“We want to win,” Rlain said. “Free the tower. Restore the Radiants.”
“And if we can’t plausibly do that?” Kaladin leaned his head forward and opened his eyes. They’d gone dark again, of course, now that he’d been days without his Blade. The longer you kept your spren bonded, the more slowly the color faded. “I have to at least ask. Is it possible my father is correct? I’m starting to worry about what we might cause people to do if we keep fighting.”
They grew quiet. And storm Teft if it wasn’t a valid question. One not enough soldiers asked themselves. Right here, right now, should I be fighting? Is there a better way?
Teft took a spoonful of soup. “Did Sigzil ever explain to you boys how I got my father killed?”
The other occupants of the room turned to stare at him with slack jaws. He knew the rumors of what he’d done had moved through Bridge Four—and in the past he’d snapped at people who’d asked him about it. Storming fools.
“What?” Teft said. “It happened a long time ago. I’m over it, mostly. And a man shouldn’t hide from what he’s done. Gotta air things like this.” He dug into his soup, but found his appetite waning. He set the bowl aside, and Phendorana put her hand on his.
“You were … young, weren’t you?” Kaladin asked, carefully.
“I was eight when my father died,” Teft said. “But the problems all started far earlier. It was some travelers, I think, who introduced the idea to the people of my hometown. Not quite a city. You might know it. Talinar? No? Nice place. Smells like flowers. Least in my memory it does. Anyway, the people of the town started meeting secretly. Talking about things they shouldn’t have. The return of the Lost Radiants.”
“How do you think they knew?” Kaladin asked. “You gave me Stormlight when I was dying, all the way back when I didn’t know what I was doing. You recognized that it would heal me.”
“Teft and I used to think,” Phendorana said, “that the group who visited Teft’s hometown—the Envisagers, they called themselves—were servants of some important lighteyes in Kholinar. Maybe they overheard what people like Amaram were planning, and ran with it. Only…”
“… Only that was forty-five years ago,” Teft said. “And when I asked Brightness Shallan about the group Amaram was part of, everything she’d found indicated they’d started less than ten years ago. But that’s beside the point. I mean, I only met the leaders once, when my parents brought me to the initiation ceremony.”
He shivered, remembering. The blasphemous things they’d chanted—shrouded in dark robes, with spheres affixed to masks to represent glowing eyes—had terrified the boy he’d been. But that hadn’t been the worst. The worst had been what they’d done to try to become Radiants. The things they’d pushed their members to do. His mother had been one of those.…
“It turned dark,” Teft said. “The things my people—my family—did … Well, I was around eight when I went to the citylord. I told him, thinking he’d run the worst of the troublemakers out of town. I didn’t realize…”
“What nahn was your family?” Kaladin asked.
“Sixth,” Teft said. “Should have been high enough to avoid execution. My mother was already dead by then, and my father…” He glanced up at the rest of them, and felt their sympathy. Well, he didn’t want any storming sympathy. “Don’t look at me like that. It was a long time ago, like I said. I eventually joined the military to get away from that town.
“It haunted me for a long time. But ultimately, you know what? You know Kelek’s own storming truth? Because of what my parents did and taught me, I was able to save you, Kal. They won in the end. They were right in the end.” He picked up his soup and forced himself to begin eating it. “We can’t storming see the future, like Renarin can. We’ve gotta do what we think is best, and be fine with that. It’s all a man can do.”
“You think we should keep fighting?” Rlain said.
“I think,” Teft said, “that we need to rescue those Radiants. Maybe we don’t need to fight, but we’ve got to get them out. I don’t like the smell of what you’ve been telling me. Lined up like that, watched over? The enemy is planning something for our friends.”
“I can wake them,” Lift said. “But they ain’t gonna be in fightin’ shape. And I’ll need a whole bunch of food. Like … an entire chull’s worth.”
“If we can wake them,” Rlain said, “we don’t need to fight. We can have them run. Escape.”
