No. It’s the wrong storm. He doesn’t come during highstorms.
A young Alethi male in robes was blathering at her. She ignored him, biting her hand to see if she could feel the pain.
She could. She shook her hand and looked down at the robes she wore. This couldn’t be a dream. It was too real.
“My friend?” the Alethi man asked. “Are you well? I realize that events have taken their toll on us all, but—”
Footsteps rang loudly on the stone as another Alethi man approached, wearing a crisp blue uniform. White dusted the hair at his temples, and his face wasn’t as … round as other human faces. His features could almost have been those of a listener, even if that nose was wrong and the face bore far more creases than a listener’s ever would.
Wait … she thought, attuning Curiosity. Is that …
“Disturbance on the battlefield, sir,” the older man said to her companion. “You are needed immediately.”
“What is this? I didn’t hear—”
“They didn’t say what it was, Your Majesty, only that you are urgently requested.”
The human king drew his lips to a tight line, and then—obviously frustrated—stalked toward the doorway. “Come,” he said to Venli.
The older man grabbed her arm above the elbow. “Don’t,” he said softly. “We need to talk.”
This is the Alethi warlord.
“My name is Dalinar Kholin,” the man said. “I lead the Alethi, and you’re seeing a vision of past events. Only your mind has been transported, not your body. We two are the only real people here.”
She yanked her arm out of his hand and attuned Irritation. “How … why have you brought me here?”
“I want to talk.”
“Of course you do. Now that you’re losing, now that we’ve seized your capital, now you want to talk. What of the years spent slaughtering my people on the Shattered Plains?” It had been a game to them. Listener spy reports had shown the humans had enjoyed the sport on the Shattered Plains. Claiming wealth, and listener lives, as part of a grand contest.
“We were willing to talk, when you sent your emissary,” Dalinar said. “The Shardbearer. I’m willing to talk again now. I want to forget old grievances, even those personal to me.”
Venli walked away, still attuned to Irritation. “How have you brought me to this place? Is this a prison?” Is this your work, Odium? Testing my loyalty with a false vision of the enemy?
She was using the old rhythms. She’d never been able to do that when Odium’s attention had been on her.
“I’ll send you back soon,” Kholin said, catching up to her. Though he was not short for a human, her current form was a good six inches taller than he was. “Please, just hear me out. I need to know. What would a truce between our people cost?”
“A truce?” she asked to Amusement, stopping near the balcony. “A truce?”
“Peace. No Desolation. No war. What would it cost?”
“Well, for a start, it would cost your kingdom.”
He grimaced. His words were dead, like those of all humans, but he wore his feelings on his face. So much passion and emotion.
Is that why the spren betrayed us for them?
“What is Alethkar to you?” he said. “I can help you build a new nation on the Shattered Plains. I will give you laborers to raise cities, ardents to teach any skill you want. Wealth, as payment in ransom for Kholinar and its people. A formal apology. Whatever you demand.”
“I demand that we keep Alethkar.”
His face became a mask of pain, his brow furrowed. “Why must you live there? To you, Alethkar is a place to conquer. But it’s my homeland.”
She attuned Reprimand. “Don’t you understand? The people who live there—the singers, my cousins—are from Alethkar. That is their homeland too. The only difference between them and you is that they were born as slaves, and you as their master!”
He winced. “Perhaps some other accommodation, then. A … dividing of the kingdom? A parshman highprince?” He seemed shocked to be considering it.
She attuned Resolve. “Your tone implies you know that would be impossible. There can be no accommodation, human. Send me from this place. We can meet on the battlefield.”
“No.” He seized her arm again. “I don’t know what the accommodation will be, but we can find one. Let me prove to you that I want to negotiate, instead of fight.”
“You can start,” she said to Irritation, pulling away from him, “by not assaulting me.”
She wasn’t certain she could fight him, honestly. Her current body was tall, but fragile. And in truth, she’d never been proficient at battle, even during the days when she’d taken an appropriate form.
