Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4)

by Brandon Sanderson

A way to suppress the abilities of the Fused?

She had a Bondsmith in Dalinar. Shouldn’t he and the Stormfather be able to mimic whatever the long-dead tower spren had done to power the pillar and the tower?

Soulcasters … they broke all the rules. For centuries, everyone had explained them as holy objects. Created by the Almighty and granted to men in an act of charity. They weren’t supposed to make sense, because they weren’t technological, but divine.

Navani could travel into Shadesmar—and everything in the Physical Realm reflected there. Human beings manifested as floating candle flames. Spren manifested as larger, or more complete versions of what was seen in the Physical Realm. Soulcasters manifested as small unresponsive spren, hovering with their eyes closed. So the Soulcasters did have a captured spren. A Radiant spren, judging by their shape. Intelligent, rather than the more animal-like spren captured to power normal fabrials.

The honorspren cannot be trusted, the pen wrote. Not anymore. You must stop creating this new kind of fabrial. I will make you stop. This is your warning.

She pulled closer, and couldn’t help imagining it. What he would do if he knew the real her. If he knew all the things she’d actually done.

She’d be alone, as she deserved. Because of the truths she hid, her entire life was a lie. Shallan, the one they all knew best, was the fakest mask of them all.

Radiant had no reply. And deep within Shallan, something else stirred. Formless. She had told herself that she would never create a new persona, and she wouldn’t. Formless wasn’t real. But the possibility of it frightened Veil. And anything that frightened Veil terrified Shallan.

Another persona!?

She didn’t deserve him—his goodness, his love. That was the trap she’d found herself in. The more he trusted her, the worse she felt. And she didn’t know how to get out. She couldn’t get out. Please, she whispered. Save me.

Veil reluctantly emerged. She sat up, not pulling against Adolin any longer—and he seemed to understand, shifting his position in the seat. He had an uncanny ability to tell which of her was in control.

She would tell Adolin everything, eventually. She’d told him some already. About her father, and her mother, and her life in Jah Keved. But not the deepest things, the things she didn’t even remember herself. How could she tell him things that were clouded in her own memory?

Shallan said. “It seems to be Ialai’s attempts to piece together what the Ghostbloods are planning. Like this page—a list of terms or names her spies had heard. She was trying to define what they were.” Shallan moved her finger down the page. “Nalathis. Scadarial. Tal Dain. Do you recognize any of those?”

Names of other planets in the cosmere, but spelled in a Rosharan way.

“They sound like nonsense to me. Nalathis might have something to do with Nalan, the Skybreaker Herald.”

Ialai had noticed the same connection, but indicated these names might be places—ones she could not find in any atlas. Perhaps they were like Feverstone Keep, the place Dalinar had seen in his visions. Somewhere that had ...

Circled several times on one page at the end of the list was the word “Thaidakar” with the note, He leads them. But who is he? The name seems a title, much like ...

Keeping secrets from Adolin was eating at her from the inside. Fueling Formless, pushing it toward a reality.

“Formless” is what this oncoming persona is dubbed.

The spren, Yunfah, had been bonded to Vratim, a Windrunner who had died a few months ago. At first, when they’d begun losing Radiants in battle, Kaladin had worried it would cause him to lose the spren as well. Syl, after all, had gone comatose many centuries ago when she’d lost her first Radiant.

Others, however, handled it differently. The majority, though grieved, seemed to want another bond soon—as it helped them move past the pain of loss.

He says, Syl told Kaladin in his mind, that he’s still considering picking a new knight. He’s narrowed it down to five possibilities. “Is Rlain one of them?” Yunfah stood up on his cloud, his long beard whipping in the wind—though he had no real substance. Kaladin could read anger in his posture before Syl gave him the reply. She was acting as intermediary since the sound of the rushing wind was fairly loud, even at a single Lashing. No, Syl said. He is angry at your repeated suggestion he bond one of the enemies.

He’s acting mad, Syl said. But I do think he’ll agree if you push him. He respects you, and honorspren like hierarchy. The ones who have joined us did so against the will of the general body of their peers; they’ll be looking for someone to be in charge.

“Does it strike you as odd to find it among them?” Dalinar asked. “The Almighty—Honor himself—was our god. The one their god killed.” “I used to think it odd. But sir, wasn’t Honor their god before he was ours?”

This world had belonged to the singers with Honor as their god. Until humans had arrived, bringing Odium.

“To my cousins, you are dangerous,” Syl said. “As dangerous as the singers. The betrayal of the Knights Radiant killed so many of them.…” “The other spren have begun coming around,” Kaladin said. “They see it.” “Honorspren are more … rigid,” she said. “Most of them at least.”

Dalinar nodded, then put his hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. “It’s time that I relieved you of duty, son. I’m sorry.” A jolt went through Kaladin. Like the shock of being stabbed—or the feeling of suddenly coming awake in an unfamiliar place, frightened by a sudden noise. A visceral clenching of the stomach. A sudden racing of the heart. Every piece of you alert, looking for the fight.

Kaladin knocked Dalinar’s hand away, snapping open his eyes. “You can’t do this. I built the Windrunners. They’re my team. You can’t take that from me.” “I will because I have to,” Dalinar said. “Kaladin, if you were anyone else, I’d have pulled you from active duty months ago. But you’re you, and I kept telling myself we needed every Windrunner.” “That’s true!” “We need every functional Windrunner. I’m sorry. There was a point where if I’d removed you from command, it would have destroyed the momentum of the entire team. We’re safely past that now. You will still be with us … but you won’t be going on any more missions.”

