— Honestly? Jasnah is tempted. A kind of hunger claws under her ribs, making her crave the things she's always valued over physicality: bonding, relating, engaging. For a moment, watching the other woman's smile and hearing Verso's laughter, she thought maybe she understood the value in the gesture. The risk-reward of the dance. Like, they both left their performance feeling a little fuller.
(Another more stubborn wingbeat in her chest forces her to ask: can't intellectual conversation provide the same?)
Here's the thing. As real as her temptation is, Jasnah can't simply raise her hand and cut in. Not with these three scribes watching. Quite apart from any social hesitation, there are political implications. If she dances with him in front of these three women, they'll mistake him for a suitor. If the highprinces get whiff of a possible suitor (however incorrectly) then it becomes a whole new headache.
So, instead! She clears her throat and cuts her voice across the room: "That's quite enough for the time being, Dessendre. Don't you think you've distracted the poor girls long enough?"
...Even the one in sky blue can't quite bring herself to correct the queen, even if her eyes tell a different story.
Yes, Jasnah thinks. She'll have to wait her turn when there are fewer witnesses.
If he'd been a flower blooming under the scribe's warm attention, he wilts a little at the cold front from Jasnah's side of the room.
He clears his throat and offers the sky-blue-clad scribe a congenial nod before stepping away, wondering if maybe they'll have the opportunity to meet again. She'd been fun. When he returns to the settee, it's at the edge of the seat, boots planted on the ground instead of kicked up on the stool.
Jasnah isn't a liar. Not by the strictest definitions, at any rate. Although she may lie by omission or deflection, she prefers to say things that are true. Truth, you see, matters to her. If she had hated his demonstration, she would have told him so. But because she didn't hate it, and because he's asking her for her verdict directly, she needs a moment to navigate her way through all the different branching dialogue trees available.
"Hmm," she hums. She sets her half-drank second cup aside. She folds her hands in her lap, bare over gloved. And she waits another beat for the scribes to lose themselves in a different topic, paying less and less attention to the two on the settee.
"I think," Jasnah tips her chin, "that it's a pity you can't play piano and dance at the same time."
If he takes his time sorting through her verbs and nouns, he might come to the following conclusion: she intends to try a dance — at some point, likely in the privacy of his quarters — and she can imagine the appeal of it alongside good music — oh, and she thinks his music is good. In not quite the same words, she does indeed tell him he is good.
Unfortunately, Verso has so little self-respect that this not-quite-a-compliment pleases him, perhaps more than it should. Maybe he should consider whether it's strictly healthy to have someone's approval dangled in front of him, constantly just out of reach, but he doesn't. Instead, he smiles at the brief ray of sun in the blizzard that is Jasnah Kholin.
"You never know," he teases. "I am a man of many talents. I might surprise you."
If Jasnah understood just how hot-and-cold her behaviour has been perceived, she might actually possess enough shame to feel contrition. But, in many respects, she lacks compassion for those whose self-worth lives mostly in others' reflection.
And so: "I'll not hold my breath."
She stretches her neck from one side to the next, clearly getting antsy so long locked in the shelter. Restlessness opens the door to paranoia, and paranoia isn't something she needs in additional doses.
A mirror of Jasnah, Verso taps his fingers on the seat of the settee, restless himself. The waltz certainly helped burn off some excess energy, but he's never been good at staying put for too long. Will you stop that incessant fidgeting, Verso? Clea would say. Some of us are trying to focus.
Very gently, he nudges his shoulder against hers, playful and teasing. "Sounds even better on the piano."
So, you know, there's something to look forward to there.
She gives him a look — cool, deliberate, with a thread of amusement under the surface. Rather than warmth, she suffuses with something nearer to benediction. Permission.
"Alright. Expect me this evening."
That's it. No flourish. No softness. A simple fact dropped between them like an ink blot on a ledger: notable, but only if he cares to interpret it.
She may be about to say something else, certainly her mouth opens to that effect. But the creak of the heavy shelter door interrupts her. A nervous winehouse attendant enters, fidgeting with the half-finished platters of food and drink. "Your Majesty? The storm's passed. They've signaled the all-clear." Jasnah's jaw snaps shut at that and she stands — setting the book aside for someone else to tidy. Once again composed in that razor-edged way she uses to mask restlessness — shoulders precise, chin tilted, fingers flexing once behind her back in a languid stretch.
“Excellent,” she says, already halfway to the door.
———
Across the plateaus, through the Oathgate again, step by step she sinks back into her position. As they part ways on Urithiru's platform, Jasnah is already recategorizing Verso: from an engaging diversion, to a pending appointment, to something she will get to after she stabilizes half a dozen spiraling responsibilities. It isn't dismissal. It's...triage.
That evening, and the two days that follow, her schedule devours her whole. Not dramatically. Not unwillingly. Simply...the natural gravity of rulership asserting itself. Over those days, she is detoured by three urgent petitions awaiting her revision and signature, a missive from Dalinar requesting her approval on troop allocations, a diplomatic tangle between Herdazian and Veden merchants. And, most irritatingly, a report of Alethi officers circumventing an edict against personal duels she passed months ago.
By the third day, she has already forgotten she made a promise — not because she doesn’t value him, but because the world is louder, more demanding, and accustomed to having her attention. She isn't avoiding Verso. After all, avoidance requires conscious thought. This is simply proximity blindness. If he doesn't insert himself into her path, she does not remember to reach out.
