Chapter Text
I-7
Not a Goddess
Nearly every lowlander Akilu met seemed to assume she was an uncultured buffoon.
As though the fact she’d spent most of her life on a Peak meant she was unused to beauty, unlearned on lowlander customs, and unphased by their rude words. Such things had yet to come to blows, but at times it was difficult to hold herself back.
In some ways, the casual, easy to miss assumptions were worse than the outright bile spat at her by particularly loathsome individuals. At least the latter, they were not people Akilu wanted to speak to anyway. The former? Sometimes, they were as kind as they were pitying.
And yet...
Hands on a railing, Akilu ignored the foot traffic and the palanquins and the rickshaws that passed behind her, and kept her eyes focused forward. From halfway up the city, on the edge of the central switchback street that ran from the docks to the Conclave, Akilu could see Kharbranth below her.
The bells making music in the lightest breeze, the buildings in an incredible variety of hues, the ocean splayed out across the horizon reflecting the afternoon sunlight.
Kharbranth was beautiful, that could not be denied.
Yet, when Akilu noticed she was beginning to draw the attention of a rare awespren, she instead sought out and focused her emotions to bring shamespren to her instead, letting their red and white petals fall around her once they were near enough. I do not want them to think I’m amazed by this city, she reminded herself, mouth set to a thin line. I refuse to embarrass my people or my gods. I refuse to be the person the lowlanders expect of me.
Forcing her attention away from the bustle of the city below, the sights and the smells and the sounds, Akilu turned herself to move with the flow of foot traffic, and headed down to the nearest market.
When they’d first arrived in this city, nearly two weeks ago, Akilu had been surprised that Marionette had rented them rooms in the middle of the city, right off the Ralinsa, rather than some private nook, out of sight from prying eyes. “You told me you were hiding,” she’d said, that very day. “What we are doing, she does not seem to be hiding.”
Marionette had just snorted. “We’re not hiding, we’re avoiding attention. That’s totally different.” The monochromatic woman hadn’t even been looking at Akilu as she spoke, her voice the usual bored drawl. “If we hid, it’d seem like we’re worth paying attention to. Out in the open, we faaaaade into the background.”
Akilu did not understand it then, and she understood it even less now, considering both siblings refused to leave their rented rooms unless there was no other option. “Our features are too noticeable!” Scalpel had explained. “Scadrian features don’t quite cognate to anything local, so if we’re out and about too much, people will be curious!” Which, in Akilu’s mind, was a silly thing to quibble about, considering Scalpel’s own rampant curiosity.
Their directives were a contradiction, but that seemed to fit the siblings up, down, and sideways.
A smile had begun to cross Akilu’s face without asking beforehand, and Akilu decided to allow it. There was a breeze on this warm summer day, little gods both of nature and of emotions swarmed this way and that, and the stew she was to make tonight was going to be incredible.
This she ensured by going to all the best market stalls, speaking in passable Veden with each man in turn to receive the ingredients she’d be using for all her upcoming meals.
“Have you had any luck?” she asked the last merchant in turn, with little hope in her heart.
To her shock the Thaylen man, seated behind an expanse of herbs and vegetables, reached behind his stand and riffled through drawers before producing a small wooden box, handing it to Akilu with a toothy grin. “Look for yourself!”
Inside the box were a few dozen small seeds, nearly spherical and covered in a rough, slightly spiky texture. Akilu could not be sure on sight if this is what she was asked to find, but she similarly had no reason to doubt their authenticity. “The price?” Her hand was already reaching for her sphere pouch, ready to spend the siblings money on these promises of future life.
“No, no, no,” the man groaned, waving away with an airy gesture any need for payment. “Take them, and only promise they will be planted, cared for, used well.”
“By the honor of my...” Akilu’s mouth went dry, and she had to fight down the word ‘father’ like it was a particularly vile glob of vomit. She barely managed to say instead, “...family, yes, they will grow.”
With that small box added to her bags of meats and grains and fibrous plants, Akilu set out for their rented dwelling, and tried to ignore the hole in her heart.
