—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days
Disconnecting from the powers of the Sibling left Navani feeling small. Was this really what life had been like before? Before she’d blended her essence with the Sibling’s—and gained awareness of the intricate motions of the thousands of fabrials that made up the Sibling’s physical form?
She now felt so normal. Almost. She retained a hint of awareness in the back of her mind. A sense for the veins of crystal that permeated the tower; if she rested her hand against a wall she could sense its workings.
Heat. Pressure. Light. Life.
I swore I would never do this again, the Sibling said in her mind. I swore I was done with humans.
“Then it’s good that spren, like humans, can change their minds,” Navani said. She was a little surprised to find her body as she remembered it. With a cut in her havah, bloodstained where the knife had taken her.
Our bond is unusual, the Sibling said. I still do not know what I think of what we’ve done.
“If we meant our words, and keep them, does it matter?”
What of fabrials? the Sibling asked. You did not promise to stop capturing spren.
“We will find a compromise,” Navani said, picking her way out of the room with the crystal pillar. “We will work together to find an acceptable path forward.”
Will it be like your compromise with Raboniel, where you tricked her?
“That was the best compromise she and I could come to, and we both knew it,” Navani said. “You and I can do better.”
I wish to believe you, the Sibling said. But as of yet, I do not. I am sorry.
“Merely another problem to solve,” Navani said, “through application of logic and hope, in equal measure.”
She approached Raboniel’s fallen body in the hallway, then knelt over it. “Thank you.”
The eyes opened.
Navani gasped. “Raboniel?”
“You … lived. Good.” One of her hands twitched; it seemed that Moash had cut her with his Blade low enough that it hadn’t burned out her eyes, though one arm and both legs were obviously dead.
Navani raised her hand to her lips.
“Do … not … weep,” Raboniel whispered. “I … would have killed … you … to accomplish … my goal.”
“Instead, you saved me.”
Raboniel breathed in a shallow breath, but said nothing.
“We’ll meet again,” Navani said. “You will be reborn.”
“No. If I … die … I will return … mad. My soul … is burned … almost all away.… Do not … Please … Please…”
“What, then?” Navani said.
“This new Light … works. My daughter … is truly gone. So I made … more … anti … anti…”
“Anti-Voidlight. Where?”
Raboniel rocked her head to the side, toward her desk, situated in the hallway near the opening to the crystal pillar room. Navani rose and searched through the drawers, finding a black sack containing a diamond filled with the precious, terrible Light.
She returned and affixed the diamond to the dagger, which was wet with Moash’s blood. After cleaning it and reversing the metal strip, she knelt beside Raboniel.
“Are you sure?” Navani asked.
Raboniel nodded. Her hand twitched, and Navani reached over and held it, which made the Fused relax.
“I … have done … what I wished. Odium … is worried. He may … allow … an ending.…”
“Thank you,” Navani said softly.
“I never … thought … I would be sane … at the end.…”
Navani raised the dagger. And for the first time, she wondered if she was strong enough for this.
“I do wish…” Raboniel said, “I could hear … rhythms … again.…”
“Then sing with me,” Navani said, and began to sing Honor’s tone.
The Fused smiled, then managed a weak hum to Odium’s tone. Navani modulated her tone, lowering her voice, until the two snapped together in harmony one last time.
Navani positioned the dagger above the wound in Raboniel’s breast.
“End it … Navani…” Raboniel whispered, letting the song cease. “Make sure they let it all … end.”
“I will,” she whispered back, then—humming her best, holding the hand of a former immortal—Navani thrust the dagger in deep. Raboniel’s nerves had mostly been severed, so she didn’t spasm as her daughter had. Her eyes went a glassy marble white, and a breath escaped her lips—black smoke as her insides burned away. Navani kept humming until the smoke dissipated.
You have performed a kindness, the Sibling said in her head.
“I feel awful.”
That is part of the kindness.
“I am sorry,” Navani said, “for discovering this Light. It will let spren be killed.”