When she finally pauses long enough to breathe, she finds Adolin in the training courtyard, sweaty, earnest, radiating that particular Adolin-style of sunshine that has always irritated and comforted her in equal measure. He says something ridiculous — Adolin always does. Something about horses having political opinions, or how the mapmakers deliberately "make the borders pointier" every year.
And she laughs. Not politely. Not strategically. A real one: startled, bright, involuntary. Adolin beams. Jasnah, for once, lets herself be carried by the ease of it — just for a breath. Her guards and walls come crashing down for family.
Unluckily for Verso, that's about the precise moment he passes by the wide viewing bays that divide the Breakaway Market from the training grounds. And when Jasna notes him in the middle distance, her smile dims. Not with annoyance — simply refocusing. She straightens, her attention sliding back to duty like water finding its level. She turns away, and begins talking with Adolin in earnest about the reason she sought him out in the first place: how can she make the law prohibiting duels stick. She never considers how her bare dismissal might land on Verso.
But on the morning of the fourth day, an errand-boy finds him with a message: "Her Majesty requests your presence for travel to Kharbranth. Pack lightly."
It's not phrased as an invitation.
———
They take the Oathgate later that day. This time their transfer is powered by a redhead who comes off as particularly jumpy around Jasnah. Eager to please, but with a current of resentment occasionally poking through. After the transfer, on their ascent through Kharbranth, Jasnah spends most of her attention on that same woman — although she does eventually introduce her to Verso as Shallan Davar, a previous ward and a Knight Radiant in her own right. Shallan has her own business in Kharbranth and won't be spending more than a a couple of hours in the city before returning to Urithiru. However, Jasnah intends to stay a few day.
And staying a few days means becoming honoured guests of King Taravangian. Her Cobalt Guardsmen are to be quartered in the city barracks, but Jasnah and Verso...?
Jasnah's assigned chamber is a spacious suite with seashell-colored walls, a balcony overlooking the bay, carved columns, silk hangings, open windows that invite a soft breeze carrying the scent of salt and incense.
Verso, meanwhile, is assigned the chamber directly across the hall.
Not adjacent, but opposing doors. Facing each other. Every time either of them enters or leaves, the other will hear it. He's treated as a personal retainer — polite nods, deferential glances, servants offering him the same courtesy they would extend to a noble tied to royal business.
Jasnah's reaction when they first are directed to their rooms is a simple raised brow, as if to say, of course your room is there. Why wouldn't it be?"
———
Perhaps predictably, Jasnah doesn't intend to spend much time in her suite. Rather, after a moment taken to freshen up and change, she heads immediately to the Palanaeum. When she leads Verso down the spiraling stone steps into the library, her entire demeanor shifts. Something brightens. Sharpens.
Row upon row of softly lit spheres. Shelves stretching higher than any mortal should reach. A cathedral of knowledge humming beneath the stone. At the final landing, she pauses. Turns her head slightly toward him, just enough for her voice to curl back like a beckoning finger.
"Take care, it's easy to lose yourself down here."
The days that stretch after their visit to the winehouse are admittedly lonesome, as many of his days have been since the Fracture. Verso fills the days as best he can; he passes through the marketplace, noting the merchandise on sale, asking questions about items he doesn't recognize. He stumbles upon a theater, wonders if he ever might see music played there. He finds a garden balcony that reminds him of the one in Lumière overlooking the Monolith, where he used to sit and eat breakfast bought from his favorite patisserie.
The days are filled with enough novelty that for the first time in a long time he's distracted from the ongoing rumination that he calls his thoughts. The evenings, though, back in his room, allow his mind to wander. He thinks mostly of the Canvas, wondering if it's still there or if Renoir has burned it down in an effort to keep Maman from ever re-entering. He thinks of Esquie and Monoco, companions made just for him so that he'd never have to be truly alone even if he felt that way, missing them terribly. He thinks of Alicia, of how he'll never see his little sister's big blue eyes peering up at him ever again.
When the rumination gets old, his mind wanders to Jasnah instead. The way it had felt when she'd pinned his gaze, the brief warmth of their fingers brushing. He tries not to wonder why she hasn't so much as reached out in days. She's busy, of course, and simply doesn't have the time to babysit him. At least, that's what he tells himself until he catches sight of her in the courtyard, a man at her side who's the sort of light, dazzling handsome that Verso has always been too gloomy to pull off. She's laughing, really laughing in a way that he's certainly not seen before—and then her gaze catches on him, and it stops. Verso hurries off after that, the distant, tinkling sound of her laughter replaying in his mind.
It makes sense. Explains the push and pull, the jerking around. While he'd never expected anything more than a casual flirtation, she'd rebuffed even that, and now he knows why. It's fine—he doesn't care that she has a boyfriend. Really. It's for unrelated reasons that he can't stop thinking about the annoyingly perfect way that the light glinted off that man's hair, or the easy affection with which he'd regarded Jasnah. Pure curiosity and nothing more.
By the time their visit to Kharbranth rolls around, he's resigned himself to this outing being more business than pleasure. Another field trip, as he'd said; academic in nature. Still, he's grateful for the opportunity, and grateful to have a friend as company. If he's a little more distant, it's only out of respect for Jasnah's comfort. It would really be very ungentlemanly to continue to try to charm her.
