But seriously. Who walked around with a pet chicken? They were for eating, right?
Adolin noted the chicken and raised an eyebrow, but Mraize didn’t give any sign that he knew Shallan. He slouched like the other soldiers, holding a halberd and glaring at Adolin.
Ialai hadn’t set out chairs for them. She sat with her hands in her lap, sleeved safehand beneath her freehand, lit by lamps on pedestals at either side of the room. She looked particularly vengeful by that unnatural flickering light.
“Did you know,” Ialai said, “that after whitespines make a kill, they will eat, then hide near the carcass?”
“It’s one of the dangers in hunting them, Brightness,” Adolin said. “You assume that you’re on the beast’s trail, but it might be lurking nearby.”
“I used to wonder at this behavior until I realized the kill will attract scavengers, and the whitespine is not picky. The ones that come to feast on its leavings become another meal themselves.”
The implication of the conversation seemed clear to Shallan. Why have you returned to the scene of the kill, Kholin?
“We want you to know, Brightness,” Adolin said, “that we take the murder of a highprince very seriously. We are doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again.”
Oh, Adolin …
“Of course you are,” Ialai said. “The other highprinces are now too afraid to stand up to you.”
Yes, he’d walked right into that one. But Shallan didn’t take over; this was Adolin’s task, and he’d invited her for support, not to speak for him. Honestly, she wouldn’t be doing much better. She’d just be making different mistakes.
“Can you tell us of anyone who might have had the opportunity and motive for killing your husband?” Adolin said. “Other than my father, Brightness.”
“So even you admit that—”
“It’s strange,” Adolin snapped. “My mother always said she thought you were clever. She admired you, and wished she had your wit. Yet here, I see no proof of that. Honestly, do you really think that my father would withstand Sadeas’s insults for years—weather his betrayal on the Plains, suffer that dueling fiasco—only to assassinate him now? Once Sadeas was proven wrong about the Voidbringers, and my father’s position is secure? We both know my father wasn’t behind your husband’s death. To claim otherwise is simple idiocy.”
Shallan started. She hadn’t expected that from Adolin’s lips. Strikingly, it seemed to her to be the precise thing he’d needed to say. Cut away the courtly language. Deliver the straight and earnest truth.
Ialai leaned forward, inspecting Adolin and chewing on his words. If there was one thing Adolin could convey, it was authenticity.
“Fetch him a chair,” Ialai said to Mraize.
“Yes, Brightness,” he said, his voice thick with a rural accent that bordered on Herdazian.
Ialai then looked to Shallan. “And you. Make yourself useful. There are teas warming in the side room.”
Shallan sniffed at the treatment. She was no longer some inconsequential ward, to be ordered about. However, Mraize lurched off in the same direction she’d been told to go, so Shallan bore the indignity and stalked after him.
The next room was much smaller, cut out of the same stone as the others, but with a muted pattern of strata. Oranges and reds that blended together so evenly you could almost pretend the wall was all one hue. Ialai’s people had been using it for storage, as evidenced by the chairs in one corner. Shallan ignored the warm jugs of tea heating on fabrials on the counter and stepped close to Mraize.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed at him.
His chicken chirped softly, as if in agitation.
“I’m keeping an eye on that one,” he said, nodding toward the other room. Here, his voice became refined, losing the rural edge. “We have interest in her.”
“So she’s not one of you?” Shallan asked. “She’s not a … Ghostblood?”
“No,” he said, eyes narrowing. “She and her husband were too wild a variable for us to invite. Their motives are their own; I don’t think they align to those of anyone else, human or listener.”
“The fact that they’re crem didn’t enter into it, I suppose.”
“Morality is an axis that doesn’t interest us,” Mraize said calmly. “Only loyalty and power are relevant, for morality is as ephemeral as the changing weather. It depends upon the angle from which you view it. You will see, as you work with us, that I am right.”
“I’m not one of you,” Shallan hissed.
“For one so insistent,” Mraize said, picking up a chair, “you were certainly free in using our symbol last night.”
Shallan froze, then blushed furiously. So he knew about that? “I…”
“Your hunt is worthy,” Mraize said. “And you are allowed to rely upon our authority to achieve your goals. That is a benefit of your membership, so long as you do not abuse it.”
“And my brothers? Where are they? You promised to deliver them to me.”
“Patience, little knife. It has been but a few weeks since we rescued them. You will see my word fulfilled in that matter. Regardless, I have a task for you.”
“A task?” Shallan snapped, causing the chicken to chirp at her again. “Mraize, I’m not going to do some task for you people. You killed Jasnah.”
“An enemy combatant,” Mraize said. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know full well what that woman was capable of, and what she got herself into by attacking us. Do you blame your wonderfully moral Blackthorn for what he did in war? The countless people he slaughtered?”
“Don’t deflect your evils by pointing out the faults of others,” Shallan said. “I’m not going to further your cause. I don’t care how much you demand that I Soulcast for you, I’m not going to do it.”
“So quick to insist, yet you acknowledge your debt. One Soulcaster lost, destroyed. But we forgive these things, for missions undertaken. And before you object again, know that the task we require of you is one you’re already undertaking. Surely you have sensed the darkness in this place. The … wrongness.”
Shallan looked about the small room, flickering with shadows from a few candles on the counter.
“Your task,” Mraize said, “is to secure this location. Urithiru must remain strong if we are to properly use the advent of the Voidbringers.”
“Use them?”
“Yes,” Mraize said. “This is a power we will control, but we must not let either side gain dominance yet. Secure Urithiru. Hunt the source of the darkness you feel, and expunge it. This is your task. And for it I will give payment in information.” He leaned closer to her and spoke a single word. “Helaran.”
He lifted the chair and walked out, adopting a more bumbling gait, stumbling and almost dropping the chair. Shallan stood there, stunned. Helaran. Her eldest brother had died in Alethkar—where he’d been for mysterious reasons.
Storms, what did Mraize know? She glared after him, outraged. How dare he tease with that name!
Don’t focus on Helaran right now. Those were dangerous thoughts, and she could not become Veil now. Shallan poured herself and Adolin cups of tea, then grabbed a chair under her arm and awkwardly navigated back out. She sat down beside Adolin, then handed him a cup. She took a sip and smiled at Ialai, who glared at her, then directed Mraize to fetch a cup.