“I don’t know,” the young woman said softly.

“Well, it’s no matter to us. You see, we have only one job, and it’s an easy one. To serve the queen.”

“That is not easy work.”

“But it is!” Lhan said. “So long as we’re all serving the same way. In a very . . . ah . . . careful way.”

“We are sycophants,” the young woman said, staring out over the city. “The queen’s ardents tell her only what she wants to hear.”

“Ah, and here we are, at the point of the matter.” Lhan patted her on the arm. What was her name again? They’d told it to him. . . .

Pai. Not a very Alethi name; she’d probably chosen it upon being made an ardent. It happened. A new life, a new name, often a simple one.

“You see, Pai,” he said, watching to notice if she reacted. Yes, it did seem he’d gotten the name right. His memory must be improving. “This is what your superiors wanted me to talk to you about. They fear that if you’re not properly instructed, you might cause a bit of a storm here in Kholinar. Nobody wants that.”

He and Pai passed other ardents along the sunwalk, and Lhan nodded to them. The queen had a lot of ardents. A lot of ardents.

“Here’s the thing,” Lhan said. “The queen . . . she sometimes worries that maybe the Almighty isn’t pleased with her.”

“Rightly so,” Pai said. “She—”

“Hush, now,” Lhan said, wincing. “Just . . . hush. Listen. The queen figures that if she treats her ardents well, it will buy her favor with the One who makes the storms, so to speak. Nice food. Nice robes. Fantastic quarters. Lots of free time to do whatever we want. We get these things as long as she thinks she’s on the right path.”

“Our duty is to give her the truth.”

“We do!” Lhan said. “She’s the Almighty’s chosen, isn’t she? Wife of King Elhokar, ruler while he’s off fighting a holy war of retribution against the regicides on the Shattered Plains. Her life is very hard.”

“She throws feasts every night,” Pai whispered. “She engages in debauchery and excess. She wastes money while Alethkar languishes. People in outer towns starve as they send food here, with the understanding that it will be passed on to soldiers who need it. It rots because the queen can’t be bothered.”

“They have plenty of food on the Shattered Plains,” Lhan said. “They’ve got gemstones coming out of their ears there. And nobody is starving here either. You’re exaggerating. Life is good.”

“It is if you’re the queen or one of her lackeys. She even canceled the Beggars’ Feasts. It is reprehensible.”

Lhan groaned inside. This one . . . this one was going to be hard. How to persuade her? He wouldn’t want the child to do anything that endangered her. Or, well, him. Mostly him.

They entered the palace’s grand eastern hall. The carved pillars here were considered one of the greatest artworks of all time, and one could trace their history back to before the shadowdays. The gilding on the floor was ingenious—a lustrous gold that had been placed beneath Soulcast ribbons of crystal. It ran like rivulets between floor mosaics. The ceiling had been decorated by Oolelen himself, the great ardent painter, and depicted a storm blowing in from the east.

All of this could have been crem in the gutter for the reverence Pai gave it. She seemed to see only the ardents strolling about, contemplating the beauty. And eating. And composing new poems for Her Majesty—though honestly, Lhan avoided that sort of thing. It seemed like work.

Perhaps Pai’s attitude came from a residual jealousy. Some ardents were envious of the queen’s personal chosen. He tried to explain some of the luxuries that were now hers: warm baths, horseback riding using the queen’s personal stables, music and art . . .

Pai’s expression grew darker with each item. Bother. This wasn’t working. New plan.

“Here,” Lhan said, steering her toward the steps. “There’s something I want to show you.”

The steps twisted down through the palace complex. He loved this place, every bit of it. White stone walls, golden sphere lamps, and an age. Kholinar had never been sacked. It was one of the few eastern cities that hadn’t suffered that fate in the chaos after the Hierocracy’s fall. The palace had burned once, but that fire had died out after consuming the eastern wing. Rener’s miracle, it was called. The arrival of a highstorm to put out the fire. Lhan swore the place still smelled of smoke, three hundred years later. And . . .

Oh, right. The girl. They continued down the steps and eventually entered the palace kitchens. Lunch had ended, though that didn’t stop Lhan from snatching a plate of fried bread, Herdazian style, from the counter as they passed. Plenty was laid out for the queen’s favorites, who might find themselves peckish at any time. Being a proper sycophant could work up an appetite.

“Trying to lure me with exotic foods?” Pai asked. “For the past five years, I have eaten only a bowl of boiled tallew for each meal, with a piece of fruit on special occasions. This will not tempt me.”

Lhan stopped in place. “You’re not serious, are you?”

She nodded.

“What is wrong with you?”

