The silk of Shallan’s new dress was softer than any she had owned before. It touched her skin like a comforting breeze. The left cuff clipped closed over the hand; she was old enough now to cover her safehand. She had once dreamed of wearing a woman’s dress. Her mother and she . . .

Her mother . . .

Shallan’s mind went still. Like a candle suddenly snuffed, she stopped thinking. She leaned back in her chair, legs tucked up underneath her, hands in her lap. The dreary stone dining chamber bustled with activity as Davar Manor prepared for guests. Shallan did not know which guests, only that her father wanted the place immaculate.

Not that she could do anything to help.

Two maids bustled past. “She saw,” one whispered softly to the other, a new woman. “Poor thing was in the room when it happened. Hasn’t spoken a word in five months. The master killed his own wife and her lover, but don’t let it . . .”

They continued talking, but Shallan didn’t hear.

She kept her hands in her lap. Her dress’s vibrant blue was the only real color in the room. She sat on the dais, beside the high table. A half-dozen maids in brown, wearing gloves on their safehands, scrubbed the floor and polished the furniture. Parshmen carted in a few more tables. A maid threw open the windows, letting in damp fresh air from the recent highstorm.

Shallan caught mention of her name again. The maids apparently thought that because she didn’t speak, she didn’t hear either. At times, she wondered if she was invisible. Perhaps she wasn’t real. That would be nice. . . .

The door to the hall slammed open, and Nan Helaran entered. Tall, muscular, square-chinned. Her oldest brother was a man. The rest of them . . . they were children. Even Tet Balat, who had reached the age of adulthood. Helaran scanned the chamber, perhaps looking for their father. Then he approached Shallan, a small bundle under his arm. The maids made way with alacrity.

“Hello, Shallan,” Helaran said, squatting down beside her chair. “Here to supervise?”

It was a place to be. Father did not like her being where she could not be watched. He worried.

“I brought you something,” Helaran said, unwrapping his bundle. “I ordered it for you in Northgrip, and the merchant only just passed by.” He took out a leather satchel.

Shallan took it hesitantly. Helaran’s grin was so wide, it practically glowed. It was hard to frown in a room where he was smiling. When he was around, she could almost pretend . . . Almost pretend . . .

Her mind went blank.

“Shallan?” he asked, nudging her.

She undid the satchel. Inside was a sheaf of drawing paper, the thick kind—the expensive kind—and a set of charcoal pencils. She raised her covered safehand to her lips.

“I’ve missed your drawings,” Helaran said. “I think you could be very good, Shallan. You should practice more.”

She ran the fingers of her right hand across the paper, then picked up a pencil. She started to sketch. It had been too long.

“I need you to come back, Shallan,” Helaran said softly.

She hunched over, pencil scratching on paper.

“Shallan?”

No words. Just drawing.

“I’m going to be away a lot in the next few years,” Helaran said. “I need you to watch the others for me. I’m worried about Balat. I gave him a new axehound pup, and he . . . wasn’t kind to it. You need to be strong, Shallan. For them.”

The maids had grown quiet since Helaran’s arrival. Lethargic vines curled down outside the window nearby. Shallan’s pencil continued to move. As if she weren’t doing the drawing; as if it were coming up out of the page, the charcoal seeping out of the texture. Like blood.

Helaran sighed, standing. Then he saw what she was drawing. Bodies, facedown, on the floor with—

He grabbed the paper and crumpled it. Shallan started, pulling back, fingers shaking as she clutched the pencil.

“Draw plants,” Helaran said, “and animals. Safe things, Shallan. Don’t dwell on what happened.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“We can’t have vengeance yet,” Helaran said softly. “Balat can’t lead the house, and I must be away. Soon, though.”

The door slammed open. Father was a big man, bearded in careless defiance of fashion. His Veden clothing eschewed the modern designs. Instead, Father wore a skirtlike garment of silk called an ulatu and a tight shirt with a robe over the top. No mink pelts, as his grandfathers might have worn, but otherwise very, very traditional.

He towered taller than Helaran, taller than anyone else on the estate. More parshmen entered after him, carrying bundles of food for the kitchens. All three had marbled skin, two red on black and one red on white. Father liked parshmen. They did not talk back.

“I got word that you told the stable to prepare one of my carriages, Helaran!” Father bellowed. “I’ll not have you gallivanting off again!”

“There are more important things in this world,” Helaran said. “More important even than you and your crimes.”

“Do not speak that way to me,” Father said, stalking forward, finger pointed at Helaran. “I am your father.” Maids scurried to the side of the room, trying to stay out of the way. Shallan pulled the satchel up against her chest, trying to hide in her chair.

“You are a murderer,” Helaran said calmly.

