“Which is?”

“Reminding us all that there are worse things than his odor. It’s really quite a noble Calling.”

“Shallan!” Wikim said. He looked dramatically unlike Jushu. Spindly and sunken-eyed, Wikim had hair cut so short he almost looked like an ardent. “Don’t say such things where Father could hear.”

“He’s engrossed in conversation,” Shallan said. “But you are right. I probably shouldn’t mock our family. House Davar is distinctive and enduring.”

Jushu raised his cup. Wikim nodded sharply.

“Of course,” she added, “the same could be said for a wart.”

Jushu just about spat out his wine. Balat let out another roaring laugh.

“Stop that racket!” Father shouted at them.

“It’s a feast!” Balat called back. “Did you not ask us to be more Veden!”

Father glared at him, then returned to his conversation with the messenger. The two huddled together at the high table, Father’s posture supplicating, the highprince’s bastard sitting back with an arched eyebrow and a still face.

“Storms, Shallan,” Balat said. “When did you become so clever?”

Clever? She didn’t feel clever. Suddenly, the forwardness of what she’d said caused her to shrink back into her chair. These things, they’d simply slid out of her mouth. “Those are just things . . . just things I read in a book.”

“Well, you should read more of those books, small one,” Balat said. “It seems brighter in here for it.”

Father slammed his hand down on the table, shaking cups, rattling plates. Shallan glanced at him, worried as he pointed his finger at the messenger and said something. It was too soft and far away for Shallan to make it out, but she knew that look in her father’s eyes. She had seen it many times before he took his cane—or even once the fireplace poker—to one of the servants.

The messenger stood up in a smooth motion. His refinement seemed a shield that rebuffed Father’s temper.

Shallan envied him.

“It appears I will get nowhere with this conversation,” the messenger said loudly. He looked at Father, but his tone seemed to imply that his words were for them all. “I came prepared for that inevitability. The highprince has given me authority, and I would very much like to know the truth of what happened in this household. Any lighteyes of birth who can provide witness will be welcomed.”

“They need the testimony of a lighteyes,” Jushu said softly to his siblings. “Father is important enough that they can’t just remove him.”

“There was one,” the messenger said loudly, “who was willing to speak to us of the truth. He has since made himself unavailable. Do any of you have his courage? Will you come with me and testify to the highprince of the crimes committed on these lands?”

He looked toward the four of them. Shallan huddled in her chair, trying to look small. Wikim didn’t look away from the flames. Jushu looked like he might stand, but then turned to his wine, cursing, his face growing red.

Balat. Balat grabbed the sides of his chair as if to stand, but then glanced at Father. That intensity in Father’s eyes remained. When his rage was red-hot, he yelled, he threw things at the servants.

It was now, when his rage became cold, that he grew truly dangerous. This was when Father got quiet. This was when the yelling stopped.

Father’s yelling, at least.

“He’ll kill me,” Balat whispered. “If I say a word, he’ll kill me.” His earlier bravado melted away. He seemed not a man any longer, but a youth—a terrified teenager.

“You could do it, Shallan,” Wikim hissed at her. “Father won’t dare hurt you. Besides, you actually saw what happened.”

“I didn’t,” she whispered.

“You were there!”

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember it.”

It didn’t happen. It didn’t.

A log shifted in the hearth. Balat stared at the floor, and did not stand. None of them would. A whirling group of translucent flower petals stirred among them, fading into view. Shamespren.

“I see,” the messenger said. “If any of you . . . remember the truth at some point in the future, you will find willing ears in Vedenar.”

“You will not tear this house apart, bastard,” Father said, standing. “We stand by one another.”

“Save for those who can no longer stand, I assume.”

“Leave this house!”

The messenger gave Father a look of disgust, a demeaning sneer. It said, I am a bastard, but even I am not as low as you. He then left, sweeping from the room and gathering his men outside, his terse orders indicating that he wished to be back on the road despite the late hour, on another errand beyond Father’s estates.

Once he was gone, Father placed both of his hands on the table and breathed out deeply. “Go,” he said to the four of them, lowering his head.

They hesitated.

“Go!” Father roared.

They fled the room, Shallan scrambling after her brothers. She was left with the sight of her father sinking down into his seat, holding his head. The gift he’d given her, the fine necklace, sat forgotten in the opened box on the table just before him.

That they responded immediately and with great consternation is undeniable, as these were primary among those who would forswear and abandon their oaths. The term Recreance was not then applied, but has since become a popular title by which this event is named.

