silvery Shardspear.
“Drop your weapon,” Kaladin said to him, “and bow to her.”
“What? Sir?” Sigzil frowned as his wound healed.
“Drop your spear,” Kaladin said, “and bow to her.”
Sigzil, looking confused, did as he requested. Leshwi nodded to him in turn.
“Go back to the ship,” Kaladin said, “and sit out the rest of this battle. Stay with the squires.”
“Um, yes, sir,” Sigzil said. He floated off, poking at the bloody hole in his jacket.
Leshwi glanced to the side. A short distance away—hanging in the air with no weapon—was the Heavenly One that Kaladin had defeated earlier.
Leshwi shouldn’t care that Kaladin had spared the creature. It had been a foolish gesture toward a being who could be reborn with each new storm. Then again, Leshwi probably knew that if Sigzil were killed, a new Radiant could be raised up using his spren. It wasn’t exactly the same— in fact, in terms of Kaladin’s relief, there was a huge difference.
At any rate, as Leshwi raised her spear to him, he was glad to accept the challenge.
* * *
In the middle deck of the Fourth Bridge, Navani counted off another family and pointed them toward a clearly marked and numbered section of the hold. The ardents there were quick to provide comfort to the worried family. Wide-eyed children clutching blankets settled in, several of them sniffling. Parents arranged sacks with the clothing and other possessions they’d hastily packed.
“Some few are refusing to leave,” Ardent Falilar said quietly to Navani. He fretted at his pure white beard as he looked over the list of names. “They’d rather continue living in oppression than abandon their homeland.”
“How many?” she asked.
“Not many. Fifteen people. Otherwise the evacuation is going faster than I’d estimated. The refugees, obviously, were already prepared to move—and most of the normal townspeople had already been forced into close quarters with their neighbors to give parshmen their dwellings.”
“Then what are you so worried about?” Navani asked, making a notation on her list. Nearby, Renarin had stepped up to the family with the sniffling children. He summoned a small globe of light, then began bouncing it between his hands. Such a simple thing, but the children who saw it grew wide-eyed, forgetting their fear.
The ball of light was bright blue. Part of Navani felt it should be red—to reveal the true nature of the spren that hid inside Renarin. A Voidspren. Or at least an ordinary spren corrupted to the enemy’s side. None of them knew what to do about that fact, least of all Renarin. As with most Radiants, he hadn’t known what he was doing when he began. Now that he’d formed the bond, it was too late to turn back.
Renarin claimed the spren was trustworthy, but something was odd about his powers. They had managed to recruit several standard Truthwatchers—and they could create illusions like Shallan. Renarin couldn’t do that. He could only summon lights, and they did strange, unnatural things sometimes.…
“So many things could still go wrong!” Falilar said, drawing Navani’s attention back to the moment. “What if we underestimated the weight this many people will add? What if the strain cracks gemstones faster than we’d planned? The fans barely worked at all. It’s not a disaster, Brightness, but there’s so much to worry about.”
He tugged at his beard again. It was a wonder he had any hairs left at this point.
Navani patted his arm fondly—if Falilar didn’t have something to worry about, he’d go mad. “Do a visual inspection of the gemstones. Then double-check your calculations.”
“Triple-check, you mean?” he said. “Yes, I suppose. Keep myself busy. Stop worrying.” He reached for his beard, then pointedly shoved his hand in the pocket of his ardent robes.
Navani passed her checklist to another ardent, then climbed the steps to the top deck. Dalinar said he’d reopen the perpendicularity soon, and she wanted to be there—her pencil poised—when he did.
Down below, the townspeople kept clustering and looking up at the strange battle overhead. All this gawking was really going to throw off the orderly boarding plan she’d commissioned. Next time she’d have the ardents draw up a second plan that indicated how long it might take if a battle were occurring.
Well, at least only the Heavenly Ones were here. They tended to ignore civilians, considering them little more than battlefield obstacles. Other groups of Fused were far more … brutal.
The command station was mostly empty now, all of her ardents having been recruited to comfort and guide the boarding townspeople. Only Rushu remained, absently watching the