The stew was already simmering when one of the siblings entered the common room.
Scalpel had once again chosen to walk about without the long white coat, the thick gloves, or the hardy garment evidently called ‘overalls’. Instead, he entered the common space wearing nothing more than a chest wrap to cover his breasts and a pair of trousers hiked up a smidge past his waist.
Strolling over to the kitchen, Scalpel leaned over the counter separating him from Akilu, resting his head in the softness of his own arms. “No gross stuff?” His voice lacked the exuberant brightness Akilu had first gotten used to from Scalpel, instead dripping with weariness.
Still, he was trying to smile, which meant he was feeling a broam better than he’d been the day before.
“I would not include anything you’ve complained of before,” she replied in Unkalaki. Whatever method the siblings used for speaking her native tongue, she was thankful for it. Akilu kept her eyes on the stew, giving it a few stirs, trying to gauge when it would be the time to add the next gamut of ingredients. “Your body, he is still needing the right kinds of food. You should not starve him.”
The grown woman filled his mouth with air and blew it out of his closed lips in a way that resembled flatulence. “Excuse you, I am an expert in the human form. I’ve forgotten more about nutrition than most people have ever learned.” Perhaps, on a better day, such a proclamation would have come with a grin and a sharp laugh and a dramatic pose. On this day, it came out as a dull statement that may as well have been an observation on the weather.
“Then you should know—”
“While I choose to abstain from most cooked vegetable matter for textural reasons,” Scalpel cut in, tone flat, a cadence to his words that hinted this was far from the first time he’d had to say this, “I more than make up for it by including hard tubers in my diet, such as your Rosharan curnips, as well as a wide variety of uncooked fruits. I know what I’m doing.” HIs last words were trailed by a sigh as he turned his head to the side, nestling it further into the squishy meat of his arms.
Akilu couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and instead focused on the stew.
Or at least, that was the plan, up until Akilu found words leaving her mouth without proper consideration. “It isn’t as bad as you think.” Scalpel didn’t reply. “I’m an older sister. I know the sort of... disappointment, that she is feeling towards you.” None of her siblings had ever been caught stealing a dead body, but the point remained. “You should talk to her.”
“But I don’t want to...” Scalpel moaned.
Fighting down a laugh as she added more lavis grain and spices to her stew, along with a heaping pinch of salt, Akilu used her hidden weapon. “Check the grocery bags. There’s something there for you.”
With a groan, the grown woman did as asked while dragging his feet, riffling around inside the bag until he found the box.
“You found them!” Scalpel exclaimed, and just hearing his voice, Akilu knew it had worked. “You’re sure these are the right seeds?!”
“Pretty sure,” Akilu told him, “but you might want to get confirmation, just in case.” Trying a sip of the stew, she was satisfied it could cook a while on its own, and turned to look at Scalpel.
He wasn’t there.
In the time between asking his questions and Akilu taking that sip, he had bolted into his room, taking out one of his long, heavy travel trunks without showing even a hint of muscle strain. Despite that, carrying the load (which Akilu estimated weighed about as much as her twin brother) made the normally hidden muscles bulge in Scalpel’s arms, revealing the strength buried under the softness.
Scalpel rarely showed it off, but by this point, Akilu was beginning to think he could lift a small chull off the ground, if he had a good reason to do so.
Setting the trunk down just outside the kitchen, Scalpel squatted in a way that set his doughy stomach and restrained chest to motion, pale hands digging through the interior of the storage box. “Where is it... gotta be... here it is!!!”
With a sudden rising to full height and a little hop, Scalpel produced one of his notebooks overhead with a flourish, then flipped through it, every motion fast as a whip, her dark blue eyes never staying still for more than a second. “Aha! Here it is!! The illustration!” He turned the journal around to show Akilu something, but before she could get a good look, Scalpel had already brought it back around for himself, comparing it to the box, which he’d snapped at some point off the counter without Akilu seeing.
“They’re the same?” She certainly hoped they were. Unlike his older sister, Scalpel didn’t tend to ask much of Akilu, despite her job as their guide and assistant. They were paying her well for that work, and it would reflect poorly on her if she’d messed up something as simple as this.
