“Balat?” Shallan asked. “I didn’t see Jushu in there with you.”
“He didn’t come to the pavilion.”
“What? I thought—”
“I don’t know where he went,” Balat said. “He met some people right after we arrived.” He looked toward the distant stream that ran down from the heights and through a channel around the fairgrounds. “What do I say to her?”
“How should I know?”
“You’re a woman too.”
“I’m fourteen!” She wouldn’t spend time courting, anyway. Father would choose her a husband. His only daughter was too precious to be wasted on something fickle, like her own powers of decision.
“I guess… I guess I’ll just talk to her,” Balat said. He jogged off without another word.
Shallan watched him go, then sat down on a rock and trembled, arms around herself. That place… the tent… it had been horrible.
She sat there for an extended time, feeling ashamed of her weakness, but also proud. She’d done it. It was small, but she’d done something.
Eventually, she rose and nodded to Jix, letting him lead the way back toward their box. Father should be finished with his meeting by now.
It turned out that he had finished that meeting only to start another. A man she did not know sat next to Father with a cup of chilled water in one hand. Tall, slender, and blue-eyed, he had deep black hair without a hint of impurity and wore clothing the same shade. He glanced at Shallan as she stepped up into the box.
The man started, dropping his cup to the table. He caught it with a swift lunge, keeping it from tipping over, then turned to stare at her with a slack jaw.
It was gone in a second, replaced with an expression of practiced indifference.
“Clumsy fool!” Father said.
The newcomer turned away from Shallan, speaking softly to Father. Shallan’s stepmother stood to the side, with the cooks. Shallan slipped over to her. “Who is that?”
“Nobody of consequence,” Malise said. “He claims to have brought word from your brother, but is of low enough dahn that he can’t even produce a writ of lineage.”
“My brother? Helaran?”
Malise nodded.
Shallan turned back to the newcomer. She caught, with a subtle movement, the man slipping something from his coat pocket and moving it up toward the drinks. A shock coursed through Shallan. She raised a hand. Poison—
The newcomer covertly dumped the pouch’s contents into his own drink, then raised it to his lips, gulping down the powder. What had it been?
Shallan lowered her hand. The newcomer stood up a moment later. He didn’t bow to Father as he left. He gave Shallan a smile, then was down the steps and out of the box.
Word from Helaran. What had it been? Shallan timidly moved to the table. “Father?”
Father’s eyes were on the duel in the center of the ring. Two men with swords, no shields, harking back to classical ideals. Their sweeping methods of fighting were said to be an imitation of fighting with a Shardblade.
“Word from Nan Helaran?” Shallan prodded.
“You will not speak his name,” Father said.
“I—”
“You will not speak of that one,” Father said, looking to her, thunder in his expression. “Today I declare him disinherited. Tet Balat is officially now Nan Balat, Wikim becomes Tet, Jushu becomes Asha. I have only three sons.”
She knew better than to push him when he was like this. But how would she discover what the messenger had said? She sank into her chair, shaken again.
“Your brothers avoid me,” Father said, watching the duel. “Not one chooses to dine with their father as would be proper.”
Shallan folded her hands in her lap.
“Jushu is probably drinking somewhere,” Father said. “The Stormfather only knows where Balat has run off to. Wikim refuses to leave the carriage.” He downed the wine in his cup. “Will you speak with him? This has not been a good day. If I went to him, I… worry what I would do.”
Shallan rose, then rested a hand on her father’s shoulder. He slumped, leaning forward, one hand around the empty wine flagon. He raised his other hand and patted hers on his shoulder, his eyes distant. He did try. They all did.
Shallan sought out their carriage, which stood parked with a number of others near the western slope of the fairgrounds. Jella trees here rose high, their hardened trunks colored the light brown of crem. The needles sprouted like a thousand tongues of fire from each limb, though the nearest ones pulled in as she approached.
She was surprised to see a mink slinking in the shadows; she’d expected all those in the area to have been trapped by now. The coachmen played cards in a ring nearby; some of them had to stay and watch the carriages, though Shallan had heard Ren speaking of some kind of rotation so that they all got a chance at the fair. In fact, Ren wasn’t there at the moment, though the other coachmen bowed as she passed.
Wikim sat in their carriage. The slender, pale youth was only fifteen months older than Shallan. He shared some resemblance to his twin, but few people mistook them for one another. Jushu looked older, and Wikim was so thin he looked sickly.
Shallan climbed in to sit across from Wikim, setting her satchel on the seat beside her.
“Did Father send you,” Wikim asked, “or did you come on one of your new little missions of mercy?”
“Both?”
Wikim turned away from her, looking out the window toward the trees, away from the fair. “You can’t fix us, Shallan. Jushu will destroy himself. It’s only a matter of time. Balat is becoming Father, step by step. Malise spends one night in two weeping. Father will kill her one of these days, like he did Mother.”
“And you?” Shallan asked. It was the wrong thing to say, and she knew it the moment it came out of her mouth.
“Me? I won’t be around to see any of it. I’ll be dead by then.”
Shallan wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her legs up beneath her on the seat. Brightness Hasheh would have chided her for the unladylike posture.
What did she do? What did she say? He’s right, she thought. I can’t fix this. Helaran could have. I can’t.
They were all slowly unraveling.
“So what was it?” Wikim said. “Out of curiosity, what did you come up with to ‘save’ me? I’m guessing you used the girl on Balat.”
She nodded.
“You were obvious about that,” Wikim said. “With the letters you sent her. Jushu? What of him?”
“I have a list of the day’s duels,” Shallan whispered. “He so wishes he could duel. If I show him the fights, maybe he’ll want to come watch them.”
“You’ll have to find him first,” Wikim said with a snort. “And what about me? You have to know that neither swords nor pretty faces will work for me.”
Feeling a fool, Shallan dug in her satchel and came out with several sheets of paper.
“Drawings?”
“Math problems.”
Wikim frowned and took them from her, absently scratching the side of his face as he looked them over. “I’m no ardent. I’ll not be boxed up and forced to spend my days convincing people to listen to the Almighty—who suspiciously has nothing to say for himself.”