Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4)

by Brandon Sanderson

I have discovered the entrance to the realm of gods and legends, and once I join them, my kingdom will never end. I will never end.”

“Heroism is a myth you tell idealistic young people—specifically when you want them to go bleed for you. It got one of my sons killed and another taken from me. You can keep your heroism and return to me the lives of those wasted on foolish conflicts.”

“Even babies can sleep,” Syl said. “Only you could make something so simple into something extremely difficult.” “Yeah?” Kaladin asked. “And can you do it?” “Lie down. Pretend to be dead for a while. Get up. Easy. Oh, and since it’s you, I’ll add the mandatory last step: complain.”

towered over them in envoyform. There were a variety of different levels a person could have in the singer culture. Normal people—simply called singers, or common singers—had ordinary forms such as workform or warform. Then there were forms of power, like Venli’s envoyform. This was a level higher in authority and strength, and required taking a Voidspren into your gemheart. That influenced your mind, changed how you perceived the world. These singers were called Regals.

Further up the hierarchy were the Fused. Ancient souls put into a modern body, which extinguished the soul of the host completely. And above them? Mysterious creatures like the thunderclasts and the Unmade. Souls more like spren than people.

“You gave me back my life,” he said. “Thank you for that, Kaladin, bridgeleader. Do not be sad that now I choose to live that life.” “You go to imprisonment or worse.” “I go to the gods,” Rock said. He held up his finger. “There is one who lives here. One afah’liki. He is powerful god, but tricky. You should not have lost his flute.” “I … don’t think Wit is a god, Rock.”

“I’m going to—against my better judgment—seek wisdom there.” “Many of the ardents who train there seem pretty wise to me,” she said. “After all, they shave their heads.” “They…” Kaladin frowned. “Syl, what does that have to do with being wise?” “Hair is gross. It seems smart to shave it off.” “You have hair.” “I do not; I just have me. Think about it, Kaladin. Everything else that comes out of your body you dispose of quickly and quietly—but this strange stuff oozes out of little holes in your head, and you let it sit there? Gross.”

“I think … I think I have seen this style before. You fight like Azure does.” “She fights like me, boy.” “She’s hunting for you, I think.” “So Adolin has said. The fool woman will have to get through Cultivation’s Perpendicularity first, so I won’t hold my Breaths waiting for her to arrive.”

“You love the fight, Kaladin. Not with the Thrill that Dalinar once felt, or even with the anticipation of a dandy going to a duel. “You love it because it’s part of you. It’s your mistress, your passion, your lifeblood. You’d find the daily training unsatisfying. You’d thirst for something more. You’d eventually turn and leave, and that would put you in a worse position than if you’d never started.”

“What are you?” Kaladin asked. “Are you like Wit?” There had always been something about Zahel, something too knowing. Something distinct, set apart, different from the others. “No,” Zahel said. “I don’t think there’s anyone else quite like Hoid. I knew him by the name Dust when I was younger. I think he must have a thousand different names among a thousand different peoples.”

But I’m also a Type Two Invested entity. Used to call myself a Type One, but I had to throw the whole scale out, once I learned more. That’s the trouble with science. It’s never done. Always upending itself. Ruining perfect systems for the little inconvenience of them being wrong.”

“I…” Kaladin swallowed. “I don’t know what any of that meant, but thanks for replying. Wit never gives me answers. At least not straight ones.” “That’s because Wit is an asshole,”

“My soul,” Zahel said, “is like that fossil. Every part of my soul has been replaced with something new, though it happened in a flash for me. The soul I have now resembles the one I was born with, but it’s something else entirely.” “I don’t understand.” “I’m not surprised.” Zahel thought for a moment. “Imagine it this way. You know how you can make an imprint in crem, then let it dry, and fill the imprint with wax to create a copy of your original object? Well, that happened to my soul. When I died, I was drenched in power. So when my soul escaped, it left a duplicate. A kind of … fossil of a soul.”

“The Heralds too,” Zahel said. “When they died, they left an imprint behind. Power that remembered being them. You see, the power wants to be alive.” He gestured with his chin toward Syl, flying down beneath them as a ribbon of light. “She’s what I now call a Type One Invested entity. I decided that had to be the proper way to refer to them. Power that came alive on its own.”

