Chapter 61

If I were to give you the fuel with which to set yourself aflame, the resulting bonfire would then become my fault and not yours. For we all know what you are.

J asnah arrived in Thaylen City fully armored, at the head of an entire division of Alethi troops. In this, she represented the change she had always wanted to see in the world. A woman capable of leading an army.

Yet ideas hounded her, as they always did. Phantom lights in the night to distract. Had she truly made headway for other women, or had she merely become an exception that was suffered? What did it say that, in order to present herself as strong, she put on armor and engaged in traditionally masculine activities?

Certainly it made a statement. But did it do harm as well, reinforcing that only one kind of strength was valid? It was the eternal irony of the capable rhetorician: train to find holes in any philosophy, and that will inevitably extend to your own. An inquisitive mind did not stop asking questions just because it found answers.

She marched down the grand steps of the city—which, like Kharbranth and several other ocean ports, was built up the leeward side of a large hill. Thaylen City was a metropolis that looked a little like a wide staircase, with buildings settled across many separate tiers. She marched her armies into the Royal Ward, the top tier of the city, then straight past the palace. They continued down past the Loft Wards to the Ancient Ward, near the bottom.

She was accompanied by an honor guard comprised entirely of former slaves. On paper they were free, having taken up weapons and been trained as proper paid soldiers. In her employ, she made their freedom a reality—and she sensed their gratitude. But life for most former slaves was a great deal harsher. Former owners could not lash out at their queen, so they retaliated against those who least deserved it. She knew that some slaves, to avoid this, were quietly doing their work as they had, with almost no pay. Others were determined not to, and found that society was hostile toward them—and that invisible chains had replaced literal ones.

She’d known all of this would happen. Slaves had been freed by imperial decree in Azir during the reign of Kasaakam the Magnanimous. Some slaves in Jah Keved had been granted an elevation to the next nahn after the successful Bav uprising of 637. She had a half dozen records of smaller instances, and had studied them all at length. Learn from the past, and you could predict the future without needing any mystical talent.

But storms, harnessing that knowledge was proving—with each new event—more difficult than she’d assumed. She worried that her many actions to facilitate change wouldn’t stick—that the human desire to create misery and dominate one’s fellows would prove more durable than her reign.

She wished that were the lone worry plaguing her. Yet she also worried about the power she had—that any Alethi monarch had—and how to set up checks on that. And finally, there was the letter. The note she’d left for Wit, formally ending their relationship. It had been the right thing.

Perhaps she should have done it in person, but she didn’t want it to devolve into an argument. She’d started by simply writing out her thoughts for herself. That had turned into a letter, and she did work so much better in writing. He would understand. Even if he was angry.

Her mind couldn’t be on that. It shouldn’t be. She walked, as the first female Alethi general in many generations, at the head of a group of freed slaves, to the defense of their closest ally. Outside strong—strong as Shardplate. Inside constantly worried. At the bottom of the next flight of steps, she met up with Fen, Kmakl, and multiple representatives of the merchant council.

She gladly accepted introductions to several of their key military strategists, Ivory offering his usual quiet commentary in her ear, and sent them to talk to her officers about how to best integrate her forces with the local defenses. She had already made it clear that she would rely on the generals for actual strategy. She thought the generals appreciated that, but she was also their queen, and getting straight answers out of anyone was difficult. She had not thought she would miss the days when everyone was brutally forthright with their opinions about her—she still bore the scars of that ostracization. Yet at least she’d known at all times where she stood.

Stop focusing on yourself, Jasnah thought, frustrated that she’d fallen into old ways of constant self-reflection. Fen needs you.

“You seem concerned,” Jasnah said to the Thaylen queen as the two of them walked up to the top of the city wall, overlooking the docks and the bay. Kmakl remained below, directing Jasnah’s troops to find their barracks in the Low Ward of the large steplike city.

