It launched backward, carrying the Pursuer with it. He slammed into the glass of the window, and his carapace cracked as he struck. He shook himself, recovering quickly—but didn’t heal. He’d used up his Voidlight.
With effort, the Pursuer struggled to move the device, and managed to extricate himself from it—leaving it pressed to the window, which was smeared with his orange blood. More blood dripped from the cracked carapace at his chest.
Kaladin stalked toward him, holding the knife. “Flee.”
The Pursuer’s eyes widened and he stepped to the side, toward his soldiers.
“Flee!” Kaladin said.
The creature fell silent, no humming, no speaking.
“RUN FROM ME!” Kaladin demanded.
He did, dripping blood and shoving his way past the singer soldiers. He’d retreated from previous battles, but this time they both knew it meant something different.
This creature was no longer the Pursuer. He knew it. The singers knew it. And the humans watching behind knew it. They began to chant, gloryspren bursting in the air.
Stormblessed.
Stormblessed.
Stormblessed.
Trembling, Kaladin retrieved and deactivated Navani’s device, then returned to the center of the room. He could feel their energy propelling him. A counter to the darkness.
He turned toward the infirmary. The door had been opened. When had that happened? He stepped toward it, but could see the Radiants in their lines on the floor, covered in sheets. Why weren’t they up and awake? Were they feigning? That could work, pretending they were still asleep.
Something dropped from above. A body hit the ground in front of Kaladin with a callous smack of skull on stone. It rolled, and Kaladin saw burned-out eyes. A terribly familiar bearded face. A face that had smiled at him countless times, cursed at him an equal number, but had always been there when everything else went dark.
Teft.
Teft was dead.
* * *
Moash landed a short distance from where Kaladin knelt over Teft’s body. Several of the watching soldiers stepped toward the Windrunner, but Moash raised his hand and stopped them.
“No,” he said softly as Heavenly Ones hovered down around him. “Leave him be. This is how we win.”
Moash knew exactly what Kaladin was feeling. That crushing sense of despair, that knowledge that nothing would be the same. Nothing could ever be the same. Light had left the world, and could never be rekindled.
Kaladin cradled Teft’s corpse, letting out a low, piteous whine. He began to tremble and shake—becoming as insensate as he had when King Elhokar had died. As he had after Moash had killed Roshone. And if Kaladin responded that way to the deaths of his enemies …
Well, Teft dying would be worse. Far, far worse. Kaladin had been unraveling for years.
“That,” Moash said to the Fused, “is how you break a storm. He’ll be useless from here on out. Make sure nobody touches him. I have something to do.”
He walked into the infirmary room. At the rear was the model of the tower, intricate in its detail, cut into a cross section with one half on either side. He knelt and peered at a copy of the room with the crystal pillar.
Beside it, produced in miniature, were a small crystal globe and gemstone. The fabrial glowed with a tiny light, barely visible. The final node of the tower’s defenses, placed where anyone who looked would see it, but think nothing of it.
Raboniel had known though. How long? He suspected she’d figured it out days ago, and was stalling to continue her research here. That one was trouble. He summoned his Blade and used the tip to destroy the tiny fabrial.
Then he walked over to the sectioned-off portion of the room. The child Edgedancer lay here, tied up and unconscious, next to Kaladin’s parents and brother. Odium was interested in the Edgedancer, and Moash had been forbidden to kill her. Hopefully he hadn’t struck her head too hard. He didn’t always control that as he should.
For now, he grabbed Lirin by his bound hands and dragged him—screaming through his gag—out of the infirmary. There Moash waited until the Pursuer came flying back as a shameful ribbon of light.
The Pursuer formed a body, and Moash pushed Lirin into the creature’s hands. “This is Stormblessed’s father,” Moash whispered. “No! Don’t say it loudly. Don’t draw Kaladin’s attention. His father is insurance; Kaladin has huge issues with the man. If Kaladin somehow regains his senses, immediately kill his father in front of him.”
“This is nonsense,” the Pursuer growled. “I could kill Stormblessed now.”
“No,” Moash said, grabbing the Pursuer and pointing at his face. “You know I have our master’s blessing. You know I speak to Command. You will not touch Stormblessed. You can’t hurt him; you can’t kill him.”
“He’s … just a man.…”
“Don’t touch him,” Moash said. “If you interfere, it will awaken him to vengeance. We don’t want that yet. There are two paths open to him. One is to take the route I did, and give up his pain. The other is the route he should have taken long ago. The path where he raises the only hand that can kill Kaladin Stormblessed. His own.”
The Pursuer didn’t like it, judging by the rhythm he hummed. But he accepted Kaladin’s bound and gagged father and seemed willing to stay put.
The guards had quieted the rowdy humans, and the atrium was falling still. Kaladin knelt before the storm, clinging to a dead man, shaking. Moash hesitated, searching inside himself. And … he felt nothing. Just coldness.
Good. He had reached his potential.
“Don’t ruin this,” he told the gathered Fused. “I need to go kill a queen.”
* * *
Navani waited for her chance.
She had tried talking to the Sibling, but had heard only whimpers. So she had returned to the front of her room to wait for her chance to arrive.
It came when her door guard suddenly shouted, putting her hands to her head in disbelief. She ran down the hallway. When Navani peeked out, she saw what had caused the commotion: the field around the crystal pillar was gone. Someone had destroyed the final node. The Sibling was exposed.
Navani almost ran over to attack with the anti-Voidlight dagger. She hesitated though, eyeing her traps in the hallway.
A magnet. I need a magnet.
She’d seen one earlier, near the wreckage of her desk. She scrambled over and picked it up out of the rubble. Outside, she heard Raboniel’s order echo with a clear voice.
“Run,” she said to the guard. “Tell the Word of Deeds and the Night Known to attend me. We have work to do.”
The guard dashed away. When Navani peeked out again, Raboniel was stepping into the chamber with the crystal pillar, alone.
A chance. Navani slipped into the hallway and moved quietly toward Raboniel. After passing the crates with her carefully prepared traps, she touched the magnet to a corner of the last crate and heard a click. She only dared take the time to arm one: a painrial that filled anyone who crossed this point in the hallway with immense agony.
That done, she moved to the end of the corridor. The room with the crystal pillar seemed darker than she remembered it. The Sibling had been almost fully corrupted.
Raboniel stood with her hand pressed against the pillar to finish the job. Navani forced herself forward, dagger held in a tight grip.