Of course, I admit this is a small quibble. A difference of semantics more than anything.

Venli wasn’t required to fight unless she was attacked. A part of her wanted to go up above and look for Leshwi, who would have arrived by now with the other Heavenly Ones. But no, that was foolish. Even if being near Leshwi would help make sense of all this. Leshwi seemed to see so much more clearly than other Fused.

Regardless, as their troops marched up the steps to assault the first floors of the tower city, Venli stayed with Raboniel in the basement. The Lady of Wishes didn’t seem terribly nervous about the invasion. She strolled along the wide hallway here, inspecting its murals. Venli stayed at her side as directed, and realized the reason she’d been brought along. Raboniel wanted a servant at hand.

“Does this strike you as a particularly human form of decoration, Last Listener?” Raboniel asked her, speaking to Craving as she stood with her hands before her, fingertips touching the large mural, this portion of which depicted Cultivation in the shape of a tree.

“I … I don’t know humans well enough to say, Ancient One.”

Sounds echoed from the stairwell at the opposite end of this hallway from the pillar room. Screams. Calls of horror. Clashes of weapon against weapon. By now the shanay-im would have arrived by air, delivering some of the most terrible and capable Fused to the sixth floor.

“To me it seems obvious,” Raboniel said. “Humans never use what is around them to its fullest. They always impose their will far too strongly. Though the shells of beasts and the colors of stone would offer striking variety for creating complex murals, the humans ignored natural materials. Instead they painted each square, then affixed it to this wall.

“One of the singers of old, creating a similar work of art, would have divided the bits of shell into a spectrum of colors. They would have asked themself what kind of mural would naturally be suggested by the pieces they had obtained. Their mural would have used no paint, and would have lasted millennia longer than this one. See how the colors here fade.”

A hulking form darkened the other end of the hallway, near the stairwell. The Pursuer looked like a dark scar of black and red upon the light stone. As he moved forward, Venli found herself trembling. Surely this was the most dangerous Fused in all the army.

“I have your leave,” the Pursuer said to Raboniel, “to find this Windrunner and kill him?”

“Him alone,” Raboniel said. “If he is here. There’s a good chance one of his skill went with the others to Azir.”

“If he is not here, he will return to try to liberate the tower,” the Pursuer said. “It is in his nature.” He turned, looking upward through the stone. “The Radiants we capture are dangerous. They have skill beyond what we anticipated, considering the newness of their bonds. We should behead them, each and every one.”

“No,” Raboniel said. “I will need them. Your orders are the same as what I told the others: Kill only those who resist. Gather the fallen Radiants for me. On my orders, you are to show … restraint.”

The Pursuer hummed—loudly and forcefully—to Craving. “You, who were once banished for recklessly endangering our kind in your attempts to exterminate humankind? You, Lady of Wishes, ask for restraint?”

Raboniel smiled and hummed softly another rhythm that Venli had never heard. Something brand new. Something incredible. Dark, dangerous, predatory, and beautiful. It implied destruction, but a quiet and deadly destruction.

Odium had granted this femalen her own rhythms.

No, Venli thought, the Pursuer is not the most dangerous of them.

“I care not for a single battle,” Raboniel said. “We will end this war, Pursuer. Forever. We have spent far, far too long in an endless cycle. I will break it—and once I am finished in this tower, there will be no turning back, ever. You will help in this, and you will start by collecting the fallen Radiants and delivering them to me.”

“I may kill the one, when I find him?” he repeated. “You relieve the Nine’s prohibition upon me?”

“Yes,” Raboniel said. “You may claim your prize and keep your custom, Pursuer. I take responsibility for this order.”

He hummed to Destruction and stalked off.

“If Stormblessed is here in the tower, he’ll be helpless when you find him, Pursuer!” Venli called. “You would murder an enemy who cannot resist you?”

“Tradition is more important than honor, foolish one,” the Pursuer called back to Derision. “I must kill those who have killed me. I have always killed those who have killed me.”

