that the Voidbringers were going to return.”
“What?” he said, frowning. “She didn’t even believe in the Almighty. Why would she believe in the Voidbringers?”
“She had evidence,” Shallan said, tapping the paper with one finger. “A lot of that sank in the ocean, I’m afraid, but I do have some of her notes, and . . . Adolin, how hard do you think it would be to convince the highprinces to get rid of their parshmen?”
“Get rid of what?”
“How hard would it to be to make everyone stop using parshmen as slaves? Give them away, or . . .” Storms. She didn’t want to start a genocide here, did she? But these were the Voidbringers. “. . . or set them free or something. Get them out of the warcamps.”
“How difficult would it be?” Adolin said. “Off the cuff, I’d say impossible. That, or really impossible. Why would we even want to do something like that?”
“Jasnah thought they might be related to the Voidbringers and their return.”
Adolin shook his head, looking bemused. “Shallan, we can barely get the highprinces to fight this war properly. If my father or the king were to require everyone to get rid of their parshmen . . . Storms! It would break the kingdom in a heartbeat.”
So Jasnah was right on that count as well. Unsurprising. Shallan was interested to see how violently Adolin himself opposed the idea. He took a big gulp of wine, seeming utterly floored.
Time to pull back, then. This meeting had gone very well; she wouldn’t want to end it on a sour note. “It was something Jasnah said,” Shallan said, “but really, I’d rather that Brightlady Navani judge how important a suggestion it was. She would know her daughter, her notes, better than anyone.”
Adolin nodded. “So go to her.”
Shallan tapped the paper in her fingers. “I’ve tried. She’s not been very accommodating.”
“Aunt Navani can be overbearing sometimes.”
“It’s not that,” Shallan said, scanning the words on the letter. It was a reply she’d gotten after requesting to meet the woman and discuss her daughter’s work. “She doesn’t want to meet with me. She barely seems to want to acknowledge I exist.”
Adolin sighed. “She doesn’t want to believe. About Jasnah, I mean. You represent something to her—the truth, in a way. Give her time. She just needs to grieve.”
“I’m not certain if this is something that should wait, Adolin.”
“I’ll talk to her,” he said. “How about that?”
“Wonderful,” she said. “Much like you yourself.”
He grinned. “It’s nothing. I mean, if we’re going to halfway-almost-kind-of-maybe-get-married, we should probably look out for one another’s interests.” He paused. “Don’t mention that parshman thing to anyone else, though. That’s not something that will go over well.”
She nodded absently, then realized she’d been staring at him. She was going to kiss those lips of his someday. She let herself imagine it.
And, Ash’s eyes . . . he had a very friendly way about him. She hadn’t expected that in someone so highborn. She’d never actually met anyone of his rank before coming to the Shattered Plains, but all the men she knew near his level had been stiff and even angry.
Not Adolin. Storms, but being with him was something else she could get very, very used to.
People began to stir on the patio. She ignored them for a moment, but then many began to stand up from their seats, looking eastward.
Highstorm. Right.
Shallan felt a spike of alarm as she looked toward the Origin of Storms. The wind picked up, leaves and bits of refuse fluttering across the patio. Down below, the Outer Market had been packed up, tents folded away, awnings withdrawn, windows closed. The entirety of the warcamps braced itself.
Shallan stuffed her things into her satchel, then rose to her feet, stepping to the edge of the terrace, freehand fingers on the stone railing there. Adolin joined her. Behind them, people whispered and gathered. She heard iron grinding across stone; the parshmen had begun pulling away the tables and chairs, stowing them to both protect them and make a path for the lighteyes to retreat to safety.
The horizon had bled from light to dark, like a man flushing with anger. Shallan gripped the railing, watching the entire world transform. Vines withdrew, rockbuds closed. Grass hid in its holes. They knew, somehow. They all knew.
The air grew chill and wet, and prestorm winds gusted against her, blowing her hair back. Below and just to the north, the warcamps had piled refuse and waste to be blown away with the