“Indeed! Well, there’s some small differences, but considering the distance between here and Vedenar, that’s more likely due to small distinctions in local varieties than these being a completely different species.” The more Scalpel talked, the faster he talked, though for now he was remaining within the bounds of intelligibility. His round freckled cheeks could barely contain his excited grin, and the more he moved, the more his frizzy black hair went wild, stray locks falling far enough down to endanger impeding his vision.
Looking at the box in Akilu’s hands, she felt her heart start to beat faster, the excitement from Scalpel proving infectious. “What has you so eager about knobweed seeds? Their milk is medicine, but do you not have similar things where you are from?” Akilu knew by now that this sort of question was the exact thing that Scalpel wanted.
With an excited giggle that threatened to overtake Scalpel’s speech entirely, he started removing glass jars from his trunk and setting them on the counter. One had oil inside, another ointment, a third powder. “Anti-infection drugs are plentiful throughout the Cosmere, and knowing which are best for what ailment is vital for proper treatment!! Not to mention that some particular diseases become resistant to particular methods over time, so variety is a requirement, and if I can get knobweed to grow elsewhere?” His laugh came back, now almost a cackle, mania coming more fully into his voice and his dark blue eyes.
“It will be an incredible boon!!! Heeeheehee, now of course, of course, actually getting it to grow, now that will be an exciting challenge!!” Swaying in step as though to a beat only he could hear, Scalpel grinned at Akilu in a way that showed off every tooth in his mouth. It was just a little scary, but Akilu just felt glad to see Scalpel in better spirits.
“Other places, you see, don’t tend to have sheer rock everywhere, but more than that, ohhhh so much more than that, there’s the issue of hydration!!” Reaching over the counter to drum his fingers right beside where Akilu had placed her own hands, Scalpel tried to imitate the sound of rain with his digits. “Stormwater!!! One of the many fascinating elements so unique to Roshar, as best as I can tell it’s required to grow any of your native flora.
“So, how to leap this hurdle? Easy! Hand me that salt!!” Scalpel commanded it with a bedrock of absolute authority under his voice, and without even thinking, Akilu did exactly as asked, passing the eccentric woman the seasoning he had requested. Tilting the glass container this way and that to make the crystals inside shift, Scalpel’s grin spoke silently of triumph. “Just as you dissolve this sodium chloride into your cooking, I shall take crem with me, discover its chemical composition, and find a way to replicate stormwater offworld! With that done, knobweed will spread throughout the universe, all because of me!!!!”
Scalpel finished off this explanation by tossing the salt back to Akilu (she caught it, barely) and letting out a long, lingering laugh that rolled like clouds through the sky, rumbled like thunder, and crackled like lightning.
This time, Akilu did not fight the approach of the awespren. Oh gods, Akilu silently prayed, may my friend never turn his hands against the Peaks.
After putting away all he’d brought out of his explanation (during which Akilu tended the stew, and found it nearly ready to sit and simmer for hours without intervention), Scalpel entered the kitchen once more and gave Akilu a tight hug that was nearly painful in its strength, lifting her off the ground in the process. “Thank you,” he said softly, the mania starting to fade from his voice. “I needed that.”
Contradictions. Scalpel was soft, and unyielding. His gender and pronouns changed by the day, or the hour, and as today, they did not always align in a traditional way. More than anything, Scalpel was an amoral healer with a strong code of ethics only he could understand, a woman capable of terrifying things with a heart so big it was all too easy to bruise.
Before Akilu could respond to the embrace, still being held up so her feet didn’t touch the floor, another door in their dwelling opened suddenly, and Marionette walked out.
Looking at what Akilu and Scalpel were doing with a knife’s edge smile on her face, Marionette told them, “Whatever you’re both up to, it’ll have to wait.” Victory glinting in her dead eyes, Marionette held up her gloved safehand, a scrap of paper clutched between her fingers. “I found her.”
Vorinism was not beautiful.
