Verso does as she says, eyes on her, but it seems unlikely he would have been able to catch sight of anything even if he didn't. He'd seen nothing similar in appearance to Ivory, although Ivory is so small that he imagines it would be challenging to even notice that a spren was there. It's perfectly possible, really, that Jasnah has a keener eye than him, but—
He thinks yet again of Jasnah's childhood predicament. He hopes, at least, that she has a keener eye than him, because he hasn't any idea how to respond if she's seeing things.
"I would allow the pure-hearted maiden to approach the unicorn herself"—because that's how she's making it sound, like the spren would just sense something about him and take off—"but she was stabbed recently."
Under less pressure, Jasnah would have asked what's a unicorn? Or she might have barked one of her short, breathy laughs and taken immediate issue with why this particular myth insists upon a maiden. There is cultural criticism to be had there. Volumes of it. But she lets the thought go cold on the plate. She's hungry for something else now.
So she says nothing. Which, for Jasnah, is its own concession. She doesn't rush. She turns left into a narrow, dead-end nook off the winding alley and follows the cryptic's pattern as it skates across brick and wood and shadow, slipping from surface to surface until, until, until.
There. Tucked beside old crates and sagging sackcloth, half-sheltered beneath a cart long stripped of its wheels, something catches the light. A flicker of metal. Wrong and bright.
Twice now on their adventure she's surged forward only to be rebounded back into Verso's care. The third time she refuses to be anchored. Jasnah shakes loose his hand and, palm braced against the wall to spare her wound, sinks carefully to her knees on the stone. A grunt escapes her. Then a hissed, thin request for help. Between them (but mostly Verso) the cart is shifted aside.
Leaning against the wall, no taller than the length of Jasnah's index finger, is Ivory. He is all angles and oil-sheen geometry, his impossible little body fixed in place through his tiny eye by a thin metal needle.
Aluminum? She wonders distantly. Or, damnation, silver?
There is no movement. No flutter of awareness. For want of a kinder metaphor, Ivory resembles a cremling mounted in an enthusiast's collection. Pinned. Displayed. Preserved in a parody of life. Jasnah wasn't the only one who was stabbed, it seems. The realization unfurls cold and precise in her gut. If the attack was coordinated, if the enemy possessed one of the disruptive metals capable of harming spren, then this was not merely an assassination attempt. It was a severing.
"—Give me your hand," she orders Verso, sharp and immediate.
The ground is too far for her to bend properly with her own wound screaming its protest, and she needs both hands free. She intends to lift Ivory — carefully, reverently — and set him into Verso's palm so she can examine the damage without jostling him further.
And in the corner of her eye, the cryptic dances across a pane of glass. Its lines ripple. Curl. Pulse. For just a heartbeat, she could almost swear its movements are triumphant.
He's a little sad to have his hand batted away. There's a lack of warmth there where her palm used to be, and his fingers twitch a little involuntarily. He doesn't allow himself to make anything of it. To her, that was nothing more intimate than using a crutch.
The tone of her command brooks no argument, no questioning. Neither does the sight of tiny Ivory run through with a needle. He cups his palms out in front of him, ready to receive what appears to be an injured spren. Careful, gentle. Patient, as he'd said.
"Are spren—?" Immortal, he intends to say, although it seems too close to asking if Ivory is dead or dying to finish the thought. "I didn't realize that they could get injured like this."
He had imagined them to be like the mythical beings he's used to. Impossible to truly harm.
"Spren can be injured via three distinct mechanisms," she says, voice clipped and curt. Lecture-precise. She retreats into facts the way she has always done when panic claws too close to the surface. Leaning on objective truth the way she has, without quite admitting it, leaned on Verso.
"The first is irrelevant here. The second and third both involve the disruption of Investiture. All spren are composed of Investiture that's coalesced long enough to achieve sapience. They can't die," she answers the question he didn't quite ask but she anticipated regardless. "Not in the way we mean it. Death is...different for them."
Her words are firm. Measured. Unshakeable. Her hands are not. They tremble as she settles Ivory into Verso's waiting palms, the minute shiver transferring through her fingertips into the needle itself. The thin metal quivers when she brushes its head, vibrating like a struck wire. Ivory does not move. Should she pull the needle? Storms — what if antilight is involved? But no, she reasons, too fast and too desperately: if it were, this entire block of Thaylen City would have been obliterated in the resulting detonation.
—Has he been pinned here for a week? Damnation. The thought lands like a blow. Why did she stop Verso when he offered to search? Short-sighted. Proud. Self-absorbed.
"Aluminum blocks Investiture," she says, quieter now. "Silver disrupts it. I don't — we don't understand this well enough. It's a fledgling field. Storms, Wit only brought aluminum from off-world a year ago."
Stop prattling and do something. Jasnah draws in a breath so deep it tugs painfully at her wound. She tears her gaze away from Ivory and looks to Verso.
