Chapter 30

As I fear not the child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.

—From The Way of Kings , fourth parable

A part of Renarin missed the way the tower had been before. It was a silly emotion, but he seemed to feel a lot of those. More than other people.

The tower was far better now. Yet out in the fields—which were on large stone wafers that sprouted from the mountainside around the base of the tower—he found himself displeased. The air was humid, soft, and muggy when it had once been chill and sharp. Renarin passed row upon row of lavis polyps. Even after a few days, the transformation was visible; this row was an inch larger than it had been yesterday.

He squatted down. At this rate, the farmers said they’d be able to bring in crops every two months. Suddenly it was clear how the vast tower fed its potentially hundreds of thousands of occupants. The air was so wet he felt he was swimming, his uniform jacket uncomfortable. Yet a dozen yards away, closer to the tower, the air was a steady comfortable temperature.

It all felt … too easy.

Silly thoughts, he told himself again, standing up straight. For a silly man. He looked across the field to Rlain, who was chatting with several human farmers. Rlain had spent months toiling to teach the humans how to use Stormlight and song to grow plants. Suddenly that work was unnecessary.

Three days after defending the tower—and the humans in it, against his own kind—Rlain was back here, checking on the fields. He’d told Renarin that since the Sibling’s awakening, the rhythms became harder to hear the longer he spent inside the tower, so he preferred it out here. Although people side-eyed him, although he’d been called a shellhead, he was here making certain the very people who distrusted him wouldn’t starve.

He stood tall—almost as tall as Kaladin, and several inches taller than Renarin—with black skin marbled with red. He had a thick neck and strong jaw, outlined by a short red-and-black beard. He pointed, encouraging the farmers to grow a line of sugarbark between the lavis and the tubers, which needed standing water to sprout down into. A natural bit of shoring up, should the ponds overflow—plus something to do with the way the cremlings pollinated different crops. These were listener strains, cultivated on the Shattered Plains, and Rlain knew their intricacies.

Rlain suddenly turned and waved toward the sky. Renarin followed the gesture to see a Windrunner approaching. Lanky Drehy landed nearby, and gave Rlain a wave back, though he trotted over to Renarin. “Hey,” he said. “Meeting is on break. Your aunt asked me to bring you a report.”

“Thank you,” Renarin said softly.

Of course she’d send a report. She still hoped, as Dalinar did, that Renarin would change his mind and agree to be king of Urithiru should his father fall. Barring that, they wanted him to be Jasnah’s heir until Gav was of age. Though Jasnah would ensure an elected official took her place, they thought Alethkar should have a monarch, even if they didn’t have absolute power.

Drehy delivered a quick, affable report on the meetings. Renarin found his mind drifting, and he kept glancing at Rlain.

You will need this information, Glys said in his mind. You will pay attention?

I will, Renarin sent. Though not all spren and Radiants could communicate directly by thoughts, he and Glys were increasingly intertwined. Renarin didn’t mind that Glys felt what he did. It was a challenge sometimes, figuring out what people meant or wanted from him—and having another perspective, no matter how alien, was helpful.

After the report, Drehy lingered, and Renarin started to sweat more in his jacket. This was the part of conversations he always had trouble with. He’d already said thank you. Should he try small talk? How should this end? Everyone else seemed to know what to do—they flowed in and out of conversations like eels in a shared current.

Renarin was the rock in that current.

“So,” Drehy said, settling back against one of the stone workstations that were scattered through the fields, “want to talk about it?”

It? Renarin’s panic grew. What “it”? Was he supposed to know what this particular “it” was?

I do not know, Glys said, equally worried. Is it us, maybe? They will always be afraid of us, I fear.

“The way you look at Rlain,” Drehy said in response to Renarin’s apparent confusion.

“Oh, that, ” Renarin said, relaxing. It was an embarrassing topic, but at least now he knew what the topic was. “Is it … um … obvious?”

“You learn to watch for guys who watch other guys,” Drehy said, shrugging. “I don’t want to pry. It’s nobody’s business. Just wanted you to know I’m here, should you want to talk.”

“It’s silly,” Renarin said, glancing down, blushing. “He’s not even human.”

“I say it’s better to think of everyone as people. Human. Listener. Spren. All people. Even if some of them glow and are annoying.”

