During my visit to the museum, I noticed many of the familiar red stamps. Some were, of course, the stamps of the artists—but there were others. One piece of calligraphy was covered in them. Lucie and Sherry explained: Ancient Chinese scholars and nobility, if they liked a work of art, would sometimes stamp it with their stamp too. One emperor in particular loved to do this, and would take beautiful sculptures or pieces of jade—centuries old—and have his stamp and perhaps some lines of his poetry carved into them.

What a fascinating mind-set. Imagine being a king, deciding that you particularly liked Michelangelo’s David, and so having your signature carved across the chest. That’s essentially what this was.

The concept was so striking, I began playing with a stamp magic in my head. Soulstamps, capable of rewriting the nature of an object’s existence. I didn’t want to stray too close to Soulcasting from the Stormlight world, and so instead I used the inspiration of the museum—of history—to devise a magic that allowed rewriting an object’s past.

The story grew from that starting place. As the magic aligned a great deal with a system I’d been developing for Sel, the world where Elantris takes place, I set the story there. (I also had based several cultures there on our-world Asian cultures, so it fit wonderfully.)

You can’t always write what you know—not exactly what you know. You can, however, write what you see.

The Hope of Elantris

THE
HOPE
OF
ELANTRIS

This story takes place after and contains major spoilers for Elantris.

“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.