The Greatest Discovery

She found him buried under a red brick - a small gray stone, looking just like any other pebble she had ever seen in the harvest room. Yet, she touched it as gently as she would a wounded animal. A breathing and living precious being.

Pattis watched her turn rocks for a good minute now, confused, but not interfering. She wondered absentmindedly if anything could surprise him today.

Aillia took both soulcasters with her, but Juliayh didn't need Stem to reach Shadesmar anymore. The rest of her Radiant abilities, if any, were still a mystery to her, but this was easy enough. She has visited Shadesmar a thousand times in her life, the black-beaded ocean was almost a second home.

Slipping into the realm of thought, Juliyah reached towards a glassy dark bead clasped in her hand. That took a significant amount of stormlight and she felt it course through her veins and trickle into the bead.

"Hey," she whispered to the stone. "Are you alright?"

Silence.

"Hey," she shook the bead like she would an unconscious person, "Talk to me. Are you hurt? Can you hear me?"

She felt panic building with each shake of the hand. Tusk, her inkspren, had warned that channeling so much investiture was dangerous for any soul, human or otherwise. The stone was likely to channel away his own investiture along with that of the lightning. Juliayh refused to acknowledge this possibility until this very moment. Please, let Tusk be wrong.

"Please," she said, "Say something."

"I am a stone," a familiar loud voice sounded in her head.

Juliya almost laughed with relief. "Of course, you are. You are the most wonderful, most kind-hearted, most generous stone in the world!" she said, sending him the impression of her raging gratitude. "Should I make a list of why that is? It will be a long one, I warn you. Perhaps, Pat here will help, he loves making lists too."

"I am a stone," the stone said.

"Yes, I kno..."

She stopped short, as if slapped across her face. Oh, no!

"Can you say anything else? Do you remember who I am?"

"I am a stone," came the level reply.

Juliyah pressed the stone to her chest. 'I am a stone'. A stone... just a stone now. The beautiful full-fledged soul that was born out of centuries of Shin worship was taken to save one as young and volatile as hers. He was so alive, so present. And yet, he had chosen to sacrifice his immortal life for one fleeting, at that point doomed to end within a week, human one. Why? Why send her away?

Tusk, preferring to be just a few inches tall in the physical realm, glided silently onto her right knee. There was an unusual solemnity in his posture. He patted the knee with a small black hand that shimmered when catching the light.

"Sometimes the most alive thing immortal beings like us can do is die," Tusk said in a deep scratchy voice that echoed across the roof despite his miniature size.

Pattis jumped at it, then knelt too, studying the small angular figure.

"You are...?" he asked, eyes widening.

"My name Tusk is," the spren said, with a slight bow. Unsure if that was a required part of the ceremony, Pat responded with an awkward seated bow too.

"Tusk is an inkspren," Juliyah said, "which makes me an Elsecaller, I believe. He and this stone are the only reasons I am still breathing."

She lowered the stone gently into her pocket and proffered Tusk her palm instead. He walked onto it in stiff rapid movements.