"I'm going to pull it," she says. But she doesn't yet. She hesitates, suspended in that awful, narrowing moment before action — waiting for something she would never ordinarily ask for. Agreement. Objection. Peer review.
It's irrational. His guess will not be better than hers; it will almost certainly be worse. Still. She wants something from him.
Ivory looks so small. He always does, but— it strikes Verso now just how tiny he really is. Fragile, with this needle piercing him. He grinds his teeth a little at the sight. It's... unpleasant. He looks away, toward Jasnah's face instead. It should be a better sight, but the look on it only makes his stomach sink more. She's afraid.
The moment after she speaks is spent silent. Of course it is. She won't want his opinion either way, and so he doesn't even think to have one. His eyes ping-pong from her face to Ivory's little body and then back again, and then—
"Oh."
She's waiting for approval, or encouragement, or any response at all. He swallows. If Jasnah doesn't understand this well enough, he doesn't understand it at all. Anxiety bubbles up at saying the wrong thing and making this worse, at making the fear in Jasnah's eyes grow stronger.
"I think that... he trusts you to do what you think is best."
Verso's words — halting, not quite an answer — land closer to that truth than he realizes. At its core, the Radiant bond is trust. And it hardly matters what he says. What matters is that he answers at all. That his attention steadies her wrist. Her arm. Her spine.
She pinches the needle between her fingers. Still unsure of the metal. Still unsure of the consequences. And then, holding her breath, she pulls. There's no blood. No sound from Ivory. Just the faint, obscene normalcy of it, like plucking a pin from a cushion. The needle drops, striking stone with a thin, bright ping.
"Ivory?" she whispers. Her hands — one gloved, one bare — slide to the backs of Verso's hands, holding him as he holds the spren. As if she's not yet ready to trust herself to take Ivory back alone.
Nothing happens. Then, something does.
A faint stream of stormlight leaks from her pocket, misting upward toward her mouth. She'd pocketed them out of habit, unwilling to wander far without spheres. The stormlight is just enough to dull the pain at her wound without actually healing it — like the Connection is restored, but not yes functioning properly.
Ivory remains still. No movement. No sign of recovery. But Jasnah can feel him again. That reedy-thin presence brushing the edge of her awareness.
Her shoulders sag. Her posture collapses inward with relief.
Verso holds his breath as the extraction occurs. It's an approximation of surgery, like the operations he and Clea would do on their toys as children. Replacing a worn-out button eye (Verso) or performing the world's first head transplant (Clea). Just like the toys, Ivory doesn't wince, doesn't respond at all. It's only by Jasnah's body language that he realizes they've had even a modicum of success at all; although he can't see it, she must be able to feel it somehow, through their bond.
"He would want you to hold him," he says, steadying her hands with one of his as he gently tips the palm holding Ivory, slipping him into her grasp. Selfishly, his fingers stay curled around her hand.
Protests bite at the back of her throat. For all the times Verso answers with I don't know, Jasnah loathes the taste of it in her own mouth. She resents the way hope flares like a false dawn anyway when she inventories the answers she wants to give instead.
Ivory settles into her palm. There is no sign of life. But then again, there never truly is with a spren. They do not breathe. They do not bleed. Ivory, she knows, is capable of remaining perfectly still when it suits him. Even so, this stillness is too complete.
She doesn't pull away when Verso's fingers curl around hers. Instead, her hand sinks into the support he offers, instinctive and unguarded. A platform resting on another platform.
"I'm not certain," she admits at last, carefully. "But I felt stormlight. Just a trace." Her thumb curls protectively around Ivory's angular form. "That suggests he isn't...lost."
She glances up at Verso then, searching his face. "Spren take time to reconstitute themselves. He may need hours. Days." A pause. Two convalescents, then. But at least with Ivory found, Jasnah feels more prepared to move on once she's stable enough to travel. Quieter: "Possibly longer, depending on what exactly was done."
Her gaze drops again, sharp and intent, scanning the stones until she spots the fallen needle. She leans, wincing faintly, and retrieves it with two fingers as if it might still bite.
"We're keeping this," she says, more firmly now. To him. To herself. "Whatever did this matters."
His hand lingers on hers for one more protracted moment before he relents, plucking the needle from her fingers. Strange how something so innocuous could do that much damage to a spren; before this, he'd assumed they were... if not invulnerable, then at least difficult to harm. This, though, looks no different from a sewing needle. It's a bit harrowing to think something so innocuous could do so much harm.
"I'll hold onto it," he says, slipping it into his pocket. When they get back to Jochi's, he'll put it with the rest of their things. For now, though, there's no reason to make Jasnah carry the thing that hurt her spren.
"At least you won't be convalescing alone anymore." He imagines that knowing that Ivory is safe and with her will help greatly with her recovery. "Are you going to be okay to walk back?"
