Jasnah seems worried, and that fact alone is enough to worry him, too. His exposure to the world of politics has been minimal at best, but calling on the stories he used to read about kings and queens and their many enemies lets him form a somewhat coherent picture of what she might be afraid of. He follows suit, slipping what books he can fit into his pack before moving to help her pack away her things.
"Then we'll sail to Theylenah." His voice is calm, patient. The voice of someone who's very used to repressing their pesky emotions in order to not frighten someone else. Someone who's said you're okay a hundred times, and will say it a hundred more. "Or the Frostlands. Whichever you like."
And it'll be okay, because making things okay is sort of his whole thing.
Jasnah does not allow the moment to stretch. Worry is a luxury she does not indulge in public. Especially not in front of an ardent whose loyalties she has already begun to question. She turns to her with the full force of her composure restored, voice smooth and commanding.
"Ardent Na," she says, crisp as a blade sliding home. "Inform King Taravangian that we are returning to the palace suites for the evening. We will evaluate our travel options in the morning."
The ardent bows deeply, too deeply, as if trying to hide something behind the gesture —and retreats through the curtain at a near-trot.
The moment she's gone, Jasnah is already moving, sweeping the last of her documents into their leather cases. Her expression remains firm. An uttered request of Ivory suggests that she's sent the inkspren to verify if Shallan Davar is still in the city. But the second they step out into the quieter hall beyond the alcove — just far enough down the mezzanine that no ears could possibly catch them — she slows. Not stops, but slows.
Then, without looking directly at Verso, she murmurs under her breath, so soft it barely disturbs the air between them: "We are not returning to the palace."
A beat. Enough for the words to settle. Her eyes flick to the side — just once — to confirm he's listening.
"We will find a ship and leave the city within the hour. Quietly. If someone wanted the Oathgate disabled while I am visiting Kharbranth, then they will have eyes waiting for exactly the response I just gave."
She tightens the strap on her satchel, movements brisk.
"Do not act surprised. Do not look at me. And do not slow down. We are going west."
To Verso's credit, he listens to every word she says without much complaint. He doesn't act surprised, save for an initial widening of the eyes and raising of his brow that gets schooled back into impassivity after a moment. He doesn't look at her, doesn't slow down.
Although— "Not looking at you is more suspicious than the alternative," he points out even as he keeps his gaze on his feet, leaning in to speak in hushed tones. Verso doesn't normally pointedly avoid looking at people! It's unnatural and awkward.
With just a momentary, fleeting glance to the side: "What's to the west?"
Jasnah doesn't answer his last question. The westward corridors of the Palanaeum are narrow and poorly lit, half-forgotten arteries meant for orderlies and servants. Not queens. Her stride remains steady, unhurried, but her words thread into the dimness between them as they transition from the library to the conclave.
They descend tight stone stairwells, duck through supply halls that stink of antiseptic and old grain, and slip past laundry workers who never bother to lift their heads. From the lower kitchens, a side passage opens into a ventilation corridor that (ancient design or divine irony) empties onto a sheltered ledge above the fishing wharves.
By the time they reach the lower city, the sky has gone bruise-dark. Light from the first of the three moons, rising above, shimmers on the tide. A gull cries overhead, and Jasnah tucks the collar of her havah higher, trying — not very successfully — to blend.
Jasnah handles her disguise the way she approaches everything else: precise, functional, stripped of emotion. Her hair goes down first, pulling hair ornaments and pins free, untwisting braids, until it falls free over her shoulders. She tears a strip of cloth from an abandoned sailor's tarp — to fashion a makeshift headscarf — and draws it low over her forehead. Next she trades her cloak for a shapeless fisherwoman's vest from a drying line. Finally, summoning Ivory as a short blade, she cuts away the buttoned edge of her safehand sleeve so that she approximates the style of the working class: left hand still gloved, but available for labour.
— Unfortunately, there is no changing her posture. She does not slouch. She looks like someone who is very bad at pretending not to be important.
They duck briefly into a dockside tavern called The Third Net. They sit for only a few minutes, just long enough for her to listen: gossip about storms, a bar fight two piers over, a rumor that someone saw Windrunners patrolling over the mountains. Nothing about the Oathgate, and nothing about the queen. Good.
From a window, they watch freight ships and private vessels bob in their moorings. Jasnah's eyes skim hulls, lines, the distribution of cargo. She wonders which boats have captains who don't ask questions. Sitting back, her gloved hand palms the edge of a beer cup.
"A party of two travelers booking separate cabins will draw attention. A pair sharing one is an easier story to invent." A pause. "You are a minor merchant. Trading routes westward. Fond of long-winded stories, but harmless. I'm your scribe — you needed someone literate to manage your accounts. And you," she eyes the bag of books that came with him, "can't be seen reading."
Jasnah straightens her stolen vest, tugs the scarf a fraction lower. Movement. Escape. Distance. For now, that is enough. Except for the part where she hasn't yet explained that most men employ their wives as their scribes.
At the other end of the table, Verso mostly ignores his cup—it's still taking some getting used to, this strange new alcohol that tastes sort of, but not exactly, right—and stares out the window instead. Lumière has ships, of course, in order to ferry Expeditioners to the Continent, but he's never seen so many, and so large. The vessels are fascinating, and he feels a childish urge to go climb onto one and investigate.
He doesn't, of course. That would be ridiculous. Another ridiculous thing that he doesn't do is point out that Jasnah looks rather fetching in her commoner get-up. The little headscarf is charming. She probably wouldn't appreciate the compliment.