Perhaps this was a rude thought, an opinion best left unsaid (though Akilu had heard her companions say far worse about the religion), no better than the aspersions cast upon her people’s faith by lowlanders.
Yet looking at the temple before them, one ascribed to the ‘Devotary of Mercy’, with its squat dome and confining walls, Akilu could not help herself. Watching the smooth-headed ardents moving this way and that, all of them as busy as chefs in a kitchen, passing grand statues of their Heralds (as though their worshippers needed a reminder of who they prayed to), made Akilu frown.
How can any feel close to their gods in such cramped buildings? Regardless of who one was to revere, Akilu was confident the practice was best done in concert with such gods’ creations, not divorced from them. Did they not believe their Almighty created this world so it may be appreciated?
Airsick, Akilu shook her head. That is the only explanation.
With a stomach full of good stew, Akilu followed behind Marionette on the offworlder’s left, Scalpel on her right, each ensuring they lagged a few steps when necessary.
She made for a striking figure, her pale skin contrasted against her ethereal black dress, which covered her from neck to ankle. Unlike a Vorin havah, however, there was no pinned sleeve, and Marionette had been forced to wear a glove on her left hand while out and about, for modesty’s sake. It was also less form-fitting than the local garments, the ‘lace’ material of the clothing hanging about her body in a way that almost seemed to make her float.
The hue paired well with her hair, just as black as Scalpel’s, though worn far longer, the texture less prone to kinks and curls. Her features were sharp rather than soft, yet still undeniably beautiful.
Prior obligations to the siblings had made it clear to Akilu that it was always best to leave Marionette to do the talking. Partially because, even when he hadn’t done anything disreputable, Scalpel had a talent for offending others that bordered on prescient, and partially because Akilu herself spoke passable Veden, but often had no clue how to properly convey what the siblings wanted to lowlanders.
There was also Marionette’s ability to inflame the emotions of others with a thought, but the other points were more relevant.
It didn’t take much talking to find the woman they’d been looking for.
(Akilu did not entirely understand why they needed to speak to this woman, as both siblings had made clear that it was unrelated to the investigation that brought them to Roshar. All they would say on the matter was ‘It’s personal’.)
Even without the proper nudging from the right ardents, it would have been easy to spot the one Marionette was after. Compared to many in this city, Akilu often felt like an oversized lummox, towering over those surrounding her. Yet, Scalpel was short even by lowlander standards, and yet even he was half a head taller than this mysterious ardent.
Standing at full height, this ardent barely rose up enough that the top of her head would come to Akilu’s mid-chest. Yet, she did not look childlike, instead carrying with her the mature lines around her eyes and mouth that spoke to a life already well-lived. It was difficult to tell under her robes, but she appeared to be a wide, stocky sort of woman, not quite fat or muscular in the ways Scalpel was, but hardy nonetheless.
As they approached, their quarry was speaking to a child, only needing to half-kneel to meet his eyes. “...do the voices say, hmm? Do they ask you to do things?” There was an accent to her voice that Akilu found difficult to identify.
“N-no,” the boy, who couldn’t have been older than five, shook his head in a way that sent his mop of shaggy brown hair standing up every which way, his bony hands twiddling as he looked down at them. “They just... I dunno. Don’t make sense.”
“That’s normal,” assured the ardent.
After mustering an astounding amount of courage, the boy looked up to meet her eyes. “They’re not... I-I’m not p-p-possessed?”
“If you are,” she assured him easily, “then they must be very polite Voidbringers, don’t you think?” When the boy gave a small smile and a shaky nod, the ardent ruffled his hair, making it even more unruly, and leaned in closer, to give a whisper Akilu was only privy to due to her proximity. “Other people might not understand, so... if you ever want to talk to someone about the voices again, find me.”
“Okay, Ardent Rosmar.” The boy pronounced the name oddly, as though he wasn’t entirely sure he was saying it right.
Before the ardent could correct him, the boy ran off, leaving her to stand up straight, pressing the palms of her hands into the small of her back as she did.