—From Words of Radiance, chapter 38, page 6

Sebarial shared his carriage with Shallan as they left the king’s palace and rode toward his warcamp. Pattern kept vibrating softly on the folds of her skirt, and she had to shush him.

The highprince sat across from her, head tilted back against the cushioned wall, snoring softly as the carriage rattled. The ground here had been scraped clean of rockbuds and set with a line of flagstones down the center, to divide left from right.

Her soldiers were safe, and would catch up later. She had a base of operations and an income. In the tension of the meeting, and then Navani’s withdrawal, the Kholin house hadn’t yet demanded that Shallan turn over Jasnah’s things. She still needed to approach Navani about helping with the research, but so far, the day had actually worked out quite well.

Now Shallan just needed to save the world.

Sebarial snorted and shook awake from his short nap. He settled into his seat, wiping his cheek. “You’ve changed.”

“Excuse me?”

“You look younger. In there, I would have guessed you were twenty, maybe twenty-five. But now I see that you can’t be older than fourteen.”

“I am seventeen,” Shallan said dryly.

“Same difference.” Sebarial grunted. “I could have sworn your dress was more vibrant before, your features sharper, prettier . . . Must have been the light.”

“Do you always make a habit of insulting the looks of young ladies?” Shallan asked. “Or is it only after you drool in front of them?”

He grinned. “You weren’t trained in the court, obviously. I like that. But be careful—insult the wrong people in this place, and retribution can be swift.”

Through the carriage window Shallan saw that they were finally approaching a warcamp flying Sebarial’s banner. It bore the glyphs sebes and laial stylized into a skyeel, deep gold on a black field.

The soldiers at the gates saluted, and Sebarial gave orders for one to conduct Shallan’s men to his manor when they arrived. The carriage continued, and Sebarial settled back to watch her, as if anticipating something.

She couldn’t fathom what. Perhaps she was reading him wrong. She turned her attention out the window, and soon decided that this place was a warcamp in name only. The streets were straighter than you might have in a city that had grown naturally, but Shallan saw far more civilians than she did soldiers.

They passed taverns, open markets, shops, and tall buildings that surely could hold a dozen different families. People crowded many of the streets. The place wasn’t as varied and vibrant as Kharbranth had been, but the buildings were of solid wood and stone, constructed up against one another to share support.

“Rounded roofs,” Shallan said.

“My engineers say they repel the winds better,” Sebarial said proudly. “Also, buildings with rounded corners and sides.”

“So many people!”

“Almost all permanent residents. I have the most complete force of tailors, artisans, and cooks in the camps. Already, I’ve set up twelve manufactories—textiles, shoes, ceramics, several mills. I control the glassblowers as well.”

Shallan turned back toward him. That pride in his voice didn’t at all match what Jasnah had written of the man. Of course, most of her notes and knowledge of the highprinces came from infrequent visits to the Shattered Plains, and none had been recent.

“From what I’ve heard,” Shallan said, “your forces are among the least successful in the war against the Parshendi.”

Sebarial got a twinkle in his eyes. “The others hunt quick income from gemhearts, but what will they spend their money on? My textile mills will soon produce uniforms at a much cheaper price than they can be shipped in for, and my farmers will provide food far more varied than what is supplied through Soulcasting. I’m growing both lavis and tallew, not to mention my hog farms.”

“You sly eel,” Shallan said. “While the others fight a war, you’ve been building an economy.”

“I’ve had to be careful,” he confided, leaning in. “I didn’t want them to notice what I was doing at first.”

“Clever,” Shallan said. “But why are you telling me?”

“You’ll see it anyway, if you’re to act as one of my clerks. Besides, the secrecy doesn’t matter anymore. The manufactories are now producing, and my armies barely go on a single plateau run a month. I have to pay Dalinar’s fines for avoiding them and forcing him to send someone else, but it’s worth the cost. Anyway, the smarter highprinces have figured out what I’m up to. The others just think I’m a lazy fool.”

“And so you’re not a lazy fool?”

“Of course I am!” he exclaimed. “Fighting is too much work. Besides, soldiers die, and that makes me pay out to their families. It’s just useless all around.” He looked out the window. “I saw the secret three years back. Everyone was moving here, but nobody thought of the place as permanent—despite the value of those gemhearts, which ensured that Alethkar would always have a presence here. . . .” He smiled.

The carriage eventually pulled up to a modest manor-style home amid the taller tenement buildings. The manor had grounds filled with ornamental shalebark, a flagstone drive, and even some trees. The stately home, while not enormous, had a refined classical design, with pillars along the front. It used the row of taller stone buildings behind it as a perfect windbreak.