"You didn't seem to mind me being seen reading before," he says, although there's barely any argument behind it. "But all right. How would a merchant behave toward his scribe?"
Jasna's fingers still around the rim of the cup, the gesture deceptively idle. In truth, she's thinking — calculating exactly how much of their cover he understands, and how much he is about to bungle on the gangway if she doesn't prepare him properly. Ugh. Subterfuge is a Lightweaver's craft. What she accomplishes now she manages because her paranoia has caused her to overprepare. But she'll soon hit the breadth of her skill.
"You were reading under my supervision," she says, tone mild but pointed. "Me, a known heretic. But a minor merchant? Reading anything at all?" Her eyebrow lifts a fraction. "That is memorable. We need forgettable."
She shifts — gloved hand raking into her recently loosed hair, as if the casual style bothers her. Somehow, her voice lowers one step further. She leans across the table, holding his gaze.
"You'll treat me as a companion in your work. You'll hand me ledgers. You'll trust me to read what you cannot. You defer on matters of arithmetic."
Her nose scrunches just so.
"Most often it's a wife who keeps the accounts, organizes the correspondence, and acts as clerk. She isn't hired. Instead, she's a partner. Sometimes it's a sister. A distant cousin, if there's no one else to do the work."
Verso is certainly about the bungle this, and he knows it. This merchant-and-scribe dynamic is not one they have in Lumière, not one he's familiar with in the slightest. Sure, she's been able to give him a quick run-down of the basic expectations, but is that enough to avoid drawing the sort of unnecessary attention that Jasnah is trying to avoid? He's not sure. After all, all of the time he's spent in this world he's been engaging in what she calls heresy. Proper cultural norms are still very foreign to him.
Then she names a few dynamics that are thankfully not foreign to him. Wife, sister, distant cousin. These familial dynamics feel recognizable, comprehensible. They're undoubtedly still somewhat different from what he knows, but at least he has a frame of reference to work off of.
Hmm. A beat. "I don't think we look particularly related."
"And," again, "one cabin would be less suspicious than two."
She delivers her verdict with an aching, blistering ease. As if deciding to play-act his wife is as simple and recognizing the outcome she's after — inconspicuous travel — and shaking off any awkwardness, any discomfort, that might come with the means required for that end.
After all, play-acting is all it will be. She isn't a terribly good performer, granted, but she can at least say the right words and intercede the right ways. As far as she's concerned, for now, it's not as though they need to play-act a particularly loving married couple.
"All right," he says once again, leaving Jasnah no clues about what horrors she has just wrought upon herself. "Try not to sound too excited."
It's friendly, though, good-natured. After their discussion earlier—of duty and potential highprince suitors—he wouldn't be surprised if the mere mention of marriage gives her hives. Surely, she's been batting away political matches for ages. It's not a feeling he can wholly relate to, but it's not entirely unfamiliar, either. Even now, he can hear Renoir's voice in his mind suggesting that he stop gallivanting about town and start settling down.
Well, he stopped gallivanting, anyway.
Glancing out the window again: "We could ask for passage on one of those cargo ships. More people, but less chance of anyone stopping to notice you." He holds his hands up, moving them up and down as if weighing. "Or we could try our luck with a private ship, but the chance of someone minding their business is... dicey."
His easy agreement soothes whatever lingering doubts she harboured. Yes, they can do this — in spite of his gentle teasing, she feels miraculously as though they are on the same page. Means to an end, she reminds herself. Means to an end.
Jasnah follows his line of sight.
"I'd prefer whichever ship is leaving soonest. Cargo or otherwise. The more distance we put between ourselves and the ardentia here in the city, the better. I had suspicions they were working with off-world interests — the timing of the Oathgate's malfunction makes me think I'm right. And they call me heretic..."
She trails off, recognizing a touch too late that her tangent won't actually progress the plan.
"A private ship might be less susceptible to dock inspections, scrutiny of their ledgers, and so forth. That might be worth the risk alone."
Jasnah's gaze slides back onto Verso — genuinely waiting for his opinion.
Inspections? Ledgers?? This is really a whole new world, since he's pretty sure none of that was ever necessary in Lumière. (Why would it be? There's nowhere else to go.) Still, Verso projects an air of confidence and know-how, like he understands all of this completely. Like he's been on a hundred ships, instead of, like, one seventy years ago.
"Okay," he says with a decisive nod. "Then—"
He's about to say that he'll go sniff around and find out which ships are leaving port the soonest so that he can use his considerable charm to barter their way aboard. But if someone really is after Jasnah—which, truthfully, he's not sure of; is it reality or simply paranoia bred by being such a public figure?—then it probably isn't wise to leave her on her own.
A jerk of his head toward the window. "Do you see that man out there? He looks eager to get going." The person he refers to is a broad-shouldered sailor who keeps tapping his foot impatiently and telling his crew to pick up the pace already, we were supposed to disembark five minutes ago. "Let's go speak to him."
Jasnah doesn't look immediately. She takes a breath instead. Quiet, steady. Then shifts her gaze toward the window. The sailor. His pacing. His impatience. The crew scrambling to keep up.
"Yes," she murmurs. "He'll do."
She rises, smoothing the vest over her havah, movements deliberate. She doesn't touch him, but her presence angles toward Verso just enough to signal familiarity. Intimacy, even.
"If you intend to negotiate, you should know a few things."
Her tone slips into that instructive cadence. Never entirely patronizing, always precise. Her words suggest that he should negotiate. Like it would be suspicious if he didn't at least attempt it.
"Fair pricing for passage to Thaylenah is between twelve and twenty-five clearmarks per person, depending on the captain and the weather. Tonight, the docks are thinly crewed, and the hour is late. You can assume the upper end."