It was coming to us, the Sibling said. Consequences once chased only humans. With the Recreance, the consequences became ours as well. You have simply sealed that truth as eternal.
Navani pressed her forehead against Raboniel’s as the Fused had done for her daughter. Then she rose, surrounded by exhaustionspren. Storms. Without the Towerlight infusing her, her fatigue returned. How long had it been since she’d slept?
Too long. But today, she needed to be a queen. She tucked the dagger away—it was too valuable to simply leave lying around—and took her copy of Rhythm of War under her arm.
She left a note on Raboniel’s corpse, just in case. Do not dispose of this hero’s body without first consulting the queen.
Then she went to create order from the chaos of a tower suddenly set free.
* * *
Taravangian awoke late in the day. He barely remembered falling asleep. He barely … could …
Could barely … think.
He was stupid. Stupider than he’d ever been before.
That made him weep. Stupid weeping. He cried and cried, overwhelmed by emotion and shamespren. A sense of failure. Of anger at himself. He lay there until hunger drove him to stand.
His thoughts were like crem. Thick. Slow. He stumbled down to the window, where they had left his basket of food. Trembling, he clutched it, weeping at his hunger. It seemed so strong. And storms, he drew so many spren when stupid.
He sat beside his fake hearth, and couldn’t help wishing that Dalinar could be there with him. How grand that had been. To have a friend. A real friend who understood him. He trembled at the idea, then began digging in the basket.
He stopped as he found a note. Written by Renarin Kholin, sealed by his signet. Taravangian sounded out each glyph. It took forever—drawing a fleet of concentrationspren like ripples in the air—for him to figure out what it said.
Two words. I’m sorry. Two gemstones, glowing brightly, were included with the note. What were these?
I’m sorry. Why say that? What had the boy seen? He knew his future wasn’t to be trusted. Other spren fled, and only fearspren attended him as he read those words. He needed to hide! He climbed off his chair and crawled to the corner.
He quivered there until he felt too hungry. He crawled over and began eating the flatbread in the basket. Then some kind of purple Azish vegetable mash, which he ate with his fingers. It tasted so good. Had he ever eaten anything so wonderful? He cried over it.
The gemstones continued to glow. Large ones. With something moving in them. Hadn’t … hadn’t he been told to watch for something like that?
Thunder crackled in the sky, and Taravangian looked up. Was that the Everstorm? No. No, it was a highstorm. He hadn’t realized it would come today. Thunder rattled the shutters, and he dropped the bread. He hid again in the corner with globs of trembling fearspren.
The thunder sounded angry.
He knows, Taravangian thought. The enemy knows what I’ve done. No. No, wrong storm.
He needed a way to summon Odium. Those gems. That was what they were for!
It would happen today.
Today he died.
Today it
ended.
The door to his hut slammed open, broken at the hinges. Outside, guards scrambled away from a figure silhouetted against a darkening sky. The storm was almost here.
And Szeth had come with it.
Taravangian gasped, terrified, as this was not the death he had foreseen. He’d waited so long for a transcendent day when he would be supremely intelligent again. He’d never wondered about the opposite. A day when he was all emotion. A day when thoughts didn’t move in his brain, and spren swarmed him, feeding gluttonously upon his passions.
Szeth stood quietly, his illusion gone, his bald head—freshly shaved—reflecting the light of the spheres that had spilled from the basket.
“How did you know?” the Shin finally asked. “And how long have you known?”
“Kn-known?” Taravangian forced out, crawling to the side through the fearspren.
“My father,” Szeth said.
Taravangian blinked. He could barely understand the words, he was so stupid. Emotions fought inside him. Terror. Relief that it would soon be over.
“How did you know my father was dead?” Szeth demanded, striding into the room. “How did you know that Ishar reclaimed his sword? How?”
Szeth no longer wore white—he’d changed to an Alethi uniform. Why? Oh, disguise. Yes.
He wore the terrible sword at his side. It was too big. The tip of the sheath dragged against the wooden floor.
