Greetings, O Chickens and Peeps of the Cosmere Fandom! Welcome back to the Rhythm of War reread, wherein we consider darkness, light, Light, Connection, and the determination of Our Heroes to resist the occupation of their home. Kaladin and Navani are working out their plans, large and small, and figuring out what the next step is—so they can take it. Inadequacy and exhaustion are simply not sufficient cause to quit.
Reminder: We’ll be discussing spoilers for the entirety of the series up until now. If you haven’t read ALL of the published entries of The Stormlight Archive (this includes Edgedancer and Dawnshard as well as the entirety of Rhythm of War), best to wait to join us until you’re done.
In this week’s discussion there’s a brief Mistborn spoiler in the “Spren and Shadesmar” section, so if you haven’t read it, watch for the tag and be prepared to skip a paragraph.
Heralds: Jezrien (Jezerezeh, Yaezir, Ahu), Herald of Kings. Windrunners. Protecting/Leading. Role: King.
Vedel (Vedeledev) Edgedancers. Loving/Healing. Role: Healer.
A: Umm… Okay, Jezrien might be here because Navani, as Queen of Urithiru, is fulfilling the King role as well as Leading; as likely, he’s representing his Windrunner. Vedel, though… There’s got to be more than the mention of Lift, right? …Or does there? The knowledge of two functional Radiants in the tower, the Edgedancer and the Windrunner, is the biggest boost to Navani’s hopes. So maybe these two Heralds really are that straightforward: representing the two Orders that each have one functional Knight.
P: I think it really is just that simple: Vedel representing Lift and Jezrien representing Kaladin. That is Navani’s big WOW moment in the chapter, as revealed by the Sibling. It fits.
Icon: Fabrial Gemstone, for a Navani chapter, though this time she shares with Kaladin.
Epigraph: From Rhythm of War, page 3
In my fevered state, I worry I’m unable to focus on what is important.
A: Welp. That could be either Raboniel or Navani, depending on the day!
P: It could be, but I’m going to go with Raboniel, if only because Navani is grounding herself.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Navani, Kaladin
WHERE: Urithiru
WHEN: 1175.4.6.5 (the day after Kaladin finds his hiding place)
(Note: For the “when” notations, we are using this wonderful timeline provided by the folks at The 17th Shard.)
RECAP: Navani sets her scholars to doing busywork, while she figures out how to drag her feet while looking like they’re making progress. A quiet conversation with the Sibling gives her some ideas… Meanwhile, Kaladin and Syl work their way down to the sixth floor to snatch charged gemstones from the lanterns abandoned there, and then down to the fourth floor to obtain supplies from the ardents at the sanitarium. As they return to their hiding place on the eleventh floor, Navani speaks to him by way of a garnet vein in the room. After sharing basic information, Kaladin takes the task of finding out how the Fused are powering the Oathgates and their spanreeds, while Navani returns to working out her plans to regain control of the tower.
Overall Reactions
The situation left Navani with a delicate problem. She didn’t want to give away more than was absolutely necessary. But if she failed to make progress, Raboniel would eventually notice and take action.
A: I not only appreciate Navani’s dilemma here, but I love her interim solution. Set them to doing the boring re-checks: It needs to be done, puts everyone back in “scholar” mentality, and sets Navani up to figure out ways for her people to look busy without actually making a lot of progress. Yes, they’ll have to accomplish something, but checking the numbers can always be justified.
(It actually reminds me of an organization I had the opportunity to join in college. It was called The Order of the Engineer, and the only thing I really remember about it was that you got a ring you were supposed to wear on the pinky finger of your writing hand. It was made of steel from a bridge that collapsed because the engineer failed to recheck his calculations—a very strong reminder that you should always check and double-check.)
Back to Navani:
First, she had to maintain the ground she’d already obtained. That meant making certain the Sibling’s shield remained in place.
Second, she had to get word to Dalinar and those on the outside, apprising them of what had happened.
Third, Navani needed to figure out what the enemy had done to negate Radiant powers. According to the Sibling, it involved a corruption of ancient tower protections. Navani needed to deactivate it.
Finally, she needed to turn that power upon the invaders. Barring that, she needed to use the awakened Radiants to mount a counterattack.