A pause, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"But you will barter it down. Not aggressively. He is leaving in haste, but not in desperation. Offer fifteen for the both of us, let him feel clever for pushing it to twenty."
She draws her scarf a fraction lower across her brow. Then, with startling simplicity: "I trust you to handle this."
A beat. Not emphasis. Simply... resignation. Being queen, being a Kholin, being a renowned scholar had always afforded her respect and attention that she knows not every Alethi woman receives.
"You will be the one he listens to." Her chin lifts just slightly. Reluctantly, she adds: "I’ll follow your lead."
It's strange. Lumière, inexplicably woke as it is, is a bastion for gender equality. The Gestrals are ruled by a woman, if you can consider a wooden creature a woman; the Expeditions have been led by women; and there's Maman, of course, at the heart of it all.
So, Verso's not accustomed to the sort of man-to-man talk that awaits him. Despite that, he stands with a confident, unbothered air and for once doesn't trail behind Jasnah like a puppy nipping at her heels, instead taking the opportunity to lead them both out to the docks. It smells vaguely unpleasant out here, like saltwater and fish, but if he has any distaste for it he doesn't let it show. Honestly, he's gone noseblind after spending decades with a creature that collects dismembered Nevron feet.
The sailor is named Torreth, as it turns out, and he's on a pleasure trip around the entirety of Roshar, eager to finish his journey by his next birthday. Verso lets him yap for five good minutes without saying so much as a word about their needing passage, simply nodding and smiling and complimenting the sailor's gumption. Jasnah would be forgiven if she thought he just planned to shoot the shit all day, until—
"Funny you should mention Thaylenah on your route." Finally, he brings it up. She'll be pleased for all of five seconds before Verso drapes an arm over her shoulder and tugs her in. "That's exactly where my beautiful wife and I are headed. Aren't we, chouchou?"
For the briefest moment, Jasnah goes still beneath his arm. Not in rejection, but in calculation. Even among loved ones, Alethi sensibilities consider public displays of affection... excessive. Undignified. Something reserved for the foolishly besotted or the very young. Given Verso's performance, she realizes he's opted for the former
Her hesitation, then, is not born of reticence but of manners. Of training. Of a lifetime of knowing exactly how much is too much in a society obsessed with restraint.
And yet — after a heartbeat — she exhales and steps into the role with deliberate grace.
"Yes," she says, voice settling into a quieter, more domestic register. "Thaylenah. We've business there. And our original transport has been hauled on land for unscheduled maintenance."
She inclines her head to Torreth in polite acknowledgment, the picture of a competent wife overseeing her husband's wanderings and enduring his enthusiasm.
"We don't require luxuries. Only a cabin with a lock, and a captain who values punctuality."
Her posture realigns around the false intimacy, composed once more...although Verso can feel, in the subtle rebalancing of her shoulders beneath his arm, the way she tucks her body against his, the conscious decision she's made: the composed queen choosing — just this once — to look convincingly improper.
"Punctuality," Torreth huffs, before turning around to hurry his men along. "These dullards wouldn't know punctuality if it hit them on the head."
"Ah, with a captain of your caliber?" Verso says, tsking. "Maybe they're just trying to prolong the time spent in your company."
"It'll be thirty clearmarks per person," is all Torreth has to say to that. Verso's eyebrows shoot up for just a split second before he forces them back down. That's— a little more than he expected. Even more than Jasnah warned him of. It makes sense; if Torreth is independently wealthy enough to take a trip around the world, anything less is probably a pittance.
Negotiate, she'd said. "We were hoping for something more in the range of, uh, fifteen." He isn't exactly giving 'stern haggler' here, and Torreth picks up on it—the suggestion actually gets a laugh.
"He's funny," Torreth says to Jasnah. "But funny doesn't pay your way—"
"Understandable," Verso cuts in. "You're a shrewd businessman. But might I wager a guess that you're also a family man?"
Torreth squints, like he isn't sure where Verso is going with this.
Solemnly: "You see, we would pay thirty. It's only that we're trying to save everything we can... for the baby."
Jasnah's inhale is silent, sharp, and profoundly controlled. Internally, her thoughts snap like brittle reeds: A baby? A BABY? Of all the ludicrous...
But none of this reaches her face. Alethi propriety clamps down on her like armour: no outward display, no ridicule, only the faint tightening at the corner of her mouth that might, in another woman, be mistaken for nausea.
Torreth's eyes swing to her, wide with sudden, intrusive curiosity.
Jasnah gives Verso half a heartbeat of incredulous side-eye— quietly murderous — before she slips seamlessly, impeccably, into the lie.
Her gloved hand comes to rest on her abdomen with the barest, stiffest approximation of maternal instinct. The gesture is so begrudgingly executed it almost becomes convincing. Like a woman embarrassed by public sentiment, not irritated by her husband's theatrics.
"We're...being careful," she says, composed to the point of frost. "Travel can be taxing. And we don't trust those new gates the Knights use..."
Verso should practically hear the 'you are going to suffer for this later' radiating off her.
Torreth softens instantly, the big man's bluster collapsing into something almost tender. "Oh. Well. Congratulations, then." He clears his throat, suddenly earnest. "Twenty-seven for the both, ah, the soon to be three of you."
Jasnah forces a small, polite nod — the type expected of a woman navigating both propriety and mild discomfort. Truthfully, she's a bit miffed he didn't go lower.
