treatise, not a person, don’t I?”
“You have a lot of pressure on you, dear,” Navani said.
“Pressure that I asked for and welcome,” Jasnah said. “The quickest changes in history often happen during times of strife, and these are important moments. But you’re important too. To me. Thank you. For always being you, despite the rise of kingdoms and the fall of peoples. I don’t think you can understand how much your constant strength means to me.”
What an unusual exchange. Yet Navani found herself smiling. She squeezed Jasnah’s hand, and that moment together—seeing through the mask—became more precious than a hundred awkward embraces.
“Watch little Gav for me,” Navani said. “I don’t know what I think of him going with Dalinar.”
“Boys younger than him go on campaign.”
“To locations not so near the battlefront,” Navani said. It was a fine distinction that many of their allies misunderstood. But these days, with Fused who could fly, anywhere could become a battlefront.
“I’ll make sure he keeps well away from the fighting,” Jasnah promised.
Navani nodded. “Your uncle feels that he failed Adolin and Renarin as children by spending so long in the field, and so little of it with them when they were young. He intends to make up for it now. I don’t dislike the sentiment, but … just keep an eye on them both for me, please.”
Jasnah retreated to her palanquin, and Navani stepped back. The banners continued to applaud as Dalinar’s best soldiers arranged themselves with him, the queen, and Taravangian. Though the chill air sliced through her shawl, Navani was determined to stay and watch until she had word via spanreed that they’d arrived in Azir.
As she waited, Sebarial wandered past. The portly, bearded man had taken to wearing clothing that was more appropriate to his overall look: something reminiscent of a Thaylen merchant’s clothing, with trousers and a vest under a long Alethi officer’s coat, meant to be left unbuttoned. Navani wasn’t certain if Palona was to credit for the transformation, or if Adolin had finally gotten to the highprince—but it was a marked improvement on the takama ensemble Sebarial had once favored.
Most of the highprinces were out in the field on Dalinar’s orders. It was Alethi tradition: being a leader was essentially the same as being a general. If a king went to war, highprinces would go with him. That was so ingrained in them that it was hard to remember that other cultures—like both the Azish and the Thaylens—did it differently.
Not many of the original highprinces remained. They’d been forced to replace Vamah, Thanadal, and—most recently—Sadeas with distant scions loyal to Dalinar and Jasnah. But building a reputation and a princedom in exile was a difficult task. Roion’s son struggled for precisely that reason.
They had three they could count on. Aladar, Sebarial, and Hatham. Bethab and his wife had fallen into line, which left Ruthar the lone holdout of hostility—the last remnant of Sadeas’s faction against Dalinar. Navani picked out the man with his retinue preparing to leave with Dalinar’s force.
Ruthar would present a problem, but if Navani were to guess, Jasnah would find a way to deal with him soon. Her daughter hated loose ends. Hopefully whatever Jasnah did wouldn’t be too dramatic.
Sebarial was staying behind to help administer the tower. And he offered his own set of difficulties. “So,” he said to Navani. “We taking bets on how long it takes Taravangian to knife us in the back?”
“Hush,” Navani said.
“Thing is,” Sebarial said, “I kind of respect the old goof. If I manage to live as long as him, I can imagine throwing up my hands and trying to take over the world. I mean … at that point, what do you have to lose?”
“Your integrity.”
“Integrity doesn’t stop men from killing, Brightness,” Sebarial said. “It just makes them use different justifications.”
“Glib, but meaningless,” Navani said. “Do you really want to draw a moral equivalency between wholesale conquest and resisting the Voidbringer invasion? Do you genuinely believe that a man of integrity is the same as a murderer?”
He chuckled. “You have me there, Brightness. You seem to have discovered my one great weakness: actually listening to anything I say. You might be the only person in all of Roshar who takes me seriously.”
Light rose in a ring around the Oathgate platform, swirling into the air. A scribe stood nearby at her workstation, waiting for spanreed confirmation of the army’s arrival.
“I’m not the only one who takes you seriously, Turinad,” Navani told Sebarial. “There’s at least one more.”
“If she