humming. Their emotions were strong.
“With this power,” Eshonai declared, “we can destroy the Alethi and protect our people. I have seen your despair. I have heard you sing to Mourning. It need not be so! Come with me into the storms. It is your right, your duty, to join with me.”
Behind her on the steps, Venli hummed to Tension. “This will divide us, Eshonai. Too aggressive, too abrupt!”
“It will work,” Eshonai said to Confidence. “You do not know them as I do.”
Below, the other members of the Five were glaring up at her, looking betrayed, though she could not hear their songs.
Eshonai marched to the bottom of the spire, then pushed her way through the crowd, being joined by her soldiers in stormform. The people made way for her, many humming to Anxiety. Most who had come were workers or nimbleforms. That made sense. The warforms were too pragmatic for gawking.
Eshonai and her stormform warriors left the town’s center ring. She allowed Venli to tag along behind, but paid the woman no heed. Eshonai eventually approached the barracks on the leeward side of the city, a large group of buildings built together to form a community for the soldiers. Though her troops were not required to sleep here, many did so.
The practice grounds one plateau over were busy with the sounds of warriors honing their skills, or—more likely—newly transformed soldiers being trained. The second division, a hundred and twenty-eight in number, were away watching for humans entering the middle plateaus. Scouts in warpairs roamed the Plains. She’d set them on this task soon after obtaining her form, as she had known even then that she would need to change the way this battle worked. She wanted every bit of information about the Alethi and their current tactics that she could get.
Her soldiers would ignore chrysalises for the time being. She would not lose soldiers to that petty game any longer, not when each man and woman under her command represented the potential of stormform.
The other divisions were all here, however. Seventeen thousand soldiers total. A mighty force in some ways, but also so few, compared to what they had once been. She raised her hand in a fist, and her stormform division raised the call for all soldiers in the listener army to gather. Those practicing set down their weapons and jogged over. Others left the barracks. In a short time, all had joined her.
“It is time to end the fight against the Alethi,” Eshonai announced in a loud voice. “Which of you are willing to follow me in doing so?”
Humming to Resolve moved through the crowd. So far as she could hear, not a one hummed to Skepticism. Excellent.
“This will require each soldier to join me in this form,” Eshonai shouted, her words being relayed through the ranks.
More humming to Resolve.
“I am proud of you,” Eshonai said. “I am going to have the Storm Division go among you and take your word, each of you, on this transformation. If there are any here who do not wish to change, I would know of it personally. It is your decision, by right, and I will not force you—but I must know.”
She looked to her stormforms, who saluted and broke apart, moving in warpairs. Eshonai stepped back, folding her arms, watching as these visited each other division in turn. The new rhythms thrummed in her skull, though she stayed away from the Rhythm of Peace, with its strange screams. There was no fighting against what she had become. The eyes of the gods were too strongly upon her.
Nearby, some soldiers gathered, familiar faces beneath hardened skullplates, the men bearing bits of gemstone tied to their beards. Her own division, once her friends.
She could not quite explain why she had not chosen them at first for the transformation, instead picking two hundred soldiers from across many divisions. She’d needed soldiers who were obedient, but not known for their brightness.
Thude and the soldiers of Eshonai’s former division . . . they knew her too well. They would have questioned.
Soon, she had gotten word. Of her seventeen thousand troops, only a handful refused the required transformation. Those who had declined were gathered on the practice grounds.
As she contemplated her next move, Thude approached. Tall and thick-limbed, he had always worn warform save for two weeks as a mate to Bila. He hummed to Resolve—the way for a soldier to indicate a willingness to obey orders.
“I am worried about this, Eshonai,” he said. “Do so