She draws her sphere purse from her satchel, counting out the spheres with a speed and precision that borders on belligerence. Twenty-seven exactly. No extra, no tip, no lingering warmth. She almost drops them into Torreth's waiting hand, but...well, she did say she was going to follow Verso's lead. So she keeps careful hold of the money, as though dutifully waiting for her husband's agreement.
After Torreth does the same counting of the spheres, he turns to his crew and gestures to the pair— "We've got passengers on board, boys! That means speed it up already!"
Honestly, it all works out pretty great (for Verso, anyway). He places what he considers to be an incredibly polite and nonintimate hand on Jasnah's arm as they board the ship, keeping it there as Torreth shows them around the vessel and introduces them to his quote-unquote good-for-nothing layabout crew. Verso's pretty sure he catches a hint of affection underneath that derision, though.
The cabin area is hardly luxurious, but it'll do. Has a lock, just like Jasnah requested. There's a desk bolted to the floor, a chest for them to put their belongings in, and a small bed that Verso has already accepted he's not going to be sleeping in. Torreth leaves them with a suggestion that they make it to the mess deck for dinner, provided that they don't mind the gruel his chef serves. Verso's not sure whether that one is just affectionate ribbing or if it's really going to be disgusting, but that's a problem for future Verso, because he's actually not feeling particularly hungry.
Now that the ship is unmoored, he's finding himself feeling a little— ill. It's been decades since he traveled on a sailing vessel; he's always just jumped on Esquie's back, no sea legs required. As he stuffs his pack into the chest, he can already feel himself growing a bit pale.
Jasnah closes the cabin door with a soft click — locks it, tests the latch once, twice, then finally turns to him.
Verso looks...green. Not dramatically, not comically — just that slight, unmistakable pallor of a man whose stomach has suddenly remembered what boats do.
Jasnah takes him in with one long, appraising sweep of her eyes. Not unsympathetic. Not indulgent. Just... evaluating him the way she might evaluate a piece of her mother's laboratory equipment that is making an unfamiliar sound.
She crosses to the porthole, glances out at the dark swell of water against the hull. She hasn't been on a boat since the last time she left Kharbranth, and that had ended in a dagger to the chest. His poor constitution might be just the distraction she needs from that memory.
"Five days," she says. "Six, if the winds shift unfavorably." She turns back to him, folds her arms.
Her tone softens — not warm, but level, practical, the voice she uses when someone is about to faint during a lecture.
"You're seasick."
Because she is neither cruel nor unobservant, she gestures to the bench bolted to the wall beside the desk.
"Sit. Breathe through your nose. Do not lie down - you'll make it worse. You've done well so far. Rest a moment before you disgrace our cover story even further."
His peaky expression won't save Verso from the eventual comeuppance he deserves for fictionally impregnating her.
"I prefer in the process of sea leg acquisition," he says, trying and failing not to sound nauseated. God, it's very similar to how he'd felt when he'd eaten poisonous mushrooms for the first time, dizzy and vaguely feeling like he's going to throw up.
Verso listens, at least, sitting down on the bench and curling over slightly, taking deep breaths in through his nose. It helps a little. Five days of this is going to be torture, though. With any luck, he'll adapt. If not, well, he might need that bed after all if all he's going to be doing is lying around and trying not to vomit.
Then the rest of what she's said catches up with him, bit by bit— "What's the matter with our cover story?" Eugh. He closes his eyes. "It worked, didn't it?"
Jasnah watches him fold over his own knees, the picture of a man heroically resisting the urge to disgrace himself on a borrowed floorboard. Her expression remains perfectly composed — though the corners of her eyes tighten in a way that suggests a very specific flavour of irritation.
"It's inconvenient," she says at last, voice clipped but not cruel. "That's what's the matter with our cover story."
She gestures vaguely — almost disdainfully — toward her own abdomen.
"You have spoke into existence a pregnancy I neither requested nor required. After all your talk of gentlemany charm, I didn't expect you to require such...negotiation tactics."
No heat. No injury. Just the cool precision of a woman who is pathologically and compulsively compartmentalizing her complicated feelings about this part of their shared lie.
She sits next to him and folds her hands neatly in her lap, ship tilting gently beneath her without affecting a single line of her posture.
"But yes. It worked." A small nod, as if granting him that victory costs her nothing. Then, the faintest, driest warning:
"Now breathe. If you vomit on me, our marriage ends immediately."
Right, Verso resists the urge to say as he takes another deep breath of salty sea air, you're definitely the one suffering right now. If he says that, then Jasnah will probably start to lecture him (more than she already is), and while he's usually able to withstand quite a bit of chiding, he's not up for keeping in his vomit and his feelings at the same time.
He does as requested, sitting there in silence, elbows on his thighs, breathing in and out. This goes on for a few moments before he feels— not well by any means, but well enough to crack open an eye and glance sidelong at her.
Dry: "You would condemn little Geneviève to a broken home?"
Jasnah watches him breathe through another wave of nausea. When his little quip finally lands, she turns her head just enough to level a look at him — dry, steady, almost fond in its disbelief.
"Geneviève will be perfectly fine," she says, voice cool but threaded with the faintest, unwilling amusement. "Considering she's fictional. My concern is whether you will be.'
She rises then, smoothing the front of her borrowed vest, reclaiming her composure with practiced ease. Jasnah busies herself with stowing their meagre belongings in the trunk. So much of her things were left behind in the palace suites.
She then preoccupies herself with reorganizing the papers she'd stuffed thoughtlessly into her satchel during their escape. Minutes pass in companionable silence, as she tidies with her back to him until she realizes...Oh!
Jasnah is laughing quitely, sincerely bewildered.
