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A POV-roving aftermath chapter that closes the Thaylen arc and sets every survivor on a new path. Dalinar is the slot's anchor POV, but the chapter cuts to Kaladin, Taravangian, Shallan, Palona, and Moash in turn.

Kaladin flies west across the Tarat Sea to Alethkar on Stormlight Dalinar only barely managed to overcharge him with, restocked from Kharbranth's royal treasury. Following the scribe's rock-formation sketch, he drops to the coast and finds ten cloaked refugees by a dry-bed cavern marked with the painted symbol of Bridge Four. Drehy and Skar rise to meet him, foreheads dusted in ash to hide their slave tattoos. Syl laughs in delight and lets them see her. Drehy lifts a frightened, ragged little boy from the fire — Elhokar's son, Gavinor. *We protect those who cannot protect themselves.*

Eight days after the battle, Taravangian can't solve the first page of his puzzles. Dukar declares him weak of mind; Adrotagia, Mrall, and Dukar argue about whether the Diagram has been wrong too often. A voice none of the others hear tells him to open his shuttered window. He does — and finds himself in a place of infinite light, molten golden rivers, Odium towering as a Shin-eyed man with a scepter. The god chose this day specifically: *do you think you will ever negotiate with me from a position of power?* The Diagram explodes outward in millions of golden words extrapolating each scribbled line; for one moment Taravangian sees into eternity. A black-blotted region masks one entire future, rooted at a name — Renarin Kholin. Taravangian reads aloud a note from his own smarter past — he must never meet Dalinar again, or Dalinar can force him to fight in the contest of champions. He bargains. Odium will spare only Kharbranth and the humans born to it together with their spouses. As first asset, Taravangian must surrender the Honorblade he has cleverly stolen, then find out what the Alethi have discovered about this tower.

Back at Urithiru, Shallan Stormlight-shapes an illusion of the continent of Roshar filling the generals' room, with Dalinar standing in the mountains and Adolin wrapping her from behind. She paints Iri, Rira, and Babatharnam burning gold for the enemy — and unfortunately Alethkar and Marat the same — and Azir in maroon-and-blue while it negotiates. Dalinar asks her to paint Kholinar from the Stormfather's impressionistic view: occupied streets, Fused coursing overhead, a red-on-black flag. The generals fear losing Tu Bayla would split the coalition in two. Dalinar suspects a traitor inside Urithiru who unlocked the Oathgate for the enemy, and tells Adolin Alethkar needs a king now that the heir Gavinor is too young. Adolin takes his father by the arm and confesses he killed Sadeas in the corridor — broke the Codes, is not sorry, would do it again — and refuses the throne. Shallan tilts her head — *have you boys ever considered…*

In the grand conference room, Palona skims gossip reports while monarchs squabble — Azish envoys warn again of the prophecy that Surgebinders will destroy the world; Natans press for the Shattered Plains Oathgate. She nudges Turi with a Tashikk drawing of the Yezier princess and the Emul prince in Thaylen City, and tracks who is courting whom. The doors slam open. Jasnah Kholin stands in the doorway with a small but unmistakable crown on her head: the Kholin family has chosen its new monarch.

Two weeks of clearing rubble in Kholinar — *kill a god, get back to work*. Three listeners who survived the assault — Khen and two others in warform — pick up picks beside him; they heard something that made them want to be near him. Nine Fused descend in a ring. Leshwi presents a slender, gently curved, largely unornamented Blade: the Honorblade of Jezrien — the sword once carried by the Assassin in White. If Moash takes it, Moash dies; his world is already gone. He takes the hilt. Leshwi names him Vyre, He Who Quiets. He sucks Stormlight from a sphere Khen hands him and Lashes himself up into the sky as Odium's Honorblade Windrunner.

On her wedding day, Shallan is fussed over by royal Alethi makeup artists, throned, and showered with gifts — incense from the Azish emperor, a dried fish from Lift, a rug from Queen Fen, a pair of boots from Kaladin and Bridge Four that finally makes her laugh. Closeted with Pattern before a mirror and her glyphward brazier, she lets Veil and Radiant argue Adolin's merits — and decides *it is all right to be happy.* A knock — and her three brothers stand in the doorway, Balat, Wikim, and Jushu, alive, brought across Jah Keved and through the Oathgate. Balat hands her a note: Mraize congratulates her, forgives part of her Ghostblood debt because she frightened away the Unmade in this tower, and assigns her next mission — find the Unmade willing to break with Odium (Sja-anat) and persuade her to serve the Ghostbloods, or capture her. She burns the note and strides out to her wedding.

Full of wedding food, Dalinar returns to his rooms — the assassin settling outside the door as his only present guard, Rial and the rest of Bridge Thirteen all gone up as Teft's squires. He has been writing for three weeks now under Navani's tutelage. She finds him stuck on how to write *I* — the form she taught him said *I, being female* — and supplies the men's first-person quote form. Tiny pen-marks no one reads aloud modify spoken words; an undertext is never read to a man. He drafts the opening of his book — *The most important words a man can say are, "I will do better." … The most important step a person can take is always the next one.* He takes another page and writes the title: *Oathbringer, My Glory and My Shame. Written by the hand of Dalinar Kholin.* The Blade on the wall above his desk is Oathbringer — won by Rock from Amaram and pressed back into Dalinar's hands as a debt repaid.