“How?” Kaladin asked. “We can’t possibly hope to get all the way to the Oathgates.”
“There’s a window,” Rlain said. “In the infirmary room. We can break it maybe, and escape out that way.”
“To fall hundreds of feet,” Kaladin said.
“That might take the Windrunners out of the influence of the tower,” Teft said with a grunt. He thought about dropping hundreds of feet, not knowing if his powers would reactivate before he hit bottom. “I’d try it, and prove it can be done. The rest of you could watch and see if I fly up in the distance. If I do, you could follow.”
Kaladin rubbed his forehead. “Assuming we could break the glass. Assuming we could get enough Stormlight to infuse the Windrunners. Assuming they’re strong enough, after being incapacitated for so long, to try something that insane. Look, I like that we’re exploring ideas … but we need to take time to consider all our options.”
Teft nodded. “You’re the officer. I leave the decision to you.”
“I’m not an officer any longer, Teft,” Kaladin said.
Teft let the objection slide, though it was completely wrong. One thing a good sergeant knew was when to let the officer be wrong. And Kaladin was an officer. He’d acted like one even when he’d been a slave. Like he’d been raised by a bunch of lighteyes or something. His official status or rank couldn’t change what he was.
“For now,” Kaladin said, “we wait. If we have to, we will break in and rescue the Radiants. But first we need to recover, we need to plan, and we need to find a way to contact the queen. I’d like her input.”
“I might be able to get in to see her,” Rlain said. “They have servants cart food and water to her and her scholars. Venli’s people are often assigned that detail, and I could hide my tattoo and substitute for one of them.”
“Good,” Kaladin said. “That would be great. And while we wait, we don’t do anything too rash. Agreed?”
The others nodded, even Lift and Dabbid. Teft too, though this wasn’t the sort of situation where you had luxuries like time to come up with the perfect plan. Teft determined he’d just have to be ready to act. Take that next storming step. You couldn’t change the past, only the future.
He ate his soup as the conversation turned to lighter topics, and found himself smiling. Smiling because they were still together. Smiling because he’d made the right decision to stay in the tower when Kal needed him. Smiling because he had survived so long without moss or drink, and was able to wake up and see color to the world.
Smiling because, for how bad everything could be, some things were still good.
He shifted as Phendorana poked him. He looked over and caught her grinning as well.
“Fine,” he muttered. “You were storming right. You have always been right.”
Teft was worth saving.
The bond is what keeps us alive. You sever that, and we will slowly decompose into ordinary souls—with no valid Connection to the Physical or Spiritual Realms. Capture one of us with your knives, and you won’t be left with a spren in a jar, foolish ones. You’ll be left with a being that eventually fades away into the Beyond.
Venli stood dutifully beside Raboniel, acting as her Voice as daily reports were delivered. Mostly Venli was here to interpret. While Raboniel had learned Alethi quite well—she claimed to have always been talented at languages—many of their current group of Regals spoke Azish, having been parshmen in that region.
Today Raboniel took the reports while sitting on a throne at the mouth of the hallway with the murals. This mean
t they were at the bottom of the stairwell leading upward to the ground floor. Venli couldn’t help but be reminded of the humans who had died in the last hopeless push to reach the crystal pillar. Those memories were laced with the scents of burning flesh and the sounds of bodies hitting the ground.
Venli glanced at the freshly built portion of steps, hastily constructed with scaffolding underneath to replace the part broken during the fighting. Then she attuned Indifference—a rhythm of Odium. She had to be certain those rhythms continued to punctuate her words, though lately they made her mouth feel coated in oil.
“The Lady of Wishes hears your report,” Venli said to the current Regal, who stood bowed before them. “And commends you on your Passion for the search—but you are wrong, she says. The Windrunner is alive. You are to redouble your efforts.”
The Regal—wearing a sleek form known as relayform, often worn by scouts—bowed lower. Then she retreated up the steps.
“I believe that is the last of them, Ancient One,” Venli said to Raboniel.