“We are soon to be invaded,” Fen said. “The fate of a great portion of the world relies solely upon your uncle, a man who—despite everything—I can’t completely say that I trust. Radiants come again to aid me, but I can’t help worrying that I’m depending too much on your strength of arm, leaving me utterly reliant upon a foreign monarchy. I maybe should have spoken out earlier about the way anyone who wants to learn to be Radiant ends up moving to Urithiru, where their loyalty is to the Radiant orders instead of their homeland.” She looked to Jasnah. “No offense, Jasnah, but why shouldn’t I be concerned?”

“Sorry,” Jasnah said. “Poor choice of words.” Storms. She tried so hard to be precise with her language, yet here she’d defaulted to a common conversation starter. “I was simply hoping to discuss your defenses.”

“We hope the trebuchets will help,” Fen said, pointing to several emplacements along the slope. “They could realistically sink a ship or two on their way in. More, they might be able to deal with another of those stone monsters, if they appear.”

The Thaylen queen rested her hand on a portion of the stone railing that was two-colored, with bronze to the left. Just over a year ago, the wall had been shattered by a thunderclast, a stone beast of towering size.

“Fine work there,” Ivory whispered, his voice amused. Jasnah was the one who had Soulcast this metal portion to seal the city up again.

She wasn’t certain a trebuchet would be effective against a thunderclast, so she had brought Stonewards. They couldn’t manipulate the rock of the thunderclast itself—that resisted their touch, as Shardplate refused to be Lashed—but melting the ground beneath one, then solidifying it, had proven a perfectly valid counter to the monsters.

“Storms,” Fen said, leaning forward, her arms crossed on the railing. “We’ve worked so hard to rebuild, and suddenly we’re straight back to war. Will I be the queen who suffered not one, but two cataclysmic invasions of her homeland?”

“We have a great deal more experience now, Fen,” Jasnah said. “I brought entire contingents of many Radiants.”

“We still don’t have much of a navy,” Fen whispered. “Even with all our work over the last year, what we have is a pale imitation of our former glory. What is Thaylenah without the best fleet on the oceans?”

A year of recruitment and training could repair her military, and help from Radiants and Soulcasters could rebuild a wall with incredible speed, but good ships took time. The wood Soulcasters that Thaylenah had acquired from Aimia were a tremendous boon, but ships themselves were too complex—too delicate, requiring too many different skills—to Soulcast. Jasnah clearly remembered her own disappointment, when she was first training to Soulcast, that she couldn’t just conjure up intricate contraptions at will.

It would be years before Thaylenah had a fleet to boast of—and most of what they did have was watching the eastern and western seas to intercept enemy ships coming from those directions. No one had anticipated the Veden blockade falling so easily. By initial counts, some hundred enemy ships were currently making their way across the channel.

“How?” Fen said. “How did they build such a military to attack us again? Something doesn’t add up, Jasnah. We thought the bulk of their forces were committed to the assault in Emul, or to the watchposts near the Shattered Plains. There weren’t supposed to be sufficient enemy numbers in Jah Keved to send another fleet full of ground forces. The blockade was only supposed to stop resupplies into Veden City.”

“We’ll know more in a few days, when that armada gets here,” Jasnah said.

“Assuming the enemy doesn’t somehow bring in their storm again, to move with unexpected speed. Odium could get those ships here in a few hours if he wanted.”

It was a possibility, and partly why Jasnah had needed to arrive while the enemy landing was days away yet. One thing was certain though: the enemy wanted Thaylen City. This would be an extremely difficult assault for them, across an exposed bay, then against a tight fortification. The attack would be a bloodbath for the singers, assuming no surprises.

Last time, there had been surprises. The defenders had been taken unaware at several distinct points, which was obviously why Fen was concerned. Odium was willing to commit thousands of troops, all of his ships, and a good portion of his air support to taking Thaylenah.

“An ending is,” Ivory whispered, echoing her own thoughts.

This was it. No relenting. No retreating. Odium would throw bodies at this wall until there was nothing left to throw. Until the heaps of the dead made a ramp. Until the bay turned orange. Because victory here meant domination for centuries—and a loss meant the enforced cessation of hostilities.

That was liberating. Because there would be only one more battle.

It was also terrifying. Because there would be no holding back for a future fight.