For a moment, her attention lingers on his pocket. She's grateful he takes the needle — truly — but her thoughts remain snagged on the metal itself. If it had been aluminum, surely removing it would have been enough to restore Ivory's sapience. Which leaves silver. Storms.
"Yes," she says at last, testing the answer as much as offering it. That threadbare trickle of stormlight helped. It didn't heal her but it steadied something inside her. Took the edge off the pain. Nudged her forward, so to speak.
"It feels a little like just before I spoke my first Ideal for Ivory." Her head tilts, teeth catching briefly at her lower lip as she turns the memory over. "Like a sip of power. Much, much less than I'm used to."
She looks down at the spren cradled in her palm, fingers cupped protectively around his sharp, unmoving angles.
Then she glances back at Verso.
"Help me to my feet?" she asks — slanted, careful, already halfway trusting he will by the way she takes his arm.
"Of course," he says, and he means it—of course he will. She doesn't need to ask. Although he'd like to lead her by the hand again, he instead lets her take his arm, less helping her and more acting as a pillar for her to steady herself against. Even in this, she has all the real control.
If their connection has been restored, then he wonders if their conditions will influence each other. Seems like the type of question that would send Jasnah on a lecture—perhaps about how stupid he is—so he doesn't ask. They both need to recuperate regardless.
"Come on. You and Ivory could both use some rest."
Maybe, maybe, maybe if she weren't so thoroughly occupied by injury, by Ivory's unnerving stillness, by the unresolved question mark hanging over the attack itself, Jasnah might notice how far into the hairline fractures of her composure she's allowed Verso to seep. How instinctive it has become to reach for him. How unexamined.
It's thoughtless, now, the way she braces herself against his upper arm as she pushes to her feet. Thoughtless, too, that her fingers stay curled there once she's upright, as if the contact were structural — foundational — rather than optional. At least it's her right hand, with Ivory is cradled with care in her safehand. Tucked close and protected.
"All I've been doing is resting," she says, the words coming out closer to a growl than she intends. Tired. That thin, brittle anxiety that sets in once the adrenaline has burned off and reality comes rushing back in. Despite the sharpness of her tone, she keeps hold of him. "With Ivory recovered, we should plan how to extricate ourselves from Thaylen City."
It's a leap and bounds ahead of where she should be thinking; miles past where her body actually is. As if all this enforced stillness had only ever been for Ivory's sake, not her own. As if the stronger she feels, the more intolerable the waiting becomes. The sitting. The being tended to.
Jasnah has never been good at savouring her victories.
"Silly me," Verso says, dry, "thinking a stab victim might require more than a week to recover."
He doesn't argue, though, because at least for the moment, it's only mental labor that Jasnah's attempting to do. If physical labor becomes part of it, he might feel the need to step in—but for now, she can think as much as she'd like. God knows her brain must be constantly moving.
So, he shrugs, lets it roll off his back as they make their way to Jochi's again. Up the stairs is more of a hassle than down the stairs, but they manage it; once he has Jasnah and Ivory settled on the couch, he crouches down to slip the needle into one of the pockets of their bags.
"It might be wise to stay here until Ivory has fully recovered," he says, choosing not to point out that he selfishly enjoys being here, important and needed.
It rankles her that by the time she's back on the couch, after the stairs, she's faintly out of breath. It's a sensation she’s unaccustomed to. Six years of ready stormlight has erased such small indignities, has made enhanced strength and endurance feel like baseline reality rather than the borrowed advantages they actually are.
That, and the sheen of sweat on her brow, the way the back of her blouse clings damply to her spine, are frustratingly visceral confirmations that Verso is right. A week hasn't been long enough. She could argue that it has been long enough, safe enough, that she could now reach out to Fen, the Thaylen queen, and quietly request an Edgedancer to finish what Jasnah couldn't do. But ever-paranoid, Jasnah isn't prepared to make that concession. Not yet. Can she even trust Queen Fen?
Ivory's small, unmoving body rests swaddled in clean linen taken from Jochi's kitchenette, tucked into a slightly ajar drawer of the end table that's served as their dining surface and card table all week. She knows Ivory would loathe this. Visible. Vulnerable. Subject to the whims of human hands.
"There's no way of knowing how long that could take," she counters, clipped but not unkind. Jasnah will not sit here — cut off from crown and people — for weeks on end.
So she bargains. Another indignity she's unused to suffering.
"Over the next few days, I'll get a clearer sense of whether or not I can leverage more stormlight. Heal, properly. If I can, then we move on once I'm back on my feet. Even unconscious, Ivory won't be a burden to carry with me."
"If you can heal, sure," he says, glancing up from their belongings.
It's the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head and a sure you can, honey. She'd only managed a small amount of stormlight once Ivory was returned to her; he's no expert on her magic, but it seems unlikely that she'll be able to do much of anything until Ivory has recovered, too. Still, he doesn't argue the point that if she manages to heal herself, then they can go.
