Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

“I am Venli,” she said. “Of the listeners.”

The stones trembled. They spoke with one voice, but she felt as if it was also many voices overlapping. Not the voice of the tower, but the voices of the many different sections of stones around her. The walls, the ceiling, the floor.

Radiant, the stones said. We have … missed your touch, Radiant. But what is this? What is that sound, that tone?

“Voidlight,” Venli admitted.

That sound is familiar, the stones said. A child of the ancient ones. Our friend, you have returned to sing our song again?

“What song?” Venli asked.

The stone near her hand began to undulate, like ripples on the surface of a pond. A tone surged through her, then it began to pulse with the song of a rhythm she’d never heard, but somehow always known. A profound, sonorous rhythm, ancient as the core of Roshar.

The entire wall followed suit, then the ceiling and the floor, surrounding her with a beautiful rhythm set to a pure tone. Timbre, with glee, joined in—and so Venli’s body aligned with the rhythm, and she felt it humming through her, vibrating her from carapace to bones.

She gasped, then pressed her other hand to the rock, aching to feel the song against her skin. There was a rightness about this, a perfection.

Oh, storms, she thought. Oh, rhythms ancient and new. I belong here.

She belonged here.

So far, everything she’d done with Timbre had been accidental. There had been a momentum to it. She’d made choices along the way, but it had never felt like something she deserved. Rather, it was a path she had fallen into, and then taken because it was better than her other options.

But here … she belonged here.

Remember, the stones said. The ground in front of her stopped rippling and formed shapes. Little homes made of stone, with figures standing beside them. Shaping them. She heard them humming.

She saw them. Ancient people, the Dawnsingers, working the stone. Creating cities, tools. They didn’t need Soulcasting or forges. They’d dip lengths of wood into the stone, and come out with axes. They’d shape bowls with their fingers. All the while, the stone would sing to them.

Feel me, shaper. Create from me. We are one. The stone shapes your life as you shape the stone.

Welcome home, child of the ancients.

“How?” Venli asked. “Radiants didn’t exist then. Spren didn’t bond us … did they?”

Things are new, the stones hummed, but new things are made from old things, and old peoples give birth to new ones. Old stones remember.

The vibrations quieted, falling from powerful thrummings, to tiny ripples, to stillness. The homes and the people melted back to ordinary stone floor, though the strata of this place had changed. As if to echo the former vibrations.

Venli knelt. After several minutes, breathing in gasps, she realized she was completely out of Voidlight. She searched her sack, and found all of her spheres drained save for a single mark. She’d gone through those spheres with frightening speed. But that moment of song, that moment of connection, had certainly been worth the cost.

She drew in this mark, then hesitantly placed her hand to the wall again. She felt the stone, willing and pliable, encouraging her and calling her “shaper.” She drew out the Voidlight and it infused her hand, making it glow violet-on-black. When she pressed her thumb into the stone, the rock molded beneath her touch, as if it had become crem clay.

Venli pressed her entire hand into the stone, making a print there and feeling the soft—but still present—rhythm. Then she pulled off a piece of the rock and molded it in her fingers. She rolled it into a ball, and the viscosity seemed to match what she needed—for when she held her hand forward and imagined it doing so, the stone ball melted into a puddle. She dropped it then, and it clicked when it hit the ground—hard, but imprinted by her fingers.

She picked it up and pressed it back into the wall, where it melded with the stone there as if it had never been removed.

Once she was done, she considered. “I want this, Timbre,” she whispered, wiping her eyes. “I need this.”

Timbre thrummed excitedly.

“What do you mean, ‘them’?” Venli asked. She looked up, noticing lights in the hallway. She attuned Anxiety, but then the lights drew closer. The three little spren were like Timbre: in the shape of comets with rings of light pulsing around them.

“This is dangerous,” Venli hissed to Reprimand. “They shouldn’t be here. If they’re seen, the Voidspren will destroy them.”

Timbre pulsed that spren couldn’t be destroyed. Cut them with a Shardblade, and they’d re-form. Venli, however, wasn’t so confident. Surely the Fused could do something. Trap them in a jar? Lock them away?

Timbre insisted they’d simply fade into Shadesmar in that case, and be free. Well, it was risky, no matter what she said. These spren seemed more … awake than she’d expected though. They hovered around her, curious.

“Didn’t you say spren like you need a bond to be aware in the Physical Realm? An anchor?”

Timbre’s explanation was slightly ashamed. These were eager to bond Venli’s friends, her squires. That had given these spren access to thoughts and stability in the Physical Realm. Venli was the anchor.

She nodded. “Tell them to get out of the tower for now. If my friends start suddenly manifesting Radiant powers—and the stone starts singing in a place others could see—we could find ourselves in serious trouble.”

Timbre pulsed, defiant. How long?

“Until I find a way out of this mess,” Venli said. She pressed her hand to the wall, listening to the soft, contented hum of the stones. “I’m like a baby taking her first steps. But this might be the answer we need. If I can sculpt us an exit through the collapsed tunnels below, I should be able to sneak us out. Maybe we can even make it seem like we died in a further cave-in, covering our escape.”

Timbre pulsed encouragingly.

“You’re correct,” Venli said. “We can do this. But we need to take it slowly, carefully. I rushed to find new forms, and that proved a disaster. This time we’ll do things the right way.”

EIGHT YEARS AGO

Eshonai accompanied her mother into the storm.

Together they struck out into the electric darkness, Eshonai carrying a large wooden shield to buffer the wind for her mother, who cradled the bright orange glowing gemstone. Powerful gusts tried to rip the shield out of Eshonai’s hand, and windspren soared past, giggling.

Eshonai and her mother passed others, notable for the similar gemstones they carried. Little bursts of light in the tempest. Like the souls of the dead said to wander the storms, searching for gemhearts to inhabit.

Eshonai attuned the Rhythm of the Terrors: sharp, each beat puncturing her mind. She wasn’t afraid for herself, but her mother had been so frail lately.

Though many of the others stood out in the open, Eshonai led her mother to the hollow she’d picked out earlier. Even here, the pelting rain felt like it was trying to burrow through her skin. Rainspren along the top of the ridge seemed to dance as they waved along with the furious tempest.

Eshonai huddled down beside her mother, unable to hear the rhythm the femalen was humming. The light of the gemstone, however, revealed a grin on Jaxlim’s face.