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As soon as they’d reached the palace, he’d insisted that she help him gather a bag of gemstones left by his agent here. More spren, like him, ready to be delivered to Venli’s scholars. That hadn’t been part of the original plan. She’d merely wanted to show her people how dangerous the humans were.
But what was she to do? She’d started this boulder rolling down the cliff. If she tried to stop it now, she’d be crushed. So she continued doing as he said. Even if, without him in her gemheart, she felt old and dull. Without him, she couldn’t hear the new rhythms. She craved them. The world made more sense when she listened to those.
“There you are,” Ulim said, zipping down the hallway. He moved like lightning, crawling along the top of the stone—and he could vanish, making only certain people able to see him. “Why are you cringing like a child? Come on. We must be moving.”
She glanced around the corner. The guards had long since moved on. “I shouldn’t have to do this,” Venli hissed at him. “I shouldn’t have to expose myself.”
“Someone needs to carry the gemstones,” Ulim said. “So unless you want me to find someone else to be the greatest among your people, do what I say.”
Fine. She crept after him, though she’d lately found Ulim’s tone increasingly annoying. She disliked his crass, dismissive attitude. He’d better not abandon her again. He had claimed he needed to scout the way, but she was half convinced he wanted her to be discovered.
He led her up a stairwell. The Rhythm of Fortune blessed her, and she emerged onto the top floor without meeting any humans—though she did have to hide in the stairwell as more guards passed.
“Why must we come all the way up here!” she hissed after they passed. “Couldn’t your friend have brought the gemstones into the basement, where all the other listeners are?”
“I … lost contact with her,” Ulim admitted.
“You what?” Venli said.
He whirled on the floor, then the lightning rose up to form his little humanlike figure. “I haven’t heard from Axindweth in a few days. I’m certain it’s all right. We have a meeting point where she leaves things for me. The gemstones will be there.”
Venli hummed to Betrayal. How could he leave out such an important detail? She was sneaking through the human palace—jeopardizing the treaty—based on flawed information? Before she could demand more answers, however, Ulim turned back into a patch of energy on the floor and shot forward.
She had no choice but to scramble after him across the hallway, feeling terribly exposed. They should have brought Demid. She liked how he listened to what she said, and he always had a ready compliment. He’d enjoy sneaking about, and she’d feel braver with him along.
She wove through the hallways, certain she’d be discovered at any moment. Yet by some miracle, Ulim got her through to a small room with chamber pots scattered across the floor. She pulled out a gemstone and noted a hole in the floor on one side of the room—it looked like they dumped waste in here, pouring it into some foul cesspit several stories below.
This was her goal? A privy? She gagged, and was forced to start breathing through her mouth.
“Here,” Ulim said, crackling on the side of one of the chamber pots.
“So help me,” Venli said to Skepticism, “if I find human waste inside…”
She removed the lid. Fortunately, the interior was clean and empty save for a folded piece of paper.
Ulim pulsed to Exultation. He’d been worried, it seemed. Venli unfolded the paper, and knew the Alethi script well enough to figure out it was a list of cleaning instructions.
“It’s ciphered,” Ulim said. “Do you think we’d be so stupid as to leave notes in the open where anyone could read them? Let me interpret.…”
He formed into the shape of a human, standing on a table full of pots. She hated that he took a human form rather than that of a listener. He leaned forward, his eyes narrow.
“Bother,” he said.
“What?”
“Let me think, femalen,” he snapped.
“What does it say?”
“Axindweth says she’s been discovered,” he said. “She’s a very specific and rare kind of specialist—the details need not concern you—but there is apparently another of her kind in the palace. An agent for someone else. They found her and turned the human king against her. She’s decided to pull out.”
“… Pull out?” Venli said. “I don’t understand that phrasing.”
“She’s leaving! Or left. Perhaps days ago.”
“Left the palace?”
“The planet, you idiot.”
Ulim blurred, carapace-like barbs breaking his skin and jabbing out, then retracting. It seemed to happen to the beat of one of the new rhythms, perhaps Fury.
Ulim told her so little. Venli knew there was a way to travel from this world to the place the humans called Damnation. The land of the Voidspren. Many thousands of spren waited there to help her people, but they couldn’t get free without some Surge or power. Something to … pull them across the void between worlds.
So what did this mean? Had his agent returned to the world Ulim had come from? Or had she gone someplace else? Was she gone for good? How were they going to transfer spren across to this land, to build power for the storm?
Most importantly, did Venli want that to happen? He’d promised her forms of power, but she’d assumed that she’d bring this to the Five after frightening them with how powerful the humans were. Everything was moving so quickly, slipping out of her control. She almost demanded answers, but the way those spikes broke Ulim’s skin—the way he pulsed—made her remain quiet. He was a force of nature come alive. And the particular force he exhibited now was destructive.
Eventually his pulsing subsided. The spikes settled beneath his skin. He remained standing on the table, staring at the sheet of paper with the offending words.
“What do we do?” Venli finally asked.
“I don’t know. There is nothing here for us. I … I have to leave, see if I can find answers elsewhere.”
“Leave?” Venli said. “What about your promises? What about our plans?”
“We have no plans!” Ulim said, spinning on her. “You said coming here would intimidate your people. Is that happening? Because from what I’ve seen, they seem to be enjoying themselves! Planning to feast and laugh, maybe get into storming bed with the humans!”
Venli attuned Determination, and then it faded to Reconciliation. She had to admit it; her people weren’t intimidated, not like she was. Even Eshonai had grown more relaxed—not more worried—as they’d interacted with the humans. These days, Venli’s sister didn’t even wear warform.
Venli wanted to blame her alone, but the problems with the listeners were far bigger than Eshonai. No one else seemed to see what Venli did. They should have been terrified by all the parshmen—the enslaved singers—in the palace. Instead, Venli’s people seemed curious.
No one saw the threat Venli did. She didn’t understand, or believe, some of the things Ulim said. But in coming here, Venli realized for herself that the humans could not be trusted. If she didn’t do anything, it would be her people—her mother—enslaved to the humans.
