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Before she spoke, Venli checked for spies. She drew a bit of Voidlight from a sphere in her pocket. She could use either of the two types of Light: the strange Voidlight Odium provided, or the old Stormlight of Honor. From what Timbre said, this was new—whatever Venli was doing, it hadn’t been done before.
Eshonai would have been excited by that idea, so Venli tried to take strength from memories of her sister. Using that Light, she peeked into Shadesmar: the Cognitive Realm. Timbre pulsed to Concern. They’d tested Venli’s other power—the ability to mold stone—only once, and it had drawn secretspren. A kind of specialized spren that flew through the city, watching for signs of Knights Radiant using their powers.
She had escaped those secretspren without revealing herself, but it had been close. As long as the secretspren were near, Venli could not practice the full extent of her abilities. Fortunately, this power—the one that let her peek into Shadesmar—did not draw the same attention.
With it, she saw a world overlapping the physical one. The second world was made up of an ocean of beads, a strange sun set too far back in a black sky, and hovering lights. One for every soul. The souls of Fused were dark flames that pulsed like a beating heart. With care, she’d also learned to judge which spren a common singer had bonded to provide their form.
Some Voidspren could hide from the eyes of all except those they wanted to see them—but none could hide from Venli, who could see their traces in Shadesmar. She made certain none were nearby, and that Shumin was not one of the mavset-im, Fused who could imitate the shapes of others. Even other Fused seemed wary of the mavset-im, Those Ones of Masks.
Shumin’s soul was as Venli expected: a common singer soul bonded to a small gravitationspren to take workform.
Venli stopped using her powers. She knew she could travel to that strange world if she wished—but Timbre warned that the place was dangerous for mortals, and it was difficult to return once fully there. Today, looking was enough.
“You must know what we are,” Venli said to Shumin. “And what we are not. We do not seek to overthrow the Fused.”
“But—”
“We are not a rebellion,” Venli said. “We are a group of objectors who do not like the choices we’ve been offered. Fused oppression or human tyranny? The god of hatred or the supposedly honorable god who abandoned us to slavery? We accept neither. We are the listeners. We will cast off everything—including our very forms if we must—to find freedom.
“Once we have enough members, we will leave the city and travel someplace where no one will bother us. We will remain neutral in the conflicts between humans and Fused. Our only goal is to find a place where we can thrive on our own. Our society. Our government. Our rules.”
“But…” Shumin said. “They’re not simply going to let us walk away, right? What safe place is there away from everyone else?”
They were good questions. Venli hummed to Annoyance—at herself, not at Shumin. When her ancestors had first broken away in an ultimate act of bravery and sacrifice, it had been at the end of the wars between humans and singers. The listeners were able to escape in the confusion, a loose thread no one thought to tie up.
This was different. She knew it was.
She leaned forward. “We have two current plans. The first is to find sympathetic Fused and convince them we deserve this privilege. They respect Passion and courage.”
“Yeah, sure, but…” Shumin shrugged in a human way. So casual. “There’s a big difference between respecting Passion and letting someone curse you out. The Fused seem pretty intolerant of people truly disagreeing with them.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Venli said to Reprimand. “You assume the Fused are all of a single mind.”
“They’re the immortal servants of a terrible god.”
“And they’re still people. Each with different hearts, thoughts, and goals. I retain hope that some of them will see what we’re planning as worthy.”
It was a frail hope, Venli admitted to herself. Timbre pulsed within her, agreeing. Leshwi though … the high lady seemed to respect her enemies. She could be brutal, she could be unforgiving, but she could also be thoughtful.
Leshwi said the conquest of Roshar was being undertaken on behalf of the common singer people. Perhaps using similar language, Venli could present her plan for a new listener homeland.
Unfortunately, she feared that the Fused had fought their wars so long that—despite paying lip service to giving the world back to the singers—they no longer saw freedom as the goal. To many of them, the war was for vengeance: the destruction of their enemies, finally proving which side was right. So if Leshwi—who was among both the most sane and the most empathetic of Fused—could not be persuaded, then that left only one option. To run and hide. Venli’s ancestors had shown that courage. She was uncertain, when being honest with herself, whether she had the same moral strength.
Shumin idly played with her hair rather than humming to an emotion as a listener would have. Was that hair-twisting a sign she was bored, perhaps the human way of humming to Skepticism?
“If we must run,” Venli said, “we are not without resources.”
“Forgive me if I’m hesitant, Brightness,” Shumin said. “They summoned rock monsters that were taller than the storming city wall. They have Regals and Fused. I think our sole hope is to get the entire city to turn against them.”
“We have a Regal as well,” Venli said, gesturing to herself. “There is a Voidspren in my gemheart, Shumin, but I have learned to contain and imprison it. It gives me powers, such as the ability to look into Shadesmar and see if any spren are nearby spying on us.”
“Regal powers…” Shumin said, glancing to the others in the room. “And … I could have them too? Without surrendering my will to Odium?”
“Possibly,” Venli said. “Once I have perfected the process so others can use it.”
Timbre pulsed inside her, disapproving. The little spren wanted Venli to tell the full truth—that she was Radiant. However, the time wasn’t right. Venli wanted to be certain she could offer others what she had before exposing what she was. She needed to be certain other spren like Timbre were willing, and she needed to prepare her friends for the path.
“Long ago,” Venli explained to Shumin, “the singers were allies of the spren. Then humans came, and the wars started. The events of those days are lost to all but the Fused—in the end, however, we know the spren chose humans.
“Eventually, the humans betrayed them. Killed them. Some spren have chosen to give humans a second chance, but others … Well, I have been contacted by a spren who represents an entire people in Shadesmar. They realize that perhaps we deserve a second chance more than humans do.”
“What does that mean?” Shumin asked.
“That we will not be completely without allies, once we make our move,” Venli said. “Our ultimate goal is to find a place where we can escape other people’s rules and their laws. A place where we can be what we wish and cast off the roles forced upon us.”
“I’m in,” Shumin said. “That sounds like a storming delight, Brightness. Maybe … maybe if we have forms of power that aren’t granted by Odium, the enemy will leave us alone.”