"In the rush, it seems we left with a full complement of romantic epics," she observes drily, waggling a novel in the air over her shoulder.
Verso places his arms on the desk and rests his head atop them, doing his damnedest to endure the seasickness with something resembling dignity. He can imagine Monoco chiding him for lacking the endurance of a warrior (while at the same time rubbing his back, because Monoco is a secret softie). Esquie would probably be unhelpful, saying something like you look green, mon ami; I didn't know that humans could be green. (Which would end up being inexplicably helpful, because at least it would make him laugh.)
Ugh, he misses them. His only true companions in this world, out of his reach. As hypocritical as it is, he finds himself hoping that they haven't been erased from existence.
When Jasnah speaks up again, he tilts his head to look her way, cheek pressed against his forearms. "So we did." Look, they'd been moving fast. He'd just packed up what he had and left. "The reading of which is strictly verboten, to my understanding."
All these books and he's not even allowed to read them. Very cruel.
Jasnah glances toward the stack of books he's smuggled aboard and something in her expression softens in a way that would be imperceptible to anyone who hasn't spent the past day studying her.
"Verboten," she echoes, arching a brow. "For now. Whatever that means." It sounded different than the othet words she didn't recognize.
She moves toward the porthole again, adjusting the scarf at her brow, but her voice carries that quiet undercurrent he may be learning to recognize — her version of gentleness, wrapped in formality.
"It is not your reading I object to," she says. "Only the attention it would draw."
A beat.
“Men when read are...remarkable. Memorable." The tiniest, faintest wry pull at her mouth. Yes, Verso she finds you both of thise things. "And we cannot afford memorable."
She turns back to him, arms folding — posture impeccable even as the ship lists.
"In another circumstance," she adds, softer now, "I would be happy for you to read. It is a skill too rare to waste."
Her gaze lingers on the books — then him — before slipping away again, queenly composure snapping back into place.
"But until we reach Thaylenah, you will simply have to endure the injustice." A pause, barely-there amusement. "Try to consider it an act of restraint rather than cruelty."
'Restraint'. Well, self-denial is one of his strong suits. Might as well tap into that. Besides, he's in no state to read, anyway. Although the nausea is slowly dissipating to something more manageable, imagining trying to focus his eyes on tiny text for any period of time makes it come back with a vengeance. No, he's pretty sure he won't be enjoying any nice, relaxing evenings as he reads romantic erotica by lamplight for at least the next five days.
Verso's quiet for a moment, then: "I knew you found me remarkable."
Smug, self-satisfied. There's nothing that lights up his achievement-oriented, people-pleasing brain quite like being remarkable. He feels well enough to sit up for the first time, so he does, eyes following Jasnah.
"You would have loved Lumière. It used to be a bastion of art and culture." And every man there can read. He's really not special.
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"Then we'll sail to Theylenah." His voice is calm, patient. The voice of someone who's very used to repressing their pesky emotions in order to not frighten someone else. Someone who's said you're okay a hundred times, and will say it a hundred more. "Or the Frostlands. Whichever you like."
And it'll be okay, because making things okay is sort of his whole thing.
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"Ardent Na," she says, crisp as a blade sliding home. "Inform King Taravangian that we are returning to the palace suites for the evening. We will evaluate our travel options in the morning."
The ardent bows deeply, too deeply, as if trying to hide something behind the gesture —and retreats through the curtain at a near-trot.
The moment she's gone, Jasnah is already moving, sweeping the last of her documents into their leather cases. Her expression remains firm. An uttered request of Ivory suggests that she's sent the inkspren to verify if Shallan Davar is still in the city. But the second they step out into the quieter hall beyond the alcove — just far enough down the mezzanine that no ears could possibly catch them — she slows. Not stops, but slows.
Then, without looking directly at Verso, she murmurs under her breath, so soft it barely disturbs the air between them: "We are not returning to the palace."
A beat. Enough for the words to settle. Her eyes flick to the side — just once — to confirm he's listening.
"We will find a ship and leave the city within the hour. Quietly. If someone wanted the Oathgate disabled while I am visiting Kharbranth, then they will have eyes waiting for exactly the response I just gave."
She tightens the strap on her satchel, movements brisk.
"Do not act surprised. Do not look at me. And do not slow down. We are going west."
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Although— "Not looking at you is more suspicious than the alternative," he points out even as he keeps his gaze on his feet, leaning in to speak in hushed tones. Verso doesn't normally pointedly avoid looking at people! It's unnatural and awkward.
With just a momentary, fleeting glance to the side: "What's to the west?"
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They descend tight stone stairwells, duck through supply halls that stink of antiseptic and old grain, and slip past laundry workers who never bother to lift their heads. From the lower kitchens, a side passage opens into a ventilation corridor that (ancient design or divine irony) empties onto a sheltered ledge above the fishing wharves.
By the time they reach the lower city, the sky has gone bruise-dark. Light from the first of the three moons, rising above, shimmers on the tide. A gull cries overhead, and Jasnah tucks the collar of her havah higher, trying — not very successfully — to blend.
Jasnah handles her disguise the way she approaches everything else: precise, functional, stripped of emotion. Her hair goes down first, pulling hair ornaments and pins free, untwisting braids, until it falls free over her shoulders. She tears a strip of cloth from an abandoned sailor's tarp — to fashion a makeshift headscarf — and draws it low over her forehead. Next she trades her cloak for a shapeless fisherwoman's vest from a drying line. Finally, summoning Ivory as a short blade, she cuts away the buttoned edge of her safehand sleeve so that she approximates the style of the working class: left hand still gloved, but available for labour.
