Lift
A small, lean Reshi girl living rough in Azir — straight black hair to her waist, tan skin, rounded features. Says she is "this many" with her fingers held up; insists she is ten and has been for years, on the grounds that twelve is unlucky. Steals into rich houses for the food and the sport of it, has spoken to her in dreams that something she calls her awesomeness — a glow on her skin that makes her slick to friction — comes when she wills it. SA:ED:Prologue
Known facts
- visited-the-nightwatcherVisited the Old Magic some years before this story — by Wyndle's account, his Ring chose her as their bondmate because "Mother" had blessed her. What she asked for she will not say, even to her own spren, but it appears to be what now lets her touch a being who exists mostly in the Cognitive Realm and metabolise food directly into Stormlight.SA:ED:Prologue
- bonded-cultivationsprenHas been bonded to the cultivationspren Wyndle for some weeks at the prologue's open, and through that bond can Surgebind two powers — a friction-shedding "Slickness" she calls her awesomeness, and a Growth she uses first to crack a window of the Bronze Palace open with seeds.SA:ED:Prologue
- identified-as-edgedancerIdentified by Darkness as an Edgedancer after she breathes Stormlight into the dying Gawx and brings him back. Darkness names the two Surges of the order — friction-shedding and Growth/Regrowth — as the pair he had been waiting to see her manifest.SA:ED:Prologue
- oath-i-will-rememberSpeaks a Radiant oath at the moment of choice over Gawx's body — *I will remember those who have been forgotten* — and only then is able to draw enough Stormlight from her own exhausted body to heal him. Wyndle confirms it was the right Words.SA:ED:Prologue
- revived-gawxBrought Gawx back from a slit throat by leaning over his body, breathing Stormlight from her lips into his mouth, and so performing what the scions call the miracle of Regrowth — the act on which Azir's viziers base their selection of him as the new Prime Aqasix.SA:ED:Prologue
- fled-azimir-after-three-monthsHas spent roughly three months as Gawx's honoured guest in the Bronze Palace in Azimir — soft clothes, infinite food, viziers pressing tutors and reading lessons on her in gratitude for saving the emperor's life — and has bolted from it on the conviction that staying would consume her, leaving behind only a dinner-tray "note" that Gawx is supposed to read for what it means.SA:ED:Ch 1
- wish-not-to-changeThe thing she asked of "Mother" at the Old Magic was, by her own private reckoning, to stay the same — to remain herself while the world changed around her. She begins, in Tashikk, to suspect she has been lied to: the wrong things are changing.SA:ED:Ch 1
- runs-on-food-not-spheresUnlike other Surgebinders, Lift cannot draw on a charged sphere — she fuels her Stormlight from food alone, eats prodigiously to keep up, and runs out the moment her stomach does. Wyndle scolds her for Surgebinding too freely, warning of malnutrition.SA:ED:Ch 1
- can-touch-her-sprenCan physically grab onto Wyndle's vine and use him as a rope — a thing other Surgebinders are not supposed to be able to do with their spren. Wyndle's explanation is that she must be partially stuck in the Cognitive Realm herself, by some side-effect of her bargain at the Old Magic.SA:ED:Ch 4
- refuses-to-be-knownArticulates, lying on a tarp above a Yeddaw shanty, the rule under which she has been living: she keeps moving because once people learn your name and what you need, they start to think they are your friend, and then they start to expect things, and then you have to be the person they have decided you are rather than the person you actually are. Says, of Gawx and the viziers, that this is exactly why she left.SA:ED:Ch 5
- mother-told-her-reshi-originHer mother is dead. It was her mother who told her she was Reshi — Lift has never actually been to the Reshi Isles and cannot say first-hand whether she belongs there. She still remembers her mother's arms, scent and voice, and counts her among the forgotten her oath is meant to keep.SA:ED:Ch 5
