THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Shallan poked at the cage, and the colorful creature inside shifted on its perch, cocking its head at her.
It was the most bizarre thing she’d ever seen. It stood on two feet like a person, though its feet were clawed. It was only about as tall as two fists atop one another, but the way it turned its head as it looked at her showed unmistakable personality.
The thing only had a little bit of shell—on the nose and mouth—but the strangest part was its hair. It had bright green hair that covered its entire body. The hair lay flat, as if manicured. As she watched, the creature turned and began to pick at the hair—a large flap of it lifted up, and she could see it grew out of a central spine.
“What does the young lady think of my chicken?” the merchant said proudly, standing with hands clasped behind his back, ample stomach thrust forward like the prow of a ship. Behind, people moved through the fair in a throng. There were so many. Five hundred, perhaps even more, people in the same place.
“Chicken,” Shallan said, poking at the cage with a timid finger. “I’ve eaten chicken before.”
“Not this breed!” the Thaylen man said with a laugh. “Chickens for eating are stupid—this one is smart, almost as smart as a man! It can speak. Listen. Jeksonofnone! Say your name!”
“Jeksonofnone,” the creature said.
Shallan jumped back. The word was mangled by the creature’s inhuman voice, but it was recognizable. “A Voidbringer!” she hissed, safehand to her chest. “An animal that speaks! You’ll bring the eyes of the Unmade upon us.”
The merchant laughed. “These things live all over Shinovar, young lady. If their speech drew the Unmade, the entire country would be cursed!”
“Shallan!” Father stood with his bodyguards where he had been speaking to another merchant across the way. She hurried toward him, looking over her shoulder at the strange animal. Deviant though the thing was, if it could talk, she felt sorry for its being trapped in that cage.
The Middlefest Fair was a highlight of the year. Set during the midpeace—a period opposite the Weeping when there were no storms—it drew people from hamlets and villages all around. Many of the people here were from lands her father oversaw, including lesser lighteyes from families who had ruled the same villages for centuries.
The darkeyes came too, of course, including merchants—citizens of the first and second nahns. Her father didn’t speak of it often, but she knew he found their wealth and station inappropriate. The Almighty had chosen the lighteyes to rule, not these merchants.
“Come along,” Father said to her.
Shallan followed him and his bodyguards through the busy fair, which was laid out on her father’s estates about a half day’s travel from the mansion. The basin was fairly well sheltered, the slopes nearby covered in jella trees. Their strong branches grew spindly leaves—long spikes of pink, yellow, and orange, and so the trees looked like explosions of color. Shallan had read in one of her father’s books that the trees drew in crem, then used it to make their wood hard, like rock.
In the basin itself, most of the trees had been broken down, though some were instead used to hold up canopies dozens of yards wide, tied in place high above. They passed a merchant cursing as a windspren darted through his enclosure, making objects stick together. Shallan smiled, pulling her satchel out from under her arm. There wasn’t time to sketch, however, as her father barreled on toward the dueling grounds where—if this was like previous years—she would spend most of the fair.
“Shallan,” he said, causing her to scurry to catch up. At fourteen, she felt horribly gangly and far too boyish in figure. As womanhood had begun to come upon her, she had learned that she should be embarrassed by her red hair and freckled skin, as they were a mark of an impure heritage. They were traditional Veden colorings, but that was because—in their past—their lines had mixed with the Horneaters up in the peaks.
Some people were proud of the coloring. Not her father, so neither was Shallan.
“You are coming to an age where you must act more like a lady,” Father said. The darkeyes gave them plenty of room, bowing as her father passed. Two of Father’s ardents trailed after them, hands behind their backs, contemplative. “You will need to stop gawking so often. It will not be long before we will want to find a husband for you.”
“Yes, Father,” she said.
“I may need to stop bringing you to events like these,” he said. “All you do is run around and act like a child. You need a new tutor, at the very least.”
He’d scared off the last tutor. The woman had been an expert in languages, and Shallan had been picking up Azish quite well—but she’d left soon after one of Father’s . . . episodes. Shallan’s stepmother had appeared the next day with bruises on her face. Brightness Hasheh, the tutor, had packed her things and fled without giving notice.
Shallan nodded to her father’s words, but secretly hoped that she’d be able to sneak away and find her brothers. Today she had work to do. She and her father approached the “dueling arena,” which was a grandiose term for a section of roped-off ground where parshmen had dumped half a beach’s worth of sand. Canopied tables had been erected for the lighteyes to sit at, dine, and converse.
Shallan’s stepmother, Malise, was a young woman less than ten years older than Shallan herself. Short of stature with buttonlike features, she sat straight-backed, her black hair brightened by a few streaks of blond. Father settled in beside her in their box; he was one of four men of his rank, fourth dahn, who would be attending the fair. The duelists would be the lesser lighteyes from the surrounding region. Many of them would be landless, and duels would be one of their only ways to gain notoriety.
