“At last.” Navani stepped over, taking the box from the servant. Inside was a glass tube a little less than a foot in diameter, though it was several feet long, with thick metal caps on the ends.
“And that is?” Raboniel asked.
“A Thaylen vacuum tube,” Navani said. “From the Royal Institute of Barometric Studies. We had this device near the top floor of the tower, where we were doing weather experiments.”
She set the device down and took the notebook back from Raboniel, making a few notations to start her next experiment. The metal caps could be unscrewed to reveal chambers that, with the seals in place, wouldn’t disturb the vacuum in the central glass chamber. She opened one end, then affixed an empty diamond into it. Next she used her jeweler’s hammer to crack a gem full of Voidlight—which made it start to leak. She quickly affixed it into the berth on the other side of the vacuum tube. She redid the ends, then used a fabrial pump to remove the air from the side chambers.
Finally, she undid the clasps that sealed the side berths, opening them to the central vacuum. If she’d done everything correctly, little to no air would enter the central glass chamber—and she now had a gemstone on either end.
Raboniel loomed over Navani as she observed the Voidlight floating out into the vacuum. It didn’t act as air would have—it wasn’t pulled out, for example. Whatever Voidlight was, it didn’t seem to be made up of axi. It was an energy, a power.
“What are we doing?” Raboniel asked softly.
“I believe this is the only way to completely separate Voidlight from the songs of Roshar,” Navani explained. “There can be no sound in a vacuum, as there is no air to transfer the waves. So as this gemstone ejects Voidlight, I’m hoping the Light will not be able to ‘hear’ Odium’s rhythm—for the first time in its existence.”
“You think it doesn’t emit the rhythm itself,” Raboniel said, “but echoes it. Picks it up.”
“Like spren pick up mannerisms from humans,” Navani said. “Or how a piece of metal can be magnetized by touching a magnet over a long period of time.”
“Ingenious,” Raboniel whispered.
“We’ll see,” Navani said. She grabbed her bow, then pressed the plate against the side of the vacuum chamber and began playing her anti-Voidlight tone.
Raboniel winced at the sound. “The Light won’t be able to hear,” she said. “It’s in a vacuum, as you said.”
“Yes, but it’s moving across, and will soon touch the empty diamond at the other side,” Navani said. “I want this to be the first thing it hears when it touches matter.”
They had to wait a good while as the Voidlight drifted in the vacuum, but Navani kept playing. In a way, this was the culmination of her days of fervor. The climax to the symphony of madness she’d been composing.
Voidlight eventually touched the empty diamond and was pulled inside. She waited until a good measure of it had been drawn in, then had Raboniel undo the clasp separating the diamond’s enclosure from the vacuum. Navani opened this to a little pop of sound, then plucked out the diamond. It glowed faintly violet-black. She stared at it, looking closer, until …
Yes. A faint warping of the air around it. She felt a thrill as she handed it to Raboniel—who screamed.
Navani caught the diamond as Raboniel dropped it. The Fused pulled her hand to her breast, humming violently.
“I take it the sound wasn’t pleasant,” Navani said.
“It was like the tone that plate makes,” Raboniel said, “but a thousand times worse. This is a wrongness. A vibration that should not exist.”
“It sounds exactly the same as the tone of Odium to me,” Navani said. She set the gemstone on her desk beside the dagger Raboniel had given her. The one that could channel and move Light.
Navani sat in the chair beside it. Raboniel joined her, moving a stool from beside the wall. Together, both of them stared at the little gemstone that seemed so wrong.
“Navani,” Raboniel said. “This … This changes the world.”
“I know,” Navani said. She rubbed her forehead, sighing.
“You look exhausted,” Raboniel noted.
“I’ve barely slept for days,” Navani admitted. “Honestly, this is all so overwhelming. I need a break, Raboniel. To walk, to think, to gather my wits and get my blood moving again.”