Taravangian hunched to the wall, trying to find the right words. “Szeth. The sword. You must…”
“I must do nothing,” Szeth said, approaching steadily. “I ignore you as I ignore the voices in the shadows. You know the voices, Taravangian? The ones you gave me.”
Taravangian huddled down, closing his eyes. Waiting, too overcome with emotion to do anything else.
“What are these?” Szeth said.
Taravangian opened his eyes. The gemstones. Szeth picked them up, frowning. He hadn’t drawn that terrible sword.
Say something. What should he say? Szeth couldn’t harm those. Taravangian needed them!
“Please,” he cried, “don’t break them.”
Szeth scowled, then threw them—one after the other—at the stone wall, shattering them. Strange spren escaped, transparent windspren that trailed red light. They laughed, spinning around Szeth.
“Please,” Taravangian said through the tears. “Your sword. Odium. You—”
“Ever you manipulate me,” Szeth interrupted, watching the windspren. “Ever you seek to stain my hands with the blood of those you would kill. You brought all this upon us, Taravangian. The world would have been able to stand against the enemy if you hadn’t made me murder half their monarchs.”
“No!” Taravangian said. He stood up with effort, scattering the spren around him, his heart thundering in his chest. His vision immediately began to swim. He’d stood up too quickly. “We killed to save the world.”
“Murders done to save lives,” Szeth said softly, tracking Taravangian with eyes dark and shadowed from the room’s poor light, now that the spheres were gone. “Idiocy. But I wasn’t ever to object. I was Truthless. I simply followed orders. Tell me. Do you think that absolves a man?”
“No,” Taravangian said, trembling with the weight of his guilt, shamespren bursting around him and floating, as petals of rockbud blossoms, to the ground.
“A good answer. You are wise for one so stupid.”
Taravangian tried to dash away past Szeth. But of course his legs gave out. He got tripped and collapsed in a heap. He groaned, his heart thumping, his vision swimming.
A moment later, strong hands lifted him and slammed him back against the wall amid swarming exhaustionspren. Something snapped in Taravangian’s shoulder, and pain spiked through his body.
He drooped in Szeth’s grip, breathing out in wheezes.
The room started to grow golden.
“All this time,” Szeth said, “I wanted to keep my honor. I tried so hard. You took advantage of that. You broke me, Taravangian.”
Light. That golden light.
“Szeth,” Taravangian said, feeling blood on his lips. Storms. “Szeth … He is here.…”
“I decide now,” Szeth said, reaching toward his waist—not for the terrible sword, but for the small knife he was wearing beside it. “I finally decide. Me. No one else compelling me. Taravangian, know that in killing you, I make it my choice.”
Rumbling thunder. A brilliant, terrible golden light. Odium appeared. When he did, his face was distorted, his eyes shining with angry power. Thunder broke the landscape, and Szeth began to fade.
You should not tempt me today, Taravangian! Odium thundered. I have lost my champion AGAIN, and now I am bound by an agreement I do not want. How do they know how to move against me? HAVE YOU BETRAYED ME, TARAVANGIAN? Have you been speaking to Sja-anat? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
The awe of that force—that transcendent power—left Taravangian quivering, spren of a dozen varieties swirling around him, fighting for his attention. So many emotions. He barely noticed Szeth pulling the knife free, for he was so overwhelmed—awed, frightened, excited all at once.
Fear won.
Taravangian cried out, his shoulder afire with pain, his body broken. His plans had been silly. How had he thought to outthink a god when stupid? He couldn’t do that when smart. No wonder he’d failed.
Did you fail?
The sword is here.
Odium is here.
Cold steel bit Taravangian’s skin as Szeth stabbed him right in the chest. At the same moment, Taravangian felt something pushing through his fear, his pain. An emotion he’d never thought to feel himself. Bravery.
Bravery surged through him, so powerfully he could not help but move. It was the dying courage of a man on the front lines charging an enemy army. The glory of a woman fighting for her child. The feeling of an old man on his last day of life stepping into darkness.
