Chapter 100

TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO

I , God, found a world unmanaged.

Blue against a black sky, a globe of infinite potential. This was a new creation, I sensed—one of Adonalsium’s most recent masterworks. It sang to me its name through tones and rhythm, and I told it mine.

Tanavast. Almighty.

Heir to Honor.

Here in this world I found perfection, a relic of the being I had slain for his own good. Roshar had been grown entirely from equations, as a grand testament to the divine nature of mathematics—a celebration of the intimate relationship between song, numbers, and art.

There was Honor in this.

I Invested this land, restoring godhood. There were echoes, of course, of my predecessor. Little bits of him left behind. Three powerful incarnations who had his voice, and many smaller ones representing aspects of nature and personality. Beyond these tiny spirits, Roshar had people. A curious variety who could hear the songs of the gods. Their orderiness sang to my soul, and to the power I now held.

For a moment, I doubted. A part of me dared wonder. Did I understand what I’d done ? Did I … regret ?

These questions echoed in the stewards that my predecessor had left. Shadows of divinity with instructions to protect, to shroud, to nurture. One sang to me in particular, and that invigorated me, though I did not know why the Wind was chosen to protect. Wind, invisible Wind, so flighty and immaterial.

It did not … it did not condemn me. I sang with it.

There were other worlds here. One held humans, and I ignored it for now. I was too intrigued by a third world, more distant from the sun. A cold, dark rock—it could support life, barely. It had a curious property: a core of a strange metal that attracted Investiture, calling to my soul. Fascinating.

I left these two worlds—one with humans, one with the core of odd metal—alone, instead enjoying my songs on Roshar.

Until she arrived.

The one I ’d always loved in secret—our union forbidden as mortals—emerged from the darkness of the void between worlds. Cultivation, she was now called, though I knew her as Koravellium Avast—the beautiful dragon heretic of Yolen. She swept up from behind, embraced me with arms like the sky. I sighed, touched her, and all felt right.

“You,” I whispered, “should not have come.”

“We agreed that I would,” Kor replied.

“I’m glad that you did. But you should not have. The other gods insisted that …”

I could not say the words, for doing so might send her away. But the power . The power rebelled against me. I sensed it twisting and contorting, like a … like a tempest. Angry.

I am God, I thought to it. You obe y me.

It writhed. How could I break my word ? Yet I was in command, not it. I could decide what promise was worth keeping, and what was worth discarding.

Kor was here. This was right.

The power simmered. Well, it would learn.

I leaned into Kor’s embrace, my power against hers. Oddly, my mind—though greatly expanded—still wanted a frame of reference with which to interact. And so I shaped a type of body of my power. Not fully physical, and attached to something that expanded forever, this … avatar of myself could feel her touch more distinctly. Rest its head against her arm. Breathe out, and let her rhythm come to harmonize with mine.

“Tanavast,” she said, “we were going to find a place uninhabited.”

I gazed toward her, saw her essence … but also her form. In her human shape—dragons all had two—a woman with brown skin and lush proportions.

“Look at them, Kor,” I said. “ S ee t hem .”

People. Fledgling hunter-gatherers, of carapace skin and song ful hearts. They reminded me of my own people, who had been so primitive compared to the dragons and their great civilization. Rosharans sang songs into the sky, the ground, and the night, waiting for their maker to return.

“We cannot abandon them,” I whispered. “We orphaned them, Kor.”

“I do not wish to be a god,” she said.

“Far too late for such regrets.”

“I left my people because they wanted me to take prayers,” she said. “I can hold this power, because someone must. But I have no desire to be worshipped, Tanavast. Let us find another world where we can experiment with creations that will be part of us, not remnants of the being we … we betrayed.”

She still thought of it that way. A betrayal.

In the far distance, something happened. Gods … dying ? Pain ? We both noticed it. She held to me.

“Do not interfere,” she said. “Let us leave them to their fighting. Let us be alone.”

Others betraying their promises made me more confident in having done so myself. Yet, what of this land ? I, God, turned from her and beheld the people of Roshar, hearing their songs, their pleas. My heart trembled for them.

“Stay here with me,” I requested, holding to her hands. “I will watch over them. You can hide, and not interfere. This can be our place. Does it not sing to you ? ”

“It … is a beautiful song,” she said. “The song the Night sings … I love it.”

I smiled.

She smiled back, a glow like the sunrise.

And so it was.

Until Rayse arrived.