Free The Hope of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson Page B

life being ignored and
feeling useless. Yet, inside of Elantris she was needed. Important.
The children looked up to her, and she didn't have to worry about
begging or stealing food.
    True, things had been fairly bad before Karata had found her in
a sludge-filled alley. And, there were the wounds. Matisse had one
on her cheek-a cut she'd gotten soon after entering Elantris. It
still burned with the same pain it had the moment she'd gotten it.
Yet, that was a small price to pay. At Karata's palace, Matisse had
found her first real taste of usefulness. That sense of belonging
had only grown stronger when Matisse-along with the rest of
Karata's band-had moved to New Elantris.
    Of course, there was something else she'd gained by getting
thrown into Elantris: a father.
    Dashe turned, smiling in the lanternlight as she saw her
approach. He wasn't her real father, of course. She'd been an
orphan even before the Shaod had taken her. And, like Karata, Dashe
was kind of a 'parent' to all of the children they'd found and
brought to the palace.
    Yet, Dashe seemed to have a special affection for Matisse. The
stern warrior smiled more when Matisse was around, and she was the
one he called on when he needed something important done. One day,
she'd simply started calling him Father. He'd never objected.
    He laid a hand on her shoulder as she joined him at the very
edge of the courtyard. In front of them, a hundred or so people
moved their arms in near unison. Their fingers left glowing lines
in the air behind them-the trails of light that had once produced
the magics of AonDor. Galladon stood at the front of the group,
shouting out instructions in his loose Dula drawl.
    "Never thought I'd see the day when that Dula taught people
Aons," Dashe said quietly, his other hand resting on the pommel of
his sword.
    He's tense too
, Matisse thought. She looked up. "Be
nice, Father. Galladon is a good man."
    "He's a good man, perhaps," Dashe said. "But he's no scholar. He
messes up the lines more than not."
    Matisse didn't point out that Dashe himself was pretty terrible
when it came to drawing Aons. She eyed Dashe, noting the frown on
his lips. "You're mad that Spirit hasn't come back yet," she
said.
    Dashe nodded. "He should be here, with his people, not chasing
that woman."
    "There might be important things for him to learn outside,"
Matisse said quietly. "Things to do with other nations and
armies."
    "The outside doesn't concern us," Dashe said. He could be a
stubborn one, at times.
    Well, most times, actually.
    At the front of the crowd, Galladon spoke. "Good," he said.
"That's Aon Daa-the Aon for power. Kolo? Now, we have to practice
adding the Chasm Line. We won't add it to Aon Daa. Don't want to
blow holes in our pretty sidewalks now, do we? We'll practice it on
Aon Rao instead-that one doesn't seem to do anything
important."
    Matisse frowned. "What's he talking about, Father?"
    Dashe shrugged. "Seems that Spirit believes the Aons might work
now, for some reason. We've been drawing them wrong all along, or
something like that. I can't see how the scholars who designed them
could have missed an entire line for every Aon, though."
    Matisse doubted that scholars had ever 'designed' the Aons.
There was just something to. . .primal about them. They were things
of nature. They hadn't been designed-any more than the wind had
been designed.
    Still, she said nothing. Dashe was a kind and determined man,
but he didn't have much of a mind for scholarship. That was fine
with Matisse-it had been Dashe's sword, in part, that had saved New
Elantris from destruction at the hands of the wildmen. There was no
finer warrior in all of New Elantris than her father.
    Yet, she did watch with curiosity as Galladon talked about the
new line. It was a strange one, drawn across the bottom of the
Aon.
    And. . .this makes the Aons work?
She thought. It
seemed like such a simple fix. Could it be possible?
    The sound of a cleared throat came from behind them, and they
turned,