started to blubber, sword slipping from his fingers.
“Bah!” Father said. “Useless.” He tossed his sword onto the high table, then stepped over to the hearth. He grabbed an iron poker, then walked back. “Useless.”
He slammed the poker down on Balat’s thigh.
“Father!” Shallan screamed, trying to take his arm. He shoved her aside as he struck again, smashing his poker against Balat’s leg.
Balat screamed.
Shallan hit the ground hard, knocking her head against the floor. She could only hear what happened next. Shouts. The poker connecting with a sound like a dull thump. The storm raging above.
“Why.” Smack. “Can’t.” Smack. “You.” Smack. “Do.” Smack. “Anything.” Smack. “Right?”
Shallan’s vision cleared. Father drew deep breaths. Blood had splattered his face. Balat whimpered on the floor. Eylita held to him, face buried in his hair. Balat’s leg was a bloody mess.
Wikim and Jushu still stood in the doorway to the hall, looking horrified.
Father looked to Eylita, murder in his eyes. He raised his poker to strike. But then the weapon slipped from his fingers and clanged to the ground. He looked at his hand as if surprised, then stumbled. He grabbed the table for support, but fell to his knees, then slumped to the side.
Rain pelted the roof. It sounded like a thousand scurrying creatures looking for a way into the building.
Shallan forced herself to her feet. Coldness. Yes, she recognized that coldness inside of her now. She’d felt it before, on the day when she’d lost her mother.
“Bind Balat’s wounds,” she said, approaching the weeping Eylita. “Use his shirt.”
The woman nodded through her tears and began working with trembling fingers.
Shallan knelt beside her father. He lay motionless, eyes open and dead, staring at the ceiling.
“What . . . what happened?” Wikim asked. She hadn’t noticed him and Jushu timidly entering the room, rounding the table and joining her. Wikim peered over her shoulder. “Did Balat’s strike to the side . . .”
Father was bleeding there; Shallan could feel it through the clothing. It wasn’t nearly bad enough to have caused this though. She shook her head.
“You gave me something a few years ago,” she said. “A pouch. I kept it. You said it grows more potent over time.”
“Oh, Stormfather,” Wikim said, raising his hand to his mouth. “The blackbane? You . . .”
“In his wine,” Shallan said. “Malise is dead by the kitchen. He went too far.”
“You’ve killed him,” Wikim said, staring at their father’s corpse. “You’ve killed him!”
“Yes,” Shallan said, feeling exhausted. She stumbled over to Balat, then began helping Eylita with the bandages. Balat was conscious and grunting at the pain. Shallan nodded to Eylita, who fetched him some wine. Unpoisoned, of course.
Father was dead. She’d killed him.
“What is this?” Jushu asked.
“Don’t do that!” Wikim said. “Storms! You’re going through his pockets already?”
Shallan glanced over to see Jushu pulling something silvery from Father’s coat pocket. It was shrouded in a small black bag, mildly wet with blood, only pieces of it showing from where Balat’s sword had struck.
“Oh, Stormfather,” Jushu said, pulling it out. The device consisted of several chains of silvery metal connecting three large gemstones, one of which was cracked, its glow lost. “Is this what I think it is?”
“A Soulcaster,” Shallan said.
“Prop me up,” Balat said as Eylita returned with the wine. “Please.”
Reluctantly the girl helped him sit. His leg . . . his leg was not in good shape. They would need to get him a surgeon.
Shallan stood, wiping bloodied hands on her dress, and took the Soulcaster from Jushu. The delicate metal was broken where the sword had struck it.
“I don’t understand,” Jushu said. “Isn’t that blasphemy? Don’t those belong to the king, only to be used by ardents?”
Shallan rubbed her thumb across the metal. She couldn’t think. Numbness . . . shock. That was it. Shock.
I killed Father.
Wikim yelped suddenly, jumping back. “His leg twitched.”
Shallan spun on the body. Father’s fingers spasmed.
“Voidbringers!” Jushu said. He looked up at the ceiling, and at the raging storm. “They’re here. They’re inside of him. It—”
Shallan knelt next to the body. The eyes trembled, then focused on her. “It wasn’t enough,” she whispered. “The poison wasn’t strong enough.”
“Oh, storms!” Wikim said, kneeling next to her. “He’s still breathing. It didn’t kill him, it just paralyzed him.” His eyes widened. “And he’s waking.”
“We need to finish the job, then,” Shallan said. She looked to her brothers.
Jushu and Wikim stumbled away, shaking their heads. Balat, dazed, was barely conscious.
She turned back to her father. He was looking at her, his eyes moving