“Come,” Fen said. “Last time, they caught us with our sails down and our anchor fouled on coral. I want to spend what hours we have thinking. What is he going to try this time, and how can we counter it?”

Jasnah nodded and followed her down the steps, her armored feet scraping stone. In this city, a year ago, Jasnah had first fully revealed to the world the extent of her training and her oaths, as a Radiant of the Fourth Ideal. Though she still had not found the fifth, she was here now with far more authority, far more troops, far more experience.

Either she would be enough, or she would die in this defense. The time for questions had passed.

“I don’t like the way they’re gathering out there,” Leyten said as he and Sigzil watched from the wall of Narak.

Red lightning illuminated the amassing enemy forces on the plateau to the west of Narak Four. Two or three hundred individuals with glowing red eyes—and amid them, a new brand of Fused. One they hadn’t faced yet, as these had been among the slowest in awakening—something to do with their unique body styles. Master Hoid had warned of their existence. Metacha-im. The Focused Ones.

Sigzil studied them with a spyglass. The Focused Ones were beings of enormous girth, and were likely over seven feet tall, compared to the stormform nearby. They seemed obese, except their bulk wasn’t made of flesh, but instead of loose cords or … or belts. As if they were each wearing a costume made of hundreds of leather belts left loose.

That didn’t quite describe it, because the belts weren’t haphazard. They formed a cohesive suit: that of a tall person with an inhumanly large waistline—ponderous. He moved his spyglass from individual to individual. Twenty of them, among three hundred total enemies—but here, each was Fused with a few stormform Regals mixed in.

“Shouldn’t they be taking shelter?” Leyten continued. “The convergence will be happening any minute. Stormwall was sighted at the eastern watchpost.”

Sigzil hunkered down by instinct, remembering the last time he’d seen two storms meet. That day, plateaus had shattered.

“Ever wish you didn’t have to do any of this?” Leyten said, resting against the wall top. “That instead you could be back at Urithiru, goobering around?”

Sigzil blinked. The air seemed alive with crackling red lightning, and the storms held their breaths as they prepared to clash. Tension wound inside him like the springs of a crossbow. And yet, he couldn’t help asking.

“… Goobering?”

“You know,” Leyten said. “Poking around, working on projects here and there. Doing inventory, running accounts, cleaning shelves. Just … living, without stressing about what you might or might not get done. Goobering.”

“That is not a real word.”

Leyten shrugged.

Sigzil sighed. “Is that a Lopen invention?”

“Nah, comes from my grandmother,” Leyten said. “I just … Sig, I like it when the work is boring. Sometimes I even think I’d rather be back in the chasms, tinkering with my improvised armor, instead of out here having to kill. Does that make me a bad soldier?”

Sigzil shook his head. “No. I understand. I would rather be sticking people to the ceiling and seeing how long they stay there. The thing is, the Shattered Plains is the closest Alethkar has to a kingdom these days. Those fields, those lumberyards, the growing trade market at the warcamps. If we don’t defend against conquest by this enemy … If we don’t fight here …”

“Then nobody ever gets to goober.”

“ Please don’t phrase it like that.”

Thunder.

Highstorm thunder sounded quite different from Everstorm thunder. The latter was often a sharp crack rather than a boom. The Everstorm was like whips being snapped, omnipresent, almost constant—but the highstorm knew how to let a thunderbolt linger. More a mountain crumbling than a whipcrack.

No confluence had ever been as destructive as that first one, so he hoped today wouldn’t be too terrible. Still, Sigzil huddled lower on the stone wall and looked to the east. There, through the darkness of the Everstorm clouds, he could see the stormwall approaching—a vertical plane of water and debris, blown before the coming highstorm. It was more pure a blue at the Shattered Plains than it had been in Azir. Here, it had recently come in over the ocean, and was at its strongest, carrying the sea itself.

Sigzil saw it, and strangely felt hope. The highstorm would kill him if it could, he knew. It was violent and terrible. It also for some reason felt right. It belonged to Roshar, unlike the awful black and red darkness above him now. The highstorm brought life. Water to drink. Light to see by and to grant powers. The storm carried Roshar itself—the stone they stood upon was dropped, as crem, with the rain.

