Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,130

excellent Alethi. He’d likely prepared this speech ahead of time, so he wouldn’t make mistakes. “And we thank Her Majesty Jasnah Kholin for her thorough written explanations of its merits. As you can likely guess, we needed no persuasion to accept this plan.”

He gestured toward the Emuli prime, a man living—as most of the Alethi did—in exile. The coalition had promised him a restored Emul in the past, but had so far been unable to deliver.

“The union of Makabaki states has discussed already, and we support this proposal wholeheartedly,” Yanagawn said. “It is bold and decisive. We will lend it our every resource.”

No surprise there, Navani thought. But Taravangian will oppose it. The old schemer had always pushed them to invest more heavily into the fight on his borders. The Mink had been clear in his final report; he feared Taravangian’s actions were a ploy to get Dalinar to overextend into Alethkar. Additionally, Taravangian had historically taken the role of the more cautious, conservative one in the council, and as such, had good reason to oppose committing to Emul.

The wildcard would be Queen Fen and the Thaylens. She wore a bright patterned skirt today, decidedly not of Vorin fashion, and the white ringlets of her eyebrows bounced as she looked from Jasnah to Dalinar, thoughtful. Most of the room seemed to be able to read how this would play out. Taravangian disagreeing, Azir supporting. So how would Fen—

“If I may speak,” Taravangian said, standing. “I would like to applaud this bold and wonderful proposal. Jah Keved and Kharbranth support it wholeheartedly. I have asked my generals how we might best lend our aid, and we can deliver twenty thousand troops to march immediately through the Oathgates for deployment into Emul.”

What? Navani thought. He supported the proposal?

Storms. What had they missed? Why would he be so willing to pull troops away from his border now, after a year of insisting he couldn’t spare even a handful? He’d always used the ubiquity of his medical support to cloud his miserly troop deployments.

Had he realized Dalinar wasn’t going to give an opportunity for betrayal? Was this something else?

“We are grateful for your support, Taravangian,” Yanagawn said. “Dalinar, that is two for your proposal. Three with you, and four, assuming your niece is already persuaded. The only one we await is Her Majesty.” He turned to Fen.

“Her Majesty,” Fen said, “is storming baffled. When’s the last time the lot of us all agreed on something?”

“We all vote favor for lunching break,” Yanagawn said, smiling and deviating from his script. “Usually.”

“Well, that’s the truth.” Fen leaned back in her seat. “You surprised me with this one, Dalinar. I knew you were tacking toward some goal, but I thought for sure you would insist on trying to recapture your homeland. This general you recovered, he changed your mind, didn’t he?”

Dalinar nodded. “He would like me to move that Herdaz be granted a seat on our council.”

“Herdaz is no more,” Fen said. “But I suppose the same could be said for Alethkar. I suggest that if his help proves useful in Emul, we grant such a request. For now, how do we proceed? I suspect an attack into Emul will provoke the enemy navy to finally come out and engage us, so I’ll need to plan for a blockade. Tukar has a long coast; that’s going to be a challenge. Stormblessed, I suppose we can count on Windrunner patrols to help warn us of…”

Fen trailed off, twisting around toward the small group of Radiants at the side of the room. Each Radiant order usually sent at least one representative. Taravangian’s Dustbringer was there as usual, and Lift was likely somewhere, judging from the state of the snack table—though a few other Edgedancers were sitting at the rear as well.

Normally Kaladin would be there, leaning against the wall, looming like a stormcloud. No longer. Instead Sigzil stepped forward, newly minted as companylord. It was an interesting move, elevating a foreigner—but it was a freedom Dalinar gained by no longer being directly tied to Alethkar. In this tower, ethnicity was secondary to Radiant bonds.

Sigzil didn’t have the presence of his highmarshal; he always seemed too … fiddly to Navani. He cleared his throat, sounding uncomfortable in his new role. “You will have Windrunner support, Your Majesty. The enemy air troops might not want to fly in from Iri or Alethkar, as both routes would require them to traverse our lands. The Heavenly Ones might try to loop around and