- speaks-street-cantSlides effortlessly into the slot-city's clipped urchin cant when she wants information from a local kid — *Gotta lunks for smalls?* — and is mildly surprised when Wyndle reports that the conversation was incomprehensible. Words, to her, are words; the right ones just come.SA:ED:Ch 6
- hates-being-given-foodHates the idea of eating a meal someone simply hands her — the challenge of getting food is half the point of the food. She would rather steal a meal from someone awful than be politely fed by someone kind.SA:ED:Ch 6
- drew-darkness-by-displayDid not stumble into Darkness by accident in Yeddaw: showed her powers to a guard captain on purpose, knowing the report would draw him. She cannot search a whole city for one man, so she made him come to her.SA:ED:Ch 7
- hunting-darkness-to-protect-othersCame to Yeddaw chasing Darkness because the viziers in Azimir tracked his killings and she pieced together what they couldn't — he is hunting a Surgebinder in this city, someone like her, someone who has not had time to grow into the powers he is going to kill them for having.SA:ED:Ch 7
- healing-fails-on-shardbladeTries to revive Tiqqa in the market the way she revived Gawx: kneels beside the corpse, breathes her awesomeness into the body, sees a luminous shape stir briefly above it — and then it puffs out and the body stays a body. Wyndle explains, as best his patchy memory allows, that a Shardblade is different from any other killing: death is functionally instant, and even her power and a fresh body would not have been enough by the time she reached this one.SA:ED:Ch 8
- awesomeness-decays-without-foodHas worked out that her awesomeness — the light inside her — does not pool indefinitely. If she does not spend it within roughly half a day of eating, it leaks away and is gone; she does not know why, only that it does.SA:ED:Ch 8
- remembers-tiqqaStanding over Tiqqa's body in the market, swears to herself the same oath she has been carrying since Azimir — *her name was Tiqqa, I will remember you, because few others will* — then chases Darkness back into the crowd to keep on him.SA:ED:Ch 8
- asked-nightwatcher-not-to-changeThe boon she asked of the Nightwatcher three years ago was to *not change*: not to grow up, not to be reshaped by other people, not to become someone different than the girl she already was. She is, by her own quiet measurement on the orphanage steps, taller now than she was then — and the world around her is shifting too — and she is starting to wonder whether the boon was ever really granted.SA:ED:Ch 10
- only-knows-how-to-hunt-foodAdmits to Wyndle, sitting on the orphanage steps, that the only thing she has ever really known how to do is hunt for food. It was hard at first; she got good at it. Now that she is not hungry all the time, she has nothing else to fall back on for telling herself what to do.SA:ED:Ch 10
- palace-was-stifling-for-gawxConcedes, when Wyndle presses, that Azimir and the palace weren't the prison she'd been painting them as for her; they were the prison for Gawx. The new Prime is owned by his people, watched at every meal, his hair and nose tended for him; she has not been able to bear thinking of it.SA:ED:Ch 10
- stormlight-makes-seeds-sproutWhen Lift flares her awesomeness hard enough that it visibly radiates from her skin, nearby seeds sprout and grow on the spot. She demonstrates it to the scribes by leaving her pancake glowing — the seeds on top of it twist into curling, leafing vines in seconds. It costs her, in passing, the rest of a perfectly good pancake.SA:ED:Ch 14
- traded-lucky-sphere-for-cheeseLift has been actively souring on luck — she has come to think of luck as the opposite of being awesome: one is something you do, the other is something that happens to you whether you do anything or not. She has, recently, traded her old lucky sphere away for a piece of hog's cheese, and she misses the sphere only when she finds herself in a dark hallway with no Stormlight handy.SA:ED:Ch 14
- discovers-she-hates-darknessSitting over a desk of dead-end reports, Lift realises with some surprise that she hates Darkness — for the first time in her life she really, seriously hates someone. The hatred sharpens around his calm, his refusal of feeling, and the certainty that he does what he does without a particle of guilt.SA:ED:Ch 14
