“To me it seems obvious,” Raboniel said. “Humans never use what is around them to its fullest. They always impose their will far too strongly. Though the shells of beasts and the colors of stone would offer striking variety for creating complex murals, the humans ignored natural materials. Instead they painted each square, then affixed it to this wall.
“One of the singers of old, creating a similar work of art, would have divided the bits of shell into a spectrum of colors. They would have asked themself what kind of mural would naturally be suggested by the pieces they had obtained. Their mural would have used no paint, and would have lasted millennia longer than this one. See how the colors here fade.”
A hulking form darkened the other end of the hallway, near the stairwell. The Pursuer looked like a dark scar of black and red upon the light stone. As he moved forward, Venli found herself trembling. Surely this was the most dangerous Fused in all the army.
“I have your leave,” the Pursuer said to Raboniel, “to find this Windrunner and kill him?”
“Him alone,” Raboniel said. “If he is here. There’s a good chance one of his skill went with the others to Azir.”
“If he is not here, he will return to try to liberate the tower,” the Pursuer said. “It is in his nature.” He turned, looking upward through the stone. “The Radiants we capture are dangerous. They have skill beyond what we anticipated, considering the newness of their bonds. We should behead them, each and every one.”
“No,” Raboniel said. “I will need them. Your orders are the same as what I told the others: Kill only those who resist. Gather the fallen Radiants for me. On my orders, you are to show … restraint.”
The Pursuer hummed—loudly and forcefully—to Craving. “You, who were once banished for recklessly endangering our kind in your attempts to exterminate humankind? You, Lady of Wishes, ask for restraint?”
Raboniel smiled and hummed softly another rhythm that Venli had never heard. Something brand new. Something incredible. Dark, dangerous, predatory, and beautiful. It implied destruction, but a quiet and deadly destruction.
Odium had granted this femalen her own rhythms.
No, Venli thought, the Pursuer is not the most dangerous of them.
“I care not for a single battle,” Raboniel said. “We will end this war, Pursuer. Forever. We have spent far, far too long in an endless cycle. I will break it—and once I am finished in this tower, there will be no turning back, ever. You will help in this, and you will start by collecting the fallen Radiants and delivering them to me.”
“I may kill the one, when I find him?” he repeated. “You relieve the Nine’s prohibition upon me?”
“Yes,” Raboniel said. “You may claim your prize and keep your custom, Pursuer. I take responsibility for this order.”
He hummed to Destruction and stalked off.
“If Stormblessed is here in the tower, he’ll be helpless when you find him, Pursuer!” Venli called. “You would murder an enemy who cannot resist you?”
“Tradition is more important than honor, foolish one,” the Pursuer called back to Derision. “I must kill those who have killed me. I have always killed those who have killed me.”
He transformed into a ribbon of red light, leaving behind a lifeless husk, and shot out into the stairwell so he could fly to the upper levels.
Timbre pulsed uncertainly in Venli’s chest. Yes … she was right. The Pursuer did have a madness to him. It wasn’t as obvious as in the other Fused—the ones who would grin and refuse to speak, their eyes seeming to stare without seeing. It was there nonetheless. Perhaps this Pursuer had lived so long that his traditions had taken control of his reason. He was like a spren, existing more than living.
Timbre pulsed at that. She didn’t think she existed without living, and Venli was forced to apologize. Still, she worried that all the Fused were like him. Maybe not mad—maybe that was the wrong word for it, and disrespectful to people who were themselves mad. The Fused instead seemed more like people who had lived so long thinking one way that they had come to accept their opinions as the natural state of things.
Venli had been like that once.
“So telling,” Raboniel said to Thoughtfulness, still regarding the murals. “Humans take as their own everything they see. Yet they do not understand that by holding so tightly, they cause the very thing they desired to crumble. They truly are children of Honor.”
Raboniel turned from the mural and strolled farther down the hallway, approaching an intersection where doors opened on either side. These led into chambers with tables, bookshelves, stacks of paper. Venli followed Raboniel into one of them, then hurried—at a wave of her fingers, a gesture Venli’s translation powers interpreted—to fetch a cup of wine from the station at the side of the room.
Venli passed huddled scholars and monks, sitting on the floor by the wall beneath the watchful eyes of a few Regal stormforms. The poor humans were surrounded by fearspren, though Venli had to remind herself that no human could ever be completely trusted. They didn’t have forms. A human might wear the robes of their priesthood, but could secretly have trained as a warrior. It was part of what made humans so duplicitous. No rhythms to hum to, just facial features easy to fake. No forms to indicate their duty. Just clothing that could be changed as easily as a lie required it.
Timbre pulsed.
Well, of course I’m different, Venli thought. Even if she did lie by humming the wrong rhythms at times. And wear a form that didn’t express the spren she truly followed.
Timbre pulsed in satisfaction.
Don’t make this harder than it already is, Venli thought, hastening to Raboniel. I’m not here to help the humans. I can barely help my own kind.
She delivered Raboniel’s wine as the tall Fused was inspecting a contraption of metal and gemstones. A human fabrial delivered by one of the Deepest Ones.
“What should we make of this?” the Deepest One asked to Craving. “I have never seen its like before. How can the humans have discovered things we never knew about?”
“They have always been clever,” Raboniel said to Derision. “We merely left them alone too long this time. Go and interrogate the scholars. I would find out who leads their studies here.”
The Fused glanced upward.
“The conquest will happen easily,” Raboniel said to Conceit. “By now, the shanay-im have used Vyre to activate the Oathgate, bringing our troops. Let us stay focused while they work.”
“Yes, Lady of Wishes,” the Deepest One said, gliding off.
Raboniel absently took the cup from Venli’s hands. She turned the fabrial over in her hand, and hummed softly to … to Subservience?
She’s impressed, Venli realized. And she’s keeping most of the scholars alive—along with the Radiants. She wants something from this tower.
“You don’t care about the conquest,” Venli guessed, speaking to Craving. “You aren’t here to further the war or to dominate the humans. You’re here because of these things. The fabrials humans are creating.”
Raboniel hummed to Command. “Yes, Leshwi does pick the best, doesn’t she?” She held out the fabrial, letting the light catch it. “Do you know what the humans gain by being so forceful? By reaching to seize before they are ready? Yes, their works crumble. Yes, their nations collapse from within. Yes, they end up squabbling, and fighting, and killing one another.