AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The Windrunner salute. He made the gesture again and again as the soldiers tried to settle him.
“Leave him alone,” Navani said, stepping into the room.
The soldiers backed off, and the young man continued tapping his wrists together, frantic. Then he pointed at the wall. What? Was he actually mute?
He pointed more fervently. Navani turned. No, he wasn’t pointing at the wall, but at the sphere in the lantern hanging there, lighting the room. Next, he made a writing motion, frantic.
I think he wants me to contact the spren, she thought.
He’d been delivering a new ruby when they’d caught him. Navani fished it out of her glove, and the prisoner grew more animated, pointing at it.
“Kalami?” Navani said into the other room.
The scribe poked her head in, and Navani handed her the ruby. The woman took it and retreated to set up the spanreed equipment.
“Red says you don’t speak,” Navani said to the man.
He looked down. Then he shook his head.
“Perhaps you should reconsider,” Navani said. “Do you realize the trouble you’re in? It’s a spren that has been talking to you, is that right?”
The man hung his head farther. Then he nodded.
“You realize it could be one of the Unmade,” Navani said. “A Voidspren. The enemy.”
The man looked up sharply. Then he shook his head.
“Brightness!” Kalami shouted from the other room. “Brightness, you need to see this!”
Frowning, Navani strode into the larger chamber outside the interrogation room where Kalami—along with several of her wards—had set up the spanreed. It was scribbling on its own as Navani glanced at the text.
Fool human. We are under attack. The enemy is already inside the tower. Quickly! You must do exactly as I say, or we are all doomed.
It stopped writing, and Navani seized the pen, turned the ruby, and wrote back.
Who are you? she demanded.
I am the Sibling, the pen wrote in a quick script. I am the spren of this tower The enemy They are They are doing something to me This is bad You need to infuse—
Red the Lightweaver—who had been standing near the door—suddenly collapsed to the floor.
* * *
The failure of his powers was so unexpected that Kaladin stumbled. He’d started to take a step, fully anticipating Teft’s limp body would grow lighter. When it didn’t, he was thrown off balance.
He tried again, focusing. Again nothing.
Storms, Kaladin thought. Something was deeply wrong with him. The last time something like this had happened, he’d been dangerously close to violating his oaths and killing Syl.
“Syl?” he asked, scanning the room. She’d been flying around over near the bar, hadn’t she? “Syl!”
No response.
“Phendorana?” Kaladin asked, naming Teft’s honorspren. “This would be a great time to show yourself to me!”
Nothing. The winehouse had grown quiet, many of them staring at Kaladin as he steamed with Stormlight.
“Kal?” Rlain called from the doorway.
Kaladin shifted Teft on his shoulders, then strode after Rlain. Stormlight didn’t seem to give one much additional raw strength, but it did steady the limbs, repairing the muscles if they began to tear beneath strain. So he could bear Teft at a brisk jog, even without Lashing him. He gripped the body in a secure medic’s carry—a skill he’d learned on the battlefield.
“Something’s wrong,” Kaladin said to Rlain as they reached the door. “More than whatever happened to Teft.”
“I know,” Rlain said. “I didn’t notice it at first, but the rhythms are going crazy. I can faintly hear new ones in the distance. I don’t much like them. They sound like the rhythms I hear during an Everstorm.”
“Is that one still blowing outside?”
“It just ended,” Rlain said.
Together they took the most direct route toward the Edgedancer clinic at the center of the market. Unfortunately, a number of people had crowded here, and that slowed Kaladin and Rlain’s progress.
They eventually shoved through to the front, calls of “Brightlord Stormblessed” making people turn around. At the center of the mess though, they found something horrifying: two Edgedancers lying on the ground. An ordinary non-Radiant nurse was yelling at people to give them space.
Kaladin left Teft with Rlain and scrambled over to kneel before one of the unconscious Radiants, a vaguely familiar Edgedancer woman, short, with dyed hair. “What happened?” he asked the nurse, who seemed to recognize Kaladin immediately.
“They both suddenly dropped, Brightlord! I’m afraid Lorain hit her head; there’s bleeding. I evacuated the clinic immediately, in case the unconsciousness was caused by leaking dazewater.”
“Quick thinking,” Kaladin said. The Edgedancers seemed more deeply unconscious than Teft. No quivering eyes. No muscle spasms.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” the nurse asked.
“Something similar just happened to my friend. Another Radiant.”
“Not you though?”
I always live, Kaladin thought, a bitter thought echoing from long ago. So I can keep suffering.
He pushed that aside. “The best thing I can think of to do is go to my father. He’s the most experienced surgeon I know. Treat these for shock and bandage that head wound. I’ll send you word if I discover anything.”
The nurse nodded and Kaladin left her, helping Rlain lift Teft as they pushed through the crowd.
“Why don’t you Lash him again?” Rlain said.
“I can’t. My Lashings don’t seem to work.”
“What, just on Teft?” Rlain asked. “Or at all?”
Storms, that was a stupid thing to have not checked. Kaladin set down Teft’s legs and took his sphere pouch from his pocket, kneeling as he tried to infuse the ground.
It didn’t work. He frowned, then tried a different Lashing—the type that made things stick to other objects. Not a gravitational Lashing, but a Full Lashing. The one Lopen loved to use to stick people to walls.
That Full Lashing worked. When he touched his boot to that patch of stone, it stuck in place. He reclaimed the Light without any problems. So … Adhesion worked but Gravitation didn’t?
“I have no idea what is going on,” Kaladin said to Rlain.
“This can’t be a coincidence,” Rlain said. “You losing some of your powers? Three Radiants all fainting? People don’t have strokes in groups, do they?”
“No,” Kaladin said as the two of them began jogging, carrying Teft between them. “There’s more, Rlain. I feel something pressing against my mind. I thought it was my illness. But if you say you can hear something odd…”
What did it mean? Was this … this like the fabrial the Fused had used on him in Hearthstone? It felt eerily similar in many ways.
They headed toward the grand staircase. It was wide and tall, and led up the first ten floors. It would be a faster climb than using the lifts. However, as they neared the steps, a scream echoed from one of the nearby tunnels.
Kaladin and Rlain froze at the intersection. Sphere lanterns lined the tunnels here, and the strata spiraled, making it seem as if—in looking down a tunnel—you were looking at the inside of a nut threaded for a screw. An agitated group was forming at the other side.