“Point,” Drehy’s spren—Talla—said, appearing between them. She always took the fluttering shape of a blue chicken. “I’m not annoying. I’m habitually right. You simply have serious trouble equating one with the other, Drehy.”

“Point,” Drehy said, “being right can be annoying. Habitual or not. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

Renarin let himself smile, hesitant. Drehy, like the other members of Bridge Four, treated him as one of them, awkward or not. To them, he was … well, he was a person.

“I … don’t know what to do,” Renarin said. “About Rlain. About any of this. Aunt Navani won’t be happy. She wants grandchildren. And … um … likes people to be normal.”

“You are normal,” Drehy said. “Or rather, nobody is normal. Normal doesn’t exist. So if we slavishly try to dress ourselves to imitate it, all we’re really doing is becoming a different kind of abnormal—a miserable kind.”

Renarin looked down.

“What do you want, Renarin?” Drehy asked. “Not what your aunt, or your father, or anyone else wants. What do you want?”

“Maybe what I want,” he said, “is for my aunt, and my father, and everyone else to be happy.”

Drehy shrugged.

Storms. How to interpret that?

“Could you … um …” Renarin said, “just say what you mean, please? I’m confused.”

“Sorry,” Drehy said. “I forget sometimes. Renarin, I’m not going to tell you what to be. I’m not going to tell you when, or if, you have to tell anyone. You live your life how you want. I’ve known some who would prefer to pretend they aren’t different. Doesn’t seem to work often, but it’s their right. All I’m saying is if you have questions, I might have answers. Not ultimate answers. Maybe not even correct answers. Just the answers of one man who’s been in your shoes.”

Renarin felt an odd peace at hearing that—odd because his anxiety did not go away. It never really did, but it was nice to have a sense of peace alongside it. Once in a while.

So … dared he ask?

“Um …” Renarin said. “What if … you know … he …?”

“Prefers women?”

Renarin nodded.

“Then move on,” Drehy said. “Look, I’ll be honest. It happens. Nobody’s sense for these things is perfect, and if you ask, sometimes it embarrasses people. But trust me, in the long run it’s better to ask, and deal with it if you’re wrong.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” Renarin said, blushing.

Drehy took a long, deep breath, but didn’t contradict him. He seemed to mean what he’d said earlier—he wasn’t intending to lecture.

“It’s silly,” Renarin said. “Listeners don’t even court like we do.”

“They often bond, two people for life. They do it differently, but what did I say earlier?”

“There is no such thing as normal.”

“Everyone’s got to figure it out for themselves,” Drehy said. “I’ll tell you this though, Rlain said a few things at stew one night about being in mateform and being hugely embarrassed … I think it’s going to turn out all right, Renarin. If you’re willing to try.”

“I can’t,” Renarin said, his head still down. “I really, really can’t. ”

Drehy moved as if to pat Renarin on the shoulder in a way that would have comforted someone else. He paused though, then gave Renarin an encouraging gesture. Bless him, he listened. He knew that Renarin didn’t like to be touched. Though Renarin would have been fine with it in this case—he liked some physical contact on his own terms, but he didn’t like being surprised—the more important thing was that Drehy had listened. He actually cared. Renarin found himself smiling.

“You can do this,” Drehy said. “If you don’t want to, that’s all right. But Renarin, I know you walked onto a battlefield at Thaylen Field determined to make a stand against overwhelming odds all by yourself. I know you struggled with visions of the future and sorted through them, bringing messages to your father. I know you can carry a great weight, my friend. You’ve done it already.” He smiled, then drew in Stormlight and lifted into the air. “Like I said, just one man’s experiences. Bridge Four stew tonight. You coming?”

“Who’s cooking?”

“Does it matter?”

“Determines whether I eat first,” Renarin said, smiling.

“It’s me.”

“Then I’ll come hungry,” Renarin said. “Thank you, Drehy.”

“When you have questions, ask,” he said, and soared back up to rejoin the meeting.

Renarin turned toward Rlain. But then the sky darkened and the air went black as the world became stained glass. Glys pulsed within him.

They had entered a vision of what might come. And this one did not look pleasant.

Rlain had found his perfect form. Or rather, every form could be perfect for him now.

In the past, workform had been his favorite for its versatility. It also left his mind the clearest—the most him. But it didn’t have the height he’d come to appreciate in warform—nor the strength of arm or the armored carapace. He liked the way he looked in warform, and it felt the most like him on the outside. Unfortunately, it made him a little too … eager to fight and obey. He could counteract both of these emotions, as a form did not control you. But it did subtly change the way you thought.

