Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,388

wonderful,” Thude said.

“As long as we can do it in front of everyone else,” Melu said to Irritation. “I’d like them to understand how easily I could have cracked their skulls.” She looked to Eshonai. “But … that was well done. I guess I’m glad I didn’t have to rip anyone apart.”

“How did you learn to give speeches?” one of the others asked from behind. “Did you learn that talking to those trees, out in the wilderness?”

“I’m not a hermit, Dolimid,” she said to Irritation. “I just like the idea of being free. Of not being locked into one location. As long as we don’t know what is out there, we’re likely to be surprised. Tell me, would we be scrambling now to get our people in order if we’d simply explored our surroundings? We could have been preparing to face the humans for generations, if we hadn’t been so afraid.”

The others hummed to Consolation, understanding. Why had Eshonai had so much trouble persuading people before? Was her present ease because of the connection she felt with these listeners, the first warforms?

There was so much to learn from this form, so much to experiment with. She felt a spring in her step. Perhaps this would be a better form for exploration—she could leap obstacles, run faster. There was so much possibility.

They entered the city, her family’s warriors—those who had been throwing their spears outside—trotting in with them, immediately accepting the authority of the warforms. As they passed Sharefel’s hut, she saw Venli again, lurking in the shadows. This was her victory, after a fashion.

Eshonai probably should have gone to congratulate her, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Venli didn’t need more songs praising her. She already had a big enough ego.

Instead, Eshonai led the group to the stormshelter, where the rest of their family was emerging. Each and every one deserved to see the new form up close.

I leave you now to your own company.

—From Rhythm of War, page 27

Navani hit the tuning fork and touched it to a glowing diamond. When she pulled it away from the gemstone, a tiny line of Stormlight followed behind it—and when she touched the fork to an empty diamond, the Stormlight flowed into it. The transfer would continue as long as the fork made the second diamond vibrate.

Sometimes I think of it like a gas, she thought, taking notes on the speed of the flow. And sometimes a liquid. I keep wavering between the two, trying to define it, but it must be neither one. Stormlight is something else, with some of the properties of both a liquid and a gas.

After completing this control experiment—and timing how quickly the Stormlight flowed—she set up the real experiment. She did this inside a large steel box her scholars had created for dangerous experiments, Soulcast into shape with a thick glass window at one end. She’d forced the enemy to drag it in from the hallway outside, then place it on top of her desk.

She wasn’t certain if this would save her from a potential explosion, but since the box didn’t have a top, the force of the destruction should go upward—and as long as she stayed low and watched through the window, it should shield her.

It was the best she could do in these difficult circumstances. She told the singers she was taking normal precautions, and tried not to indicate to them that she expected an explosion. And indeed she didn’t—the sphere that had killed her scholars had not been Voidlight, but something else. Something Navani didn’t yet understand. She was convinced that mixing Voidlight and Stormlight wouldn’t create an explosion, but a new kind of Light. Like Towerlight.

She began this next experiment the same way as the previous one, drawing out Stormlight and sending it toward another diamond. Then she reached into the box with tongs and placed a Voidlight diamond in the center of the flow, between the Stormlight diamond and the tuning fork.

The Stormlight didn’t react to the Voidlight diamond at all. It simply streamed around the dark gemstone and continued to the vessel diamond. As the tuning fork’s tone quieted, the stream weakened. When the fork fell silent, the Stormlight hanging in the air between the two diamonds puffed away and vanished.

Well, she hadn’t expected that to do anything. Now for a better test. She’d spent several days working under a singular hypothesis: that if Stormlight reacted to a tone, Voidlight and Towerlight would as well. She’d needed to take