Father stopped in place, face gone red beneath his beard. He then continued forward. “How dare you! You think I can’t have you imprisoned? Because you’re my heir, you think I—”

Something formed in Helaran’s hand, a line of mist that coalesced into silvery steel. A Blade some six feet long, curved and thick, with the side that wasn’t sharp rising into a shape like burning flames or perhaps ripples of water. It had a gemstone set at the pommel, and as light reflected off the metal, the ridges seemed to move.

Helaran was a Shardbearer. Stormfather! How? When?

Father cut off, pulling up short. Helaran hopped down from the low dais, then leveled the Shardblade at his father. The point touched Father’s chest.

Father raised his hands to the sides, palms forward.

“You are a vile corruption upon this house,” Helaran said. “I should shove this through your chest. To do so would be a mercy.”

“Helaran . . .” The passion seemed to have bled from Father, like the color from his face, which had gone stark white. “You don’t know what you think you know. Your mother—”

“I will not listen to your lies,” Helaran said, rotating his wrist, twisting the sword in his hand, point still against Father’s chest. “So easy.”

“No,” Shallan whispered.

Helaran cocked his head, then turned, not moving the sword.

“No,” Shallan said, “please.”

“You speak now?” Helaran said. “To defend him?” He laughed. A wild bark of a noise. He whipped the sword away from Father’s chest.

Father sat down in a dining chair, face still pale. “How? A Shardblade. Where?” He glanced suddenly upward. “But no. It’s different. Your new friends? They trust you with this wealth?”

“We have an important work to do,” Helaran said, turning and striding to Shallan. He laid a hand fondly on her shoulder. He continued more softly. “I will tell you of it someday, Sister. It is good to hear your voice again before I leave.”

“Don’t go,” she whispered. The words felt like gauze in her mouth. It had been months since she’d last spoken.

“I must. Please do some drawings for me while I’m gone. Of fanciful things. Of brighter days. Can you do that?”

She nodded.

“Farewell, Father,” Helaran said, turning and striding from the room. “Try not to ruin too much while I’m gone. I will come back periodically to check.” His voice echoed in the hallway outside as he left.

Brightlord Davar stood, roaring. The few maids left in the room fled out the side door into the gardens. Shallan shrank back, horrified, as her father picked up his chair and slammed it into the wall. He kicked over a small dining table, then took the chairs one at a time and smashed them into the floor with repeated, brutal blows.

Breathing deeply, he turned his eyes on her.

Shallan whimpered at the rage, the lack of humanity, in his eyes. As they focused on her, the life returned to them. Father dropped a broken chair and turned his back toward her, as if ashamed, before fleeing the room.

Artform applied for beauty and hue.

One yearns for the songs it creates.

Most misunderstood by the artist it’s true,

Come the spren to foundation’s fates.

—From the Listener Song of Listing, 90th stanza

The sun was a smoldering ember on the horizon, sinking toward oblivion, as Shallan and her little caravan neared the source of the smoke in front of them. Though the column had dwindled, she could now make out that it had three different sources, rising into the air and twisting into one.

She climbed to her feet on the rocking wagon as they rolled up one last hill, then stopped on the side, mere feet away from letting her see what was out there. Of course; cresting the hill would be a very bad idea if bandits waited below.

Bluth climbed down from his wagon and jogged forward. He wasn’t terribly nimble, but he was the best scout they had. He crouched and removed his too-fine hat, then made his way up the hillside to peek over. A moment later, he stood up straight, no longer attempting stealth.

Shallan hopped down from her seat and hurried over, skirts catching on the twisted branches of crustspines here and there. She reached the top of the hill just before Tvlakv did.

Three caravan wagons smoldered quietly below, and the signs of a battle littered the ground. Fallen arrows, a group of corpses in a pile. Shallan’s heart leaped as she saw the living among the dead. A scattering of tired figures combed through the rubble or moved bodies. They weren’t dressed like bandits, but like honest caravan workers. Five more wagons were clustered on the far side of the camp. Some were scorched, but they all looked functional and still laden with goods.

Armed men and women tended their wounds. Guards. A group of frightened parshmen cared for the chulls. These people had been attacked, but they had survived. “Kelek’s breath . . .” Tvlakv said. He turned and shooed Bluth and Shallan backward. “Back, before they see.”

“What?” Bluth said, though he obeyed. “But it’s another caravan, as we’d hoped.”

“Yes, and they needn’t know we are here. They might want to speak to us, and that could slow us. Look!” He pointed backward.

In the waning light, Shallan could make out a shadow cresting a hill not far behind them. The deserters. She waved for Tvlakv to surrender his spyglass, and he did so reluctantly. The lens was cracked, but Shallan still got a good look at the force. The thirty or so men were soldiers, as Bluth had reported. They flew no banner, and did not march in formation or wear one uniform, but they looked well equipped.