— Unfortunately, there is no changing her posture. She does not slouch. She looks like someone who is very bad at pretending not to be important.
They duck briefly into a dockside tavern called The Third Net. They sit for only a few minutes, just long enough for her to listen: gossip about storms, a bar fight two piers over, a rumor that someone saw Windrunners patrolling over the mountains. Nothing about the Oathgate, and nothing about the queen. Good.
From a window, they watch freight ships and private vessels bob in their moorings. Jasnah's eyes skim hulls, lines, the distribution of cargo. She wonders which boats have captains who don't ask questions. Sitting back, her gloved hand palms the edge of a beer cup.
"A party of two travelers booking separate cabins will draw attention. A pair sharing one is an easier story to invent." A pause. "You are a minor merchant. Trading routes westward. Fond of long-winded stories, but harmless. I'm your scribe — you needed someone literate to manage your accounts. And you," she eyes the bag of books that came with him, "can't be seen reading."
Jasnah straightens her stolen vest, tugs the scarf a fraction lower. Movement. Escape. Distance. For now, that is enough. Except for the part where she hasn't yet explained that most men employ their wives as their scribes.
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He doesn't, of course. That would be ridiculous. Another ridiculous thing that he doesn't do is point out that Jasnah looks rather fetching in her commoner get-up. The little headscarf is charming. She probably wouldn't appreciate the compliment.
"You didn't seem to mind me being seen reading before," he says, although there's barely any argument behind it. "But all right. How would a merchant behave toward his scribe?"
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"You were reading under my supervision," she says, tone mild but pointed. "Me, a known heretic. But a minor merchant? Reading anything at all?" Her eyebrow lifts a fraction. "That is memorable. We need forgettable."
She shifts — gloved hand raking into her recently loosed hair, as if the casual style bothers her. Somehow, her voice lowers one step further. She leans across the table, holding his gaze.
"You'll treat me as a companion in your work. You'll hand me ledgers. You'll trust me to read what you cannot. You defer on matters of arithmetic."
Her nose scrunches just so.
"Most often it's a wife who keeps the accounts, organizes the correspondence, and acts as clerk. She isn't hired. Instead, she's a partner. Sometimes it's a sister. A distant cousin, if there's no one else to do the work."
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Then she names a few dynamics that are thankfully not foreign to him. Wife, sister, distant cousin. These familial dynamics feel recognizable, comprehensible. They're undoubtedly still somewhat different from what he knows, but at least he has a frame of reference to work off of.
Hmm. A beat. "I don't think we look particularly related."
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She delivers her verdict with an aching, blistering ease. As if deciding to play-act his wife is as simple and recognizing the outcome she's after — inconspicuous travel — and shaking off any awkwardness, any discomfort, that might come with the means required for that end.
After all, play-acting is all it will be. She isn't a terribly good performer, granted, but she can at least say the right words and intercede the right ways. As far as she's concerned, for now, it's not as though they need to play-act a particularly loving married couple.
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It's friendly, though, good-natured. After their discussion earlier—of duty and potential highprince suitors—he wouldn't be surprised if the mere mention of marriage gives her hives. Surely, she's been batting away political matches for ages. It's not a feeling he can wholly relate to, but it's not entirely unfamiliar, either. Even now, he can hear Renoir's voice in his mind suggesting that he stop gallivanting about town and start settling down.
Well, he stopped gallivanting, anyway.
Glancing out the window again: "We could ask for passage on one of those cargo ships. More people, but less chance of anyone stopping to notice you." He holds his hands up, moving them up and down as if weighing. "Or we could try our luck with a private ship, but the chance of someone minding their business is... dicey."
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Jasnah follows his line of sight.
"I'd prefer whichever ship is leaving soonest. Cargo or otherwise. The more distance we put between ourselves and the ardentia here in the city, the better. I had suspicions they were working with off-world interests — the timing of the Oathgate's malfunction makes me think I'm right. And they call me heretic..."
She trails off, recognizing a touch too late that her tangent won't actually progress the plan.
"A private ship might be less susceptible to dock inspections, scrutiny of their ledgers, and so forth. That might be worth the risk alone."
Jasnah's gaze slides back onto Verso — genuinely waiting for his opinion.
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"Okay," he says with a decisive nod. "Then—"
He's about to say that he'll go sniff around and find out which ships are leaving port the soonest so that he can use his considerable charm to barter their way aboard. But if someone really is after Jasnah—which, truthfully, he's not sure of; is it reality or simply paranoia bred by being such a public figure?—then it probably isn't wise to leave her on her own.
A jerk of his head toward the window. "Do you see that man out there? He looks eager to get going." The person he refers to is a broad-shouldered sailor who keeps tapping his foot impatiently and telling his crew to pick up the pace already, we were supposed to disembark five minutes ago. "Let's go speak to him."
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"Yes," she murmurs. "He'll do."
She rises, smoothing the vest over her havah, movements deliberate. She doesn't touch him, but her presence angles toward Verso just enough to signal familiarity. Intimacy, even.
"If you intend to negotiate, you should know a few things."
Her tone slips into that instructive cadence. Never entirely patronizing, always precise. Her words suggest that he should negotiate. Like it would be suspicious if he didn't at least attempt it.
"Fair pricing for passage to Thaylenah is between twelve and twenty-five clearmarks per person, depending on the captain and the weather. Tonight, the docks are thinly crewed, and the hour is late. You can assume the upper end."
A pause, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"But you will barter it down. Not aggressively. He is leaving in haste, but not in desperation. Offer fifteen for the both of us, let him feel clever for pushing it to twenty."