"You're certain taking the Oathgate won't be too hard on him?"
That is, if there's an Oathgate for them to take at all. That still seems up in the air.
— Does her nose crinkle at his initial tone? Abso-storming-lutely. A little human comma in the calm of her expression. One of those little flickers that remind the people around her that she's not wholly a stone. Just three-quarters one.
"Certain enough," Jasnah answers. As though principle won't allow her to simply say yes when there's even a fractional chance of being wrong. "The Oathgates work by leveraging the sprens' native realm. If anything, the brief dip into the Cognitive might help him."
Something she'd already considered. Had she stormlight, she might have opened a small elsegate into the Cognitive Realm and observed whether or not it helped. Pure hypotheticals.
"Provided Thaylen City's is functioning," she unknowingly echoes his thoughts. They'd fled Kharbranth so quickly, there wasn't any time to confirm whether the Oathgate issue was real or fabricated.
Verso makes an internal note to learn more about the Cognitive and spren so he doesn't sound like such an idiot talking to Jasnah. So much lore to study, so little time.
"Yeah," he concedes, "provided."
He stands, making his way to the kitchenette to pour himself and Jasnah each a glass of water. It's been a long day, and he'd love to just crash on the divan, but, well— there's a stab victim there. Another night of killing his back on the wooden floor. The only reason he's looking forward to leaving this place is getting back to his bed.
Calling from the kitchen, he asks, "And if it isn't?"
It's okay, Verso! The average Rosharan doesn't understand this stuff either. It's simply your supreme bad luck to be stuck with one of the few people on this planet who possesses a rudimentary grasp of Realmatic Theory. Sorry, not sorry.
"Then we pay a visit to the Royal Palace and see what the Thaylen queen could do for us."
Verso tries not to get too excited about the sound of that us. He half-convinces himself she's referring to herself and Ivory instead, that he's just the annoying tagalong she got unfortunately stuck with through all of this. After all, she can't even bring herself to call him a friend.
As he returns to the sitting room, he drops one of the glasses on the end table. The other goes on the real table across the room, where he's been sitting and entertaining himself much of the time. "What's the relationship like between Alethkar and Thaylenah?"
"Fledgling, but positive." Jasnah sighs, wondering how much of her own hestitation boils down to misplaced, bone-deep Alethi pride. "Thaylenah was never the target of any of Alethekar's past conquests. But they witnessed more than enough of what happened in other kingdoms to be rightfully wary."
Depending on where he reached in the weighty history tome assigned by Jasnah once-upon-a-time, Verso may already be aware of what she's implying. The Sunmaker's rule, some six hundred centuries ago, where it's said one in every ten Azish people died under Alethi tyranny following the conquering of Azimir.
Dalinar, to his credit, had done well re-establishing diplomatic ties with all the nations that would eventually form the Coalition than she might ever have anticipated. Better than Jasnah would ever have anticipated. Initially, Queen Fen had assumed the overture a ruse in some new Alethi campaign. But, over time, they'd won her over.
"Alethkar has had an unsavoury reputation for most of its existence," she acknowledges. "Which makes diplomacy challenging."
Jasnah leans forward, wincing slightly, and picks up the water in one hand. She doesn't immediately drink.
"Fen and I have corresponded regularly, however. And I trust she would help us. It's the rest of the Thaylen government that gives me pause."
Verso turns his chair slightly toward Jasnah, leaning back in an attempt to find some comfort and relaxation in the wooden back of it. Living an ascetic lifestyle is not new to him, but he'd been able to make the best of it on the Continent; he'd at least had a soft bedroll to place atop the floorboards, and a squishy Esquie if he really needed relaxation. He wonders, briefly, if Jasnah would tell on him if he went to lie on Jochi's mattress for a bit.
"Gives you pause how?" he asks, attention piqued. Given enough scenarios where everything has gone wrong, you tend to become security conscious—not for himself (obviously; he's been eaten so many times) but for others. If the Thaylen government is going to cause undue issues, maybe they should try to figure this out on their own instead.
Tap, tap, tap go her nails against the rim of the water glass. She could prevaricate — explain how Queen Fen's Merchant Council holds the true balance of power in the city, how the merchant class harbours the deepest reservations about Alethi interference. But he didn't ask who was dangerous to Alethkar. He asked who was dangerous to her.
"If this latest attempt was orchestrated by who I think it was..." she begins, picking her way through information she has clearly resisted sharing. It would almost be easier if he believed her worry was diffuse and general and habitual. Unspecific. "That would suggest a renewed interest in removing me from the board. One I thought had burned itself out a year ago."
She turns the glass slowly in her hand. Wills herself to drink. Reminds herself that it's safe. If she can trust him with this much truth, she can trust the water he handed her. What an absurdly long con it would otherwise be — to keep her alive this long only to poison her now. Still, the very thought of the Ghostbloods makes something tighten in her chest.