A: Again, I love Navani’s methodical mind. As the context shows, she knows this is an overwhelming task, and she may not be able to do any, much less all, of these steps. That’s not going to stop her: She’ll break it down, and break it down, and break it down, until she has a manageable task to work on. Do that, then… well, as Dalinar reminded us, take the next step.
P: This seems such a logical thing to do but actually doing it can be quite difficult.
Kaladin’s first goal was Stormlight.
P: Kaladin is over here breaking down his own problems into manageable chunks. First order of business, LIGHT. Which is power, but which also banishes all of that darkness we talk about down in Bruised and Broken.
Buy the Book
Rhythm of War
A: I do love the parallels in this chapter. Navani is focused on saving the tower, and Kaladin is focused on saving Teft, but they’re both determined to resist the occupation.
With these gemstones secured in a dark pouch so his pocket wouldn’t glow, the two of them set off on their next task. Supplies.
P: Since the clinic was out of the question, they went to the next logical place: the sanitarium. Where our good friend who rarely remembers to put his spectacles on his face reluctantly helps out.
“You… you’re going to return? Do this… regularly?” The man pulled his spectacles off and wiped his face again.
P: I had my issues with him earlier but he’s not so bad, not when he’s helping Kaladin in such dire circumstances.
A: So true! He was certainly hesitant to try anything new back when Kaladin and Teft first showed up, but he clearly gained some respect for Kaladin through the process of seeing him work with Noril and the rest of the men. His willingness to continue to help was a beacon of hope for me—and I think for Kaladin.
The garnet light sparkled on the floor beside him, and he brushed the crystal vein with his fingers.
A voice immediately popped into his head.
Highmarshal? Is it true? Are you awake and functioning?
Kaladin started. It was the queen’s voice.
P: I love how quickly Navani and Kaladin are communicating. No taking chapters, or Honor forbid, days for them to start talking. Nope. Right to it. Hot damn.
A: Wasn’t that delightfully unexpected? Another ray of hope.
P: Cultivation knows I adore Robert Jordan, but the lack of communication among his characters is storied.
A: Heh. I mostly could rationalize it—A doesn’t always know that B could benefit from certain information, for example—but it did get frustrating at times. The only frustration here is that on the reread, we know they’re being eavesdropped.
[S]he was back in position, resting against the wall, trying to look bored.
She was anything but. She had access to a Knight Radiant, perhaps two if the Sibling could locate Lift.
A: As resources go, two Knights Radiant against an army of Fused and Regals isn’t much—but it’s so much more than she had just a few minutes ago that it’s got to feel like real hope!
So… what do we do?
“I don’t know,” Navani admitted. Dalinar would have probably told her to act strong, to pretend she had a plan when she didn’t—but she wasn’t a general. Pretending never worked with her scholars; they appreciated honesty.
A: Bluffing isn’t really a good idea when everyone depends on you, so I’m glad she didn’t try. She’s likely to get far more and better help from Kaladin based on honesty. In fact, because she was just straightforward, Kaladin was able to consider her list of tasks and find one that he could pursue, which does them both good:
[I]f you could find out how they’re using the Oathgates, or other fabrials, that would give me something to work with.”
A: So she’s going to have something to work with (if he succeeds), and he’s got, as he puts it, “a direction to work toward.” All in all, a good plan.
P: I’m not sure what good it would do her but it’s got to feel better than just rolling over.
A: You know, at this point I think just doing something is what they need most. Anything to avoid rolling over.
Surely Dalinar would withdraw from the battlefield in Azir and focus everything on discovering what was wrong with Urithiru. Unless there were aspects to this that Navani wasn’t considering.
A: Oh, my dear Navani… there are definitely aspects you aren’t considering. But that’s mostly because you have no way of knowing they even exist, so… it’s really not your fault.
P: I mean, she’s smart enough to guess that they’ll have set up communications with Dalinar, right? She and Dalinar really should have used a passcode for their spanreed conversations.
A: Hmm. Maybe… though I certainly didn’t expect them to manage a passable communication that fast. I guess it makes sense, though—especially if there was an apparently routine check-in from Dalinar. And yes, some kind of confirmation code would have been wise.
At any rate, in Kaladin she at least had a connection to the rest of the tower. A lifeline. That was one step forward in finding a way out of this mess.
P: As bleak as their outlook is with the Tower overrun by Fused and singers, it’s nice for them to both take solace in the fact that they’re not alone. They both plan on fighting as they can, and they know that the other is out there doing the same. That has to be a comfort.
