Chapter 11

For while the contest of champions was to happen in the East, a different contest was to happen in Shinovar. And one that the Wind swore was equally vital. Perhaps more so.

—From Knights of Wind and Truth , page 8

A bidi the Fused loomed over Shallan, gaping at the sword through his chest. Radiant pulled it free, then swung for his head. Despite the wound, he had the presence of mind to duck forward and tumble over Shallan, then skidded to a stop and spun as his wound resealed. Unfortunately, Radiant hadn’t managed to hit him in the gemheart or sever his spine—the two cleanest ways to kill a Fused.

He took her in, then glanced at Radiant—made physical—his eyes narrowing as he hummed to a discordant rhythm. “You have learned substantiation? I thought your kind had forbidden that skill. Odium will need to know.” He dove through the bead wall, vanishing.

The cavern immediately collapsed, a deluge of beads consuming Shallan, and the illusion of Radiant puffed away into Stormlight. Shallan held tightly to the satchel around her arm, drawing in more Stormlight, and quested out with her ungloved freehand. Searching the beads.

She needed one as a blueprint. She’d done this before, and had practiced on this trip. In this case, she searched for a room. A bead that was the soul of a room …

She found one almost immediately. An empty room. A part of her mind acknowledged that it was incredibly—even supernaturally—convenient to find the exact bead she needed so quickly.

Shallan! a voice said in her mind. She had the distinct impression of Adolin beneath her and to the left. She followed that impression, using Stormlight to make the beads nudge her that way. She held on to her blueprint and hit the bottom of the ocean, smooth obsidian. There she commanded the beads back, forming a large, empty square room. The beads pulled away to reveal Adolin on the ground, curled in on himself, hands cupped around his mouth to make space so he could breathe.

He blinked at the sudden light—all of it coming from her—and sat up. A few swords were scattered nearby, having fallen with Adolin. Feeling overwhelmed, Shallan walked to him, still clutching the bead. It seemed … eager to be helpful.

What?

She’d never felt such a sensation from a bead before. And what was that voice that had led her toward Adolin? Frowning, she reached Adolin, but staggered. The room spun, and a second later she found herself on the ground, everything a jumble.

“Shallan?” Adolin said, cradling her.

“Are you … real?” she asked.

“What? Of course I am.”

“I created Radiant,” Shallan whispered. “I could have created you … Maybe that’s why you’re so wonderful. I said reality could be what I imagine it to be, but I don’t actually want that. That would be … terrifying …”

He squeezed her hand and helped her sit. The world stopped spinning, and … that was him, wasn’t it? Not an illusion? It had felt wonderful to manifest Radiant—a part of her stepping out and becoming real—but the idea that she could touch her illusions … How would she ever know what to trust?

Trust him. You can trust him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, taking a deep breath and putting her hand to his face. “I’ve been pushing myself hard these last few days, what with Formless and all …”

“We’ve all been pushing too hard,” he said, poking her shoulder where she’d been stabbed and clicking his tongue. Likely at the damage to the coat, as he could see that she’d already healed. “We need a long, uneventful rest after this.”

“Sounds enchanting,” Shallan said, waving for him to help her stand. It felt mortifying to go from a moment of such strength—attacking one of the Fused—to this. She kept hold of that bead in her freehand, because there was something very strange about it.

Adolin checked to see that she was steady on her feet, then grabbed a one-handed sword from the ground. “Drehy and his squires are still fighting up there. Can you help me get to them? I know you need rest, but we can’t leave them.”

She walked to the side of the cavern and felt at the beads there. They’d clicked into place, perfectly aligned in a smoothish surface. “I’ll need something that can make a platform and raise us up. Or maybe I can just lift this room? Pretend that …”

Her vision started to spin again. Briefly. The beads trembled. Adolin jumped back, and a face formed from beads in the wall—in the shape of a crowned femalen singer. The one Shallan had sketched, which Kelek had identified as Ba-Ado-Mishram. Shallan’s sight began to blacken at the edges, and she heard a rushing sound, accompanied by …

In her mind, a woman’s voice speaking to the rhythms.

I will kill you. I will burn everything you love. I will exact vengeance in a river of blood!

Adolin’s voice was a panicked but distant sound. Darkness tunneled around Shallan.

I will rampage across this world until not a single human remains drawing breath. Betrayers, thieves, monsters ! I will send you back to the flames from whence you—

Adolin slammed an oversized, massive greatsword into the face. An eruption of beads burst from it, like a wellspring of water. The entire cavern disintegrated.