He yet again trails behind her, a few steps above. The library excites him, too, although it's less due to the knowledge on its shelves and more because the art that must be hidden away somewhere. Some dusty shelf with naval adventures and bawdy romances. Maybe there's even some books on music around here. He wouldn't mind learning how to play one of this world's instruments.
"Do you speak from experience?" he asks as he takes the last few steps down to stand beside her. His expression is amused. Have you gotten lost down here, Jasnah?
Translation: yes, absolutely. Some of her earliest visits to Kharbranth's library involved hours of wandering the stacks, combing the card catalogue, and burdening the ardentia who man the library with lists and lists of requests that they would deliver to whatever alcove she's rented for her stay. If she got lost on one of those early days, then it might have been on purpose. She'd been younger, her father's kingdom established. War, for a brief time, was over. Even if most of her leisure time was spent in the library even then, it had felt...less serious, in those years. She could research whatever caught her eye.
But then the Parshendi hired her father's assassin, and the War of Reckoning put new pressures on her people.
It used to be that parshmen — Parshendi, but stuck in a cognitive form that humans were able to control — operated the lifts. Since the advent of the Everstorm (long story!) those slaves have been loosed, and Jasnah's own legislation has tried to dismantle slavery further. Now, these lifts are powered by stormlight fabrials — like so much else of daily Rosharan life.
"It's a — nice place to get lost in." She eventually adds. Oh, Jasnah is in good spirits today. The smell of the library and the prospect of her research invigorates her. She's in far, far too good a mood to realize the two-to-three sociable steps that Verso has withdrawn by.
"But I'll take an alcove," she points at one of the many curtain-covered sitting areas that line the tiered mezzanines. "So there's always a place of safety to fall back to if your exploration becomes too wayward."
Verso notes Jasnah's unusually good mood, watching with an amused tilt to his lips. He tries not to feel any type of way about it. Besides, attachments have historically been a bad idea. He hates that he can hear Renoir's voice in his head, still, all these decades later. What you need, son, is to focus on your family instead of sniffing after some woman. He'd been right, as loath as Verso is to admit it. Everything would have been better if he'd just kept his distance.
"I'm a rather talented wayfinder, as it turns out," he says, a skill he conveniently left out when she'd asked previously. Don't question where he got his survival skills! Bragging: "But feel free to give me a shout if you get lost."
Instead of following behind her like a pathetic puppy, he clasps his hands behind his back and says, "I'll be in the bawdy romance section."
She doesn't quite dismiss herself from his company immediately. Rather, she weighs a few thoughts against one another — is it right to loose this man on the greatest collection of knowledge known to Roshar? It's not that she doesn't trust him but rather that she doesn't trust much of anyone. And, even if only selfishly, she knows he won't have her planet's best interests at heart.
However, if he's genuinely interested in sticking around...? Best let him learn what he's getting into. Even if he focuses his wandering on the fiction stacks, there's plenty to be gleaned from the stories her people choose to tell.
"Seven levels down. The doorway on the left. Start with An Accountability of Virtue. Considering it's contemporary publication, you might also learn a thing or two about current social norms."
...Yes, she's read it. Yes, she just suggested he read a romance novel to learn more about Alethi customs. No, she will not be taking more questions at this time.
Verso had thought he'd been doing pretty well navigating 'current social norms', but apparently not, judging by the way she says that. What, was it the dancing? She egged him on to do that.
If he takes offense, though, he doesn't show it. "Thanks," he says, making a mental note of the location and novel name. He certainly doesn't expect her to be recommending an actual romance novel, and the name sounds kind of boring, so he says, somewhat unconvincingly, "Sounds... rousing."
He's gone for over an hour in the stacks of fiction. When he finally shows up again—without difficulty; a good wayfinder, just as he'd claimed to be—he drops a quite frankly excessive amount of books on the table, most of them chosen because they'd had an interesting title or engrossing summary on the back cover. At the top is An Accountability of Virtue, which is what he's spent the better part of this hour reading, if the bookmark placed partway through is any indication.
He taps the cover. "I have to admit, I didn't take this for your sort of literature." Because it's kind of good???
Meanwhile, during that same over-an-hour, Jasnah has settled into her rented alcove. Rather than wander the shelves and floors herself, she had provided a list to an ardent for fulfillment. Texts and maps and scrolls are then delivered to her makeshift office. A low bench rims a wide, wide table. Alongside the library materials, her own notebooks are open and spread across the surface. She trends towards a system: recording all notable thoughts in one journal, then rewriting them into different subject-matter journals depending on their relevance.
One step further than her work on the Dawnchant, she's looking into the Dawncities. So when Verso returns, Jasnah is on her feet and leaning over a map whose corners are weighted down by soft-glowing gems. It's not unlike using a roll of coins as a paperweight.
Her attention drifts upward when he slips behind the heavy curtains separating her alcove from the public hallway. She watches him, then eyes the spines of his chosen reading material. At least three of the titles were considered restricted material not so long ago home in Alethkar.
"All genres have their place and their use," she counters. "Even romance."
Especially romance. So many books are intended to be read aloud to fathers and husbands and brothers. Alethi romances, however, are for the scribes themselves.
"You're making good progress through it." She reaches out with her freehand and touches the tip of the bookmark peeking out from the pages. "Any preliminary thoughts?"
Verso raises an eyebrow at the idea that Jasnah would ever find value in a romance novel. He first and foremost believes that art should make the audience feel something, and romance certainly does that— but he also gets the feeling that Jasnah wouldn't quite enjoy being made to feel something without her consent.
