Difference between revisions of "Summary:Rhythm of War"

[[Eshonai]] is exploring the forest with a gathering party and leaves to wander on her own. She thinks about her people, and how they live in scattered families with hopes limited to conquering ancient abandoned cities. She dreams of discovery and exploration--and then finds the humans.

Venli is with her [[Jaxlim|mother]] reciting the listener songs. Their family is the "[[First-Rhythm]]" family, and though they have dwindled over years, they dream of claiming one of the cities that their ancestors had once controlled. Venli finds this too small of a goal and believes that their responsibilities shouldn't involve just knowing and remembering the songs, but implementing them. She believes that Eshonai is abandoning her duty by not learning the songs like she does. She tells her mother that she thinks she has discovered a way to take a new form, [[warform]], by bondingtaking a [[painspren]] into her [[gemheart]]. Jaxlim decides that they need to go seek the blessing of [[the Five]]. They do but are interrupted by sounds coming from outside of the town. At first Venli thinks it is a skirmish, but instead learns that it is Eshonai and her discovery of the humans.

Navani meets with Raboniel and tells her that she has accepted Raboniel's offer to work under her. They discuss the science behind the ''Fourth Bridge'', and in doing so, Navani learns that the soulcasters were spren that chose to manifest themselves as such in the Physical Realm. Raboniel says that they have not been able to convince [[voidspren]] to sacrifice themselves that way. Raboniel reveals that her goal is to end the war once and for all using the information they can learn together. Navani goes to check on her scholars. She learns that two of her scholars were killed in the invasion, and tells them that they will be cooperating with the invaders for now. She puts them to work drawing sketches and writing about the experiments they had been doing before the invasion.

Kaladin is in a nightmare, in a dark and stormy landscape. He sees three figures attack him, and he takes the spear from one of them and kills them--and then realizes that [[Tien]] was one of them. He drops the spear, turns, and finds himself on the Shattered Plains, his friends fighting and killing each other. His dying friends speak to him and tell him that this is all his fault, and Moash appears, telling him that Kaladin is the reason for their suffering. He wakes in the tower, exhausted. He searches for Syl, and she arrives, letting him know that the guards seem to have given up the search. He asks her if she knows anything about the light that led them there, and she tells him what she knows about the Sibling, that she was the spren of one of the Bondsmiths. He touches the gemstone that opens the door, confirming that it will still work once infused.

Dalinar and the Mink are in a flying platform overseeing the battle between the Alethi and the Vedens[[Veden]]s. The Vedens are accompanied by some Fused and [[Skybreakers]]. A scribe comes with news from Urithiru. The report says that those at the tower accidentally deployed a device that interferes with both Radiant powers and the Oathgates, and that they were only able to deliver this message by hiking out of range. Dalinar and the Mink both suspect that that this is intentionally caused by Taravangian as a way to isolate them during his betrayal, though they both believe that there is more to the matter.

As they continue to survey the battle, Szeth, in disguise at Dalinar's side, grabs and pulls him away as a Skybreaker appears. The Skybreaker turns out to be [[Nalan]], the Herald, who tells Dalinar that he has to submit because his war is unjust. He asks how he has access to the surges of Honor, as this should not be possible. Nale attacks, and Dalinar touches him at the Stormfather's urging. In doing so, he forges a Connection with him and sees flashes of his past, along with eight lines of light extending from him into the distance. He realizes that the lines are the Oathpact; most of them are weak, one is broken, and another is still vibrant and powerful. Nale breaks away and leaves, and Dalinar is left considering the importance of his powers and the kind of work that it would enable him to do--specifically that of reforging the Oathpact.

Eshonai and the humans try to find ways to communicate with each other, and as they do so, they realize all the ways that they differ. Eshonai marvels that humans are in all forms at all times, as well as that they have singers in [[dullform]] that do not speak. She finds the humans so much more advanced than the singers and spends as much time as possible learning from them. The humans ask to see the Plains, and Eshonai escorts them. During the trip, [[Axindweth]] asks Eshonai questions about the spren that she can see and whether any have talked to her, which Eshonai thinks is a myth. Gavilar and Eshonai talk about the greatshells[[greatshell]]s, and they misinterpret her and assume that the singers worship them. The party decides to take a break, and as she helps them set up a tent, Axindweth asks if she can see Eshonai's knife. She and Gavilar talk about it and think it must have come from a time around the false desolation. They are interrupted by the sounds of a [[chasmfiend]] emerging, and soon after, the group leaves. Eshonai only reveals to Gavilar that the knife was found in the ruins of a city her ancestors built, but Gavilar gets very excited, especially when he realizes that the singers have stories of ancient days that include the Radiants. The humans leave them with a gift of weapons and ask to be able to hear the singer songs the next time they meet.