She needed a dome. No, a sphere. Like Navani’s traveling sphere. She should have been able to create one without a blueprint, but she couldn’t yet—but she did reach out and find a bead that represented such a room. That was an even more ridiculous coincidence, but she used it, enclosing Adolin and her, sending the sphere flying up until—

They emerged from the ocean of beads, the door of her improvised vehicle opening at her command. They bobbed there, and Adolin put a hand on her shoulder. “Shallan? What in Damnation is going on?”

She shook her head and pointed to where the Windrunners were engaging the Heavenly Ones. As she did, one of Drehy’s squires—the woman who had been stabbed earlier—came flying down. She seemed to be angling for Shallan’s half-sphere vehicle, but crashed hard into the beads nearby, her Stormlight winking out.

Adolin, bless him, moved as if to jump out and grab her, but swimming in the beads was next to impossible. Shallan always felt it should have been easy, considering how solid they were—but the way they shifted and moved sucked a person down or flung them about. Shallan put a hand on his leg to stop him, then took in a long, deep breath of Stormlight, thankful for what the Windrunners had given her.

She had no idea what was going on, and she was scared. In her core, she was still terrified. That, however, Veil whispered, is a step forward.

For years, Shallan had hated herself. Now she merely feared herself. That was progress.

She managed to solidify the beads around her vehicle, forming a stable ring some twenty feet in diameter. That raised the wounded Windrunner up, and Adolin, oversized sword in hand, ran to check on her. Above, the attack was relentless—and Shallan saw one of the Fused in particular leading the others: Abidi the Monarch, with his mostly white patterned face. He saw her, and dove to attack.

Shallan had begun thinking of the Heavenly Ones as the least dogmatic of the Fused, but—like everyone else—they were individuals. She should have realized her mistake in generalizing an entire group.

As Abidi landed on her platform, she tried to form Radiant again, but the effort left her so dizzy she fell to her knees. Fortunately, Abidi made a huge tactical error: he discounted Adolin. He absently shoved Adolin aside and raised a sword to finish off the fallen Windrunner. Adolin leaped in and deflected the blow with his oversized sword, which he held in a strange grip: one hand on the hilt, one hand on the unsharpened section right above the crossguard.

With obvious surprise at being challenged, Abidi swept for Adolin—who ducked, stepping in close, and expertly rammed the tip of his sword between two pieces of carapace on the Fused’s side. It crunched as Adolin shoved it in deep.

The Fused gasped, and the red light in his eyes flickered. Abidi ripped himself back off the sword, managed to dodge Adolin’s follow-up attack, then tried to flee into the sky. He made it ten feet before his Voidlight gave out and he crashed into the beads and was sucked beneath the surface.

Another Fused flew to his aid—and a few more came in from above.

“Storms, Adolin is good,” Radiant said, having at last formed out of Stormlight beside Shallan. She turned her gaze upward, then raised a massive Shardbow and—in a single fluid motion—loosed an arrow almost as thick as a spear. Then another. The Fused above them scattered.

Shallan sat and breathed deeply, concentrating on her Lightweaving and on staying conscious. Drehy and his squires regrouped on the platform in a defensive formation around their fallen comrade—spears up. Doing a quick count—and finding everyone there save for the spren—Shallan used the bead that represented a room to build a large box around them all. Before the Fused could come for them, she lowered them beneath the surface.

Drehy pulled out a sapphire for light and knelt by his squire. Judging by how she immediately absorbed the Stormlight—plunging them into darkness again—she was going to be fine. The next gemstones that came out didn’t get consumed.

Shallan flopped backward, almost completely out of Light. A moment later Drehy stepped over. “This your doing, Shallan?” he asked, rapping on the wall of the room.

“Yes.”

“Those Fused saw where we went down. They’ll come for us.”

Damnation. It was a good point. Well, Jasnah had mastery over her objects made of beads—she had demonstrated it for Shallan, floating along on a platform. Shallan had been stretching these muscles more and more lately. So maybe …

With more Stormlight from Drehy in hand, she managed to sink the room to the bottom of the bead ocean. Then she sent it traveling along like a little boat under the water.

Now to find the spren. She could feel Pattern if she concentrated. Sense his emotions. So she could tell when the under-bead room moved close to him.

“A little help?” she said, her head pounding. “Search through that wall for me …”

Drehy and his squires reached into the beads and pulled Pattern, then Testament, Maya, and finally Drehy’s spren into the boat from the bottom of the sea. After that, Shallan moved them all away. She didn’t think she actually moved the ship-room-thing. More that the beads outside moved it for her, like in a current. Once they’d traveled far enough that the enemy wouldn’t find them without a lot of luck, she stopped it and let herself rest. Breathing deeply, Adolin feeding her spheres of Light from Drehy’s mostly depleted sack.