"It's good," is his preliminary thought, although he can already imagine his father griping at him. It's not about 'good' or 'bad'—what did the art set out to accomplish, and did it do so? Did it feel sincere, authentic? Clearing his throat, he adds, "And rather... racy." Another reason he's surprised that she would find value in it at all.
He's been the participant of countless academic discussions of art over the dinner table, so it only takes a moment for him to grasp more sophisticated thoughts. "You can really feel the protagonist's passion for Sterling in the prose. And her... lack of passion, elsewise."
Someday, somehow, Verso may find himself stumbling across Jasnah's personal copy of this particular novel. And, if that happens, he'll find a plethora of notes and thoughts scribbled into margins or pressed between the pages: does this really matter? — how can she enjoy this while her father suffers in captivity? — biology textbooks suggest this refractory period is entirely unrealistic. Cold, cool annotation even in the thrust of action.
Jasnah picks up the book and takes a quick, cursory check of where he's reached in the plot. Whatever page he'd stopped on, whatever scene it was, her expression betrays nothing.
"Relatable. Her alternative is a political match, wasn't it?" She leaves through a few more pages, trying to remind herself of the plot's finer details. "How tiresome. I hope we someday move beyond the notion that marriage is an adequate replacement for good legal code and strong trade agreements."
If there's a hint of something personal in her answer, it's because Jasnah had spent years refusing one particular political match.
"No wonder she lacks passion for the other man."
Passion! A concept she can understand academically, at least.
A replacement for legal code and trade agreements—that's certainly different from Lumière, where marriage is done for love. Papa and Maman had been absolutely disgustingly in love. Verso had teasingly noted many times how it had felt as if Renoir had sprung fully-formed from the earth for the sole purpose of being Maman's husband. He hadn't realized how accurate it was until later.
He leans his hip against the table, watching as Jasnah skims through the pages, hoping he didn't stop on anything too embarrassingly tawdry. "It's hard to feel passion for something when it's forced upon you," he says with a shrug. Not like he finds that relatable or anything!
"But I'm surprised to hear you advocate for passion over duty." Although— a flash of that handsome blond man in the courtyard. Perhaps she's capable of passion after all.
Jasnah takes one steadying breath. It isn't a terrible secret, really, but it is a smidge awkward to discuss. Her eyes stay on the text in her hand, fingers softly turning pages as she answers.
"Years ago, if one asked my father while he was king, he would have said it was my duty to marry his most loyal highprince."
Meridas Amaram was a mediocre man with twisted ambitions. Jasnah had refused him then and every year since — long after Gavilar's death, each time the man came sniffing about looking once more for a Kholin match.
"Duty isn't objective. It is defined entirely by the power that commands it into existence. At least passion doesn't pretend to be anything other than one person's subjective want."
Hmm. It's interesting, really, that Verso's certain he must value passion more than Jasnah, yet he just might value duty more, too. She speaks as if it's all so simple, that duty is just a construct one can choose to ignore if they find it unreasonable. It's not so easy, when your entire existence is caught up in being the dutiful son, dutiful brother. Being here is the least duty-bound he's ever been, and he feels a pang of guilt for some reason, like it's wrong to not have somebody to place above himself.
"You make passion sound so... passionate," he says dryly. Jasnah can really describe anything in a way that sucks the sentiment out of it.
Oh. His assertion makes her gaze shoot up — eyebrows lifting.
"What an absurd presumption. As if I require a comparative sample to recognize my own disinterest."
She flicks the book once, a dry gesture. Pointed and unimpressed.
"This heroine needed an alternative to illuminate her own preferences. I do not. The man in question failed to interest me on the basis of his own profound inadequacies. No counterexample required."
Jasnah's mother must have spent years despairing of her daughter's coldness. She's simply never seen the point of binding herself to someone because custom insists upon it. Even her...interlude with Wit was never a matter of courtship. There was no marriage waiting at the end of that affair.
Quite frankly, Verso doesn't see the problem with Wema needing to experience passion to understand the absence of it with her other suitor. Sometimes, not having something is the only way to realize that you truly want it. But he drops that conversational thread for the moment, instead leaning back on his palms, nonchalant, as he says, "Ah, but there is a man who's caught your interest."
His tone is light, pleasant, gently ribbing. The tone he'd taken with Simon when he'd noticed just how fond he was of Clea. If there's at all a bittersweet edge to it, it's only because it brings to mind the last woman who'd truly been interested in him.
Well. Verso has succeeded in shaking Jasnah's attention wholly and fully off the book, off the map, off her current research pursuit. Confusion steals across her face, opening her expression before it quickly suddenly shutters into something pinched and uncertain.
— It's been months since Wit disappeared from Roshar. Is their dalliance still the topic of Urithiru gossip? What has Verso heard? Are there people who are still stuck on the Queen's...inappropriate relationship with her servant? Worse yet, what stories did Wit himself seed into the common vernacular of the tower?
Gently, almost too quietly, she sets the book aside. Her pause is a beat too long. She's scrambling for an answer that isn't a lie but which doesn't play too strong to whatever rumours he's come across.
So, her tactic: "Now, Dessendre — you think far too highly of yourself."
Playing it off as if she hears his teasing as a reflection of him and his proximity to her. Playing it off as if she teases in return.