“At least let us try a negotiation,” he said. “Please.”
He didn’t sound very pleading. He’d grown stern, face like a stone, glaring. With the rhythms, you could infuse your tone with the mood you wished to convey, even if your emotions weren’t cooperating. Humans didn’t have that tool. They were as dull as the dullest slave.
A sudden thump resounded in the vision. Venli attuned Anxiety and rushed out onto the balcony. A half-destroyed city stretched below, where a battle had happened, dead heaped in piles.
That pounding sounded again. The … the air was breaking. The clouds and sky seemed to be a mural painted on an enormous dome ceiling, and as the pounds continued, a web of cracks appeared overhead.
Beyond them shone a vivid yellow light.
“He’s here,” she whispered, then waved toward it. “That’s why there can’t be a negotiation, human. He knows we don’t need one. You want peace? Surrender. Give yourselves up and hope that he doesn’t care to destroy you.”
A faint hope, considering what Rine had said to her about exterminating the humans.
With the next pound, the sky fractured and a hole appeared overhead, a powerful light shining beyond. The very shards of the air—broken like a mirror—were sucked into that light.
A pulse of power blasted from the hole, shaking the city with a terrible vibration. It tossed Venli to the balcony’s floor. Kholin reached to help her, but a second pulse caused him to fall as well.
The bricks in the room’s wall separated from one another and began to float apart. The boards that made up the balcony began to lift, nails floating into the sky. A guard ran to the balcony, but stumbled, and his very skin started to separate into water and a dried husk.
Everything just … came apart.
A wind rose around Venli, pulling debris toward that hole in the sky, and the brilliant, terrible light beyond. Boards shredded to splinters; bricks floated past her head. She growled, the Rhythm of Resolve thumping inside her as she grabbed and clung to parts of the floor that hadn’t yet separated.
That burning. She knew it well, the terrible pain of Odium’s heat scalding her skin, scorching her until her very bones—somehow still able to feel—became ash. It happened every time he gave her orders. What worse thing would he do if he found her fraternizing with the enemy?
She attuned Determination and crawled away from the light. Escape! She reached the chamber beyond the balcony and lurched to her feet, trying to run. The wind pulled at her, making each step a struggle.
Overhead, the ceiling separated in a single magnificent burst—each brick exploding away from the others, then streaming toward the void. The pieces of the unfortunate guard rose after them, a sack drained of grain, a puppet with no controlling hand.
Venli dropped to the ground again and continued crawling, but the stones of the floor separated, floating upward with her on them. Soon, she was scrambling precariously from one floating piece of stone to another. The Rhythm of Resolve still attuned, she dared to glance backward. The hole had widened, and the all-consuming light feasted on the streams of refuse.
She turned away, desperate to do what she could to delay her own burning. Then … she stopped and looked back again. Dalinar Kholin stood on the balcony. And he was glowing.
N
eshua Kadal. Radiant Knight.
Without meaning to, she attuned the Rhythm of Awe. Around Kholin, the balcony was stable. Boards trembled and quivered at his feet, but did not move into the sky. The balcony railing had ripped apart to either side of him, but where he held to it with a firm grip, it remained secure.
He was her enemy, and yet …
Long ago, these humans had resisted her gods. Yes, the enslavement of her cousins—the singers—was impossible to ignore. Still, the humans had fought. And had won.
The listeners remembered this as a song sung to the Rhythm of Awe. Neshua Kadal.
The calm, gentle light spread from Dalinar Kholin’s hand to the railing, then down into the floor. Boards and stones sank down from the air, reknitting. Venli’s current block of stone settled back into place. All through the city, buildings burst apart and zoomed upward, but the walls of this tower returned to their positions.
Venli immediately made for the steps downward. If whatever Kholin was doing stopped, she wanted to be on solid rock. She wound her way to the ground floor, then—once on the street—she positioned herself near the balcony and Kholin’s influence.
