This is crazy. . . .”
She turned, noting a group of men cheering. That sounded promising. She ignored the increasing trembling in her hands, and also tried to ignore a group of drunk men sitting in a ring on the ground, staring at what appeared to be vomit.
The cheering men sat on crude benches with others crowded around. A glimpse between bodies showed two small axehounds. There were no spren. When people crowded about like this, spren were rare, even though the emotions seemed to be very high.
One set of benches was not crowded. Balat sat here, coat unbuttoned, leaning on a post in front of him with arms crossed. His disheveled hair and stooped posture gave him an uncaring look, but his eyes . . . his eyes lusted. He watched the poor animals killing one another, fixated on them with the intensity of a woman reading a powerful novel.
Shallan stepped up to him, Jix remaining a little ways behind. Now that he’d seen Balat, the guard relaxed.
“Balat?” Shallan asked timidly. “Balat!”
He glanced at her, then nearly toppled off his bench. He scrambled up to his feet. “What in the . . . Shallan! Get out of here. What are you doing?” He reached for her.
She cringed down despite herself. He sounded like Father. As he took her by the shoulder, she held up the note from Eylita. The lavender paper, dusted with perfume, seemed to glow.
Balat hesitated. To the side, one axehound bit deeply into the leg of the other. Blood sprayed the ground, deep violet.
“What is it?” Balat asked. “That is the glyphpair of House Tavinar.”
“It’s from Eylita.”
“Eylita? The daughter? Why . . . what . . .”
Shallan broke the seal, opening the letter to read for him. “She wishes to walk with you along the fairgrounds stream. She says she’ll be waiting there, with her handmaid, if you want to come.”
Balat ran a hand through his curling hair. “Eylita? She’s here. Of course she’s here. Everyone is here. You talked to her? Why— But—”
“I know how you’ve looked at her,” Shallan said. “The few times you’ve been near.”
“So you talked to her?” Balat demanded. “Without my permission? You said I’d be interested in something like”—he took the letter—“like this?”
Shallan nodded, wrapping her arms around herself.
Balat looked back toward the fighting axehounds. He bet because it was expected of him, but he didn’t come here for the money—unlike Jushu would.
Balat ran his hand through his hair again, then looked back at the letter. He wasn’t a cruel man. She knew it was a strange thing to think, considering what he sometimes did. Shallan knew the kindness he showed, the strength that hid within him. He hadn’t acquired this fascination with death until Mother had left them. He could come back, stop being like that. He could.
“I need . . .” Balat looked out of the tent. “I need to go! She’ll be waiting for me. I shouldn’t make her wait.” He buttoned up his coat.
Shallan nodded eagerly, following him from the pavilion. Jix trailed along behind, though a couple of men called out to him. He must be known in the pavilion.
Balat stepped out into the sunlight. He seemed a changed man, just like that.
“Balat?” Shallan asked. “I didn’t see Jushu in there with you.”
“He didn’t come to the pavilion.”
“What? I thought—”
“I don’t know where he went,” Balat said. “He met some people right after we arrived.” He looked toward the distant stream that ran down from the heights and through a channel around the fairgrounds. “What do I say to her?”
“How should I know?”
“You’re a woman too.”
“I’m fourteen!” She wouldn’t spend time courting, anyway. Father would choose her a husband. His only daughter was too precious to be wasted on something fickle, like her own powers of decision.
“I guess . . . I guess I’ll just talk to her,” Balat said. He jogged off without another word.
Shallan watched him go, then sat down on a rock and trembled, arms around herself. That place . . . the tent . . . it had been horrible.
She sat there for an extended time, feeling ashamed of her weakness, but also proud. She’d done it. It was small, but she’d done something.
Eventually, she rose and nodded to Jix, letting him lead the way back toward their box. Father should be finished with his meeting by now.
It turned out that he had finished that meeting only to start another. A man she did not know sat next to Father with