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Dalinar arrives at the Prime's borrowed warcamp home in Emul and finds it transformed into an Azish maze of bronze, plush furniture, tapestries, and a battalion of servants in vivid patterns. He has to thread sideways through couches to reach the inner room. He notes, dryly, that the clutter would also slow an assassin — appropriate, given that Szeth killed the previous two Primes. In the next chamber young Yanagawn sits alone at a long table covered in candelabras and platters, picking primly at fruit with a skewer while a rank of camp followers — washwomen, wheelwrights, Reshi chull keepers, seamstresses — stands ranked along the wall watching him eat. Jasnah is already there. After each onlooker is given a bronze plate and bows out, the servants seat Dalinar and Jasnah at the Prime's own height — a courtesy Yanagawn himself insisted on.

The Prime removes his headdress (to Noura's mild disapproval) and asks Jasnah to be blunt. She is. Recovering Urithiru is, in her assessment, nearly impossible: fabrials fail near the tower, so a re-creation of Navani's flying machine would simply drop out of the sky; the caverns have been blocked off and Dalinar's probe down below revealed to the enemy that the spanreed ruse is up; an unbound Shardblade could cut through the rubble at the base but the force doing it would be exposed to archers; a march along the peaks is impossible; and even if they reached the tower their entire battlefield doctrine — Radiant against Fused, Shardbearer against Regal — collapses inside the suppression. Dalinar presses back: Kaladin's powers still function inside, and the Stormfather thinks it is because he is far enough into his oaths. Jasnah notes that one man is one man — and that Dalinar relieved this one of duty before they left.

Dalinar proposes a Shadesmar assault — delivering a force to the tower and opening a perpendicularity to surprise the enemy — but the Stormfather is not yet sure he can manage such a working, and Jasnah points out they have neither the ships nor the way to get them. Yanagawn, chewing nuts hidden in his oversized robes, accuses Jasnah of arguing against every option; Noura insists they cannot simply surrender Urithiru, since it was the means of knitting their disparate forces together. Jasnah counters that with a stronger navy, air support, and spanreeds, the southern half of Roshar can be coordinated even without the tower — but they should at minimum move now against Ishar's forces in Tukar and support southern Alethkar against the Vedens. Dalinar hears in her efficiency the same surrender he condemned in Taravangian — give up quickly once you think you are beaten — and tells her so. They argue about hope. Jasnah dislikes the word: it is irrational, often a refuge for those who refuse to accept reality. Yanagawn answers that without hope they are not human. She lets the argument go.

Dalinar then lays out his real plan. The hammer-and-anvil push through Emul was supposed to crush the enemy against Ishar's army — the figure the Azish call Tashi. Scouts and a Lightweaving from Wit confirm the man himself is there. Ash indicates Ishar may have come through the Heralds' collapse with less damage than the others; she trusts him. The Stormfather agrees Ishar's mastery of the Bondsmithing art is their best chance of restoring the Oathpact and of rescuing Urithiru. Dalinar will travel personally, under flag of parley, with Szeth as guard. Noura suggests capturing the Herald instead; Yanagawn is baffled that a king would go in person. Jasnah blames Alethi conditioning. Dalinar explains he has put the Mink in command of the military so he can step away to spiritual matters; meanwhile Jasnah and Wit are drafting a contract to present to Odium once they can push him to speak again. Jasnah takes over to walk the monarchs through the contract; Dalinar mostly lets her work. As the meeting ends, Yanagawn asks after Lift — they left her at the tower — and asks for any word.

Outside, Szeth hands Dalinar the large, intimidating manuscript — Oathbringer — written in his own thick, deliberate lines. He presents it to Jasnah: not finished, but his portion is done; this is the original, with scribal copies already made of his last revisions. He warns her she will find much of it religious drivel. She refuses the framing — ideas are not useless because they are religious — and accepts the book proudly. They speak about hope, and about whether she has pushed too hard to establish herself as a battlefield commander. Dalinar tells her they are revealing a new world, and they will be forgiven their stumbles. Then he asks her to write the undertext for Oathbringer — openly, to be read by anyone — continuing the long, quiet tradition of women's commentaries placed beneath dictated men's words, but doing so in public. Jasnah hesitates: that custom is questionable, and an atheist's commentary on a religious text will not help its reception; perhaps Navani should do it. Dalinar considered it, but his oath is to unite rather than divide, and that means not giving the book only to those who already agree with him. If an avowed atheist and a man founding a religion can work together, who can call any other gulf too wide to cross? Jasnah warns she will be thorough, point out his fallacies and confirmation biases, take years, and may undermine his entire argument — but she will be respectful. She calls it among the greatest honors ever offered her. Dalinar thanks her: in her additions, he hopes, they will make something larger than he could alone.