Chapter Text
Part 1: Dreaming
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The next morning, Jasnah crawls out of the Valley and back into the sunlight. Weak, but somehow not injured, though her clothes are torn.
She doesn't feel particularly different. Her mind is like she's just been roused at some early hour and hasn't quite had the time to wake up fully, but Jasnah still mostly feels like Jasnah. Her lady's maid helps her dress in fresh clothing, and they rejoin the caravan to resume their trip out of the Valley.
However, that night, Jasnah.. changes. She goes to sleep, and wakes up.. strangely muddled. Her soreness from the day before exacerbated, her mind struggling to move at its usual quick pace, like wading through water rather than running along the shore.
Emotion roars within her. Jasnah is no stranger to strong feelings, but this feels different. They war with each other, vying for control — shame about her decision to visit the Old Magic. Anxiety about what her family will think. Anger at herself for spending so long on what seemed to be a wasted trip. Dread for the future, and what it will bring. It leaves her thoughts spinning, her body feeling strangely ill.
Her lady's maid enters her wagon, concerned, but Jasnah waves her away, dismissing it as simply feeling poorly. She spends the rest of the day in bed, hoping that a good night's sleep would make her feel better. And it does.
The next day, her thoughts feel faster in a way she knows isn't just her imagination. So she bolts upright and goes immediately to her writing desk with only one thing in her mind: this needs further study.
Over the next few weeks, she makes sure to carefully record her condition. It seems that, every day, without fail, her inversely correlated senses of intelligence and emotion change. Not always in particular extremes, as many days she feels about average, but it is consistent. She'll need to design tests, but she can't administer them herself. A problem for another time.
Jasnah focuses on the details. It seems that, regardless of if she is still awake, the change happens instantly at exactly midnight. In one instant, she can think fluidly, and in the next she can barely read what she just wrote down. She'd have to experiement with how it interacts with timezones, though she suspects that it will adjust to the midnight of whatever land she's currently in.
Jasnah makes her way out of the Valley to the coasts of Tu Fallia, then chartering a ship to Kharbranth, staying there for a time as an esteemed guest. And when the opportunity arrives — after the old king, Taravangian, perishes from illness, and his daughter Savrahalidem suffers from the same — Jasnah accepts a place as regent of Kharbranth, effectively its queen. It requires her to give up any remaining political power she had in Alethkar — but that isn't such a big deal, considering she'd never inherit the throne or even be in the line of succession, and hadn't visited her homeland in years. Best that her family remain detached. Jasnah is doing this for them, of course, but also for everyone.
In her rooms in the Conclave, she continues trying to understand her condition. The most frustrating part of all: the point. If this is her boon and/or curse from her trip to the Valley (she still isn't sure if the woman she saw was a hallucination or not, as it's mentioned in zero records she can find), then why give her something so.. innocuous, yet irritating? Each day, her capability slightly different. What kind of boon is that?
Jasnah doesn't understand. Until that day.
After the fact, Jasnah would marvel at how thoroughly she'd transformed the rooms that would become her canvas. Writing etched into the wood of drawers, the backs of paintings, every inch of the floor in an emotion a thousand times more intense than the familiar drive of scholarly mania. Making connections she never would have considered before. Creating the beautiful tapestry of intelligence that would become the Diagram.
She still remembers how she bolted up in bed, exactly as midnight struck. She would work for twenty hours straight, exactly until midnight the next day. Jasnah remembers coming to lucidity, sitting on the floor, her hands and body covered in ink, exhausted from one full day without breaks of any kind.
Afterwards, Jasnah and two of her most trusted attendants would carefully copy each word into thick tomes, creating the Diagram. Most of her work the next few years would involve carefully trying to decode what the brilliant version of her had written. Mere Alethi wasn't an elegant enough vessel for her thoughts, so she'd invented new languages and codes to convey them. Composed poetry, drawn images, even just long sequences of pure numbers.
Afterwards, Jasnah also spends some time recruiting new associates. Mrall, a thick-armed bodyguard with a sharper mind than his appearance suggests, and Jochi, a Veristitalian who had trained with Jasnah under the same master, both Thaylen. She tried to convince Ethid to help her as well, but Jasnash was unwilling to share too much about the Diagram over spanreed and Ethid was unwilling to leave Azir. She also began employing stormwardens — not necessarily for their abilities, but merely because her chosen are smart and dependable, Dukar mostly so.
More surprisingly, Jasnah came into contact with Redin, the bastard son of Highprince Valam, while he was visiting Kharbranth. The Diagram doesn't specifically mention him, but he quickly proved himself dependable, and possibly very useful in the future to come.
After creating the Diagram, Jasnah also devised formal tests for herself. A series of increasingly intricate questions, ranging from math to reading comprehension to ethical quandaries, as well as a scale to make grading each test easy. Score too low, on an emotional day, and she'd be forbidden from making policy decisions or interpreting the Diagram. Score too high, on an intelligent day, and the consequence would be the same. Most days end up somewhere in the middle, capable of normal functioning.
Jasnah tries not to think of them as "good" or "bad" days. Heartless intelligence — such as the time she'd tried to draft a law requiring all Kharbranth citizens to take a similar intelligence test, and anyone who scored too low would be required to kill themselves — can be just as harmful as shallow sentimentality. On particularly bad days, Jasnah will simply stay in her room, citing poor sleep or no desire for social interaction — but in reality, often spending much of the day crying when faced with the weight of her responsibility and the death that will come. But.. such is the burden of all leaders, Jasnah supposes.
Rumors persist, as they always do, among those with no ability to think critically. Speaking of Jasnah's secret lovers, or firemoss addiction, or failing mind. None are true. But the nature of her malady is such that few ordinary people would believe her, and much of the Diagram's information is too dangerous to share among the people. Its words are meant for Jasnah and her associates alone.
Many people simply think Jasnah became queen of Kharbranth because her family doesn't want her. Not entirely untrue, although she has come to appreciate the city for its beauty. Its colors, and its variety, and its hospitals — and the secret rooms deep below, where Jasnah's researchers collect Death Rattles. She spends much of her time studying them, trying to match them to parts of the Diagram.
Her time on intelligent days is spent in reserach, and her time on emotional days is spent visiting her city and showing the people she cares. Because of course Jasnah cares. It should be obvious at this point — if Jasnah doesn't care, then why would she be doing all of this? Why would she bear the cost? All leaders must deal with the weight of their guilt, so their people can be free of it.
Clearly, Jasnah does this for no other reason than the good of all Roshar.