"Fen's council isn't the issue," she continues. "It's who else might have slipped into it. There's a shadowy group operating on Roshar — one that likes to get its fingers into every crevice. It isn't far-fetched to think they've placed an agent in ever Coalition government."
And, before she sounds too paranoid, she adds, "The last time I was in Kharbranth, an ardent approached me and my ward. He...got close to her. Flattered her. Made her think—" A tense exhale. "I won't presume to know what he made her think. He was there on behalf of his employer. He tried to reach me through my ward. That time, it was poison. Not a knife."
Then — boldly, deliberately — she meets Verso's eyes and takes a long first drink of water. Her throat bobs; her pulse stutters. She swallows it down, steady and composed, trusting him in a way he may never fully realize.
"If I were a secret assassin," he points out, because that seems to be what she's getting at with the drink of water. She's willingly consuming something that he's brought from her, ostensibly showing trust; as he's about to mention, though, it's really just common sense. "I would have let you bleed out in the alley instead of ruining my shirt."
He's proven his loyalty, or at least his lack of desire to watch her die. Rationality is on his side more than trust.
"—But," he adds, "if you're worried about the Thaylen government knowing that you're here, we don't have to tell them."
Sure, having the assistance of a queen would certainly help, but surely there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who travel without the help of the Oathgates. They made it to Thaylenah without one, although admittedly they'd put themselves in the hands of someone willing to sell out her location. Still, it can't be impossible to make it to Urithiru by other means, too.
"We could catch another ship. I think I've got my sea legs now."
Now that she's had a gulp of water, she recognizes her thirst. Instead of answering — indeed, instead of shooting back at his (yes, of course) obvious points — she downs half her glass in one greedy go. Then, with a stifled stretch, she eases her spine back against the divan. Slaked, but tired, but also leaping from thought-to-thought as he speaks.
He'd endure another sea voyage? Hmm. New sea legs or not, he'd been so green for so much of the last.
"There is one ship I'd engage — provided it's not somewhere else already at sea. We wouldn't have to lie to its shipmaster or captain."
She turns her half-empty glass in her hand, watching the water. Wondering whether Rysn and the Wandersail are currently at port. Wondering whether she could dispatch Verso to inquire.
"But the alternative is to try again — harder — to contact Urithiru." Yet again, she doesn't specify Navani or mother or anything like that. "They'd spare us a couple of Windrunners. I dislike being carted about in the air like cargo; however, it would be faster."
They have some luxury of time, now, given the agreement. Staying put until she's healed enough.
Once again, he thinks of Jochi's explanation that Jasnah expected her mother to intercept her communications. Once again, he thinks of the rumors Jochi shared. He wants to ask, but he knows he shouldn't; Jasnah has only just loosened slightly around him, and pushing her with things he isn't supposed to know will only make her clam up again.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He thinks yet again of Jasnah's childhood predicament. He hopes, at least, that she has a keener eye than him, because he hasn't any idea how to respond if she's seeing things.
"I would allow the pure-hearted maiden to approach the unicorn herself"—because that's how she's making it sound, like the spren would just sense something about him and take off—"but she was stabbed recently."
no subject
So she says nothing. Which, for Jasnah, is its own concession. She doesn't rush. She turns left into a narrow, dead-end nook off the winding alley and follows the cryptic's pattern as it skates across brick and wood and shadow, slipping from surface to surface until, until, until.
There. Tucked beside old crates and sagging sackcloth, half-sheltered beneath a cart long stripped of its wheels, something catches the light. A flicker of metal. Wrong and bright.
Twice now on their adventure she's surged forward only to be rebounded back into Verso's care. The third time she refuses to be anchored. Jasnah shakes loose his hand and, palm braced against the wall to spare her wound, sinks carefully to her knees on the stone. A grunt escapes her. Then a hissed, thin request for help. Between them (but mostly Verso) the cart is shifted aside.
Leaning against the wall, no taller than the length of Jasnah's index finger, is Ivory. He is all angles and oil-sheen geometry, his impossible little body fixed in place through his tiny eye by a thin metal needle.
Aluminum? She wonders distantly. Or, damnation, silver?
There is no movement. No flutter of awareness. For want of a kinder metaphor, Ivory resembles a cremling mounted in an enthusiast's collection. Pinned. Displayed. Preserved in a parody of life. Jasnah wasn't the only one who was stabbed, it seems. The realization unfurls cold and precise in her gut. If the attack was coordinated, if the enemy possessed one of the disruptive metals capable of harming spren, then this was not merely an assassination attempt. It was a severing.
"—Give me your hand," she orders Verso, sharp and immediate.
The ground is too far for her to bend properly with her own wound screaming its protest, and she needs both hands free. She intends to lift Ivory — carefully, reverently — and set him into Verso's palm so she can examine the damage without jostling him further.
