Kaladin took a deep breath, though part of him was tearing inside. “Another farewell then.”
“A temporary one, I hope,” Rlain said. Then, looking somewhat awkward, he held out his hands and gave Kaladin an embrace. Rlain had never seemed fond of that human custom, but Kaladin was glad for the gesture.
“Thank you,” Rlain said, pulling back. “For trusting me to make this decision.”
“That’s what you said you wanted, all those months ago,” Kaladin said. “When I promised I’d listen.”
“To be trusted and acknowledged,” Rlain said.
“I keep my oaths, Rlain. Especially to friends.”
“I’m not going to join them, Kal. I am a spy. That is my training—as best my kind could offer. I’ll find a way to help from the inside. Remember that the first people Odium destroyed when he returned were not human, but listener.”
“Bridge Four,” Kaladin said.
“Life before death,” Rlain returned. Then he slipped away toward the interior of the tower.
Syl remained seated on the banister. Kaladin leaned against the stone, waiting for a cheerful line from Syl. When others tried to console him with laughs, it often struck him as false, unnecessary. But from her … well, she helped pull him out of the deep waters.
“They’re all going to leave, aren’t they?” she whispered instead. “Moash, Rock, now Rlain … every one of them. They’re going to leave. Or … or worse…” She looked at Kaladin, uncharacteristically solemn. “They’ll all go away, and then there will be nothingness.”
“Syl,” Kaladin said. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“It’s true though,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“I won’t leave you.”
“Like you almost did?” she said softly. “My old knight … he didn’t want to leave.… It’s not his fault. He was mortal though. Everyone dies. Except me.”
“Syl?” Kaladin said. “What’s wrong? Is whatever they did to the tower affecting you?”
She was silent for a time, staring out over the green clouds. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m sorry. That’s not what you needed, is it? I can be perky. I can be happy. See?” She launched into the air, becoming a line of light that zipped around his head.
“I didn’t mean—” Kaladin said.
“Don’t be such a worrier,” she cut in. “Can’t you take a joke these days, Kaladin? Come on. We need to get back to the clinic.”
She zipped off, and—confused, worried, but most of all just exhausted—he followed.
* * *
Navani watched as her people worked, infusing the gemstone at the center of the small chamber. They had borrowed a second tuning fork from the Thaylen scholars, doubling their speed.
Such a simple tool. She and Rushu had theorized for hours about the process the Thaylen artifabrians were using—guessing everything from hidden Radiants to intricate machinery that mimicked water osmosis methods, which followed similar scientific principles to Light infusion. In the end, their actual method was far, far humbler.
Wasn’t that often how it turned out? Science seemed easy in retrospect. Why hadn’t the ancients figured out you could intentionally trap a spren in a gemstone? Why hadn’t they discovered that a split gemstone would be paired? Add a little aluminum for the cage, and you could do incredible things. With this knowledge, people four thousand years ago could have had flying ships as easily as Navani’s people.
True, the hundreds of tiny leaps that led to advances were not as intuitive as they seemed. Regardless, it left Navani wondering. What wonders could she create if she knew the next few leaps that would appear simple to her descendants? What marvelous creations did she brush past each day, lying in pieces, waiting to be combined?
More thunder sounded; she hoped that the continued noise was a good sign for Teofil and his men. Move faster, she willed the Stormlight. Unfortunately, something was odd about this gemstone. Though the new Thaylen method did indeed transfer Stormlight quickly, the strange fabrial seemed to be drinking far too much in. They’d emptied most of the spheres they’d brought, and still the sapphire barely glowed. They seemed to be injecting Light not just into the gemstone, but into the entire network of gemstones and crystal veins.
Was it actually a fabrial? Navani didn’t recognize the cage, though it did have metal wire running around it. And why did it have a glass globe, the size of her fist, set off to the side in its own nook and attached to the gemstone by wires?
As her scholars worked, emptying one gemstone after the other, Navani brushed the back of her freehand fingers against a vein of garnet in the wall.
