Rine glanced at her. She’d found that if she spoke to him respectfully—and if she spoke in the ancient tongue—her words were less likely to be dismissed.
“There are those among us who agree with you, child,” Rine said.
“You do not?”
“No. We will need to watch the humans constantly. At any moment, any of them could manifest powers from the enemy. We killed him, and yet he fights on through his Surgebinders.”
Surgebinders. Foolishly, the old songs spoke highly of them. “How can they bind spren, Ancient One?” she asked to Subservience. “Humans don’t … you know…”
“So timid,” he said to Ridicule. “Why is mentioning gemhearts so difficult?”
“They are sacred and personal.” Listener gemhearts were not gaudy or ostentatious, like those of greatshells. Clouded white, almost the color of bone, they were beautiful, intimate things.
“They’re a part of you,” Rine said. “The dead bodies taboo, the refusal to talk of gemhearts—you’re as bad as those out there, walking around with one hand covered.”
What? That was unfair. She attuned Fury.
“It … shocked us when it first happened,” Rine eventually said. “Humans don’t have gemhearts. How could they bond spren? It was unnatural. Yet somehow, their bond was more powerful than ours. I always said the same thing, and believe it even more strongly now: We must exterminate them. Our people will never be safe on this world as long as the humans exist.”
Venli felt her mouth grow dry. Distantly, she heard a rhythm. The Rhythm of the Lost? An inferior one. It was gone in a moment.
Rine hummed to Conceit, then turned and barked a command to the crazy Fused. She scrambled to her feet and loped after him as he floated out the door. He was probably going to confer with the town’s spren. He’d give orders and warnings, which he usually only did right before they left one town for another. Despite having unpacked her things, working under the assumption she’d be here for the night, now Venli suspected they would soon be moving on.
She went to her room on the second floor of the mansion. As usual, the luxury of these buildings astounded her. Soft beds you felt you would sink into. Fine woodworking. Blown-glass vases and crystal sconces on the walls for holding spheres. She’d always hated the Alethi, who had acted like they were benevolent parents encountering wild children to be educated. They had pointedly ignored the culture and advancements of Venli’s people, eyeing only the hunting grounds of the greatshells that they—because of translation errors—decided must be the listeners’ gods.
Venli felt at the beautiful swirls in the glass of a wall sconce. How had they colored some of it white, but not all of it? Whenever she encountered things like this, she had to remind herself forcefully that the Alethi being technologically superior did not make them culturally superior. They’d simply had access to more resources. Now that the singers had access to artform, they would be able to create works like this too.
But still … it was so beautiful. Could they really exterminate the people who had created such beautiful and delicate swirls in the glass? The decorations reminded her of her own pattern of marbling.
The pouch at her waist started vibrating. She wore a listener’s leather skirt below a tight shirt, topped with a looser overshirt. Part of Venli’s place was to show the singers that someone like them—not some distant, fearsome creature from the past—had brought the storms and freed the singers.
Her eyes lingered on the sconce, and then she dumped out her pouch on the room’s stumpweight desk. Spheres bounced free, along with a larger number of uncut gemstones, which her people had used instead.
The little spren rose from where it had been hiding among the light. It looked like a comet when it moved, though sitting still—as it did now—it only glowed like a spark.
“Are you one of them?” she asked softly. “The spren that move in the sky some nights?”
It pulsed, sending off a ring of light that dissipated like glowing smoke. Then it began zipping through the room, looking at things.
“The room isn’t any different from the last one you looked at,” she said to Amusement.
The spren zipped to the wall sconce, where it let off a pulse in awe, then moved to the identical one on the opposite side of the door.
Venli moved to gather her clothing and writings from the drawers in the dresser. “I don’t know why you stay with me. It can’t be comfortable in that bag.”
The spren zipped past her, looking in the drawer that she’d opened.
“It’s a drawer,” she said.
The spren peeked out, then pulsed in a quick blinking succession.
That’s Curiosity, she thought, recognizing the rhythm. She hummed it to herself as she packed her things, then hesitated. Curiosity was an old rhythm. Like … Amusement, which she’d attuned moments ago. She could hear the normal rhythms again.
She looked at the little spren. “Is this your doing?” she demanded to Irritation.
It shrank, but pulsed to Resolve.
“What are you hoping to accomplish? Your kind betrayed us. Go find a human to bother.”
It shrank further. Then pulsed to Resolve again.
Bother. Down below, the door slammed open. Rine was back already.
“In the pouch,” she hissed to Command. “Quickly.”
I-8. Mem
There was art to doing laundry.
Sure, everyone knew the basics, just like every child could hum a tune. But did they know how to relax the fibers of a stubborn seasilk dress by returning it to a warm brine, then restore its natural softness by rinsing it and brushing with the grain? Could they spot the difference between a mineral dye from Azir and a floral dye from the Veden slopes? You used different soaps for each one.
Mem toiled at her canvas—which was, in this case, a pair of vivid red trousers. She scooped some powder soap—hog fat based, mixed with fine abrasive—and rubbed at a stain on the leg. She wetted the trousers again, then with a fine brush she worked in the soap.
Oil stains were challenging enough, but this man had gotten blood on the same spot. She had to get the stain out without fading that fine Mycalin red—they got it from a slug on the shores of the Purelake—or ruining the cloth. Mraize did like his clothing to look sharp.
Mem shook her head. What was this stain? She had to go through four soaps, then try some of her drying powder, before she got it to budge, and then she moved on to the rest of the suit. Hours passed. Clean this spot, rinse that shirt. Hang it up for all to see. She didn’t notice the time until the other Veden washwomen started to leave in clumps, returning to their homes, some of which were empty and cold, their husbands and sons dead in the civil war.
The need for clean clothing outlived disasters. The end of the world could come, but that would only mean more bloodstains to wash. Mem finally stepped back before her drying racks, hands on hips, basking in the accomplishment of a day’s work well done.
Drying her hands, Mem went to check on her new assistant, Pom, who was washing underclothes. The dark-skinned woman was obviously of mixed blood, both Easterner and Westerner. She was finishing an undershirt, and didn’t say anything as Mem stepped up beside her.
Storms, why hasn’t anyone snatched her up? Mem thought as the gorgeous woman rubbed the shirt, then dunked it, then rubbed it again. Women like Pom didn’t usually end up as washgirls, though she did tend to stare daggers at any man who got too close. Maybe that was it.