“That was something, wasn’t it?” Drehy asked, flopping down beside her.

“What about Gallant?” Adolin asked, his voice pained. “Will his Lashing still be working?”

“Should be …” Drehy pulled out his little fabrial. “That’s the correct direction, toward Azimir. I … think.”

“You think?” Shallan asked.

“This device points to something far in the distance. Something the Sibling called ‘the Grand Knell, source of the Current, the death of a god.’”

“Not at all ominous,” Shallan said, sitting up.

“It gives us a bearing,” Drehy explained. “This always points to the Knell. I know the angle from Lasting Integrity we were to take, and I don’t think we’ve strayed too far …”

Adolin started to pace. He got like his father when he was anxious. “Can we go up and send someone to look?”

Shallan glanced at Drehy, who nodded. She took them up and opened a little section in the ceiling. Drehy went himself, streaking out with a Lashing, though he left the compass device with them just in case.

He was back less than five minutes later, landing on the top of the improvised boat and peering in through the hole she’d made in the roof. “You two are going to want to see this …”

An island was nearby, made by a small lake in the real world. There, Shallan was ecstatic to find Gallant trotting along, perfectly safe, exactly as Drehy had said.

He was surrounded by an entire herd of glowing horses.

Shallan had seen one before—Notum had used it as a mount. Not truly a horse, but something that evoked the same impression: with a long, smooth neck and flowing strands of hair. Glowing, lithe, ethereal. As Gallant saw Adolin approaching—flown by Drehy—he let out a whinny of delight, then charged, joined by the herd.

When the horses—Gallant included—reached the sea, they simply kept running, galloping through the air, hooves making glowing marks and throwing off sparks. As before, Gallant seemed completely unfazed by flying. In fact, it was as if he’d expected his Lashing to work like this. It was like … like he often went galloping through the sky in a ghostly herd.

Adolin met him with a cry of delight, grabbing hold of his neck. The ethereal horses—musicspren, she’d been told, though she didn’t see the resemblance—galloped around them in the air. And Shallan noticed something she perhaps should have figured out long ago. She’d remarked, upon first entering Shadesmar, how Gallant had a strange afterimage glow. An outline that followed him, moved with him …

Was there a musicspren bonded to him? Overlapping him?

Eventually the herd moved off, giving Gallant nuzzles before going. All except one, who lingered, looking over its shoulder at Adolin.

In a strangely intimate moment, this horselike spren trotted back and put its muzzle out to Adolin—who lifted his hand to touch it. The interaction lasted barely a moment, then the spren was off again, galloping through the air after the others.

“What was that?” Shallan asked.

“That spren …” Adolin said. “It was familiar somehow. Its eyes … I’ve seen it somewhere before …” He was interrupted as Gallant started to drift downward. The Lashing—or whatever—that the musicspren had provided was running out. Drehy had to swoop in and Lash Gallant once more, who took it remarkably calmly.

“Well, I’m glad the animal is well,” Drehy said. “But this isn’t the only thing you need to see.” Drehy pointed the other direction. “I spotted the horses here and came this way. Then I saw something else.”

“Lights,” Shallan said, following his gesture toward something in the distance. “I saw them earlier.”

“Those Fused weren’t on a random patrol,” Drehy said. “They were guarding something. It’s dangerous to be this close, but I think we need to investigate.”

“Hold on,” Shallan said, then did a Lightweaving. Even without a sketch first. Sure, she’d just seen the spren, but she felt proud of projecting musicspren illusions around herself and the others. If they lay down lengthwise as they flew, they’d mostly be obscured. Maybe from a distance it would be convincing. Merely a strange herd of spren galloping through the air, not spies.

“Let’s go,” she said.

As they drew close, she could make out better what the lights represented. Ships. Hundreds of ships bearing singer warriors, sailing the bead ocean pulled by flying mandras, trailed by emotion spren of many varieties churning the waves like camp followers. Shallan gaped.

“That’s thousands of assault troops,” Adolin whispered from inside his illusion. He righted Gallant’s saddle after handing off his greatsword to one of Drehy’s squires. The scabbard was gone, and the equipment boxes had been knocked free—Adolin grimaced as his hand lingered on the now vacant saddle hooks.

“They have patrols watching to make sure no one spots them,” Shallan said. “It’s a secret strike force.”

“They’re sailing straight for Azimir,” Drehy said. “Storms … they probably came all the way from the Horneater Peaks, and the perpendicularity there. They must have been planning this for months.”

“Agreed,” Adolin said. “Drehy, you have to get us to Azimir as quickly as possible.”