Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

Debris began to whip past the opening, lit by the rapid flashes, and the rhythms in her head went crazy. Breaking apart, movements of one melding with another. The ground trembled and groaned, and Venli sought to hide deeper in the building, away from the violence. As she passed a doorway, however, the floor undulated and she was cast to the ground.

With a sound so loud her whole body vibrated, an entire section of the stone building was ripped free—including the room she’d just left.

She was pelted by rain, exposed to the howling winds through the broken wall. This was the end. The end of the world. Tiny, terrified, she pressed herself between two solid-seeming chunks of rock and closed her eyes, unable to hear the rhythms over the sound of the tempest.

She knew what rhythm she’d hear if she could, though. For there, pressed between stones, Venli was forced to admit what she really was. The truth that had always been there, covered over, encrusted with crem. Exposed only when the winds cut her to her soul.

She was no genius forging a new path for her people. Everything she’d “discovered” had been given or hinted at by Ulim.

She was no queen deserving of rule. She cared nothing for her people. Just for her own self.

She wasn’t powerful. The winds and the storms reminded her that no matter what she did—no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she pretended—she would always be small.

She had pretended she was those things, and would likely pretend them again as soon as she could lie to herself. As soon as she was safe. But here—with everything else flayed away and her soul stripped bare—Venli was forced to admit what she truly was. What she’d always been.

A coward.

I tell you; I write it. You must release the captive Unmade. She will not fade as I will. If you leave her as she is, she will remain imprisoned for eternity.

Rlain found her crying.

Venli could count on her fingers the number of times she could remember crying. Not merely attuning Mourning, but actually crying. Today she couldn’t help herself. She knelt in the sectioned-off part of the infirmary room, overlooking the large map of the Shattered Plains that Rlain had stolen. She was alone. Lirin and Hesina were in the main room, seeing to the patients.

A note on the map hinted at what Raboniel had said: a group of nomads in the hills. Her people. They had survived.

She turned to Rlain, who—shocked—was humming to Awe at finding her like this.

“We’re not the last,” Venli whispered. “They are alive, Rlain. Thousands of them.”

“Who?” He knelt. “What are you talking about?”

Venli wiped her eyes—she wouldn’t have her tears destroying this glorious map. Venli handed him the note Raboniel had given her, but of course he couldn’t read. So she read it out loud for him.

“You mean…” he said, attuning Awe. “Thousands of them?”

“It was Thude,” Venli said. “He refused stormform. So did most of Eshonai’s closest friends. I … I wasn’t thinking back then.… I would have had them killed, but Eshonai separated them off and let them escape. Part of her fought, so she gave them a chance, and … And then…”

Storms, she was a mess. She wiped her eyes again.

“You would have had them killed?” Rlain asked. “Venli, I don’t understand. What is it you’re not telling me?”

“Everything,” she whispered to Pleading. “A thousand lies, Rlain.”

“Venli,” he said, taking her hand. “Kaladin is awake. Teft is too. We have a plan. The start of one, at least. I came to explain it to Lirin and Hesina. We’re going to try to wake the Radiants, but we need to get those stormforms out of the room. If you know something that might help, now would be a good time to talk.”

“Help?” Venli whispered. “Nothing I do helps. It only hurts.”

Rlain hummed to Confusion. At a gentle prompting from Timbre, Venli started talking. She began with the strange human woman who had given her the sphere, and went all the way up to when Thude and the others left.

She didn’t hide her part in it. She didn’t coat it with the Rhythm of Consolation. She gave it to him raw. The whole terrible story.

As she spoke, he pulled farther and farther away from her. His expression changed, his eyes widening, his rhythms moving from shocked to angry. As she might have expected. As she wanted.

When she finished, they sat in silence.

“You are a monster,” he finally said. “You did this. You are responsible.”

She hummed to Consolation.

“I suppose the enemy would have found another way,” he said, “without your help. Regardless, Venli. You … I mean…”

“I need to find them,” she said, rolling up the map. “There are daily transfers to Kholinar. Raboniel has released me from my duties here, and given me a writ allowing me to requisition whatever I need. I should be able to procure a spot in the next transfer, and from there go with some Heavenly Ones on a scouting mission out to the Shattered Plains.”

“And in so doing, you’d lead the enemy directly to our people,” Rlain said. “Venli, Raboniel obviously wants you to do this. She knows you’re going to run to them. You’re playing into whatever plot she has.”

She’d considered that. She wasn’t exactly in the most rational state of mind, however. “I have to do something, Rlain,” she whispered. “I need to see them with my own eyes, even if I have to walk there.”

“I agree, we should do that as soon as it’s reasonable,” Rlain said. He glanced toward the curtains, then spoke more quietly. “But now isn’t the time. We have to save the Radiants.”

“Do you really want me there when you do, Rlain? Do you want me around?”

He fell silent, then hummed to Betrayal.

“Smart,” she said.

“I don’t want you around right now, Venli,” he said. “But storm me, we need you. And I think you’re trustworthy. You told me this, after all. And who knows how much of what you did was influenced by your forms or those Voidspren?

“For now, let’s work on saving the Radiants. If you’re truly sorry for what you did, then this is the best way to prove it. After that, we can seek out our people without leading the Fused to them.”

She looked away, then hummed to Betrayal herself. “No. This isn’t my fight, Rlain. It never was. I have to go see if this map is true. I have to.”

“Fine,” he snapped. He stood to leave, then paused. “You know, all those months running bridges—then training with Kal and the others—I wondered. I wondered deep down if I was a traitor. I now realize I didn’t have the first notes of understanding what it meant to be a traitor.”

He ducked out between the curtains. Venli quietly tucked the map of the Shattered Plains into its case, then put it under her arm. It was time for her to go.

She found both Dul and Mazish caring for the fallen Radiants. Venli pulled them aside, and whispered, “The time has come. Are we ready to leave?”

“Finally,” Dul said to Excitement. “We’ve siphoned away rations, canteens of water, blankets, and some extra clothing from what we were given to care for the Radiants. Harel has it all ready in packs, hidden among the other supplies in the storage room we were given.”