Navani has her scholars doing busy work as they are being watched carefully. She periodically pauses to rest against the wall and speaks to the Sibling in private. The Sibling says that Raboniel does not yet know that she is awake; the [[Re-Shephir|Midnight Mother]] had told the Fused that the Sibling has been dead for a long time. Navani manages to convince the Sibling that they need to work together, though the Sibling is resistant because they are not interested in becoming bonded to a human. The Sibling reveals that there are three other nodes connected to their heart, and Navani needs to find a way to protect them from being corrupted. Navani asks why the Sibling did not activate the defenses that she had earlier, and the Sibling says that when the humans bound Ba-Ado-Mishram, it injured them. It caused them to lose the rhythm of their Light, and the tower stopped working. The Sibling tells her that there are two Radiants still awake in the tower that she can detect. One is Lift, awake because Cultivation gave her the power to use Light differently but in a cage surrounded with [[aluminum]]. The other is Kaladin, and she suspects that she can detect him because as a Windrunner he is close to Honor and to the surge of Adhesion. Navani asks the Sibling to contact him.

Kaladin and Syl are trying to get to the sixth floor, where he suspects he can find Stormlight. He avoids singer guards in Alethi uniforms, and Syl manages to make sure that Kaladin's family is safe. They find lanterns filled with infused gemstones left behind by workers, and Kaladin manages to break into them using a reverse[[Reverse lashingLashing]]. After getting the Stormlight, they make their way to the Devotary of Mercy on the fourth floor, where he hopes to find food and water. He comes across the ardent Kuno, who provides him with various supplies and nervously agrees to help provide more in the future. As Kaladin nears the room where he left Teft, he is guided by a crystal vein in the rock that lights up; once inside, he touches it and hears Navani's voice.

Jasnah and Wit join the Mink at the war table, where Jasnah begins making suggestions regarding the battle plans. Lyn brings news to Dalinar that the scouting party saw what they thought were Alethi soldiers on the tower. Dalinar asks them to send scouts at night to watch from a distance. Dalinar turns his attention to the conversation of the leaders, and he can tell that the Highprince [[Ruthar]] is getting angry at Jasnah's intrusion. He realizes that Jasnah is doing this intentionally to get a reaction out of Ruthar, and it works. Ruthar loudly begins to criticize what Jasnah is doing, and she calls to Wit. He begins to insult Ruthar mercilessly, then reveals the fact that he beats his children. Ruthar challenges Wit to combat; when Wit chooses Jasnah as his champion, Ruthar refuses to fight, so Jasnah stabs him in the throat. Jasnah calls for Renarin, who heals him, and then she names Ruthar forfeit of his title. Dalinar expresses disappointment at how Jasnah handled the situation, and Jasnah announces that she did it in part to justify the elimination of the barbaric practice of trial by sword. Jasnah leaves, and Renarin tells Dalinar that he has had an episode. Dalinar says that he will speak to him about it soon.

Venli is with her mother, and it is becoming clear that Jaxlim is suffering from an [[wikipedia: Alzheimer's disease|Alzheimer's]]-type condition, as she continues to forget the songs that she has never forgotten before. Venli leaves and joins her sister on the scouting tower, and Eshonai says that she is leaving with a scout group to investigate some smoke in the distance which they think might be the humans returning for a second visit.

The humans are visiting the listeners, and Venli is frustrated with how much they are hounding her about the songs that they know. The human with the rings, named Axindweth, surprises Venli by speaking to her in the listener language and by questioning Venli about the wisdom of following the path of her ancestors. Axindweth tells her that there are great things that the Listenerslisteners could accomplish if they had the right forms of power, including the ability to heal her mother. Axindweth gives Venli a gemstone and tells her to break it in a storm.

Dalinar watches Gavinor play with his toy sword, and they talk about his parents. The conversation turns dark, and Gavinor becomes distracted. Dalinar gives him over to his nursemaid and moves on. Earlier in the day Dalinar had spoken with [[Relis Ruthar]] and the [[Azish]] to smooth over what Jasnah had done with Relis's father. As he walks to the [[Windrunner]]sWindrunners' campfire, Dalinar thinks about Jasnah's intent to disband the monarchy and how strange it seems to him.

