It was so nice to not be moving on a wagon while sketching. The environment here was just perfect—sufficient light for drawing, still and serene, surrounded by life…
She paused, noticing what she’d drawn: a rocky shore near the ocean, with distinctive cliffs rising behind. The perspective was distant; on the rocky shore, several shadowy figures helped one another out of the water. She swore one of them was Yalb.
A hopeful fancy. She wished so much for them to be alive. She would probably never know.
She turned the page and drew what came to her. A sketch of a woman kneeling over a body, raising a hammer and chisel, as if to slam it down into the person’s face. The one beneath her was stiff, wooden… maybe even stone?
Shallan shook her head as she lowered her pencil and studied this drawing. Why had she drawn it? The first one made sense—she was worried about Yalb and the other sailors. But what did it say about her subconscious that she’d drawn this strange depiction?
She looked up, realizing that shadows had grown long, the sun easing down to rest on the horizon. Shallan smiled at it, then jumped as she saw someone standing not ten paces away.
“Tyn!” Shallan said, raising her safehand to her breast. “Stormfather! You gave me a fright.”
The woman picked her way through the foliage, which shied away from her. “Those drawings are nice, but I think you should spend more time practicing to forge signatures. You’re a natural at that, and it’s a kind of work you could do without having to worry about getting into trouble.”
“I do practice it,” Shallan said. “But I need to practice my art too.”
“You get really into those drawings, don’t you?”
“I don’t get into them,” Shallan said, “I put others into them.”
Tyn grinned, reaching Shallan’s stone. “Always fast with a quip. I like that. I need to introduce you to some friends of mine once we reach the Shattered Plains. They’ll spoil you right quick.”
“That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”
“Nonsense,” Tyn said, hopping up onto a dry part of the next rock over. “You’d still be yourself. Your jokes would merely be dirtier.”
“Lovely,” Shallan said, blushing.
She thought the blush might make Tyn laugh, but instead the woman became thoughtful. “We are going to have to figure out a way to give you a taste of realism, Shallan.”
“Oh? Does it come in the form of a tonic these days?”
“No,” Tyn said, “it comes in the form of a punch to the face. It leaves nice girls crying, assuming they’re lucky enough to survive.”
“I think you’ll find,” Shallan said, “that my life hasn’t been one of nonstop blossoms and cake.”
“I’m sure you think that,” Tyn said. “Everyone does. Shallan, I like you, I really do. I think you’ve got heaps of potential. But what you’re training for… it will require you to do very difficult things. Things that wrench the soul, rip it apart. You’re going to be in situations that you’ve never been in before.”
“You barely know me,” Shallan said. “How can you be so certain I’ve never done things like this?”
“Because you aren’t broken,” Tyn said, expression distant.
“Perhaps I’m faking.”
“Kid,” Tyn said, “you draw pictures of criminals to turn them into heroes. You dance around in flower patches with a sketchpad, and you blush at the mere hint of something racy. However bad you think you’ve had it, brace yourself. It’s going to get worse. And I honestly don’t know that you’ll be able to handle it.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Shallan asked.
“Because in a little over a day’s time, we’re going to reach the Shattered Plains. This is the last chance for you to back out.”
“I…”
What was she going to do about Tyn when she arrived? Admit that she had only gone along with Tyn’s assumptions in order to learn from her? She knows people, Shallan thought. People in the warcamps who might be very useful to know.
Should Shallan continue with the subterfuge? She wanted to, though part of her knew it was because she liked Tyn, and didn’t want to give the woman a reason to stop teaching her. “I am committed,” Shallan found herself saying. “I want to go through with my plan.”
A lie.
Tyn sighed, then nodded. “All right. Are you ready to tell me what this grand scam is?”
“Dalinar Kholin,” Shallan said. “His son is betrothed to a woman from Jah Keved.”
Tyn raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s curious. And the woman isn’t going to arrive?”
“Not when he expects,” Shallan said.
“And you look like her?”
“You could say that.”
Tyn smiled. “Nice. You had me thinking it would be blackmail, which is very tough. This, though, this is a scam you might actually be able to do. I’m impressed. It’s bold, but attainable.”
“Thank you.”
“So what’s your plan?” Tyn said.
“Well, I’ll go introduce myself to Kholin, indicate I’m the woman his son is to marry, and let him set me up in his household.”
“No good.”
“No?”
Tyn shook her head sharply. “It puts you too much in Kholin’s debt. It will make you seem needy, and that will undermine your ability to be respected. What you’re doing here is called a pretty face con, an attempt to relieve a rich man of his spheres. That kind of job is all about presentation and image. You want to set up in an inn somewhere in a different warcamp and act like you’re completely self-sufficient. Maintain an air of mystery. Don’t be too easy for the son to capture. Which one is it, by the way? The older one or the younger one?”
“Adolin,” Shallan said.
“Hmmm… Not sure if that’s better or worse than Renarin. Adolin Kholin is a flirt by reputation, so I can see why his father wants him married off. It will be tough to keep his attention, though.”
“Really?” Shallan asked, feeling a spike of real concern.
“Yeah. He’s been almost engaged a dozen times. I think he has been engaged before, actually. It’s good you met me. I’ll have to work on this one awhile to determine the right approach, but you are certainly not going to accept Kholin hospitality. Adolin will never express interest if you’re not in some way unobtainable.”
“Hard to be unobtainable when we’re already in a causal.”
“Still important,” Tyn said, raising a finger. “You’re the one who wants to do a love scam. They’re tricky, but relatively safe. We’ll figure this out.”
Shallan nodded, though inside, her worries had spiked. What would happen with the betrothal? Jasnah wasn’t around to push for it any longer. The woman had wanted Shallan tied to her family, presumably because of the Surgebinding potential. Shallan doubted the rest of the Kholin house would be so determined to have a nobody Veden girl marry into the family.
As Tyn rose, Shallan stuffed away her anxiety. If the betrothal ended, so be it. She had far more important concerns in Urithiru and the Voidbringers. She would have to figure out a way to deal with Tyn, though—a way that didn’t involve actually scamming the Kholin family. Just one more thing to juggle.