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Kaladin kneels over Teft's body in the atrium, and the careful facade he had built to let himself fight comes apart. Syl lands on his shoulder with her arms wrapped around herself, saying nothing — what is there to say. It is over. He had promised himself, long ago, that he would try one final time to save the men of Bridge Four, and he has failed. Teft had been so vibrant, so sturdy, had finally claimed his Radiance — and had depended on Kaladin the way Tien had, the way so many others had. Numbness claims him. *Kaladin Stormblessed never existed. He always was a lie.* This time Adolin is not there to force him to keep walking; he is given exactly what he deserves — nothing, and nothingness.

Down in the basement Navani freezes as her painrial fells Raboniel in the hallway. She drags herself forward through her own collapsed legs and plunges the anti-Voidlight dagger into the Fused's chest, smelling burned flesh, holding her weight on the hilt until the device runs dry. When she turns back Raboniel's eyes are still quivering — not glassy like her daughter's were. The dose was too small; the Fused's soul is dying slowly. Raboniel pulls the dagger out herself and tells Navani she was tricked well — *live as long as I and you can appreciate anything that still surprises you*. She tells her to take the notebook and run. The original is being carried to Kholinar along with the vacuum chamber and the metal plates; what Navani holds is a copy. As Navani realises that a way to kill Fused permanently — paired with a way to kill spren — could end the war on either side's terms, Raboniel confirms it. She wanted the singers to win, but ending the forever-war is better than continuing it. Then a throwing knife slams into Navani's side beside her right breast. At the far end of the hallway, a figure in a black uniform walks slowly forward with the assassin's Blade in his hand. Moash has returned. *Highmarshal Kaladin is dead.*

In the atrium, Venli watches the human kneel motionless for minutes, and watches the Heavenly Ones descend to the floor one by one in silent vigil for an enemy. Timbre presses her to *show her* — show Leshwi what she has become — but Venli cannot. The Pursuer breaks the silence in disgust, shoves Lirin into Leshwi's hands and explodes across the atrium in a ribbon of light. He appears above the kneeling Kaladin with a sharpened carapace spur and stabs. Kaladin looks up, lets loose a howl that seems to vibrate with a hundred discordant rhythms, and is on him — twisting behind, finding a knife somewhere on his person, moving so fast Venli cannot track him. The Pursuer ejects twice in panic, and when Kaladin turns his eyes are glowing yellowish-red. The Pursuer screams at his soldiers to attack, but they shy from those eyes. He meets Kaladin alone at the great window. Kaladin folds into his grasp, slams them both into the glass, and steps back leaving the Pursuer stuck there — then Lashes the floor and pulls the creature's head free of his body with a crunch. Leshwi steps out to acknowledge him; Kaladin shoves her aside and stalks past Venli toward the Heavenly One holding his father. She panics and flees into the air with Lirin; Kaladin launches after her using Navani's fabrial. With the Pursuer dead a second time to the same man, his soldiers turn toward the infirmary to finish off the invalid Radiants — they cannot kill Stormblessed, but they can kill those.

Kaladin can barely see straight. He has only a vague memory of killing the Pursuer. Syl streaks ahead of him up the lift shafts to the highest tier. He activates a second weight in flight, vaults the railing and deactivates the device in one motion, and breaks the Heavenly One who tries to bar his path. Another blocks the stairwell to the roof; he slams Navani's gauntlet to the creature's chest and locks it, sending him spinning up through the stairwell and off into the sky. *Kaladin … I've forgotten … the Words…* Syl's voice, faint, zipping around him. He bursts onto the top of the tower with the storm spread out below the pinnacle like a dark ocean. The last Heavenly One backs away with Lirin, shouting something he cannot understand, and in a panic throws his father out into the blackness. Kaladin scrambles to the edge and looks down — and suddenly knows why he climbed this high. He has stood on this ledge before, long ago, in the rain. This time he jumped.