“It’s Rosemary, right?” Marionette asked, and despite the ardent giving no sign of having seen their approach, she didn’t jump in the slightest. “I’m Marionette, that’s Scalpel, and that’s Akilu.” She gestured with her safehand at each of them in turn. “We should talk.”
The ardent turned to them all, and Akilu was surprised to see the shape of her eyes. Like the siblings, there was a roundness to them that one normally only saw in the Shin, the space of them filled with large irises of a dark, ruddy maroon. Those eyes looked them all up and down, her expression unreadable, before gesturing with one hand to the nearest temple exit. “The garden?”
That was how the four of them found themselves in a shalebark garden, technically a part of the Conclave through which the king ruled this city, but close enough to the temple that it proved easy to walk to and relatively secluded this late in the day.
Rosemary and Marionette sat on a bench together, while Akilu stood opposite them with the younger sister, who was tapping a foot and twiddling her fingers, which were now covered in heavy white gloves in the same way her overalls were covered by a long white coat.
“How did you know?” were the first words out of Rosemary’s mouth, once they were all settled and the ardent had time to ponder properly. She spoke with an idle grace, a casual air that the topic didn’t detract from.
Marionette had an answer ready. “My assistant,” she pointed to Akilu, “got me records on arrivals, wherever you might show up in paperwork.” She gave a small chuckle. “Didn’t you know ‘rosemary’ doesn’t grow on this planet?”
“No, I did not. Shit.” Rosemary looked rather put out by that, but moved on to her next point rather smoothly. “Please tell me you aren’t here to try and take me back, because if I must be perfectly honest, I’d rather die a second time.”
Oh. So that’s why they sought her out.
Marionette waved a hand, the after-image only Akilu could see trailing the motion adding an extra amusing flippancy to the gesture, rolling her eyes before saying, “Yeah, noooooooo...” After sticking a finger down her throat and miming a gagging sound, Marionette made her feelings on the matter clear. “No offense, but I’d rather endure a sixteen minute conversation with Harmony himself than send anyone to Nalthis.”
His mania long since cooled down, Scalpel’s giggle was more friendly than frightening. “If we wanted an earful about our bad life choices, we’d just go home and tell Mom and Dad all the secret stuff we’ve been doing! Though, that might be worth it for a taste of Dad’s pie recipe...” This was the first time, and the last, Akilu ever heard either sibling mention their parents.
“Then why?” Rosemary asked, tilting her head.
With a sigh, Marionette reached over with her ungloved freehand and poked Rosemary on her smooth shaved head. Using a finger that, Akilu knew from experience, lacked any internal warmth. “Because, I need your help.” Folding both hands in her lap, Marionette’s voice lost that detached quality Akilu had gotten so used to, ringing instead with desperation. “You’re like me. You died, but you’re still here.”
Akilu had known that Marionette was dead, or had died, or whatever words best described her situation, since the day they’d met. It was difficult to make contact with the woman without that becoming clear, since it felt like touching a corpse.
They’d never spoken of it, as neither sibling had ever brought the topic up, and Akilu felt it would be the peak of rudeness to ask, ‘How did you die?’, or worse, ‘Why are you still walking around?’
Rosemary blinked, looking at Marionette in a new light, and began to mutter under her breath. “...like... not... Returned... how...” The diminutive priestess’s voice was quiet enough that Akilu could barely make out every third word.
“My handiwork!” Scalpel explained with a jerky wave. “Without getting into the gory details, my sister had a sudden organ failure, and while I am a very good surgeon, I wasn’t able to stop her from dying.” If Akilu hadn’t spent so much time with the woman, she would have missed the sober sadness in his eyes as he fessed up to what he’d done. “Still, I didn’t... the method was very different from yours, no Breaths involved, divine or otherwise, but I managed it, even if there were some... complications.”
“You did fine,” Marionette said, meeting her sister’s eyes as she delivered the statement as though it was an indisputable fact. “We’re just trying to know more, see if we can fix some of the side-effects.”
Side effects? Akilu thought, then considered the strange way she seemed to move, something only visible to those like Akilu herself, those whose eyes could pierce into the world of the gods.