Spren and Shadesmar
A: I did have to chuckle at this one, regarding the scholars working:
No creationspren or logicspren, as often attended exciting work. Hopefully the singers in the room wouldn’t realize that was odd.
A: Nah, just means the current project isn’t all that exciting… Heh.
It does remind me of the oft-asked question, though: Isn’t it frequently embarrassing to have spren showing off your emotional state? My answer (also to why it isn’t mentioned all that often) is twofold. One, if you’ve never known anything else, you wouldn’t really think about it unless you were specifically trying to hide your feelings, or if you’d just done something out of the ordinary for the situation. Two, not all the spren are super numerous, and even for the varieties that are, with all the people on Roshar, they may not always bother to show up every time anyone has the relevant emotion.
P: I would think that it would be grossly uncomfortable to have spren announcing your strong emotions for all to see. As someone who feels many, many emotions that I hide from most people, this would be incredibly inconvenient.
A: It would, if you went from Earth to Roshar—in fact, it would feel like an appalling invasion of privacy. But what if you’d always had emotion-spren around? Certainly there would be times it would be awkward, no denying that, but I can’t help thinking that you wouldn’t worry about it most of the time, and you’d learn to really control your emotions the rest of the time.
This is the first time [the shield] has been deployed. But she doesn’t seem to realize you were the one who activated it. She explained to several others that she must have triggered some unknown fail-safe left by the ancient Radiants. She thinks that I must be dead after all this time, since the tower doesn’t work.
A: Oh, storms. On a reread, this is so painful, and the more so because it was so exciting and hopeful the first time. While it’s useful for Navani to have the Sibling spying on the Fused and keeping an eye open around the tower, we now know that Raboniel was on to them the entire time. She’ll tell Navani much later that she had someone listening in on these conversations from the beginning; she never believed the Sibling was dead at all, but made sure the Sibling believed she believed it. She even went so far as to imply that Re-Shephir had told her, which would be 100% believable. (For all we know, that much might be true; the falsehood is in the implication that Raboniel believed it.)
Crafty, as befits the greatest Fused scholar—but also brutal, as befits the Lady of Pains. It felt like an absolute betrayal when this was revealed.
P: It was incredibly painful. Navani thought she had this secret weapon, this in with the Tower spren, thinking she was half a step ahead, when all along she was being spied upon.
“Other spren act like time has meaning.”
Radiant spren, yes. Radiant spren put on a show, pretending as if they are male or female, malen or femalen, when they are neither. They think like humans because they want to be like humans.
A: I found this to be an interesting comment on the Radiant spren, particularly in light of some of the Shadesmar conversations. Adolin will point out rather firmly, near the end of his trial, that the spren are just like humans in that they can be afraid, or uncertain, or even change their minds. If the Sibling is right, I guess their pretense worked.
“But I can’t plan a way to help you if I don’t know your weaknesses. You’ll be alone, subject to whatever Raboniel decides to do.”
…I hate humans, the Sibling eventually said. Humans twist what is said and always make themselves out to be right. How long until you demand that I bond a human, give up my freedom, and risk my life? I’m sure you’ll have wonderful explanations as to why I should absolutely do that.
A: And as Navani acknowledges to herself, this is 100% true. They do need the Sibling—both in the immediate moment, and for the much longer term. And it sure would be nice to find someone who’s not a politician, not an artifabrian, and generally a very truthful, honest, and gentle person. (Funny thing… After I wrote that sentence, I realized that Navani is in every way the exact opposite of this description. I love her dearly, but “truthful, honest, and gentle” she isn’t.)
P: I still feel that she was the only choice, the perfect choice to bond the Sibling. With her knowledge of fabrials and her knowledge of the Tower, there just wasn’t anyone who could take on that task, IMO.
A: Oh, I agree. Her engineering background gave her the ability to recognize the function of most of the fabrials the moment she “saw” them through the bond, so that she could “turn on” the tower immediately instead of fumbling through—and the Sibling enjoyed that, too. She was the Bondsmith they needed right then. The only reason I say “it would be nice” is that, in a gentler and less stressful time, it would have been nice for the Sibling to get back into life with a more… companionable bondmate. But these are not gentle times, and a strong, determined Bondsmith is needed.
“Let’s talk about something else. How did you contact me earlier? Can you work a spanreed?”
