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“So morality and legality are distinct?”
“Nearly all of the philosophies agree they are.”
“But what do you think?”
Shallan hesitated. “Yes. You can be moral without following the law, and you can be immoral while following the law.”
“But you also said what I did was ‘right’ but not ‘moral.’ The distinction between those two seems less easy to define.”
“An action can be right,” Shallan said. “It is simply something done, viewed without considering intent. Killing four men in self-defense is right.”
“But not moral?”
“Morality applies to your intent and the greater context of the situation. Seeking out men to kill is an immoral act, Jasnah, regardless of the eventual outcome.”
Jasnah tapped her desktop with a fingernail. She was wearing her glove, the gemstones of the broken Soulcaster bulging beneath. It had been two weeks. Surely she’d discovered that it didn’t work. How could she be so calm?
Was she trying to fix it in secret? Perhaps she feared that if she revealed it was broken, she would lose political power. Or had she realized that hers had been swapped for a different Soulcaster? Could it be, despite all odds, that Jasnah just hadn’t tried to use the Soulcaster? Shallan needed to leave before too long. But if she left before Jasnah discovered the swap, she risked having the woman try her Soulcaster just after Shallan vanished, bringing suspicion directly on her. The anxious waiting was driving Shallan near to madness.
Finally, Jasnah nodded, then returned to her research.
“You have nothing to say?” Shallan said. “I just accused you of murder.”
“No,” Jasnah said, “murder is a legal definition. You said I killed unethically.”
“You think I’m wrong, I assume?”
“You are,” Jasnah said. “But I accept that you believe what you are saying and have put rational thought behind it. I have looked over your notes, and I believe you understand the various philosophies. In some cases, I think that you were quite insightful in your interpretation of them. The lesson was instructive.” She opened her book.
“Then that’s it?”
“Of course not,” Jasnah said. “We will study philosophy further in the future; for now, I’m satisfied that you have established a solid foundation in the topic.”
“But I still decided you were wrong. I still think there’s an absolute Truth out there.”
“Yes,” Jasnah said, “and it took you two weeks of struggling to come to that conclusion.” Jasnah looked up, meeting Shallan’s eyes. “It wasn’t easy, was it?”
“No.”
“And you still wonder, don’t you?”
“Yes.
“That is enough.” Jasnah narrowed her eyes slightly, a consoling smile appearing on her lips. “If it helps you wrestle with your feelings, child, understand that I was trying to do good. I sometimes wonder if I should accomplish more with my Soulcaster.” She turned back to her reading. “You are free for the rest of the day.”
Shallan blinked. “What?”
“Free,” Jasnah said. “You may go. Do as you please. You’ll spend it drawing beggars and barmaids, I suspect, but you may choose. Be off with you.”
“Yes, Brightness! Thank you.”
Jasnah waved in dismissal and Shallan grabbed her portfolio and hastened from the alcove. She hadn’t had any free time since the day she’d gone sketching on her own in the gardens. She’d been gently chided for that; Jasnah had left her in her rooms to rest, not go out sketching.
Shallan waited impatiently as the parshman porters lowered her lift to the Veil’s groundfloor, then hurried out into the cavernous central hall. A long walk later, she approached the guest quarters, nodding to the master-servants who served there. Half guards, half concierges, they monitored who entered and left.
She used her thick brass key to unlock the door to Jasnah’s rooms, then slipped inside and locked the door behind her. The small sitting chamber—furnished with a rug and two chairs beside the hearth—was lit by topazes. The table still contained a half-full cup of orange wine from Jasnah’s late research the night before, along with a few crumbs of bread on a plate.
Shallan hurried to her own chamber, then shut the door and took the Soulcaster out of her safepouch. The warm glow of the gemstones bathed her face in white and red light. They were large enough—and therefore bright enough—that it was hard to look at them directly. Each would be worth ten or twenty broams.
She’d been forced to hide them outside in the recent highstorm to infuse them, and that had been its own source of anxiety. She took a deep breath, then knelt and slid a small wooden stick from under the bed. A week and a half of practice, and she still hadn’t managed to make the Soulcaster do…well, anything at all. She’d tried tapping the gems, twisting them, shaking her hand, and flexing her hand in exact mimicry of Jasnah. She’d studied picture after picture she’d drawn of the process. She tried speaking, concentrating, and even begging.
However, she’d found a book the day before that had offered what seemed like a useful tip. It claimed that humming, of all things, could make a Soulcasting more effective. It was just a passing reference, but it was more than she’d found anywhere else. She sat down on her bed and forced herself to concentrate. She closed her eyes, holding the stick, imagining it transforming into quartz. Then she began humming.
Nothing happened. She kept on humming though, trying different notes, concentrating as hard as she could. She kept her attention on the task for a good half hour, but eventually her mind began to wander. A new worry began to nibble at her. Jasnah was one of the most brilliant, insightful scholars in the world. She’d put the Soulcaster out where it could be taken. Had she intentionally duped Shallan with a fake?
It seemed an awful lot of trouble to go through. Why not just spring the trap and reveal Shallan as a thief? The fact that she couldn’t get the Soulcaster to work left her straining plausibility for explanations.
She stopped humming and opened her eyes. The stick had not changed. So much for that tip, she thought, setting the stick aside with a sigh. She’d been so hopeful.
She lay back on the bed, resting, staring up at the brown stone ceiling, cut—like the rest of the Conclave—directly out of the mountain. Here, the stone had been left intentionally rough, evoking the roof of a cave. It was quite beautiful in a subtle way she’d never noticed before, the colors and contours of the rock rippling like a disturbed pond.
She took a sheet from her portfolio and began to sketch the rock patterns. One sketch to calm her, and then she would get back to the Soulcaster. Perhaps she should try it on her other hand again.
She couldn’t capture the colors of the strata, not in charcoal, but she could record the fascinating way the strata wove together. Like a work of art. Had some stoneworker cut this ceiling intentionally, crafting this subtle creation, or was it an accident of nature? She smiled, imagining some overworked stonecutter noticing the beautiful grain of the rock and deciding to form a wave pattern for his own personal wonder and sense of beauty.
“What are you?”
Shallan yelped, sitting up, sketchpad bouncing free of her lap. Someone had whispered those words. She’d heard them distinctly!
