Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

“The Fused?” Kaladin asked. “That’s what they are?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Most of us stop aging when it happens, gaining a kind of immortality.”

“Is there a … way to kill something like you? Permanently?”

“Lots of ways. For the weaker ones, just kill the body again, make sure no one Invests the soul with more strength, and they’ll slip away in a few minutes. For stronger ones … well, you might be able to starve them. A lot of Type Twos feed on power. Keeps them going.

“These enemies of yours though, I think they’re too strong for that. They’ve lasted thousands of years already, and seem Connected to Odium to feed directly on his power. You’ll have to find a way to disrupt their souls. You can’t just rip them apart; you need a weapon so strong, it unravels the soul.” He squinted, looking off into the distance. “I know through sorry experience those kinds of weapons are very dangerous to make, and never seem to work right.”

“There’s another way,” Kaladin said. “We could convince the Fused to stop fighting. Instead of killing them, we could find a way to live with them.”

“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.

Zahel didn’t respond, though when Kaladin handed back the stone shell, Zahel took it. As Kaladin hiked off, the swordmaster cradled it to his chest, staring out toward the endless horizon.

My final point of the evening is a discussion of Fused weapons. The Fused use a variety of fabrial devices to fight Radiants. It is obvious from how quickly they’ve fabricated and employed these countermeasures that they have used these in the past.

—Lecture on fabrial mechanics presented by Navani Kholin to the coalition of monarchs, Urithiru, Jesevan, 1175

Navani held up the dark sphere, closing one eye to inspect it closely. It was different from Voidlight. She held up a Voidlight sphere for comparison, a diamond infused with the strange Light gathered during the Everstorm.

They still didn’t know how the enemy infused spheres with Voidlight; all they owned were stolen from the singers. Fortunately, Voidlight leaked far more slowly than Stormlight did. She probably had a few more days before this one went dun.

The Voidlight sphere had a strange glow to it. A distinctive purple-on-black, which Rushu described as a hyperviolet—a color she claimed existed in theory, though Navani didn’t know how a color could be theoretical. Regardless, this was a purple-on-black, coexisting in such a way that both shades simultaneously occupied the same space.

The strange sphere that Szeth had provided seemed exactly the same at first glance. Purple upon black, an impossible color. Like the ordinary Voidlight sphere, its blackness expanded, making the surrounding air dim.

But there was an added effect with this sphere, one she hadn’t noticed right away. It warped the air around it. Looking at the sphere for too long was a distinctively disorienting sensation. It evoked a wrongness that she couldn’t define.

Gavilar had possessed Voidlight spheres—she remembered seeing them—and that fact was befuddling enough. How had her husband obtained Voidlight years before the arrival of the Everstorm? But this other black sphere. What on Roshar was it?

“Assassin,” Navani said. “Look at me.”

Szeth, the Assassin in White, looked up from within his cell. Sixteen days had passed since Navani and Dalinar had returned from testing the Fourth Bridge in battle. Sixteen days spent catching up on mundane work in the tower, like overseeing planned expansions of the market and dealing with sanitation problems. Only now did she have a large chunk of time to dedicate to Voidlight and the nature of the tower.

The strange individual who had contacted her via spanreed had not spoken to her again. Navani had decided not to worry about them—she didn’t even know if they were sane. She had plenty else to worry about, such as the man sitting in the prison cell in front of her.

Szeth cradled his strange Shardblade in his lap, the one that leaked black smoke when unsheathed. When challenged about letting the prisoner remain armed, Dalinar had replied, “I believe the safest place to keep the thing is in his possession.”

Navani questioned that wisdom. In her opinion, they should sink the strange Blade in the ocean, like they’d done with the gemstone that contained the Thrill. Szeth did not seem stable enough to be trusted with a Shard, particularly not one so dangerous as this. In fact, she wished the assassin had been executed as he deserved.

Dalinar disagreed, and so they’d decided together to leave Szeth alive. Today, the Shin man sat on the floor of his stone cell, eyes closed, wearing white clothing by his own request. He had been given what few amenities he asked for. A razor for shaving, a single blanket, a chance to bathe each day.

And light. A great deal of light. Dozens of spheres to illuminate his small stone cell and banish all traces of shadow.

They’d fitted the front of the room with bars, though those wouldn’t keep the assassin contained should he decide to escape. That Shardblade could reduce objects to smoke simply by nicking them.

“Tell me again,” Navani said to him, “of the night you killed my husband.”

“I was instructed by the Parshendi to execute him,” Szeth said softly.

“Were you curious why they’d kill a man on the very night they were signing a peace treaty with him?”

“I thought I was Truthless,” Szeth said. “That status required that I do as my master commanded. Without question.” His voice bore only the faintest hint of an accent.

“Your master is now Dalinar.”

“Yes. I have … found a better way. Throughout my Truthless existence, I followed the way of the Oathstone. I would obey anyone who held that stone. Now, I have realized I was never Truthless. I have sworn to an Ideal instead: the Blackthorn. Whatever he wishes, I will make reality.”

“What if Dalinar dies?”

“I … will seek another Ideal, I suppose. I had not considered it.”

“How could you not think of that?”

“I simply did not.”

Storms, this is dangerous, Navani thought. Dalinar could speak of redemption and mending broken spirits, but this creature was a fire burning unchecked, ready to escape the hearth and consume any fuel it could find. Szeth had murdered kings and highprinces—over a dozen rulers all across Roshar. Yes, much of that blame fell on Taravangian, but Szeth was the tool employed to cause such destruction.

“You didn’t finish your story,” Navani said. “The night you killed Gavilar. Tell me again what happened. The part with this sphere.”

“We fell,” Szeth whispered, opening his eyes. “Gavilar was injured by the impact, his body fatally broken. In that moment he treated me not as an enemy, but as the last living man he would ever see. He made a request. A holy request, the last words of the dying.