Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4)

by Brandon Sanderson

Looking closely, Eshonai thought she could make out the spren trapped in it. A painspren,

frantically moving around. Though … perhaps she imagined the frantic part. The spren was mostly formless when inside the gemstone, having reverted to the misty Stormlight that created all of their kind. Still, it couldn’t be happy in there. How ...

“Do you think you could trap a lifespren? If so, we could better choose when we adopt mateform. That would be convenient.”

“Try this stone,” Venli said, taking it, then handing it to Varnali next. “I think it might be the secret to warform.”

“A dangerous form,” Varnali said. “But useful.” “It is not a form of power,” Klade said. “It is wi...

“Mother, why do you think I’ve been working so hard to find these new forms? This can help.” Eshonai attuned Surprise, glancing at their mother. “Help?” Jaxlim said.

“Each form has a different way of thinking,” Venli said. “That is preserved in the songs. And some were stronger, more resilient to diseases, both physical and mental. So if you were to change to this new form…”

well, I once thought that being our new keeper of songs would be your highest calling. I

hadn’t considered that you might invent a calling with even more honor. Keeper of forms.”

Eshonai settled back, listening to her sister humming to Joy. Only … the beat was off somehow. Faster. More violent? You’re imagining things, she told herself. Don’t let jealousy consume...

But fabrials? He’d always considered them toys for rich people. Though he supposed that was becoming less and less the case. Breeding projects were creating livestock with larger and larger ruby gemhearts, and fabrial creation methods were spreading. It seemed every third room had a heating fabrial these days, and spanreeds were cheap enough that even the enlisted

men could afford to pay to send messages via one.

A Fused with carapace that grew into large axelike protrusions around his hands: one of the Magnified Ones. Fused with the Surge of Progression, which let them grow carapace with extreme precision and speed.

“Valet service.” “On the battlefield?” “A place without much Wit, I agree. Or, I should say, a place that only exists when Wit has failed. Still, I should think I would be welcome. To offer a little perspective.”

Inside, Wit sat at her travel table, scribbling furiously. So far, she’d caught him writing in what she thought were five different alien scripts, though he didn’t often answer questions about where they had originated.

“I have failed you,” he said. “I thought I’d taken all necessary precautions, but I found a pen in my writing case that did not work.” “So … what? Is this a trick, Wit?” “One played on me, I’m afraid,” he said. “The pen was not a pen, but a creature designed to appear like a pen. A cremling, you’d call it, cleverly grown to the shape of something innocent.”

Jasnah had only recently learned that the Sleepless were anything other than a myth. It had taken meeting a friendly one—seeing with her own eyes that an entity could somehow be made up of thousands of cremlings working in concert—for her to accept their existence.

But … Jasnah, I

know at least one of them has thrown their lot in with the Ghostbloods.” “Damnation.” “I believe it is time,” Wit said, “that I told you about Thaidakar.” “I know of him,” Jasnah said. “Oh, you think you do,” he said. “But I’ve met him, several times. On other planets, Jasnah. The Ghostbloods are not a Rosharan organization, and I don’t think you appreciate the danger they present.…”

Next, she used a diamond infused with Stormlight instead of a candle. It worked the same, splitting into components of light, but with a larger band of blue. Voidlight did the same, though the band of violet was enormous, and the other colors mere blips. That was strange, as her research indicated different colors of light should only make bands brighter or weaker, not increase their size.

The most interesting result happened when she tried the experiment on the Towerlight Raboniel had collected. It wasn’t Stormlight or Lifelight, but a combination of the two. When she tried the prism experiment with this light, two separate rainbows of colors—distinct from one another—split out of the prism.

She couldn’t recombine them. When she tried sending the colors through another prism, she ended up with one beam of white-blue light and a separate beam of white-green light,...

He had spheres on the table, she had written. Some twenty or thirty of them. He’d been showing them to his uncommon visitors—most of whom have vanished, never to be seen again. There was something off about those spheres. My eyes were drawn to several distinctive ones: spheres that glowed with a distinctly alien light, almost negative. Both violet and black, somehow shining, yet feeling like they should extinguish illumination instead of promote it.

Lifelight, the Light of Cultivation.

“It’s as if Stormlight is at times a liquid. It behaves like one when you draw it from a full gemstone into an empty one, mimicking osmosis.

While captured, the illumination given off by Stormlight behaves like sunlight: it can be split by a prism, and diffuses the farther it gets from its source. But the Stormlight must be different from the illumination it radiates. Otherwise, how could we hold it in a gemstone?”