You must move quickly, the Sibling said in her mind.
“We are going as fast as we can,” Navani whispered. “Are my soldiers still alive?”
I cannot see them, the Sibling said. My vision is limited, in ways that are confusing to me, as it was not always so. But I think the soldiers you sent are close. I can hear shouts nearby the crystal heart of the tower.
Navani closed her eyes, hoping the Almighty would accept a whispered prayer, as she had no glyphward to burn.
Hurry, the Sibling said. Hurry.
She glanced toward the pile of gemstones. Fortunately, the Thaylen method could move Stormlight between different types of polestone. “We are trying. Do you know why spren prefer different kinds of gemstones?”
Because they are different, the Sibling said. Why do humans prefer one kind of food to another?
“Yet foods dyed different colors—but with the same taste—are often equally acceptable to us.” Navani nodded to a small pile of emeralds. “Many gemstones are identical, at least by their structure. We think they might even have the same basic chemical composition.”
Color is like flavor to spren, the Sibling said. It is part of the soul of a thing.
Curious.
You must move quickly, the Sibling repeated. The Lady of Pains has the Surge of Transformation and dangerous knowledge. She will infuse my entire heart—the pillar—in the proper order, using her Voidlight. In so doing, she would corrupt me and leave me … leave me as one of the Unmade.…
“And what we do here will defend you?” Navani whispered.
Yes. It will erect a barrier, preventing anyone—human, Unmade, or singer—from reaching me.
“That would stop Teofil too,” Navani said. “From breaking the construction that is blocking our Radiants.”
Teofil is doomed, the Sibling said. You must hurry. Navani, they have activated the Oathgate again. Fresh enemy troops have arrived.
“How are they working it? They have Skybreakers, but they should be as limited as our Radiants, right?”
They brought a human with one of the Honorblades.
Moash. The murderer. Navani felt her anger rising. There was, unfortunately, little more she could do.
Quickly. Please. Quickly … The Sibling seemed to hesitate. Wait. Something has happened. The Lady of Pains has stopped.
* * *
Venli witnessed the last push of the human soldiers. She stood at the base of the steps—which were of an odd sort. The stairwell up to the ground floor was a large column of open space. Steps wound around the outside wall of the cylinder. They looked so narrow and uncertain, hanging as they did with a cavity of open space up the center.
It was pure madness to attempt to fight down such steep and uncertain footing while harried by Fused and Regals. Yet the humans made a valiant run of it. They locked shields and moved together with a precision that Venli’s sister had always admired. While listeners would fight as warpairs, in tune with one another and the rhythms of Roshar, humans seemed to have their own kind of symbiosis—forged from hours upon hours spent training.
A canopy of shields protected against Heavenly Ones, who hovered about the formation, trying to stab with their lances—but indoors, they didn’t have proper room to maneuver. Before beginning their assault, the humans had poured barrels of water into the breach here—and it had rained up
on the stormform Regals below. Their powers reacted poorly around water, something Venli had always found somewhat ironic.
The descent was so dramatic that Venli sent for Raboniel, interrupting the Fused’s work with the pillar. Raboniel marched out and looked up with shock at how close the humans were.
“Quickly,” she snapped at the nearby stormforms. “Up those steps! Engage the soldiers directly!”
They obeyed, but with their powers dampened by the water, they were no match for the troops. The humans stabbed them dead or forced them off the sides of the steps, pushing ever downward, rounding the circular wall, grimly stepping over the bodies of their fallen comrades and maintaining a front line that was three men wide.
“Amazing,” Raboniel whispered. The humans fought like a great-shelled beast—a winding, relentless chasmfiend, all armor and teeth.
Raboniel waved for the rest of the Deepest Ones to join the fight—but even these proved ineffective. They had disrupted the formation a few times early on, shoving their hands out of walls to push men, or reaching out from the side to grab ankles. These soldiers, however, quickly adapted. The men closest to the wall now marched with swords out, watching for Deepest Ones. More than one disembodied arm dropped to the ground near Venli, joining the fallen men and Regals who had lost their footing.