Her gaze slid back to Rosemary, and as it did, Marionette was once again lax as a loose rope, her tone dripping with boredom. “So, yeah. We sorta, y’know, want to ask you a few things. Maybe let Scalpel take some samples, for science.” Just saying that word sent a shiver of delight through the younger sister, dispelling her earlier sadness. Then, just as a confident smirk slipped across her face, Marionette added, “That okay with you, Your Divine Whateverness?”
“No, no, no, none of that!” Rosemary suddenly sounded like a disapproving parent, and for a moment...
Any sign of age on her face disappeared, all without removing the sense of maturity they granted her. Her eyes glowed, and everything about her intensified. In one moment, Rosemary had been a short woman, and in the next, she’d been a short divinity.
...then the moment passed, and she was only an ardent again. Just in case, Akilu made a gesture of respect and reverence to her. One could never be too careful.
That got Rosemary to glare up at Akilu. “That means you too! Ohhh, now see here, I am not a goddess!” Her voice gained a shrill edge, and as she breathed in and out through her nose, her nostrils flared with warning. “I will not hear any of that Iridescent nonsense! By the Five Gods and the Voice Beyond, if you make even one more peep about such rubbish, I will choke you to death with your own clothes.”
“Understood.” Marionette gave Akilu and Scalpel serious looks. “You hear her? No worship, no goddess talk.” Her voice sounded as dead as the woman herself. Yet, as her eyes met Akilu’s, she saw victory there. Things were going according to her plan.
She would have to trust Marionette. “I do not understand, but I will do as you ask,” Akilu told her, regretting her gesture from before. “Please forgive my rudeness.” Rosemary gave a curt nod to her, which Akilu took as an acceptance of her apology, before turning to stare at Scalpel.
Diane shrugged his thick shoulders. “I’ve never worshiped anything before, I’m not gonna start now,” Diane told her, which seemed good enough for Rosemary.
“Good.” These promises given, Rosemary addressed Marionette, fury largely replaced with curiosity. “Now then, so long as you’re willing to abide by what I’ve asked, then I’d be happy to help you any way I can.”
“No fee? No favors?” Marionette asked, arching a fine eyebrow. Yet, she didn’t seem truly surprised. She had a feeling Rosemary would help without cost.
“I have no need of either.” Looking back towards the temple they’d found her in, Rosemary smiled softly. “While I hold no true love for their Almighty, I believe in the cause of the Devotary, and I’ve sworn to live without possessions, doing good works. If someone needs help, especially the kind few others seem capable of providing, then I’ll step in.”
With a serious nod and an offered hand, Marionette accepted the offer and said, “Thanks. I’d say your help is a life-saver, buuuuut...” which got a chuckle out of Rosemary, who shook the hand extended to her.
Contradictions. Marionette was elegant, and easy-going. Her very existence seemed to defy the order of the universe, of the gods, a fact which she seemed to regard with an annoyed side-eye and a rude gesture. More than anything, Marionette was an anti-social people-person, carrying herself with an attitude that told everyone she didn’t care all the while maneuvering others as though they were pieces on a board with her every word and gesture.
“Now then, what is it you need exactly?” the not-goddess ardent asked them.
The frizzy-haired surgeon began listing what they wanted, terms that Akilu didn’t recognize sitting comfortably between commonplace things like ‘exact body measurements’ and ‘daily rate of fecal evacuation’.
When he was done, Rosemary pursed her lips. “I’ll have to think on the vivisection, but I’ll agree to the rest of it, though I reserve the right to change my mind later.” Then she poked Marionette in the ribs through her black lace dress. “I do have to ask, if all you need are others like myself, why haven’t you gone to Nalthis yourself? T’Telir is full of Returned, you know.”
The siblings shared a look that Akilu could only read as dread. “We... sortaaaaaa aren’t allowed to go back there,” Marionette explained in her disaffected drawl.
When Scalpel saw Akilu looking in his direction, he winked.
Grinning impishly, Rosemary looked between the siblings. “Who could possibly ban you from a planet?”
