Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,276

using that word? It’s horribly inaccurate.”

“Shut it, Voidbringer,” she muttered at him. She reached over and carefully picked up the chicken, who had begun to let out pained chirps almost like words. Eerily similar to them, in fact.

“Who was he?” she asked. “Wyndle, do you recognize him?”

“I believe I’ve seen him before. A minor Alethi functionary, though his eyes are different now. Curious. Look at his fingers—tan skin with bands of lighter skin. He was wearing jewelry once.”

Yes … thinking about it, she thought she recognized him. One of the old people in the tower. Retired, once an important official in the palace. She’d gone and talked to him because nobody paid attention to old people. They smelled.

“Robbed,” she said. Back-alley killings still happened in this tower, though the Kholins tried to make the place safe. “I’ll remember you. I promise. I—”

Something moved in the darkness nearby. A kind of scraping sound, like … feathers. Lift went alert and stood, holding out a sphere for light. It had come from farther down the corridor, where her light didn’t reach.

Something flowed from that darkness. A man, tall with scarred features. He wore an Alethi uniform, but she swore she’d never seen him before. She would recognize a man this dangerous. Those eyes seemed to be part of the darkness—deep in shadow as he stepped into the light.

On his shoulder sat the green chicken from before, its wicked claws gripping a patch of leather affixed to the uniform.

“Little Radiant,” the man said. “I’ll admit, I’ve always wanted an excuse to hunt you.”

She clutched her red chicken and started running.

The man behind her laughed. As if he’d been given the grandest of gifts.

Taravangian’s solitude was painful today. As was increasingly common, he wasn’t particularly smart.

Smart Taravangian hated company. Smart Taravangian forgot the point of being around other people. Smart Taravangian was terrifying, but he would gladly have been that version of himself today. He would have welcomed the emotional anesthesia.

He sat alone in a stormwagon, hands in his lap, surrounded by swirling brown exhaustionspren. The Everstorm was nearing its end. He was now to give the order for his men to betray the coalition. If Taravangian’s guesses were right, it also meant Odium had launched an attack on Urithiru.

Taravangian did not give the order yet. Odium had said he would come to confirm, and so far he hadn’t. Perhaps … perhaps Taravangian’s service wouldn’t be needed today. Perhaps the plan had changed.

Weak, frail hopes for a weak, frail man.

He so wished he could be smart. When had he last been intelligent? Not brilliant—he’d given up on feeling that way again—but merely smart? The last time had been … storms, over a year ago. When he’d planned how to destroy Dalinar.

That attempt had failed. Dalinar had refused to be broken. Smart Taravangian, for all his capacities, had proven insufficient.

Smart Taravangian came up with the plan that forced Odium to make a deal, he thought. That is enough.

And yet … and yet he wavered. Smart Taravangian had failed. Besides, he hadn’t just been made intelligent. He’d been given a boon and a curse. Intelligence on one side. Compassion on the other. When smart, he assumed the compassion was the curse. But was it really? Or was the curse that he could never have both at once?

He stood up in the wagon, and withstood the moment of dizziness that took him each time he stood these days: blackness creeping at the edges of his vision, like deathspren eager to claim him. He thought perhaps it was his heart, though he had not asked for a surgeon. Best not to trouble someone who could be helping wounded soldiers.

He breathed out in short breaths, listening to the soft cracks of the Everstorm outside. The thunder was ebbing. Almost at the end.

He shuffled the short distance to his trunk. Here, Taravangian forced himself to kneel. Storms, when had kneeling become so painful? His bones ground against one another like a pestle against its bowl.

Trying not to focus on the painspren, he fumbled at the lock’s combination with trembling fingers, then unhooked the lid. He undid the trunk’s lining on the top, reached to the secret compartment and flipped a hidden latch. That disengaged the small ink vial he’d rigged to spill and ruin the contents of the compartment if it was tampered with.

Only then could he feel around inside and locate the pages. He pulled them out with a tentative hand. A year ago, during his most recent bout