Raboniel nodded and rose from her throne, then walked into the hallway leading to the two scholar rooms. Her specially tailored Alethi-style dress fluttered as she walked, accentuating the lean, thin pieces of carapace armor along her arms and chest.
Venli followed; the Fused hadn’t indicated she should withdraw. Though Raboniel had a workstation and desk set up at the end of the hallway, she always preferred to take reports out near the stairwell. It was as if Raboniel lived two separate lives here. The commander-general of the singer armies seemed so different from the scholar who cared nothing for the war. The second Raboniel was the truer one, Venli thought.
“Last Listener,” Raboniel mused. “Last no more. Your people were the only group of singers to successfully reject Fused rule and make their own kingdom.”
“Were there … unsuccessful attempts?” Venli dared ask, to Craving.
“Many,” Raboniel said. She hummed to Ridicule. “Do not make the same mistake as the humans, assuming that the singers have always been of one mind. Yes, forms change our thinking at times, but they merely enhance what’s inside. They bring out different aspects of our personalities.
“Humans have always tried to claim that we are nothing but drones controlled by Odium. They like that lie because it makes them feel better about killing us. I wonder if it assuaged their guilt on the day they stole the minds of those they enslaved.”
Raboniel’s desk was nestled right up against the shield—which, once a bright blue, had grown dark and violet.
Raboniel sat and began looking through her notes. “Do you regret what you personally did, Last Listener?” she asked to Spite. “Do you hate yourself for your betrayal of your people?”
Timbre pulsed. Venli should have lied.
Instead she said, “Yes, Ancient One.”
“That is well,” Raboniel said. “We all pay dearly for our choices, and the pain lingers, when one is immortal. I suspect you still crave the chance to become a Fused. But I have found in you a second soul, a regretful soul.
“I am pleased to discover it. Not because I admire one who regrets their service—and you should know Odium does not look favorably upon second-guessing. Nevertheless, I had thought you to be like so many others. Abject in your cravings, ambitious to a fault.”
“I was that femalen,” Venli whispered. “Once.”
Raboniel glanced at her sharply, and Venli realized her mistake. She’d said it to the Lost. One of the old rhythms that Regals weren’t supposed to be able to hear.
Raboniel narrowed her eyes and hummed to Spite. “And what are you now?”
“Confused,” Venli said, also to Spite. “Ashamed. I used to know what I wanted, and it seemed so simple. And then…”
“Then?”
“They all died, Ancient One. People I … loved dearly, without realizing the depth of my feelings. My sister. My once-mate. My mother. All just … gone. Because of me.”
Timbre pulsed reassuringly. But Venli didn’t want reassurance or forgiveness at that moment.
“I understand,” Raboniel said.
Venli stepped closer, then knelt beside the table. “Why do we fight?” she asked to Craving. “Ancient One, if it costs so much, why fight? Why suffer so much to secure a land we will not be able to enjoy, because all those we love will be gone?”
“It is not for us that we fight,” Raboniel said. “It is not for our comfort that we destroy, but for the comfort of those who come after. We sing rhythms of Pain so they may know rhythms of Peace.”
“And will he ever let us sing to Peace?”
Raboniel did not respond. She shuffled through a few papers on her table. “You have served me well,” she said. “A little distractedly, perhaps. I ascribe that to your true allegiance being to Leshwi, and your reports to her interfering with your duties to me.”
“I am sorry, Ancient One.”
Raboniel hummed to Indifference. “I should have arranged for a regular meeting for you to give her your spy reports. Maybe I could have written them for you, to save time. At any rate, I cannot fault you for loyalty to her.”
“She … doesn’t like you very much, Ancient One.”
“She is afraid of me because she is shortsighted,” Raboniel said. “But Leshwi is among the best we have, for she has managed to not only remember why we fight, but to feel it. I am fond of Leshwi. She makes me think that once we win, there will be some Fused who can rule effectively. Even if she is too softhearted for the brutalities we now must perpetuate.”
