in front of him in the shape of a small woman, growling softly, her teeth clenched.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I don’t know! I was in the winehouse, and then … Teft! What’s wrong?”
“We don’t know,” Kaladin said. “Do you see Phendorana?”
“No. Not anywhere. My mind feels cloudy. Is this what it feels like to be sleepy? I think I’m sleepy.” She scrunched up her face. “I hate it.”
Rlain arrived, huffing, trailed by Kaladin’s mother, who peeked around him, appearing worried.
“Kal,” Rlain said. “I passed people in the hall who were shouting warnings. There are Fused in the tower. It’s another raid.”
“Why haven’t we heard about this via spanreed?” Kaladin asked.
“They don’t work,” his mother said. “We tried to write to Brightness Navani the moment these Radiants arrived. You activate the reed, but nothing happens. It just falls over.”
Kaladin felt cold. He pushed past Rlain and walked down the hall to the living room of his family’s quarters. It had a window out into the evening sky. The sun had set, though fading sunlight painted the sky, so he could see the hundreds of flying figures—trailing long clothing and infused with Voidlight—descending upon the tower.
“You were wrong, Rlain,” Kaladin said. “It’s not a raid. This is an invasion.”
* * *
Several of the women clustered around Red, who was breathing, but unconscious. Navani let the others deal with the Lightweaver. She reread the lines the phantom spren had written.
The Sibling. The third Bondsmith spren. Not dead after all, not even asleep. But why spend over a year saying nothing? Why let everyone think you were dead?
Navani picked up the pen, which had fallen to the paper. Twisting the gemstone did nothing; the fabrial was lifeless.
The enemy, the Sibling had written. They are doing something to me.…
Navani rushed to her spanreed satchel, which was usually watched by one of her scribes’ wards. It had leather sheaths for each reed, positioned in a row so that the ruby was visible through a slit in the leather. A dozen of her most important spanreeds.
None of them were blinking. Indeed, the two she pulled out gave no response when she twisted the rubies. They were as dead as the one on the table. She glanced at Red lying on the floor. Kalami was checking his eyes; she was an officer’s daughter, and had been taught field medicine. She’d already sent one of the girls to run for an Edgedancer.
An attack. With no spanreeds to communicate? Storms, it would be chaos.
Navani stood up. If it was going to be chaos, then someone had to fight it. “Soldiers, I need you in here! Spanreeds aren’t working. Who is the fastest runner among you?”
The scribes gaped at her, and all three of her soldiers—the ones who had been watching the captive in the other chamber—stepped in. The men looked at one another, then one of the soldiers raised his hand. “I’m probably fastest, Brightness.”
“All right,” Navani said, dashing to the table and pulling out a sheet of paper. “I need you to run to the first floor—use the stairs, not the lifts—and get to the scouting office near the second sector. You know it, the place where we’re organizing the mapping of the Plains? Good. Have them mobilize every runner they have.
“They are to send someone to each of the tower’s seven garrisons with a copy of this message. Every remaining runner, and all the scribes in the office, are to meet me on the second floor at the maps room. It’s the largest secure place I can think of right now.”
“Um, yes, Brightness.”
“Warn them to move quickly!” Navani said. “I have reason to believe that a dangerous attack is coming.” She scribbled some instructions on the paper—commanding the seven garrisons to deploy according to one of the predefined plans, then adding her current authentication phrase. She ripped off the paper and thrust it at the soldier, who took off at a dash.
Then she wrote it again and sent it with her second-fastest man—telling him to use a different route. Once he was off, she sent the last soldier to the Windrunners. There should be about twenty of them—four full knights and their squires—remaining in the tower.
“But Brightness,” the guard said, taking the note she handed him, “you’ll be unguarded.”
“I’ll manage,” she said. “Go!”
He hesitated, perhaps trying to determine if Dalinar would be angrier at him for abandoning Navani or for disobeying her. Finally he dashed away.
Storms, she thought, looking at the fallen Red. What if they can