Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

“True,” Raboniel said. “You are not prideful. I respect that. But consider my offer before rejecting it. If you are close to me, you would have a much easier time tracking what I’m doing, spying on my projects. You will also have greater opportunity to sneak information out to your husband, in hope of an eventual rescue. I know many things about Stormlight and Voidlight that you do not. Pay attention, and I suspect you’d learn more from me than you’d give up.”

Navani felt her mouth go dry, searching the Fused’s red eyes, glowing faintly from her corrupted soul. Storms. Raboniel said it all so calmly. This creature was ancient, thousands of years old. What secrets must her mind hold.…

Careful, Navani thought to herself. If she’s thousands of years old, she has had thousands of years to practice manipulating people.

“I will consider the offer,” Navani said.

“Refer to me as ‘Ancient One’ or ‘Lady of Wishes,’” Raboniel said, “as you no longer have the rank to ignore my title. I will put you with your scholars. Discuss it together, then inform me of your decision.”

The soldiers led Navani away. And just like that, she had lost another throne.

Regardless, please make yourself known to me when you travel my lands. It is distressing that you think you need to move in the shadows.

By the time they heard confirmation that the queen had surrendered, sunlight was beginning to stream through the windows of the clinic. Kaladin and his family had spent the entire night seeing patients. Twenty hours, a full day, without sleep.

Even the exhaustionspren near Kaladin seemed tired, swirling slowly, lethargic. The messenger woman sat down at their table in the clinic, bleary eyed and wearing a disheveled uniform, as she accepted a cup of cold tea from Kaladin’s father.

“The queen attempted a final push to restore the Radiants,” the woman said. “I don’t know what that entailed—only that the soldiers involved are dead now. I’ve been running messages to the neighborhoods on the sixth floor. But yes, in answer to your question, I’ve seen Queen Navani and the head of the Fused army together. She confirmed the surrender to me. We are to live under singer law, and not resist.”

“Stormwinds,” Kaladin whispered. “I never realized how blind I’d feel without spanreeds.” It had taken hours for any sort of factual information to filter up to the sixth floor.

“So we’re supposed to go right back to living under their rule?” Kaladin’s mother said from her seat at the table.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Lirin said. “The highlords won’t like it, but it won’t matter much for the rest of us.”

“Fabrials don’t work,” Hesina said. “We can’t heat our rooms, not to mention our food. The water pumps will have halted. This tower won’t remain livable for long.”

“The Fused use their powers,” Lirin replied. “Maybe if we infuse the fabrials with Voidlight, they’ll work.”

“Pardon, Brightlord,” the scout said, “but that … feels wrong for many reasons.”

Kaladin had started rummaging in the cupboard for something to eat, so he didn’t see his father’s reaction at being called “Brightlord.” He could guess though. It was an odd situation anyway, considering that Lirin’s eyes hadn’t changed, he’d simply been adopted into Kaladin’s house. Rank was becoming a jumbled mess these days.

“Kaladin, son,” Hesina said, “why don’t you go lie down?”

“Why?” he said, getting out a stack of flatbread, then counting how many pieces they had.

“You’ve been prowling about like a caged animal,” she said.

“No I haven’t.”

“Son…” she said, in a calm—but infuriatingly wise—voice.

He set down the bread and felt at his brow, which was cold from sweat. He took a deep breath, then turned around to face them, his father leaning against the wall, his mother at the table with the messenger woman. She had white and grey hair, but was young enough that it seemed premature, and had a pair of white gloves tucked into her belt. An Alethi master-servant doing double duty as a messenger.

“You’re all taking this too calmly,” Kaladin said, tossing up his hands. “Don’t you realize what this means? They control the tower. They control the Oathgates. That is it. The war is over.”

“Brightlord Dalinar still has the bulk of the Radiants with him,” Alili, the messenger, said. “And our armies were mostly deployed around the world.”

“And now they’re all isolated!” Kaladin said. “We can’t fight a war on multiple fronts without the Oathgates. And what if the enemy can repeat whatever they did here? What if they start making Radiant powers go away on every battlefield?”

That quieted her. Kaladin tried to imagine what the war would be like without Windrunners or Edgedancers. Already, the battlefields were starting to look very little like the ones he’d known during his days as a spearman. Fewer large-scale formations maneuvering against other blocks of men. Those were too easy to disrupt from above, or by other types of Fused.

Men spent their days in protected camps, making only sudden surges to claim ground and shove away the enemy. Battles stretched on for months, instead of occurring in decisive engagements. Nobody quite knew how to fight a war like this—well, nobody on their side, at least.

“I keep waiting,” Kaladin said, wiping his brow again, “for the thunder to hit. The lightning struck last night. We saw the flash, and need to brace ourselves for the shock wave.…”

“Brightlord,” Alili said, “pardon, but … maybe you could help the other Radiants? To do whatever you did?”

“What did I do?”

“That’s what I’m asking,” she said. “Again, pardon, but Brightlord Stormblessed … you’re the sole Radiant I’ve seen in the tower who is still standing. Whatever the enemy did, it knocked out all the others. Every single one. Except you.”

He thought of Teft, lying on the slab in the other room. They’d spooned broth into his mouth, and he had taken it, stirring and muttering softly between mouthfuls.

The long night weighed on Kaladin. He did need rest. Probably should have taken it hours ago. But he worried about his patients, the men suffering from battle shock. Before all this had happened, he’d gotten them rooms on the fourth floor, among the men who had lost arms or legs in the war, and who now did work maintaining gear for other soldiers.

Kaladin’s patients had been making real progress. He could imagine exactly how they felt now though, living through another horror as the battle—so frequently a source of nightmares to them—found them again. They must be beside themselves.

Not just them, Kaladin thought, wiping his brow again with his hand.

The messenger woman rose and stretched, then bowed and moved on her way to continue delivering the news. Before she reached the front door, however, Syl zipped in from underneath it, twirled around in a few circles, then zipped back out.

“Enemy soldier,” Kaladin said under his breath to his parents, “coming this way.”

Indeed, as the messenger left, a singer wearing a sleek Regal form peeked in to check on Kaladin and his parents. The singer lingered only a short time before turning away. There weren’t enough of them yet to guard each and every home. Kaladin suspected that as more and more singers moved into the tower, he and his family wouldn’t be able to speak as openly as they’d been doing so far this morning.