“I’d rather walk these chasms with a compulsive murderer than you. At least then, when the conversation got tedious, I’d have an easy way out.”

“And your feet stink,” she said. “See? Too early. I can’t possibly be witty at this hour. So no arguments.” She hesitated, then continued more softly. “Besides, no murderer would agree to accompany you. Everyone needs to have some standards, after all.”

Kaladin snorted, lips tugging up to the sides.

“Be careful,” she said, hopping over a fallen log. “That was almost like a smile—and earlier this morning, I could swear that you were cheerful. Well, mildly content. Anyway, if you start to be in a better mood, it will destroy the whole variety of this trip.”

“Variety?” he asked.

“Yes. If we’re both pleasant, there’s no artistry to it. You see, great art is a matter of contrast. Some lights and some darks. The happy, smiling, radiant lady and the dark, brooding, malodorous bridgeman.”

“That—” He stopped. “Malodorous?”

“A great figure painting,” she said, “shows the hero with inherent contrast—strong, yet hinting at vulnerability, so that the viewer can relate to him. Your little problem would make for a dynamic contrast.”

“How would you even convey that in a painting?” Kaladin said, frowning. “Besides, I’m not malodorous.”

“Oh, so you’re getting better? Yay!”

He looked at her, dumbfounded.

“Confusion,” she said. “I will graciously take that as a sign that you’re amazed that I can be so humorous at such an early hour.” She leaned in conspiratorially, whispering. “I’m really not very witty. You just happen to be stupid, so it seems that way. Contrast, remember?”

She smiled at him, then continued on her way, humming to herself. Actually, the day was looking much better. Why had she been in a bad mood earlier?

Kaladin jogged to catch up with her. “Storms, woman,” he said. “I don’t know what to make of you.”

“Preferably not a corpse.”

“I’m surprised someone hasn’t already done that.” He shook his head. “Give me an honest answer. Why are you here?”

“Well, there was this bridge that collapsed, and I fell . . .”

He sighed.

“Sorry,” Shallan said. “Something about you encourages me to crack wise, bridgeboy. Even in the morning. Anyway, why did I come here? You mean to the Shattered Plains in the first place?”

He nodded. There was a sort of rugged handsomeness to the fellow. Like the beauty of a natural rock formation, as opposed to a fine sculpture like Adolin.

But Kaladin’s intensity, that frightened her. He seemed like a man who constantly had his teeth clenched, a man who couldn’t let himself—or anyone else—just sit down and take a nice rest.

“I came here,” Shallan said, “because of Jasnah Kholin’s work. The scholarship she left behind must not be abandoned.”

“And Adolin?”

“Adolin is a delightful surprise.”

They passed an entire wall covered in draping vines that were rooted in a broken section of rock above. They wriggled and pulled up as Shallan passed. Very alert, she noted. Faster than most vines. These were the opposite of those in the gardens back home, where the plants had been sheltered for so long. She tried to snatch one for a cutting, but it moved too quickly.

Drat. She needed a bit of one so that when they got back, she could grow a plant for experimentation. Pretending she was here to explore and record new species helped push back the gloom. She heard Pattern humming softly from her skirt, as if he realized what she was doing, distracting herself from the predicament and the danger. She swatted at him. What would the bridgeman think if he heard her clothing buzz?

“Just a moment,” she said, finally snatching one of the vines. Kaladin watched, leaning on his spear, as she cut the tip off the vine with the small knife from her satchel.

“Jasnah’s research,” he said. “It had something to do with structures hidden out here, beneath the crem?”

“What makes you say that?” She tucked the tip of the vine away in an empty ink jar she’d kept for specimens.

“You made too much of an effort to get out here,” he said. “Ostensibly all to investigate a chasmfiend’s chrysalis. A dead one, even. There has to be more.”

“You don’t understand the compulsive nature of scholarship, I see.” She shook the jar.

He snorted. “If you’d really wanted to see a chrysalis, you could have just had them tow one back for you. They have those chull sleds for the wounded; one of those might have worked. There was no need for you to come all the way out here yourself.”

Blast. A solid argument. It was a good thing Adolin hadn’t thought of that. The prince was wonderful, and he certainly wasn’t stupid, but he was also . . . mentally direct.

This bridgeman was proving himself different. The way he watched her, the way he thought. Even, she realized, the way he spoke. He talked like an educated lighteyes. But what of those slave brands on his forehead? The hair got in the way, but she thought that one of them was a shash brand.

