“Try this push, then,” she said. “But if it doesn’t work … I need to know how the enemy is treating the people on the upper floors as we withdraw the troops. Think you can have a scout find that out for me?”
He nodded, and she read understanding in his expression. Fused usually occupied rather than destroyed. Honestly, they generally treated the cities they took better than her fellow Alethi might have during a squabble between highprinces.
As much as she hated it, surrender was an option. As long as she was sure the enemy wasn’t intending to make a slaughter of this attack.
They’d tried something like this once before, but then it had been only a raid—intended to slow down the Alethi reinforcements and to steal the Honorblade. She had a worse feeling about today’s attack. They seemed to know about the Sibling—and how to disrupt the tower’s defenses.
“I’m going to try something with the tower’s fabrials,” Navani said. “It might help us. Take command, see our plan put into action. Bring me anything of significance before you make a decision, please. Assuming you’re still willing to take orders from a woman.”
“Brightness,” he said, “before my promotion, I spent years taking orders from every fuzz-faced teenage lieutenant who decided to make a name for himself on the Shattered Plains. Trust me when I say I consider this to be an honor.”
He saluted her, then turned and began barking further orders. As he did, Navani noted the Bridge Four man named Dabbid slinking into the room. People didn’t give him much more than a quick glance. The way he walked, with his eyes down, cringing when someone brushed past, was reminiscent of a servant, or … well, of how parshmen used to be. Invisible, to an extent.
It was good to know he had arrived in case what she was about to try didn’t work. Navani walked up to the vein of crystal on the wall. It was more obvious in this room—a line of red garnet slicing the wall in half, interrupting the natural pattern of the strata. Navani rested her hand against it.
“I know you can hear, Sibling,” Navani said softly. “Dabbid told me you could—but it was clear to me anyway. You knew where to place those rubies, and you knew when I’d lost one. You’ve been listening in on us the entire time, haven’t you? Spying? How else would you know that I’m the one who leads the fabrial scholars in the tower?”
As she finished speaking, she noted something: a small twinkle of light, like a starspren, moving up through the line of crystal. She forced herself to keep her fingers in place as it touched her skin.
I can hear you, a voice said in her mind—quiet, like a whisper. She couldn’t tell if it was male or female. It seemed pitched between the two. Though I do not see all that you assume I do. Regardless, Dabbid should not have spoken of this.
“Be glad he did,” Navani whispered. “I want to help.”
You are a slaver, the Sibling said.
“Am I better than a Fused?”
The Sibling didn’t respond at first. I’m not sure, they said. I have avoided your kind. You were supposed to think I was dead. Everyone was supposed to think I was dead.
“I’m glad you’re not. You said you were the soul of the tower. Can you restore its functions?”
No, the voice said. I really was asleep. Until … a Bondsmith. I felt a Bondsmith. But the tower is not functional, and I have not the Light to restart it.
“If that is true, then how have they done what they have to the Radiants?”
I … They have corrupted me. A little part of me. They used their Light to activate defenses I could not.
“Is what they did related to that construction of garnets in your crystal pillar?”
You know too much, the Sibling said. It makes me uncomfortable. You know and do things that weren’t possible before.
“They were possible, they simply weren’t known,” Navani said. “That is the nature of science.”
What you do is dangerous and evil, the Sibling said. Those ancient Radiants gave up their oaths because they worried they had too much power—and you have gone far beyond them.
“I am willing to listen to you,” Navani said. “Willing to change. But if the Fused take the tower, corrupt it…”
The … Lady of Pains is here, the Sibling said, voice growing softer. More frightened? It sounded like a child’s voice, Navani decided.
“I don’t know who that is,” Navani said.
She is bad. Terrible. Few Fused are as … frightening to me as she is. She’s trying to change me. So far, she changed only the portion of me that suppresses Surgebinding, reversing it so it affects Radiants instead of Fused. But she intends to go further. Much further.
“Is there a way to rescue our Radiants other than recovering the pillar?”
No, the Sibling said. Get to the pillar, and we could reverse the effects. But otherwise … no. Those highly Invested might not be as strongly affected. Unmade, for example, were sometimes able to push through my suppression. Radiants of the high oaths might be able to access their powers. And Honor’s Truest Surge, the Surge of Binding and Oaths, could still work.
“What can I do to help?” Navani said. “We’re mounting an assault to try to recapture the pillar heart. Is there something else I could try? Earlier you told me I needed to infuse something—but were cut off before you could finish.”
The Lady of Pains is returning, the Sibling said. I think … I think she’s going to change me. My mind might alter. I might not care.
“Do you care now?” Navani asked, urgent.
Yes. The voice seemed very small.
“Tell me what to do.”
Long ago, before I banished men from these halls, my last Bondsmith made me something. A method of protecting me from the dangers I saw in men. He thought it would help me trust again. It did not. But it might stop the Fused from corrupting me further.
“Please,” Navani said. “Let me help. Please.”
You cannot be trusted.
“Let me show you that I can.”
I … You will need Stormlight, Navani Kholin. A great deal of Stormlight.
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.