The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,257

much younger now, stripped of both clothing and intensity, floating like a child resting after a day of active swimming.

Thirty-four years old. That seemed ancient in some regards—some women Jasnah’s age had children as old as Shallan. And yet it was also young. Young enough that Jasnah was praised for her beauty, young enough that men declared it a shame she wasn’t yet married.

Shallan glanced at the pile of clothing. She carried the broken fabrial in her safepouch. She could swap them here and now. It was the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Jasnah now trusted her enough to relax, soaking in the bathing chamber without worrying about her fabrial.

Could Shallan really do it? Could she betray this woman who had taken her in?

Considering what I’ve done before, she thought, this is nothing. It wouldn’t be the first time she betrayed someone who trusted her.

She stood up. To the side, Jasnah cracked an eye.

Blast, Shallan thought, tucking the book under her arm, pacing, trying to look thoughtful. Jasnah watched her. Not suspiciously. Curiously.

“Why did your father want to make a treaty with the Parshendi?” Shallan found herself asking as she walked.

“Why wouldn’t he want to?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Of course it is. It’s just not one that tells you anything.”

“It would help, Brightness, if you would give me a useful answer.”

“Then ask a useful question.”

Shallan set her jaw. “What did the Parshendi have that King Gavilar wanted?”

Jasnah smiled, closing her eyes again. “Closer. But you can probably guess the answer to that.”

“Shards.”

Jasnah nodded, still relaxed in the water.

“The text doesn’t mention them,” Shallan said.

“My father didn’t speak of them,” Jasnah said. “But from things he said…well, I now suspect that they motivated the treaty.”

“Can you be sure he knew, though? Maybe he just wanted the gemhearts.”

“Perhaps,” Jasnah said. “The Parshendi seemed amused at our interest in the gemstones woven into their beards.” She smiled. “You should have seen our shock when we discovered where they’d gotten them. When the lanceryn died off during the scouring of Aimia, we thought we’d seen the last gemhearts of large size. And yet here was another great-shelled beast with them, living in a land not too distant from Kholinar itself.

“Anyway, the Parshendi were willing to share them with us, so long as they could still hunt them too. To them, if you took the trouble to hunt the chasmfiends, their gemhearts were yours. I doubt a treaty would have been needed for that. And yet, just before leaving to return to Alethkar, my father suddenly began talking fervently of the need for an agreement.”

“So what happened? What changed?”

“I can’t be certain. However, he once described the strange actions of a Parshendi warrior during a chasmfiend hunt. Instead of reaching for his spear when the greatshell appeared, this man held his hand to the side in a very suspicious way. Only my father saw it; I suspected he believed the man planned to summon a Blade. The Parshendi realized what he was doing, and stopped himself. My father didn’t speak of it further, and I assume he didn’t want the world’s eyes on the Shattered Plains any more than they already were.”

Shallan tapped her book. “It seems tenuous. If he was sure about the Blades, he must have seen more.”

“I suspect so as well. But I studied the treaty carefully, after his death. The clauses for favored trade status and mutual border crossing could very well have been a step toward folding the Parshendi into Alethkar as a nation. It certainly would have prevented the Parshendi from trading their Shards to other kingdoms without coming to us first. Perhaps that was all he wanted to do.”

“But why kill him?” Shallan said, arms crossed, strolling in the direction of Jasnah’s folded clothing. “Did the Parshendi realize that he intended to have their Shardblades, and so struck at him preemptively?”

“Uncertain,” Jasnah said. She sounded skeptical. Why did she think the Parshendi killed Gavilar? Shallan nearly asked, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t get any more out of Jasnah. The woman expected Shallan to think, discover, and draw conclusions on her own.

Shallan stopped beside the bench. The pouch holding the Soulcaster was open, the drawstrings loose. She could see the precious artifact curled up inside. The swap would be easy. She had used a large chunk of her money to buy gemstones that matched Jasnah’s, and had put them into the broken Soulcaster. The two were now exactly identical.

She still hadn’t learned anything about using the fabrial; she’d