Renarin resummons his vision and tells Dalinar that the vision shows Dalinar, in [[Shardplate]] pierced by an arrow, facing away from Odium. He tells him that he thinks it means that Odium will delay indefinitely and never agree to an actual contest of champions with Dalinar since there was nothing for him to lose by waiting. Renarin also tells Dalinar that both he and Odium only see possible outcomes and explains how their powers interfere with each other.

At [[Glys]]'s prompting, Renarin asks Dalinar what he thinks about more [[Knights Radiant|Radiants]] bonding corrupted [[spren]]. Dalinar says that he will have to think about it since he is not sure if can trust the Unmade. Glys asks Renarin who he thinks would be a good match for another spren, and Renarin recommends [[Rlain]].<!--made clear from later chapters-->

Kaladin is feeding Teft, and Syl talks about how she feels when she thinks about her old knight, [[Relador]]. Kaladin realizes that she is processing his death the first time, and they talk about how they learn to deal with depressing thoughts. Suddenly, Dabbid appears with broth, having been led there by the Sibling.

Venli and her family are in their storm shelter, and she decides to take the special sphere into the storm and break it. Those watching think that she is going to take [[mateform]], the only other form available to them. The Stormfather speaks to her and cautions her against taking this action. She chooses to proceed and releases a spren. The spren says that he will live inside her, while also speaking of Shadesmar and a new storm.

Eshonai rejects [[Thude]]'s notion that Venli has taken mateform, and she is relieved when Venli returns, as she was worried. When she speaks with her sister, Eshonai realizes that Venli, who claims she had been trying for warform, is not attuned to the rhythms. It takes Venli a couple of tries to attune them, and Eshonai is a unnerved by her grin and the confidence in her walk.

Venli finds Raboniel in Dalinar's former rooms accompanied by some fused, some humans, and Mraize. Mraize is making a deal for access to the Oathgates, and he presents Lift in a cage as a gift. When Mraize is gone, Venli asks Raboniel if Rlain can be released into her care, as he is the only other of her kind left; Raboniel agrees. She leaves and arrives at her room, where she attempts to swear the [[Order of Willshapers#The Second Ideal|next ideal]]. Her words are rejected, which makes sense to her as she realizes that she cannot be true to the ideal, having watched a human child carted away in a cage.

Navani speaks with Kaladin, thanking him for helping to protect the tower. She reassures him that he did not fail, even though he had to break the node. He tells her that he can no longer fly, but was able to get some of the Fused spanreeds, which Syl has determined work via corrupted spren. Navani goes to check on her scholars, and thinking through her problems, realizes that the lifting glove that Tomor created might be helpful for Kaladin. She arranges for Tomor to leave it in a place where Kaladin can retrieve it. Raboniel then has Navani accompany her to watch some singers testing the shield around the crystal pillar by hacking at it with some Shardblades. Raboniel asks Navani to help her understand the shield, and Navani refuses, informing her that [[Sunraiser|one]] of the blades had been Elhokar's, something which Raboniel had not known.

Raboniel takes Navani to her former office, which Raboniel has claimed. Inside, Raboniel shows Navani a fabrial that demonstrates how the crystal pillar room is being protected. Navani is distracted by a diamond sphere filled with Towerlight, which is a combination of Stormlight and [[Lifelight]]. They discuss ways of mixing different types of Light. Raboniel believes that Voidlight and Stormlight are opposites and can't be mixed, but Navani thinks they can with the right kind of emulsifier. Raboniel leaves Navani, and Navani finds a vein of crystal and speaks with the Sibling, who is convinced they will die soon. Navani tries to convince the Sibling to tell her where the nodes are so that they can protect them, but they refuse. Navani begins her research into the science of light.

Jasnah is going into war, thinking of how inadequate the descriptions and depictions of war have been in her studies. She is wearing her Shardplate, dulled so as to not reveal who she is. She at first is determined to confront the enemy without using her powers so that she can fully understand the feeling of war. She fights with a Fused capable of growing carapace vines over her and decides to use her powers after all, [[Soulcasting]] the air to oil and slamming steel and flint together to light everyone near her on fire. She loses herself in the battle, and eventually an Edgedancer medic convinces her to rest. Wit brings her fruit, and they discuss her experience and what she is trying to prove to herself and others. They discuss the future of battle, and she returns to war.

