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In a small stone chamber at Urithiru, Teshav reads aloud for Dalinar the formal answer from Azir: the Prime has decided to seal off the Azimir Oathgate and destroy it. He sends Dalinar his fond regards and good wishes for trade and treaty between their nations. Dalinar punches his palm. Azir is out. He turns to Teshav and tells her to raise Queen Fen of Thaylenah instead — with Thaylenah, at least he could forge a unified Vorin coalition of the eastern states; that might eventually pull the west in. *If anyone remained by then.* Taravangian sits hunched along the wall, listening.

While Teshav writes, Dalinar frets at one of the holes that open in every Urithiru room where the wall meets the ceiling — and at Shallan's report of a thing nesting in the tower walls. He breathes in Stormlight, sticks a chair to the wall, balances on it, hauls himself up to look down the duct. He sees a mink trotting out of the cross-tunnels with a dead rat in its mouth. Navani notes that air is somehow circulating through the entire warren and her scholars cannot work out by what method.

Fen writes back — slowly, almost immediately, with finality. *No.* A queen would have to be stupid or desperate to let an Alethi army into the very center of her city; she has been the former at times and is approaching the latter, but she will not be the one who lets Thaylenah fall to *you people.* *And on the off chance that you're sincere, then I'm sorry.* Navani cannot think of anything to budge her. Dalinar thanks her for her time, leaves the offer on the table, and walks out. His guards fall in. He stalks the corridors for an hour going nowhere — wishing he could speak to these monarchs in person, knowing without the Oathgates that is impossible.

Lyn the messenger finds him panting and leads him to Bridge Four's Leyten and Peet at the planters outside the first level of the tower. They show him a gouge cut into the rock wall above, and there, half-sunk between two planters, the hilt of a Shardblade. Dalinar uses a handkerchief to lever it free. He knows the weapon at once — six feet, slightly curved, hooked, waved at the hilt: Oathbringer, the Blade he won at the Rift decades ago and gave away. Its scream when he touches it is more whimper than shriek, a worn-out cornered thing. *It remembers your oath,* the Stormfather thunders in his head when Dalinar shoulders the Blade and carries it back into the tower. *It remembers the day you won it, and better the day you gave it up. It hates you — but less than it hates others.* Dalinar asks whether the dead spren can be saved; the Stormfather knows of no way. They are back, in his thoughts, at the Recreance.

He carries the Blade through Hatham's farmers' lavis plots, climbs the stairs into the Sadeas section of the tower, and knocks on Brightness Ialai's door. Inside, Ialai sits on a throne with Amaram at her shoulder. Dalinar sets the Blade carefully on the floor — *that is rightfully yours*, no exchange — and turns to go. Ialai eyes him, then says she knows he did not kill her husband: he doesn't have the bite left in him for that. Dalinar looks past her to Amaram. *I will see you in judgment someday.* Amaram lifts the Blade from the floor and meets him eye to eye: he stands by what he was forced to do, the Voidbringers' arrival only proves the need for trained Shardbearers — and Dalinar is, with all due respect, *a hypocrite.* *You stand where you do because of a brutal determination to do what had to be done. Morality is not a thing you can doff to put on the helm of battle, then put back on when you're done with the slaughter.* Dalinar turns and walks out, leaving Amaram holding the Blade.

Back in his rooms he dismisses his guards. Taravangian is already in his outer common room, sitting in one of the chairs in front of Navani's Stormlight-fed heating fabrial, staring into the glowing ruby. Dalinar settles into the other chair. They sit together by that not-fire. *Not quite like sitting by a hearth, is it?* Taravangian says eventually. *Our own little storm,* Dalinar agrees. *Captured, contained, channeled.* Taravangian asks how Dalinar knows what is right, given that he has denied the Almighty. Dalinar answers that he feels there must be a god — but if there is, the Almighty was not it. The one who called himself Honor was a creature, powerful but mere; the warmth he reaches toward comes from beyond.

Dalinar quotes Nohadon — the hogman parable from The Way of Kings: a brutalized hogman dies whispering that three of his four fellow hogmen killed him, the fourth innocent man indistinguishable, the landlord required to do *something*. Taravangian answers without hesitation: *Hang all four.* The landlord exists to prevent further murders; one innocent dead is the price of stopping three guilty ones. He sounds like a madman, he allows, but that is the particular madness of being charged with such decisions; he would weep every night for having done it. Dalinar reads back the rest: Nohadon's landlord refused to commit and split the difference, calling the average guilt insufficient for execution and imprisoning all four. Taravangian dismisses it. *He wasn't seeking justice, but to assuage his conscience.* The two of them sit a while longer; Taravangian eventually rests a hand on Dalinar's shoulder, says *I understand,* and leaves. *He was a good man,* the Stormfather rumbles after him. *Nohadon?* *Yes.*

Dalinar walks out onto his balcony above the clouds. *Taravangian is wrong,* the Stormfather tells him; he is no hypocrite. *I am,* Dalinar answers. *But sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.* He asks whether the Stormfather has any more visions of Nohadon to show. No: he has shown all that was created for Dalinar to see. Then he wishes to rewatch the Nohadon vision, Dalinar says, and goes to fetch Navani to record it. The Stormfather offers, grudgingly: would Dalinar rather he simply place her into the vision as well, to record it herself? Dalinar freezes. *You can show the visions to others?* During a highstorm the Stormfather can approach anyone he chooses; once a vision is placed, Dalinar himself can join it from outside the storm. The leave was given so he could *choose a Bondsmith* — a duty he does not love. Dalinar barely registers the rest of the answer. He bellows a laugh. The Stormfather asks what he has done. *You've just solved my problem!* The greater one, Dalinar says: he has been wishing for a way to meet the other monarchs in person. *I think that in a coming highstorm, Queen Fen of Thaylenah is going to have a quite remarkable experience.*