their eyes seeming to stare without seeing. It was there nonetheless. Perhaps this Pursuer had lived so long that his traditions had taken control of his reason. He was like a spren, existing more than living.
Timbre pulsed at that. She didn’t think she existed without living, and Venli was forced to apologize. Still, she worried that all the Fused were like him. Maybe not mad—maybe that was the wrong word for it, and disrespectful to people who were themselves mad. The Fused instead seemed more like people who had lived so long thinking one way that they had come to accept their opinions as the natural state of things.
Venli had been like that once.
“So telling,” Raboniel said to Thoughtfulness, still regarding the murals. “Humans take as their own everything they see. Yet they do not understand that by holding so tightly, they cause the very thing they desired to crumble. They truly are children of Honor.”
Raboniel turned from the mural and strolled farther down the hallway, approaching an intersection where doors opened on either side. These led into chambers with tables, bookshelves, stacks of paper. Venli followed Raboniel into one of them, then hurried—at a wave of her fingers, a gesture Venli’s translation powers interpreted—to fetch a cup of wine from the station at the side of the room.
Venli passed huddled scholars and monks, sitting on the floor by the wall beneath the watchful eyes of a few Regal stormforms. The poor humans were surrounded by fearspren, though Venli had to remind herself that no human could ever be completely trusted. They didn’t have forms. A human might wear the robes of their priesthood, but could secretly have trained as a warrior. It was part of what made humans so duplicitous. No rhythms to hum to, just facial features easy to fake. No forms to indicate their duty. Just clothing that could be changed as easily as a lie required it.
Timbre pulsed.
Well, of course I’m different, Venli thought. Even if she did lie by humming the wrong rhythms at times. And wear a form that didn’t express the spren she truly followed.
Timbre pulsed in satisfaction.
Don’t make this harder than it already is, Venli thought, hastening to Raboniel. I’m not here to help the humans. I can barely help my own kind.
She delivered Raboniel’s wine as the tall Fused was inspecting a contraption of metal and gemstones. A human fabrial delivered by one of the Deepest Ones.
“What should we make of this?” the Deepest One asked to Craving. “I have never seen its like before. How can the humans have discovered things we never knew about?”
“They have always been clever,” Raboniel said to Derision. “We merely left them alone too long this time. Go and interrogate the scholars. I would find out who leads their studies here.”
The Fused glanced upward.
“The conquest will happen easily,” Raboniel said to Conceit. “By now, the shanay-im have used Vyre to activate the Oathgate, bringing our troops. Let us stay focused while they work.”
“Yes, Lady of Wishes,” the Deepest One said, gliding off.
Raboniel absently took the cup from Venli’s hands. She turned the fabrial over in her hand, and hummed softly to … to Subservience?
She’s impressed, Venli realized. And she’s keeping most of the scholars alive—along with the Radiants. She wants something from this tower.
“You don’t care about the conquest,” Venli guessed, speaking to Craving. “You aren’t here to further the war or to dominate the humans. You’re here because of these things. The fabrials humans are creating.”
Raboniel hummed to Command. “Yes, Leshwi does pick the best, doesn’t she?” She held out the fabrial, letting the light catch it. “Do you know what the humans gain by being so forceful? By reaching to seize before they are ready? Yes, their works crumble. Yes, their nations collapse from within. Yes, they end up squabbling, and fighting, and killing one another.
“But in the moment, they are the sprinter who outpaces the steady runner. In the moment, they create wonders. One cannot fault their audacity. Their imagination. Surely you’ve noticed that the Fused have a problem. We think along the same old, familiar pathways. We don’t create because we assume we’ve already created what we need to. We are immortal, and so think nothing can ever surprise us—and that makes us complacent.”
Venli hummed to Abashment, realizing she’d been thinking that same thing.
“That is the reason this war is eternal,” Raboniel said. “They cannot hold or exploit that which they create, but we cannot stretch far enough to come up