She draws her scarf a fraction lower across her brow. Then, with startling simplicity: "I trust you to handle this."
A beat. Not emphasis. Simply... resignation. Being queen, being a Kholin, being a renowned scholar had always afforded her respect and attention that she knows not every Alethi woman receives.
"You will be the one he listens to." Her chin lifts just slightly. Reluctantly, she adds: "I’ll follow your lead."
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So, Verso's not accustomed to the sort of man-to-man talk that awaits him. Despite that, he stands with a confident, unbothered air and for once doesn't trail behind Jasnah like a puppy nipping at her heels, instead taking the opportunity to lead them both out to the docks. It smells vaguely unpleasant out here, like saltwater and fish, but if he has any distaste for it he doesn't let it show. Honestly, he's gone noseblind after spending decades with a creature that collects dismembered Nevron feet.
The sailor is named Torreth, as it turns out, and he's on a pleasure trip around the entirety of Roshar, eager to finish his journey by his next birthday. Verso lets him yap for five good minutes without saying so much as a word about their needing passage, simply nodding and smiling and complimenting the sailor's gumption. Jasnah would be forgiven if she thought he just planned to shoot the shit all day, until—
"Funny you should mention Thaylenah on your route." Finally, he brings it up. She'll be pleased for all of five seconds before Verso drapes an arm over her shoulder and tugs her in. "That's exactly where my beautiful wife and I are headed. Aren't we, chouchou?"
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Her hesitation, then, is not born of reticence but of manners. Of training. Of a lifetime of knowing exactly how much is too much in a society obsessed with restraint.
And yet — after a heartbeat — she exhales and steps into the role with deliberate grace.
"Yes," she says, voice settling into a quieter, more domestic register. "Thaylenah. We've business there. And our original transport has been hauled on land for unscheduled maintenance."
She inclines her head to Torreth in polite acknowledgment, the picture of a competent wife overseeing her husband's wanderings and enduring his enthusiasm.
"We don't require luxuries. Only a cabin with a lock, and a captain who values punctuality."
Her posture realigns around the false intimacy, composed once more...although Verso can feel, in the subtle rebalancing of her shoulders beneath his arm, the way she tucks her body against his, the conscious decision she's made: the composed queen choosing — just this once — to look convincingly improper.
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"Ah, with a captain of your caliber?" Verso says, tsking. "Maybe they're just trying to prolong the time spent in your company."
"It'll be thirty clearmarks per person," is all Torreth has to say to that. Verso's eyebrows shoot up for just a split second before he forces them back down. That's— a little more than he expected. Even more than Jasnah warned him of. It makes sense; if Torreth is independently wealthy enough to take a trip around the world, anything less is probably a pittance.
Negotiate, she'd said. "We were hoping for something more in the range of, uh, fifteen." He isn't exactly giving 'stern haggler' here, and Torreth picks up on it—the suggestion actually gets a laugh.
"He's funny," Torreth says to Jasnah. "But funny doesn't pay your way—"
"Understandable," Verso cuts in. "You're a shrewd businessman. But might I wager a guess that you're also a family man?"
Torreth squints, like he isn't sure where Verso is going with this.
Solemnly: "You see, we would pay thirty. It's only that we're trying to save everything we can... for the baby."
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But none of this reaches her face. Alethi propriety clamps down on her like armour: no outward display, no ridicule, only the faint tightening at the corner of her mouth that might, in another woman, be mistaken for nausea.
Torreth's eyes swing to her, wide with sudden, intrusive curiosity.
Jasnah gives Verso half a heartbeat of incredulous side-eye— quietly murderous — before she slips seamlessly, impeccably, into the lie.
Her gloved hand comes to rest on her abdomen with the barest, stiffest approximation of maternal instinct. The gesture is so begrudgingly executed it almost becomes convincing. Like a woman embarrassed by public sentiment, not irritated by her husband's theatrics.
"We're...being careful," she says, composed to the point of frost. "Travel can be taxing. And we don't trust those new gates the Knights use..."
Verso should practically hear the 'you are going to suffer for this later' radiating off her.
Torreth softens instantly, the big man's bluster collapsing into something almost tender. "Oh. Well. Congratulations, then." He clears his throat, suddenly earnest. "Twenty-seven for the both, ah, the soon to be three of you."
Jasnah forces a small, polite nod — the type expected of a woman navigating both propriety and mild discomfort. Truthfully, she's a bit miffed he didn't go lower.
She draws her sphere purse from her satchel, counting out the spheres with a speed and precision that borders on belligerence. Twenty-seven exactly. No extra, no tip, no lingering warmth. She almost drops them into Torreth's waiting hand, but...well, she did say she was going to follow Verso's lead. So she keeps careful hold of the money, as though dutifully waiting for her husband's agreement.
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After Torreth does the same counting of the spheres, he turns to his crew and gestures to the pair— "We've got passengers on board, boys! That means speed it up already!"
Honestly, it all works out pretty great (for Verso, anyway). He places what he considers to be an incredibly polite and nonintimate hand on Jasnah's arm as they board the ship, keeping it there as Torreth shows them around the vessel and introduces them to his quote-unquote good-for-nothing layabout crew. Verso's pretty sure he catches a hint of affection underneath that derision, though.
The cabin area is hardly luxurious, but it'll do. Has a lock, just like Jasnah requested. There's a desk bolted to the floor, a chest for them to put their belongings in, and a small bed that Verso has already accepted he's not going to be sleeping in. Torreth leaves them with a suggestion that they make it to the mess deck for dinner, provided that they don't mind the gruel his chef serves. Verso's not sure whether that one is just affectionate ribbing or if it's really going to be disgusting, but that's a problem for future Verso, because he's actually not feeling particularly hungry.
