“No. I’ll be highprince, but not king. I just … no. I don’t want that burden. And before you complain that none of us want it, I’d also be terrible at the job. You think the monarchs would listen to me?”
“I can’t be king of Alethkar,” Dalinar said softly. “I have to lead the Radiants—and need to divest myself of that power in Alethkar, to move away from that highking nonsense. We need a ruler in Alethkar who won’t be pushed over, but who can also deal with diplomats in diplomatic ways.”
“Well, that’s not me,” Adolin repeated.
“Who, then?” Dalinar demanded.
Shallan cocked her head. “Hey. Have you boys ever considered…”
* * *
Palona skimmed through the latest gossip reports out of Tashikk, looking for the juicy stuff.
Around her in the grand conference room of Urithiru, kings and princes squabbled with one another. Some complained that they weren’t allowed to join whatever meeting Dalinar was having on the floor above, with his generals. The Natans still complained that they should be given control of the Oathgate at the Shattered Plains, while the Azish were talking—again—about how God himself had apparently prophesied that Surgebinders would destroy the world.
Everyone was quite persistent, and quite loud—even those who didn’t speak Alethi. You had to be very dedicated to your grousing to wait for interpretation.
Sebarial—Turi—snored softly beside Palona. That was an act. He did the same fake snore when she tried to tell him about the latest novel she’d read. Then when she quit, he got annoyed. He seemed to like hearing the stories, but only as long as he could comment on how trite and feminine they were.
She nudged him, and he cracked an eye as she turned one of her gossip reports toward him, pointing at a drawing it included. “Yezier and Emul,” she whispered. “The prince and princess were seen together in Thaylen City, speaking intimately while their guards worked on the rubble.”
Turi grunted.
“Everyone thinks their romance is back on, though they can’t talk about it, as head monarchs in Azir are forbidden marriage without the emperor’s consent. But the rumors are wrong. I think she’s been courting Halam Khal, the Shardbearer.”
“You could just go talk to her,” Turi said, pointing a lazy finger toward the princess of Yezier, whose translators were complaining forcefully about the dangers of Surgebinding.
“Oh, Turi,” Palona said. “You can’t just ask people about gossip. This is why you’re hopeless.”
“And here I thought I was hopeless because of my terrible taste in women.”
The doors to the room slammed open, the noise of it sending a shock through the room, complaints falling silent. Even Turi sat up to note Jasnah Kholin standing in the doorway.
She wore a small but unmistakable crown on her head. The Kholin family, it seemed, had chosen their new monarch.
Turi grinned at the looks of worry on the faces of many of the others in the room. “Oh my,” he whispered to Palona. “Now this should be interesting.”
* * *
Moash pounded the pickaxe down again.
Two weeks of work, and he was still here clearing out rubble. Kill a god. Get back to work.
Well, he didn’t mind. It would take months, maybe years, to clear all the rubble from this city. All of it out of Alethkar.
Most days this week, he was the only one here working at the palace. The city was slowly being reversed, humans shipped out, singers moved in—but they left him alone to break stones, with no overseer or guard in sight.
So he was surprised when he heard another pick fall beside him. He spun, shocked. “Khen?”
The beefy parshwoman started breaking rocks.
“Khen, you were freed from your slavery,” Moash said. “Your assault on the palace earned you the Passion of Mercy.”
Khen kept working. Nam and Pal stepped in, wearing warform—two others who had survived with him during the assault. Only a handful had.
They lifted picks and started breaking stones too.
“Pal,” Moash said. “You—”
“They want us to farm,” she said. “I’m tired of farming.”
“And I’m no house servant,” Khen said. “Running drinks.” They were starting to speak to rhythms, like proper singers.
“So you’ll break rocks?” Moash asked.
“We heard something. Made us want to be near you.”
Moash hesitated, but then the numbness drove him to keep working, to hear that steady beat of metal on stone that let him pass between times.
It was maybe an hour later when they came for him. Nine flying Fused, rippling clothing pooling beneath them as they descended around Moash.
“Leshwi?” he asked. “Ancient One?”
She held something before herself in two hands. A long, slender weapon. A Shardblade with a gentle curve, its metal largely unornamented. Elegant, yet somehow humble, as Shardblades went. Moash had known it as the sword of the Assassin in White. Now he recognized it as something else. The Blade of Jezerezeh. Honorblade.
Moash reached for it, hesitant, and Leshwi hummed a warning rhythm. “If you take it, you die. Moash will be no more.”
“Moash’s world is no more,” he said, taking the Blade by the hilt. “He might as well join it in the tomb.”
“Vyre,” she said. “Join us in the sky. You have a work.” She and the others Lashed themselves upward.
Join us in the sky. The Honorblades, Graves had told him, gave their powers to any who held them.
Hesitant, Moash took the sphere that Khen offered. “What was that she said? Vyre?” She had said it in a way that rhymed with “fire.”
“It’s one of their names,” Khen said. “I’ve been told it means He Who Quiets.”
Vyre, He Who Quiets, sucked in the light of the sphere.
It was sweet and beautiful, and—as he’d been promised—brought Passion with it. He held to it, then Lashed himself upward into the sky.
* * *
Though Shallan had been given months to grow accustomed to the idea of getting married, on the actual day, she didn’t feel ready.
It was such an ordeal and a hassle.
Everyone was determined that, after Dalinar and Navani’s rushed wedding, they’d do this one right. So Shallan had to sit here and be fussed over, primped, her hair braided and her face painted by the royal Alethi makeup artists. Who’d known there even was such a thing?
She suffered it, then was deposited on a throne while scribes lined up and gave her piles of keteks and glyphwards. Noura delivered a box of incense from the Azish emperor, along with a dried fish from Lift. A Marati rug came from Queen Fen. Dried fruit. Perfumes.
A pair of boots. Ka seemed embarrassed as she opened the box and revealed them as a gift from Kaladin and Bridge Four, but Shallan just laughed. It was a much-needed moment of relief in the stress of the day.
She got gifts from professional organizations, family members, and one from each highprince except for Ialai—who had left Urithiru in disgrace. Though Shallan was grateful, she found herself trying to vanish into her dress. So many things that she didn’t want—most of all, this attention.
Well, you’re marrying an Alethi highprince, she thought as she squirmed on her wedding throne. What did you expect? At least she wasn’t going to end up as queen.