It turned out that being Radiant let him counteract that even more fully. He held up his finger as an awespren—a floating blue ball—alighted on it. This one was invisible to the human farmers who were discussing his advice. Bonded to Tumi, he felt like himself inside regardless of form.

Tumi thrummed to the Rhythm of Joy within him, and Rlain complemented it with a harmony, attuned but different. Tumi rarely spoke, but it didn’t take words to understand his spren. The rhythms could do it.

Tumi’s rhythm changed to Anxiety. Rlain turned toward Renarin—he hadn’t seen the young man approaching until Drehy had arrived, but it had seemed the two had something to talk about, perhaps politics from above. Rlain had left them alone.

Now Renarin was encased in a shimmering distortion in the air. Was something wrong?

Curiosity from Tumi. Rlain attuned the same, hesitant, and knew Tumi thought the humans wouldn’t see what was happening to Renarin. It took a stronger Connection to the realms.

“A vision,” Rlain said. “That’s one of his visions?”

The awespren swelled, drawing the attention of the farmers, who saw it as a ring of expanding smoke. Rlain let the awespren hop away, then excused himself and walked across rows of plants to Renarin, who appeared to be staring at nothing. Dared he intervene?

Tumi counseled boldness, so Rlain stepped forward. In a snap—like the sudden strike of a drum—he was inside the vision. The sky was black, and darkness surrounded them like one might dim the other lights in a room to inspect a single glowing gemstone. From the ground rose exquisite windows made as if from colorful glass.

“They’re beautiful,” Rlain noted. “Seems like a very human manifestation though. I wonder why Tumi and Glys show us them in this form. Is it their doing, or ours, or some combination?”

Renarin turned to him looking shocked, then excited. “Rlain!” he said. “You can see them?”

Rlain nodded. “I’d hoped I’d be able to see your visions, with my own spren. Is this …” He trailed off.

Renarin was crying.

“Renarin?” he said to Despair. “What’s wrong? Did I intrude? Should I leave?”

He turned to go, but Renarin grabbed his hand. Which was surprising, from Renarin.

“I have spent,” Renarin whispered, “what feels like an eternity alone with these visions. From the days where I crept on the floor and scrawled numbers, to the day when I realized my family’s love could overcome a dark future. To a few days ago, when I heard you’d bonded a spren. Now … I’m not alone.”

Renarin pulled him along the line of stained glass windows, which stood upright with nothing to support them. Rlain followed, genuinely intrigued, but also because Renarin had always tried so hard to make Rlain feel included. Rlain respected the other members of Bridge Four, Kaladin in particular, but there was something special about Renarin. When Rlain had been alone, rejected by the spren, Renarin had been the one to comfort him.

That moment had convinced Rlain that even if it was hard, there could be a place for him among the humans. He had never fit in anywhere until he’d found Bridge Four. They hadn’t always been perfect—far from it—but they’d proved willing to work to make a place for Rlain, Renarin working hardest of all.

“So what do we do?” Rlain asked, joining Renarin at what seemed the first of the windows.

“I don’t know,” Renarin said. “But remember. Remember it can be lies.”

“Why pay attention if it could all be lies?”

“Because truth is just the lie that happened,” Renarin said.

Rlain attuned Skepticism. “That … doesn’t make sense.”

Renarin stepped up to one of the windows, and Glys—his spren—separated from him, floating up in the air by his head in the shape of a shimmering red lattice, with beads of light “dripping” from the top and vanishing into the sky. The window depicted Renarin sitting on a throne. He wore some kind of archaic outfit, a little like the fencing attire people wore on the Alethi training grounds, with the skirts.

“This is Kholinar,” Renarin said, “but it’s not the throne room. That looks like my room. See, those are my models on that shelf.”

“Models?”

“Wooden carvings of creatures,” Renarin explained. “You paint them to be lifelike.” He blushed. “I mostly bought knights instead of animals. I needed something to do with my time when Adolin was training. And here, those are my books. I’d spend a few hours each day having them read to me.”

“Such knowledge,” Rlain said. “So much at your fingertips. No wonder you know so much.”

Renarin blushed again.

“What?” Rlain asked to Reconciliation. Had he said something wrong?

