Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive 3)

This would keep everyone going a little longer. And, bless them, these four did want the coalition to work. Aladar and Sebarial, for all their flaws, had followed Dalinar into the dark of the Weeping and found Damnation waiting there. Hatham and Bethab had been at the advent of the new storm, and could see that Dalinar had been right.

They didn’t care that the Blackthorn was a heretic—or even whether he usurped the throne of Alethkar. They cared that he had a plan for dealing with the enemy, long-term.

After the meeting broke, Navani walked off down the strata-lined hallway, trailed by her bridgeman guards, two of whom carried sapphire lanterns. “I do apologize,” she noted to them, “for how boring that must have been.”

“We like boring, Brightness,” Leyten—their leader today—said. He was a stocky man, with short, curly hair. “Hey, Hobber. Anyone try to kill you in there?”

The gap-toothed bridgeman grinned his reply. “Does Huio’s breath count?”

“See, Brightness?” Leyten said. “New recruits might get bored by guard duty, but you’ll never find a veteran complaining about a nice quiet afternoon full of not being stabbed.”

“I can see the appeal,” she said. “But surely it can’t compare with soaring through the skies.”

“That’s true,” Leyten said. “But we have to take turns … you know.” He meant using the Honorblade to practice Windrunning. “Kal has to return before we can do more than that.”

To a man, they were absolutely certain he’d return, and showed the world jovial faces—though she knew not everything was perfect with them. Teft, for example, had been hauled before Aladar’s magistrates two days ago. Public intoxication on firemoss. Aladar had quietly requested her seal to free him.

No, all was not well with them. But as Navani led them down toward the basement library rooms, a different issue gnawed at her: Brightlady Bethab’s implication that Navani was eager for the chance to take over while Dalinar was indisposed.

Navani was not a fool. She knew how it looked to others. She’d married one king. After he died, she’d immediately gone after the next most powerful man in Alethkar. But she couldn’t have people believing she was the power behind the throne. Not only would it undermine Dalinar, but it would grow tedious for her. She had no problem being a wife or mother to monarchs, but to be one herself—storms, what a dark path that would lead them all down.

She and the bridgemen passed no fewer than six squads of sentries on their way to the library rooms with the murals and—more importantly—the hidden gemstone records. Arriving, she idled in the doorway, impressed by the operation that Jasnah had organized down here since Navani had been forced to step back from the research.

Each gemstone had been removed from its individual drawer, catalogued, and numbered. While one group listened and wrote, others sat at tables, busy translating. The room buzzed with a low hum of discussion and scratching reeds, concentrationspren dotting the air like ripples in the sky.

Jasnah strolled along the tables, looking through pages of translations. As Navani entered, the bridgemen gathered around Renarin, who blushed, looking up from his own papers, which were covered in glyphs and numbers. He did look out of place in the room, the only man in uniform rather than in the robes of an ardent or stormwarden.

“Mother,” Jasnah said, not looking up from her papers, “we need more translators. Do you have any other scribes versed in classical Alethelan?”

“I’ve lent you everyone I have. What is Renarin studying over there?”

“Hm? Oh, he thinks there might be a pattern to which stones were stored in which drawers. He’s been working on it all day.”

“And?”

“Nothing, which is not surprising. He insists he can find a pattern if he looks hard enough.” Jasnah lowered her pages and looked at her cousin, who was joking with the men of Bridge Four.

Storms, Navani thought. He truly looks happy. Embarrassed as they ribbed him, but happy. She’d worried when he had first “joined” Bridge Four. He was the son of a highprince. Decorum and distance were appropriate when dealing with enlisted soldiers.

But when, before this, had she last heard him laugh?

“Maybe,” Navani said, “we should encourage him to take a break and go out with the bridgemen for the evening.”

“I’d rather keep him here,” Jasnah said, flipping through her pages. “His powers need additional study.”

Navani would talk to Renarin anyway and encourage him to go out more with the men. There was no arguing with Jasnah, any more than there was arguing with a boulder. You just stepped to the side and went around.

“The translation goes well,” Navani asked, “other than the bottleneck on numbers of scribes?”

“We’re lucky,” Jasnah said, “that the gemstones were recorded so late in the life of the Radiants. They spoke a language we can translate. If it had been the Dawnchant…”

“That’s close to being cracked.”

Jasnah frowned at that. Navani had thought the prospect of translating the Dawnchant—and writings lost to the shadowdays—would have excited her. Instead, it seemed to trouble her.

“Have you found anything more about the tower’s fabrials in these gemstone records?” Navani asked.

“I’ll be certain to prepare a report for you, Mother, with details of each and every fabrial mentioned. So far, those references are few. Most are personal histories.”

“Damnation.”

“Mother!” Jasnah said, lowering her pages.

“What? I wouldn’t have thought you would object to a few strong words now and—”

“It’s not the language, but the dismissal,” Jasnah said. “Histories.”

Oh, right.

“History is the key to human understanding.”

Here we go.

“We must learn from the past and apply that knowledge to our modern experience.”

Lectured by my own daughter again.

“The best indication of what human beings will do is not what they think, but what the record says similar groups have done in the past.”

“Of course, Brightness.”

Jasnah gave her a dry look, then set her papers aside. “I’m sorry, Mother. I’ve been dealing with a lot of lesser ardents today. My didactic side might have inflated.”

“You have a didactic side? Dear, you hate teaching.”

“Which explains my mood, I should think. I—”

A young scribe called for her from the other side of the room. Jasnah sighed, then went to answer the question.

Jasnah preferred to work alone, which was odd, considering how good she was at getting people to do what she wanted. Navani liked groups—but of course, Navani wasn’t a scholar. Oh, she knew how to pretend. But all she really did was nudge here and there, perhaps provide an idea. Others did all the real engineering.

She poked through the papers Jasnah had set aside. Perhaps her daughter had missed something in the translations. To her mind, the only scholarship of importance was stuffy, dusty writings of old philosophers. When it came to fabrials, Jasnah barely knew her pairings from her warnings.…

What was this?

The glyphs were scrawled in white on the highprince’s wall, the paper read. We quickly ascertained the implement of writing to be a stone pried free near the window. This first sign was the roughest of them, the glyphs malformed. The reason for this later became apparent, as Prince Renarin was not versed in writing glyphs, save the numbers.