“Go ahead,” Raboniel said. “I’ll wait.” She waved for the guard to go with Navani, though the Fused herself continued staring at the gemstone. In fact, Raboniel was so fixated on the diamond that she didn’t notice Navani take Rhythm of War as she stepped out with the guard into the hallway.
She braced herself. Expecting …
An explosion.
It shook the corridor, striking with such physical force that Navani’s guard jumped in shock. They both spun around to see smoke spewing from the room they’d left. The guard rushed back—grabbing Navani by the arm and hauling her along.
They found chaos. The desk had exploded, and Raboniel lay on the floor. The Fused’s face was a mask of pain, and her front had been shredded—her havah ripped apart, the carapace scored and broken, the skin at her joints stuck with pieces of glass. Or diamond? She hadn’t taken much shrapnel to the head, fortunately for her, though orange blood seeped from a thousand little wounds on her arms and chest.
At any rate, Raboniel was still alive, and Navani’s scheme had failed. Navani had assumed that, in her absence, Raboniel would take the next step—to try mixing Voidlight with the new Light. Raboniel kept saying she expected the Lights to puff away when mixed, vanishing. She didn’t expect the explosion.
Navani had hoped that if she died, it would delay Raboniel’s corruption of the tower long enough for Navani to properly weaponize this new Light. That was not to be. The explosion had been smaller than the one that had destroyed the room with the scholars, and Raboniel was far tougher than a human.
A treasonous part of Navani was glad the Fused had not died. Raboniel sat up, then surveyed the room. Several of the bookshelves had collapsed, spilling their contents. Raboniel’s daughter was still sitting where she’d been, as if she hadn’t even noticed what had happened, despite the fact that she bore cuts on her face. Her attendant appeared to be dead, lying slumped on the ground, facedown. Navani felt a spike of legitimate sorrow for that.
“What did you do?” Navani said. “Lady of Wishes, what happened?”
Raboniel blinked as she stood. “I … put the diamond we created into the hilt of the dagger, then used the tip to draw Voidlight from another gemstone, to mix them. It seemed the best way to see if the two Lights would cancel one another out. I thought … I thought the reaction would be calm, like hot and cold water mixing.…”
“Hot and cold water don’t immediately annihilate one another when they meet,” Navani said. “Besides, heat under pressure—like Light in a gemstone—is another matter.”
“Yes,” Raboniel said, blinking several times, seeming dazed. “If you use the lightning of a stormform to ignite something under pressure, it always explodes. Perhaps if Voidlight and anti-Voidlight meet in open air, you’d get no more than a pop. But these were inside a gemstone. I have acted with supreme stupidity.”
Other Fused—Deepest Ones—melded in through the walls to see what had happened. Raboniel waved them all off as her cuts healed under the power of her internal Voidlight. The Deepest Ones took the servant, who fortunately stirred as they carried him.
The desk was broken, the wall marked by a black scar. Navani smelled smoke—bits of desk still burned. So the explosion had involved heat, not pressure alone. Raboniel shooed away the guard and the other Fused, then picked through the rubble of the desk.
“No remnants of the dagger,” Raboniel said. “Another embarrassment I must suffer, losing such a valuable weapon. I have others, but I’ll need to eventually move you out of this room and have it scrubbed for every scrap of raysium. We might be able to melt it down and reforge the dagger.”
Navani nodded.
�
�For now,” Raboniel said, “I would like you to make me another gemstone filled with that anti-Voidlight.”
“Now?” Navani asked.
“If you please.”
“Don’t you want to change?” Navani asked. “Have someone pick the shards of glass out of your skin…”
“No,” Raboniel said. “I wish to see this process again. If you please, Navani.”
It was said to a rhythm that indicated it would happen, regardless of what Navani “pleased.” So she prepared the vacuum chamber—it had been behind Raboniel, sheltered from the brunt of the blast, fortunately. As Navani worked, Raboniel sent someone for another Herald-killing dagger. Why did she need that? Surely they weren’t going to mix the Lights after what had happened.
Feeling an ominous cloud hanging over her, Navani repeated her experiment, this time filling the gemstone a little less—just in case—before removing it and holding it up.