Shallan sat in the seat reserved for her, and a servant handed her chilled water in a glass. She had barely taken a single sip before someone approached the box.
Brightlord Revilar might have been handsome, if his nose hadn’t been removed in a youthful duel. He wore a wooden replacement, painted black—a strange mixture of covering up the blemish and drawing attention to it at the same time. Silver-haired, well-dressed in a suit of a modern design, he had the distracted look of someone who had left his hearth burning untended back at home. His lands bordered Father’s; they were two of the ten men of similar rank who served under the highprince.
Revilar approached with not one, but two master-servants at his side. Their black-and-white uniforms were a distinction that ordinary servants were denied, and Father eyed them hungrily. He’d tried to hire master-servants. Each had cited his “reputation” and had refused.
“Brightlord Davar,” Revilar said. He did not wait for permission before climbing up the steps into the box. Father and he were the same rank, but everyone knew the allegations against Father—and that the highprince saw them as credible.
“Revilar,” Father said, eyes forward.
“May I sit?” He took a seat beside Father—the one that Helaran, as heir, would have used if he’d been there. Revilar’s two servants took up places behind him. They somehow managed to convey a sense of disapproval of Father without saying anything.
“Is your son going to duel today?” Father asked.
“Actually, yes.”
“Hopefully he can keep all of his parts. We wouldn’t want your experience to become a tradition.”
“Now, now, Lin,” Revilar said. “That is no way to speak to a business associate.”
“Business associate? We have dealings of which I am not aware?”
One of Revilar’s servants, the woman, set a small sheaf of pages on the table before Father. Shallan’s stepmother took them hesitantly, then began to read them out loud. The terms were for an exchange of goods, Father trading some of his breechtree cotton and raw shum to Revilar in exchange for a small payment. Revilar would then take the goods to market for sale.
Father stopped the reading three-quarters of the way through. “Are you delusional? One clearmark a bag? A tenth of what that shum is worth! Considering patrols of roadways and maintenance fees paid back to the villages where the materials are harvested, I would lose spheres on this deal.”
“Oh, it is not so bad,” Revilar said. “I think you will find the arrangement quite agreeable.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m popular.”
Father frowned, growing red-faced. Shallan could remember a time when she’d rarely, if ever, seen him angry. Those days were long, long dead. “Popular?” Father demanded. “What does—”
“You may or may not know,” Revilar said, “that the highprince himself recently visited my estates. It seems he likes what I have been doing for this princedom’s textiles. That, added to my son’s dueling prowess, has drawn attention to my house. I have been invited to visit the highprince in Vedenar one week out of ten, starting next month.”
At times, Father was not the cleverest of men, but he did have a mind for politics. So Shallan thought, at least, though she did so want to believe the best about him. Either way, he saw this implication immediately.
“You rat,” Father whispered.
“You have very few options open to you, Lin,” Revilar said, leaning toward him. “Your house is on the decline, your reputation in shambles. You need allies. I need to look the part of a financial genius to the highprince. We can assist one another.”
Father bowed his head. Outside the box, the first duelists were announced, an inconsequential bout.
“Everywhere I step, I find only corners,” Father whispered. “Slowly, they trap me.”
Revilar pushed the papers toward Shallan’s stepmother once more. “Would you start again? I suspect your husband was not listening carefully the last time.” He glanced at Shallan. “And does the child need to be here?”
Shallan left without a word. It was what she’d wanted anyway, though she did feel bad leaving Father. He didn’t often speak with her, let alone ask for her opinion, but he did seem to be stronger when she was near.
He was so disconcerted that he didn’t even send one of the guards with her. She slipped out of the box, satchel under her arm, and passed through the Davar servants who were preparing her father’s meal.
Freedom.
Freedom was as valuable as an emerald broam to Shallan, and as rare as a larkin. She hurried away, lest her father realize he had given no orders for her to be accompanied. One of the guards at the perimeter—Jix—stepped toward her anyway, but then looked back at the box. He went that way instead, perhaps intending to ask if he should follow.
Best to not be easily found when he returned. Shallan took a step toward the fair, with its exotic merchants and wonderful sights. There would be guessing games and perhaps a Worldsinger telling tales of distant kingdoms. Over the polite clapping of the lighteyes watching the duel behind her, she could hear drums from the common darkeyes along with singing and merriment.
Work first. Darkness lay over her house like a storm’s shadow. She would find the sun. She would.
That meant turning back to the dueling grounds, for now. She rounded the back of the boxes, weaving between parshmen who bowed and darkeyes who gave her nods or bows, depending on their rank. She eventually found a box where several lesser lighteyed families shared space in the shade.
