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Dalinar remembers. Her name was Evi, and she had been tall and willowy with pale yellow hair — not Iriali gold but striking in its own right; she and her brother Toh had been shy, and brave enough together to flee their homeland with Shardplate. He can recall meeting her, courting her awkwardly under the weight of political necessity, and finally betrothing her. He does not yet remember love. He does remember attraction. He has *always* remembered the difficult years that came after her death — the drinking, the night the Assassin in White killed his brother and found him useless. He has always assumed the Nightwatcher took those other memories of Evi as the price of the pain he asked her to take, and that her bargains are forever. So what is happening to him?

He stands on the wide field below Urithiru with an honor guard, late by his bracer clock — a fabrial he has worn for three days and is already counting minutes by like a scribe. A single highstorm has at last passed; the second face of the clock cannot yet predict the next, because the Weeping kept the previous record honest and that record may now be worthless. Centuries of scheduling could be obsolete; once that alone would have been catastrophe, but stacked against the Everstorm and the Voidbringers it is barely the third disaster on the list. With a flash, the second Oathgate platform from the left erupts in a shell of Stormlight and his guests step out, mouths open at the sight of the tower-city.

At the head is a kindly old man in burnt-orange robes — King Taravangian himself — beside a silver-haired woman with hair in a bun: Adrotagia, head scribe of Kharbranth and arguably the true power at her king's side. Taravangian has to be prompted to remember what to say but greets Dalinar warmly — *Blackthorn* — and Dalinar is touched to have at least one fellow monarch answer his call. Adrotagia nods toward a third figure standing among the guards: a middle-aged Veden woman in southern dress and gloves, hair cropped boyishly short. The woman lifts her right hand over her shoulder and a Shardblade coalesces in it. Taravangian beams: *the newest Knight Radiant. Malata of Jah Keved.*

They ride the lift up the central column and Taravangian gawks like a child, leaning so far over the edge his Thaylen bodyguard rests a careful hand on his shoulder. He wonders what makes the lift move — pulled by parshmen back home in Kharbranth — and is told it is Stormlight through swapped-in infused gemstones. Dalinar has been around Alethi politicians so long that honesty has the texture of a language he no longer speaks. He recalls, regretfully, that in Alethkar a king as injured as this one — a brain-illness five years ago that Navani suspects was an apoplexy — would have been assassinated, deposed, or simply pushed aside by someone holding the throne in all but name; he keeps a firm grip on his guilt at having done exactly that to his own nephew. He offers Taravangian battalions to help hold Vedenar and the Oathgate there. Adrotagia answers for him: the city is secure, the parshmen made one push and withdrew eastward — *toward Alethkar*, Dalinar notes silently. Taravangian speaks with sudden quiet sorrow about how men who have done what they have done — *men of blood and sorrow* — do not get the ending of the Tranquiline Halls; Dalinar has no reply.

At the top level Navani meets them in a silver-and-black havah with Shardblade-shaped hairspikes and hands the guests off to Teshav for a tour of the Initiation Room. She draws Dalinar aside. *Sincere as ever*, he says, *but —* dense, she finishes. *Dear, I'm dense; this man has become an idiot.* She corrects him — *practical*, *rugged* — and tells him that despite the wreckage Taravangian was a friend to Alethkar in Gavilar's day and that earns him better than dismissal. No word from Captain Kaladin; his infused rubies have probably run out, and now that the highstorms have returned they expected something. They speak briefly about the new Radiant: a Dustbringer — her spren told her *Releaser* is the order's preferred name; Dalinar does not like the way she smiles, and intends quietly to test whether her Blade is only that or something more.

Navani has been hunting through Kharbranth's Palanaeum for any case in which an Old Magic boon or curse wore off. About three hundred cases, and not one. Researchers, she reports, have a saying: *Old Magic curses aren't like a hangover.* Dalinar is unexpectedly moved — *I've never had anyone to share this burden with* — and she counters, gently, that she *didn't find anything.* *It doesn't matter.* He queries the Stormfather on her behalf to confirm again that the bond is not what is unlocking the lost memories; *it is not my doing*, the spren rumbles, irritated at being asked twice. Navani sharpens at the rest of his recollection: the only thing he remembers giving the Nightwatcher is a vague request to have his pain taken away, and she took memories besides, and erased the memory of the deal itself. That, Navani thinks, is the Nightwatcher taking advantage of a man too distraught to think straight.

In the conference room Teshav finishes pointing out the strange clouded glass panes set in the walls and the matching disc-pairs on floor and ceiling that look like the ghosts of removed pillars. Taravangian returns to the windows and breathes that they think themselves the most important things on Roshar and yet so much of Roshar is empty of them; for a moment Dalinar hears the old Taravangian in him. The king asks — hopeful — when the other monarchs will arrive. Navani gives him the honest answer: he is the only one who heeded the call. Thaylenah — Queen Fen — has dodged five times. Azir has been even more stubborn. Iri dismissed them almost outright. Marabethia and Rira did not reply at all. The Reshi have no real central government. Babatharnam's Most Ancient is coy. The Makabaki states wait on Azir. The Shin sent a congratulation that means nothing. The Herdazians think it is a trick. The Tukari scribes finally produced their god-king's reply: a thundering letter from *Tezim the Great, last and first man, Herald of Heralds and bearer of the Oathpact*, denouncing them as rebels, demanding their surrender and tribute, and warning that only his path leads to deliverance — a single mandate, never to be repeated. Dalinar dryly crosses the Tukari off the list; Navani declares she'd rather have the Emuli anyway. *So we are alone?* Taravangian asks. *We are alone, Your Majesty.*

Taravangian nods like a man relieved and asks where they will attack first — Herdaz as tradition would suggest, or Thaylenah to control the Straits? Dalinar listens with dismay. It is the obvious assumption — even simpleminded Taravangian sees it. Of course this is what they all think: the Blackthorn who once united his kingdom by the sword now proposes a *union*. Taravangian did not come because he believed in the alliance; he came so Dalinar would not send those armies at Jah Keved instead. Dalinar says firmly that they are not going to attack anyone; they will win the others with diplomacy. Adrotagia touches the king's arm and tells Dalinar she understands — and she very plainly thinks he is lying. *And are you?* he asks himself. If Kholinar works, why not take the rest of the Oathgates the same way? He has been willing to take a kingship in all but name for Alethkar's own good before. How far is he willing to go for the good of all Roshar against a champion with nine shadows? *I will unite instead of divide.* He stands at the window with the king, Evi returning now with a fresh and dangerous color to the old memories.