“This is not humanitarian work,” Taravangian said, walking forward slowly, white-and-orange robes rustling. Those they passed bowed to him with reverence. Taravangian led Szeth to an alcove of beds, each with a sickly person in it. There were healers working on them. Doing something to their arms.

Draining their blood.

A woman with a writing clipboard stood near the beds, pen held, waiting for something. What?

“I don’t understand,” Szeth said, watching in horror as the four patients grew pale. “You’re killing them, aren’t you?”

“Yes. We don’t need the blood; it is merely a way to kill slowly and easily.”

“Every one of them? The people in this room?”

“We try to select only the worst cases to move here, for once they are brought to this place, we cannot let them leave if they begin to recover.” He turned to Szeth, eyes sorrowful. “Sometimes we need more bodies than the terminally sick can provide. And so we must bring the forgotten and the lowly. Those who will not be missed.”

Szeth couldn’t speak. He couldn’t voice his horror and revulsion. In front of him, one of the victims—a man in his younger years—expired. Two of those remaining were children. Szeth stepped forward. He had to stop this. He had to—

“You will still yourself,” Taravangian said. “And you will return to my side.”

Szeth did as his master commanded. What were a few more deaths? Just another set of screams to haunt him. He could hear them now, coming from beneath beds, behind furniture.

Or I could kill him, Szeth thought. I could stop this.

He nearly did it. But honor prevailed, for the moment.

“You see, Szeth-son-son-Vallano,” Taravangian said. “I did not send you to do my bloody work for me. I do it here, myself. I have personally held the knife and released the blood from the veins of many. Much like you, I know I cannot escape my sins. We are two men of one heart. This is one reason why I sought you out.”

“But why?” Szeth said.

On the beds, a dying youth started speaking. One of the women with the clipboards stepped forward quickly, recording the words.

“The day was ours, but they took it,” the boy cried. “Stormfather! You cannot have it. The day is ours. They come, rasping, and the lights fail. Oh, Stormfather!” The boy arched his back, then fell still suddenly, eyes dead.

The king turned to Szeth. “It is better for one man to sin than for a people to be destroyed, wouldn’t you say, Szeth-son-son-Vallano?”

“I…”

“We do not know why some speak when others do not,” Taravangian said. “But the dying see something. It began seven years ago, about the time when King Gavilar was investigating the Shattered Plains for the first time.” His eyes grew distant. “It is coming, and these people see it. On that bridge between life and the endless ocean of death, they view something. Their words might save us.”

“You are a monster.”

“Yes,” Taravangian said. “But I am the monster who will save this world.” He looked at Szeth. “I have a name to add to your list. I had hoped to avoid doing this, but recent events have made it inevitable. I cannot let him seize control. It will undermine everything.”

“Who?” Szeth asked, wondering if anything at all could horrify him further.

“Dalinar Kholin,” Taravangian said. “I’m afraid it must be done quickly, before he can unite the Alethi highprinces. You will go to the Shattered Plains and end him.” He hesitated. “It must be done brutally, I’m afraid.”

“I have rarely had the luxury of working otherwise,” Szeth said, closing his eyes.

The screams greeted him.

“Before I read,” Shallan said, “I need to understand something. You Soulcast my blood, didn’t you?”

“To remove the poison,” Jasnah said. “Yes. It acted extremely quickly; as I said, it must have been a very concentrated form of the powder. I had to Soulcast your blood several times as we got you to vomit. Your body continued to absorb the poison.”

“But you said you aren’t good with organics,” Shallan said. “You turned the strawberry jam into something inedible.”

“Blood isn’t the same,” Jasnah said, waving her hand. “It’s one of the Essences. You’ll learn this, should I actually decide to teach you Soulcasting. For now, know that the pure form of an Essence is quite easy to make; the eight kinds of blood are easier to create than water, for instance. Creating something as complex as strawberry jam, however—a mush made from a fruit I’d never before tasted or smelled—was well beyond my abilities.”

“And the ardents,” Shallan said. “Those who Soulcast? Do they actually use fabrials, or is it all a hoax?”

“No, Soulcasting fabrials are real. Quite real. So far as I know, everyone else who does what I—what we—can do uses a fabrial to accomplish it.”

“What of the creatures with the symbol heads?” Shallan asked. She flipped through her sketches, then held up an image of them. “Do you see them too? How are they related?”

Jasnah frowned, taking the image. “You see beings like this? In Shadesmar?”

“They appear in my drawings,” Shallan said. “They’re around me, Jasnah. You don’t see them? Am I—”

Jasnah held up a hand. “These are a type of spren, Shallan. They are related to what you do.” She tapped the desk softly. “Two orders of the Knights Radiant possessed inherent Soulcasting ability; it was based on their powers that the original fabrials were designed, I believe. I had assumed that you… But no, that obviously wouldn’t make sense. I see now.”

“What?”

“I will explain as I train you,” Jasnah said, handing back the sheet. “You will need a greater foundation before you can grasp it. Suffice it to say that each Radiant’s abilities were tied to the spren.”

“Wait, Radiants? But—”

“I will explain,” Jasnah said. “But first, we must speak of the Voidbringers.”

Shallan nodded. “You think they’ll return, don’t you?”

Jasnah studied her. “What makes you say that?”

“The legends say the Voidbringers came a hundred times to try to destroy mankind,” Shallan continued. “I… read some of your notes.”

“You what?”

“I was looking for information on Soulcasting,” Shallan confessed.

Jasnah sighed. “Well, I suppose it is the least of your crimes.”

“I can’t understand,” Shallan said. “Why are you bothering with these stories of myths and shadows? Other scholars—scholars I know you respect—consider the Voidbringers to be a fabrication. Yet you chase stories from rural farmers and write them down in your notebook. Why, Jasnah? Why do you have faith in this when you reject things that are so much more plausible?”

Jasnah looked over her sheets of paper. “Do you know the real difference between me and a believer, Shallan?”

Shallan shook her head.

“It strikes me that religion—in its essence—seeks to take natural events and ascribe supernatural causes to them. I, however, seek to take supernatural events and find the natural meanings behind them. Perhaps that is the final dividing line between science and religion. Opposite sides of a card.”