Welcome to my liveblog of Rhythm of War! Index post here. Beware of spoilers.

Chapter 30 (The Betrayal)
Sorry to leave everyone hanging for *checks* five weeks. This is ridiculous that I’m taking such a long time to get through a Stormlight book. Doing these liveblog entries is enough of a barrier though that I don’t tend to read unless I have a sufficient chunk of time available and my wife is at work. (I’ve also been working on some writing this month, which has filled a few of the time slots that would otherwise have been dedicated to this.)

Anyway, onward and upward. Let’s see if I can remember what was happening last time.

Epigraph: That whippersnapper Harmony just doesn’t have the cred to get people to listen to him. Nobody cares about Odium.

WHAT!! How is it that I stopped for over a month right before this reveal!?! How could I do this to myself? Shallan has used a hologram radio before, and it’s one of the memories she’s blocked out. Presumably this precipitated the murder attempt? I don’t know yet, I haven’t gotten past the first sentence. This is huge! Aaaaah!

Okay, if I were Feather doing one of her live reaction voice recordings (that we no longer get because she’s been promoted to beta reader), you would have just been subjected to me reading a page aloud with little squees and gasps and “Come on, Shallan!” and “Go Veil!” I really kept expecting it to cut away and leave us only with implication, but Shallan actually remembered something! She let herself/was forced to recall it and retain it. This is a big step (which she’ll reject, thereby strengthening Formless, but that’s just narrative inevitability).I particularly love this sentence: 

Quote

“That twisted, knotted, overgrown time in her brain, hidden behind carefully cultivated flower beds.”

I am very curious whether the lurching, caught-between-moments feeling she had was purely mental. She is currently in the manifestation of the cognitive realm where mental effects presumably have a disproportionate impact. Did something happen that would have been visible to an outside observer?
And also, Mraize is doing his best to come across as scummy. “Yes, I will openly say that I’m trying to train you like an axehound.”

Veil’s assertion that you can’t kill spren sounds very suspect. Not only did we see Kaladin kill one in a previous book (and Syl get upset about it), but even if Shallan doesn’t know about that she’s not the type to treat things as axiomatic that way. This is Veil, of course, and not the scholar, but she is the one who seems much more in tune with the realmatic side of things, intuiting how stuff works. She should know better than this.

“We must bind [Sja-anat] to us,” says Mraize. His use of “bind” in speaking of spren is quite concerning to me. It’s not just an alliance that he’s proposing here I’m sure.

Well, that was fast. And suspiciously simple. Did Mraize pick up on her counterintelligence ploy and bluff his way into guessing gloryspren? Has he just framed one of her suspects through being a better spy than Veil? Or did the plan actually work and uncover a planted Ghostblood?

And of course the (supposedly confirmed) suspect is Beryl, the lightweaver introduced with just the sort of personal history that screams “important secondary character.” Calling it now, she’s either not a spy or she will be redeemed/flipped to Shallan’s side before they leave Shadesmar. I am leaning toward the first option as most likely.

I do not recognize these caravan people. Their outfits don’t sound like those we’ve seen on any other shardworld. 

Oh, Tukar. I should have thought of that the first time Adolin guessed it. Yes, Tukar is a problem. I’m disturbed by the way they are described, the ever-enwreathing shadows making them appear skeletal. What has Ishar done to these people? What sorts of oaths have they become victim to? Because that’s the possibility my mind leaps to when the herald of bondsmiths sends thugs to travel through the shadow realm of thought.

Oh, and an honorspren is already here. Glad Adolin explained who Notum was, because I definitely didn’t remember that name. Impressive that Adolin recognized him, though. It’s been a year, and the “spren/humans/whatever all look the same” trope is expected to be in full play.

Oh, good. Veil picked up on the spy reveal being too easy and convenient. 

Aaaaaa! Pattern can see Formless! And she can see back out! Horror movie vibes are happening right now. 

Another mention of spren ignoring deadeyes. I’m now fully primed for Maya to turn the tide against spren enemies later in this book, or to be sent on an infiltrating mission to retrieve something. Probably both, honestly. Good job, Brandon. Foreshadowing accomplished.

What kind of spren is a Reacher? I don’t remember. They would have been on the boat with Notum, but I really can’t recall.
...after a quick check of the coppermind, they are lightspren, with a bronze statue appearance.