The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive 1)

Shallan fished in the safepouch inside her sleeve, bringing out her father’s broken Soulcaster. It had been sheared in two places: across one of the chains and through the setting that held one of the stones. She inspected it in the light, looking—not for the first time—for signs of that damage. The link in the chain had been replaced perfectly and the setting reforged equally well. Even knowing exactly where the cuts had been, she couldn’t find any flaw. Unfortunately, repairing only the outward defects hadn’t made it functional.

She hefted the heavy construction of metal and chains. Then she put it on, looping chains around her thumb, small finger, and middle finger. There were no gemstones in the device at present. She compared the broken Soulcaster to the drawings, inspecting it from all sides. Yes, it looked identical. She’d worried about that.

Shallan felt her heart flutter as she regarded the broken Soulcaster. Stealing from Jasnah had seemed acceptable when the princess had been a distant, unknown figure. A heretic, presumably ill-tempered and demanding. But what of the real Jasnah? A careful scholar, stern but fair, with a surprising level of wisdom and insight? Could Shallan really steal from her?

She tried to still her heart. Even as a little child, she’d been this way. She could remember her tears at fights between her parents. She was not good with confrontation.

But she’d do it. For Nan Balat, Tet Wikim, and Asha Jushu. Her brothers depended on her. She pressed her hands against her thighs to keep them from shaking, breathing in and out. After a few minutes, nerves under control, she took off the damaged Soulcaster and returned it to her safepouch. She gathered up her papers. They might be important in discovering how to use the Soulcaster. What was she going to do about that? Was there a way to ask Jasnah about using a Soulcaster without arousing suspicion?

A light flickering through nearby bookcases startled her, and she tucked away her folio. It turned out to be just an old, berobed female ardent, shuffling with a lantern and followed by a parshman servant. She didn’t look in Shallan’s direction as she turned between two rows of shelves, her lantern’s light shining out through the spaces between the books. Lit that way—with her figure hidden but the light streaming between the shelves—it looked as if one of the Heralds themselves were walking through the stacks.

Her heart racing again, Shallan raised her safehand to her breast. I make a terrible thief, she thought with a grimace. She finished gathering her things and moved through the stacks, lantern held before her. The head of each row was carved with symbols, indicating the date the books had entered the Palanaeum. That was how they were organized. There were enormous cabinets filled with indexes on the top level.

Jasnah had sent Shallan to fetch—and then read—a copy of Dialogues, a famous historical work on political theory. However, this was also the room that contained Shadows Remembered—the book Jasnah was reading when the king had visited. Shallan had later looked it up in the index. It might have been reshelved by now.

Suddenly curious, Shallan counted off the rows. She stepped in and counted shelves inward. Near the middle and at the bottom, she found a thin red volume with a red hogshide cover. Shadows Remembered. Shallan set her lantern on the ground and slipped the book free, feeling furtive as she flipped through the pages.

She was confused by what she discovered. She hadn’t realized this was a book of children’s stories. There was no undertext commentary, just a collection of tales. Shallan sat down on the floor, reading through the first one. It was the story of a child who wandered away from his home at night and was chased by Voidbringers until he hid in a cavern beside a lake. He whittled a piece of wood into a roughly human shape and sent it floating across the lake, fooling the creatures into attacking and eating it instead.

Shallan didn’t have much time—Jasnah would grow suspicious if she remained down here too long—but she skimmed the rest of the stories. They were all of a similar style, ghost stories about spirits or Voidbringers. The only commentary was at the back, explaining that the author had been curious about the folktales told by common darkeyes. She had spent years collecting and recording them.

Shadows Remembered, Shallan thought, would have been better off forgotten.

This was what Jasnah had been reading? Shallan had expected Shadows Remembered to be some kind of deep philosophical discussion of a hidden historical murder. Jasnah was a Veristitalian. She constructed the truth of what happened in the past. What kind of truth could she find in stories told to frighten disobedient darkeyed children?

Shallan slid the volume back in place and hurried on her way.

A short time later, Shallan returned to the alcove to discover that her haste had been unnecessary. Jasnah wasn’t there. Kabsal, however, was.

The youthful ardent sat at the long desk, flipping through one of Shallan’s books on art. Shallan noticed him before he saw her, and she found herself smiling despite her troubles. She folded her arms and adopted a dubious expression. “Again?” she asked.

Kabsal leaped up, slapping the book closed. “Shallan,” he said, his bald head reflecting the blue light of her parshman’s lantern. “I came looking for—”

“For Jasnah,” Shallan said. “As always. And yet, she’s never here when you come.”

“An unfortunate coincidence,” he said, raising a hand to his forehead. “I am a poor judge of timing, am I not?”

“And is that a basket of bread at your feet?”

“A gift for Brightness Jasnah,” he said. “From the Devotary of Insight.”

“I doubt a bread basket is going to persuade her to renounce her heresy,” Shallan said. “Perhaps if you’d included jam.”

The ardent smiled, picking up the basket and pulling out a small jar of red simberry jam.

“Of course, I’ve told you that Jasnah doesn’t like jam,” Shallan said “And yet you bring it anyway, knowing jam to be among my favorite foods. And you’ve done this oh…a dozen times in the last few months?”

“I’m growing a bit transparent, aren’t I?”

“Just a tad,” she said, smiling. “It’s about my soul, isn’t it? You’re worried about me because I’m apprenticed to a heretic.”

“Er…well, yes, I’m afraid.”

“I’d be insulted,” Shallan said. “But you did bring jam.” She smiled, waving for her parshman to deposit her books and then wait beside the doorway. Was it true that there were parshmen on the Shattered Plains who were fighting? That seemed hard to credit. She’d never known any parshman to as much as raise their voice. They didn’t seem bright enough for disobedience.

Of course, some reports she’d heard—including those Jasnah had made her read when studying King Gavilar’s murder—indicated that the Parshendi weren’t like other parshmen. They were bigger, had odd armor that grew from their skin itself, and spoke far more frequently. Perhaps they weren’t parshmen at all, but some kind of distant cousin, a different race entirely.

She sat down at the desk as Kabsal got out the bread, her parshman waiting at the doorway. A parshman wasn’t much of a chaperone, but Kabsal was an ardent, which meant technically she didn’t need one.

The bread had been purchased from a Thaylen bakery, which meant it was fluffy and brown. And, since he was an ardent, it didn’t matter that jam was a feminine food—they could enjoy it together. She eyed him as he cut the bread. The ardents in her father’s employ had all been crusty men or women in their later years, stern-eyed and impatient with children. She’d never even considered that the devotaries would attract young men like Kabsal.