Raboniel selected a paper off the desk and handed it to Venli. “Here. Payment for your services. My time in the tower runs short; I will finish unmaking the Sibling, and then will be on to other tasks. So I will now dismiss you. If you survive what comes next, there is a chance you may find some peace of your own, Venli.”
Venli took the paper, humming to Craving. “Ancient One,” she said, “I am a weak servant. Because I am so confused about what I want, I do not deserve your praise.”
“In part, this is true,” Raboniel said. “But I like confusion. Too often we belittle it as a lesser Passion. But confusion leads a scholar to study further and push for secrets. No great discovery was ever made by a femalen or malen who was confident they knew everything.
“Confusion can mean you have realized your weaknesses. I forget its value sometimes. Yes, it can lead to paralysis, but also to truth and better Passions. We imagine that great people were always great, never questioning. I think they would hum to Ridicule at that idea. Regardless, take that gift and be off with you. I have much to do in the coming hours.”
Venli nodded, scanning the paper as she rose. She expected a writ of authority—given by Fused to favored servants, granting them extra privileges or requisitions. Indeed, there was exactly that on the front. But on the back was a hastily sketched map. What was this?
“I had hoped to find good maps of the tower,” Raboniel noted to Fury. “But Navani had some burned, and disposed of the others—though she feigns ignorance. This, however, is a report from a human scout who was flying along the eastern rim of the Shattered Plains.”
Upon closer inspection, the page read in the human femalen writing system, it appears the group we assumed were Natan migrants are instead Parshendi. A group of a few thousand, with a large number of children.
Venli read it again.
“Did some of your kind leave?” Raboniel asked absently. “Before the coming of the Everstorm?”
“Yes. Rebels who did not want the new forms, along with the children and the elderly. They … escaped into the chasms. Shortly before the storms met, and the floodwaters came. They … they should have been completely destroyed.…”
“Should have. What a hateful phrase. It has caused me more grief than you could know.” She began writing in one of her notebooks. “Perhaps it has treated you with kindness.”
Venli clutched the paper and ran, not giving Raboniel a proper farewell.
I felt it happen to
Jezrien. You think you captured him, but our god is Splintered, our Oathpact severed. He faded over the weeks, and is gone now. Beyond your touch at long last.
I should welcome the same. I do not. I fear you.
Formless awoke early on the day of Adolin’s final judgment. It was time. She slipped from the bed and began dressing. Unfortunately, she’d moved a little too quickly, as Adolin stirred and yawned.
“Veil’s clothing,” he noted.
Formless didn’t respond, still dressing.
“Thank you,” Adolin said, “for Shallan’s support last night. I needed her.”
“There are some things only she can do,” Formless said. Would that be a problem, now that Shallan no longer existed?
“What’s wrong, Veil?” Adolin said, sitting up in bed. “You seem different.”
Formless pulled on her coat. “Nothing’s different. I’m the same old Veil.”
Don’t you use my name, Veil thought deep inside. Don’t you dare lie to him like that.
Formless stopped. She’d thought Veil locked away.
“No,” Adolin said. “Something is different. Become Shallan for a moment. I could use her optimism today.”
“Shallan is too weak,” Formless said.
“Is she?”
“You know how troubled her emotions are. She suffers every day from a traitorous mind.” She put on her hat.
“I knew a one-armed swordsman once,” Adolin said, yawning. “He had trouble in duels because he couldn’t hold a shield, or two-hand a sword.”
“Obviously,” Formless said, turning and rummaging in her trunk.
“But I tell you,” Adolin said, “no one could arm-wrestle like Dorolin. No one.”
“What is your point?”
“Who do you think is stronger?” Adolin asked. “The man who has walked easily his entire life, or the man with no legs? The man who must pull himself by his arms?”
She didn’t reply, fiddling with the communication cube, then tucking Mraize’s knife into her pocket along with her gemstone of Stormlight.
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