afraid so. But you can’t go someplace a second time until you been there a first time, I reckon. Everyone has to stand out sometime, so you might as well do it in a pretty way like yourself!”
She’d had to get used to gentle flirtation from the sailors. They were never too forward, and she suspected the captain’s wife had spoken to them sternly when she’d noticed how it made Shallan blush. Back at her father’s manor, servants—even those who had been full citizens—had been afraid to step out of their places.
The porter was still waiting for an answer. “The short way, please,” she told Yalb, though she longed to take the scenic path. She was finally in a real city and she took the direct route? But Brightness Jasnah had proven to be as elusive as a wild songling. Best to be quick.
The main roadway cut up the hillside in switchbacks, and so even the short way gave her time to see much of the city. It proved intoxicatingly rich with strange people, sights, and ringing bells. Shallan sat back and took it all in. Buildings were grouped by color, and that color seemed to indicate
purpose. Shops selling the same items would be painted the same shades— violet for clothing, green for foods. Homes had their own pattern, though Shallan couldn’t interpret it. The colors were soft, with a washed-out, subdued tonality.
Yalb walked alongside her cart, and the porter began to talk back toward her. Yalb translated, hands in the pockets of his vest. “He says that the city is special because of the lait here.”
Shallan nodded. Many cities were built in laits—areas protected from the highstorms by nearby rock formations.
“Kharbranth is one of the most sheltered major cities in the world,” Yalb continued, translating, “and the bells are a symbol of that. It’s said they were first erected to warn that a highstorm was blowing, since the winds were so soft that people didn’t always notice.” Yalb hesitated. “He’s just saying things because he wants a big tip, Brightness. I’ve heard that story, but I think it’s blustering ridiculous. If the winds blew strong enough to move bells, then people’d notice. Besides, people didn’t notice it was raining on their blustering heads?”
Shallan smiled. “It’s all right. He can continue.”
The porter chatted on in his clipped voice—what language was that, anyway? Shallan listened to Yalb’s translation, drinking in the sights, sounds, and—unfortunately—scents. She’d grown up accustomed to the crisp smell of freshly dusted furniture and flatbread baking in the kitchens. Her ocean journey had taught her new scents, of brine and clean sea air.
There was nothing clean in what she smelled here. Each passing alleyway had its own unique array of revolting stenches. These alternated with the spicy scents of street vendors and their foods, and the juxtaposition was even more nauseating. Fortunately, her porter moved into the central part of the roadway, and the stenches abated, though it did slow them as they had to contend with thicker traffic. She gawked at those they passed. Those men with gloved hands and faintly bluish skin were from Natanatan. But who were those tall, stately people dressed in robes of black? And the men with their beards bound in cords, making them rodlike?
The sounds put Shallan in mind of the competing choruses of wild songlings near her home, only multiplied in variety and volume. A hundred voices called to one another, mingling with doors slamming, wheels rolling on stone, occasional skyeels crying. The ever-present bells tinkled in the background, louder when the wind blew. They were displayed in the
windows of shops, hung from rafters. Each lantern pole along the street had a bell hung under the lamp, and her cart had a small silvery one at the very tip of its canopy. When she was about halfway up the hillside, a rolling wave of loud clock bells rang the hour. The varied, unsynchronized chimes made a clangorous din.
The crowds thinned as they reached the upper quarter of the city, and eventually her porter pulled her to a massive building at the very apex of the city. Painted white, it was carved from the rock face itself, rather than built of bricks or clay. The pillars out front grew seamlessly from the stone, and the back side of the building melded smoothly into the cliff. The outcroppings of roof had squat domes atop them, and were painted in metallic colors. Lighteyed women passed in and out, carrying scribing utensils and wearing dresses like Shallan’s, their left hands properly cuff ed. The men entering or leaving the building wore military-style Vorin coats and stiff trousers, buttons up the sides and ending in a stiff collar that wrapped the entire neck. Many carried swords at their waists, the belts wrapping around the knee-length coats.
