96. A Thousand Lies

Fourteen months before the present, Venli experiences the chaos of the first Everstorm summoning during a brutal battle. As listeners fight humans across multiple plateaus, she watches her sister Eshonai fall into a chasm during a Shardbearer duel and feels nothing—a sign of her spiritual disconnection. When the Everstorm collides with a highstorm above Narak, Venli takes refuge in a ruined building where she is stripped of her self-deceptions and forced to confront her true nature: a coward who owes everything to Ulim's guidance.

The chapter opens with Venli fleeing across a rain-soaked battlefield during the Everstorm summoning fourteen months prior. She encounters other listeners entranced by the new stormform, singing in a state of overwhelming emotional possession. Unlike them, Venli resists the form's pull, possibly due to her long association with Ulim. The battle is chaotic and devastating; her stormform lightning was uncontrolled and ineffective, and she watches helplessly as a line of listeners is slaughtered by human forces. A human soldier attacks her with a spear, cutting her face, but when she pleads for mercy in the human language while attuning Subservience, he inexplicably spares her and leaves. Venli feels conflicted about being saved and attempts to steel herself with Conceit, treating the battlefield as her own victory. She then witnesses Eshonai—the last listener Shardbearer—fall into a chasm during a duel with a human Shardbearer. Despite witnessing what could be her sister's death, Venli feels nothing, which disturbs her and contradicts the vibrant emotions the stormform should provide. As the new Everstorm arrives, Venli senses a terrible force accompanying it—something that feeds on emotion and death. She seeks shelter in a ruined building with a hole cut by a Shardbearer. When the Everstorm collides with a highstorm above Narak, the resulting clash becomes catastrophic. The building around her is torn apart by the converging storms. Trapped between rocks and exposed to the violent tempest, Venli finally admits the truth she has long hidden: everything she has accomplished came from Ulim's guidance, not her own genius. She cares nothing for her people and possesses no true power. She is, and always has been, a coward—a realization she will likely deny again as soon as she reaches safety.