Eylita, daughter of Brightlord Tavinar, sat on the end, just within the sunlight shining through the side of the box. She stared at the duelists with a vapid expression, head slightly cocked, a whimsical smile on her face. Her long hair was a pure black.
Shallan stepped up beside the box and hissed at her. The older girl turned, frowning, then raised hands to her lips. She glanced at her parents, then leaned down. “Shallan!”
“I told you to expect me,” Shallan whispered back. “Did you think about what I wrote you?”
Eylita reached into the pocket of her dress, then slipped out a small note. She grinned mischievously and nodded.
Shallan took the note. “You’ll be able to get away?”
“I’ll need to take my handmaid, but otherwise I can go where I want.”
What would that be like?
Shallan ducked away quickly. Technically, she outranked Eylita’s parents, but age was a funny thing among the lighteyes. Sometimes, the higher-ranked child didn’t seem nearly as important when speaking to adults of a lower dahn. Besides, Brightlord and Brightness Tavinar had been there on that day, when the bastard had come. They were not fond of Father, or his children.
Shallan backed away from the boxes, then turned toward the fair itself. Here, she paused nervously. The Middlefest Fair was an intimidating collage of people and places. Nearby, a group of tenners drank at long tables and placed bets on the matches. The lowest rank of lighteyes, they were barely above darkeyes. They not only had to work for their living, they weren’t even merchants or master craftsmen. They were just . . . people. Helaran had said there were many of them in the cities. As many as there were darkeyes. That seemed very odd to her.
Odd and fascinating at the same time. She itched to find a corner to watch where she would not be noticed, her sketchpad out and her imagination boiling. Instead, she forced herself to move around the edge of the fair. The tent that her brothers had spoken of would be on the outer perimeter, wouldn’t it?
Darkeyed fairgoers gave her a wide berth, and she found herself afraid. Her father spoke of how a young lighteyed girl could be a target for the brutish people of the lower classes. Surely nobody would harm her here in the open, with so many people about. Still, she clutched her satchel to her chest and found herself trembling as she walked.
What would it be like, to be brave like Helaran? As her mother had been.
Her mother . . .
“Brightness?”
Shallan shook herself. How long had she been standing there, on the path? The sun had moved. She turned sheepishly to find Jix the guard standing behind her. Though he had a gut and rarely kept his hair combed, Jix was strong—she had once seen him pull a cart out of the way when the chull’s hitch broke. He’d been one of her father’s guards for as long as she could remember.
“Ah,” she said, trying to cover her nervousness, “you’re here to accompany me?”
“Well, I was gonna bring you back. . . .”
“Did my father order you to?”
Jix chewed on the yamma root, called cussweed by some, in his cheek. “He was busy.”
“Then you will accompany me?” She shook from the nervousness of saying it.
“I suppose.”
She breathed out a sigh of relief and turned around on the pathway, stone where rockbuds and shalebark had been scraped away. She turned one way, then the other. “Um . . . We need to find the gambling pavilion.”
“That’s not a place for a lady.” Jix eyed her. “Particularly not one of your age, Brightness.”
“Well, I suppose you can go tell my father what I’m doing.” She shuffled from one foot to the other.
“And in the meantime,” Jix said, “you’ll try to find it on your own, won’t you? Go in by yourself if you find it?”
She shrugged, blushing. That was exactly what she’d do.
“Which means I’d have left you wandering around in a place like that without protection.” He groaned softly. “Why do you defy him like this, Brightness? You’re just going to make him angry.”
“I think . . . I think he will anger no matter what I or anyone does,” she said. “The sun will shine. The highstorms will blow. And Father will yell. That’s just how life is.” She bit her lip. “The gambling pavilion? I promise that I will be brief.”
“This way,” Jix said. He didn’t walk particularly quickly as he led her, and he frequently glared at darkeyed fairgoers who passed. Jix was lighteyed, but only of the eighth dahn.
“Pavilion” turned out to be too grand a term for the patched and ripped tarp strung up at the edge of the fairgrounds. She’d have found it on her own soon enough. The thick canvas, with sides that hung down a few feet, made it surprisingly dark inside.
Men crowded together in there. The few women that Shallan saw had the fingers cut out of the gloves on their safehands. Scandalous. She found herself blushing as she stopped at the perimeter, looking in at the dark, shifting forms. Men shouted inside with raw voices, any sense of Vorin decorum left out in the sunlight. This was, indeed, not a place for someone like her. She had trouble believing it was a place for anyone.
“How about I go in for you,” Jix said. “Is it a bet you’re wanting to—”
Shallan pushed forward. Ignoring her own panic, her discomfort, she moved into the darkness. Because if she did not, then it meant that none of them were resisting, that nothing would change.
