POV: navani
Summary
Navani has practice holding a kingdom together. In Gavilar's last strange days she had kept the lighteyes from tearing Alethkar apart while her husband grew distant; today's work has implications for the whole world, not one nation. With a stocky escort of Bridge Four Windrunners she sweeps into a council chamber deep in Urithiru and finds four of her highprinces waiting — Aladar, polished and bald with his trim moustache; Hatham in orange today; Sebarial flipping through cards of women in compromising positions; and Brightlady Bethab, representing her husband Bethab in spite of the army's grumbling.
The bridgemen array themselves behind her; she still does not think they understand the authority they lend the throne. Aladar opens delicately — they are loyal — Sebarial less so — *we're the ones hoping to get rich by throwing in our lot with him* — and Brightlady Bethab gets to the point: with Dalinar back to his distractions, his absence is bad for morale. Navani insists her husband is in mourning, snaps at Sebarial by his first name to stop the wine joke, and reminds them that Dalinar is still the world's best chance. Hatham presses on the *highking* question; Elhokar had sealed the papers before leaving for Kholinar and Dalinar had been waiting until he and Adolin returned to make the proclamation. Navani tells them to pretend they do not know about it for now, and especially not to mention it to Ialai or Amaram. *Strength,* she tells herself. *They will return.*
The infrastructure complaints follow. The tower's plumbing clogs and overruns the Soulcasters cleaning the waste; its population needs a favourable supply deal from Azir because the emerald reserves are dwindling despite hunts on the Shattered Plains; soldiers grumble at being made to haul water; the lumber forests beside the warcamps cannot be cut without the parshmen, and Thanadal is building himself a little kingdom there. Hatham finally says it softly — *this is not a time when a would-be king can spend his days locked in his rooms.* They are not in rebellion, but they are very concerned. Sebarial leans forward, only half joking, and asks whether Dalinar secretly wants to dominate the world. Navani reminds them that they could have seized Thaylen City and chose not to; her husband wants unity. *This tower's gardens once grew food. The baths and lavatories prove it once flowed with water. We will figure out how it was done, and we will rebuild here.* They accept her plan, and they settle in for three hours and twelve minutes of grinding through the actual list — the dirty necessities of running a city — until Navani checks the painrial-fitted clock on her arm fabrial and calls them off.
In the strata-lined hallway back, Leyten and his squad of bridgemen joke that nobody tried to kill them today. Hobber grins about Huio's breath; Leyten tells Navani that veterans never complain about boredom and that they have to take turns on the Honorblade for Windrunning practice until Kal returns. To a man they remain absolutely certain of his return. Navani knows otherwise: Teft was hauled before Aladar's magistrates two days ago for public intoxication on firemoss, and Aladar had quietly asked for her seal to free him.
What gnaws at her instead is Brightlady Bethab's implication that she is enjoying her chance to take over. Navani is no fool — she knows how it looks for a woman to have married one king and then the most powerful man left — but she will not be the power behind the throne. She has no problem being wife or mother to monarchs, but to be one herself would lead them all down a dark path.
She passes six squads of sentries on the way down to the basement library rooms, where Jasnah has been running the gemstone-record translation project since Navani stepped back from the research. Each gemstone from the archive has been pulled from its drawer, catalogued, and numbered; one group listens and writes, others sit at tables translating. The bridgemen immediately swarm Renarin, who is the only one in uniform among ardents and stormwardens, and the boy is laughing — embarrassed but happy in a way Navani cannot remember hearing for ages. Jasnah would rather keep him at his work; she explains that he insists there is a pattern to which stones were stored in which drawers, and has been at it all day.
Navani and Jasnah exchange the usual sparring — *we need more classical Alethelan translators* — *history is the key to human understanding,* delivered with a didactic edge Jasnah later apologises for, blaming a long day with lesser ardents. When Jasnah is called across the room, Navani pokes through the papers on the table — and finds something that does not belong. A report on the malformed glyphs and numbers scrawled in white stone on the highprince's walls in the days before the Everstorm: warnings from Renarin, whose spren had given him notice of the coming assault and who, uncertain of his bond and frightened to speak, had instead written them where his uncle would see them. Another note, addressed to Jasnah: the Radiant Lift found in Yeddaw has been persuaded to visit Azimir and sketches of her spren companion — *like the shimmer you see on a wall when you shine light through a crystal* — are enclosed.
Troubled — *why has Jasnah collected all of these?* — Navani sets the pages down before her daughter can come back, takes a fresh copy of the gemstone translations for herself, and slips out to go check on Dalinar.