Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive #4) - Brandon Sanderson Page 0,572

kind of purple Azish vegetable mash, which he ate with his fingers. It tasted so good. Had he ever eaten anything so wonderful? He cried over it.

The gemstones continued to glow. Large ones. With something moving in them. Hadn’t … hadn’t he been told to watch for something like that?

Thunder crackled in the sky, and Taravangian looked up. Was that the Everstorm? No. No, it was a highstorm. He hadn’t realized it would come today. Thunder rattled the shutters, and he dropped the bread. He hid again in the corner with globs of trembling fearspren.

The thunder sounded angry.

He knows, Taravangian thought. The enemy knows what I’ve done. No. No, wrong storm.

He needed a way to summon Odium. Those gems. That was what they were for!

It would happen today.

Today he died.

Today it ended.

The door to his hut slammed open, broken at the hinges. Outside, guards scrambled away from a figure silhouetted against a darkening sky. The storm was almost here.

And Szeth had come with it.

Taravangian gasped, terrified, as this was not the death he had foreseen. He’d waited so long for a transcendent day when he would be supremely intelligent again. He’d never wondered about the opposite. A day when he was all emotion. A day when thoughts didn’t move in his brain, and spren swarmed him, feeding gluttonously upon his passions.

Szeth stood quietly, his illusion gone, his bald head—freshly shaved—reflecting the light of the spheres that had spilled from the basket.

“How did you know?” the Shin finally asked. “And how long have you known?”

“Kn-known?” Taravangian forced out, crawling to the side through the fearspren.

“My father,” Szeth said.

Taravangian blinked. He could barely understand the words, he was so stupid. Emotions fought inside him. Terror. Relief that it would soon be over.

“How did you know my father was dead?” Szeth demanded, striding into the room. “How did you know that Ishar reclaimed his sword? How?”

Szeth no longer wore white—he’d changed to an Alethi uniform. Why? Oh, disguise. Yes.

He wore the terrible sword at his side. It was too big. The tip of the sheath dragged against the wooden floor.

Taravangian hunched to the wall, trying to find the right words. “Szeth. The sword. You must…”

“I must do nothing,” Szeth said, approaching steadily. “I ignore you as I ignore the voices in the shadows. You know the voices, Taravangian? The ones you gave me.”

Taravangian huddled down, closing his eyes. Waiting, too overcome with emotion to do anything else.

“What are these?” Szeth said.

Taravangian opened his eyes. The gemstones. Szeth picked them up, frowning. He hadn’t drawn that terrible sword.

Say something. What should he say? Szeth couldn’t harm those. Taravangian needed them!

“Please,” he cried, “don’t break them.”

Szeth scowled, then threw them—one after the other—at the stone wall, shattering them. Strange spren escaped, transparent windspren that trailed red light. They laughed, spinning around Szeth.

“Please,” Taravangian said through the tears. “Your sword. Odium. You—”

“Ever you manipulate me,” Szeth interrupted, watching the windspren. “Ever you seek to stain my hands with the blood of those you would kill. You brought all this upon us, Taravangian. The world would have been able to stand against the enemy if you hadn’t made me murder half their monarchs.”

“No!” Taravangian said. He stood up with effort, scattering the spren around him, his heart thundering in his chest. His vision immediately began to swim. He’d stood up too quickly. “We killed to save the world.”

“Murders done to save lives,” Szeth said softly, tracking Taravangian with eyes dark and shadowed from the room’s poor light, now that the spheres were gone. “Idiocy. But I wasn’t ever to object. I was Truthless. I simply followed orders. Tell me. Do you think that absolves a man?”

“No,” Taravangian said, trembling with the weight of his guilt, shamespren bursting around him and floating, as petals of rockbud blossoms, to the ground.

“A good answer. You are wise for one so stupid.”

Taravangian tried to dash away past Szeth. But of course his legs gave out. He got tripped and collapsed in a heap. He groaned, his heart thumping, his vision swimming.

A moment later, strong hands lifted him and slammed him back against the wall amid swarming exhaustionspren. Something snapped in Taravangian’s shoulder, and pain spiked through his body.

He drooped in Szeth’s grip, breathing out in wheezes.

The room started to grow golden.

“All this time,” Szeth said, “I wanted to keep my honor. I tried so hard. You took advantage of that. You broke me, Taravangian.”

Light. That golden light.

“Szeth,” Taravangian said, feeling blood on his lips. Storms. “Szeth … He is here.…”

“I decide