The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Shallan pursed her lips. Balat, have you thought that we might be risking a war? If it becomes known that we’ve stolen an Alethi Soulcaster…
No, there wouldn’t be a war, Nan Balat wrote back. King Hanavanar would just turn us over to the Alethi. They’d execute us for the theft.
Wonderfully comforting, Balat, she wrote. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome. We’re going to have to hope that Jasnah doesn’t realize that you took the Soulcaster. It seems likely she’ll assume that hers broke for some reason.
Shallan sighed. Perhaps, she wrote.
Take care, Nan Balat sent her.
You too.
And that was it. She set the spanreed aside, then read over the entire conversation, memorizing it. Then she crumpled up the sheets and walked into the sitting room of Jasnah’s quarters. She wasn’t there—Jasnah rarely broke from her studies—so Shallan burned the conversation in the hearth.
She stood for a long moment, watching the fire. She was worried. Nan Balat was capable, but they all bore scars from the lives they’d led. Eylita was the only scribe they could trust, and she…well, she was incredibly nice but not very clever.
With a sigh, Shallan left the room to return to her studies. Not only would they help get her mind off her troubles, but Jasnah would grow testy if she dallied too long.
Five hours later, Shallan wondered why it was she’d been so eager.
She did enjoy her chances at scholarship. But recently, Jasnah had set her to study the history of the Alethi monarchy. It wasn’t the most interesting subject around. Her boredom was compounded by her being forced to read a number of books that expressed opinions she found ridiculous.
She sat in Jasnah’s alcove at the Veil. The enormous wall of lights, alcoves, and mysterious researchers no longer awed her. The place was becoming comfortable and familiar. She was alone at the moment.
Shallan rubbed her eyes with her freehand, then slid her book closed. “I,” she muttered, “am really coming to hate the Alethi monarchy.”
“Is that so?” a calm voice said from behind. Jasnah walked past, wearing a sleek violet dress, followed by a parshman porter with a stack of books. “I’ll try not to take it personally.”
Shallan winced, then blushed furiously. “I didn’t mean individually, Brightness Jasnah. I meant categorically.”
Jasnah lithely took her seat in the alcove. She raised an eyebrow at Shallan, then gestured for the parshman to set down his burden.
Shallan still found Jasnah an enigma. At times, she seemed a stern scholar annoyed by Shallan’s interruptions. At other times, there seemed to be a hint of wry humor hiding behind the stern facade. Either way, Shallan was finding that she felt remarkably comfortable around the woman. Jasnah encouraged her to speak her mind, something Shallan had taken to gladly.
“I assume from your outburst that this topic is wearing on you,” Jasnah said, sorting through her volumes as the parshman withdrew. “You expressed interest in being a scholar. Well, you must learn that this is scholarship.”
“Reading argument after argument from people who refuse to see any other point of view?”
“They’re confident.”
“I’m not an expert on confidence, Brightness,” Shallan said, holding up a book and inspecting it critically. “But I’d like to think that I could recognize it if it were before me. I don’t think that’s the right word for books like this one from Mederia. They feel more arrogant than confident to me.” She sighed, setting the book aside. “To be honest, ‘arrogant’ doesn’t feel like quite the right word. It’s not specific enough.”
“And what would be the right word, then?”
“I don’t know. ‘Errorgant,’ perhaps.”
Jasnah raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“It means to be twice as certain as someone who is merely arrogant,” Shallan said, “while possessing only one-tenth the requisite facts.”
Her words drew a hint of a smile from Jasnah. “What you are reacting against is known as the Assuredness Movement, Shallan. This errorgance is a literary device. The scholars are intentionally overstating their case.”
“The Assuredness Movement?” Shallan asked, holding up one of her books. “I guess I could get behind that.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Much easier to stab it in the back from that position.”
That got only an eyebrow raise. So, more seriously, Shallan continued. “I suppose I can understand the device, Brightness, but these books you’ve given me on King Gavilar’s death are more and more irrational in defending their points. What began as a rhetorical conceit seems to have descended into name-calling and squabbling.”
“They are trying to provoke discussion. Would you rather that the scholars hide from the truth, like so many? You would have men prefer ignorance?”
“When reading these books, scholarship and ignorance feel much alike to me,” Shallan said. “Ignorance may reside in a man hiding from intelligence, but scholarship can seem ignorance hidden behind intelligence.”
“And what of intelligence without ignorance? Finding truth while not dismissing the possibility of being wrong?”
“A mythological treasure, Brightness, much like the Dawnshards or the Honorblades. Certainly worth seeking, but only with great caution.”
“Caution?” Jasnah said, frowning.
“It would make you famous, but actually finding it would destroy us all. Proof that one can be both intelligent and accept the intelligence of those who disagree with you? Why, I should think it would undermine the scholarly world in its entirety.”
Jasnah sniffed. “You go too far, child. If you took half the energy you devote to being witty and channeled it into your work, I daresay you could be one of the greatest scholars of our age.”
“I’m sorry, Brightness,” Shallan said. “I…well, I’m confused. Considering the gaps in my education, I assumed you would have me studying things deeper in the past than a few years ago.”
