Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive 4)

“We’re not sure,” Navani said.

“Stormfather,” the woman said. “That’s a nice diamond. Hey, Nem! Have a look.”

Another of the engineers came over and accepted the sphere and loupe, whistling softly. “I have a higher magnification in my bag over there,” she said, waving, and an assistant engineer helpfully fetched a larger magnifying device, one you could look through with both eyes.

“What is it?” Navani asked. “What do you see?”

“Practically flawless,” Nem said, clamping the sphere in some small grips. “This wasn’t grown as a gemheart, I can tell you that. The structure would never align so perfectly. This sphere is worth thousands, Brightness. It will probably hold Stormlight for months without leaking any out. Maybe years. Longer, for Voidlight.”

“It was left in a cave for over six years,” Navani said. “And was glowing—or whatever you call that blackness—the same when it was retrieved.”

“Quite strange indeed,” Talnah said. “What an odd sphere, Brightness. That must be Voidlight, but it feels wrong. I mean, it’s black-violet like others I’ve seen, but…”

“The air warps around it,” Navani said.

“Yeah!” Talnah said. “That’s it. How strange. Can we keep it to study it?”

Navani hesitated. She’d planned to do her own tests on the sphere, but she had to see to the needs of the tower and work on new iterations of her flying machine. To be honest, she’d been planning to run tests on this sphere ever since she’d received it—but there was never enough time.

“Yes, please do,” Navani said. “Run some standard Stormlight measuring tests for luminosity and the like, then see if you can move the Light to other gemstones. If you can, try to use it to power various fabrials.”

“Voidlight doesn’t work on fabrials,” Nem said, frowning. “But you’re right—maybe this isn’t Voidlight. It certainly does look strange.…”

Navani made them promise to keep the sphere hidden and to reveal the results of their tests only to her. She gave them leave to requisition several real Voidlight spheres, captured in battle, to use in comparisons. Then she left the strange sphere with them, feeling agitated. Not because she didn’t trust the two—they dealt with extremely expensive and delicate equipment, and had proven reliable. But the piece of Navani hoping to study this sphere herself was disappointed.

Unfortunately, this was work for scholars. Not her. She left it in their capable hands, and moved on. She was therefore the first to arrive in the small windowless chamber near the top of the tower where Jasnah and Dalinar held their private meetings. These top floors were small enough to control entirely, with guard posts to regulate access.

Too often down below, rooms and hallways felt oppressive. As if something was watching. Openings in walls—running as air ducts through the rooms—often led in bizarre patterns barely mapped by the children they’d sent to crawl through them. You could never be completely certain that someone wasn’t listening at an opening nearby, eavesdropping on private conversations.

Up here though, the floors often had a dozen or fewer rooms—all carefully mapped and tested for acoustics. Most had windows, which made them feel inviting. She felt lighter even in a windowless stone chamber like this one, so long as her mind knew open sky was right beyond the wall.

As she waited, Navani puttered in her notebooks, theorizing about Gavilar’s dark sphere. She flipped to a testimonial she’d transcribed from Rlain, the listener member of Bridge Four. He swore that Gavilar had given his general, Eshonai, a Voidlight sphere years before the coming of the Everstorm. When Navani showed him this second sphere, his reaction had been curious.

I don’t know what that is, Brightness, he’d said. But it feels painful. Voidlight is dangerously inviting, like if I touched it, my body would drink it in eagerly. That thing … is different. It has a song I’ve never heard, and it vibrates wrong against my soul.

She flipped to another page and wrote some thoughts. What would happen if they tried to grow plants by the dark light of this sphere? Dared she let a Radiant try to suck out its strange energy?

She was writing along these lines when Adolin and Shallan arrived with the Mink. They’d periodically been entertaining him these last few weeks, showing him around the tower, dividing out space for his troops once they arrived with the Fourth Bridge in the next few days. The short Herdazian didn’t wear a uniform, merely some common trousers and a buttoned shirt cut after simple Herdazian styles, with suspenders and a loose coat. How odd. Didn’t he know he wasn’t a refugee any longer?

“… think you could teach me?” Shallan was saying. Red hair and no hat. “I really want to know how you got out of those cuffs.”

“There’s an art to it,” the general said. “It’s more than practice; it’s about instinct. Each set of confines is a puzzle to be solved, and your reward? Going where you shouldn’t. Being what you shouldn’t. Brightness, it is not a particularly seemly hobby for a well-connected young woman.”

“Trust me,” she said, “I am anything but well-connected. I keep finding pieces of myself lying around, forgotten.…”

She led the Mink over to the other door to point out the guard post beyond. Adolin gave Navani a hug, then took the seat next to her.

“She’s fascinated by him,” he whispered to Navani. “I should have guessed she would be.”

“What’s that clothing he’s wearing?” Navani whispered.

“I know, I know.” Adolin grimaced. “I offered him my tailors, said we’d get him a Herdazian uniform. He said, ‘There is no Herdaz anymore. Besides, a man in uniform can’t go the places I like to go.’ I don’t know what to make of him.”

Across the small room, the Mink glanced at one of the stone air vents, nodding as Shallan explained the room’s security.

“He’s plotting how to sneak away,” Adolin said with a sigh, putting his feet up on the table. “He lost us five times today. I can’t decide if he’s paranoid, crazy, or merely has a cruel sense of humor.” He leaned toward Navani. “I suspect it wouldn’t have been that bad if Shallan hadn’t been so impressed the first time. He does like to show off.”

Navani eyed Adolin’s new gold-trimmed boots. They were the third pair she’d seen him wearing this week.

Dalinar arrived, depositing two bodyguards outside the front door. He kept trying to get Navani to accept some guards of her own, and she always agreed—when she had equipment she needed carried. And honestly, Dalinar couldn’t complain. How often had he ditched his own guards?

The room had been set up with a few chairs and only one small table, the one Adolin had his boots on. That boy. He never leaned back in his chair or put his feet up when he was wearing ordinary shoes.

Dalinar passed by, rapping the boots with his knuckles. “Decorum,” he said. “Discipline. Dedication.”

“Detail, duel, dessert…” Adolin glanced at his father. “Oh, sorry. I thought we were saying random words that start with the same sound.”

Dalinar glowered at Shallan.