“Those aren’t books full of facts or learning,” Renarin admitted. “They’re adventure stories, the kind written for young women. I had a whole collection, much to Father’s embarrassment.”

“Renarin,” Rlain said, “I have seen how your father treats you. He’s not embarrassed of you.”

“He was when I was young,” Renarin said. “But he was wrong back then, wasn’t he?”

They studied the image a little longer before Rlain picked out the detail that was bothering him. “Renarin, I think that is singer clothing you’re wearing.” He pointed at the folds of cloth, noting how they draped the body. The coloring … the patterns …

“Are you sure?” Renarin asked.

“No,” Rlain said, “but I did see a lot of their clothing in the tower these last few weeks. It looks the same.”

“Lies,” Renarin said softly. “Each picture here shows only one of several likely outcomes. I asked Wit, and he says it’s the way of things—no one actually knows the future, not even the gods.”

“But one possibility will become true,” Rlain said. “That’s what you meant earlier.”

Renarin nodded, always so solemn. Thoughtful. “We should study the other windows before they vanish.”

“Do we know why they appear?” Rlain said. “What determines when we see one of these, and which … possibility is depicted?”

“I haven’t been able to figure that out,” Renarin said. “Not fully. Though Glys says …”

“Swells,” Glys said. “There are swells in the rhythms of Roshar. Currents, and old gods, will watch.”

“Old gods,” Rlain said as Tumi, in his gemheart, changed to the Rhythm of the Lost. “The Unmade?”

“Older,” Glys said. “Older still than Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.”

“What’s older than them?” Rlain asked, glancing at Renarin. “Even the Old Magic, as you call it, is a spren of Cultivation.”

“When Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar,” Glys said, “deep within the days beyond memory, times as dark to history as the depths of the ocean are to light, you —Rlain—were already here. Your people.”

Rlain attuned the Rhythm of the Winds, for something as old as those distant years. Humans had come to Roshar long ago—and brought Odium with them. He had been their god, who had accepted the loyalty of the ancient singers after Honor betrayed them. Rlain hadn’t put together the deeper truth: that even Honor and Cultivation had come to Roshar and found the singers.

“Long ago, before any of them arrived,” Rlain said, “did we have forms? Were there spren?”

“I do not know,” Glys said. “I see ahead, not back. You will seek answers from those more ancient than I. The Bondsmith sees backward. Always, his eyes are toward what happened.”

“Jasnah too,” Renarin said softly. “She knows the past better than any.” He turned along the hallway of windows. “But we look forward …”

Rlain joined him, each of their steps crinkling as if on black glass at their feet, as they continued along the stained glass windows that rose on both sides, making a tunnel of light. The windows were the same on both the right and the left: Renarin on a throne, followed by a dark and building storm. Rlain knew that one. The Everstorm, which passed by every nine days. It was easy to forget about in Urithiru, which was usually above both storms, but others brought reports. Lightning strikes. Thunder. Generally less destruction than the highstorm, but a feeling of malevolence and something watching, biding its time. Preparing.

Why would there be a window depicting the storm? It had already arrived. Rlain hummed to Confusion. And Renarin, strangely, did as well? Or he tried. He glanced at Rlain and tried to imitate his humming. Renarin’s attempt was off-rhythm and too loud, like a child sounding out a word that was too big for them. But … Rlain had never heard a human even try before.

“Any idea why this is here?” Rlain asked him.

“No,” Renarin replied. “Sometimes the windows are just like this—nothing relevant that I can make out at all.”

The next depicted some kind of clifftop overlook, with Dalinar standing in front of a glowing golden figure. In the distance, a city was collapsing into a spreading pit. Though the image was static, he felt motion to it somehow. As if that city were constantly crumbling into that pit.

“I recognize this,” Renarin said. “From my aunt’s notes—when she wrote out my father’s visions. This was … the first vision? Or the last one? He stood on a cliff and watched our homeland crumble.”

“Which … has also already happened,” Rlain said to Consideration. “Are we sure these show the future?”

“They will,” Glys promised. “They will. ”

Maybe, Tumi added by a thrumming from within him. Only maybe.

The fourth window was, strangely, a bright green field with distant figures standing in it. The grass didn’t flee from them, so perhaps they’d been standing there a long time. He counted … twelve? He looked to Renarin, who reached up and rested a hand beside the window.