Stupid though it was, Sigzil stood up taller. Below, people were running for bunkers created by Stonewards, but Sigzil found himself welcoming the highstorm. Out on that plateau, the Fused didn’t flinch. The Everstorm clouds grew excited, like they were boiling, the lightning more fierce.

The highstorm struck …

And began to die.

The highstorm faltered, water crashing down, the stormwall breaking apart. The grey-blue was somehow consumed by the black and deep red. The highstorm didn’t go easily, but it did go quickly, with booms and tantrums.

When it hit Sigzil a few minutes later, all that remained was a hard rain that passed in a few minutes, becoming a trickle.

“What on Damnation itself was that?” Leyten hissed.

Sigzil shook his head again. “It was like … like two kings met, and one was forced to bow.”

“That seems a very bad sign,” Leyten said. “What about the Stormfather?”

Throughout the camp, gemstones flickered and became bright, so at least the highstorm remained functional. But the wind was nearly nonexistent, and the rain a mild annoyance. As far as he knew, this had never before happened at a convergence.

Outside, those Fused went on the march, a group of Skybreakers flying up to support them. “This worries me,” Vienta whispered in his ear. “First the strange behavior of the highstorm, now … I can’t put my finger on it …”

“Only Skybreakers supporting them,” Sigzil said. “And a new brand of Fused to keep our attention. Damnation you’re smart, Vienta—that march has a performative aspect to it. This might be a distraction. Leyten, find out where the Heavenly Ones are.”

“On it, boss,” Leyten said, and went to gather his squires.

“Sigzil,” Vienta whispered. “Stormlight came sooner than it normally does, by thirty-seven minutes—judging by the approach speed of the storm. The Stormfather is trying to help. We can stand, here. We will. ”

The enemy formed up to strike at Narak Four. Sigzil’s plan was working—they’d let the gate here burn partially down, on the plateau that had the lowest and weakest walls. The enemy was drawn to the fight they thought they could win, this plateau directly north of Narak Two with its Oathgate. It would advance their cause, giving them their own walled plateau from which to launch further assaults—but unknowingly they were doing just as Sigzil had wanted.

He took a deep breath, then summoned his spear and raised it into the sky to galvanize and lead the defense. Yet inside, he still reeled at the implications of the highstorm having turned into a whimpering axehound.

Soldiers cheered anyway, filling the walls, ready to fight in the pelting rain. As more and more joined him on the walls, they were confronted with a daunting sight. The Focused Ones drew close, then their bodies started to … well, condense.

The many layers that formed what seemed to be a fat being began to pull inward somehow. It had the look of dozens of belts cinching tighter and tighter—weaving underneath each other. Like coils of rope yanked at both ends. As those folds condensed, they started to outline muscles, or maybe become muscles.

When they’d fully grown taut, each Focused One had transformed into a tall, sculpted, androgynous figure that projected strength. As if they had been a relaxed spring, which had now been wound, the extra folds pulling tight against their powerful bodies. Master Hoid had warned that they’d weigh even more than a Magnified One, and that their density would grant them incredible strength and—though Sigzil found it hard to believe—the ability to stop a Shardblade.

The rest of the ground force was made up mostly of Magnified Ones—who could grow carapace at will, and walked as hulking mountains, often with arms transformed into spiked bludgeons. Together, these began tearing up the wooden planking on the ground beneath them—placed to interrupt any Deepest Ones. Sigzil thought they might be trying to taunt him to attack them outside the fortification. He sent a message to the ground-force generals, and they concurred.

Well, the enemy could rip up as much planking as they wanted. Sigzil passed orders for the defenders to wait. “They’ll need to cross that chasm,” he said to the soldiers clustered on the wall top with him, “then climb this wall somehow. They’re at a disadvantage unless they have …”

He trailed off as he heard something. Loud, stone-on-stone footfalls. And in the distance, red lightning outlined a gigantic thunderclast approaching. It appeared the enemy had a plan to get through the wall after all.