19. Safe Things

A flashback set five and a half years before the present timeline. Shallan, traumatized and mute after witnessing her mother's death, receives drawing supplies from her oldest brother Helaran. When their father arrives, Helaran reveals he is now a Shardbearer and confronts their father about his crimes, ultimately departing on mysterious business before their father erupts in violent rage.

Shallan sits in the dining chamber of Davar Manor while servants prepare for guests, having been silent for five months after witnessing her father kill her mother and the mother's lover. She has recently come of age and now wears a woman's dress covering her safehand. Helaran, her eldest brother, arrives with a gift of expensive drawing paper and charcoal pencils, urging her to draw and expressing concern about their younger brother Balat's cruelty. When Shallan begins sketching violent images of bodies, Helaran destroys the drawing and instructs her to draw only safe things like plants and animals, hinting at future vengeance once he and others are ready. Their father Brightlord Davar arrives and confronts Helaran about taking a carriage. Helaran accuses his father of murder; their father denies knowledge of the situation and mentions their mother. Helaran summons a Shardblade—a curved, gemstone-hilted weapon of coalesced mist and silvery steel—and threatens to kill his father with it, shocking both his father and Shallan. When Shallan speaks for the first time in months, begging Helaran not to do it, Helaran is startled by her voice but ultimately withdraws the blade. He tells Shallan he must leave on important work and asks her to draw fanciful, hopeful things. After he departs, their father, overcome with rage and shame, destroys furniture in the chamber before fleeing, unable to meet Shallan's eyes.