City of Bells
POV: shallan
Summary
Eight months after Kaladin's caravan sets out, the scene shifts a continent away. Young Shallan Davar of House Davar arrives at the docks of Kharbranth, the City of Bells, on the Thaylen single-master Wind's Pleasure, captained by her family's longtime business contact Tozbek. She has been chasing Jasnah — the king of Alethkar's scholar-sister, infamous as the only public heretic of a faithful royal house — across half the coast for nearly six months, and learns to her relief that Jasnah has not yet moved on.
The Thaylen sailor Yalb hires her a wheeled rickshaw and walks her up the switchback street of the city. Shallan takes in the bells, the painted houses, and the swarm of foreigners she has never seen before, mentally fixing each new sight in her sketchbook. They reach the Conclave at the top of the city — a white palace carved into the cliff face — which houses the king of Kharbranth, the Palanaeum, and any visiting royalty of Jasnah's rank.
Shallan thinks back on her position as she waits in the corridor: her father is secretly dead, House Davar is days from open insolvency, and the ailing Highprince Valam can no longer protect them. She is the family's only remaining play. If she can become Jasnah's ward she will gain the renowned scholar's training and her family the political shelter of the Kholin name — provided Jasnah, the public heretic, does not demand she renounce her own Vorin faith, the one refuge she had during her father's worst years.
A second-nahn master-servant locates Jasnah and gestures Shallan around a corner. Voices come from the side corridor. Shallan takes a deep breath and walks toward them.