Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,382

happening as the water rushed in and …

Venli attuned the Lost and put down her small sack of spheres. She took out a Stormlight one first, then glimpsed into Shadesmar. She hadn’t again seen the Voidspren she’d spotted near Rlain’s cell, though she’d watched carefully these last few days. She’d eventually put Rlain together with the surgeon and his wife, and delivered all three of them to help care for the fallen Radiants.

Shadesmar revealed no Voidspren hiding in cremlings, so she hesitantly returned her vision to the Physical Realm and drew in a breath of Stormlight. That she could do, as she’d practiced it together with Timbre over the months.

Stormlight didn’t work like Voidlight did. Rather than going into her gemheart, it infused her entire body. She could feel it raging—an odd feeling more than an unpleasant one.

She pressed her hand to the stone wall. “Do you remember how we did this last time?” she asked Timbre.

The little spren pulsed uncertainly. That had been many months ago, and had drawn the attention of secretspren, so they had stopped quickly. It seemed, though, that all Venli had needed to do was press her hand against the wall, and her powers had started activating.

Timbre pulsed. She wasn’t convinced it would work with Stormlight, not with the tower’s defenses in place. Indeed, as Venli tried to do … well, anything with the Stormlight, she felt as if there were some invisible wall blocking her.

She couldn’t push the Stormlight into her gemheart to store it there—not with the Voidspren trapped inside. So Venli let the Light burn off on its own, breathing out to hasten the process. Then she took out a Voidlight sphere. She could get these without too much trouble—but she didn’t dare sing the Song of Prayer to create them herself. She worried about drawing Odium’s attention; he seemed to be ignoring her these days, and she’d rather it remain that way.

Timbre pulsed encouragingly.

“You sure?” Venli said. “It doesn’t seem right, for some reason, to use his power to fuel our abilities.”

Timbre’s pulsed reply was pragmatic. Indeed, they used Voidlight every day—a little of it, stored in their gemheart—to power Venli’s translation abilities. She wasn’t certain if her ability to use Voidlight for Radiant powers came from the fact that she was Regal, or if any singer who managed a bond would be able to do the same.

Today, she drew the Voidlight in like Stormlight, and it infused her gemheart fully. The Voidlight didn’t push her to move or act, like the Stormlight had. Instead it enflamed her emotions, in this case making her more paranoid, so she checked Shadesmar again. Still nothing there to be alarmed about.

She pressed her hand to the wall again, and tried to feel the stone. Not with her fingers. With her soul.

The stone responded. It seemed to stir like a person awaking from a deep slumber. Hello, it said, though the sounds were drawn out. She didn’t hear the word so much as feel it. You are … familiar.

“I am Venli,” she said. “Of the listeners.”

The stones trembled. They spoke with one voice, but she felt as if it was also many voices overlapping. Not the voice of the tower, but the voices of the many different sections of stones around her. The walls, the ceiling, the floor.

Radiant, the stones said. We have … missed your touch, Radiant. But what is this? What is that sound, that tone?

“Voidlight,” Venli admitted.

That sound is familiar, the stones said. A child of the ancient ones. Our friend, you have returned to sing our song again?

“What song?” Venli asked.

The stone near her hand began to undulate, like ripples on the surface of a pond. A tone surged through her, then it began to pulse with the song of a rhythm she’d never heard, but somehow always known. A profound, sonorous rhythm, ancient as the core of Roshar.

The entire wall followed suit, then the ceiling and the floor, surrounding her with a beautiful rhythm set to a pure tone. Timbre, with glee, joined in—and so Venli’s body aligned with the rhythm, and she felt it humming through her, vibrating her from carapace to bones.

She gasped, then pressed her other hand to the rock, aching to feel the song against her skin. There was a rightness about this, a perfection.

Oh, storms, she thought. Oh, rhythms ancient and new. I belong here.

She belonged here.

So far, everything she’d done with Timbre had been accidental. There had been a momentum to it. She’d made