"What?" Verso asks, uncharacteristically flustered. "No, that's— I didn't—"
Ugh, the thought of her thinking he'd meant himself is embarrassing, and proof that he really has been overdoing it with the attempted charm. He recovers after a moment, save for the redness crawling up the back of his neck.
"I wasn't referring to myself."
But she'd looked almost surprised to hear him say it, and surely 'surprise' isn't the emotion she'd feel at him thinking too highly of himself. It would be expected, really. No, the only possibility is that she knows exactly who he's referring to, and— he thinks of the way her smile had dimmed at being seen with the man.
"Hey," he says, gently, reassuringly, as he pushes himself off the table to take a step toward her. "Sorry—I didn't realize it was meant to be a secret." He'd only meant to make a friendly tease, and yes, perhaps glean a little more information about the man who'd made her laugh. But there's a lot he doesn't understand about this world, still, a lot he doesn't understand about Jasnah. "Bouche couseu. My lips are sealed."
Jasnah can feel her grasp on the conversation slipping through her fingertips. The cogs and wheels of her mind are (for once) openly on display as her attention narrows. Like following a map from one possible conclusion to the next: rejecting one, mutating another, circling the possibilities that feel most likely.
Wit. It must be Wit. Despite the fact that the position of Queen's Wit is now entirely vacant, the stories must persist in the taverns and halls of Urithiru's market ring. Silently, she curses the man for being so — open with his devotion. So effusive with his attention and his service that so often seemed to vault past expectation. How humiliating to think the court and common people might still be whispering about it behind her back. She cares less for her reputation — and cared little for it when the affair was happening — but can't help but be bothered by the stories' persistence.
"Nothing," he assures her, taking a seat beside her. "You have nothing to worry about." Although he's not sure what she would be worried about to begin with, he feels compelled to offer the comfort anyway. You're okay.
"I only saw you two together in the courtyard, that's all." If she's trying to hide this relationship for whatever reason, perhaps smiling and laughing and twirling her hair—did she twirl her hair? It had felt like she was twirling her hair—with him in public is not the wisest option, but that feels a bit more solution-oriented and they're clearly still in the feelings stage of this issue.
The churn in Jasnah's stomach makes her think she should never have entertained Wit's interest. At the time, uncharacteristically of her, she hadn't thought quite so far ahead to the reaching consequences of their relationship. At the time, she'd been seduced by the idea of scheming and planning and collaborating with a being like him. He'd opened up a whole universe of different perspectives. And he'd told her the best stories.
Wallowing in this defeat, she almost misses Verso's statement about the courtyard. She entirely misses his reassurance. But then, her echoic memory trips over his particular wording.
Verso saw the two of them? In the courtyard? The tension eases in her spine — well, in as much as it ever eases in Jasnah's spine.
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(Another more stubborn wingbeat in her chest forces her to ask: can't intellectual conversation provide the same?)
Here's the thing. As real as her temptation is, Jasnah can't simply raise her hand and cut in. Not with these three scribes watching. Quite apart from any social hesitation, there are political implications. If she dances with him in front of these three women, they'll mistake him for a suitor. If the highprinces get whiff of a possible suitor (however incorrectly) then it becomes a whole new headache.
So, instead! She clears her throat and cuts her voice across the room: "That's quite enough for the time being, Dessendre. Don't you think you've distracted the poor girls long enough?"
...Even the one in sky blue can't quite bring herself to correct the queen, even if her eyes tell a different story.
Yes, Jasnah thinks. She'll have to wait her turn when there are fewer witnesses.
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He clears his throat and offers the sky-blue-clad scribe a congenial nod before stepping away, wondering if maybe they'll have the opportunity to meet again. She'd been fun. When he returns to the settee, it's at the edge of the seat, boots planted on the ground instead of kicked up on the stool.
"So," he says after a moment, "what did Her Majesty think of the demonstration?"
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"Hmm," she hums. She sets her half-drank second cup aside. She folds her hands in her lap, bare over gloved. And she waits another beat for the scribes to lose themselves in a different topic, paying less and less attention to the two on the settee.
"I think," Jasnah tips her chin, "that it's a pity you can't play piano and dance at the same time."
If he takes his time sorting through her verbs and nouns, he might come to the following conclusion: she intends to try a dance — at some point, likely in the privacy of his quarters — and she can imagine the appeal of it alongside good music — oh, and she thinks his music is good. In not quite the same words, she does indeed tell him he is good.
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"You never know," he teases. "I am a man of many talents. I might surprise you."
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And so: "I'll not hold my breath."
She stretches her neck from one side to the next, clearly getting antsy so long locked in the shelter. Restlessness opens the door to paranoia, and paranoia isn't something she needs in additional doses.
"...The tune was quite lovely."
She could hear him humming from across the room.
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Very gently, he nudges his shoulder against hers, playful and teasing. "Sounds even better on the piano."
So, you know, there's something to look forward to there.
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"Alright. Expect me this evening."
That's it. No flourish. No softness. A simple fact dropped between them like an ink blot on a ledger: notable, but only if he cares to interpret it.
She may be about to say something else, certainly her mouth opens to that effect. But the creak of the heavy shelter door interrupts her. A nervous winehouse attendant enters, fidgeting with the half-finished platters of food and drink. "Your Majesty? The storm's passed. They've signaled the all-clear." Jasnah's jaw snaps shut at that and she stands — setting the book aside for someone else to tidy. Once again composed in that razor-edged way she uses to mask restlessness — shoulders precise, chin tilted, fingers flexing once behind her back in a languid stretch.