Standing there beside an increasingly angry Raboniel, Venli thought the humans might make it. Led by a grizzled older soldier—and reduced from hundreds to just fifty—they barreled stubbornly onward. Venli found herself cheering them silently, Timbre exulting to the Rhythm of Hope. She cared little for the humans as a whole, but it was impossible to watch such a display of tenacity without being impressed.
This was why her people had dwindled, nearly vanished, during their years at war with the humans. It wasn’t entirely the human access to Shards, or their incredible resources. It was the way they, individually weaker than any listener, worked together. They had no forms, but compensated with training, sacrificing individuality until they were practically spren—having become so good at a single thing, they could never change to another purpose.
They rounded the next loop, only twenty feet from the ground, while Raboniel began shouting for more Deepest Ones. Then a red line of light zipped down from above. The Pursuer had arrived.
He materialized in the very center of the formation of humans, swinging out with arms bearing sharpened carapace. The formation shattered as the men frantically tried to reorient to this new foe—but of course the Pursuer zipped back into the air. He left behind a dummy, a fake carapace version of himself. The humans began stabbing it repeatedly as the real Pursuer appeared with a crash among another segment of the line.
As quickly as that, the tide changed.
The Heavenly Ones found holes in the shield wall to begin stabbing individual humans. The Deepest Ones used the confusion to grab sword arms or trip soldiers. A small group of humans, led by the older veteran, tried to surge forward and dash the rest of the way—but the Regals near Venli had toweled dry, and they managed to unleash a collective bolt of lightning that destroyed the steps in a wide gap right in front of the men.
The human leader, and the men closest to him, dropped with the rubble to die. The rest began a frantic attempt at retreat. It ended quickly.
Raboniel changed her rhythm to one of Relief, then strode back into the mural-lined corridor toward the pillar. Unwilling to watch the final slaughter, Venli turned and scurried alongside her. The sounds of bodies falling—the din of armor against stone—chased them all the way.
* * *
It is done, the Sibling whispered to Navani. Your men have fallen.
“Are you certain?” Navani asked. “What do you see?”
I used to be able to watch the entire tower. Now … I see just patches. A small portion of the sixth floor. A room on the fourth floor, with a cage in it. The place nearest the Lady of Pains. She returns. She will kill me now.
The large gemstone her people had been working on—finally primed with Stormlight—began glowing brightly. The light inside it started to shift and dance, furious. Then it drained away, vanishing.
Navani felt a spike of alarm, until the Sibling spoke into her mind. It worked. Melishi … I have hated you … but now I bless you. It worked. I am safe, for now.
Navani let out a relieved breath.
If they reach the gemstone you just infused, the Sibling said, they could corrupt me through it. You will need to destroy it.
“Will that break the shield?” Navani forced out.
No. It will weaken the shield, but that is better than the alternative. You cannot defend this place. Your soldiers on the steps have fallen.
She breathed out, and would remember to burn a prayer for the fallen when she could. But if Teofil had been killed … then the tower was captured. Navani’s only course was to surrender. She would have to hope that the barrier would last long enough either for Dalinar to reach them, or for Navani to find a way to free the Radiants.
Assuming she wasn’t killed. The Fused did not often slaughter indiscriminately, but there were reports of them executing high-ranking lighteyes. That depended on the Fused who led the individual forces, and how much the people resisted.
“Shatter that sapphire,” she said to her scholars. “Destroy the entire fabrial, cage included, and that glass globe. Send people to both the map room and the information vault to burn our maps of the tower. The rest of you, join me. We must find a way to deliver a formal surrender without being killed before we can make our intentions known.”
* * *
Raboniel approached the pillar again with some eagerness. Venli stood nearby as the Fused reached up to touch a specific set of gemstones that were embedded in the construction, then began infusing those with Voidlight.
As soon as she’d begun, though, she hesitated. “Something curious is happening here. There is Stormlight in the system. That shouldn’t be possible; the Sibling cannot create it.”