Jix stayed at her side, shoving her some space. She had trouble breathing inside; the air was dank with sweat and curses. Men turned and glanced at her. Bows—even nods—were slow in coming, if they were offered at all. The implication was clear. If she wouldn’t obey social conventions by staying out, they didn’t have to obey them by showing her deference.
“Is there something specific you’re searching for?” Jix asked. “Cards? Guessing games?”
“Axehound fights.”
Jix groaned. “You’re gonna end up stabbed, and I’m gonna end up on a roasting spit. This is crazy. . . .”
She turned, noting a group of men cheering. That sounded promising. She ignored the increasing trembling in her hands, and also tried to ignore a group of drunk men sitting in a ring on the ground, staring at what appeared to be vomit.
The cheering men sat on crude benches with others crowded around. A glimpse between bodies showed two small axehounds. There were no spren. When people crowded about like this, spren were rare, even though the emotions seemed to be very high.
One set of benches was not crowded. Balat sat here, coat unbuttoned, leaning on a post in front of him with arms crossed. His disheveled hair and stooped posture gave him an uncaring look, but his eyes . . . his eyes lusted. He watched the poor animals killing one another, fixated on them with the intensity of a woman reading a powerful novel.
Shallan stepped up to him, Jix remaining a little ways behind. Now that he’d seen Balat, the guard relaxed.
“Balat?” Shallan asked timidly. “Balat!”
He glanced at her, then nearly toppled off his bench. He scrambled up to his feet. “What in the . . . Shallan! Get out of here. What are you doing?” He reached for her.
She cringed down despite herself. He sounded like Father. As he took her by the shoulder, she held up the note from Eylita. The lavender paper, dusted with perfume, seemed to glow.
Balat hesitated. To the side, one axehound bit deeply into the leg of the other. Blood sprayed the ground, deep violet.
“What is it?” Balat asked. “That is the glyphpair of House Tavinar.”
“It’s from Eylita.”
“Eylita? The daughter? Why . . . what . . .”
Shallan broke the seal, opening the letter to read for him. “She wishes to walk with you along the fairgrounds stream. She says she’ll be waiting there, with her handmaid, if you want to come.”
Balat ran a hand through his curling hair. “Eylita? She’s here. Of course she’s here. Everyone is here. You talked to her? Why— But—”
“I know how you’ve looked at her,” Shallan said. “The few times you’ve been near.”
“So you talked to her?” Balat demanded. “Without my permission? You said I’d be interested in something like”—he took the letter—“like this?”
Shallan nodded, wrapping her arms around herself.
Balat looked back toward the fighting axehounds. He bet because it was expected of him, but he didn’t come here for the money—unlike Jushu would.
Balat ran his hand through his hair again, then looked back at the letter. He wasn’t a cruel man. She knew it was a strange thing to think, considering what he sometimes did. Shallan knew the kindness he showed, the strength that hid within him. He hadn’t acquired this fascination with death until Mother had left them. He could come back, stop being like that. He could.
“I need . . .” Balat looked out of the tent. “I need to go! She’ll be waiting for me. I shouldn’t make her wait.” He buttoned up his coat.
Shallan nodded eagerly, following him from the pavilion. Jix trailed along behind, though a couple of men called out to him. He must be known in the pavilion.
Balat stepped out into the sunlight. He seemed a changed man, just like that.
“Balat?” Shallan asked. “I didn’t see Jushu in there with you.”
“He didn’t come to the pavilion.”
“What? I thought—”
“I don’t know where he went,” Balat said. “He met some people right after we arrived.” He looked toward the distant stream that ran down from the heights and through a channel around the fairgrounds. “What do I say to her?”
“How should I know?”
“You’re a woman too.”
“I’m fourteen!” She wouldn’t spend time courting, anyway. Father would choose her a husband. His only daughter was too precious to be wasted on something fickle, like her own powers of decision.
“I guess . . . I guess I’ll just talk to her,” Balat said. He jogged off without another word.
Shallan watched him go, then sat down on a rock and trembled, arms around herself. That place . . . the tent . . . it had been horrible.
She sat there for an extended time, feeling ashamed of her weakness, but also proud. She’d done it. It was small, but she’d done something.
Eventually, she rose and nodded to Jix, letting him lead the way back toward their box. Father should be finished with his meeting by now.
It turned out that he had finished that meeting only to start another. A man she did not know sat next to Father with a cup of chilled water in one hand. Tall, slender, and blue-eyed, he had deep black hair without a hint of impurity and wore clothing the same shade. He glanced at Shallan as she stepped up into the box.
The man started, dropping his cup to the table. He caught it with a swift lunge, keeping it from tipping over, then turned to stare at her with a slack jaw.
It was gone in a second, replaced with an expression of practiced indifference.
“Clumsy fool!” Father said.