“Excellent,” she says, already halfway to the door.
———
Across the plateaus, through the Oathgate again, step by step she sinks back into her position. As they part ways on Urithiru's platform, Jasnah is already recategorizing Verso: from an engaging diversion, to a pending appointment, to something she will get to after she stabilizes half a dozen spiraling responsibilities. It isn't dismissal. It's...triage.
That evening, and the two days that follow, her schedule devours her whole. Not dramatically. Not unwillingly. Simply...the natural gravity of rulership asserting itself. Over those days, she is detoured by three urgent petitions awaiting her revision and signature, a missive from Dalinar requesting her approval on troop allocations, a diplomatic tangle between Herdazian and Veden merchants. And, most irritatingly, a report of Alethi officers circumventing an edict against personal duels she passed months ago.
By the third day, she has already forgotten she made a promise — not because she doesn’t value him, but because the world is louder, more demanding, and accustomed to having her attention. She isn't avoiding Verso. After all, avoidance requires conscious thought. This is simply proximity blindness. If he doesn't insert himself into her path, she does not remember to reach out.
When she finally pauses long enough to breathe, she finds Adolin in the training courtyard, sweaty, earnest, radiating that particular Adolin-style of sunshine that has always irritated and comforted her in equal measure. He says something ridiculous — Adolin always does. Something about horses having political opinions, or how the mapmakers deliberately "make the borders pointier" every year.
And she laughs. Not politely. Not strategically. A real one: startled, bright, involuntary. Adolin beams. Jasnah, for once, lets herself be carried by the ease of it — just for a breath. Her guards and walls come crashing down for family.
Unluckily for Verso, that's about the precise moment he passes by the wide viewing bays that divide the Breakaway Market from the training grounds. And when Jasna notes him in the middle distance, her smile dims. Not with annoyance — simply refocusing. She straightens, her attention sliding back to duty like water finding its level. She turns away, and begins talking with Adolin in earnest about the reason she sought him out in the first place: how can she make the law prohibiting duels stick. She never considers how her bare dismissal might land on Verso.
But on the morning of the fourth day, an errand-boy finds him with a message: "Her Majesty requests your presence for travel to Kharbranth. Pack lightly."
It's not phrased as an invitation.
———
They take the Oathgate later that day. This time their transfer is powered by a redhead who comes off as particularly jumpy around Jasnah. Eager to please, but with a current of resentment occasionally poking through. After the transfer, on their ascent through Kharbranth, Jasnah spends most of her attention on that same woman — although she does eventually introduce her to Verso as Shallan Davar, a previous ward and a Knight Radiant in her own right. Shallan has her own business in Kharbranth and won't be spending more than a a couple of hours in the city before returning to Urithiru. However, Jasnah intends to stay a few day.
And staying a few days means becoming honoured guests of King Taravangian. Her Cobalt Guardsmen are to be quartered in the city barracks, but Jasnah and Verso...?
Jasnah's assigned chamber is a spacious suite with seashell-colored walls, a balcony overlooking the bay, carved columns, silk hangings, open windows that invite a soft breeze carrying the scent of salt and incense.
Verso, meanwhile, is assigned the chamber directly across the hall.
Not adjacent, but opposing doors. Facing each other. Every time either of them enters or leaves, the other will hear it. He's treated as a personal retainer — polite nods, deferential glances, servants offering him the same courtesy they would extend to a noble tied to royal business.
Jasnah's reaction when they first are directed to their rooms is a simple raised brow, as if to say, of course your room is there. Why wouldn't it be?"
———
Perhaps predictably, Jasnah doesn't intend to spend much time in her suite. Rather, after a moment taken to freshen up and change, she heads immediately to the Palanaeum. When she leads Verso down the spiraling stone steps into the library, her entire demeanor shifts. Something brightens. Sharpens.
Row upon row of softly lit spheres. Shelves stretching higher than any mortal should reach. A cathedral of knowledge humming beneath the stone. At the final landing, she pauses. Turns her head slightly toward him, just enough for her voice to curl back like a beckoning finger.
"Take care, it's easy to lose yourself down here."
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The days are filled with enough novelty that for the first time in a long time he's distracted from the ongoing rumination that he calls his thoughts. The evenings, though, back in his room, allow his mind to wander. He thinks mostly of the Canvas, wondering if it's still there or if Renoir has burned it down in an effort to keep Maman from ever re-entering. He thinks of Esquie and Monoco, companions made just for him so that he'd never have to be truly alone even if he felt that way, missing them terribly. He thinks of Alicia, of how he'll never see his little sister's big blue eyes peering up at him ever again.
When the rumination gets old, his mind wanders to Jasnah instead. The way it had felt when she'd pinned his gaze, the brief warmth of their fingers brushing. He tries not to wonder why she hasn't so much as reached out in days. She's busy, of course, and simply doesn't have the time to babysit him. At least, that's what he tells himself until he catches sight of her in the courtyard, a man at her side who's the sort of light, dazzling handsome that Verso has always been too gloomy to pull off. She's laughing, really laughing in a way that he's certainly not seen before—and then her gaze catches on him, and it stops. Verso hurries off after that, the distant, tinkling sound of her laughter replaying in his mind.