He transformed into a ribbon of red light, leaving behind a lifeless husk, and shot out into the stairwell so he could fly to the upper levels.

Timbre pulsed uncertainly in Venli’s chest. Yes … she was right. The Pursuer did have a madness to him. It wasn’t as obvious as in the other Fused—the ones who would grin and refuse to speak, their eyes seeming to stare without seeing. It was there nonetheless. Perhaps this Pursuer had lived so long that his traditions had taken control of his reason. He was like a spren, existing more than living.

Timbre pulsed at that. She didn’t think she existed without living, and Venli was forced to apologize. Still, she worried that all the Fused were like him. Maybe not mad—maybe that was the wrong word for it, and disrespectful to people who were themselves mad. The Fused instead seemed more like people who had lived so long thinking one way that they had come to accept their opinions as the natural state of things.

Venli had been like that once.

“So telling,” Raboniel said to Thoughtfulness, still regarding the murals. “Humans take as their own everything they see. Yet they do not understand that by holding so tightly, they cause the very thing they desired to crumble. They truly are children of Honor.”

Raboniel turned from the mural and strolled farther down the hallway, approaching an intersection where doors opened on either side. These led into chambers with tables, bookshelves, stacks of paper. Venli followed Raboniel into one of them, then hurried—at a wave of her fingers, a gesture Venli’s translation powers interpreted—to fetch a cup of wine from the station at the side of the room.

Venli passed huddled scholars and monks, sitting on the floor by the wall beneath the watchful eyes of a few Regal stormforms. The poor humans were surrounded by fearspren, though Venli had to remind herself that no human could ever be completely trusted. They didn’t have forms. A human might wear the robes of their priesthood, but could secretly have trained as a warrior. It was part of what made humans so duplicitous. No rhythms to hum to, just facial features easy to fake. No forms to indicate their duty. Just clothing that could be changed as easily as a lie required it.

Timbre pulsed.

Well, of course I’m different, Venli thought. Even if she did lie by humming the wrong rhythms at times. And wear a form that didn’t express the spren she truly followed.

Timbre pulsed in satisfaction.

Don’t make this harder than it already is, Venli thought, hastening to Raboniel. I’m not here to help the humans. I can barely help my own kind.

She delivered Raboniel’s wine as the tall Fused was inspecting a contraption of metal and gemstones. A human fabrial delivered by one of the Deepest Ones.

“What should we make of this?” the Deepest One asked to Craving. “I have never seen its like before. How can the humans have discovered things we never knew about?”

“They have always been clever,” Raboniel said to Derision. “We merely left them alone too long this time. Go and interrogate the scholars. I would find out who leads their studies here.”

The Fused glanced upward.

“The conquest will happen easily,” Raboniel said to Conceit. “By now, the shanay-im have used Vyre to activate the Oathgate, bringing our troops. Let us stay focused while they work.”

“Yes, Lady of Wishes,” the Deepest One said, gliding off.

Raboniel absently took the cup from Venli’s hands. She turned the fabrial over in her hand, and hummed softly to … to Subservience?

She’s impressed, Venli realized. And she’s keeping most of the scholars alive—along with the Radiants. She wants something from this tower.

“You don’t care about the conquest,” Venli guessed, speaking to Craving. “You aren’t here to further the war or to dominate the humans. You’re here because of these things. The fabrials humans are creating.”

Raboniel hummed to Command. “Yes, Leshwi does pick the best, doesn’t she?” She held out the fabrial, letting the light catch it. “Do you know what the humans gain by being so forceful? By reaching to seize before they are ready? Yes, their works crumble. Yes, their nations collapse from within. Yes, they end up squabbling, and fighting, and killing one another.

“But in the moment, they are the sprinter who outpaces the steady runner. In the moment, they create wonders. One cannot fault their audacity. Their imagination. Surely you’ve noticed that the Fused have a problem. We think along the same old, familiar pathways. We don’t create because we assume we’ve already created what we need to. We are immortal, and so think nothing can ever surprise us—and that makes us complacent.”