Jasnah opened one of her books. “I have found that youths like you have a relative lack of appreciation for the distant past. Therefore, I selected an area of study that is both more recent and sensational, to ease you into true scholarship. Is the murder of a king not of interest to you?”
“Yes, Brightness,” Shallan said. “We children love things that are shiny and loud.”
“You have quite the mouth on you at times.”
“At times? You mean it’s not there at others? I’ll have to…” Shallan trailed off, then bit her lip, realizing she’d gone too far. “Sorry.”
“Never apologize for being clever, Shallan. It sets a bad precedent. However, one must apply one’s wit with care. You often seem to say the first passably clever thing that enters your mind.”
“I know,” Shallan said. “It’s long been a foible of mine, Brightness. One my nurses and tutors tried very hard to discourage.”
“Likely through strict punishments.”
“Yes. Making me sit in the corner holding books over my head was the preferred method.”
“Which, in turn,” Jasnah said with a sigh, “only trained you to make your quips more quickly, for you knew you had to get them out before you could reconsider and suppress them.”
Shallan cocked her head.
“The punishments were incompetent,” Jasnah said. “Used upon one such as yourself, they were actually encouragement. A game. How much would you have to say to earn a punishment? Could you say something so clever that your tutors missed the joke? Sitting in the corner just gave you more time to compose retorts.”
“But it’s unseemly for a young woman to speak as I so often do.”
“The only ‘unseemly’ thing is to not channel your intelligence usefully. Consider. You have trained yourself to do something very similar to what annoys you in the scholars: cleverness without thought behind it—intelligence, one might say, without a foundation of proper consideration.” Jasnah turned a page. “Errorgant, wouldn’t you say?”
“I prefer my wards to be clever,” Jasnah said. “It gives me more to work with. I should bring you to court with me. I suspect that Wit, at least, would find you amusing—if only because your apparent natural timidity and your clever tongue make such an intriguing combination.”
“Yes, Brightness.”
“Please, just remember that a woman’s mind is her most precious weapon. It must not be employed clumsily or prematurely. Much like the aforementioned knife to the back, a clever gibe is most effective when it is unanticipated.”
“I’m sorry, Brightness.”
“It wasn’t an admonition,” Jasnah said, turning a page. “Simply an observation. I make them on occasion: Those books are musty. The sky is blue today. My ward is a smart-lipped reprobate.”
Shallan smiled.
“Now, tell me what you’ve discovered.”
Shallan grimaced. “Not much, Brightness. Or should I say too much? Each writer has her own theories on why the Parshendi killed your father. Some claim he must have insulted them at the feast that night. Others say that the entire treaty was a ruse, intended to get the Parshendi close to him. But that makes little sense, as they had much better opportunities earlier.”
“And the Assassin in White?” Jasnah asked.
“A true anomaly,” Shallan said. “The undertexts are filled with commentary about him. Why would the Parshendi hire an outside assassin? Did they fear they could not accomplish the job themselves? Or perhaps they didn’t hire him, and were framed. Many think that is unlikely, considering that the Parshendi took credit for the murder.”
“And your thoughts?”
“I feel inadequate to draw conclusions, Brightness.”
“What is the point of research if not to draw conclusions?”
“My tutors told me that supposition was only for the very experienced,” Shallan explained.
Jasnah sniffed. “Your tutors were idiots. Youthful immaturity is one of the cosmere’s great catalysts for change, Shallan. Do you realize that the Sunmaker was only seventeen when he began his conquest? Gavarah hadn’t reached her twentieth Weeping when she proposed the theory of the three realms.”
“But for every Sunmaker or Gavarah, are there not a hundred Gregorhs?” He had been a youthful king notorious for beginning a pointless war with kingdoms that had been his father’s allies.
“There was only one Gregorh,” Jasnah said with a grimace, “thankfully. Your point is a valid one. Hence the purpose of education. To be young is about action. To be a scholar is about informed action.”
“Or about sitting in an alcove reading about a five-year-old murder.”
“I would not have you studying this if there were no point to it,” Jasnah said, opening up another of her own books. “Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can—what we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusions, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts.”
Shallan sat back, thoughtful. Presented that way, it somehow made her want to dig back into the studies. What was it that Jasnah wanted her to do with the information? Once again, she felt a stab of guilt. Jasnah was taking great pains to instruct her in scholarship, and she was going to reward the woman by stealing her most valuable possession and leaving a broken replacement. It made Shallan feel sick.
She had expected study beneath Jasnah to involve meaningless memorization and busywork, accompanied by chastisement for not being smart enough. That was how her tutors had approached her instruction. Jasnah was different. She gave Shallan a topic and the freedom to pursue it as she wished. Jasnah offered encouragement and speculation, but nearly all of their conversations turned to topics like the true nature of scholarship, the purpose of studying, the beauty of knowledge and its application.
Jasnah Kholin truly loved learning, and she wanted others to as well. Behind the stern gaze, intense eyes, and rarely smiling lips, Jasnah Kholin truly believed in what she was doing. Whatever that was.
