so that when they got back, she could grow a plant for experimentation. Pretending she was here to explore and record new species helped push back the gloom. She heard Pattern humming softly from her skirt, as if he realized what she was doing, distracting herself from the predicament and the danger. She swatted at him. What would the bridgeman think if he heard her clothing buzz?
“Just a moment,” she said, finally snatching one of the vines. Kaladin watched, leaning on his spear, as she cut the tip off the vine with the small knife from her satchel.
“Jasnah’s research,” he said. “It had something to do with structures hidden out here, beneath the crem?”
“What makes you say that?” She tucked the tip of the vine away in an empty ink jar she’d kept for specimens.
“You made too much of an effort to get out here,” he said. “Ostensibly all to investigate a chasmfiend’s chrysalis. A dead one, even. There has to be more.”
“You don’t understand the compulsive nature of scholarship, I see.” She shook the jar.
He snorted. “If you’d really wanted to see a chrysalis, you could have just had them tow one back for you. They have those chull sleds for the wounded; one of those might have worked. There was no need for you to come all the way out here yourself.”
Blast. A solid argument. It was a good thing Adolin hadn’t thought of that. The prince was wonderful, and he certainly wasn’t stupid, but he was also . . . mentally direct.
This bridgeman was proving himself different. The way he watched her, the way he thought. Even, she realized, the way he spoke. He talked like an educated lighteyes. But what of those slave brands on his forehead? The hair got in the way, but she thought that one of them was a shash brand.
Perhaps she should spend as much time wondering about this man’s motives as he apparently fretted about hers.
“Riches,” he said, as they continued on. He held back some dead branches sticking from a crack so she could pass. “There’s a treasure of some sort out here, and that’s what you seek? But . . . no. You could have wealth easily enough by marriage.”
She didn’t say anything, stepping through the gap he made for her.
“Nobody had heard of you before this,” he continued. “The Davar house really does have a daughter your age, and you match the description. You could be an impostor, but you’re actually lighteyed, and that Veden house isn’t particularly significant. If you were going to bother to impersonate someone, wouldn’t you pick someone more important?”
“You seem to have thought about this a great deal.”
“It’s my job.”
“I’m being truthful with you—Jasnah’s research is why I came to the Shattered Plains. I think the world itself could be in danger.”
“That’s why you talked to Adolin about the parshmen.”
“Wait. How do you . . . Your guards were there on that terrace with us. They told you? I didn’t realize they were close enough to listen.”
“I made a point of telling them to stay close,” Kaladin said. “At the time, I was half convinced you were here to assassinate Adolin.”
Well, he was nothing if not honest. And blunt.
“My men said,” Kaladin continued, “that you seemed to want to get the parshmen murdered.”
“I said nothing of the sort,” she said. “Though I am worried that they might betray us. It’s a moot point, as I doubt I’ll persuade the highprinces without more evidence.”
“If you got your way, though,” Kaladin said, sounding curious, “what would you do? About the parshmen.”
“Have them exiled,” Shallan said.
“And who will replace them?” Kaladin said. “Darkeyes?”
“I’m not saying it would be easy,” Shallan said.
“They’d need more slaves,” Kaladin said, contemplative. “A lot of honest men might find themselves with brands.”
“Still sore about what happened to you, I assume.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Yes, I suppose I would. I am sorry that you were treated in such a way, but it could have been worse. You could have been hanged.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted to be the executioner who tried that.” He said it with a quiet intensity.
“Me neither,” Shallan said. “I think hanging people is a poor choice of professions for an executioner. Better to be the guy with an axe.”
He frowned at her.
“You see,” she said, “with the axe, it’s easier to get ahead. . . .”
He stared. Then, after a moment, he winced. “Oh, storms. That was awful.”
“No, it was funny. You seem to get those two mixed up a lot.