Venli hummed to Abashment, realizing she’d been thinking that same thing.

“That is the reason this war is eternal,” Raboniel said. “They cannot hold or exploit that which they create, but we cannot stretch far enough to come up with anything new. If we truly want an end, it will take a partnership.”

“I do not think the Alethi will partner with you,” Venli said. “Like the Iriali have.”

“They can be guided,” Raboniel said. She glanced at Venli, then smiled again, humming her new rhythm. Her individual dangerous rhythm. “If there is one thing I can guarantee you about humankind, Last Listener, it is this: Provide them with a sword, and they will find a way to impale themselves upon it.”

*   *   *

The stench of burned flesh assaulted Navani as she entered the ground floor of Urithiru. She hoped that most of the civilians had been able to flee to the upper floors, for what she saw now seemed nothing short of Damnation itself. The large foyer in front of the grand staircase was empty save for a few scattered corpses. Burned. Human.

The thick, pungent scent made her want to retch.

Red lights flashed in the near hallways, and cracks of thunder echoed off the stone. Loud, sharp, and unnatural. One shouldn’t be able to hear thunder in these hallways, buried beneath a million tons of stone and a ten-minute walk to the perimeter.

Between the peals of thunder, Navani was certain she heard distant moans and cries. Her kingdom had become a war zone. What scout reports she received spoke of fragmented squads of soldiers desperately holding out before nightmares moving in quick roving bands. They thought the singers were securing points of strategic value, but their information was too disjointed to get a full picture of the enemy’s plans.

Storms … they’d become so dependent on spanreeds. It felt downright primitive to lack knowledge of enemy movements. Navani moved through the foyer, urging her band of scholars, ardents, and engineers to follow. They balked, remaining in a cluster on the wide steps. She glanced back and saw many staring in horror at the burned corpses on the ground.

Right. Few of her current attendants had ever been subjected to real battlefields. They had worked the warcamps, had designed bridges and flying platforms, but they weren’t the types who saw corpses in anything other than a sanitized funeral service.

Navani remembered being like that. Before Gavilar. He’d always promised that a unified Alethkar would be a wonderful blessing to all the people of the land. With him around, it always had been easier to rationalize the price in blood.

Regardless of their feelings, they had to keep moving. They’d given Battalionlord Teofil an hour to gather his assault force and send some initial sallies to clear the landing. During that time Navani had gathered as much Stormlight as she could. Her attendants carried the spheres and gemstones in large bags.

The wait had let Navani send for two specific women. They stood near the center of the huddle of attendants: Thaylen scholars from Queen Fen’s court who were visiting the tower to listen to Navani’s lectures. They’d come to her command post willingly, probably believing that Navani had sent for them because she wanted to protect them during the invasion. Their panicked glances now showed they were beginning to question those assumptions.

A soldier stood guarding the way through a particular hallway. Navani hurried in that direction, leaving her attendants behind for now. She entered a large open hall that in times past they’d used as a meeting place. Some five hundred soldiers crowded the corners and a couple of side corridors. Not fully out of sight, but obscured enough for their purpose. Other than the numerous crossbowmen among them, the items of most interest were two large metal pillars on wheels.

Teofil noticed her and stepped over. “Brightness,” he said. “I’d be more comfortable if you waited closer to the steps.”

“Objection noted,” Navani said. “How does it look?”

“I’ve gathered our best veterans,” he said. “This will be bloody work, but I think we have a chance. The enemy is relying on the Regals to seize the ground floor. I keep reminding the men that as frightening as the enemy powers are, the ones using them have only a year of training.”

The human advantage had so far been their experience. Parshmen newly awakened from their lives of slavery were no replacement for battle-hardened troops. This advantage was slowly being worn away as enemy troops gained more and more practical combat experience.