Perhaps she should spend as much time wondering about this man’s motives as he apparently fretted about hers.

“Riches,” he said, as they continued on. He held back some dead branches sticking from a crack so she could pass. “There’s a treasure of some sort out here, and that’s what you seek? But . . . no. You could have wealth easily enough by marriage.”

She didn’t say anything, stepping through the gap he made for her.

“Nobody had heard of you before this,” he continued. “The Davar house really does have a daughter your age, and you match the description. You could be an impostor, but you’re actually lighteyed, and that Veden house isn’t particularly significant. If you were going to bother to impersonate someone, wouldn’t you pick someone more important?”

“You seem to have thought about this a great deal.”

“It’s my job.”

“I’m being truthful with you—Jasnah’s research is why I came to the Shattered Plains. I think the world itself could be in danger.”

“That’s why you talked to Adolin about the parshmen.”

“Wait. How do you . . . Your guards were there on that terrace with us. They told you? I didn’t realize they were close enough to listen.”

“I made a point of telling them to stay close,” Kaladin said. “At the time, I was half convinced you were here to assassinate Adolin.”

Well, he was nothing if not honest. And blunt.

“My men said,” Kaladin continued, “that you seemed to want to get the parshmen murdered.”

“I said nothing of the sort,” she said. “Though I am worried that they might betray us. It’s a moot point, as I doubt I’ll persuade the highprinces without more evidence.”

“If you got your way, though,” Kaladin said, sounding curious, “what would you do? About the parshmen.”

“Have them exiled,” Shallan said.

“And who will replace them?” Kaladin said. “Darkeyes?”

“I’m not saying it would be easy,” Shallan said.

“They’d need more slaves,” Kaladin said, contemplative. “A lot of honest men might find themselves with brands.”

“Still sore about what happened to you, I assume.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

“Yes, I suppose I would. I am sorry that you were treated in such a way, but it could have been worse. You could have been hanged.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be the executioner who tried that.” He said it with a quiet intensity.

“Me neither,” Shallan said. “I think hanging people is a poor choice of professions for an executioner. Better to be the guy with an axe.”

He frowned at her.

“You see,” she said, “with the axe, it’s easier to get ahead. . . .”

He stared. Then, after a moment, he winced. “Oh, storms. That was awful.”

“No, it was funny. You seem to get those two mixed up a lot. Don’t worry. I’m here to help.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that you aren’t witty, Shallan. I just feel like you try too hard. The world is not a sunny place, and frantically trying to turn everything into a joke is not going to change that.”

“Technically,” she said, “it is a sunny place. Half the time.”

“To people like you, perhaps,” Kaladin said.

“What does that mean?”

He grimaced. “Look, I don’t want to fight again, all right? I just . . . Please. Let’s let the topic drop.”

“What if I promise not to get angry?”

“Are you capable of that?”

“Of course. I spend most of my time not being angry. I’m terribly proficient at it. Most of those times aren’t around you, granted, but I think I’ll be all right.”

“You’re doing it again,” he said.

“Sorry.”

They walked in silence for a moment, passing plants in bloom with a shockingly well-preserved skeleton underneath them, somehow barely disturbed by the flowing of water in the chasm.

“All right,” Kaladin said. “Here it is. I can imagine how the world must appear to someone like you. Growing up pampered, with everything you want. To someone like you, life is wonderful and sunny and worth laughing over. That’s not your fault, and I shouldn’t blame you. You haven’t had to deal with pain or death like I have. Sorrow is not your companion.”

Silence. Shallan didn’t reply. How could she reply to that?

“What?” Kaladin finally asked.

“I’m trying to decide how to react,” Shallan said. “You see, you just said something very, very funny.”

“Then why aren’t you laughing?”

“Well, it isn’t that kind of funny.” She handed him her satchel and stepped onto a small dry rise of rock running through the middle of a deep pond on the chasm floor. The ground was usually flat—all of that crem settling—but the water in this pool looked a good two or three feet deep.

She crossed with hands out to the sides, balancing. “So, let me see,” she said as she stepped carefully. “You think I’ve lived a simple, happy life full of sunshine and joy. But you also imply that I’ve got dark, evil secrets, so you’re suspicious of and even hostile to me. You tell me I’m arrogant and assume that I consider darkeyes to be playthings, but when I tell you what I’m trying to do to protect them—and everyone else—you imply I’m meddling and should just leave well enough alone.”

She reached the other side and turned about. “Would you say that’s an accurate summary of our conversations up to this point, Kaladin Stormblessed?”