- cant-yet-control-her-edgedancer-skidLift can picture what an Edgedancer's slide should look like — feet Slick, pushing off walls and outcroppings for speed, a body like an arrow in flight — but every time she tries it through the trenches of Yeddaw her feet shoot apart and she goes down hard on stone. Her awesomeness heals the bruises; the embarrassment stays. She is forced to give up and just run, and that turns out not to be fast enough.SA:ED:Ch 17
- what-she-wants-is-controlSitting on a mat among the frightened orphans of Tashi's Light Orphanage, Lift finally answers Wyndle's old question about why she does what she does. Not kingship, not power — *control*. She doesn't want to be shoved around by people or by fate. She wants the choosing to be hers. It is the closest she has come to admitting what her Nightwatcher boon — to not grow up — was really about.SA:ED:Ch 17
- chose-to-be-here-tonightCrouched between two corpses in the alley with the storm an hour away and Arclo dressing himself out of his swarm, Lift finally lets a fear out into the open: maybe nobody knows what they're doing, maybe instinct doesn't guide anyone, maybe everyone is just frightened. Then she names something new — *I left Azir because I was afraid; I came to Tashikk because that's where my starvin' feet took me; but tonight, tonight I decided to be here.* The choice she'd told Wyndle she wanted: she had it, just by making it.SA:ED:Ch 18
- oath-i-will-listenOn the storm-lashed plain above Tashi's Light Orphanage, with Darkness's Shardblade descending on her, Lift raises both hands above her head and Wyndle sighs himself into a silvery rod. She meets the Herald's blow and shouts the Third Ideal of the Edgedancers into the storm: *I will listen to those who have been ignored.*SA:ED:Ch 19
- heals-refugees-at-yeddaw-gateLeaving Yeddaw the morning after the storm, Lift stops at the long line of storm-orphaned refugees the guard captain is processing at the ramp into the city, breathes Stormlight over them like she's trying to prove her breath doesn't stink, and heals their wounds one by one until she runs out — the first time she has used her power openly on strangers. *Just a few people, and all*, she thinks — *but they were the type forgotten and ignored by most*.SA:ED:Ch 20
- can-enter-stormfather-visions-unbiddenWalks into Dalinar's Aharietiam vision uninvited, perched cross-legged on a boulder and casually critiquing the Blackthorn's backside. The Stormfather is genuinely shaken — none of this should be possible; Lift, he says, has been remade by the Nightwatcher into something unnatural, and she has overstepped by walking in here.SA:OB:Ch 45
- lift-convinced-to-visit-azimirWord reaches Jasnah from her informants that Lift — the Radiant discovered in Yeddaw — has been persuaded to travel to Azimir, and a sketch of her spren companion has been sent ahead.SA:OB:Ch 104
- lift-snuck-back-to-thaylen-cityWhen the Azish fleet flees Thaylen City before the Everstorm, Lift kicks her assigned guard and stuffs him under a bed so she can slip ashore and stay with Dalinar, rather than withdraw to safety with Yanagawn.SA:OB:Ch 116
- nightwatcher-lied-to-liftSliding through Amaram's soldiers at Thaylen City, Lift privately admits that the Nightwatcher lied to her: she had been promised she would not grow any older, and she is. SA:OB:Ch 117
- made-oddly-by-cultivationThe Sibling tells Navani that Lift is still awake under the tower's anti-Radiant suppression because she was *created oddly, to use Light differently from others* — made by the Sibling's mother for that purpose. The Sibling caught glimmers of her for a while but has since lost track of her; she was held in a cage and surrounded with ralkalest.SA:RoW:Ch 49
- revealed-to-be-fueled-by-lifelight-not-stormlightMraize tells Raboniel in the bedroom of the Blackthorn's former chambers that Lift is an Edgedancer Cultivation made — uniquely — to run on Lifelight rather than Stormlight. This is the reason she is still awake while the tower's suppression has dropped every other Radiant in Urithiru.SA:RoW:Ch 60