An exhausted messenger dashed into the room from the hallway directly across from Navani—the hallway leading toward the steps to the basement. The messenger nodded to Teofil before moving to the side and putting her hands on her knees, breathing in deep gasps.

Teofil gestured for Navani to retreat, and she moved to the mouth of the corridor. She didn’t retreat farther than that, so Teofil stoically walked over and handed her some wax and pointed at his ears. Then he fell into position, sword out, with one group of soldiers.

A controlled retreat was difficult enough, but what they were trying here—a fake rout leading to an ambush—was even trickier. You had to bait the enemy into thinking you were fleeing, and that involved turning your backs on them. A trickle of human soldiers soon came running into the room, and their panic seemed real to Navani. It probably was. The line between a feint and a true collapse of morale was thin as a sheet of paper.

The trickle of soldiers became a flood. Fleeing men, chased by flashes of light and thunder that made Navani hastily stuff her ears with the wax. She spared a moment of grief for the slowest of the fleeing soldiers, who sold this ruse with their lives, dying in a bright flash of lightning.

The chasing Regals soon charged into the room: wicked-looking singers with pointed carapace and glowing red eyes. Teofil waited longer than Navani would have to give the order to loose—he wanted as many Regals in the room as possible. The pause was long enough that the first of the enemies had time to stop, then raise arms crackling with electric energy.

Navani braced herself as they released flashes of light toward the waiting soldiers. Those flashes, however, struck the carefully placed metal pillars, which drew the lightning like tall trees might in an open field.

Teofil gave the order with a raised piece of red cloth—though Navani barely saw it, as she was blinking blinded eyes. Crossbows loosed in wave after deadly wave, cutting down the Regals—who didn’t have the same power to heal themselves that the Fused possessed.

“Hoist those lightning rods!” Teofil shouted, his voice sounding muted to her ears. “Move, men! Stay away from blood on the ground. We push for the basement!”

As quickly as that, the “rout” reversed, and human troops piled into the hallway to chase the remaining Regals. Teofil left her with a salute. He set out on a near-impossible task: to push down a long stairwell into the basement, harried by Regals and Fused. If Navani wasn’t able to get to him after he reached the pillar, he was to destroy the construction of garnets that suppressed Radiant powers. The Sibling indicated this would be effective at restoring the Radiants.

In the meantime, Navani’s job was to activate the Sibling’s fail-safe. She hurried to collect her scribes, hoping they wouldn’t balk too much at climbing over the corpses.

*   *   *

Kaladin ducked into a room, carrying an armful of blankets. He didn’t recognize the young family inside—father, mother, two toddlers—so they had to be refugees who had fled to Hearthstone.

The young family had done much to make this small, windowless room their own. Both walls were covered in Herdazian sand paintings, and the floor was painted in a large and intricate glyph.

Kaladin didn’t like the way they cringed as he entered, the children whimpering. If you don’t want people to cringe when they see you, he thought, act less like a ruffian and more like a surgeon. He never had possessed his father’s gentle grace, that unassuming way that wasn’t weak, but also rarely seemed threatening.

“Sorry,” Kaladin said, shutting the door behind him. “I know you were expecting my father. You wanted blankets?”

“Yes,” the wife said, rising and taking them from him. “Thank you. It cold.”

“I know,” Kaladin said. “Something’s wrong with the tower, so heating fabrials aren’t working.”

The man said something in Herdazian. Syl, sitting on Kaladin’s shoulder, whispered the interpretation—but the woman translated right afterward anyway.

“Dark ones in the corridors,” the woman said. “They … are staying?”

“We don’t know yet,” Kaladin said. “For now, it’s best to remain in your rooms. Here, I brought water and some rations. Soulcast, I’m afraid. We’ll send someone around tomorrow to gather chamber pots, if it comes to that.”