And in the corner of her eye, the cryptic dances across a pane of glass. Its lines ripple. Curl. Pulse. For just a heartbeat, she could almost swear its movements are triumphant.
no subject
The tone of her command brooks no argument, no questioning. Neither does the sight of tiny Ivory run through with a needle. He cups his palms out in front of him, ready to receive what appears to be an injured spren. Careful, gentle. Patient, as he'd said.
"Are spren—?" Immortal, he intends to say, although it seems too close to asking if Ivory is dead or dying to finish the thought. "I didn't realize that they could get injured like this."
He had imagined them to be like the mythical beings he's used to. Impossible to truly harm.
no subject
"The first is irrelevant here. The second and third both involve the disruption of Investiture. All spren are composed of Investiture that's coalesced long enough to achieve sapience. They can't die," she answers the question he didn't quite ask but she anticipated regardless. "Not in the way we mean it. Death is...different for them."
Her words are firm. Measured. Unshakeable. Her hands are not. They tremble as she settles Ivory into Verso's waiting palms, the minute shiver transferring through her fingertips into the needle itself. The thin metal quivers when she brushes its head, vibrating like a struck wire. Ivory does not move. Should she pull the needle? Storms — what if antilight is involved? But no, she reasons, too fast and too desperately: if it were, this entire block of Thaylen City would have been obliterated in the resulting detonation.
—Has he been pinned here for a week? Damnation. The thought lands like a blow. Why did she stop Verso when he offered to search? Short-sighted. Proud. Self-absorbed.
"Aluminum blocks Investiture," she says, quieter now. "Silver disrupts it. I don't — we don't understand this well enough. It's a fledgling field. Storms, Wit only brought aluminum from off-world a year ago."
Stop prattling and do something. Jasnah draws in a breath so deep it tugs painfully at her wound. She tears her gaze away from Ivory and looks to Verso.
"I'm going to pull it," she says. But she doesn't yet. She hesitates, suspended in that awful, narrowing moment before action — waiting for something she would never ordinarily ask for. Agreement. Objection. Peer review.
It's irrational. His guess will not be better than hers; it will almost certainly be worse. Still. She wants something from him.
no subject
The moment after she speaks is spent silent. Of course it is. She won't want his opinion either way, and so he doesn't even think to have one. His eyes ping-pong from her face to Ivory's little body and then back again, and then—
"Oh."
She's waiting for approval, or encouragement, or any response at all. He swallows. If Jasnah doesn't understand this well enough, he doesn't understand it at all. Anxiety bubbles up at saying the wrong thing and making this worse, at making the fear in Jasnah's eyes grow stronger.
"I think that... he trusts you to do what you think is best."
no subject
She pinches the needle between her fingers. Still unsure of the metal. Still unsure of the consequences. And then, holding her breath, she pulls. There's no blood. No sound from Ivory. Just the faint, obscene normalcy of it, like plucking a pin from a cushion. The needle drops, striking stone with a thin, bright ping.
"Ivory?" she whispers. Her hands — one gloved, one bare — slide to the backs of Verso's hands, holding him as he holds the spren. As if she's not yet ready to trust herself to take Ivory back alone.
Nothing happens. Then, something does.
A faint stream of stormlight leaks from her pocket, misting upward toward her mouth. She'd pocketed them out of habit, unwilling to wander far without spheres. The stormlight is just enough to dull the pain at her wound without actually healing it — like the Connection is restored, but not yes functioning properly.
Ivory remains still. No movement. No sign of recovery. But Jasnah can feel him again. That reedy-thin presence brushing the edge of her awareness.
Her shoulders sag. Her posture collapses inward with relief.
no subject
"He would want you to hold him," he says, steadying her hands with one of his as he gently tips the palm holding Ivory, slipping him into her grasp. Selfishly, his fingers stay curled around her hand.
"Will he be all right?"
no subject
Ivory settles into her palm. There is no sign of life. But then again, there never truly is with a spren. They do not breathe. They do not bleed. Ivory, she knows, is capable of remaining perfectly still when it suits him. Even so, this stillness is too complete.
She doesn't pull away when Verso's fingers curl around hers. Instead, her hand sinks into the support he offers, instinctive and unguarded. A platform resting on another platform.
"I'm not certain," she admits at last, carefully. "But I felt stormlight. Just a trace." Her thumb curls protectively around Ivory's angular form. "That suggests he isn't...lost."
She glances up at Verso then, searching his face. "Spren take time to reconstitute themselves. He may need hours. Days." A pause. Two convalescents, then. But at least with Ivory found, Jasnah feels more prepared to move on once she's stable enough to travel. Quieter: "Possibly longer, depending on what exactly was done."
Her gaze drops again, sharp and intent, scanning the stones until she spots the fallen needle. She leans, wincing faintly, and retrieves it with two fingers as if it might still bite.
