“So I’m going mad,” Tyn said. “Hearing voices. Seeing things. I guess part of me doesn’t want to do this.” She advanced, raising her blade. “I’m sorry that you have to learn the lesson this way. Sometimes, we must do things we don’t like, kid. Difficult things.”
Shallan growled, thrusting her hands forward. Mist twisted and writhed in her hands as a brilliantly silver Blade formed there, spearing Tyn through the chest. The woman barely had time to gasp in surprise as her eyes burned in her skull.
Tyn’s corpse slid back off the weapon, collapsing in a heap.
“Difficult things,” Shallan growled. “Yes. I believe I told you. I’ve learned that lesson already. Thank you.” She crawled to her feet, wobbling.
The tent flap ripped open and Shallan turned, holding up the Shardblade point-first toward the opening. Vathah, Gaz, and a few other soldiers stopped there in a jumble, weapons bloodied. They looked from Shallan to the corpse on the floor with its burned-out eyes, then back to Shallan.
She felt numb. She wanted to dismiss the Blade, hide it. It was terrible.
She did not. She crushed those emotions and hid them deep within. At the moment, she needed something strong to hold to, and the weapon served that purpose. Even if she hated it.
“Tyn’s soldiers?” Was that her voice, completely cold, purged of emotion?
“Stormfather!” Vathah said, stepping into the tent, hand to his chest as he stared at the Shardblade. “That night, when you pled with us, you could have killed us every one, and the bandits too. You could have done it on your own—”
“Tyn’s men!” Shallan shouted.
“Dead, Brightness,” Red said. “We heard… heard a voice. Telling us to come get you, and they wouldn’t let us pass. Then we heard you screaming, and—”
“Was it the voice of the Almighty?” Vathah asked in a whisper.
“It was my spren,” Shallan said. “That is all you need know. Search this tent. This woman was hired to assassinate me.” It was true, after a fashion. “There might be records of who hired her. Bring me anything you find with writing on it.”
As they swarmed in and set to work, Shallan sat down on the stool beside the table. The spanreed still waited there, hovering, paused at the bottom of the page. It needed a new sheet.
Shallan dismissed the Shardblade. “Do not speak of what you saw here to the others,” she told Vathah and his men. Though they promised quickly, she doubted that would hold for long. Shardblades were near-mythical objects, and a woman holding one? Rumors would spread. Just what she needed.
You’re alive because of that cursed thing, she thought to herself. Again. Stop complaining.
She took the spanreed up and changed the paper, then set it with its point at the corner. After a moment, Tyn’s distant accomplice started writing again.
Your benefactors on the Amydlatn job wish to meet with you, the pen wrote. It seems that the Ghostbloods have something else for you to do. Would you like me to arrange a meeting with them in the warcamps?
The pen stopped in place, waiting for a response. What had the spanreed said above? That these people—Tyn’s benefactors, the Ghostbloods—had found the information they sought… information about a city.
Urithiru. The people who had killed Jasnah, the people who threatened her family, were searching for the city too. Shallan stared at the paper and its words for an extended moment as Vathah and his men began pulling clothing out of Tyn’s trunk, knocking on its sides to find anything hidden.
Would you like me to arrange a meeting with them…
Shallan took the spanreed, switched the fabrial’s setting, then wrote a single word.
Yes.
THE END OF
Part Two
Interludes
I-5. The Rider of Storms
In the city of Narak, people closed up windows tightly as night approached and the storm loomed. They stuffed rags under doors, shoved bracing boards into position, pounded large, square blocks of wood into windows.
Eshonai did not join in the preparations, but stood outside Thude’s dwelling, listening to his report—he’d just returned from meeting with the Alethi, arranging a parley to discuss peace. She had wanted to send someone earlier, but the Five had deliberated and complained until Eshonai wanted to throttle the lot of them. At least they’d finally agreed to let her send a messenger.
“Seven days,” Thude said. “The meeting will happen on a neutral plateau.”
“Did you see him?” Eshonai asked, eager. “The Blackthorn?”
Thude shook his head.
“What of the other one?” Eshonai asked. “The Surgebinder?”
“No sign of him either.” Thude looked troubled. He looked eastward. “You’d better go. I can give you more details after the storm is done.”
Eshonai nodded, resting her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Good luck,” Thude said to Resolve.
“To all of us,” she replied as he shut the door, leaving her alone in a dark, seemingly empty city. Eshonai checked the stormshield on her back, then took the sphere with Venli’s captive spren from her pocket and attuned the Rhythm of Resolve.
The time had come. She ran toward the storm.
Resolve was a stately beat with a steady, rising sense of import and power. She left Narak, and reaching the first chasm, she jumped. Only warform had the strength for such leaps; for the workers to reach outer plateaus and grow food, they used rope bridges that were pulled back and stowed before each storm.
She landed in full stride, her footsteps falling to the beat of Resolve. The stormwall appeared in the distance, barely visible in the darkness. Winds rose, pushing against her, as if to hold her back. Above, windspren zipped and danced in the air. They were heralds of what was to come.
Eshonai jumped two more chasms, then slowed, striding up to the top of a low hill. The stormwall now dominated the night sky, advancing at a terrible pace. The enormous sheet of darkness mingled debris with rain, a banner of water, rock, dust, and fallen plants. Eshonai unhooked the large shield on her back.
For the listeners, there was a certain romanticism to going out in the storm. Yes, the storms were terrible—but every listener would have to spend a number of nights out in them, alone. The songs said that someone seeking a new form would be protected. She wasn’t certain if this was fancy or fact, but the songs didn’t prevent most listeners from hiding in a cleft of rock to avoid the stormwall, then coming out once it had passed.
Eshonai preferred a shield. It felt more like facing the Rider straight on. This one, the soul of the storm, was the one the humans called Stormfather—and he was not one of her people’s gods. In fact, the songs named him a traitor—a spren who had chosen to protect humans instead of the listeners.
Still, her people respected him. He would kill any who did not respect him.
She placed the base of the shield against a ridge of rock on the ground, then turned her shoulder against it, lowered her head, and braced herself with one foot back. Her other hand held the stone with the spren in it. She’d have preferred to wear her Plate, but for some reason having it on interfered with the transformation process.