to fully conceive of something inhabitable being built so far up.
One of the Deepest Ones glided toward Venli and Raboniel, her feet sunken in rock. She moved with an unnatural grace, as if her bones weren’t completely solid. This was the scout Raboniel had sent ahead this morning to search for a proper incursion point.
“Come,” she said to Command.
Venli followed, joining Raboniel, Rothan, three Deepest Ones, and a soldier she didn’t know. Raboniel didn’t forbid Venli, and none of the others seemed to care that she was there. They made their way around the side of the mountain, passing a pile of what looked like rotting grain and some broken wood boxes. Did humans travel this way?
No, she realized. This must have fallen from above. Perhaps a shipment of food, coming via Oathgate to the city.
“Here,” the Deepest One said, bringing out a Stormlight sphere to light a particular patch of rock. She then sank her hand into the stone as if it were liquid. Or … no, that wasn’t exactly correct. When the Deepest One put her hand into the ground, she didn’t displace anything, and the stone seemed to meld to her skin.
“The ancient protections have not been maintained,” the scout said. “I can feel that the ralkalest has fallen from the walls of the tunnel below. How could they allow this oversight?”
“These new Radiants know nothing,” another Deepest One said to Craving. “Raboniel, Lady of Wishes, you are correct in pushing to strike now. Yours is wisdom that the Nine do not share. They have been too timid.”
Venli did not miss the Fused using Raboniel’s title. All of them had similar formal names; the Deepest One using Raboniel’s here—to the Rhythm of Craving—conveyed respect.
“The Nine,” Raboniel said, “are taking care to not lose our footing in this world. We have waited thousands of years for this chance; they do not wish to trip by running too fast.”
She said it, however, to Satisfaction. Her words were respectful, but the tone of the rhythm was clear. She appreciated the compliment, and she agreed.
The other Fused with them hummed to Subservience, something Venli almost never heard from their kind.
“The Sibling sleeps,” the scout said. “Just as the Midnight Mother felt. Perhaps the Sibling has truly died. Permanently made into an unthinking creature.”
“No,” said another. “The Sibling lives.”
Venli started. The one she’d mistaken for a soldier earlier, in the dark, was something more. A Fused malen with rippling patterns that shifted and changed on his skin. That was the mark of the mavset-im, Those Ones of Masks. The Masked Ones, illusionists, had the power to change how they appeared.
“My form is disrupted,” the Masked One said. “The ralkalest might have fallen from the wall, but that is a mere physical barrier. The tower’s spiritual protections are at least partially in effect—and as we determined months ago, the mavset-im cannot bear our many images while near Urithiru.”
“This is as we anticipated,” Raboniel said. “And we do not need your mask to proceed. As long as the Deepest Ones can move through the tunnels, our mission is viable. Go. We will meet you at the southwest opening.”
The Deepest Ones dropped their robes, exposing naked skin and carapace-covered privates. Then they slid into the rock, sinking as if into a dark ocean up to their necks. Then, eyes closed, they vanished beneath the stone.
* * *
“I feel blind,” Lirin explained as Kaladin sat with him. Today Hesina was taking Kaladin’s patients—the ones with battle shock—to see the tower stables. She insisted that taking care of animals would help, though Kaladin couldn’t fathom how being around those beasts could help anyone’s mood. Still, several of the patients had expressed eagerness at the idea of going riding.
“Blind?” Kaladin asked.
“I’ve had seven textbooks on sanity read to me over the last week,” Lirin said. “I hadn’t realized how little most of them would say. Mostly the same few quotes repeated over and over, traced to fewer sources. I can’t believe that we have spent so long knowing so little, documenting nothing!”
“It’s not so odd,” Kaladin said, building a tower of blocks for his little brother to knock down. “Surgeons are looked at with suspicion even in some of the larger cities. Half the population thinks mental illness is caused by staying out in storms, or by taunting deathspren, or some nonsense.”
Lirin rested a hand on the charts on his lap. Oroden laughed, walking among the blocks and kicking them.
“I spent my entire life trying to help,” Lirin