She blushed. “I am of the Devotary of Denial. I wished to experience separation from the physical needs of my—”

“This is worse than I thought,” Lhan said, taking her by the hand and pulling her through the kitchens. Near the back, they found the door leading out to the service yard, where supplies were delivered and refuse taken away. There, shaded from the rain by an awning, they found piles of uneaten food.

Pai gasped. “Such waste! You bring me here to convince me not to make a storm? You are doing quite the opposite!”

“There used to be an ardent who took all of this and distributed it to the poor,” Lhan said. “She died a few years back. Since then, the others have made some effort to take care of it. Not much, but some. The food does get taken away eventually, usually dumped into the square to be picked through by beggars. It’s mostly rotten by then.”

Storms. He could almost feel the heat of her anger.

“Now,” Lhan said, “if there were an ardent among us whose only hunger was to do good, think how much she could accomplish. Why, she could feed hundreds just from what is wasted.”

Pai eyed the piles of rotting fruit, the sacks of open grain, now ruined in the rain.

“Now,” Lhan said, “let us contemplate the opposite. If some ardent tried to take away that which we have . . . well, what might happen to her?”

“Is that a threat?” she asked softly. “I do not fear physical harm.”

“Storms,” Lhan said. “You think we’d— Girl, I have someone else put my slippers on for me in the morning. Don’t be dense. We’re not going to hurt you. Too much work.” He shivered. “You’d get sent away, quickly and quietly.”

“I do not fear that either.”

“I doubt you fear anything,” Lhan said, “except maybe having a little fun. But what good would it do anyone if you were sent away? Our lives wouldn’t change, the queen would remain the same, and that food out there would still spoil. But if you stay, you can do good. Who knows, maybe your example will help all of us reform, eh?”

He patted her on the shoulder. “Think about it for a few minutes. I want to go finish my bread.” He wandered off, checking over his shoulder a few times. Pai settled down beside the heaps of rotting food and stared at them. She didn’t seem bothered by the ripe odor.

Lhan watched her from inside until he got bored. When he got back from his afternoon massage, she was still there. He ate dinner in the kitchen, which wasn’t terribly luxurious. The girl was entirely too interested in those heaps of garbage.

Finally, as evening fell, he ambled back to her.

“Don’t you even wonder?” she asked, staring at those piles of refuse, rain pattering just beyond. “Don’t you stop to think about the cost of your gluttony?”

“Cost?” he asked. “I told you nobody starves because we—”

“I don’t mean the monetary cost,” she whispered. “I mean the spiritual cost. To you, to those around you. Everything’s wrong.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” he said, settling down.

“It is. Lhan, it’s bigger than the queen, and her wasteful feasts. It wasn’t much better before that, with King Gavilar’s hunts and the wars, princedom against princedom. The people hear of the glory of the battle on the Shattered Plains, of the riches there, but none of it ever materializes here.

“Does anyone among the Alethi elite care about the Almighty anymore? Sure, they curse by his name. Sure, they talk about the Heralds, burn glyphwards. But what do they do? Do they change their lives? Do they listen to the Arguments? Do they transform, recasting their souls into something greater, something better?”

“They have Callings,” Lhan said, fidgeting with his fingers. Digiting, then? “The devotaries help.”

She shook her head. “Why don’t we hear from Him, Lhan? The Heralds said we defeated the Voidbringers, that Aharietiam was the great victory for mankind. But shouldn’t He have sent them to speak with us, to counsel us? Why didn’t they come during the Hierocracy and denounce us? If what the Church had been doing was so evil, where was the word of the Almighty against it?”

“I . . . Surely you’re not suggesting we return to that?” He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at his neck and head. This conversation was getting worse and worse.

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” she whispered. “Only that something is wrong. All of this is just so very wrong.” She looked to him, then climbed to her feet. “I have accepted your proposal.”

“You have?”

“I will not leave Kholinar,” she said. “I will stay here and do what good I can.”

“You won’t get the other ardents into trouble?”

“My problem is not with the ardents,” she said, offering a hand to help him to his feet. “I will simply try to be a good example for all to follow.”

“Well, then. That seems like a fine choice.”

She walked off, and he dabbed his head. She hadn’t promised, not exactly. He wasn’t certain how worried he should be about that.

Turned out, he should have been very worried.

The next morning, he stumbled into the People’s Hall—a large, open building in the shadow of the palace where the king or queen addressed the concerns of the masses. A murmuring crowd of horrified ardents stood just inside the perimeter.

Lhan had already heard, but he had to see for himself. He forced his way to the front. Pai knelt on the floor here, head bowed. She’d painted all night, apparently, writing glyphs on the floor by spherelight. Nobody had noticed. The place was usually locked up tight when not in use, and she’d started working well after everyone was either asleep or drunk.