- heals-kaladin-with-progressionLift heals Kaladin's infected, festering wound with a hard push of Stormlight — harder, she says, even than when she healed Gawx — and afterward heals Teft back to consciousness as well. Her growth-and-healing surge still works inside the tower; her slipperiness no longer does.SA:RoW:Ch 85
- outranked-by-baramaz-among-edgedancersAlthough Lift is the first-found Edgedancer of the new Knights Radiant, the order at Urithiru is now led by Baramaz — a fact Lift resents largely on grounds of Baramaz's teeth.SA:WaT:Ch 29
- impersonates-navani-as-queen-of-urithiruWalks the halls of Urithiru under an illusion of Navani's face and body — woven by Wit from Towerlight — so that the tower can be seen to still have a queen while its real one is lost in the Spiritual Realm. The illusion shows Navani's gown to hide her shorter frame, leaving Lift effectively looking out from chest height.SA:WaT:I-13
- asks-zahel-to-teach-herAfter fighting off two of Mraize's thugs and the ringed Feruchemist in a flailing display of her Surges that the swordmaster watches with open admiration, asks him that evening — for the first time in her life — to be her teacher.SA:WaT:I-13
- decides-to-stop-refusing-to-growConcedes, alone with her chicken in the corridor outside the medical rooms, that pretending she is still ten has cost her — most recently Gav — and that refusing to grow is refusing to learn. The first concession she has ever made to her body's continued aging.SA:WaT:I-13
- only-mortal-to-have-defeated-nale-in-single-combatNale tells Kaladin mid-duel that Lift is the only person to have ever defeated him in single combat. He confirms the weapon she used was not a fork.SA:WaT:Ch 109
- lift-impersonated-navani-at-urithiruWit sets Lift to impersonate Navani at Urithiru while the real one is in the Spiritual Realm — mostly keeping her abed under Wit's illusion as a sick brightness, but with one or two parades through the hallways to keep the tower calm.SA:WaT:Ch 114
Events
- SA:ED:Ch 3 From Hauka's outside view — a small Reshi girl who pops out of the smuggler's grain, vaults shoulders and tables, wiggles through windows that should not fit her, unhitches a cart on its way toward a ledge, and dumps a whole load of grain onto the slums below before jumping after it.
- SA:OB:Ch 45 Walks into the vision uninvited, perched on a boulder, and casually critiques the Blackthorn's butt before grabbing Gawx by the arm and vanishing him out of the vision with her — to the Stormfather's outraged confusion.
- SA:OB:Ch 57 Pops up from behind the rocks at Feverstone Keep once Odium is gone, declares him *extra creepy* even by old-men standards, demands assurances about Urithiru's food before agreeing to visit, and asks Dalinar not to tell Gawx about Odium because he already has too many old people to worry about.
- SA:OB:Ch 65 Perched on the backrest of the other couch in his sequestered antechamber wearing an oversized Azish robe and cap; has already eaten his entire wrapped lunch (the sausage is *kind of bland*) and works through his dried fruit while listening to him puzzle out scribes and military power. Names her order — *Edgedancer — I slip around and stuff* — declares she is going to stop eating so she will stop growing, and observes that he *smells like* the Nightwatcher.
- SA:OB:Ch 96 Sits with Bridge Four near the refreshments and outeats Rock in what is almost a contest.
- SA:RoW:Ch 7 Slips into the burning room unseen, drags the wounded Godeke clear by one leg, and confirms her own powers are suppressed before disabling the device for Kaladin.
- SA:RoW:Ch 19 Crawls out from under the snack table, hits her head on the way out, volunteers for the envoy, and is gently turned down on the grounds the Edgedancers cannot spare her healing.
- SA:RoW:Ch 60 Huddled in a covered, bar-sided crate small enough to be carried by two men, dirty and growling and shadowed; when the cloth is whipped off she stares back defiantly at Raboniel and shows no fear.
- SA:RoW:Ch 83 Hops through the opening Venli cuts in the cell wall, makes Venli swear there is no double-cross, and follows when she hears the rescue is for Stormblessed.
