Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

In any case, I cannot form a bond now, with the protections up. I would need him to touch my pillar.

“What if I had him here?” Navani said. “Ready to try when the shield falls? And with some distractions in place to give you time to talk to him.”

I cannot form a bond with just anyone, the Sibling said. In the past I spent years evaluating Bondsmith squires to select one who fit me exactly. Even they eventually betrayed me, though not as badly as other humans.

“Can we really afford pickiness right now?”

It’s not pickiness. It is the nature of spren and the bond. The person must be willing to swear the correct oaths, to unite instead of divide. They must mean it, and the oaths must be accepted. It is not simply a matter of throwing the first person you find at me.

Beyond that, since I cannot create Towerlight, they will not be able to either. A bond would do nothing unless we solve the problems with my powers. It would be better if you focused on that problem instead.

“Fine,” Navani said, sensing an opening. “But I need time to research all of this. It is difficult to work while feeling I have a knife to my neck. If I knew the nodes were being defended, that would take the pressure off me. Tell me where one of them is. I have a list here of plans to protect it. I can read them off to you.”

The Sibling was silent, so Navani continued.

“We can have Kaladin start searching—loudly and obviously—on a different level, leading the enemy on a chase in the wrong direction. In the meantime, while they’re distracted, we could sneak up to the node and reinforce its defenses.

“We have some crem that hasn’t hardened yet, kept wet in the tower stores. We could seal up the node location entirely. Maybe run the crem through with some training sheaths for Shardblades, so it would be extra difficult to cut. That could earn us hours to get troops in to defend it, if it does get discovered.

“Or, if I knew where one of the nodes was, I might be able to have Kaladin begin infusing it with more Stormlight. That might counteract the Voidlight that Raboniel has used on you. If she can corrupt you through a node, could we not perhaps cleanse you through one? I think it’s worth trying, because my efforts to create Towerlight are stalled.”

She waited, gripping her pad tightly. Her other ideas were sketchier than those. She wouldn’t use them unless these arguments didn’t work.

So good with words. Humans are like persuasionspren. I can’t speak with one of you without being changed.

Navani continued to wait. Silence was best now.

Fine, the Sibling said. One of the two remaining nodes is in the well at the center of the place you call the Breakaway market. It is near other fabrials there. One hidden among many.

“On the first floor?” Navani asked. “That’s such a populated area!”

All of the nodes are down low. There was talk of installing others farther away, but my Bondsmith did not have the resources—my falling-out with the humans was driving them away. The project wasn’t completed. Only the four on the first few floors were completed.

Navani frowned—though the well was a clever place to hide a fabrial. Many of the workings of the tower remained mysterious to modern scholars, so a cluster of gemstones working as pumps might indeed camouflage another fabrial. In fact, Navani had studied drawings of those pumps herself. Had this mechanism been there, unnoticed, all along?

This is a good node for your agent to visit, the Sibling said. Because it can be reached from the back ways. Have your Windrunner visit it through the aquifers, and we will see if—by infusing it with Stormlight—he can counteract the corruption. It might not work, as I am not simply of Honor or of Cultivation. But … it could help.

“And the final node?” Navani asked.

Is mine alone, the Sibling replied. Show me that your work on this one helps, human, and then we can speak further.

“A fair compromise,” Navani said. “I am willing to listen, Sibling.”

She left the wall and grabbed some books to read, to cover what she’d been doing. And she did need to study more, after all. She’d have loved to have more books on music theory, but this archive didn’t have anything more specific on the topic. She did have Kalami’s notes about the gemstones they’d discovered that used certain buzzing vibrations as substitutes for letters. Perhaps those would help.

She was browsing through those notes, walking idly among the stacks, when she saw the Sibling’s light flashing. She hurried over, nervous about how bright the light was. She glanced at the guard, hoping he hadn’t seen, and put her hand to the wall.

“You need to—”

They’ve found the node in the well. We’re too late.

“What? Already?”

I am as good as dead.

“Contact Kaladin.”

They already have the node, and he’s too far away. We—

“Contact Kaladin,” Navani said. “Now. I’ll find a way to distract Raboniel.”

Opposites. Opposites of sounds. Sound has no opposite. It’s merely overlapped vibration, the same sound, but sound has meaning. This sound does, at least. These sounds. The voices of gods.

—From Rhythm of War, final page

Kaladin awoke to something dark attacking him.

He screamed, struggling against the clinging shadows. They’d been assaulting him for an eternity, wrapping around him, constricting him. Voices that never relented, fingers of shadow that drilled into his brain.

He was in a dark place full of red light, and the shadows laughed and danced around him. They tormented him, flayed him, stabbed him again and again and wouldn’t let him die. He fought back the hands that gripped, then he crawled across the floor, pulling up against the wall and breathing shallowly. The rushing sounds of his own blood in his ears drowned out the laughter.

One shadow continued watching him. One terrible shadow. It stared at him, then turned and took something from beside the wall before vanishing. Vanishing … out the door.

Kaladin blinked, and the shadows melted from his mind. The terrible laughter, the phantom pain, the whispers. His mind always interpreted those as Moash’s voice.

A nightmare. Another nightmare.

“Kaladin?” Syl asked. She sat on the floor in front of him. He blinked, glancing sharply one way, then the other. The room seemed to settle into place. Teft sleeping on the stone bench. A few chips set out for light. Fearspren, like globs of goo, undulating in the corners.

“I…” He swallowed, his mouth dry. “I had a nightmare.”

“I know.”

He carefully relaxed his posture, embarrassed at how he must appear huddled up by the wall. Like a child frightened of the dark. He couldn’t afford to be a child. Too much depended on him. He stood up, his clothing sweaty. “What time is it?”

“Midday,” she said.

“My schedule is completely off.” He tried to pull himself together as he stepped over to get a drink, but he stumbled and caught himself on the ledge. He had to grip it tightly as the nightmare threatened to resurface. Stormfather. This was the most oppressive one yet.

“Kaladin…” Syl said.

He took a long drink, then froze.

His spear was gone from beside the door.

“What happened?” he demanded, slamming the tin cup down harder than he’d intended. “Where is my spear!”