Above, Odium’s light went out.
Stones and splinters rained down on the city, crashing about her. Dried bodies dropped like discarded clothing. Venli pressed back against the tower wall, attuning Anxiety, raising her arm against the dust of the debris.
The hole remained in the sky, though the light was gone from behind it. Below, the rubbled remains of the city seemed … a sham. No cries of fear, no moans of pain. Bodies were just husks, skins lying empty on the ground.
A sudden pounding broke the air behind her, opening another hole, lower down and near the edge of the city. The sky crumbled into the gap, revealing that hateful light again. It consumed everything near it—wall, buildings, even the ground disintegrating and flowing into the maw.
Dust and debris washed over Venli in a furious wind. She pressed against the stone wall, clinging to one of the balcony’s supports. Terrible heat washed across her from the distant hole.
Clamping her eyes shut, she tightened her grip. He could come claim her, but she would not let go.
And what of the grand purpose? What of the power he offers? Did she still want those things? Or was that merely something to grasp onto, now that she had brought about the end of her people?
She gritted her teeth. In the distance, she heard a quiet rhythm. Somehow it sounded over the roar of the wind, the clacking of dust and stones. The Rhythm of Anxiety?
She opened her eyes, and saw Timbre fighting against the wind in an attempt to reach her. Bursts of light exploded from the little spren in frantic rings.
Buildings crumbled along the street. The entire city was collapsing away—even the palace broke apart, all save this one patch near the balcony.
The little spren changed to the Rhythm of the Lost and began to slide backward.
Venli shouted and released the pillar. She immediately was pushed with the wind—but although she wasn’t in stormform any longer, this was a form of power, incredibly nimble. She controlled her fall, going down on her side and skidding on the stones, feet toward the oppressive light. As she neared the little spren, Venli jammed her foot into a cleft in the street, then grabbed a crack in a broken stone, pulling herself to a halt. With her other hand, she twisted and snatched Timbre from the air.
Touching Timbre felt like touching silk being blown by a wind. As Venli folded her left hand around the spren, she felt a pulsing warmth. Timbre pulsed to Praise as Venli pulled her close to her breast.
Great, Venli thought, lowering her head against the wind, her face against the ground, holding on to the cleft in the rock with her right hand. Now we can fall together.
She had one hope. To hold on, and hope that eventually …
The heat faded. The wind stilled. Debris came clattering back to the ground, though the fall was less clamorous this time. Not only had the wind been pulling sideways rather than up, there simply wasn’t much debris left.
Venli rose, covered in dust, her face and hands cut by chips of stone. Timbre pulsed softly in her hand.
The city was basically gone. No more than the occasional outline of a building foundation and the remains of the strange rock formations known as the windblades. Even those had been weathered down to knobs five or six feet tall. The only structure in the city that remained was a quarter of the tower where Kholin had been standing.
Behind her was a black, gaping hole into nothingness.
The ground trembled.
Oh no.
Something beat against the stones underneath her. The very ground began to shake and crumble. Venli ran toward the broken palace right as everything—at last—fell apart. The ground, the remaining foundations, even the air seemed to disintegrate.
A chasm opened beneath her, and Venli leaped, trying to reach the other side. She came up a few feet short, and plummeted into the hole. Falling, she twisted in the air, reaching for the collapsing sky with one hand and clutching Timbre in the other.
Above, the man in the blue uniform leaped into the chasm.
He fell beside the hole’s perimeter, and stretched one hand toward Venli. His other ground against the rock wall, hand scraping the stone. Something flashed around his arm. Lines of light, a framework that covered his body. His fingers didn’t bleed as they scraped the stone.
Around her, the rocks—the air itself—became more substantial. In defiance of the heat below, Venli slowed just enough that her fingers met those of Kholin.
Go.
She crashed to the floor of her cave back in Marat, the vision gone. Sweating, panting, she opened her left fist. To her relief, Timbre floated out, pulsing with a hesitant rhythm.