- SA:RoW:Ch 85 Meets Dabbid and Rlain on the tenth floor, opens the Stormlight-locked door for them, and uses her healing surge first on Kaladin and then on Teft.
- SA:RoW:Ch 91 Tops Teft up with Stormlight; offers to wake the other Radiants but warns she will need an enormous amount of food.
- SA:RoW:Ch 103 Hooded as Teft's daughter, slips around the door guard to crack the infirmary open, then heals Teft's lightning wound under fire. Once inside is the first to see Moash rise from beneath a sheet — her legs are taken out by his Shardblade and she falls limp against the wall.
- SA:RoW:Ch 104 Drags herself across the infirmary floor on ruined legs toward another fallen Radiant to heal them; Teft notes the courage and uses his own banter with Moash to keep the assassin's attention off her.
- SA:RoW:Ch 105 Lies bound and unconscious behind the curtain at the rear of the infirmary with Kaladin's family; Odium has forbidden Moash from killing the Edgedancer, and Moash hopes he did not strike her head too hard.
- SA:WaT:Ch 114 Caught in Navani's seat halfway through a man-sized meal, sticky-handed, in the Wit-cast illusion of Navani — *I did a real good job a bein' you.*
Backreferences
- summarySA:ED:Prologue
- factWyndle
- factWyndle
- factGawx
- factTigzikk
- factThe Nightwatcher
- factCultivationspren
- factNin
- factNin
- factNin
- summarySA:ED:Ch 1
- factLift
- summarySA:ED:Ch 2
- factCultivationspren
- factSesemalex Dar
- factNin
- factTuk-cake
- summarySA:ED:Ch 4
- factWyndle
- factYeddaw
- summarySA:ED:Ch 5
- factLift's mother
- summarySA:ED:Ch 6
- summarySA:ED:Ch 7
- factNin
- summarySA:ED:Ch 8
- factTiqqa
- factNin
- summarySA:ED:Ch 9
- summarySA:ED:Ch 10
- factThe Stump
- factMik
- summarySA:ED:Ch 11
- factWyndle
- summarySA:ED:Ch 12
- factOl' Whitehair
- summarySA:ED:Ch 13
- factGawx
- summarySA:ED:Ch 14
- factLift
- factLift
- factLift
- factThe Stump
- summarySA:ED:Ch 15
- factWyndle
- summarySA:ED:Ch 16
- summarySA:ED:Ch 17
- factLift
- factLift
- summarySA:ED:Ch 18
- factArclomedarian
- factArclomedarian
- factLift
- factThe Stump
- factThe Sleepless
- factThe Sleepless
- summarySA:ED:Ch 19
- factLift
- factWyndle
- factThird Ideal of the Edgedancers
- summarySA:ED:Ch 20
- factLift
- factWyndle
- factTashi
- factThe Stump
- summarySA:OB:Ch 45
- factLift
- summarySA:OB:Ch 56
- factYanagawn the First
- summarySA:OB:Ch 57
- summarySA:OB:Ch 65
- summarySA:OB:Ch 104
- factLift
- summarySA:OB:Ch 111
- summarySA:OB:Ch 116
- factLift
- summarySA:OB:Ch 117
- factLift
- summarySA:OB:Ch 118
- summarySA:OB:Ch 119
- summarySA:OB:Ch 120
- summarySA:OB:Ch 122
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 5
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 7
- factFused
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 9
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 19
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 22
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 49
- factLift
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 60
- factLift
- factLifelight
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 71
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 83
- factVenli
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 85
- factLift
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 91
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 100
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 101
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 103
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 104
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 105
- summarySA:RoW:Ch 109
- factVenli
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 8
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 21
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 29
- factLift
- factGavinor Kholin
- factBaramaz
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 31
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 33
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 44
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 54
- summarySA:WaT:I-13
- factLift
- factthe Sibling
- factThe Ringed Feruchemist
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 109
- factLift
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 114
- factLift
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 127
- factYanagawn the First