in Valath who could put me in touch with him.”
“Take Malise and Eylita. Go to Helaran.”
“I won’t have time to find Helaran before Father catches up.”
“Then we will contact Helaran,” Shallan said. “We will make plans for you to meet him, and you can schedule your flight for a time when Father is away. He is planning another trip to Vedenar a few months from now. Leave when he’s gone, get a head start.”
Balat nodded. “Yes . . . Yes, that is good.”
“I will draft a letter to Helaran,” Shallan said. “We need to warn him about Father’s assassins, and we can ask him to take the three of you in.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this, small one,” Balat said, head down. “I’m the eldest after Helaran. I should have been able to stop Father by now. Somehow.”
“Take Malise away,” Shallan said. “That will be doing enough.”
He nodded.
Shallan returned to the house, passing Father mulling over his disobedient family, and fetched some things from the kitchen. Then she returned to the steps and looked upward. Taking a few deep breaths, she went over what she would say to the guards if they stopped her. Then she raced up them and opened the door into her father’s sitting room.
“Wait,” the hallway guard said. “He left orders. Nobody in or out.”
Shallan’s throat tightened, and even with her practice, she stammered as she spoke. “I just talked to him. He wants me to speak with her.”
The guard inspected her, chewing on something. Shallan felt her confidence wilt, heart racing. Confrontation. She was as much a coward as Balat.
He gestured to the other guard, who went downstairs to check. He eventually returned, nodding, and the first man reluctantly waved for her to continue. Shallan entered.
Into the Place.
She had not entered this room in years. Not since . . .
Not since . . .
She raised a hand, shading her eyes against the light coming from behind the painting. How could Father sleep in here? How was it that nobody else looked, nobody else cared? That light was blinding.
Fortunately, Malise was curled in an easy chair facing that wall, so Shallan could put her back to the painting and obstruct the light. She rested a hand on her stepmother’s arm.
She didn’t feel that she knew Malise, despite years living together. Who was this woman who would marry a man everyone whispered had killed his previous wife? Malise oversaw Shallan’s education—meaning she searched for new tutors each time the women fled—but Malise herself couldn’t do much to teach Shallan. One could not teach what one did not know.
“Mother?” Shallan asked. She used the word.
Malise looked. Despite the blazing light of the room, Shallan saw the woman’s lip was split and bleeding. She cradled her left arm. Yes, it was broken.
Shallan took out the gauze and cloth she had fetched from the kitchen, then began to wipe down the wounds. She would have to find something to use as a splint for that arm.
“Why doesn’t he hate you?” Malise said harshly. “He hates everyone else but you.”
Shallan dabbed at the woman’s lip.
“Stormfather, why did I come to this cursed household?” Malise shuddered. “He’ll kill us all. One by one, he’ll break us and kill us. There’s a darkness inside of him. I’ve seen it, behind his eyes. A beast . . .”
“You’re going to leave,” Shallan said softly.
Malise barked a laugh. “He’ll never let me go. He never lets go of anything.”
“You’re not going to ask,” Shallan whispered. “Balat is going to run and join Helaran, who has powerful friends. He’s a Shardbearer. He’ll protect the both of you.”
“We’ll never reach him,” Malise said. “And if we do, why would Helaran take us in? We have nothing.”
“Helaran is a good man.”
Malise twisted in her seat, staring away from Shallan, who continued her ministrations. The woman whimpered when Shallan bound her arm, but wouldn’t respond to questions. Finally, Shallan gathered up the bloodied cloths to throw away.
“If I go,” Malise whispered, “and Balat with me, who will he hate? Who will he hit? Maybe you, finally? The one who actually deserves it?”
“Maybe,” Shallan whispered, then left.
Is not the destruction we have wrought enough? The worlds you now tread bear the touch and design of Adonalsium. Our interference so far has brought nothing but pain.
Feet scraped on the stone outside of Kaladin’s cage. One of the jailers checking on him again. Kaladin continued to lie motionless with closed eyes, and did not look.
In order to keep the darkness at bay,