“Flame and char. Skin so terrible. Eyes like pits of blackness.”

—A quote from the Iviad probably needs no reference notation, but this comes from line 482, should I need to locate it quickly.

Shallan awoke in a small white room.

She sat up, feeling oddly healthy. Bright sunlight illuminated the window’s gossamer white shades, bursting through the cloth and into the room. Shallan frowned, shaking her muddled head. She felt as if she should be burned toes to ears, her skin flaking off. But that was just a memory. She had the cut on her arm, but otherwise she felt perfectly well.

A rustling sound. She turned to see a nurse hurrying away down a white hallway outside; the woman had apparently seen Shallan sit up, and was now taking the news to someone.

I’m in the hospital, Shallan thought. Moved to a private room.

A soldier peeked in, inspecting Shallan. It was apparently a guarded room.

“What happened?” she called to him. “I was poisoned, wasn’t I?” She felt a sudden shock of alarm. “Kabsal! Is he all right?”

The guard just turned back to his post. Shallan began to crawl out of bed, but he looked in again, glaring at her. She yelped despite herself, pulling up the sheet and settling back. She still wore one of the hospital robes, much like a soft bathing robe.

How long had she been unconscious? Why was she—

The Soulcaster! she realized. I gave it back to Jasnah.

The next half hour was one of the most miserable in Shallan’s life. She spent it suffering the periodic glares of the guard and feeling nauseated. What had happened?

Finally, Jasnah appeared at the other end of the hallway. She was wearing a different dress, black with light grey piping. She strode toward the room like an arrow and dismissed the guard with a single word as she passed. The man hurried away, his boots louder on the stone floor than Jasnah’s slippers.

Jasnah came in, and though she made no accusations, her glare was so hostile that Shallan wanted to crawl under her covers and hide. No. She wanted to crawl under the bed, dig down into the floor itself, and put stone between herself and those eyes.

She settled for looking downward in shame.

“You were wise to return the Soulcaster,” Jasnah said, voice like ice. “It saved your life. I saved your life.”

“Thank you,” Shallan whispered.

“Who are you working with? Which devotary bribed you to steal the fabrial?”

“None of them, Brightness. I stole it of my own volition.”

“Protecting them does you no good. Eventually you will tell me the truth.”

“It is the truth,” Shallan said, looking up, feeling a hint of defiance. “It’s why I became your ward in the first place. To steal that Soulcaster.”

“Yes, but for whom?”

“For me,” Shallan said. “Is it so hard to believe that I could act for myself? Am I such a miserable failure that the only rational answer is to assume I was duped or manipulated?”

“You have no grounds to raise your voice to me, child,” Jasnah said evenly. “And you have every reason to remember your place.”

Shallan looked down again.

Jasnah was silent for a time. Finally, she sighed. “What were you thinking, child?”

“My father is dead.”

“So?”

“He was not well liked, Brightness. Actually, he was hated, and our family is bankrupt. My brothers are trying to put up a strong front by pretending he still lives. But…” Dared she tell Jasnah that her father had possessed a Soulcaster? Doing so wouldn’t help excuse what Shallan had done, and might get her family more deeply into trouble. “We needed something. An edge. A way to earn money quickly, or create money.”

Jasnah was silent again. When she finally spoke, she sounded faintly amused. “You thought your salvation lay in enraging not only all the entire ardentia, but Alethkar? Do you realize what my brother would have done if he’d learned of this?”

Shallan looked away, feeling both foolish and ashamed.

Jasnah sighed. “Sometimes I forget how young you are. I can see how the theft might have looked tempting to you. It was stupid nonetheless. I’ve arranged passage back to Jah Keved. You will leave in the morning.”

“I—” It was more than she deserved. “Thank you.”

“Your friend, the ardent, is dead.”

Shallan looked up, dismayed. “What happened?”

“The bread was poisoned. Backbreaker powder. Very lethal, dusted over the bread to look like flour. I suspect the bread was similarly treated every time he visited. His goal was to get me to eat a piece.”

“But I ate a lot of that bread!”

“The jam had the antidote,” Jasnah said. “We found it in several empty jars he’d used.”

“It can’t be!”

“I’ve begun investigating,” Jasnah said. “I should have done so immediately. Nobody quite remembers where this ‘Kabsal’ came from. Though he spoke familiarly of the other ardents to you and me, they knew him only vaguely.”

“Then he…”

“He was playing you, child. The whole time, he was using you to get to me. To spy on what I was doing, to kill me if he could.” She spoke of it so evenly, so emotionlessly. “I believe he used much more of the powder during this last attempt, more than he’d ever used before, perhaps hoping to get me to breathe it in. He realized this would be his last opportunity. It turned against him, however, working more quickly than he’d anticipated.”

Someone had almost killed her. Not someone, Kabsal. No wonder he’d been so eager to get her to taste the jam!

“I’m very disappointed in you, Shallan,” Jasnah said. “I can see now why you tried to end your own life. It was the guilt.”

She hadn’t tried to kill herself. But what good would it do to admit that? Jasnah was taking pity on her; best not to give her reason not to. But what of the strange things Shallan had seen and experienced? Might Jasnah have an explanation for them?

Looking at Jasnah, seeing the cold rage hidden behind her calm exterior, frightened Shallan enough that her questions about the symbolheads and the strange place she’d visited died on her lips. How had Shallan ever thought of herself as brave? She wasn’t brave. She was a fool. She remembered the times her father’s rage had echoed through the house. Jasnah’s quieter, move justified anger was no less daunting.

“Well, you will need to learn to live with your guilt,” Jasnah said. “You might not have escaped with my fabrial, but you have thrown away a very promising career. This foolish scheme will stain your life for decades. No woman will take you as a ward now. You threw it away.” She shook her head in distaste. “I hate being wrong.”

With that, she turned to leave.

Shallan raised a hand. I have to apologize. I have to say something. “Jasnah?”

The woman did not look back, and the guard did not return.

Shallan curled up under the sheet, stomach in knots, feeling so sick that—for a moment—she wished that she’d actually dug that shard of glass in a little deeper. Or maybe that Jasnah hadn’t been quick enough with the Soulcaster to save her.

She’d lost it all. No fabrial to protect her family, no wardship to continue her studies. No Kabsal. She’d never actually had him in the first place.

Her tears dampened the sheets as the sunlight outside faded, then vanished. Nobody came to check on her.

Nobody cared.