I hate the things. But using one was necessary.
“Yes, but how? Do you have hands somewhere?”
Just helpers. There is an insane woman, locked in a monastery, who I contacted. Those isolated, those with permeable souls, respond better to spren sometimes. This one, however, only wrote down everything I said—never responding. I had Dabbid bring her a spanreed, and I communicated through her.
A: [MISTBORN SPOILER] Well, if that doesn’t sound exactly like something we’ve seen before. Between Ruin, Preservation, Harmony, and Kelsier, this is becoming a Known Thing. If you’re in the Cognitive Realm, you can “leak through” to someone who has been made vulnerable by damage—to their mind, or their body, or their soul. [END SPOILER]
A: I suppose in a way, it’s the same thing all Radiant spren do: They bond with those who have “permeable souls,” as it were. The Sibling wasn’t looking for a bond, but they did use much the same access in order to have a conduit for communication. Now I wonder… We’ve talked about the need to be “broken” to form a bond, and Sanderson has said there are other ways. I wonder if this idea of a “permeable soul” is applicable to Shallan’s initial bond.
P: I think that makes a lot of sense. At least easier to think of a child having a “permeable” soul than a “broken” soul.
A: Exactly. I think that’s why I made that connection. I like this idea a whole lot more than the kind of childhood trauma that could be assumed for her.
But here’s the real kicker regarding the Sibling:
I have… been wounded. Thousands of years ago, something happened that changed the singers. It hurt me too.
Navani covered her shock. “You’re speaking of the binding of that Unmade, which made the singers lose their forms?”
Yes. That terrible act touched the souls of all who belong to Roshar. Spren too.
“How have no spren mentioned this?”
I don’t know. But I lost the rhythm of my Light that day. The tower stopped working. My father, Honor, should have been able to help me, but he was losing his mind. And he soon died…
There was enough sorrow in the Sibling’s voice that Navani didn’t push them for answers. This changed everything.
P: But what does it change in Navani’s mind? How to deal with spren? How to make fabrials? Something about the bonds?
A: I don’t know if I can exactly answer that, but I think part of it is her realization that the Sibling was directly impacted and damaged when Ba-Ado-Mishram was bound. Along with that, while part of the reason they’ve been so unhelpful was a reluctance to trust humans, part of it is also that their Light is… not there. It’s not that the tower doesn’t work because the Sibling won’t help—it’s because they can’t. The light to make the tower function is unavailable. Navani is going to learn more about this eventually, but this is the first hint, and she’s smart enough to see that there are implications beyond what she can understand right now.
P: She is smart enough, I wish she gave herself more credit!
You should be careful though, how you ask after fabrials. Do not forget that I consider what you have done to be a high crime.
“I’ve not forgotten,” Navani said. “But surely you don’t oppose the Oathgates.”
I do not, the Sibling said, sounding reluctant. Those spren have gone willingly to their transformations.
A: I so enjoy learning little tidbits like this. The spren of the Oathgates, whatever kind of spren they are, are outside the Sibling’s objection to fabrials; they are intelligent and made a willing choice, rather than being coerced or baited, so there can be no legitimate objection.
Relationships and Romances
I do not pretend. I am not human. I do not need to care about time. I do not need to look like you. I do not need to beg for your attention.
Navani cocked an eyebrow at that, considering that the Sibling had needed to beg for her help.
P: There’s not much of a relationship between Navani and the Sibling at this point, more of a grudging cooperation on the part of the Sibling and desperation on Navani’s part, but they will develop more of a relationship, as we know, so this seems a good place for this.
The Sibling is so adamant about not liking humans and not needing them, though as Navani thinks, they did need her help to engage the shield around the gemstone heart. Of course, Navani needs the Sibling just as much, at the very least, to be her eyes in the rest of the Tower.
A: I found the development of their relationship a fascinating process, and I’m even more interested to see where they go with it. What kind of understanding will they come to over fabrial technology? I hope Book 5 isn’t so busy with other people that these two are relegated to the background again.
Bruised and Broken
Kaladin felt like he was leaving a slaver’s cage when he saw that first glimmer of sunlight in the distance, and had to keep himself from running all-out to reach it.
P: Kaladin wasn’t just lost in the darkness of the Tower during his time in that chamber, he was lost in his own darkness. He was wondering if he would ever again see the light of day again, so while Stormlight was foremost on his list of supplies to gather, he first needed to see REAL light, to see the sun, the sky, the great wide open. This single line is so moving.