It makes sense. Explains the push and pull, the jerking around. While he'd never expected anything more than a casual flirtation, she'd rebuffed even that, and now he knows why. It's fine—he doesn't care that she has a boyfriend. Really. It's for unrelated reasons that he can't stop thinking about the annoyingly perfect way that the light glinted off that man's hair, or the easy affection with which he'd regarded Jasnah. Pure curiosity and nothing more.
By the time their visit to Kharbranth rolls around, he's resigned himself to this outing being more business than pleasure. Another field trip, as he'd said; academic in nature. Still, he's grateful for the opportunity, and grateful to have a friend as company. If he's a little more distant, it's only out of respect for Jasnah's comfort. It would really be very ungentlemanly to continue to try to charm her.
He yet again trails behind her, a few steps above. The library excites him, too, although it's less due to the knowledge on its shelves and more because the art that must be hidden away somewhere. Some dusty shelf with naval adventures and bawdy romances. Maybe there's even some books on music around here. He wouldn't mind learning how to play one of this world's instruments.
"Do you speak from experience?" he asks as he takes the last few steps down to stand beside her. His expression is amused. Have you gotten lost down here, Jasnah?
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Translation: yes, absolutely. Some of her earliest visits to Kharbranth's library involved hours of wandering the stacks, combing the card catalogue, and burdening the ardentia who man the library with lists and lists of requests that they would deliver to whatever alcove she's rented for her stay. If she got lost on one of those early days, then it might have been on purpose. She'd been younger, her father's kingdom established. War, for a brief time, was over. Even if most of her leisure time was spent in the library even then, it had felt...less serious, in those years. She could research whatever caught her eye.
But then the Parshendi hired her father's assassin, and the War of Reckoning put new pressures on her people.
It used to be that parshmen — Parshendi, but stuck in a cognitive form that humans were able to control — operated the lifts. Since the advent of the Everstorm (long story!) those slaves have been loosed, and Jasnah's own legislation has tried to dismantle slavery further. Now, these lifts are powered by stormlight fabrials — like so much else of daily Rosharan life.
"It's a — nice place to get lost in." She eventually adds. Oh, Jasnah is in good spirits today. The smell of the library and the prospect of her research invigorates her. She's in far, far too good a mood to realize the two-to-three sociable steps that Verso has withdrawn by.
"But I'll take an alcove," she points at one of the many curtain-covered sitting areas that line the tiered mezzanines. "So there's always a place of safety to fall back to if your exploration becomes too wayward."
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"I'm a rather talented wayfinder, as it turns out," he says, a skill he conveniently left out when she'd asked previously. Don't question where he got his survival skills! Bragging: "But feel free to give me a shout if you get lost."
Instead of following behind her like a pathetic puppy, he clasps his hands behind his back and says, "I'll be in the bawdy romance section."
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However, if he's genuinely interested in sticking around...? Best let him learn what he's getting into. Even if he focuses his wandering on the fiction stacks, there's plenty to be gleaned from the stories her people choose to tell.
"Seven levels down. The doorway on the left. Start with An Accountability of Virtue. Considering it's contemporary publication, you might also learn a thing or two about current social norms."
...Yes, she's read it. Yes, she just suggested he read a romance novel to learn more about Alethi customs. No, she will not be taking more questions at this time.
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If he takes offense, though, he doesn't show it. "Thanks," he says, making a mental note of the location and novel name. He certainly doesn't expect her to be recommending an actual romance novel, and the name sounds kind of boring, so he says, somewhat unconvincingly, "Sounds... rousing."
He's gone for over an hour in the stacks of fiction. When he finally shows up again—without difficulty; a good wayfinder, just as he'd claimed to be—he drops a quite frankly excessive amount of books on the table, most of them chosen because they'd had an interesting title or engrossing summary on the back cover. At the top is An Accountability of Virtue, which is what he's spent the better part of this hour reading, if the bookmark placed partway through is any indication.
He taps the cover. "I have to admit, I didn't take this for your sort of literature." Because it's kind of good???
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One step further than her work on the Dawnchant, she's looking into the Dawncities. So when Verso returns, Jasnah is on her feet and leaning over a map whose corners are weighted down by soft-glowing gems. It's not unlike using a roll of coins as a paperweight.
Her attention drifts upward when he slips behind the heavy curtains separating her alcove from the public hallway. She watches him, then eyes the spines of his chosen reading material. At least three of the titles were considered restricted material not so long ago home in Alethkar.
"All genres have their place and their use," she counters. "Even romance."
Especially romance. So many books are intended to be read aloud to fathers and husbands and brothers. Alethi romances, however, are for the scribes themselves.
"You're making good progress through it." She reaches out with her freehand and touches the tip of the bookmark peeking out from the pages. "Any preliminary thoughts?"
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"It's good," is his preliminary thought, although he can already imagine his father griping at him. It's not about 'good' or 'bad'—what did the art set out to accomplish, and did it do so? Did it feel sincere, authentic? Clearing his throat, he adds, "And rather... racy." Another reason he's surprised that she would find value in it at all.
He's been the participant of countless academic discussions of art over the dinner table, so it only takes a moment for him to grasp more sophisticated thoughts. "You can really feel the protagonist's passion for Sterling in the prose. And her... lack of passion, elsewise."
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Jasnah picks up the book and takes a quick, cursory check of where he's reached in the plot. Whatever page he'd stopped on, whatever scene it was, her expression betrays nothing.
