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

Chapter 102 (Highstorm Coming)
Icons: Jez and Chach. Either brave windrunners, or destructive highstorm. 
Epigraph: This one is quotable: 

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To humans, our very visages become symbols. You find echoes of it even in the art from centuries before this Return.

Is…is this talking about the infamous “voidbinding chart” from the endpapers? Are those shapes intended to be singer faces?
Also, am I correct in assuming “this Return” to mean the current one in the story, or would these Musings on the first of the FInal Ten Days be a more ancient document?

***

Venli is lined up for the Oathgate, in a position that will make it awkward and very visible to change plans. This means it will be the optimal time narrative-wise for her oaths about freedom to kick in and force her to back out of the “run for the hills” plan.

Venli’s got 15 friends/minions at this point. I don’t think I knew before this how large her recruitment had gotten. Honestly, it’s a bit smaller than I expected, if only slightly.

Venli’s envoyform carapace is “ornamentation, not true armor,” which somehow means it doesn’t shield her from the cold wind? I think I have a different understanding of armor than they do, but I suppose this is just saying that there is a lot of exposed skin to that form. Which, going by the folio page, is hardly a surprise. Just an odd way of saying it.

Venli knows she’s being manipulated, but she doesn’t care. She sees what she wants to grasp.

Yup, Timbre is disappointed in her choice. Aww, she tells Timbre to leave, find another host, but Timbre wants her. 

Ah, so there’s a deadline of sorts as well. Highstorm inbound, probably to the Kharbranth end. I doubt they'd be trying to organize transfers in the time between one leaving Kharbranth and striking Urithiru.

Vyre has run off, somehow sensing that Kal is on his way. Or maybe Leshwi told him that the Pursuer was trying to kill steal? Anyway, it’s funny to me because I only just realized that Vyre is the sole conduit they have at the moment for running the Oathgates. That means he’s been stuck as the elevator operator or revolving door attendant for the entirety of this occupation. He has got to be so bored.

Ah, nope. The highstorm is about to strike Urithiru, so they appear to have been transferring personnel and supplies in that brief lull. Weird, but okay. I mean, the Kharbranth Oathgate is inside the palace and wouldn’t really be exposed to the storm anyway. I guess that end of the transit is not particularly affected one way or another.

I guess getting rained out thanks to Vyre’s absence means that Venli doesn’t have to make a scene (here) when she changes her mind. And it forces her to reconsider when she sees things start to go down. Timbre knows what this means.

The coming storm is supposedly going to be big enough to cover the entire tower. Sounds like a big’un.

Her friends like the idea of saving Kaladin and family, because they see him as a potential ally/asset. I wasn’t expecting Venli’s honesty here, or their support. A lot of unspoken trust going on.

***
Navani isn’t even getting food? That’s not how you are supposed to treat the Voice of Lights. Something has fallen through the cracks. Surely Raboniel doesn’t think Navani’s usefulness is at an end, after what she accomplished so far.

Raboniel managed to reverse-engineer Anti-Stormlight in less than a day from Navani’s notes. That’s impressive.

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If she’d been a scholar, she’d have understood the implications of her work.

That’s a ludicrously high standard to hold scholars to, Navani. Take a look at your own scholars and ask how much they have missed of the wider picture.

Navani painting prayers now is reminiscent of her Thath glyph after the betrayal at the Tower, and I love that this moment mirrors that one.

Navani’s reflection on faith here is powerful and salient. How do you respond when you know that the god you pray to is in fact dead? Does that make the prayers worthless? Or is it an act of devotion to rely on their foresight reaching beyond even that death?

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Someone had known anti-Voidlight was possible.
Someone had known Navani would create it first.
Someone had seen all this, planned for it, and put her here. She had to believe that.

As readers, we know that there is another deity on Roshar known for her future sight. So it is entirely possible that Cultivation did in fact seed this possibility into being. But it is equally possible that with blindspots and competing manipulations, this outcome was random and unforeseen. It is an act of faith to choose what Navani should believe, and though the stakes for us readers are as close to zero as to make no difference, it’s still an instructive situation to examine for how we ourselves approach faith in such a hypothetical. It’s a situation that could easily be compared to our own universe.

Someone says he’s here to kill Navani in order to distract Dalinar. I’m guessing that Rlain is failing to come up with a natural cover story.

Oh, nope. It’s Moash/Vyre. (Reminder: Moash was a better name and it shouldn’t have been changed.)

Woah. He’s directly arguing with Raboniel, and says the order comes straight from Odium…but Raboniel somehow pulls rank and says her orders take precedent? I’d like to see the rules lawyering that makes that viable.

Moash promises to not kill Kaladin, but ruin him somehow. In exchange, he gets Navani. I’m not sure what Moash is going to do, but I’m concerned about Syl’s continued absence.

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“You have no idea what this day will cost me.”

 

I think he’s going to do something creatively sadistic, rather than any of the straightforward attacks on Kal’s loved ones. But I’m not sure what.

It was implied earlier, but explicitly noted again: the Honorblades are perfectly viable under the tower’s suppressive field, and stormlight functions normally for them. Therefore, it is the spren and the nahel bond specifically that are being smothered. The honorblades are aligned to Honor’s investiture just as much, so either they are simply powerful enough to shrug off everything the tower does–a distinct possibility, since we know more advanced Radiants gain greater immunity to the inhibitor–or the suppression targets something much more specific than the Intent of kinetic investiture. 

Actually, having typed that out, it’s got to be the strength of the artifact that matters here. Fabrials are suppressed too, but it depends on the light they are infused with, not the spren that powers them. So the Honorblades can overpower the suppression, not escape it through a difference of attunement.

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He [Moash] wasn’t human. He was a Voidbringer. If that word had ever applied to any, it was Moash.

With all of his Passion consumed by Odium, it’s an apt term.

She found a sliver of Raysium… no wait. There is a second dagger, whole and unexploded. That is a useful piece of equipment. An answer to prayers, one might say. And it’s slightly charged with anti-Voidlight.

***
Kaladin sees everyone wearing the Shash glyph.

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They wore the symbol of his shame, his failure, and his imprisonment. And they made it something better.

This is the most overtly messianic symbology we’ve had associated with Kaladin, and the most direct analogy to Christian symbols since the Well of Ascension when the Church of the Survivor took up the spear that slew Kelsier.

I’m surprised that Kaladin’s thoughts about the end of his life as Highmarshal are so much more focused on what he might embody next rather than on martyrdom and endings. He’s come a long way since honor chasm, and suicide is not something he is looking for.

He found Syl!

He’s wearing the gauntlet on his belt, aimed at his back. My only guess is it will let him ram the Pursuer when he does his “I’m behind you” trick?