Words of Radiance

“We don’t know they will come,” Eshonai said to Resolve. “We don’t know any of this. Who knows if men even have Surgebindings—it might be one of the Honorblades. We left one in Alethkar that night.”

Chivi hummed to Skepticism. Her nimbleform face had elongated features, her hairstrands tied back in a long tail. “We are fading as a people. I passed some today who had taken dullform, and not to remember our past. They did so because they worried that men would kill them otherwise! They prepare themselves to become slaves!”

“I saw them too,” Davim said to Resolve. “We must do something, Eshonai. Your soldiers are losing this war, beat by beat.”

“The next storm,” Venli said. She used the Rhythm of Pleading. “I can test this at the next storm.”

Eshonai closed her eyes. Pleading. It was a rhythm not often attuned. It was hard to deny her sister in this.

“We must be unified in this decision,” Davim said. “I will accept nothing else. Eshonai, do you insist on objecting? Will we need to spend hours here making this decision?”

She took a deep breath, coming to a decision that had been working its way through the back of her mind. The decision of an explorer. She glanced at the sack of maps she’d set on the floor beside her.

“I will agree to this test,” Eshonai said.

Nearby, Venli hummed to Appreciation.

“However,” Eshonai continued to Resolve, “I must be the one who tries the new form first.”

All humming stopped. The others of the Five gaped at her.

“What?” Venli said. “Sister, no! It is my right.”

“You are too valuable,” Eshonai said. “You know too much about the forms, and much of your research is held only in your head. I am simply a soldier. I can be spared if this goes wrong.”

“You are a Shardbearer,” Davim said. “Our last.”

“Thude has trained with my Blade and Plate,” Eshonai said. “I will leave both with him, just in case.”

The others of the Five hummed to Consideration.

“This is a good suggestion,” Abronai said. “Eshonai has both strength and experience.”

“It was my discovery!” Venli said to Irritation.

“And you are appreciated for it,” Davim said. “But Eshonai is right; you and your scholars are too important to our future.”

“More than that,” Abronai added. “You are too close to the project, Venli. The way you speak makes that clear. If Eshonai enters the storms and discovers that something is off about this form, she can halt the experiment and return to us.”

“This is a good compromise,” Chivi said, nodding. “Are we in agreement?”

“I believe so,” Abronai said, turning toward Zuln.

The representative of the dullforms rarely spoke. She wore the smock of a parshman, and had indicated that she considered it her duty to represent them—those with no songs—along with any dullforms among them.

Hers was as noble a sacrifice as Abronai holding to mateform. More so. Dullform was a difficult form to suffer, one that only a few ever experienced for longer than a stormpause or so.

“I agree to this,” Zuln said.

The others hummed to Appreciation. Only Venli did not join in the song. If this stormform turned out to be real, would they add another person to the Five? At first, the Five had all been dullforms, then all workers. It was only at the discovery of nimbleform that it had been decided that they would have one of each form.

A question for later. The others of the Five stood up, then began to make their way down the long flight of steps spiraling around the tower. Wind blew from the east, and Eshonai turned toward it, looking out over the broken Plains—toward the Origin of Storms.

During a coming highstorm, she would step into the winds and become something new. Something powerful. Something that would change the destiny of the listeners, and perhaps the humans, forever.

“I nearly had cause to hate you, Sister,” Venli said to Reprimand, idling beside where Eshonai sat.

“I did not forbid this test,” Eshonai said.

“Instead you take its glory.”

“If there is glory to be had,” Eshonai said to Reprimand, “it will be yours for discovering the form. That should not be a consideration. Only our future should matter.”

Venli hummed to Irritation. “They called you wise, experienced. It makes one wonder if they’ve forgotten who you were—that you went off recklessly into the wilds, ignoring your people, while I stayed home and memorized songs. When did everyone start believing you were the responsible one?”

It’s this cursed uniform, Eshonai thought, rising. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were researching? You let me believe your studies were to find artform or mediationform. Instead, you were looking for one of the forms of ancient power.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yes. It makes all the difference, Venli. I love you, but your ambition frightens me.”

“You don’t trust me,” Venli said to Betrayal.

Betrayal. That was a song rarely sung. It stung enough to make Eshonai wince.

“We’ll see what this form does,” Eshonai said, picking up her maps and the gemstone with the trapped spren. “Then we will talk further. I just want to be careful.”

“You want to do it yourself,” Venli said to Irritation. “You always want to be first. But enough. It is done. Come with me; I will need to train you in the proper mindset to help the form work. Then we will pick a highstorm for the transformation.”

Eshonai nodded. She would go through this training. In the meantime, she would consider. Perhaps there was another way. If she could get the Alethi to listen to her, find Dalinar Kholin, sue for peace . . .

Perhaps then, this would not be needed.

Warform is worn for battle and reign,

Claimed by the gods, given to kill.

Unknown, unseen, but vital to gain.

It comes to those with the will.

—From the Listener Song of Listing, 15th stanza

The wagon rattled and shook its way across the stone ground, Shallan perched on the hard seat next to Bluth, one of the slab-faced mercenaries Tvlakv employed. He guided the chull pulling the wagon, and didn’t speak much, though when he thought she wasn’t looking, he would inspect her with eyes like beads of dark glass.

It was chilly. She wished the weather would turn, and spring—or even summer—would come for a time. That wasn’t likely in a place notorious for its permanent chill. Having improvised a blanket from the lining of Jasnah’s trunk, Shallan draped it over her knees and down to her feet, as much to obscure how tattered her skirt had become as against the cold.

She tried to distract herself by studying the surroundings; the flora out here in the southern Frostlands was completely unfamiliar to her. If there was grass, it grew in patches along the leeward sides of rocks, with short spiky blades rather than long, waving ones. The rockbuds never grew larger than a fist, and they didn’t open all the way, even when she’d tried pouring water on one. Their vines were lazy and slow, as if numbed by the cold. There were also spindly little shrubs that grew in cracks and along hillsides. Their brittle branches scraped the sides of the wagon, their tiny green leaves the size of raindrops folding and pulling into the stalks.

The shrubs grew prolifically, spreading wherever they could find purchase. As the wagon rolled past a particularly tall clump, Shallan reached out and snapped off a branch. It was tubular, with an open center, and felt rough like sand.

“These are too fragile for highstorms,” Shallan said, holding it up. “How does this plant survive?”

Bluth grunted.

“It is common, Bluth,” Shallan said, “to engage one’s traveling companion in mutually diverting dialogue.”

“I’d do that,” he said darkly, “if I knew what in Damnation half those words meant.”

Shallan started. She honestly hadn’t expected a response. “Then we are even,” she said, “as you use plenty of words I don’t know. Admittedly, I think most of them are curses. . . .”

She’d meant it lightheartedly, but his expression only darkened further. “You think I’m as dumb as that stick.”

Stop insulting my stick. The words came to her mind, and almost to her lips, unbidden. She should have been better at holding her tongue, considering her upbringing. But freedom—without the fear that her father was looming behind every closed door—had severely diminished her self-control.

She suppressed the taunt this time. “Stupidity is a function of one’s surroundings,” she said instead.

“You’re saying I’m dumb because I was raised that way?”

“No. I’m saying that everyone is stupid in some situations. After my ship was lost, I found myself ashore but unable to make a fire to warm myself. Would you say that I’m stupid?”

He shot her a glance, but did not speak. Perhaps to a darkeyes, that question sounded like a trap.

“Well I am,” Shallan said. “In many areas, I’m stupid. Perhaps when it comes to large words, you’re stupid. That’s why we need both scholars and caravan workers, guardsman Bluth. Our stupidities complement one another.”