Bravery.
The Physical Realm faded as Odium pulled Taravangian into the place between worlds. Taravangian’s body was not as weak here. This form was a manifestation of his mind and soul. And those were strong.
The sword at Szeth’s waist—that strange, terrible sword—manifested here, in this realm where Odium brought Taravangian. The god looked down and saw the curling black darkness, and seemed surprised.
Taravangian seized the sword and pulled it free of its scabbard, hearing it scream for pleasure. He turned and thrust it upward—black smoke curling around his hands.
“Destroy!” the sword bellowed. “DESTROY!”
Taravangian rammed it up into Odium’s chest.
The sword drank greedily of the god’s essence, and as it did, Taravangian felt a snap. His body dying. Szeth finishing the job. He knew it immediately. Taravangian was dead. Anger rose in him like he had never known.
Szeth had killed him!
Odium screamed, and the golden place shattered, turning to darkness. The sword undulated in Taravangian’s grip, pulling power from the god it had stabbed.
The figure that contained Odium’s power—the person who controlled it—evaporated, taken by the sword. That alone was so much Investiture that Taravangian felt the sword grow dull in his fingers. Full, lethargic. As when a hot brand was shoved into a barrel of water, there was an initial hiss—but this power was too vast for the sword to drink.
It killed the person holding that power, however, which left a hole. A need. A … vacuum, like a gemstone suddenly without Stormlight. It reached out, and Taravangian felt a distinct Connection to it.
Passion. Hatred. Today, Taravangian was only passion. Hatred, fear, anger, shame, awe. Bravery. The power loved these things, and it surged around him, enveloping him.
His soul vibrated.
Take me, the power pled, speaking not in words, but in emotion. You are perfect. I am yours.
Taravangian hesitated briefly, then thrust his hands into the well of power.
And Ascended to godhood, becoming Odium.
They sho
uld not be discarded, but helped to their potential. Their final Passions.
—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days
Rlain walked with Venli and his new friends—Dul, Mazish, and the others Venli had recruited—to the Oathgate, where Kaladin waited to transfer them to the Shattered Plains.
Rlain felt in a stupor, despite a day having passed since his revelation. Since speaking his first Words as a Truthwatcher.
The spren had been watching him, from the heart of a cremling. Rlain and Venli had mistaken Tumi for a Voidspren, but he wasn’t exactly the same thing. Once an ordinary mistspren, Tumi had let Sja-anat touch him, and in so doing make him into something new. A spren of both Honor and Odium.
Tumi pulsed to a new rhythm. The Rhythm of War. Something he had learned recently. Something important for his siblings to hear.
Renarin knows? Rlain thought.
He suggested you, Tumi said. And told our mother about you. He was right. Our bond will be strong, and you will be wondrous. We are awed by you, Rlain. The Bridger of Minds. We are honored.
Honored. That felt good. To be chosen because of what he’d done.
Kaladin waited for them at the transfer room. He made the transfer with the Sylblade. The air of the Shattered Plains was wetter, and felt … familiar to Rlain as they stepped onto a platform outside Narak.
There they met with Leshwi and the other four Fused who, upon being transferred here earlier, had regained consciousness. Leshwi hovered over and tipped her head toward Kaladin in respect.
“You could stay here at Narak,” Kaladin said to her. “We’d welcome your aid.”
“We fought against our own to preserve lives,” Leshwi said. “We do not wish that to continue. We will find a third option, outside this war. The path of the listeners.”
“We’ll find our way out here,” Venli said to Confidence. “Somehow.”
“Well, go with honor then,” Kaladin said. “And with the queen’s promise. If you change your minds, or if you and yours need refuge, we’ll take you in.”
The Heavenly Ones took to the air, humming to Praise. They began lowering the new listeners—and their supplies—down into the chasm for the hike eastward. With the highstorm passed, and with Fused to watch for chasmfiends from above, they should be able to make their way to the eastern flats where the other listeners had gone.
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