Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

“Ever you manipulate me,” Szeth interrupted, watching the windspren. “Ever you seek to stain my hands with the blood of those you would kill. You brought all this upon us, Taravangian. The world would have been able to stand against the enemy if you hadn’t made me murder half their monarchs.”

“No!” Taravangian said. He stood up with effort, scattering the spren around him, his heart thundering in his chest. His vision immediately began to swim. He’d stood up too quickly. “We killed to save the world.”

“Murders done to save lives,” Szeth said softly, tracking Taravangian with eyes dark and shadowed from the room’s poor light, now that the spheres were gone. “Idiocy. But I wasn’t ever to object. I was Truthless. I simply followed orders. Tell me. Do you think that absolves a man?”

“No,” Taravangian said, trembling with the weight of his guilt, shamespren bursting around him and floating, as petals of rockbud blossoms, to the ground.

“A good answer. You are wise for one so stupid.”

Taravangian tried to dash away past Szeth. But of course his legs gave out. He got tripped and collapsed in a heap. He groaned, his heart thumping, his vision swimming.

A moment later, strong hands lifted him and slammed him back against the wall amid swarming exhaustionspren. Something snapped in Taravangian’s shoulder, and pain spiked through his body.

He drooped in Szeth’s grip, breathing out in wheezes.

The room started to grow golden.

“All this time,” Szeth said, “I wanted to keep my honor. I tried so hard. You took advantage of that. You broke me, Taravangian.”

Light. That golden light.

“Szeth,” Taravangian said, feeling blood on his lips. Storms. “Szeth … He is here.…”

“I decide now,” Szeth said, reaching toward his waist—not for the terrible sword, but for the small knife he was wearing beside it. “I finally decide. Me. No one else compelling me. Taravangian, know that in killing you, I make it my choice.”

Rumbling thunder. A brilliant, terrible golden light. Odium appeared. When he did, his face was distorted, his eyes shining with angry power. Thunder broke the landscape, and Szeth began to fade.

You should not tempt me today, Taravangian! Odium thundered. I have lost my champion AGAIN, and now I am bound by an agreement I do not want. How do they know how to move against me? HAVE YOU BETRAYED ME, TARAVANGIAN? Have you been speaking to Sja-anat? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

The awe of that force—that transcendent power—left Taravangian quivering, spren of a dozen varieties swirling around him, fighting for his attention. So many emotions. He barely noticed Szeth pulling the knife free, for he was so overwhelmed—awed, frightened, excited all at once.

Fear won.

Taravangian cried out, his shoulder afire with pain, his body broken. His plans had been silly. How had he thought to outthink a god when stupid? He couldn’t do that when smart. No wonder he’d failed.

Did you fail?

The sword is here.

Odium is here.

Cold steel bit Taravangian’s skin as Szeth stabbed him right in the chest. At the same moment, Taravangian felt something pushing through his fear, his pain. An emotion he’d never thought to feel himself. Bravery.

Bravery surged through him, so powerfully he could not help but move. It was the dying courage of a man on the front lines charging an enemy army. The glory of a woman fighting for her child. The feeling of an old man on his last day of life stepping into darkness.

Bravery.

The Physical Realm faded as Odium pulled Taravangian into the place between worlds. Taravangian’s body was not as weak here. This form was a manifestation of his mind and soul. And those were strong.

The sword at Szeth’s waist—that strange, terrible sword—manifested here, in this realm where Odium brought Taravangian. The god looked down and saw the curling black darkness, and seemed surprised.

Taravangian seized the sword and pulled it free of its scabbard, hearing it scream for pleasure. He turned and thrust it upward—black smoke curling around his hands.

“Destroy!” the sword bellowed. “DESTROY!”

Taravangian rammed it up into Odium’s chest.

The sword drank greedily of the god’s essence, and as it did, Taravangian felt a snap. His body dying. Szeth finishing the job. He knew it immediately. Taravangian was dead. Anger rose in him like he had never known.

Szeth had killed him!

Odium screamed, and the golden place shattered, turning to darkness. The sword undulated in Taravangian’s grip, pulling power from the god it had stabbed.

The figure that contained Odium’s power—the person who controlled it—evaporated, taken by the sword. That alone was so much Investiture that Taravangian felt the sword grow dull in his fingers. Full, lethargic. As when a hot brand was shoved into a barrel of water, there was an initial hiss—but this power was too vast for the sword to drink.

It killed the person holding that power, however, which left a hole. A need. A … vacuum, like a gemstone suddenly without Stormlight. It reached out, and Taravangian felt a distinct Connection to it.

Passion. Hatred. Today, Taravangian was only passion. Hatred, fear, anger, shame, awe. Bravery. The power loved these things, and it surged around him, enveloping him.

His soul vibrated.

Take me, the power pled, speaking not in words, but in emotion. You are perfect. I am yours.

Taravangian hesitated briefly, then thrust his hands into the well of power.

And Ascended to godhood, becoming Odium.

They should not be discarded, but helped to their potential. Their final Passions.

—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days

Rlain walked with Venli and his new friends—Dul, Mazish, and the others Venli had recruited—to the Oathgate, where Kaladin waited to transfer them to the Shattered Plains.

Rlain felt in a stupor, despite a day having passed since his revelation. Since speaking his first Words as a Truthwatcher.

The spren had been watching him, from the heart of a cremling. Rlain and Venli had mistaken Tumi for a Voidspren, but he wasn’t exactly the same thing. Once an ordinary mistspren, Tumi had let Sja-anat touch him, and in so doing make him into something new. A spren of both Honor and Odium.

Tumi pulsed to a new rhythm. The Rhythm of War. Something he had learned recently. Something important for his siblings to hear.

Renarin knows? Rlain thought.

He suggested you, Tumi said. And told our mother about you. He was right. Our bond will be strong, and you will be wondrous. We are awed by you, Rlain. The Bridger of Minds. We are honored.

Honored. That felt good. To be chosen because of what he’d done.

Kaladin waited for them at the transfer room. He made the transfer with the Sylblade. The air of the Shattered Plains was wetter, and felt … familiar to Rlain as they stepped onto a platform outside Narak.

There they met with Leshwi and the other four Fused who, upon being transferred here earlier, had regained consciousness. Leshwi hovered over and tipped her head toward Kaladin in respect.

“You could stay here at Narak,” Kaladin said to her. “We’d welcome your aid.”

“We fought against our own to preserve lives,” Leshwi said. “We do not wish that to continue. We will find a third option, outside this war. The path of the listeners.”