The Way of Kings

Once, Laral had told him that men weren’t supposed to see beneath the skin. These folios, with their pictures, were part of what made everyone so mistrustful of Lirin. Seeing beneath was like seeing beneath the clothing, only worse.

Lirin poured himself more wine. How much the world could change in a short time. Kal pulled his coat close against the chill. A season of winter had come, but they couldn’t afford charcoal for the brazier, for patients no longer gave offerings. Lirin hadn’t stopped healing or surgery. The townspeople had simply stopped their donations, all at a word from Roshone.

“He shouldn’t be able to do this,” Kal whispered.

“But he can,” Lirin said. He wore a white shirt and black vest atop tan trousers. The vest was unbuttoned, the front flaps hanging down by his sides, like the skin pulled back from the torsos of the men in Kal’s drawings.

“We could spend the spheres,” Kal said hesitantly.

“Those are for your education,” Lirin snapped. “If I could send you now, I would.”

Kal’s father and mother had sent a letter to the surgeons in Kharbranth, asking them to let Kal take the entry tests early. They’d responded in the negative.

“He wants us to spend them,” Lirin said, words slurred. “That’s why he said what he did. He’s trying to bully us into needing those spheres.”

Roshone’s words to the townspeople hadn’t exactly been a command. He’d just implied that if Kal’s father was too foolish to charge, then he shouldn’t be paid. The next day, people had stopped donating.

The townsfolk regarded Roshone with a confusing mixture of adoration and fear. In Kal’s opinion, he didn’t deserve either. Obviously, the man had been banished to Hearthstone because he was so bitter and flawed. He clearly didn’t deserve to be among the real lighteyes, who fought for vengeance on the Shattered Plains.

“Why do the people try so hard to please him?” Kal asked of his father’s back. “They never reacted this way around Brightlord Wistiow.”

“They do it because Roshone is unappeasable.”

Kal frowned. Was that the wine talking?

Kal’s father turned, his eyes reflecting pure Stormlight. In those eyes, Kal saw a surprising lucidity. He wasn’t so drunk after all. “Brightlord Wistiow let men do as they wished. And so they ignored him. Roshone lets them know he finds them contemptible. And so they scramble to please him.”

“That makes no sense,” Kal said.

“It is the way of things,” Lirin said, playing with one of the spheres on the table, rolling it beneath his finger. “You’ll have to learn this, Kal. When men perceive the world as being right, we are content. But if we see a hole – a deficiency – we scramble to fill it.”

“You make it sound noble, what they do.”

“It is in a way,” Lirin said. He sighed. “I shouldn’t be so hard on our neighbors. They’re petty, yes, but it’s the pettiness of the ignorant. I’m not disgusted by them. I’m disgusted by the one who manipulates them. A man like Roshone can take what is honest and true in men and twist it into a mess of sludge to walk on.” He took a sip, finishing the wine.

“We should just spend the spheres,” Kal said. “Or send them somewhere, to a moneylender or something. If they were gone, he’d leave us alone.”

“No,” Lirin said softly. “Roshone is not the kind to spare a man once he is beaten. He’s the type who keeps kicking. I don’t know what political mistake landed him in this place, but he obviously can’t get revenge on his rivals. So we’re all he has.” Lirin paused. “Poor fool.”

Poor fool? Kal thought. He’s trying to destroy our lives, and that’s all Father can say?

What of the stories men sang at the hearths? Tales of clever herdsmen outwitting and overthrowing a foolish lighteyed man. There were dozens of variations, and Kal had heard them all. Shouldn’t Lirin fight back somehow? Do something other than sit and wait?

But he didn’t say anything; he knew exactly what Lirin would say. Let me worry about it. Get back to your studies.

Sighing, Kal settled back in his chair, opening his folio again. The surgery room was dim, lit by the four spheres on the table and a single one Kal used for reading. Lirin kept most of the spheres closed up in their cupboard, hidden away. Kal held up his own sphere, lighting the page. There were longer explanations of procedures in the back that his mother could read to him. She was the only woman in the town who could read, though Lirin said it wasn’t uncommon among wellborn darkeyed women in the cities.