Syl streaked ahead of him, entering the shafts that let lifts reach the final tiers of the tower. She landed on the topmost level of Urithiru. Kaladin arrived after activating a second weight halfway through the flight, then swung himself over the railing and deactivated the device in one move. He landed facing a Heavenly One who tried to block his path.
Kaladin …
He left that Heavenly One broken and dying, then tore through the upper chambers. Where?
The roof. They’d make for the roof to escape. Indeed, he found another Fused blocking the stairwell up, and Kaladin slammed Navani’s device into the Fused’s chest and locked it in place, sending him flying away, up through the stairwell and off into the sky.
Kaladin … I’ve forgotten.… Syl’s voice. She was zipping around him, but he could barely hear her.
Kaladin burst out onto the top of the tower. The storm spread out around them, almost to the pinnacle, a dark ocean of black clouds rumbling with discontent.
The last of the Heavenly Ones was here, holding Kaladin’s father. The Fused backed away, shouting something Kaladin couldn’t understand.
Kaladin … I’ve forgotten … the Words.…
He advanced on the Heavenly One, and in a panic she threw his father. Out. Into the blackness. Kaladin saw Lirin’s face for a brief moment before he vanished. Into the pit. The swirling storm and tempest.
Kaladin scrambled to the edge of the tower and looked down. Suddenly he knew why he’d come this high. He knew where he was going. He’d stood on this ledge before. Long ago in the rain.
This time he jumped.
For ones so lost, they are somehow determined.
—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days
Navani managed to get to her feet, but after a few steps—fleeing toward the pillar, away from Moash—she was light-headed and woozy. Each breath was agony, and she was losing so much blood. She stumbled and pressed up against the wall—smearing blood across a mural of a comet-shaped spren—to keep from falling.
She glanced over her shoulder. Moash continued walking, an inevitable motion. Not rushed. His sword—with its elegant curve—held to the side so it left a small cut in the floor beside him.
“Lighteyes,” Moash said. “Lying eyes. Rulers who fail to rule. Your son was a coward at the end, Queen. He begged me for his life, crying. Appropriate that he should die as he lived.”
She saved her breath, not daring to respond despite her fury, and pressed on down the hallway, trailing blood.
“I killed a friend today,” Moash said, his terrible voice growing softer. “I thought surely that would hurt. Remarkably, it didn’t. I have become my best self. Free. No more pain. I bring you silence, Navani. Payment for what you’ve done. How you’ve lived. The way you—”
Navani hazarded a glance over her shoulder as he cut off suddenly. Moash had stopped above Raboniel’s body. The Fused had latched on to his foot with one hand. He cocked his head, seeming baffled.
Raboniel launched herself at him, clawing up his body. Her legs didn’t work, but she gripped Moash with talonlike fingers, snarling, and stabbed him repeatedly with the dagger Navani had left.
The knife had no anti-Voidlight remaining—but it was draining his Stormlight. Raboniel had reversed the blade. Moash flinched at the attack, distracted, trying to maneuver his Shardblade to fight off the crazed Fused who grappled with him.
Move! Navani thought to herself. Raboniel was trying to buy time.
Even with renewed vigor, Navani didn’t get far before the pain became too much. She stumbled into the room with the crystal pillar, abandoning thoughts of trying to escape into the tunnels beneath Urithiru.
Instead she forced herself forward to the pillar, then fell against it. “Sibling,” she whispered, tasting blood on her lips. “Sibling?”
She expected to hear whimpering or weeping—the only response she’d received over the last few days. This time she heard a strange tone, both harmonious and discordant at once.
The Rhythm of War.
* * *
Dalinar flew through the air, Lashed by Lyn the Windrunner, on his way to find the Herald Ishar.
He felt something … rumbling. A distant storm. Everything was light around him up here, the sun shining, making it difficult to believe that somewhere it was dark and tempestuous. Somewhere, someone was lost in that blackness.
The Stormfather appeared beside him, moving in the air alongside Dalinar—a rare occurrence. The Stormfather never had features. Merely a vague impression of a figure the same size as Dalinar, yet extending into infinity.
Something was wrong.
“What?” Dalinar said.
The Son of Tanavast has entered the storm for the last time, the Stormfather said. I feel him.
“Kaladin?” Dalinar said, eager. “He’s escaped?”
No. This is something far worse.
“Show me.”
* * *
Kaladin fell.
The wind tossed him and whipped at him. He was just rags. Just … rags for a person.
I’ve forgotten the Words, Kaladin, Syl said, weeping. I see only darkness. He felt something in his hand, her fingers somehow gripping his as they fell in the storm.
He couldn’t save Teft.
He couldn’t save his father.
He couldn’t save himself.
He’d pushed too hard, used a grindstone on his soul until it had become paper thin. He’d failed anyway.
Those were the only Words that mattered. The only true Words.
“I’m not strong enough,” he whispered to the angry winds, and closed his eyes, letting go of her hand.
* * *
Dalinar was the storm around Kaladin. And at the same time he wasn’t. The Stormfather didn’t give Dalinar as much control as he had before, likely fearing that Dalinar would want to push him again. He was right.
Dalinar watched Kaladin tumble. Lost. No Stormlight. Eyes closed. It wasn’t the bearing of a man who was fighting. Nor was it the bearing of someone who rode the winds.
It was the bearing of someone who had given up.
What do we do? Dalinar asked the Stormfather.
We witness. It is our duty.
We must help.
There is no help, Dalinar. He is too close to the tower’s interference to use his powers, and you cannot blow him free of this.
Dalinar watched, pained, the rain his tears. There had to be something. The moment between, Dalinar said. When you infuse spheres. You can stop time.
Slow it greatly, the Stormfather said, through Investiture and Connection to the Spiritual. But just briefly.
Do it, Dalinar said. Give him more time.
* * *
Venli hummed to Agony as the slaughter began.
Not of the Radiants, not yet. Of the civilians. As soon as the Pursuer’s soldiers started toward the helpless Radiants, the watching crowd of humans went insane. Led by a few determined souls—including a gruff-looking man with one arm—the humans started fighting. A full-on rebellion.
Of unarmed people against trained soldiers in warform.
Venli turned away as the killing began. The humans didn’t give up though. They flooded the space between the warforms and the room with the Radiants, blocking the way with their own bodies.
“Can we prevent this?” Venli asked Leshwi, who had settled beside her after being pushed aside by Stormblessed.