The porter stopped and made a comment to Yalb. The sailor began arguing with him, hands on hips. Shallan smiled at his stern expression, and she blinked pointedly, affixing the scene in her memory for later sketching.
“He’s offering to split the difference with me if I let him inflate the price of the trip,” Yalb said, shaking his head and offering a hand to help Shallan from the cart. She stepped down, looking at the porter, who shrugged, smiling like a child who had been caught sneaking sweets.
She clutched her satchel with her cuff ed arm, searching through it with her freehand for her money pouch. “How much should I actually give him?”
“Two clearchips should be more than enough. I’d have offered one.
The thief wanted to ask for five.”
Before this trip, she’d never used money; she’d just admired the spheres for their beauty. Each one was composed of a glass bead a little larger than a person’s thumbnail with a much smaller gemstone set at the center. The gemstones could absorb Stormlight, and that made the spheres glow. When she opened the money pouch, shards of ruby, emerald, diamond, and sapphire shone out on her face. She fished out three diamond chips, the smallest denomination. Emeralds were the most valuable, for they could be used by Soulcasters to create food.
The glass part of most spheres was the same size; the size of the gemstone at the center determined the denomination. The three chips, for instance, each had only a tiny splinter of diamond inside. Even that was enough to glow with Stormlight, far fainter than a lamp, but still visible. A mark—the medium denomination of sphere—was a little less bright than a candle, and it took five chips to make a mark.
She’d brought only infused spheres, as she’d heard that dun ones were considered suspect, and sometimes a moneylender would have to be brought in to judge the authenticity of the gemstone. She kept the most valuable spheres she had in her safepouch, of course, which was buttoned to the inside of her left sleeve.
She handed the three chips to Yalb, who cocked his head. She nodded at the porter, blushing, realizing that she’d reflexively used Yalb like a master-servant intermediary. Would he be offended?
He laughed and stood up stiffly, as if imitating a master-servant, paying the porter with a mock stern expression. The porter laughed, bowed to Shallan, then pulled his cart away.
“This is for you,” Shallan said, taking out a ruby mark and handing it to Yalb.
“Brightness, this is too much!”
“It’s partially out of thanks,” she said, “but is also to pay you to stay here and wait for a few hours, in case I return.”
“Wait a few hours for a firemark? That’s wages for a week’s sailing!” “Then it should be enough to make certain you don’t wander off.”
“I’ll be right here!” Yalb said, giving her an elaborate bow that was surprisingly well-executed.
Shallan took a deep breath and strode up the steps toward the Conclave’s imposing entrance. The carved rock really was remarkable—the artist in her wanted to linger and study it, but she didn’t dare. Entering the large building was like being swallowed. The hallway inside was lined with Stormlight lamps that shone with white light. Diamond broams were probably set inside them; most buildings of fine construction used Stormlight to provide illumination. A broam—the highest denomination of sphere—glowed with about the same light as several candles.
Their light shone evenly and softly on the many attendants, scribes, and lighteyes moving through the hallway. The building appeared to be constructed as one broad, high, and long tunnel, burrowed into the rock.
Grand chambers lined the sides, and subsidiary corridors branched off the central grand promenade. She felt far more comfortable than she had outdoors. This place—with its bustling servants, its lesser brightlords and brightladies—was familiar.
She raised her freehand in a sign of need, and sure enough, a master- servant in a crisp white shirt and black trousers hurried over to her. “Brightness?” he asked, speaking her native Veden, likely because of the color of her hair.
“I seek Jasnah Kholin,” Shallan said. “I have word that she is within these walls.”
The master-servant bowed crisply. Most master-servants prided themselves on their refined service—the very same air that Yalb had been mocking moments ago. “I shall return, Brightness.” He would be of the second nahn, a darkeyed citizen of very high rank. In Vorin belief, one’s Calling—the task to which one dedicated one’s life—was of vital importance. Choosing a good profession and working hard at it was the best way to ensure good placement in the afterlife. The specific devotary that one visited for worship often had to do with the nature of one’s chosen Calling.