A: That line… Remember when he was in prison back in Words of Radiance, and how he longed to see the sky and feel fresh air? That was with plenty of artificial light; this has to have been so much worse, even though it didn’t last as long.
His stupid brain imagined forgetting the way and leaving Teft to die, wasting away, perhaps waking at the end. Alone, trapped, terrified…
P: Our brains are stupid when they tell us these things: that we’re going to screw up, we’re going to forget something important, we’re going to let someone down, let everyone down. But I’m glad that in this moment, Kaladin realizes that his brain is stupid for imagining these horrible things.
But more than him worrying about leaving Teft to die, wasting away, alone, trapped, and terrified, Kaladin experienced those same fears himself, feared those things happening to him. But bless those wonderful spren who saved him from that fate, and from a worse fate.
They had to move inward and find a small out-of-the-way stairwell that Syl remembered. Reaching it meant entering the darkness again.
P: How hard it must have been for Kaladin to enter that darkness again. It’s bad enough that he carries darkness around inside of his mind, but to also be immersed in it physically seems so difficult for him to bear.
A: This is going to be a theme for Kaladin for the rest of the book—the darkness, and the need for light. Inner and outer darkness, inner and outer light.
Oaths Spoken, Powers Awakened
But we might not need to wake up any Radiants. There are two in the tower who are still awake. … One makes sense to me, the Sibling said. She is awake because she was created oddly, to use Light differently from others. She was made by my mother for this purpose. But I have lost track of her, and I do not know where she is. A young woman. Edgedancer.
A: Is this the first time we’ve specifically been told that Lift uses Light differently (other than that she metabolizes food into Light)? I’ve reread too much, and can’t remember the order we learned things anymore. But it’s fascinating that the Sibling just talks about Light, not Stormlight. Even Wyndle doesn’t seem to have realized that the Light Lift uses is not actually Stormlight, but the Sibling seems to recognize it. Of course, that’s because the Sibling understands Light in a whole different way than the humans.
P: I loved seeing this mention of the way that Lift uses Light, Just tossed out there as a side note. Oh, by the way… *drops bomb*
“Lift,” Navani said. That one always had been strange. “You can’t see her anymore?”
No. I think one reason I can see parts of the tower has to do with Radiants, who are Connected to me. I caught glimmers of this Edgedancer girl for a while, but she vanished yesterday. She was in a cage, and I suspect they surrounded her with ralkalest.
A: Two things. The easy one first: They’ve put Lift in a cage with some form of aluminum all around her, presumably to keep her from getting access to Stormlight or being able to use her Radiant powers. (Heh. They know nothing!) The other is a question: Why are all Radiants Connected (capital C!) to the Sibling? I have a feeling that’s one of those “It’s a Bondsmith Thing” answers that only makes sense if you don’t look straight at it.
P: I love that the precaution they’re taking with Lift in regards to the aluminum is utterly useless. And I hope we learn more about why the Radiants are Connected to the Sibling! How long until book 5?
A: Too. Long.
But there is one other. A man. He must be of the Fourth Ideal, but he has no armor. So… maybe of the Third, but close to the Fourth? Perhaps it is something about his closeness to my father—and his closeness to the Surge of Adhesion—that keeps him conscious. His power is that of bonds. This man is a Windrunner, but no longer wears a uniform.
P: Navani likely knew who the Sibling was referring to before they mentioned that it was a Windrunner who no longer wore a uniform, but this was a great description of our favorite (okay, MY favorite) Radiant. Even though we know that Kaladin has GOT to be close to his Fourth Ideal, it’s nice to have it spelled out for us by one such as the Sibling.
A: It really was a fantastic confirmation. If you think about it, he’s known the words for a long time—which probably implies that he’s been right at the brink of leveling up, but he won’t until he can accept the implications. So… yeah. The confirmation of this idea was really cool.
“Try making the glass attract the latch,” Syl said, gesturing. “If you can get the latch to move toward you, it will pop out and unlock.”
He touched the side of the lantern housing. During the last year, he’d practiced his Lashings. Sigzil had monitored, making him do experiments, as usual. They’d found that a Reverse Lashing required a command—or at least a visualization of what you wanted. As he infused the glass, he tried to imagine the Stormlight attracting things.