Raboniel took it, and though she didn’t drop it this time, she did flinch. “So strange,” she said. She fitted it into her second dagger. Then she undid a screw and slipped out the piece of metal running through the center. She flipped it around—it had points on both ends, and a hole for the screw—before replacing it.
“To make the anti-Voidlight flow out of the gemstone along the blade?” Navani asked. “Instead of drawing in what it touches?”
“Indeed,” Raboniel said. “You may wish to take cover.” Then she turned, walked across the room, and stabbed her daughter in the chest.
Navani was too stunned to move. She stood there amid the rubble, gaping as Raboniel loomed over the other Fused, pushing the weapon in deeper. The younger Fused began to spasm, and Raboniel held her, ruthless as she pressed the weapon into her daughter’s flesh.
There was no explosion. The Voidlight inside the Fused wasn’t under pressure as it was in a gemstone, perhaps. There was a stench of burning flesh, and the skin blistered around the wound. The younger Fused trembled and screamed, clutching at her mother’s arm with a clawed hand.
Then her eyes turned milky, like white marble. She went limp, and Navani thought she saw something escape her lips. Smoke? As if her entire insides had been burned away.
Raboniel pulled the dagger out, then tossed it away like a piece of rubbish. She cradled her daughter’s body, pressing her forehead against that of the corpse, holding it close and rocking back and forth.
Navani walked over, listening to Raboniel’s sorrowful rhythm. Though Raboniel’s topknot of hair spilled around her face, Navani saw tears slipping down her red-and-black cheeks.
Navani wasn’t certain she’d ever seen a singer cry before. This was not ruthlessness at all. This was something else.
“You killed her,” Navani whispered.
Raboniel continued to rock the corpse, holding it tighter, shaking as she hummed.
“Elithanathile,” Navani said, whispering the tenth name of the Almighty. “You killed her forever, didn’t you?”
“No more rebirth,” Raboniel whispered. “No more Returns. Free at last, my baby. Free.”
Navani pulled her hand up to her chest. That pain … she knew that pain. It was how she’d felt hearing of Elhokar’s death at the hands of the bridgeman traitor.
Raboniel had done this killing though. Performed it herself! But … had the actual death happened long ago? Centuries ago? What had it been like, living with a child whose body constantly returned to life long after her mind had left her?
“This is why,” Navani said, kneeling beside the two. “Your god hinted that anti-Voidlight was possible, and you suspected what it would do. You captured the tower, you imprisoned and pushed me, and possibly delayed the corruption of the Sibling. Because you hoped to find this anti-Voidlight. Not because you wanted a weapon against Odium. Because you wanted to show a mercy to your daughter.”
“We could never create enough of this anti-Light to threaten Odium,” Raboniel whispered. “That was another lie, Navani. I’m sorry. But you took my dream and you fulfilled it. After I had given up on it, you persisted. One might think the immortal being would be the one to continue pursuing an idea to its end, but it was you.”
Navani knelt with her hands in her lap, feeling like she’d witnessed something too intimate. So she gave Raboniel time to grieve.
Fused grieved. The immortal destroyers, the mythical enemies of all life, grieved. Raboniel’s grief looked identical to that of a human mother who had lost her child.
Eventually, Raboniel rested the body on the ground, then covered up the wound with a cloth from her pocket. She wiped her eyes and stood, calling for the guard to bring her some servants.
“What now?” Navani asked her.
“Now I make sure this death was truly permanent,” Raboniel said, “by communicating with the souls on Braize. If Essu has indeed died a final death, then we’ll know you and I have achieved our goal. And…” She trailed off, then hummed a rhythm.
“What?” Navani asked.
“Our notebook.” Raboniel looked toward where it sat on the floor. Navani had placed it there while creating the second anti-Voidlight gemstone.
Raboniel hummed a different rhythm as servants entered, and she gave terse orders. She sent some to burn her daughter’s corpse and send honors and the ashes to the family that had donated the body to her daughter. She had others gather the vacuum tube and metal plates from Navani’s experiments.