* * *
Dalinar dissolved into pure pain.
He felt himself being ripped apart, flayed, shredded. Each piece of him removed and allowed to hurt in isolation. A punishment, a retribution, a personalized torment.
It could have persisted for an eternity. Instead, blessedly, the agony faded, and he came to himself.
He knelt on an endless plain of glowing white stone. Light coalesced beside him, forming into a figure dressed in gold and white, holding a short scepter.
“What were you seeing?” Odium asked, curious. He tapped his scepter on the ground like a cane. Nohadon’s palace—where Dalinar had been moments before—materialized out of light beside them. “Ah, this one again? Looking for answers from the dead?”
Dalinar squeezed his eyes shut. What a fool he had been. If there had ever been a hope of peace, he’d probably destroyed it by pulling that Parshendi woman into a vision and subjecting her to Odium’s horrors.
“Dalinar, Dalinar,” Odium said. He settled down on a seat formed from light, then rested one hand on Dalinar’s shoulder. “It hurts, doesn’t it? Yes. I know pain. I am the only god who does. The only one who cares.”
“Can there be peace?” Dalinar asked, his voice ragged. Speaking was hard. He’d felt himself being ripped apart in the light moments before.
“Yes, Dalinar,” Odium said. “There can be. There will be.”
“After you destroy Roshar.”
“After you destroy it, Dalinar. I am the one who will rebuild it.”
“Agree to a contest between champions,” Dalinar forced out. “Let us … let us find a way to…” He trailed off.
How could he fight this thing?
Odium patted Dalinar’s shoulder. “Be strong, Dalinar. I have faith in you, even when you don’t have it in yourself. Though it will hurt for a time, there is an end. Peace is in your future. Push through the agony. Then you will be victorious, my son.”
The vision faded, and Dalinar found himself back in the upper room of Urithiru. He collapsed into the seat he’d placed there, Navani taking his arm, concerned.
Through his bond, Dalinar sensed weeping. The Stormfather had kept Odium back, but storms, he had paid a price. The most powerful spren on Roshar—embod
iment of the tempest that shaped all life—was crying like a child, whispering that Odium was too strong.
The Midnight Mother created monsters of shadow and oil, dark imitations of creatures she saw or consumed. Their description matches no spren I can find in modern literature.
—From Hessi’s Mythica, page 252
Captain Notum gave the command, and two of the sailors unlatched a section of the hull, exposing the crashing waves of beads just beyond.
Shallan put her freehand on the frame of the open cargo door and leaned out over the churning depths. Adolin tried to tug her back, but she remained in place.
She’d chosen to wear Veil’s outfit today, in part for the pockets. She carried three larger gemstones; Kaladin carried four others. Their broams had all run out of Stormlight. Even these larger, unset gems were getting close to failing. Hopefully they would last long enough to get them to Thaylen City and the Oathgate.
Beyond the waves—so close that the sailors feared hidden rocks beneath the beads—a dark landscape interrupted the horizon. The inverse of Longbrow’s Straits, a place where trees grew tall, forming a black jungle of glass plants.
A sailor clomped down the steps into the hold and barked something at Captain Notum. “Your enemies are close now,” the captain translated.
Honor’s Path had made a heroic effort these last few hours, pushing its mandras to exhaustion—and it hadn’t been nearly enough. The Fused were slower than Kaladin could go, but they were still far faster than the ship.
Shallan looked at the captain; his bearded face, which glowed with a soft, phantom light, betrayed nothing of what must have been a powerful conflict for him. Turn over the captives to the enemy and perhaps save his crew? Or set them free, and hope the Ancient Daughter could escape?
A door at the back of the hold opened, and Kaladin led Syl from her cabin. The captain had only now given permission to release her, as if wishing to delay the decision until the last possible moment. Syl’s color seemed muted, and she clung to Kaladin’s arm, unsteady. Was she going to be able to make it to shore with them?
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