He slung his pack onto his shoulder after getting out the food and water. Then he slipped back out into the corridor. He had three more rooms to visit before meeting up with his father. “What time is it?” he asked Syl.

“Late,” she said. “A few hours to dawn.”

Kaladin had been working to deliver blankets and water for a good hour or so. He knew that fighting was still going on far below, that Navani was holding out. The enemy, however, had quickly secured this floor, leaving guards and pushing downward to press against the Alethi defenders.

So while the tower wasn’t yet lost, Kaladin’s floor felt quiet. Syl turned around and lifted into the air, shimmering and becoming formless like a cloud. “I keep seeing things, Kaladin. Streaks of red. Voidspren I think, patrolling the halls.”

“You can see them even if they’re invisible to humans, right?”

She nodded. “But they can see me too. My cognitive aspect.”

A part of him wanted to ask further. Why, for instance, could Rock always see her? Was he somehow part spren? Lift seemed to be able to do it too, though she wouldn’t speak about it. So was she part Horneater? The other Edgedancers didn’t have the ability.

The questions wouldn’t form on his lips. He was distracted, and honestly he was exhausted. He let the thoughts slip away as he moved to the next room on his list. These ones would probably be extra frightened, having not heard anything since—

“Kaladin,” Syl hissed.

He stopped immediately, then looked up, noting a stormform Regal walking down the hallway with a sphere lantern in one hand, a sword on his hip. “You there,” he said, speaking with a rhythm, but otherwise no hint of an accent. “Why are you out of your rooms?”

“I’m a surgeon,” Kaladin said. “I was told by one of the Fused that I could check on our people. I’m delivering food and water.”

The singer sized him up, then waved for him to open his pack and show what was inside. Kaladin obliged, and didn’t look toward Syl, who was doing her windspren act—flitting about and pretending she didn’t belong with a Radiant—just in case.

The singer inspected the rations, then studied Kaladin.

Looking at my arms, my chest, Kaladin thought. Wondering why a surgeon is built like a soldier. At least his brands were covered by his long hair.

“Return to your rooms,” the man said.

“The others will be frightened,” Kaladin said. “You could have hysterical people on your hands—chaos that would interfere with your troops.”

“And how often did you check on the parshmen of your village, when they were frightened?” the singer asked. “When they were forced into dark rooms, locked away and ignored? Did you spare any concern for them, surgeon?”

Kaladin bit off a response. This wasn’t the kind of taunt where the speaker wanted an answer. Instead he looked down.

The singer, in turn, stepped forward and snapped his hand at Kaladin to strike him. Kaladin moved without thinking, raising his hand to catch the singer’s wrist before it connected. He felt a small jolt of something when he touched the carapace-backed hand.

The singer grinned. “A surgeon, you say?”

“You’ve never heard of a battlefield medic?” Kaladin said. “I’ve trained with the men, so I can handle myself. But you can ask anyone in this town if I’m the surgeon’s son, and they’ll confirm it.”

The singer shoved at Kaladin’s hand, trying to throw him off balance, but Kaladin’s stance was solid. He met the red eyes, and saw the smile in them. The eagerness. This creature wanted a fight. Likely he was angry he’d been posted to something as boring as patrolling halls on what was to have been a daring and dangerous mission. He’d love nothing more than to have an excuse for a little excitement.

Kaladin’s grip tightened on the man’s hand. His heartbeat sped up, and he found himself reaching for the Stormlight at his belt. Draw in a breath, suck it in, end this farce. Enemies were invading the tower, and he was delivering blankets?

He held those red eyes with his own. He heard his heart thundering. Then he forced himself to look away and let the singer shove him into the wall, then trip him with a sweep to his legs. The creature loomed over him, and Kaladin kept his eyes down. You learned to do that, when you were a slave.

The creature snorted and stomped away without another word, leaving Kaladin. He felt tense, alert, like he often did before a battle—his fatigue washed away. He wanted to act.

Instead he continued on his way, delivering comfort to the people of Hearthstone.