Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,110

thing to say. It broke her heart regardless. She hugged Gav tight. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Will you talk to Grampa, please?”

She sighed. “I’ll ask him.”

Gav nodded, smiling. Her time with him was short, unfortunately. She had a meeting with Dalinar and Jasnah in under an hour, and she needed to check with some scientists up here on the Cloudwalk first. So, she eventually turned Gav back over to the nursemaid. Then she wiped her eyes, feeling silly at crying over something so trivial, and hurried on her way.

It was just that … Elhokar had been learning so much. During these last years, she’d seen him growing into something great—a better man than Gavilar, worthy of the kingship. A mother should never have to grieve for her children. Should never have to think of her poor little boy, lying alone and dead on the floor of an abandoned palace …

She forced herself forward, nodding to those soldiers who chose to bow or—oddly—salute her, hands to shoulders with the knuckles out. Soldiers these days. She supposed with some of their commanders learning to read and some of their sisters joining the Radiants, life could get confusing.

She eventually reached the research station set up at the far end of the Cloudwalk. The head scientist in charge of atmospheric measurements was an ardent with a particularly long neck. With his bald head and the sagging skin under his chin, Brother Benneh resembled nothing so much as an eel who had put on robes and grown a pair of arms through sheer determination. But he was a happy fellow, and he spryly bounced over to her with his notebooks.

“Brightness!” he said, pointedly ignoring Elthebar the stormwarden, who was taking his own measurements from the nearby instruments. “Look here, look here!”

Benneh pointed out the historical barometer readings he’d recorded in his notebook. “Here, here,” he said, tapping the barometer—which was set up on a scientific table with thermometers, some plants, a sundial, and a small astrolabe. That was in addition to the various astrological nonsenses the stormwardens had erected.

“It rises,” Benneh said, almost breathless, “ahead of a storm.”

“Wait. The barometer rises ahead of a storm?”

“Yes.”

“That’s … backward, isn’t it?”

“Yes indeed, indeed. And see, the temperature readings before a storm rise slightly too. You wondered how much colder it was up here on the Cloudwalk than it was below near the fields. Brightness, it’s warmer.”

She frowned, then glanced toward the promenading people. No sign of their breath in front of their faces. It felt colder up here—she herself had noted that—but could that be because she expected it to be? Besides, she always left the interior of the tower to come out; it was impossible not to compare it to the warmth inside instead of the temperature below.

“How cold is it right now?” she asked. “Down below?”

“I asked via spanreed. Measurements are conclusive. At least five degrees colder on the plateau.”

Five degrees? Storms. “Heat in front of a storm and a rise in pressure,” Navani said. “It defies our understanding, but has anyone done readings like this from such an elevation? Perhaps what is natural near sea level is inverted up here.”

“Yes, yes,” the ardent said. “I could perhaps see that, but look at these books. They contradict such a theory. Measurements taken from various Horneater trading expeditions … Let me find them…”

He started digging through papers, though she didn’t need them. She had a suspicion of what was happening. Why would pressure and temperature rise before a storm? Because the structure was bracing itself. The tower could adapt to the storms. More proof; the data was growing as mountainous as these peaks. The tower could regulate temperature, pressure, humidity. If Urithiru could be made fully functional, life up here would improve dramatically.

But how to fix it, when the spren that had lived here was supposedly dead? She was so absorbed by the problem, she nearly missed the bowing. Her subconscious initially assumed the bows were for her, but too many people were involved. And they were going too low.

She turned to find Dalinar passing by, Taravangian at his side. People backed out of the way before the two kings, and Navani felt like a fool. She’d known they were meeting this afternoon, and this was one of their favorite places to promenade. Others found it encouraging to see the two kings together, but Navani did not miss the gap between them. She knew things others did not. For instance, Dalinar no longer met his former friend