The Way of Kings - By Brandon Sanderson Page 0,275

here, I can look into how the thing works. I haven’t found any books that give hints, but there are so many here, maybe I just haven’t found the right one yet.

Very well, he wrote. A few weeks. Be careful, small one. The men who gave Father his fabrial visited again. They asked after you. I’m worried about them. Even more than I worry about our finances. They disturb me in a profound way. Farewell.

Farewell, she wrote back.

So far, there had been no hint of reaction from the princess. She hadn’t even mentioned the Soulcaster. That made Shallan nervous. She wished that Jasnah would just say something. The waiting was excruciating. Each day, while she sat with Jasnah, Shallan’s stomach churned with anxiety until she was nauseated. At least—considering the killings a few days ago—Shallan had a very good excuse for looking disturbed.

Cold, calm logic. Jasnah herself would be proud.

A knock came at the door, and Shallan quickly gathered up the conversation she’d had with Nan Balat and burned it in the hearth. A palace maid entered a moment later, carrying a basket in the crook of her arm. She smiled at Shallan. It was time for the daily cleaning.

Shallan had a strange moment of panic at seeing the woman. She wasn’t one of the maids Shallan recognized. What if Jasnah had sent her or someone else to search Shallan’s room? Had she done so already? Shallan nodded to the woman and then—to assuage her worries—she walked to her room and closed the door. She rushed to the chest and checked the hidden compartment. The fabrial was there. She lifted it out, inspecting it. Would she know if Jasnah somehow reversed the exchange?

You’re being foolish, she told herself. Jasnah’s subtle, but she’s not that subtle. Still, Shallan stuffed the Soulcaster in her safepouch. It just barely fit inside the envelope-like cloth container. She’d feel safer knowing she had it on her while the maid cleaned her room. Besides, the safepouch might be a better hiding place for it than her trunk.

By tradition, a woman’s safepouch was where she kept items of intimate or very precious import. To search one would be like strip-searching her—considering her rank, either would be virtually unthinkable unless she were obviously implicated in a crime. Jasnah could probably force it. But if Jasnah could do that, she could order a search of Shallan’s room, and her trunk would be under particular scrutiny. The truth was, if Jasnah chose to suspect her, there would be little Shallan could do to hide the fabrial. So the safepouch was as good a place as any.

She gathered up the pictures she’d drawn and put them upside-down on the desk, trying not to look at them. She didn’t want those to be seen by the maid. Finally, she left, taking her portfolio. She felt that she needed to get outside and escape for a while. Draw something other than death and murder. The conversation with Nan Balat had only served to upset her more.

“Brightness?” the maid asked.

Shallan froze, but the maid held up a basket. “This was dropped off for you with the master-servants.”

She hesitantly accepted it, looking inside. Bread and jam. A note, tied to one of the jars, read: Bluebar jam. If you like it, it means you’re mysterious, reserved, and thoughtful. It was signed Kabsal.

Shallan placed the basket’s handle in the crook of her safearm’s elbow. Kabsal. Maybe she should go find him. She always felt better after a conversation with him.

But no. She was going to leave; she couldn’t keep stringing him, or herself, along. She was afraid of where the relationship was going. Instead, she made her way to the main cavern and then to the Conclave’s exit. She walked out into the sunlight and took a deep breath, looking up into the sky as servants and attendants parted around her, swarming in and out of the Conclave. She held her portfolio close, feeling the cool breeze on her cheeks and the contrasting warmth of the sunlight pressing down on her hair and forehead.

In the end, the most disturbing part was that Jasnah had been right. Shallan’s world of simple answers had been a foolish, childish place. She’d clung to the hope that she could find truth, and use it to explain—perhaps justify—what she had done back in Jah Keved. But if there was such a thing as truth, it was far more complicated and murky than she’d assumed.

Some problems didn’t seem to have any good