Shallan raised one of her books, but covertly eyed the spines of Jasnah’s latest stack of tomes. More histories about the Heraldic Epochs. Mythologies, commentaries, books by scholars known to be wild speculators. Jasnah’s current volume was called Shadows Remembered. Shallan memorized the title. She would try to find a copy and look through it.
What was Jasnah pursuing? What secrets was she hoping to pry from these volumes, most of them centuries-old copies of copies? Though Shallan had discovered some secrets regarding the Soulcaster, the nature of Jasnah’s quest—the reason the princess had come to Kharbranth—remained elusive. Maddeningly, yet tantalizingly, so. Jasnah liked to speak of the great women of the past, ones who had not just recorded history, but shaped it. Whatever it was she studied, she felt that it was important. World-changing.
You mustn’t be drawn in, Shallan told herself, settling back with book and notes. Your goal is not to change the world. Your goal is to protect your brothers and your house.
Still, she needed to make a good show of her wardship. And that gave her a reason to immerse herself for two hours until footsteps in the hallway interrupted. Likely the servants bringing the midday meal. Jasnah and Shallan often ate on their balcony.
Shallan’s stomach grumbled as she smelled the food, and she gleefully set aside her book. She usually sketched at lunch, an activity that Jasnah—despite her dislike of the visual arts—encouraged. She said that highborn men often thought drawing and painting to be “enticing” in a woman, and so Shallan should maintain her skills, if only for the purpose of attracting suitors.
Shallan didn’t know whether to find that insulting or not. And what did it say about Jasnah’s own intentions for marriage that she herself never bothered with the more becoming feminine arts like music or drawing?
“Your Majesty,” Jasnah said, rising smoothly.
Shallan started and looked hastily over her shoulder. The elderly king of Kharbranth was standing in the doorway, wearing magnificent orange and white robes with detailed embroidery. Shallan scrambled to her feet.
“Brightness Jasnah,” the king said. “Am I interrupting?”
“Your company is never an interruption, Your Majesty,” Jasnah said. She had to be as surprised as Shallan was, yet didn’t display a moment of discomfort or anxiety. “We were soon to take lunch, anyway.”
“I know, Brightness,” Taravangian said. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you.” A group of servants began bringing in food and a table.
“Not at all,” Jasnah said.
The servants hurried to set things up, putting two different tablecloths on the round table to separate the genders during dining. They secured the half-moons of cloth—red for the king, blue for the women—with weights at the center. Covered plates filled with food followed: a clear, cold stew with sweet vegetables for the women, a spicy-smelling broth for the king. Kharbranthians preferred soups for their lunches.
Shallan was surprised to see them set a place for her. Her father had never eaten at the same table as his children—even she, his favorite, had been relegated to her own table. Once Jasnah sat, Shallan did likewise. Her stomach growled again, and the king waved for them to begin. His motions seemed ungainly compared with Jasnah’s elegance.
Shallan was soon eating contentedly—with grace, as a woman should, safehand in her lap, using her freehand and a skewer to spear chunks of vegetable or fruit. The king slurped, but he wasn’t as noisy as many men. Why had he deigned to visit? Wouldn’t a formal dinner invitation have been more proper? Of course, she’d learned that Taravangian wasn’t known for his mastery of protocol. He was a popular king, beloved by the darkeyes as a builder of hospitals. However, the lighteyes considered him less than bright.
He was not an idiot. In lighteyed politics, unfortunately, being only average was a disadvantage. As they ate, the silence drew o
“And how is your granddaughter, Your Majesty?” Jasnah eventually asked. “She is recovering well?”
“Quite well, thank you,” Taravangian said, as if relieved to begin conversing. “Though she now avoids the narrower corridors of the Conclave. I do want to thank you for your aid.”
“It is always fulfilling to be of service, Your Majesty.”
“If you will forgive my saying so, the ardents do not think much of your service,” Taravangian said. “I realize it is likely a sensitive topic. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it, but—”
“No, feel free,” Jasnah said, eating a small green lurnip from the end of her skewer. “I am not ashamed of my choices.”
“Then you’ll forgive an old man’s curiosity?”
“I always forgive curiosity, Your Majesty,” Jasnah said. “It strikes me as one of the most genuine of emotions.”
“Then where did you find it?” Taravangian asked, nodding toward the Soulcaster, which Jasnah wore covered by a black glove. “How did you keep it from the devotaries?”
“One might find those questions dangerous, Your Majesty.”
“I’ve already acquired some new enemies by welcoming you.”
“You will be forgiven,” Jasnah said. “Depending on the devotary you have chosen.”
“Forgiven? Me?” The elderly man seemed to find that amusing, and for a moment, Shallan thought she saw deep regret in his expression. “Unlikely. But that is something else entirely. Please. I stand by my questions.”
“And I stand by my evasiveness, Your Majesty. I’m sorry. I do forgive your curiosity, but I cannot reward it. These secrets are mine.”
“Of course, of course.” The king sat back, looking embarrassed. “Now you probably assume I brought this meal simply to ambush you about the fabrial.”
“You had another purpose, then?”