The Way of Kings

Shallan hastily complied, bearing a large, fluffy towel. “Isn’t that what philosophy is about? Finding the answers? Seeking the truth, the real meaning of things?”

Toweling off, Jasnah raised an eyebrow at her.

“What?” Shallan asked, suddenly self-conscious.

“I believe it is time for a field exercise,” Jasnah said. “Outside of the Palanaeum.”

“Now?” Shallan asked. “It’s so late!”

“I told you philosophy was a hands-on art,” Jasnah said, wrapping the towel around herself, then reaching down and taking the Soulcaster out of its pouch. She slipped the chains around her fingers, securing the gemstones to the back of her hand. “I’ll prove it to you. Come, help me dress.”

As a child, Shallan had relished those evenings when she’d been able to slip away into the gardens. When the blanket of darkness rested atop the grounds, they had seemed a different place entirely. In those shadows, she’d been able to imagine that the rockbuds, shalebark, and trees were some foreign fauna. The scrapings of cremlings climbing out of cracks had become the footsteps of mysterious people from far-off lands. Large-eyed traders from Shinovar, a greatshell rider from Kadrix, or a narrowboat sailor from the Purelake.

She didn’t have those same imaginings when walking Kharbranth at night. Imagining dark wanderers in the night had once been an intriguing game – but here, dark wanderers were likely to be real. Instead of becoming a mysterious, intriguing place at night, Kharbranth seemed much the same to her – just more dangerous.

Jasnah ignored the calls of rickshaw pullers and palanquin porters. She walked slowly in a beautiful dress of violet and gold, Shallan following in blue silk. Jasnah hadn’t taken time to have her hair done following her bath, and she wore it loose, cascading across her shoulders, almost scandalous in its freedom.

They walked the Ralinsa – the main thoroughfare that led down the hillside in switchbacks, connecting Conclave and port. Despite the late hour, the roadway was crowded, and many of the men who walked here seemed to bear the night inside of them. They were gruffer, more shadowed of face. Shouts still rang through the city, but those carried the night in them too, measured by the roughness of their words and the sharpness of their tones. The steep, slanted hillside that formed the city was no less crowded with buildings than always, yet these too seemed to draw in the night. Blackened, like stones burned by a fire. Hollow remains.

The bells still rang. In the darkness, each ring was a tiny scream. They made the wind more present, a living thing that caused a chiming cacophony each time it passed. A breeze rose, and an avalanche of sound came tumbling across the Ralinsa. Shallan nearly found herself ducking before it.

“Brightness,” Shallan said. “Shouldn’t we call for a palanquin?”

“A palanquin might inhibit the lesson.”

“I’ll be all right learning that lesson during the day, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Jasnah stopped, looking off the Ralinsa and toward a darker side street. “What do you think of that roadway, Shallan?”

“It doesn’t look particularly appealing to me.”

“And yet,” Jasnah said, “it is the most direct route from the Ralinsa to the theater district.”

“Is that where we’re going?”

“We aren’t ‘going’ anywhere,” Jasnah said, taking off down the side street. “We are acting, pondering, and learning.”

Shallan followed nervously. The night swallowed them; only the occasional light from late-night taverns and shops offered illumination. Jasnah wore her black, fingerless glove over her Soulcaster, hiding the light of its gemstones.

Shallan found herself creeping. Her slippered feet could feel every change in the ground underfoot, each pebble and crack. She looked about nervously as they passed a group of workers gathered around a tavern doorway. They were darkeyes, of course. In the night, that distinction seemed more profound.

“Brightness?” Shallan asked in a hushed tone.

“When we are young,” Jasnah said, “we want simple answers. There is no greater indication of youth, perhaps, than the desire for everything to be as it should. As it has ever been.”

Shallan frowned, still watching the men by the tavern over her shoulder.

“The older we grow,” Jasnah said, “the more we question. We begin to ask why. And yet, we still want the answers to be simple. We assume that the people around us – adults, leaders – will have those answers. Whatever they give often satisfies us.”

“I was never satisfied,” Shallan said softly. “I wanted more.”

“You were mature,” Jasnah said. “What you describe happens to most of us, as we age. Indeed, it seems to me that aging, wisdom, and wondering are synonymous. The older we grow, the more likely we are to reject the simple answers. Unless someone gets in our way and demands they be accepted regardless.” Jasnah’s eyes narrowed. “You wonder why I reject the devotaries.”

“I do.”