“I thought that Stormlight was what the Radiants, and their fabrials, always used,” Venli said.
“The tower is something else.” She glanced at Venli, noting her confusion—and unlike many Fused, she chose to explain. “The Sibling—the tower, Urithiru—is the child of Honor and Cultivation, created to fight Odium. The place runs on the Sibling’s Light, a mixture of the essences of its parents. Stormlight alone shouldn’t be able to work the tower’s core systems. Stormlight, to the Sibling, is incomplete. Like a key missing several of its teeth.”
“And with Voidlight, you’re using a key … with no teeth?” Venli asked.
“I’m not using a key at all. I’m breaking the lock.” Raboniel put her hands on the pillar, infusing another specific gemstone. “The Sibling is insensate, completely unaware that we are here. That I can determine. I can corrupt them, awaken them to serve us. Just as I expected. But also, there is Stormlight. I feel it, a large amount. Perhaps … it’s simply the power they’re using to work the pumps, or the lifts. Not true parts of the Sibling; systems added later, attached to the construction. Those could take Stormlight alone.…”
Raboniel stopped and stepped back, humming to Craving—a rhythm to indicate confusion or a question. And then a wave of blue light began to expand from the pillar. She stumbled away, and Venli joined her, dashing out into the corridor—where the blue light stopped and seemed to solidify, blocking the way.
Raboniel stepped forward and rested a hand on it. “Solid,” she said. “And powered by Stormlight, judging by the tone…”
Venli anticipated anger. This shield, whatever it was, clearly thwarted whatever the Lady of Wishes was doing. Instead she seemed fascinated.
“Remarkable, truly remarkable,” Raboniel said, tapping the shield with her knife. It clicked like glass when touched. “This is incredible.”
“Does it ruin our plans?” Venli asked.
“Absolutely.”
“And … you don’t mind?”
“Of course not. This is
going to be so interesting to crack open. I was right. The answers, the way to end the war, must be here.”
A shimmer of red lightning moved across the ground up the hallway. Venli had seen this before—a spren like lightning running along a surface. Indeed, it materialized into the shape of a small human—not a singer, but a human, with odd eyes and hair that waved in an unseen wind.
Ulim. The first Voidspren she’d ever met, all those years ago. “Lady of Wishes,” he said, performing a flowery bow. “We have located the Blackthorn’s wife, queen of this tower.”
“Oh?” Raboniel asked. “Where was she hiding?”
“A Deepest One—the Caller of Springs—found her near a strange fabrial that is now unfortunately destroyed. The Caller summoned a force and captured Queen Blackthorn, who has come peacefully. She is now asking to speak with whomever was leading our assault. Shall I have her killed?”
“Don’t be wasteful, Ulim,” Raboniel said. “The Blackthorn’s wife will make a very useful pawn. I would have thought better of you.”
“Normally I would be nothing but eager for a new toy,” Ulim said. “But this woman is dangerous and crafty. Reports say she’s the one who created the flying machine that raided Alethkar last month.”
“Then we certainly won’t kill her,” Raboniel said.
“She could be seen as a symbol to the people of this tower…” Ulim said. Then the small spren cocked his head, looking at the shield covering the doorway. “What’s that?”
“You only just noticed it?” Venli asked.
Ulim glanced at her, then turned away, pretending to ignore her. What did he think of Venli now, all these years later? He’d made such promises to her. Was he embarrassed that she’d lived, knowing what a liar he was?
“It is a puzzle,” Raboniel said. “Come. I would meet this queen of the tower.”
* * *
Navani composed herself, standing with hands clasped before her, surrounded by singer soldiers. Though the effects of fatigue made her want to droop, she kept her head high. She wished she had chosen a formal havah today, instead of this simple work dress with a gloved hand, but that couldn’t be helped. A queen was a queen, regardless of what she wore. She kept her expression calm, though she wasn’t certain whether she was awaiting imprisonment or death.
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