The Hope of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

The Hope of Elantris
By Brandon Sanderson
    "My lord," Ashe said, hovering in through the window. "Lady
Sarene begs your forgiveness. She's going to be a tad late for
dinner."
    "A tad?" Raoden asked, amused as he sat at the table. "Dinner
was supposed to start an hour ago."
    Ashe pulsed slightly. "I'm sorry, my lord. But. . .she made me
promise to relay a message if you complained. 'Tell him,' she said,
'that I'm pregnant and it's his fault, so that means he has to do
what I want.'"
    Raoden laughed.
    Ashe pulsed again, looking as embarrassed as a Seon could,
considering he was simply a ball of light.
    Raoden sighed, resting his arms on the table of his palace
inside Elantris. The walls around him glowed with a very faint
light, and no torches or lanterns were necessary. He'd always
wondered about the lack of lantern brackets in Elantris. Galladon
had once explained that there were plates made to glow when
pressed-but they'd both forgotten just how much light had come from
the stones themselves.
    He looked down at his empty plate.
We once struggled so hard
for just a little bit of food,
he thought.
Now it's so
commonplace that we can spend an hour dallying before we
eat.
    Yet, food was plentiful. Raoden himself could turn garbage into
fine corn. Nobody in Arelon would ever go hungry again. Still,
thinking about such things took his mind back to New Elantris, and
the simple peace he'd forged inside the city.
    "Ashe," Raoden said, a thought suddenly occurring to him. "I've
been meaning to ask you something."
    "Of course, your majesty."
    "Where were you during those last hours before Elantris was
restored?" Raoden asked. "I don't remember anything of you for most
of the night. In fact, the only time I remember seeing you is when
you came to tell me that Sarene had been kidnapped and taken to
Teod."
    "That's true, your majesty," Ashe said.
    "So, where were you?"
    "It is a long story, your majesty," the Seon said, floating down
beside Raoden's chair. "It began when Lady Sarene sent me ahead to
New Elantris, to warn Galladon and Karata that she was sending them
a shipment of weapons. That was just before the monks attacked Kae,
and I went to New Elantris, completely unaware of what was about to
occur. . . ."
    #
    Matisse took care of the children.
    That was her job, in New Elantris. Everyone had to have a job;
that was Spirit's rule. She didn't mind her job-actually, she
rather enjoyed it. She'd been doing it for longer than Spirit had
been around. Ever since Dashe had found her and taken her back to
Karata's palace, Matisse had been watching after the little ones.
Spirit's rules just made it official.
    Yes, she enjoyed the duty. Most of the time.
    "Do we really have to go to bed, Matisse?" Teor asked, giving
her his best wide-eyed look. "Can't we stay up, just this
once?"
    Matisse folded her arms, raising a hairless eyebrow at the
little boy. "You had to go to bed yesterday at this time," she
noted. "And the day before. And, actually, the day before that. I
don't see why you think today should be any different."
    "Something's going on," said Tiil, stepping up beside his
friend. "The adults are all drawing Aons."
    Matisse glanced out the window. The children-the fifty or so of
them beneath her care-stayed in an open-windowed building dubbed
the "Roost" because of the intricate carvings of birds on most of
its walls. The Roost was located near the center of the
city-within-a-city-close to Spirit's own home, the Korathi Chapel
where he held most of his important meetings. The adults wanted to
keep a close watch on the children.
    Unfortunately, that meant that the children could also keep a
close watch on the adults. Outside the window, flashes of light
sparked from hundreds of fingers drawing Aons in the air. It was
late-far later than the children should have been up-but it had
been particularly difficult to get them to bed this night.
    Tiil is right,
she thought.
Something
is
going on.
That, however, was no reason to let him