“Cut off a bit of divinity and leave it alone. Eventually it comes alive. And if you let a man die with too Invested a soul—or Invest him right as he’s dying—he’ll leave behind a shadow you can nail back onto a body. His own, if you’re feeling charitable. Once done, you have this.” Zahel waved to himself. “Type Two Invested entity. Dead man walking.”

“Grand ideals,” Zahel said. “Optimism. Yeah, you’d make a terrible swordmaster. Be wary of those Fused, kid. The longer one of us exists, the more like a spren we become. Consumed by a singular purpose, our minds bound and chained by our Intent. We’re spren masquerading as men. That’s why she takes our memories. She knows we aren’t the actual people who died, but something else given a corpse to inhabit.…” “She?” Kaladin asked.

“Do you hate me?” Szeth asked from behind, calm, almost emotionless. Too calm, too emotionless for words spoken to a widow at his hand. “Yes,” Navani said. “Good,” Szeth said, the word echoing in the small chamber. “Good. Thank you.”

Rlain, the listener member of Bridge Four. He swore that Gavilar had given his general, Eshonai, a Voidlight sphere years before the coming of the Everstorm. When Navani showed him this second sphere, his reaction had been curious. I don’t know what that is, Brightness, he’d said. But it feels painful. Voidlight is dangerously inviting, like if I touched it, my body would drink it in eagerly. That thing … is different. It has a song I’ve never heard, and it vibrates wrong against my soul.

“If we slow down,” Jasnah said, “the past catches up to us. History is like that, always gobbling up the present.”

“All of this is immaterial, however. Because I would have burned villages to prevent what was coming. I would have sent the Vedens into chaos. No matter the cost, I would have paid it. Know this. If humankind survives the new storm, it will be because of the actions I took. I stand by them.”

“The Sibling—the tower, Urithiru—is the child of Honor and Cultivation, created to fight Odium. The place runs on the Sibling’s Light, a mixture of the essences of its parents.

“I’ve taken oaths too, Father,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m not the man you wanted me to be. But if I were a monster, I would never have let that other soldier go.”

It seems Voidspren are not as naturally … self-sacrificing as those of Honor or Cultivation.”

“Never mind. Saying anything would provide you with more rocks to throw at me.” “And you’re supposed to be the dumb one,” Wit said, grinning. “When have I ever mocked you, though?” “All the time, Wit. You mock everyone.” “Do I? Do I really? Hmmm…” He tapped his chin. “I’m gainfully employed as Queen’s Wit, and she expects me to provide only the best of mockery on her behalf. I need to be careful about simply giving it away. Who is going to buy the cow, and all that.”

The man who forges weapons can claim he’s never killed, but he still prepares for the slaughter.

Gavilar Kholin—king, husband, occasional monster—had been searching for a way to kill a god.

“I am an artist,” Wit said. “I should thank you not to demean me by insisting my art must be trying to accomplish something. In fact, you shouldn’t enjoy art. You should simply admit that it exists, then move on. Anything else is patronizing.”

“It will,” Wit said, “but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you, Kaladin: You will be warm again.”

He didn’t like it when people used the word “stupid” for the way he was. People called one another stupid when they made mistakes. Dabbid wasn’t a mistake. He could make mistakes. Then he was stupid. But not always. He couldn’t think fast like others. But that made him different, not stupid. Stupid was a choice.

“Ain’t that a kick in the bits?” Lift asked. “You get made immortal; you can live through the centuries. You can fly, or walk through rock, or something like that. But you still gotta piss like everyone else.”

True freedom couldn’t exist while someone else had power over you.

“Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men!”

“He said to tell you that we trust you,” Pattern said. “And love you. He said I should tell you that you deserve trust and love. And you do. I’m sorry I’ve been lying. For a very long time. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you could handle it.”

“You. Cannot. Have. My. SACRIFICE!” she shouted. “Mine. My sacrifice. Not yours.” She pointed at the crowd. “Not theirs.” She pointed at Adolin. “Not his. Mine. MY SACRIFICE.”