This land was yours long ago, before they stole it. You have been trained to be docile. We will teach you to be strong again.
The Fused remained calm, but fierce. Like a smoldering fire. Controlled, but ready to burst alight. He eventually walked to join some of his fellows. Around them, the singer army formed up awkwardly, coating the land just east of the bay. Alethi troops mustered across a short battlefield, banners flapping. They had archers, heavy infantry, light infantry, even some outriders on horses.
Venli hummed to Agony. This was going to be a slaughter.
She suddenly felt something odd. Like a rhythm, but oppressive, demanding. It shook the very air, and the ground beneath her feet trembled. Lightning in the clouds behind seemed to flash to this rhythm, and in a moment she saw that the area around her was filled with ghostly spren.
Those are the spirits of the dead, she realized. Fused who haven’t yet chosen a body. Most were twisted to the point that she barely recognized them as singers. Two were roughly the size of buildings.
One dominated even these: a creature of swirling violence, tall as a small hill, seemingly made up entirely of red smoke. She could see these overlaid on the real world, but somehow knew they would be invisible to most. She could see into the other world. That happened sometimes right before …
A blistering heat shone behind her.
Venli braced herself. She usually only saw him during the storms. But … this was a storm. It hovered behind, immobile, churning the seas.
Light crystallized beside her, forming an ancient parshman with a face marbled gold and white, and a regal scepter he carried like a cane. For once, his presence didn’t vaporize her immediately.
Venli released a relieved breath. This was more an impression than his true being. Still, power streamed from him like the tendrils of a vinebud waving in the wind, vanishing into infinity.
Odium had come to personally supervise this battle.
Teft hid.
He couldn’t face the others. Not after … after what he’d done.
Rock and Bisig bleeding. Eth dead. The room destroyed. The Honorblade stolen.
He had … he had on a Bridge Four … uniform.…
Teft scrambled through the rock hallways, passing shamespren in bursts, looking for a place where nobody could see him. He’d done it again, to yet another group that trusted him. Just like with his family, whom he’d sold out in a misguided attempt at righteousness. Just like with his squad in Sadeas’s army, whom he’d abandoned for his addiction. And now … and now Bridge Four?
He tripped on an uneven bit of stone in the dark hallway and fell, grunting, scraping his hand against the floor. He groaned, then lay there, knocking his head against the stone.
Would that he could find someplace hidden, and squeeze inside, never ever to be found again.
When he looked up, she was standing there. The woman made of light and air, with curls of hair that vanished into mist.
“Why are you following me?” Teft growled. “Go pick one of the others. Kelek! Pick anyone but me.”
He rose and pushed past her—she had barely any substance—and continued down the hallway. Light from ahead showed that he’d accidentally made his way to the outer ring of the tower, where windows and balconies overlooked the Oathgate platforms.
He stopped by a stone doorway, puffing, holding on with a hand that bled from the knuckles.
“Teft.”
“You don’t want me. I’m broken. Pick Lopen. Rock. Sigzil. Damnation, woman. I…”
What was that?
Drawn by faint sounds, Teft walked into the empty room. Those sounds … Shouts?
He walked out onto the balcony. Below, figures with marbled skin flooded across one of the Oathgate platforms, the one that led to Kholinar. That was supposed to be locked, unusable.
Scouts and soldiers began to shout in panic down below. Urithiru was under attack.
Puffing from her run, Navani scrambled up the last few steps onto the wall of Thaylen City. Here, she found Queen Fen’s retinue. Finally.
She checked her arm clock. If only she could find a fabrial that would manipulate exhaustion, not just pain. Wouldn’t that be something. There were exhaustionspren, after all …
Navani strode along the wall walk toward Fen. Below, Amaram’s troops flew the new Sadeas banner: the axe and the tower, white on forest green. Anticipationspren and fearspren—the eternal attendants of the battlefield—grew up around them. Sadeas’s men were still streaming through the gates, but already blocks of archers moved forward. They’d soon start pelting the disorganized parshman army.
That storm though …
“The enemy only keeps coming,” Fen said as Navani approached, her admirals making room. “I’ll soon get to judge your famed Alethi troops firsthand—as they fight an impossible battle.”
“Actually,” Navani said, “we’re better off than it looks. The new Sadeas is a renowned tactician. His soldiers are well rested and—if lacking in discipline—known for their tenacity. We can attack the enemy before it finishes deploying. Then, if they rebound and overwhelm us with numbers, we can pull back into the city until we get reinforcements.”
Kmakl, Fen’s consort, nodded. “This is winnable, Fen. We might even be able to capture some of our ships back.”
The ground shook. For a moment, Navani felt that she was on a swaying ship. She cried out, grabbing the battlement to keep from falling.
Out in the field, between the enemy troops and the Alethi ones, the ground shattered. Lines and cracks split the stone, and then an enormous stone arm pulled itself from the ground—the fractures having outlined its hand, forearm, elbow, and upper arm.
A monster easily thirty feet tall pulled itself from the stone, dropping chips and dust on the army below. Like a skeleton made of rock, it had a wedge-shaped head with deep, molten red eyes.
Venli got to watch the thunderclasts awaken.
Among the waiting spirits were two larger masses of energy—souls so warped, so mangled, they didn’t seem singer at all. One crawled into the stone ground, somehow inhabiting it like a spren taking residence in a gemheart. The stone became its form.
Then it ripped itself free of the rock. Around her, the parshmen stumbled back in awe, so surprised that they actually drew spren. The thing loomed over the human forces, while its companion climbed into the stone ground, but didn’t rip out immediately.
There was one other, mightier than even these. It was out in the water of the bay, but when she looked into the other world, she couldn’t help but glance toward it. If those two lesser souls had created such daunting stone monsters, then what was that mountain of power?
In the Physical Realm, the Fused knelt and bowed their heads toward Odium. So they could see him too. Venli knelt quickly, knocking her knees against the stone. Timbre pulsed to Anxiety, and Venli put her hand on the pouch, squeezing it. Quiet. We can’t fight him.
“Turash,” Odium said, resting fingers upon the shoulder of the Fused she had been following. “Old friend, you look well in this new body.”