Now that the ship is unmoored, he's finding himself feeling a little— ill. It's been decades since he traveled on a sailing vessel; he's always just jumped on Esquie's back, no sea legs required. As he stuffs his pack into the chest, he can already feel himself growing a bit pale.
"How long is this journey, again?"
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Verso looks...green. Not dramatically, not comically — just that slight, unmistakable pallor of a man whose stomach has suddenly remembered what boats do.
Jasnah takes him in with one long, appraising sweep of her eyes. Not unsympathetic. Not indulgent. Just... evaluating him the way she might evaluate a piece of her mother's laboratory equipment that is making an unfamiliar sound.
She crosses to the porthole, glances out at the dark swell of water against the hull. She hasn't been on a boat since the last time she left Kharbranth, and that had ended in a dagger to the chest. His poor constitution might be just the distraction she needs from that memory.
"Five days," she says. "Six, if the winds shift unfavorably." She turns back to him, folds her arms.
Her tone softens — not warm, but level, practical, the voice she uses when someone is about to faint during a lecture.
"You're seasick."
Because she is neither cruel nor unobservant, she gestures to the bench bolted to the wall beside the desk.
"Sit. Breathe through your nose. Do not lie down - you'll make it worse. You've done well so far. Rest a moment before you disgrace our cover story even further."
His peaky expression won't save Verso from the eventual comeuppance he deserves for fictionally impregnating her.
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Verso listens, at least, sitting down on the bench and curling over slightly, taking deep breaths in through his nose. It helps a little. Five days of this is going to be torture, though. With any luck, he'll adapt. If not, well, he might need that bed after all if all he's going to be doing is lying around and trying not to vomit.
Then the rest of what she's said catches up with him, bit by bit— "What's the matter with our cover story?" Eugh. He closes his eyes. "It worked, didn't it?"
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"It's inconvenient," she says at last, voice clipped but not cruel. "That's what's the matter with our cover story."
She gestures vaguely — almost disdainfully — toward her own abdomen.
"You have spoke into existence a pregnancy I neither requested nor required. After all your talk of gentlemany charm, I didn't expect you to require such...negotiation tactics."
No heat. No injury. Just the cool precision of a woman who is pathologically and compulsively compartmentalizing her complicated feelings about this part of their shared lie.
She sits next to him and folds her hands neatly in her lap, ship tilting gently beneath her without affecting a single line of her posture.
"But yes. It worked." A small nod, as if granting him that victory costs her nothing. Then, the faintest, driest warning:
"Now breathe. If you vomit on me, our marriage ends immediately."
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He does as requested, sitting there in silence, elbows on his thighs, breathing in and out. This goes on for a few moments before he feels— not well by any means, but well enough to crack open an eye and glance sidelong at her.
Dry: "You would condemn little Geneviève to a broken home?"
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"Geneviève will be perfectly fine," she says, voice cool but threaded with the faintest, unwilling amusement. "Considering she's fictional. My concern is whether you will be.'
She rises then, smoothing the front of her borrowed vest, reclaiming her composure with practiced ease. Jasnah busies herself with stowing their meagre belongings in the trunk. So much of her things were left behind in the palace suites.
She then preoccupies herself with reorganizing the papers she'd stuffed thoughtlessly into her satchel during their escape. Minutes pass in companionable silence, as she tidies with her back to him until she realizes...Oh!
Jasnah is laughing quitely, sincerely bewildered.
"In the rush, it seems we left with a full complement of romantic epics," she observes drily, waggling a novel in the air over her shoulder.
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Ugh, he misses them. His only true companions in this world, out of his reach. As hypocritical as it is, he finds himself hoping that they haven't been erased from existence.
When Jasnah speaks up again, he tilts his head to look her way, cheek pressed against his forearms. "So we did." Look, they'd been moving fast. He'd just packed up what he had and left. "The reading of which is strictly verboten, to my understanding."
All these books and he's not even allowed to read them. Very cruel.
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"Verboten," she echoes, arching a brow. "For now. Whatever that means." It sounded different than the othet words she didn't recognize.
She moves toward the porthole again, adjusting the scarf at her brow, but her voice carries that quiet undercurrent he may be learning to recognize — her version of gentleness, wrapped in formality.
"It is not your reading I object to," she says. "Only the attention it would draw."
A beat.
“Men when read are...remarkable. Memorable." The tiniest, faintest wry pull at her mouth. Yes, Verso she finds you both of thise things. "And we cannot afford memorable."
She turns back to him, arms folding — posture impeccable even as the ship lists.
"In another circumstance," she adds, softer now, "I would be happy for you to read. It is a skill too rare to waste."
Her gaze lingers on the books — then him — before slipping away again, queenly composure snapping back into place.
"But until we reach Thaylenah, you will simply have to endure the injustice." A pause, barely-there amusement. "Try to consider it an act of restraint rather than cruelty."
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Verso's quiet for a moment, then: "I knew you found me remarkable."
Smug, self-satisfied. There's nothing that lights up his achievement-oriented, people-pleasing brain quite like being remarkable. He feels well enough to sit up for the first time, so he does, eyes following Jasnah.
"You would have loved Lumière. It used to be a bastion of art and culture." And every man there can read. He's really not special.
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tosses u a midnight before bed tag.......
delightful.
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i lied, sends this tag in another direction
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a short but very meaningful tag
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my turn for a short but effective tag.
mom said it's my turn
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