Free The Slow Regard of Silent Things: A Kingkiller Chronicle Novella (The Kingkiller Chronicle) by Patrick Rothfuss Page B

her all wide eyed at night. She’d learned to sleep with worse than that. Back in the times before he’d come. Back in the years before she had her sweet new perfect name.
    No. She knew what the problem was. She slid out of her bed and brought out one of her few matches. It struck on the first try, and Auri smiled white in the red light of its sulfurious flaring.
    She lit the spirit lamp and carried it to Port. Guiltily, she removed her blanket from the wine rack where she’d stuffed it. She smoothed it gently out across the table, murmuring an apology. And she
was
sorry. She knew better. Cruelty never helped the turning of the world.
    She folded the blanket carefully then, her hands gentle. She matched the corners and kept it square and true. Then she found the proper place for it upon the bookshelf, and brought the smooth grey stone so that it wouldn’t want for company. It would be cold at night, and she would miss it. But it was happy there. Didn’t it deserve to be happy? Didn’t everything deserve its proper place?
    Still, she cried a bit as she tucked the blanket in, settling it on the shelf.
    Auri made her way back into Mantle and sat on her bed. Then she went back to Port to make sure her crying hadn’t skewed things all about. But no. She brushed the blanket with her hands, comforting. It was as it should be. It was happy.
    Back in Mantle, Auri moved about the bare room, making sure everything was as it should be. Her thinking chair was just so. Her cedar box was flush against the wall. Foxen’s dish and dropper jar were resting on the bedshelf. The brazen gear sat in its niche, indifferent to the world.
    The fireplace was empty: clean and trim. Her bedside table held her tiny silver cup. Above the fireplace on the mantelpiece sat her perfect yellow leaf. Her small strong box of stone. Her grey glass jar with kind, dried lavender inside. Her ring of sweet, warm autumn gold.
    Auri touched each of these, making sure of them. They were everything they ought to be and nothing else. They were fine as fine.
    Despite all of this, she felt unsettled. Here, in her most perfect place.
    Auri hurried down to Borough, brought back a broom, and set to sweeping Mantle’s floor.
    It took an hour. Not because of any mess. But Auri swept slowly and carefully. And there was quite a lot of floor. She didn’t often think of it, as Mantle hardly needed tending any more. But it
was
a big place.
    It was hers, and the place loved her, and she fit here like a pea in her own perfect pod. But even so, there was a lot of empty floor.
    The floor all fresh, Auri returned the broom. On her way back she wandered through Port to check on the blanket. It seemed to be doing well, but she brought the hollybottle over to keep it company too, just in case. It was a terrible thing to be lonely.
    She stepped back into Mantle again and set the spirit lamp on her table. She took her three remaining matches out of her pocket and put them on the table too.
    As she sat on the edge of her bed, Auri realized what was out of place. She was herself in disarray. She’d seen something in Tumbrel and not tended to it. Auri thought of the three-mirrored vanity and a tickling finger of guilt ran itself along the edge of her heart.
    Even so. She was tired down in her bones now. Weary and hurt. Perhaps just this once . . .
    Auri frowned and shook her head furiously. She was a wicked thing sometimes. All full of want. As if the shape of the world depended on her mood. As if she were important.
    So she stood and made her slow way back to Tumbrel. Down Crumbledon. Through Wains. Through circle-perfect Annulet and up the unnamed stair.
    After climbing through the broken wall, Auri looked hard at the vanity in the flickering light. As she did, she could feel her heart rise slightly in her chest. The shifting light against three mirrors, it made countless shadows dance across the bottles there.
    Stepping closer, Auri watched carefully. She would never have seen