No, not things. The latch specifically.
P: I legit cheered during the beta read when Kaladin opened that latch. It was such a small thing, such a simple solution for our mighty Windrunner to open that lantern, but in the moment, it was huge. High five, Syl.
A: It was huge—in multiple ways—and it’s so fun that Syl was the one to figure out how to use the Lashing he could access, instead of worrying about the ones he couldn’t. I like the combination of this little tiny movement providing an enormous relief to him by letting him grab all the big amethysts. And Light.
He drew in a little Stormlight. He would need it to help him carry all this, and seeing the glow gave the ardent an obvious boost of confidence.
“Life before death,” Kaladin said to him.
“Life before death, Radiant,” Kuno said.
P: Nothing like flexing your Radiant muscles in order to wow someone and ensure their cooperation.
Finally she darted back and made a swirl in the air, the signal that she hadn’t seen anything suspicious.
A: I included this only because it confuses me. Why the signals? Why not just say it? Or are they practicing using their own unique sign language for the times there might be someone within earshot? I’m not sure anyone else can hear Syl unless she wants them too… but I suppose with all the Voidspren and stuff, she’s not sure they can’t hear her. If that’s the case, I can see her wanting to have a silent means of communication.
P: There has been a lot of mention of them having signals and such. Like how Syl will take the form of a glyph to acknowledge an order. I think it’s just a habit for them, perhaps from their time spent in battle.
Geography, History, and Cultures
It is an aspect of Ur, the Tower,
P: Is this the first we see the Tower referenced as Ur?
A: Yes, it is, and if I recall correctly, my first reaction to this was on the order of “wait wut.” The Sibling calls it Ur, as opposed to Urithiru, and I’d like to know how and why that name morphed. Later mentions seem to imply that the mountain was long ago called Ur, and at some point the mountain was reshaped and molded into the tower that now stands, known in these days as Urithiru. I wonder, now, if the Sibling prefers the name of the mountain they once knew, rather than the (somewhat ostentatious) Vorin name Urithiru.
Singers/Fused
Only one Fused—other than Raboniel—stayed near the scholars … a Fused of Raboniel’s same type, a tall Fused with a topknot and a long face marbled white and red. The femalen sat on the floor, watching them, her eyes glazed over. … Why would Raboniel put this one here to watch them? Were there possibly so few sane Fused left that there was no other choice?
A: It’s a good question—and one to which the answer is a surprise, when we eventually learn it. This is Raboniel’s daughter Essu, and a relationship which puts a whole different light on Raboniel’s intentions.
P: I did find it odd that Navani thought this Fused was watching her after thinking that she must be unhinged, one of the insane Fused. What good would it do to set someone insane to watch her?
A: I think it’s just that Navani doesn’t have any frame of reference for keeping a Fused in a particular location other than to watch and report on them. There are a bunch of Regals, and from what she knows, the Fused rule the Regals. She has no reason to know that the actual purpose is just to keep Essu in a relatively safe place, out of the way but near to her mother.
“They’re making the outside of the tower look like nothing has happened. … “They know Dalinar will send Windrunners to scout the tower once communication fails, so the enemy is trying to pretend the place hasn’t been conquered. Those are either Fused illusions, or human sympathizers—perhaps the remnants of Amaram’s army—wearing stolen uniforms.”
A: Do we ever find out which it was? I don’t remember. In any case, he’s realized something important: that the Fused have anticipated Dalinar’s attempts to find out what’s happening, and they’re doing some fairly clever things to postpone him learning the truth.
We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments, so have fun and remember to be respectful of the opinions of others! Next week, we’ll be back with chapter 50, in which Jasnah demonstrates just what kind of queen she is, and how far she’ll go to prove it.
Alice is a Sanderson beta reader and administrator of two fandom Facebook groups. The Storm Cellar is specifically oriented to the people who reread here on Tor, though it’s not limited to them, and allows discussion of all Sanderson works. The Stormlight Archive group is, as you might guess, all about The Stormlight Archive, so discussion of other books has to be hidden behind spoiler tags. Alice lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids.
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course. She works full-time, goes to school full-time, beta reads part-time, mods/admins 3 Stormlight-themed Facebook groups part-time, and writes part-time. She wishes sleep wasn’t necessary because there’s just too storming much to do! Links to her other writing are available in her profile.
