a human female leave the city above and come walking in her direction. Venli sighed. Couldn’t they leave her for one movement? Well, they all assumed she couldn’t speak their language, and so she could play dumb. And … it wouldn’t require much pretending. Their rhythmless dead language was hard to understand.
The female gestured for permission, then sat next to Venli. She was the one with the rings on her exposed hand. Some kind of surgeon, Venli had been told. She didn’t seem important. Most everyone ignored her—she was basically one of the servants.
“It’s quite impressive, isn’t it?” the human said in the listener tongue, looking over the Shattered Plains. “Something terrible must have happened here. Doesn’t seem like those plateaus could have formed naturally.”
Venli attuned Anxiety. The woman spoke the words without a rhythm, yes, but they were perfectly understandable.
“How…” Venli said, then hummed to Betrayal.
“Oh, I’ve always been good with languages,” the female said. “My name is Axindweth. Though few here know me by that name, I give it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I think we’re going to be friends, Venli,” she said. “I’ve been sent to search out someone like you. Someone who remembers what your people used to be. Someone who wants to restore the glory that you’ve lost.”
“We are glorious,” Venli said, attuning Irritation and standing.
“Glorious?” Axindweth said. “Living in crem huts? Making stone tools because you’ve forgotten how to forge metal? Living all your lives in two forms, when you used to have dozens?”
“What do you know about any of this?” Venli said, turning to leave. Her mother would be very interested to hear one of the humans had been hiding the ability to speak their language.
“I know much about too many things,” the woman said. “Would you like to learn how to obtain a form of power, Venli?”
Venli looked back. “We abandoned those. They are dangerous. They let the old gods control our ancestors.”
“Isn’t it odd,” Axindweth said, “how much stock you put in what your ancestors said? A dusty old group of people that you’ve never met? If you gathered a collection of listeners from the other families, would you let them decide your future? That’s all they were, your ancient ancestors. A random group of people.”
“Not random,” Venli said to Praise. “They had strength. They left their gods to find freedom.”
“Yes,” Axindweth said. “I suppose they did.”
Venli continued on her way. Stupid human.
“There were forms of power that could heal someone, you know,” the human said idly.
Venli froze in place. Then she spun, attuning Betrayal again. How did she know about Venli’s mother?
“Yes,” Axindweth said, toying with one of her rings, staring out away from Venli. “Great things were once possible for your people. Your ancestors, the ones you revere, might have been brave. But have you ever asked yourself about the things they didn’t leave you in songs? Have you seen the holes in their stories? You bear the pain of their actions, living without forms for generations. Exiled. Shouldn’t you have the choices they did, weighing forms of power against your current life?”
“How do you know all these things?” Venli demanded, walking back. “How do you know about forms of power? Who are you?”
The woman removed something from within her covered sleeve. A single glowing gemstone. Blood red.
“Take that into a storm,” the woman said. “And break it. Inside, you will find a path toward saving those you love.”
The woman stood and left the gem sitting on the rock.
I am led to wonder, from experiences such as this, if we have been wrong. We call humans alien to Roshar, yet they have lived here for thousands of years now. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge there are no aliens or interlopers. Only cousins.
—From Rhythm of War, page 5 undertext
Timbre was uncharacteristically silent as Venli finished her account. Venli had taken the long way up to the sixth floor to gather reports for Raboniel, and had spent the time explaining about that day—the day she’d made her first choice down this path. The day she’d taken that gemstone, and hidden it from her mother and her sister.
Venli could tell herself all she wanted that her motives had been noble. She knew the truth. She’d kept that secret because she’d been afraid of losing the glory of discovering a new form to her sister.
Instead, the reverse had happened; Venli lived her sister’s destiny. Venli had ended up with Timbre. Venli had become Radiant. Venli had lived. These were proof that the cosmere made