You couldn’t say the Words, he thought. You needed to. A year ago, when Dalinar could have died. You needed to speak the Words. You crumpled instead. Kaladin would never say them, would he? He was finished at the Third Ideal. Other spren had said … said that many Radiants never spoke the later oaths.

“Can … can I keep my oaths without fighting?” Kaladin asked. “I need to protect.” “There are many ways to protect,” Dalinar said. “Not all Radiants went into battle in the old days.

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. Venli still didn’t know much about them.

Her form of power was slender and tall, with long orange-red hairstrands and delicate carapace along the cheeks and in ridges on the backs of the hands. Not armor; more like ornamentation. It wasn’t a fighting form, more intended to inspire awe—and give her powers to translate text and languages.

Envoyform.

Though she was a Regal, she held a secret deep within her gemheart, a friend who protected her from the Voidspren’s

influence. Her Radiant spren—Timbre—buzzed softly...

Timbre is protecting Venli from the mental influences of the Voidspren. Interesting.

The nine varieties were called “brands” in their own language, a word evoking the heat of a branding iron, though Venli had seen no such mark on their skin.

The Fused exerted some measure of will upon their forms—skin patterns persisted, for example, and some grew carapace in individual patterns. Knowing that, you could easily distinguish the same Fused across multiple incarnations.

Venli had the advantage of her ability to look into Shadesmar—which immediately told her if someone was Fused, Regal, or ordinary singer. She tried very hard not to use that ability except in the most secret of locations. It would be a disaster of incredible proportions if anyone figured out that Venli—Last Listener, envoyform Regal, Voice of Lady Leshwi—was a Knight Radiant.

Timbre wanted Venli to acknowledge she was not a Knight Radiant. Not yet, as she’d only said the First Ideal. She had work to do if she wanted to progress.

Leshwi hummed. Though it was a short beat done to Craving, it meant so much more to Venli. The longer she’d held envoyform, the more remarkable its abilities had become. She could not only speak all languages, she instinctively understood what her mistress said to her through simple humming. In fact, the experience was eerily familiar to the way she understood Timbre—yet she was certain that ability wasn’t related to her form.

If you took a Regal form, Odium got inside your mind. New forms with their new rhythms altered your mannerisms, your way of seeing the world. Even common singers were carefully indoctrinated, constantly told that sacrificing themselves was a great privilege.

She drew a bit of Voidlight from a sphere in her pocket. She could use either of the two types of Light: the strange Voidlight Odium provided, or the old Stormlight of Honor. From what Timbre said, this was new—whatever Venli was doing, it hadn’t been done before.

They’d tested Venli’s other power—the ability to mold stone—only once, and it

had drawn secretspren. A kind of specialized spren that flew through the city, watching for signs of Knights Radiant using their powers.

As long as the secretspren were near, Venli could not practice the full extent of her abilities. Fortunately, this power—the one that let her peek into Shadesmar—did not draw the same attention.

Some Voidspren could hide from the eyes of all except those they wanted to see them—but none could hide from Venli, who could see their traces in Shadesmar. She made certain none were nearby, and that Shumin was not one of the mavset-im, Fused who could imitate the shapes of others. Even other Fused seemed wary of the mavset-im, Those Ones of Masks.

Shumin’s soul was as Venli expected: a common singer soul bonded to a small gravitationspren to take workform.

“Long ago,” Venli explained to Shumin, “the singers were allies of the spren. Then humans came, and the wars started. The events of those days are lost to all but the Fused—in the end, however, we know the spren chose humans. “Eventually, the humans betrayed them. Killed them. Some spren have chosen to give humans a second chance, but others … Well, I have been contacted by a spren who represents an entire people in Shadesmar. They realize that perhaps we deserve a second chance more than humans do.”

Then he stepped inside and found an empty nothingness. His were the quarters of a highlord, supposedly luxurious and spacious. He had little furniture though, and that left it feeling hollow. Dark, the sole light coming from the balcony. Every honor he’d been given seemed to highlight how vacant his life really was. Titles couldn’t fill a room with life.

Exhaustionspren like jets of dust gleefully congregated around him. And agonyspren, like upside-down faces carved from stone, twisted and faded in and out.

Syl took off to begin poking through the room, looking at each table. Though he’d once seen her fascination as childlike, he’d evolved on that idea. She was just curious, desirous to learn. If that was childlike, then everyone needed more of it.

You share Veil’s opinion that Shallan is fine? She merely needs a rest?” “She is well enough,” Radiant said. “We’ve found a balance. A year now, without any new personas forming. Except…” Kaladin raised an eyebrow. “There are some, half-formed,” Radiant said, turning away. “They wait, to see if the Three really can work. Or if it could crumble, letting them out. They aren’t real. Not as real as I am. And yet. And yet…” She met Kaladin’s eyes. “Shallan wouldn’t wish me to share that much. But as her friend, you should know.”

“What does your surgeon’s knowledge say, Kal?” Adolin said. “What do I do?” “I don’t know,” Kaladin said. “We are trained in dealing with physical ailments, not in what to do when someone is sick in the mind, other than send them to the ardents.” “Seems wrong.” “Yeah, it does.” Kaladin frowned. He wasn’t totally certain what the ardents did with mentally ill patients.