Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

“He was a spy my people sent to watch them.”

“Then he betrayed you,” the direform said. “He claims he’d been held by the humans against his will, but it didn’t take much asking around to find the truth. He was friendly with the Radiants—was their servant or something. Could have left at any time, but stayed. Wanted to keep being a slave, I guess.” He changed to the Rhythm of Executions—a rarely used rhythm.

“I will speak with him,” Venli said. “Alone.”

The direform studied her, humming to Destruction in challenge. She hummed it back—she outranked this one, so long as she was Raboniel’s Voice.

“I will send again to the Lady of Wishes,” he finally said, “to inform her that you have done this.”

“As you will,” Venli said, then waited pointedly until he stepped out and shut the door. Venli glanced into Shadesmar, as she’d grown into the habit of doing, though she’d learned Voidspren couldn’t hide in the tower. It was instinct by now. And she—

Wait. There was a Voidspren here.

It was hiding in the body of a cremling. Most spren could enter bodies, if they couldn’t pass through other solid objects. She wasn’t terribly familiar with all the varieties of Voidspren, but this one must have realized that it couldn’t hide in the tower as it once had, so used this method to remain unseen.

She attuned Anxiety, and Timbre agreed. Was it watching her, or Rlain? Or was it simply here to patrol? Had she done anything recently that would give her away?

She maintained her composure, pretending to think as she strolled in the prison chamber. Then she pretended to notice the cremling for the first time, then shooed it away. The thing scuttled down the wall and out under the door. She glanced into Shadesmar, and saw the Voidspren—through the hundreds of shimmering colors that made up the tower—retreating into the distance alongside the tiny speck of light that represented the cremling.

That left her nervous enough that she paced a few times—and checked again—before finally she forced herself to return to the cell. “Rlain.”

He looked up at her. Then he frowned and stood.

“It’s me,” she said to Peace, speaking in the listener language for an extra measure of privacy. “Venli.”

He stepped closer to the bars, and his eyes flickered to her face. He hummed to Remembrance. “I was under the impression they had killed all of the listeners.”

“Only most of us. What are you doing here, Rlain? Last we knew, the humans had discovered you in the warcamps and executed you!”

“I … wasn’t discovered,” he said. He spoke to Curiosity, but his body language—he had indeed picked up some human attitudes—betrayed his true emotions. He obviously didn’t trust her. “I was made an example, used as an experiment. They put me in the bridge crews. I don’t think anyone ever suspected I was a spy. They just thought I was too smart for a parshman.”

“You’ve been living among them all this time? That guard says you’re an ess—a human sympathizer. I can’t believe you’re alive, and I’m not the … I mean…” Language failed her, and she ended up standing there, humming the Rhythm of the Lost and feeling like an idiot. Timbre chimed in, giving the same rhythm—and that helped somehow.

Rlain studied her. He’d probably heard that forms of power changed a person’s personality—storms … they’d always known that. Known they were dangerous.

“Rlain,” she said, her voice soft, “I’m me. Truly me. This form doesn’t … change me like stormform did for the others.”

Timbre pulsed. Tell him the truth. Show him what you are.

She locked up. No. She couldn’t.

“The others?” he asked, hopeful. “Remala? Eshonai? She fought Adolin, we think, in battle. Do you know … if she is…”

“I saw my sister’s corpse myself at the bottom of the chasms,” she said to Pain. “There aren’t any others left but me. He … Odium took them, made them into Fused. He saved me because he wanted me to tell stories about our people, use them to inspire the newly freed singers. But I think he was afraid of us, as a group. So he destroyed us.”

She hummed to the Rhythm of the Lost again. Rlain eventually joined her and stepped forward until he was right beside the bars.

“I’m sorry, Venli,” he eventually said. “That must have been awful.”

He doesn’t know, she realized, that I caused all this. How could he? He was among the humans. To him, I’m simply … another survivor.

She found that idea daunting.

“You need to free me,” Rlain said. “I hoped they’d accept my story, but I’m too well known in the tower. You stand out when you’re the only ‘parshman’ anyone knows.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Venli said to Reconciliation. “The guard doesn’t trust me—a lot of them don’t—and talking to you will make that worse. If I do get you out, what are you going to do? You won’t get me into trouble, will you?”

He frowned at her, then hummed to Irritation.

“You are a human sympathizer,” Venli said.

“They’re my friends,” he said. “My family, now. They aren’t perfect, Venli, but if we want to defeat Odium we’re going to need them. We’re going to need this tower.”

“Do we want to defeat Odium?” Venli asked. “A lot of people like the way things are going, Rlain. We have a nation of our own—not a few shacks in a backwater countryside, but a real nation with cities, roads, infrastructure. Things—I might add—that were largely built by the efforts of enslaved singers. The humans don’t deserve our loyalty or even an alliance. Not after what they did.”

Rlain didn’t object immediately. Instead he hummed to Tension. “We find ourselves caught, literally, between two storms,” he finally said. “But if I’m going to pick one to walk through, Venli, I’ll pick the highstorm. That was once our storm. The spren were our allies. And yes, the humans tried to exploit the listeners, then tried to destroy us—but the Fused are the ones who succeeded. Odium chose to destroy our people. I’m not going to serve him. I…”

He trailed off, perhaps realizing what he was saying. He’d tried to start the conversation noncommittal, plainly worried she was an agent for Odium. Now he’d confirmed where he stood. He looked to her, and his humming fell silent. Waiting.

“I don’t know if any good can be done by fighting him, Rlain,” she whispered. “But I … keep secrets from Odium myself. I’ve been trying to build something separate from his rule, a people I could … I don’t know, use to start a new group of listeners.”

Trying, in her own pitiful way, to undo what she’d done.

“How many?” Rlain asked, to Excitement.

“A dozen so far,” Venli said. “I have them watching over the fallen Radiants. I have some authority in the tower, but I don’t know how far it will extend. It’s complicated. The various Fused have different motivations, and I’m wrapped up in the threads of it all. I helped save some humans who were going to be executed—but I’m not interested in allying with them in general.”