Everstorm

Everstorm - Kaladin
Fan art by endave[1]

The Everstorm , the True Desolation or Night of Sorrows, was believed to be the supposed final confrontation between humankind and the forces of Odium.

Due to the fact that the Heralds told the people that the Desolations had ended and they won the war, many people do not believe that the Everstorm is real.

However, after the Parshendi sing it into existence and are simultaneously declared to be the Voidbringers, the people at Narak and in the warcamps flee to Urithiru via the Oathgate.

Advent of the Everstorm

The Everlasting Storm
Photograph by Fritz Pascal

In the final chapter and event in The Way of Kings, Talenel'Elin, Herald of the Almighty, appears in Kholinar, prophesying the coming of the True Desolation.

In Words of Radiance, it is revealed that the Everstorm originated on the Shattered Plains during the Weeping. It was summoned by the Parshendi who used a forbidden form called Stormform as a desperate measure to combat the Alethi troops approaching Narak.^{[citation needed]} The amount of Parshendi required to do this numbers in the thousands. While Dalinar's army makes a valiant attempt, it is unable to stop the Parshendi before they complete the summoning of the storm with their multi-level song. This song, according to Rlain, is death; the Rhythm of Destruction. The storm is noted to be going the wrong way (i.e., west to east), the opposite of that of a highstorm.

The storm appears to either gather or generate Voidspren, which are implied to create Thunderclasts and Voidbringers.

The True Desolation appears to be different from the other Desolations as noted by Wit; the Storm will transform parshmen into Voidbringers rather than all Parshendi transforming at once, as was thought by Jasnah. She notes that this makes all the information she gathered during her time in Shadesmar nearly useless.^{[citation needed]}

The Stormfather tells Dalinar that the storm isn't natural; that it is unknown, new. Dalinar thinks it feels vengeful. The Stormfather tells him that the enemy rides this storm.

Characteristics of the Everstorm

It is a storm of red lightning, blowing the wrong direction, and is slower than a highstorm.

As the sky rumbles above, dark and angry, Lift determines that she knows that feeling. It is akin to too much time between meals, and looking to eat whatever it could find, never mind the cost.

From the distant lightning, she determines that this new storm doesn't have a stormwall. Its onset isn't a sudden, majestic event, but instead a creeping advance. It looms like a thug in an alley, knife out, waiting for prey to wander past.

She observes that the storm surges across the sky, a majestic and terrible black thunderhead coursing with red lightning. It is enormous, dominating the entire sky, wicked with flashes of inner light. And, although there is no stormwall, the growing wind is tempestuous.

Its black clouds are lit from within by that crackling red lightning.

It rides low in the sky, and is a wave of darkness that is hauntingly silent; the red bolts don't rumble with thunder. While there is the occasional crack, the sounds of the storm don't match the flashes of red light that rise from deep within it.

It doesn't recharge spheres, even if left out during the entire storm.

It appears from the west, illuminating all it encounters with bright red lightning. However, it isn't like highstorms, in that there is no stormwall of blown debris and cremwater. According to Venli, it is far more elegant, like a billowing cloud of smoke and darkness, lightning breaking out on all sides, coloring it crimson.

Effects of the Everstorm

The Weeping stops ... then starts again ... then stops again. It acts strange, like regular weather, rather than the long, long mild highstorm it was supposed to be.

Houses are ripped apart while the screams of their occupants are lost in the tempest. People caught in their fields - swept barren - run in panic before it. Cities are blasted with lightning, towns cast into shadow. A vast sea of glowing red eyes come awake like spheres suddenly renewed with Stormlight.

The storm rains destruction upon the people and winds attack in bursts, hostile, even deliberate.

To Dalinar, the enemy seems more interested in preying upon small towns, the fields, the people caught unaware. Though not as destructive as he'd feared, it would still leave thousands dead, cities broken. It would steal the parshmen laborers and turn them into Voidbringers, loosed on the public.

It would exact a price in blood from Roshar not seen since the Desolations.

Cosmere

Photograph by Glenn Burns

The Everstorm is the power of Odium, the Shard of Hate, brought to Roshar. The spren he creates are able to create Thunderclasts and turn parshmen into their Void form (i.e., Stormform).

Quotes

“	Unite them. The sun approaches the horizon. The Everstorm comes. The True Desolation. The Night of Sorrows.	”
–The Almighty during one of Dalinar's visions

“	I have said I that cannot be of much help to you. The Night of Sorrows will come, and the True Desolation. The Everstorm.	”
–The Almighty during one of Dalinar's visions

“	I am Talenel'Elin, Stonesinew, Herald of the Almighty. The Desolation has come. Oh, God... it has come.	”
–Talenel'Elin announcing the coming of a new Desolation

“	It's not of us, but of him.	”
–Syl to Kaladin