"We're keeping this," she says, more firmly now. To him. To herself. "Whatever did this matters."
first work tag of the new year...
"I'll hold onto it," he says, slipping it into his pocket. When they get back to Jochi's, he'll put it with the rest of their things. For now, though, there's no reason to make Jasnah carry the thing that hurt her spren.
"At least you won't be convalescing alone anymore." He imagines that knowing that Ivory is safe and with her will help greatly with her recovery. "Are you going to be okay to walk back?"
ditto. 🥂
"Yes," she says at last, testing the answer as much as offering it. That threadbare trickle of stormlight helped. It didn't heal her but it steadied something inside her. Took the edge off the pain. Nudged her forward, so to speak.
"It feels a little like just before I spoke my first Ideal for Ivory." Her head tilts, teeth catching briefly at her lower lip as she turns the memory over. "Like a sip of power. Much, much less than I'm used to."
She looks down at the spren cradled in her palm, fingers cupped protectively around his sharp, unmoving angles.
Then she glances back at Verso.
"Help me to my feet?" she asks — slanted, careful, already halfway trusting he will by the way she takes his arm.
no subject
If their connection has been restored, then he wonders if their conditions will influence each other. Seems like the type of question that would send Jasnah on a lecture—perhaps about how stupid he is—so he doesn't ask. They both need to recuperate regardless.
"Come on. You and Ivory could both use some rest."
no subject
It's thoughtless, now, the way she braces herself against his upper arm as she pushes to her feet. Thoughtless, too, that her fingers stay curled there once she's upright, as if the contact were structural — foundational — rather than optional. At least it's her right hand, with Ivory is cradled with care in her safehand. Tucked close and protected.
"All I've been doing is resting," she says, the words coming out closer to a growl than she intends. Tired. That thin, brittle anxiety that sets in once the adrenaline has burned off and reality comes rushing back in. Despite the sharpness of her tone, she keeps hold of him. "With Ivory recovered, we should plan how to extricate ourselves from Thaylen City."
It's a leap and bounds ahead of where she should be thinking; miles past where her body actually is. As if all this enforced stillness had only ever been for Ivory's sake, not her own. As if the stronger she feels, the more intolerable the waiting becomes. The sitting. The being tended to.
Jasnah has never been good at savouring her victories.
no subject
He doesn't argue, though, because at least for the moment, it's only mental labor that Jasnah's attempting to do. If physical labor becomes part of it, he might feel the need to step in—but for now, she can think as much as she'd like. God knows her brain must be constantly moving.
So, he shrugs, lets it roll off his back as they make their way to Jochi's again. Up the stairs is more of a hassle than down the stairs, but they manage it; once he has Jasnah and Ivory settled on the couch, he crouches down to slip the needle into one of the pockets of their bags.
"It might be wise to stay here until Ivory has fully recovered," he says, choosing not to point out that he selfishly enjoys being here, important and needed.
no subject
That, and the sheen of sweat on her brow, the way the back of her blouse clings damply to her spine, are frustratingly visceral confirmations that Verso is right. A week hasn't been long enough. She could argue that it has been long enough, safe enough, that she could now reach out to Fen, the Thaylen queen, and quietly request an Edgedancer to finish what Jasnah couldn't do. But ever-paranoid, Jasnah isn't prepared to make that concession. Not yet. Can she even trust Queen Fen?
Ivory's small, unmoving body rests swaddled in clean linen taken from Jochi's kitchenette, tucked into a slightly ajar drawer of the end table that's served as their dining surface and card table all week. She knows Ivory would loathe this. Visible. Vulnerable. Subject to the whims of human hands.
"There's no way of knowing how long that could take," she counters, clipped but not unkind. Jasnah will not sit here — cut off from crown and people — for weeks on end.
So she bargains. Another indignity she's unused to suffering.
"Over the next few days, I'll get a clearer sense of whether or not I can leverage more stormlight. Heal, properly. If I can, then we move on once I'm back on my feet. Even unconscious, Ivory won't be a burden to carry with me."
no subject
It's the verbal equivalent of a pat on the head and a sure you can, honey. She'd only managed a small amount of stormlight once Ivory was returned to her; he's no expert on her magic, but it seems unlikely that she'll be able to do much of anything until Ivory has recovered, too. Still, he doesn't argue the point that if she manages to heal herself, then they can go.
"You're certain taking the Oathgate won't be too hard on him?"
That is, if there's an Oathgate for them to take at all. That still seems up in the air.
no subject
"Certain enough," Jasnah answers. As though principle won't allow her to simply say yes when there's even a fractional chance of being wrong. "The Oathgates work by leveraging the sprens' native realm. If anything, the brief dip into the Cognitive might help him."
Something she'd already considered. Had she stormlight, she might have opened a small elsegate into the Cognitive Realm and observed whether or not it helped. Pure hypotheticals.