Shallan folded her arms, waiting. She had thought long about her own Calling. The obvious choice was her art, and she did so love sketching. But it was more than just the drawing that attracted her—it was the study, the questions raised by observation. Why weren’t the skyeels afraid of people? What did haspers feed on? Why did a rat population thrive in one area, but fail in another? So she’d chosen natural history instead.
She longed to be a true scholar, to receive real instruction, to spend time on deep research and study. Was that part of why she’d suggested this daring plan of seeking out Jasnah and becoming her ward? Perhaps. However, she needed to remain focused. Becoming Jasnah’s ward—and therefore student—was only one step.
She considered this as she idly walked up to a pillar, using her freehand to feel the polished stone. Like much of Roshar—save for certain coastal regions—Kharbranth was built on raw, unbroken stone. The buildings outside had been set directly on the rock, and this one sliced into it. The pillar was granite, she guessed, though her geological knowledge was sketchy.
The floor was covered with long, burnt-orange rugs. The material was dense, designed to look rich but bear heavy traffic. The broad, rectangular hallway had an old feel to it. One book she’d read claimed that Kharbranth had been founded way back into the shadowdays, years before the Last Desolation. That would make it old indeed. Thousands of years old, created before the terrors of the Hierocracy, long before—even—the Recreance. Back when Voidbringers with bodies of stone were said to have stalked the land.
“Brightness?” a voice asked.
Shallan turned to find that the servant had returned. “This way, Brightness.”
She nodded to the servant, and he led her quickly down the busy hallway. She went over how to present herself to Jasnah. The woman was a legend. Even Shallan—living in the remote estates of Jah Keved—had heard of the Alethi king’s brilliant, heretic sister. Jasnah was only thirty- four years old, yet many felt she would already have obtained the cap of a master scholar if it weren’t for her vocal denunciations of religion. Most specifically, she denounced the devotaries, the various religious congregations that proper Vorin people joined.
Improper quips would not serve Shallan well here. She would have to be proper. Wardship to a woman of great renown was the best way to be schooled in the feminine arts: music, painting, writing, logic, and science. It was much like how a young man would train in the honor guard of a brightlord he respected.
Shallan had originally written to Jasnah requesting a wardship in desperation; she hadn’t actually expected the woman to reply in the affirmative. When she had—via a letter commanding Shallan to attend her in Dumadari in two weeks—Shallan had been shocked. She’d been chasing the woman ever since.
Jasnah was a heretic. Would she demand that Shallan renounce her faith? She doubted she could do such a thing. Vorin teachings regarding one’s Glory and Calling had been one of her few refuges during the difficult days, when her father had been at his worst.
They turned into a narrower hallway, entering corridors increasingly far from the main cavern. Finally, the master-servant stopped at a corner and gestured for Shallan to continue. There were voices coming from the corridor to the right.
Shallan hesitated. Sometimes, she wondered how it had come to this. She was the quiet one, the timid one, the youngest of five siblings and the only girl. Sheltered, protected all her life. And now the hopes of her entire house rested on her shoulders.
Their father was dead. And it was vital that remain a secret.
She didn’t like to think of that day—she all but blocked it from her mind, and trained herself to think of other things. But the effects of his loss could not be ignored. He had made many promises—some business deals, some bribes, some of the latter disguised as the former. House Davar owed great amounts of money to a great number of people, and without her father to keep them all appeased, the creditors would soon begin making demands. There was nobody to turn to. Her family, mostly because of her father,
was loathed even by its allies. Highprince Valam—the brightlord to whom her family gave fealty—was ailing, and no longer offered them the protection he once had. When it became known that her father was dead and her family bankrupt, that would be the end of House Davar. They’d be consumed and subjugated to another house.
They’d be worked to the bone as punishment—in fact, they might even face assassination by disgruntled creditors. Preventing that depended on Shallan, and the first step came with Jasnah Kholin.
Shallan took a deep breath, then strode around the corner.