Marionette said, “You don’t want to know.”
Scalpel said, “Endowment, or as you call her, the Voice Beyond.”
Before she could retire to her room, Akilu stopped Marionette with a hand on her shoulder. “How did you know?”
“Know what?” Marionette asked, a cocky grin pointed in Akilu’s face.
“What to say. Telling her of your death, this earned her sympathy. Teasing her about being a goddess, that pushed her to confrontation, to setting terms quickly.” She shook her head. “All of it was planned.”
Marionette snorted. “Not all of it. Maybe... like, half of it? Never plan what you can adjust in the moment, that’s my motto.”
“But was it intentional?” Akilu asked, and could read the answer in Marionette’s pale expression, in her sallow cheeks and her thin lips. “Then, I ask again... how? Is it your magic?”
“Ehhh...” Marionette raised a hand, tilting it back and forth from side to side. “Only indirectly.” Reaching into a hidden pocket of her floor-length dress, she removed a vial of liquid with something suspended at the bottom. “Okay if I...?” When Akilu nodded, Marionette downed the contents in a single gulp, and suddenly...
Oh. Oh gods high and low, big and small, majestic in your ways.
...all of Akilu’s suspicion, her worry, her mistrust, it was overwhelmed by sheer delight. A rush of euphoria hit Akilu so hard she had to rock back on her heels, and in seconds joyspren were on her, the cyclones of color manifesting for others as blue petals circling her.
Then, just as abruptly as it appeared, the emotion vanished, and the rare gods slunk off to other parts of the city.
“That wasn’t exactly subtle, right?” Marionette asked, and didn’t wait for an answer before she kept on talking. “Rioting doesn’t have to be like that, obviously, but even subtle nudges can feel wrong, if you’re amplifying something the person wasn’t feeling to begin with. Unless you want everyone to distrust everything you say, you have to use your Allomancy sparingly, refusing to burn your Zinc unless you’re sure it’ll go unnoticed, and... y’know. Actually make the person do what you want. That’s kinda the most important part”
“But did you use it? On the ardent?”
Slipping the vial back in her pocket, Marionette dismissed the idea. “Nope. Didn’t have to. But, I knew what to do because I’m a Rioter. A lifetime watching people, reading their faces, picking out what makes them tick, made me confident on the best way to handle the little baldy.” With a sudden yawn, Marionette stepped back, towards the door that led to her room. “That answer your question?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because I need to pass out into a pillow.” Walking backwards, Marionette held up a long, thin finger. “One last thing: Rosemary isn’t the only lead I found. While you were out, I got word on where our fleeing rat went.” Such unflattering terms were what Marionette had been using lately, to refer to the man who they’d hoped to interview in this city, only to find he had already left.
This was good news. Once Scalpel got everything he needed from Rosemary, they’d be able to set out for their next destination. “Where has he gone?”
“The Shattered Plains.”
The bottom fell out of Akilu’s stomach.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for there, the same as us,” Marionette told her, before retreating to her room.
It was hard for those words to take purchase in Akilu’s mind, as they felt slippery, insubstantial, compared to the solid and impossible fact of where they were to go next. With shaky feet. Akilu went to the ladder, climbing to the second floor of the dwelling where her room waited.
The tall Unkalaki woman passed her bed on the way to the window, where she sat on the floor, looking out to the ocean.
Contradictions. Akilu was dependable, and absent. Her sense of self shook with each revelation that came from her travels, yet never did it shatter, and she was beginning to think that rather than changing, she was only revealing more of who she always was. More than anything, Hualinam’lunanaki’akilu was a woman who loved her home, loved her family, and would leave both behind to find the truth others would so readily assume or ignore, to be of real use to those who relied on her.
(Without her meals, she was becoming sure the siblings would starve. Though, whether Marionette could starve, she did not know.)
“I will find you, Father,” Akilu whispered, tears in her eyes as she faced the breadth of the world. “Dead or alive. I will find you.”
And after she did that... well, that was for the Akilu of tomorrow to decide.