Who is to say being beholden to this man is any different? Shallan thought, rounding the room to approach where Sebarial sat, without wife or family members to attend him. He was unmarried.

“Almost threw you out on your ear, girl,” Sebarial said quietly, sipping his wine and not looking at her. “Stupid move, putting yourself in my hands. Everyone knows I like to set things on fire and watch them burn.”

“And yet you didn’t throw me out,” she said. “So it wasn’t a stupid move. Merely a risk that paid rewards.”

“Still might drop you. I’m certainly not paying that three broams. That’s almost as much as my mistress costs, and at least I get something from that arrangement.”

“You’ll pay,” Shallan said. “It’s a matter of public record now. But don’t worry. I will earn my keep.”

“You have information about Kholin?” Sebarial asked, studying his wine.

So he did care.

“Information, yes,” Shallan said. “Less about Kholin, and more about the world itself. Trust me, Sebarial. You’ve just entered into a very profitable arrangement.”

She’d have to figure out why that was.

The others continued arguing about the Assassin in White, and she gathered that he had attacked here but had been fought off. As Aladar steered the conversation to a complaint that his gemstones were being taken by the Crown—Shallan didn’t know the reason they’d been seized—Dalinar Kholin slowly stood up. He moved like a rolling boulder. Inevitable, implacable.

Aladar trailed off.

“I passed a curious pile of stones along my path,” Dalinar said. “Of a type I found remarkable. The fractured shale had been weathered by highstorms, blown up against stone of a more durable nature. This pile of thin wafers lay as if stacked by some mortal hand.”

The others looked at Dalinar as if he were mad. Something about the words tugged at Shallan’s memory. They were a quotation from something she’d once read.

Dalinar turned, walking toward the open windows on the leeward side of the room. “But no man had stacked these stones. Precarious though they looked, they were actually quite solid, a formation from once-buried strata now exposed to open air. I wondered how it was possible they remained in such a neat stack, with the fury of the tempests blowing against them.

“I soon ascertained their true nature. I found that force from one direction pushed them back against one another and the rock behind. No amount of pressure I could produce in that manner caused them to shift. And yet, when I removed one stone from the bottom—pulling it out instead of pushing it in—the entire formation collapsed in a miniature avalanche.”

The room’s occupants stared at him until Sebarial finally spoke for all of them. “Dalinar,” the plump man said, “what in Damnation’s eleventh name are you on about?”

“Our methods aren’t working,” Dalinar said, looking back at the lot of them. “Years at war, and we find ourselves in the same position as before. We can no more fight this assassin now than on the night he killed my brother. The king of Jah Keved put three Shardbearers and half an army up against the creature, then died with a Blade through the chest, his Shards left to be scavenged by opportunists.

“If we cannot defeat the assassin, then we must remove his reason for attacking. If we can capture or eliminate his employers, then perhaps we can invalidate whatever contract binds him. Last we knew, he was employed by the Parshendi.”

“Great,” Ruthar said dryly. “All we have to do is win the war, which we’ve only been trying to do for five years.”

“We haven’t been trying,” Dalinar said. “Not hard enough. I intend to make peace with the Parshendi. If they will not have it on our terms, then I will set out into the Shattered Plains with my army and any who will join me. No more games on plateaus, fighting over gemhearts. I will strike toward the Parshendi camp, find it, and defeat them once and for all.”

The king sighed softly, leaning back behind his desk. Shallan guessed he’d been expecting this.

“Out onto the Shattered Plains,” Sadeas said. “That sounds like a marvelous thing for you to try.”

“Dalinar,” Hatham said, speaking with obvious care, “I don’t see that our situation has changed. The Shattered Plains are still largely unexplored, and the Parshendi camp could be literally anywhere out there, hidden among miles and miles of terrain that our army cannot traverse without great difficulty. We agreed that attacking their camp was imprudent, so long as they were willing to come to us.”

“Their willingness to come to us, Hatham,” Dalinar said, “has proved to be a problem, because it puts the battle on their terms. No, our situation hasn’t changed. Merely our resolve. This war has persisted far too long already. I will finish it, one way or another.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Sadeas repeated. “Will you be off tomorrow or wait until the next day?”

Dalinar gave him a disdainful look.

“Just trying to estimate when there will be an open warcamp,” Sadeas said innocently. “I’ve almost outgrown mine, and wouldn’t mind spilling into a second once the Parshendi slaughter you and yours. To think, after all the trouble you got yourself into by getting surrounded out there, that you’re going to go do it again.”

Adolin stood up behind his father, face red, angerspren bubbling at his feet like pools of blood. His brother coaxed him back down into his seat. There was something here, obviously, that Shallan was missing.

I wandered into the middle of all this without nearly enough context, she thought. Storms, I’m lucky I haven’t been chewed up already. Suddenly, she wasn’t quite so proud of her accomplishments this day.

“Before the highstorm last night,” Dalinar said, “we had a messenger from the Parshendi—the first willing to speak with us in ages. He said that his leaders wished to discuss the possibility of peace.”

The highprinces looked stunned. Peace? Shallan thought, heart leaping. That would certainly make it easier to get out and search for Urithiru.

“That very night,” Dalinar said softly, “the assassin struck. Again. Last time he came was just after we had signed a peace treaty with the Parshendi. Now, he comes again the day of another peace offer.”

“Those bastards,” Aladar said softly. “Is this some kind of twisted ritual of theirs?”

“It might be a coincidence,” Dalinar said. “The assassin has been striking all over the world. Surely the Parshendi haven’t contacted all of these people. However, the events make me wary. Almost, I wonder if the Parshendi are being framed—if someone is using this assassin to make certain that Alethkar never knows peace. But then, the Parshendi did claim to have hired him to kill my brother…”

“Maybe they’re desperate,” Roion said, hunkering down in his chair. “One faction among them sues for peace while the other does whatever it can to destroy us.”

“Either way, I intend to plan for the worst,” Dalinar said, looking to Sadeas. “I will be making my way to the center of the Shattered Plains—either to defeat the Parshendi for good, or to accept their surrender and disarmament—but such an expedition will take time to arrange. I’ll need to train my men for an extended operation and send scouts to map farther into the middle of the Plains. Beyond that, I need to choose some new Shardbearers.”