Navani stepped forward to stop them, but Raboniel prevented her with a calm—but firm—hand. The Fused took the notebook from Navani’s fingers.
“I will have a copy made for you,” she promised Navani. “For now, I need this one to reconstruct your work.”
“You saw how I did this, Raboniel.”
“Yes, but I need to create a new plate, a new tone. For Stormlight.”
Navani tried to pull free, but Raboniel’s hold was firm. She hummed a dangerous rhythm, making Navani meet her eyes. Eyes that had been weeping were now firm and unyielding.
“So much for your words about working together,” Navani said. “And you dared imply I was wrong to keep trying to hide things from you.”
“I will end the war,” Raboniel said. “That is the promise I will keep, for today we have discovered the means. Finally. A way to make certain that the Radiants can no longer fight. They function as Fused do, you see. If we kill the human, another Radiant will be born. The fight becomes eternal, both sides immortal. Today we end that. I have preserved the Radiants in the tower for a reason. Anti-Stormlight will need subjects for testing.”
“You can’t be implying…” Navani said. “You don’t mean…”
“Today is a momentous day,” Raboniel said, letting go and walking after the servants carrying Navani’s equipment. “Today is the day we discovered a way to destroy Radiant spren. I will let you know the results of the test.”
THE END OF
Part Four
Hesina made a small notation in her notebook, kneeling above a map she’d rolled out on the floor. The cache Rlain had brought included five maps of Alethkar focused on different princedoms. Sadeas’s was included, with notes about singer troop placements in certain cities and whatever else the scouts had seen while doing reconnaissance of the area.
It had taken her until now to realize she could check on Tomat. The city had several long paragraphs of attached observations, written by Kara the Windrunner. The singers had the city wall under repair, which was incredible on its own. That had been broken since … what, her grandfather’s days? The infamous Gap would be gone if she ever visited again.
She couldn’t find specifics about the people who had lived in the city, but that wasn’t surprising. The Windrunners hadn’t been able to get too close, after all. At least there were no reports of burnt-out houses, as in some other cities. It seemed the city had given in without too much of a fight, which boded well for local survival rates.
She wrote each detail in her notebook, then glanced up as Lirin slipped into their sectioned-off surger
y chamber. He let the draped sheets fall closed, fabric rustling. He’d been studying the large model of Urithiru that was at the back of the infirmary room.
“You found Tomat?” he asked, adjusting his spectacles and leaning down beside her. “Huh. Anything useful?”
“Not much,” she said. “Similar notes to other cities.”
“Well, we’d probably know if your father died,” Lirin said, straightening to gather some bandages from the counter.
“And how is that?”
“He’d be haunting me, obviously,” Lirin said. “Living as a shade in the storms, calling for my blood. As I haven’t heard a thing, I must assume the old monster is alive.”
Hesina rolled up the map and gave her husband a flat glare, which he accepted with a smile and a twinkle to his eye.
“It’s been twenty-five years,” Hesina said. “He might have softened toward you by now.”
“Stone doesn’t soften with time, dear,” Lirin replied. “It merely grows brittle. I think we’d sooner see a chull fly than see your father grow soft.” He must have noticed that the topic legitimately worried her, because he turned away from the gibes. “I’d bet that he’s fine, Hesina. Some men are too ornery to be bothered by something as mundane as an invasion.”
“He wouldn’t give up his business easily, Lirin. He’s stubborn as a lighteyes—he’d order his guards to fight, even when everyone else had surrendered.”
Lirin returned to his work, and after a short delay, said, “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“You are thinking that if he lifted a sword,” Hesina said, “he deserved whatever he got.”
And her father would use a sword. Under a special writ of forbearance from the citylord, who—even three decades ago—had been accustomed to doing whatever her father bullied him into doing. She’d met only one man who dared defy him.
“I’m thinking,” Lirin said, “that my wife needs a supportive husband, not a self-righteous one.”
“And our son?” she asked. “Which version of you does he deserve?”
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