“What have you done?” Nikli bellowed. It was unnerving to watch him speak with his head split in two, one of his eyes crawling across the side of his face. “What have you done?”

“I— All I did was look at it and—”

Nikli moved suddenly, all conversation abandoned. He reached across the table and grabbed Rysn by the front of her vest. Cord cried out and tried to strike at him, but his body split into pieces before the blow and individual hordelings began crawling up her arms, into her armor.

Others swarmed over Rysn as the man became the monster. He was going to kill her. She didn’t know what she’d done, but it clearly meant the end of the negotiations and the beginning of her execution.

In the midst of this, a low, rumbling roar shook the cavern.

 

 

19

 

 

Lopen was so stunned by Huio’s transformation, he was able to ignore the pain for a short time.

Huio. Huio had beaten him to the Third Ideal?

Storm it! Rua was cheering, and . . . well, Lopen was happy for Huio and his spren too. But storm it! His cousin didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed as he dodged the next leg, then hefted his Shardhammer—which obligingly became a spear—and hurled it. It flew straight and true, like a silvery line of light, and struck the creature in the head. Not in the eye, but with a Shardweapon that didn’t matter so much. It went right through the thick carapace and sliced out the other side.

The giant grublike monster teetered, then collapsed with a cracking sound that reminded Lopen how hungry he was. Nothing like crab legs after a hard day of being beaten up.

Huio puffed in and out, then stared at his hands in awe as his Shardhammer re-formed. He turned with a stupid grin on his face. Then he rushed over to help Lopen sit up.

That gave both of them a great view of the bay, which started to bubble and churn. Six more of those monsters began to rise.

“Damnation,” Huio muttered. “You have any more Stormlight, cousin?”

“No. You?”

“No. I got a burst when I said the Ideal, but that ran out fast.”

“I see,” Lopen said. “Tell me. What are your thoughts on, say, carrying your wonderful cousin on your back as you run for safety?”

The roar was so loud that chips fell from the ceiling of the chamber. The hordelings swarming over Rysn and Cord stopped. Nikli had only a semblance of humanity left, his face and chest split open, skin hanging from the backs of the various pieces with twitching legs, his insides squirming and buzzing. But many of the hordelings turned toward the sound.

The door to the side blew open farther, revealing the larger hall with the skulls of dead greatshells. Rysn could have sworn that they’d turned to stare in toward the smaller chamber. Six of them lined the hall, which narrowed as it extended, letting each set of dead eyes look past the ones in front.

Rysn felt something fluttering around her. Glowing white arrowhead spren, moving like fish in an unseen stream, swirling around her and Cord. That roar reverberated in her ears, in her memory. It didn’t repeat, but a higher-pitched squeal echoed in the hallway. And then a small figure leaped up and landed on top of one of the skulls, flapping her wings and letting out a mighty—yet diminutive—roar.

Chiri-Chiri had returned. Surely she hadn’t made that other roar, the one that had vibrated Rysn to the core. Yet Chiri-Chiri gave it her best, calling out again. She seemed . . . rather tiny atop the big skull, like a child with a wooden sword standing in a line of fully armored knights. Still, she hopped off the carapace skull and came loping across the stones, roaring and buzzing her wings to fly at the top of each leap. She yelled her little heart out, as angry as Rysn had ever seen her.

The larkin bounded over to Rysn and hopped onto the table, then trumped with all her might at the three Sleepless. Nikli’s hordelings withdrew into his body, forming the semblance of a human again.

Chiri-Chiri looked much better. The chalky white cast to her carapace had vanished, her natural violet-brown colors returning. She wasn’t terribly fearsome, considering her size, but she did her best, bless her. She stood between Rysn and Nikli. Growling, snapping, and howling in challenge.

“Ancient Guardian,” Nikli said to Chiri-Chiri—still speaking Veden—standing up on the other side of the table. “We should have realized you would find your way to this chamber, but you are no longer needed to protect the secret. At the fall of your kind, mine took up the mantle.”

“The secret,” Rysn said, “that has . . . somehow entered my brain.”

“That will soon be fixed,” Nikli said.

“These creatures . . .” Cord said. “They protected this place once, you said?” She shivered, and Rysn couldn’t blame her, after feeling those strange insects on her skin. Cord glanced down the hallway at the skulls, then back at Chiri-Chiri. “She’s one of them. She returned to protect the treasure.”

“Coincidence!” Nikli said. “Chiri-Chiri simply reached the size where she needed to bond a mandra to continue growing.”

“Others of her kind don’t grow at all,” Rysn said. “Chiri-Chiri did. She brought me here.”

“The spren guided us,” Cord said. “This thing was the gods’ will.”

“The force inside my mind asked me to choose,” Rysn said. “It wanted me to accept it, whatever it is.”

“No it did not!” Nikli said. “The Dawnshard isn’t alive. It doesn’t want things. You have stolen it!”

And Rysn knew, or at least felt, he was partially right. It wasn’t a living thing that she’d taken upon herself. It was . . . something else. A Command. It didn’t have a will, and it hadn’t led her here or chosen her.

But Chiri-Chiri had done both.

“Do you see them?” Cord asked, gesturing to the roof of the cavern. “Joining us, watching us? Do you see the gods?”

Rysn took a deep breath, then turned her palms upward again. “It appears,” she said, “that I do have something you want. Shall we continue the negotiations?”

“You are a thief!” Nikli said, his body dropping hordelings as he stepped toward Rysn. “You cannot bargain with stolen goods!”

He reached for Rysn, but Chiri-Chiri reared up and let out another shout. This one was different somehow. Not a tantrum, not just a warning. An ultimatum. Something about the way it resonated in the room made Nikli hesitate.

Think, Rysn. You need to give him something. Many traders tried to sell people a “bargain” they did not want, but that was not the path to a sustainable partnership. You had to give them something they actually needed.

Nikli stepped forward again. Chiri-Chiri growled.

“Do not assume we would not kill an Ancient Guardian if we had to,” Nikli said to her.

“You claim to want to protect this thing,” Rysn said, “but all you threaten to do is destroy.”

“If you knew what the Dawnshard was capable of . . .”

“It’s now inside me. Whatever it is.”

“Fortunately, you would not be able to employ it,” Nikli said. “It is beyond your capacity. But there are those in the cosmere who could use it for terrible acts.”

Rysn glanced at the other two, noting how distressed their hordelings seemed. She heard uncertainty in Nikli’s voice now. And for the first time, she saw them as they truly were.