Words of Radiance

She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Balat. Did you really see Helaran?”

“Yes. He said I wasn’t to tell anyone. He warned me that this time when he left, he might not be coming back for a long time. He told me… told me to watch over the family.” Balat buried his head in his hands. “I can’t be him, Shallan.”

“You don’t need to be.”

“He’s brave. He’s strong.”

“He abandoned us.”

Balat looked up, tears running down his cheeks. “Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s the only way, Shallan.”

“Leave our house?”

“What of it?” Balat asked. “You spend every day locked away, brought out only for Father to display. Jushu has gone back to his gambling—you know he has, even if he’s smarter about it. Wikim talks about becoming an ardent, but I don’t know if Father will ever let go of him. He’s insurance.”

It was, unfortunately, a good argument. “Where would we go?” Shallan asked. “We have nothing.”

“I have nothing here either,” Balat said. “I’m not going to give up on Eylita, Shallan. She’s the only beautiful thing that has happened in my life. If she and I have to go live in Vedenar as tenth dahn, with me working as a house guard or something like that, we’ll do it. Doesn’t that seem a better life than this?” He gestured toward the dead pups.

“Perhaps.”

“Would you go with me? If I took Eylita and left? You could be a scribe. Earn your own way, be free of Father.”

“I… No. I need to stay.”

“Why?”

“Something has hold of Father, something awful. If we all leave, we give him to it. Someone has to help him.”

“Why do you defend him so? You know what he did.”

“He didn’t do it.”

“You can’t remember,” Balat said. “You’ve told me over and over that your mind blanks. You saw him kill her, but you don’t want to admit that you witnessed it. Storms, Shallan. You’re as broken as Wikim and Jushu. As… as I am sometimes…”

She shook off her numbness.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “If you go, are you going to take Wikim and Jushu with you?”

“I couldn’t afford to,” Balat said. “Jushu in particular. We’d have to live lean, and I couldn’t trust that he’d… you know. But if you came, it might be easier for one of us to find work. You’re better at writing and art than Eylita.”

“No, Balat,” Shallan said, frightened of how eager a part of her was to say yes to him. “I can’t. Particularly if Jushu and Wikim remain here.”

“I see,” he said. “Maybe… maybe there’s another way out. I’ll think.”

She left him in the kennel, worried that Father would find her there and that it would upset him. She entered the manor, but couldn’t help feeling that she was trying to hold together a carpet as dozens of people pulled out threads from the sides.

What would happen if Balat left? He backed down from fights with Father, but at least he resisted. Wikim merely did what he was told, and Jushu was still a mess. We have to just weather this, Shallan thought. Stop provoking Father, let him relax. Then he’ll come back…

She climbed the steps and passed Father’s door. It was open a crack; she could hear him inside.

“… find him in Valath,” Father said. “Nan Balat claims to have met him in the city, and that is what he must have meant.”

“It will be done, Brightlord.” That voice. It was Rin, captain of Father’s new guards. Shallan backed up, peeking into the room. Father’s strongbox shone behind the picture on the back wall, bright light bursting through the canvas. To her it was almost blinding, though the men in the room didn’t seem able to see it.

Rin bowed before Father, hand on sword.

“Bring me his head, Rin,” Father said. “I want to see it with my own eyes. He is the one who could ruin all of this. Surprise him, kill him before he can summon his Shardblade. That weapon will be yours in payment so long as you serve House Davar.”

Shallan stumbled back from the door before Father could look up and see her. Helaran. Father had just ordered Helaran’s assassination

.

I have to do something. I have to warn him. How? Could Balat contact him again? Shallan—

“How dare you,” said a feminine voice within.

Stunned silence followed. Shallan edged back to look into the room. Malise, her stepmother, stood in the doorway between the bedroom and the sitting room. The small, plump woman had never seemed threatening to Shallan before. But the storm on her face today could have frightened a whitespine.

“Your own son,” Malise said. “Have you no morals left? Have you no compassion?”

“He is no longer my son,” Father growled.

“I believed your story about the woman before me,” Malise said. “I’ve supported you. I’ve lived with this cloud over the house. Now I hear this? It is one thing to beat the servants, but to kill your son?”

Father whispered something to Rin. Shallan jumped, and barely got down the hallway to her room before the man slipped out of the room, then closed Father’s door with a click.