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Bleeding from Moash's thrown knife, Navani manages a few steps before going light-headed and stumbles into a wall — smearing blood across a mural of a comet-shaped spren — to keep from falling. Behind her, Moash walks unhurried, the assassin's Blade in hand cutting a small line in the floor, telling her her son died begging him for his life. Then he stops: Raboniel has latched onto his boot. Crawling up his body, she stabs him repeatedly with the dagger Navani left in her chest — reversed, draining his Stormlight — buying Navani time. Navani forces herself forward into the pillar chamber and falls against the crystal pillar, whispering for the Sibling. Instead of the whimpering she has heard for days, a tone — both harmonious and discordant at once. The Rhythm of War.

Far away, Dalinar is flying Lashed by Lyn on his way to find the Herald Ishar. He feels a distant rumbling, and the Stormfather appears beside him, a rare presence in the air. Something is wrong. *The Son of Tanavast has entered the storm for the last time.* Not escape, the Stormfather says — something far worse. Dalinar asks to be shown.

Kaladin falls. The wind whips at him — just rags for a person. *I've forgotten the Words, Kaladin,* Syl weeps, her fingers somehow gripping his as they tumble. He could not save Teft. He could not save his father. He could not save himself. He had ground his soul paper-thin and failed anyway; those, he tells the angry winds, are the only true Words. *I'm not strong enough.* He closes his eyes and lets go of her hand. Inside the storm, Dalinar watches him tumble — no Stormlight, eyes closed, the bearing of a man who has given up. He asks the Stormfather to do the trick of slowing time the way he does between the moments when Dalinar infuses spheres. *Briefly,* the Stormfather warns. *Do it,* Dalinar says.

Back in the atrium Venli hums to Agony as the slaughter begins — not of the Radiants yet, but of the civilians. As the Pursuer's soldiers turn on the infirmary, the watching humans go insane: a gruff one-armed man leads unarmed people into the warforms' path, flooding the floor between weapons and door with their own bodies. Leshwi tells Venli she would need Raboniel's authority to countermand — the Pursuer holds command of law in the tower — and that something happened in the night: Raboniel had one of the Radiants brought up, then said she needed no further tests; the rest are now a liability. *Can't we be better?* Venli begs to Disappointment, and again uses one of the wrong rhythms. She spots Rothan and Malal among Leshwi's soldiers, hesitating to join the killing. *Showhershowhershowher.* Venli braces herself, draws Stormlight from the spheres in her pocket, and lets herself glow. Leshwi hums to Destruction and seizes her face. *What have you done?*

Kaladin enters the place between moments — the same one where he met the Stormfather the first horrible night he was strung up in the storm. *WHY WON'T YOU SAY THE WORDS?* the Stormfather asks. *I've forgotten them,* Kaladin whispers. *YOU HAVE NOT.* Can he lie to swear an Ideal, Kaladin asks; will the Words mean anything if he doesn't feel them. Silence. He says the enemy wants him the way he wanted Moash — that if he keeps pushing, he'll have him, so Kaladin has to go. *THAT IS A LIE,* the Stormfather thunders. *IT IS HIS ULTIMATE LIE, SON OF HONOR. THE LIE THAT SAYS YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. THE LIE THAT THERE IS NO MORE JOURNEY WORTH TAKING.* A small part of Kaladin that cannot lie to itself knows it is true. He asks what if he is too tired, what if that is why he cannot say the Words. *YOU WOULD CONSIGN MY DAUGHTER TO MISERY AGAIN?* He grits his teeth and tries to fight up through the nothingness, the inability to think, the raw agony of Teft's loss — then sinks. *Too weak.* There simply is not anything left for him to give.

*It's not enough,* Dalinar tells the Stormfather in the endless darkness; he can feel Kaladin and his spren, and storms, they hurt. *We need to give them more time.* *We cannot,* the Stormfather says, refusing to be pushed again. *Respect his frailty.* Dalinar presses through the infinity — full of Stormlight in a place where it does not matter, a place where all things Connect, beyond Shadesmar, beyond time — and finds a warmth the Stormfather cannot feel. *This place is where you make the visions happen, isn't it?* he asks. *Time sometimes moved oddly in those.* It is, the Stormfather answers, but a vision requires Connection, a meaning, a reason. *GOOD,* Dalinar says, and forges a bond. *What are you doing?* the Stormfather rumbles. *CONNECTING HIM. UNITING HIM.* With what?