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“Not surprising,” Jasnah said. “You seem surprised about the spheres, Miss Davar. I assumed that you were waiting outside to recover them. Is that not why you were so close?”
“No, Brightness. I was just settling my nerves.”
“Ah.”
Shallan bit her lip. The princess appeared to have gotten past her initial tirade. Perhaps…“Brightness,” Shallan said, cringing at her brashness, “what did you think of my letter?”
“Letter?”
“I…” Shallan glanced at the desk. “Beneath that stack of books, Brightness.”
A servant quickly moved aside the stack of books; the parshman must have set it on the paper without noticing. Jasnah picked up the letter, raising an eyebrow, and Shallan hurriedly undid her satchel and placed the spheres in her money pouch. Then she cursed herself for being so quick, as now she had nothing to do but stand and wait for Jasnah to finish reading.
“This is true?” Jasnah looking up from the paper. “You are self-trained?”
“Yes, Brightness.”
“That is remarkable.”
“Thank you, Brightness.”
“And this letter was a clever maneuver. You correctly assumed that I would respond to a written plea. This shows me your skill with words, and the rhetoric of the letter gives proof that you can think logically and make a good argument.”
“Thank you, Brightness,” Shallan said, feeling another surge of hope, mixed with fatigue. Her emotions had been jerked back and forth like a rope being used for a tugging contest.
“You should have left the note for me, and withdrawn before I returned.”
“But then the note would have been lost beneath that stack of books.”
Jasnah raised an eyebrow at her, as if to show that she did not appreciate being corrected. “Very well. The context of a person’s life is important. Your circumstances do not excuse your lack of education in history and philosophy, but leniency is in order. I will allow you to petition me again at a later date, a privilege I have never given any aspiring ward. Once you have a sufficient groundwork in those two subjects, come to me again. If you have improved suitably, I will accept you.”
Shallan’s emotions sank. Jasnah’s offer was kindly, but it would take years of study to accomplish what she asked. House Davar would have fallen by then, her family’s lands divided among its creditors, her brothers and herself stripped of title and perhaps enslaved.
“Thank you, Brightness,” Shallan said, bowing her head.
Jasnah nodded, as if considering the matter closed. Shallan withdrew, walking quietly down the hallway and pulling the cord to ring for the porters.
Jasnah had all but promised to accept her at a later date. For most, that would be a great victory. Being trained by Jasnah Kholin—thought by some to be the finest living scholar—would have ensured a bright future. Shallan would have married extremely well, likely to the son of a highprince, and would have found new social circles open to her. Indeed, if Shallan had possessed the time to train under Jasnah, the sheer prestige of a Kholin affiliation might have been enough to save her house.
If only.
Eventually, Shallan made her way out of the Conclave; there were no gates on the front, just pillars set before the open maw. She was surprised to discover how dim it was outside. She trailed down the large steps, then took a smaller, more cultivated side path where she would be out of the way. Small shelves of ornamental shalebark had been grown along this walkway, and several species had let out fanlike tendrils to wave in the evening breeze. A few lazy lifespren—like specks of glowing green dust—flitted from one frond to the next.
Shallan leaned back against the stonelike plant, the tendrils pulling in and hiding. From this vantage, she could look down at Kharbranth, lights glowing beneath her like a cascade of fire streaming down the cliff face. The only other option for her and her brothers was to run. To abandon the family estates in Jah Keved and seek asylum. But where? Were there old allies her father hadn’t alienated?
There was that matter of the strange collection of maps they’d found in his study. What did they mean? He’d rarely spoken of his plans to his children. Even her father’s advisors knew very little. Helaran—her eldest brother—had known more, but he had vanished over a year ago, and her father had proclaimed him dead.
As always, thinking of her father made her feel ill, and the pain started to constrict her chest. She raised her freehand to her head, suddenly overwhelmed by the weight of House Davar’s situation, her part in it, and the secret she now carried, hidden ten heartbeats away.
“Ho, young miss!” a voice called. She turned, shocked to see Yalb standing up on a rocky shelf a short distance from the Conclave entrance. A group of men in guard uniforms sat on the rock around him.
“Yalb?” she said, aghast. He should have returned to his ship hours ago. She hurried over to stand below the short stone outcropping. “Why are you still here?”
“Oh,” he said, grinning, “I found myself a game of kabers here with these fine, upstanding gentlemen of the city guard. Figured officers of the law were right unlikely to cheat me, so we entered into a friendly-type game while I waited.”
“But you didn’t need to wait.”
“Didn’t need to win eighty chips off these fellows neither,” Yalb said with a laugh. “But I did both!”
The men sitting around him looked far less enthusiastic. Their uniforms were orange tabards tied about the middle with white sashes.
“Well, I suppose I should be leading you back to the ship, then,” Yalb said, reluctantly gathering up the spheres in the pile at his feet. They glowed with a variety of hues. Their light was small—each was only a chip—but it was impressive winnings.
Shallan stepped back as Yalb hopped off the rock shelf. His companions protested his departure, but he gestured to Shallan. “You’d have me leave a lighteyed woman of her stature to walk back to the ship on her own? I figured you for men of honor!”
That quieted their protests.
Yalb chuckled to himself, bowing to Shallan and leading her away down the path. He had a twinkle to his eyes. “Stormfather, but it’s fun to win against lawmen. I’ll have free drinks at the docks once this gets around.”
“You shouldn’t gamble,” Shallan said. “You shouldn’t try to guess the future. I didn’t give you that sphere so you could waste it on such practices.”
Yalb laughed. “It ain’t gambling if you know you’re going to win, young miss.”
“You cheated?” she hissed, horrified. She glanced back at the guardsmen, who had settled down to continue their game, lit by the spheres on the stones before them.
“Not so loud!” Yalb said in a low voice. However, he seemed very pleased with himself. “Cheating four guardsmen, now that’s a trick. Hardly believe I managed it!”
“I’m disappointed in you. This is not proper behavior.”
“It is if you’re a sailor, young miss.” He shrugged. “It’s what they right expected from me. Watched me like handlers of poisonous skyeels, they did. The game wasn’t about the cards—it was about them trying to figure how I was cheating and me trying to figure how to keep them from hauling me off. I think I might not have managed to walk away with my skin if you hadn’t arrived!” That didn’t seem to worry him much.
