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Dalinar wakes whole, in spite of the drinking. Navani has kept the washbasin filled, the bottles cleared, the shutters open against the cold. He bathes in the cold tub she has drawn, shaves at the mirror — a ritual Gavilar taught him — and dresses clean. The memory of Gavilar's funeral and the pilgrimage to the Nightwatcher is fresh; he reaches out to the Stormfather, who rumbles back from a distance. *I hurt you. I was afraid you would leave me.* — *This is the lot I have chosen. It is you or oblivion.* The dream of Nohadon was not the Stormfather's doing. What the most important step a man can take might mean still rides him; so does the Rift and the next time the Thrill takes him.

He emerges to find Taravangian alone in the villa common room. *They said I wasn't needed* at the day's monarch meeting. Dalinar insists they go up together. On the way the Stormfather tells him something fragile — during a recent highstorm he felt Stormblessed alive somewhere out of sight. He had presumed all four of them dead, and now finds himself believing.

In the Gallery of Maps, Highprince Aladar runs the planning beside his Shardplated bodyguard Mintez. Ialai sits silent beside the bearded Ruthar; Hatham in red and gold; Queen Fen with her wizened admiral and her son Kdralk; a contingent of Azish military scholars; and the two new Veden highprinces appointed after the civil war. *What in Damnation was wrong with you?* Fen cuts in. Dalinar does not flinch: he was excommunicated from the Vorin church and he took it poorly. They have fifteen battalions across the Oathgates into Jah Keved already; that has thinned Kholin strength to recruits, with Sebarial giving most of his division to wear blue. Aladar is willing to cede the lush strip east of the Peaks; Nan Urian argues it has always succoured invaders, and Dalinar backs him. The plan is sound, and yet something nags.

A break. Jasnah arrives and drops papers in front of her mother. Ialai reaches for them and is rebuffed with a single *No* and a lecture: every monarch in the room would prefer to keep state secrets; this is an alliance, not a wedding. Ruthar makes the mistake of joining in with a quip about godless decency. *Sometimes,* Jasnah tells him, *an intelligent dissenting voice tests a theory. I do wish you'd work harder on the intelligent part.* And that is when Dalinar sees it.

*They aren't going to attack Jah Keved!* He pulls them all back to the map. Alethi and Vedens have spent generations skirmishing that border; the enemy will not wade into a war of attrition while their momentum is still building. They went into Marat — silencing spanreeds nationwide — because Azir was too fortified and Marat is a perfect launching point for Thaylen City. The city that took the worst of the first Everstorm, whose military was crippled by it, that holds an Oathgate. From there the enemy can blockade Jah Keved, Kharbranth and the remnants of Alethkar; threaten Tashikk, Shinovar, the Shattered Plains. *But they'd need ships,* Aladar says. After that first storm, Fen says slowly, *how were there any ships left for them to take?* He calls for three more divisions on the island. Fen's son cuts in: troops alone won't do — an enemy fleet that finds Thaylen City well defended will simply burn Kharbranth or Dumadari or any defenceless coast city. They need their own fleet. The mossy-mouthed Thaylen admiral inventories the wreck of their navy, but Azish sailors of the Thirteenth are already in Jah Keved and Taravangian can muster thirty merchantmen from his healers and Kharbranth. Fen agrees to a combined deployment, then warns him under her breath: her sailors follow the Passions and his refusal to recant may shatter a religion in the middle of a war.

On the way out he passes Taravangian against the wall, wiping tears. *Yes, I am in pain. But it is nothing you can fix. You are a good man, Dalinar Kholin. I did not expect that.* Dalinar flees the praise. He stops on the fourth floor, where lines of supplicants wait for glyphwards, and finds Kadash on a balcony garden where the ardents are trying — and failing — to coax seed paste and shalebark into the high cold air. He apologises, very late, for Rathalas. *I don't think I'm the one you need to apologise to,* Kadash says: those who could bear the apology are in the Tranquiline Halls. Dalinar offers to release the ardents from his service and hand them to the orthodox Taravangian. *No.* They will not abandon their posts because their highprince has been called a heretic; the people in this tower still need them. Kadash pleads with him to release a bland statement giving the church permission to move on and to stop making them all question. *If He is gone, there is only the storm.* That, Dalinar says, is more or less true of any highstorm. He turns to the Stormfather: someone gives the enemy day-to-day orders. *There is one I have been watching,* the Stormfather tells him. *I can see her, when I don't see others.*

In rooms across the tower, Taravangian feels old. Mrall guides him through the strata-lined halls. Inside, Adrotagia is at the centre of six scribbling spanreeds, trading information like a merchant. Today is a stupid day. She reports: Moelach has settled in the Horneater Peaks and Joshor is on his way to recover the Death Rattles; the storm-blown wreck of Graves' wagon has surfaced with an intact spanreed. *Graves is replaceable* — the prize will not be won by force of arms. Maben brings him boiled ingo tea with mint. The smell of Kharbranth hurts him; he has finally noticed that he will not live long enough to go home.

Malata arrives complaining the tower is full of frozen idiots. She peels off her safehand glove, slaps it onto the table — Stormlight rising — and burns a masterwork of swirls into the wood with the Surge of Division. The lines that work on wood also work on people. Spark is content with the work, she says: the rest of the spren idiotically assume they will all stand with the Radiants again, but Spark remembers what organised devotion to Honor did to the ashspren. She is game for anything that gets vengeance and lets her break things. *What we do is not fun,* Taravangian tells her. *It is necessary, but it is horrible.* He warns Adrotagia that his fondness for the Blackthorn will cloud his mind; he wishes he had never gotten to know him. The secrets are almost ready — the Dawnchant translations and the intelligence from Malata's spying — but they need a clean channel. *Assign it to Dova.* An anonymous essay, the Dawnchant passages, both leaked through Tashikk on the same day; every blow to land at once. It would have been a kinder thing, he murmurs, if the assassin in white had killed Dalinar in his palace. *Oh, Dalinar. You poor, poor man.*