When the battle is over, Jasnah arrives at her tent and speaks with the Mink, who assures her she made the right decision and that they won the day. He also tells her that something has disturbed Wit, whom she finds in her tent writing. Wit tells her that one of the [[Sleepless]] was disguised in his things, and that their secrets have been compromised. He decides to divulge what he knows of Thaidakar and the Ghostbloods.

Navani is using prisms to experiment with normal light, Stormlight, Voidlight, and Towerlight. She is able to recombine all of them except for Towerlight, which splits into Stormlight and what she thinks might be Lifelight. She reads one of her accounts of Gavilar's death, looking for her description of the spheres he had had on the table, and suspects that he was involved in this work as well. Raboniel and the insane Fused [[Essu]] enter, and Raboniel is amazed at the amount of work that she has achieved. She is fixated on the idea of combining Stormlight and Voidlight, which she believes is necessary to end the war forever. Navani asks if Raboniel has ever heard of spheres that warp the air around them, and Raboniel tells her of the theoretical [[Lights#Anti-Lights|anti-lightLight]] which, if combined with lightLight, would cause immediate and violent destruction. Navani suspects this is what happened to her scholars experimenting on Gavilar's strange sphere. When Navani asks Raboniel what Essu is saying, she learns that Essu is Raboniel’s own daughter who has gone insane and no longer recognizes her.

Venli is taking the opportunity to practice her Radiant powers while Raboniel is visiting Navani. She goes to a section of the tower that is unoccupied, and after checking in Shadesmar to affirm that there are no watching spren, she presses her hand against the stone. She can’t use Stormlight because of the tower's defenses but is able to use Voidlight instead. She communicates with the stone, and when the stone and her body align in an ancient rhythm set to a pure tone, she feels like she belongs. The stone reshapes to show her images of her ancient people, the Dawnsingers[[Dawnsinger]]s, shaping things with stone. She runs out of Voidlight and suddenly finds that there are three other spren like Timbre there. Timbre says they would like to bond her squires, but she tells them to wait because of the danger it would pose if her friends began using their powers while surrounded by Odium's forces.

Eshonai and her mother go out into the storm so Jaxlim can try to take on warform. Instead of entering Jaxlim's gemheart, the captured painspren enters Eshonai, who had only accompanied her mother to hold a shield for her against the storm. Eshonai transforms and discovers that there were about a dozen other listeners who did so as well. As they revel in their new powerful bodies, they hear battle drums, return to their city, and find another family about to attack. Eshonai, after retrieving the [[Sharefel|family’s Shardbearer]], confronts the attacking family. She tells them that they have found warform and that because they cannot win against them, they should join with them to present a unified nation to the humans. They return to the city to show their people the new forms and to train.

Navani continues to experiment with light, using tuning forks to transfer Stormlight between spheres. She feels that Stormlight is something in between a gas and a liquid. She considers the relationship between music and math, musing on the fact that the ancient people used a three note scale that corresponds to the three different kinds of Light. She learns that she cannot infuse Stormlight into a sphere that contains any Voidlight. She pauses to talk with the Sibling and asks for more information about their Towerlight. The Sibling says that the tower lost its defenses when they lost the ability to hear the two pure tones of Roshar, those of Honor and Cultivation. Navani suggests that Odium might have become a third tone and that might be why they lost their abilities. Navani returns to her desk and finds a box with a sphere containing Lifelight that she suspects was taken from Lift. She confirms that the third note of Roshar corresponds to this Light, but continues to fail in mixing the Lights. As she takes a break, she realizes that they might be able to store weapons disguised as broken fabrials in the hallways. She returns to the Sibling, and they discuss the people in the tower she can see: Kaladin, Lift, and another Regal, which the Sibling finds odd. Navani proposes that the Sibling bond a Radiant that is not a human, a singer that serves Honor, and the Sibling is not outright opposed to the idea. Navani tells the Sibling some of the ideas she has for protecting the nodes, and the Sibling reveals that one of them is in the well at the [[Breakaway]] market. Just as Navani was getting ready to leave, the Sibling tells her that the Fused have found the node in the well. Navani tells them to contact Kaladin, and she leaves to distract Raboniel.

Dalinar wakes from the vision realizing the tower has been occupied by the enemy. He immediately goes to speak with Shalash and Taln to ask after [[Ishar]], determining to go to the Bondsmith so he can learn about his powers in order to fight back.