"Provided Thaylen City's is functioning," she unknowingly echoes his thoughts. They'd fled Kharbranth so quickly, there wasn't any time to confirm whether the Oathgate issue was real or fabricated.
no subject
"Yeah," he concedes, "provided."
He stands, making his way to the kitchenette to pour himself and Jasnah each a glass of water. It's been a long day, and he'd love to just crash on the divan, but, well— there's a stab victim there. Another night of killing his back on the wooden floor. The only reason he's looking forward to leaving this place is getting back to his bed.
Calling from the kitchen, he asks, "And if it isn't?"
no subject
"Then we pay a visit to the Royal Palace and see what the Thaylen queen could do for us."
We, us. It's subtle — but they're a unit, now.
no subject
As he returns to the sitting room, he drops one of the glasses on the end table. The other goes on the real table across the room, where he's been sitting and entertaining himself much of the time. "What's the relationship like between Alethkar and Thaylenah?"
no subject
Depending on where he reached in the weighty history tome assigned by Jasnah once-upon-a-time, Verso may already be aware of what she's implying. The Sunmaker's rule, some six hundred centuries ago, where it's said one in every ten Azish people died under Alethi tyranny following the conquering of Azimir.
Dalinar, to his credit, had done well re-establishing diplomatic ties with all the nations that would eventually form the Coalition than she might ever have anticipated. Better than Jasnah would ever have anticipated. Initially, Queen Fen had assumed the overture a ruse in some new Alethi campaign. But, over time, they'd won her over.
"Alethkar has had an unsavoury reputation for most of its existence," she acknowledges. "Which makes diplomacy challenging."
Jasnah leans forward, wincing slightly, and picks up the water in one hand. She doesn't immediately drink.
"Fen and I have corresponded regularly, however. And I trust she would help us. It's the rest of the Thaylen government that gives me pause."
no subject
"Gives you pause how?" he asks, attention piqued. Given enough scenarios where everything has gone wrong, you tend to become security conscious—not for himself (obviously; he's been eaten so many times) but for others. If the Thaylen government is going to cause undue issues, maybe they should try to figure this out on their own instead.
"Could anyone there be dangerous to you?"
no subject
"If this latest attempt was orchestrated by who I think it was..." she begins, picking her way through information she has clearly resisted sharing. It would almost be easier if he believed her worry was diffuse and general and habitual. Unspecific. "That would suggest a renewed interest in removing me from the board. One I thought had burned itself out a year ago."
She turns the glass slowly in her hand. Wills herself to drink. Reminds herself that it's safe. If she can trust him with this much truth, she can trust the water he handed her. What an absurdly long con it would otherwise be — to keep her alive this long only to poison her now. Still, the very thought of the Ghostbloods makes something tighten in her chest.
"Fen's council isn't the issue," she continues. "It's who else might have slipped into it. There's a shadowy group operating on Roshar — one that likes to get its fingers into every crevice. It isn't far-fetched to think they've placed an agent in ever Coalition government."
And, before she sounds too paranoid, she adds, "The last time I was in Kharbranth, an ardent approached me and my ward. He...got close to her. Flattered her. Made her think—" A tense exhale. "I won't presume to know what he made her think. He was there on behalf of his employer. He tried to reach me through my ward. That time, it was poison. Not a knife."
Then — boldly, deliberately — she meets Verso's eyes and takes a long first drink of water. Her throat bobs; her pulse stutters. She swallows it down, steady and composed, trusting him in a way he may never fully realize.
no subject
He's proven his loyalty, or at least his lack of desire to watch her die. Rationality is on his side more than trust.
"—But," he adds, "if you're worried about the Thaylen government knowing that you're here, we don't have to tell them."
Sure, having the assistance of a queen would certainly help, but surely there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who travel without the help of the Oathgates. They made it to Thaylenah without one, although admittedly they'd put themselves in the hands of someone willing to sell out her location. Still, it can't be impossible to make it to Urithiru by other means, too.
"We could catch another ship. I think I've got my sea legs now."
no subject
He'd endure another sea voyage? Hmm. New sea legs or not, he'd been so green for so much of the last.
"There is one ship I'd engage — provided it's not somewhere else already at sea. We wouldn't have to lie to its shipmaster or captain."
She turns her half-empty glass in her hand, watching the water. Wondering whether Rysn and the Wandersail are currently at port. Wondering whether she could dispatch Verso to inquire.
"But the alternative is to try again — harder — to contact Urithiru." Yet again, she doesn't specify Navani or mother or anything like that. "They'd spare us a couple of Windrunners. I dislike being carted about in the air like cargo; however, it would be faster."
They have some luxury of time, now, given the agreement. Staying put until she's healed enough.
no subject
So: "Windrunners?" he asks instead. "Airships?"
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
NITPICKS FOREVER
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...