“Have you ever heard of spheres that warp the air around them?” Navani asked. “Like they were extremely hot?” Raboniel’s rhythm cut off. She turned toward Navani. “Where did you hear of such a thing?” “I remembered a conversation about it,” Navani lied, “from long ago—with someone who claimed to have seen one.” “There are theories,” Raboniel said. “Matter has its opposite: negative axi that destroy positive axi when combined. This is known, and confirmed by the Shards Odium and Honor. So some have thought … is there a negative to light? An anti-light? I had discarded this idea. After all, I assumed that if there was an opposite to Stormlight, it would be Voidlight.”

Tell me, what would happen if this theoretical negative light were to combine with its positive?” “Destruction,” Raboniel said. “Instantaneous annihilation.”

Navani felt cold. She’d told her scholars—the ones to whom she’d entrusted Szeth’s strange sphere—to experiment with the air-warping light. To move it to different gemstones, to try using it in fabrials. Could it be that … they’d somehow mixed that sphere’s contents with ordinary Voidlight?

The Stormfather rumbled in the back of his mind. I was not certain it could be done, he said. The power of Bondsmiths was tempered by Honor, for the good of all. Ever since the destruction of Ashyn. “How did you know about this ability?” Dalinar said, eyes still closed. I heard it described before I fully lived. Melishi saw these lines. “The last Bondsmith,” Dalinar said. “Before the Recreance.” The same. Honor was dying, possibly mad.

“What can I do with these?” Dalinar asked. I don’t know. You see the Connections all people have: to others, to spren, to time and reality itself. Everything is Connected, Dalinar, by a vast web of interactions, passions, thoughts, fates.

Spren have these too, the Stormfather said. And the bond that makes Radiants is similar, but far stronger. I don’t think these little ones are particularly useful.

“Surely these mean something,” Dalinar said. Yes, the Stormfather said. But that doesn’t mean they can be exploited. I heard Melishi say something once. Imagine you had two pieces of cloth, one red, one yellow. Before you and your brother

parted, you each reached into a bag and selected one—but kept it hidden, putting it away in a box, unseen. You parted, traveling to distant quarters of the land. Then, by agreement, let us say that on the same day at the same time you each opened your box and took out your cloth. Upon finding the red one, you’d instantly know your brother had found the yellow one. You shared something, that bond of knowledge—the Connection e...

Stormlight didn’t work like Voidlight did. Rather than going into her gemheart, it infused her entire body. She could feel it raging—an odd feeling more than an unpleasant one.

She couldn’t push the Stormlight into her gemheart to store it there—not with the Voidspren trapped inside.

Then she took out a Voidlight sphere. She could get these without too much trouble—but she didn’t dare sing the Song of Prayer to create them herself. She worried about drawing Odium’s attention; he seemed to be ignoring her these days, and she’d rather it remain that way.

“You sure?” Venli said. “It doesn’t seem right, for some reason, to use his power to fuel our abilities.” Timbre’s pulsed reply was pragmatic. Indeed, they used Voidlight every day—a little of it, stored in their gemheart—to power Venli’s translation abilities. She wasn’t certain if her ability to use Voidlight for Radiant powers came from the fact that she was Regal, or if any singer who managed a bond would be able to do the same.

Today, she drew the Voidlight in like Stormlight, and it infused her gemheart fully. The Voidlight didn’t push her to move or act, like the Stormlight had. Instead it enflamed her emotions, in this case making her more paranoid, so she checked Shadesmar again. Still nothing there to be alarmed about.

“Hold that stone. Adopt the new form! Think about it, not mateform.” Wouldn’t that be an embarrassment.

“The lifespren aren’t interested in someone my age,”

Eshonai herself had only adopted a new form once, as a child—when her father had helped her adopt workform, since the time of changes had come to her. Children needed no form, and were vibrant without one—but if they didn’t adopt a form upon puberty in their seventh or eighth year, they would be trapped in dullform instead. That form was, essentially, an inferior version of mateform.

anticipationspren—like a long streamer connected to a round sphere below—

“Painspren,”

Used to make warform.

In fabrial science, you captured a spren by creating a gemstone with a kind of vacuum in it—you drew out the Stormlight, leaving a sphere with a void or suction inside. It would then pull in a nearby spren, which was made of Light. It was like any pressure differential.

I’ve told you, the Sibling said. Voidspren can’t be invisible in the tower. That protection is different from the one suppressing enemy Surgebinders, and Raboniel hasn’t corrupted it yet.

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

Fine. Towerlight is my Light, the Light I could create. “Did you need a Bondsmith to make it?” No. I could make it on my own. And my Bondsmith could create it, through their bond with me. “And that Light, in turn, powered the tower’s defenses.”

Not only the defenses. Everything.

I lost most of my strength when I lost the ability to hear the two pure tones of Roshar. I can make only a tiny amount of Light, enough to power a few of the tower’s basic fabrials.