"Relatable. Her alternative is a political match, wasn't it?" She leaves through a few more pages, trying to remind herself of the plot's finer details. "How tiresome. I hope we someday move beyond the notion that marriage is an adequate replacement for good legal code and strong trade agreements."
If there's a hint of something personal in her answer, it's because Jasnah had spent years refusing one particular political match.
"No wonder she lacks passion for the other man."
Passion! A concept she can understand academically, at least.
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He leans his hip against the table, watching as Jasnah skims through the pages, hoping he didn't stop on anything too embarrassingly tawdry. "It's hard to feel passion for something when it's forced upon you," he says with a shrug. Not like he finds that relatable or anything!
"But I'm surprised to hear you advocate for passion over duty." Although— a flash of that handsome blond man in the courtyard. Perhaps she's capable of passion after all.
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"Years ago, if one asked my father while he was king, he would have said it was my duty to marry his most loyal highprince."
Meridas Amaram was a mediocre man with twisted ambitions. Jasnah had refused him then and every year since — long after Gavilar's death, each time the man came sniffing about looking once more for a Kholin match.
"Duty isn't objective. It is defined entirely by the power that commands it into existence. At least passion doesn't pretend to be anything other than one person's subjective want."
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"You make passion sound so... passionate," he says dryly. Jasnah can really describe anything in a way that sucks the sentiment out of it.
Casually: "Your heart was elsewhere, I assume."
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"What an absurd presumption. As if I require a comparative sample to recognize my own disinterest."
She flicks the book once, a dry gesture. Pointed and unimpressed.
"This heroine needed an alternative to illuminate her own preferences. I do not. The man in question failed to interest me on the basis of his own profound inadequacies. No counterexample required."
Jasnah's mother must have spent years despairing of her daughter's coldness. She's simply never seen the point of binding herself to someone because custom insists upon it. Even her...interlude with Wit was never a matter of courtship. There was no marriage waiting at the end of that affair.
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Quite frankly, Verso doesn't see the problem with Wema needing to experience passion to understand the absence of it with her other suitor. Sometimes, not having something is the only way to realize that you truly want it. But he drops that conversational thread for the moment, instead leaning back on his palms, nonchalant, as he says, "Ah, but there is a man who's caught your interest."
His tone is light, pleasant, gently ribbing. The tone he'd taken with Simon when he'd noticed just how fond he was of Clea. If there's at all a bittersweet edge to it, it's only because it brings to mind the last woman who'd truly been interested in him.
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— It's been months since Wit disappeared from Roshar. Is their dalliance still the topic of Urithiru gossip? What has Verso heard? Are there people who are still stuck on the Queen's...inappropriate relationship with her servant? Worse yet, what stories did Wit himself seed into the common vernacular of the tower?
Gently, almost too quietly, she sets the book aside. Her pause is a beat too long. She's scrambling for an answer that isn't a lie but which doesn't play too strong to whatever rumours he's come across.
So, her tactic: "Now, Dessendre — you think far too highly of yourself."
Playing it off as if she hears his teasing as a reflection of him and his proximity to her. Playing it off as if she teases in return.
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Ugh, the thought of her thinking he'd meant himself is embarrassing, and proof that he really has been overdoing it with the attempted charm. He recovers after a moment, save for the redness crawling up the back of his neck.
"I wasn't referring to myself."
But she'd looked almost surprised to hear him say it, and surely 'surprise' isn't the emotion she'd feel at him thinking too highly of himself. It would be expected, really. No, the only possibility is that she knows exactly who he's referring to, and— he thinks of the way her smile had dimmed at being seen with the man.
"Hey," he says, gently, reassuringly, as he pushes himself off the table to take a step toward her. "Sorry—I didn't realize it was meant to be a secret." He'd only meant to make a friendly tease, and yes, perhaps glean a little more information about the man who'd made her laugh. But there's a lot he doesn't understand about this world, still, a lot he doesn't understand about Jasnah. "Bouche couseu. My lips are sealed."
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Wit. It must be Wit. Despite the fact that the position of Queen's Wit is now entirely vacant, the stories must persist in the taverns and halls of Urithiru's market ring. Silently, she curses the man for being so — open with his devotion. So effusive with his attention and his service that so often seemed to vault past expectation. How humiliating to think the court and common people might still be whispering about it behind her back. She cares less for her reputation — and cared little for it when the affair was happening — but can't help but be bothered by the stories' persistence.
Stiffly, she sits.
"What have you heard?"
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"Nothing," he assures her, taking a seat beside her. "You have nothing to worry about." Although he's not sure what she would be worried about to begin with, he feels compelled to offer the comfort anyway. You're okay.
"I only saw you two together in the courtyard, that's all." If she's trying to hide this relationship for whatever reason, perhaps smiling and laughing and twirling her hair—did she twirl her hair? It had felt like she was twirling her hair—with him in public is not the wisest option, but that feels a bit more solution-oriented and they're clearly still in the feelings stage of this issue.
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Wallowing in this defeat, she almost misses Verso's statement about the courtyard. She entirely misses his reassurance. But then, her echoic memory trips over his particular wording.
Verso saw the two of them? In the courtyard? The tension eases in her spine — well, in as much as it ever eases in Jasnah's spine.
"— You're talking about yesterday, aren't you?"
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tosses u a midnight before bed tag.......
delightful.
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