“Peace,” Renarin said. “I feel peace from this one … Who are they, do you suppose?” He tried humming to Confusion, poorly, but Rlain could kind of tell what he meant.

“Humans,” Rlain said. “They’re all human, I think. This one might be a Horneater, and this one Makabaki … And this one—what are those humans with the blue skin?”

“Those are the Natans,” Renarin said. “Unless you’re talking about the Aimians, who aren’t humans, but neither are quite as blue as the woman in this picture.” He hesitated, squinting at the distant woman in a vivid blue skirt, with white hair and blue skin. “Does this mean anything to you?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

Renarin sighed. “They seem to be getting more vague.” He closed his eyes. “Is that last one still there, at the end?”

Rlain gazed past Renarin toward the “end” of their hallway—and was surprised to see a window there, shadowed in the darkness. No light shone through it, so he’d missed it.

“What is that?” Rlain said, walking closer. It depicted only a face. A simple face with intricate patterns, black and red swirling. A singer, femalen, against a black background, etched in glass. Staring at him.

Then it moved.

Rlain jumped. In fits and jumps the image split, multiple versions of the face moving, raging, the eyes going wide, the Rhythm of Agony shaking the frame. Windows around them cracked, but the one in the center kept vibrating. Her face shuddering back and forth, then her hands against the edges of the window, curling, bulging out—as if trying to break free.

Renarin screamed as the windows to the left and right shattered, exposing a dark wasteland. New windows grew up like vines, crystallizing and exploding, leaving jagged stumps—but before they broke, Rlain could pick out images. Burning cities. Broken bodies.

Above it all a rising Rhythm of Agony, with the femalen singer’s words echoing to the sound. I will break it. I will break IT ALL.

Renarin seized him and somehow pulled him out of the darkness. Just one step, and it was gone. They were once more on the fields in the hot air, surrounded by confused farmers.

Rlain fell to his hands and knees, carapace kneecaps grinding stone, sweat pooling under his collar at the edges of his skull carapace and streaming down his face. Renarin collapsed beside him, trembling.

“Is that … how it normally goes?” Rlain asked.

“That was something new. Did you recognize the face?”

“No, but the rhythm was Agony,” Rlain said. He took a deep breath. “It’s one of the new rhythms. That people can only access when they are Regal or Fused.”

Renarin closed his eyes. “Welcome to the fun, I suppose.”

“You said this was something new!” Rlain said to Betrayal. “Implying it’s not like this all the time!”

“Yes, but it’s always something new. So you get used to not being used to anything. Ever again.”

“Delightful,” Rlain said, flopping onto his back, deliberately attuning Peace and counting the movements of the rhythm to calm himself.

“Sorry,” Renarin eventually said, sitting up. “For dragging you into this.”

“I wanted a spren,” Rlain said. “I asked for it.”

“You wanted to fly,” Renarin said. “Like the others.”

“I’m a listener, Renarin,” Rlain said. “I don’t ever do things the way everyone else does.” He took another long, deep breath. “This seems more useful than flying. Assuming we can make any sense of it.”

Renarin nodded, and then smiled. Humans were often overly expressive with their faces, so it might be nothing. But Rlain asked anyway. “Is something funny?”

“Still just happy,” Renarin said, “not to be the only one.”

Rlain hummed to Appreciation before remembering that wouldn’t mean anything to a human. He kept forgetting, even after two years among them. Before he could explain himself, however, a shadow fell on him. He tipped his head back to see Shallan, hands on her hips, wearing some kind of armorlike leather outfit, a white coat, and a matching hat.

“Resting?” she said. “Eight days until the fate of the world is decided, and you two are napping in a field?”

Rlain hummed to Irritation. Sometimes it was good humans didn’t understand, because in singer company, that would have been rude.

“Come on,” she said. “I legitimately need your help.”

“What is the problem?” Renarin said, standing.

“It involves your father,” Shallan said, “the Spiritual Realm, and a group of people who are trying to find the prison of an ancient, evil spren. Ba-Ado-Mishram. You know that one?”

Mishram.

Yes, Rlain did know that name. She had ruled the singers long ago—a spren who had wanted to perpetuate the fighting after the Fused left. The one who had been determined to exterminate humankind, escalating the war.

She was the reason Rlain’s people had abandoned their forms and left. She was the queen of the gods they had forsaken.

And he suspected he’d just seen her face in the vision.