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Kaladin jolts awake in a small tent, dressed in an antiquated leather skirt and cap beside a boy maybe eleven or twelve. *What do you think, Dem? Should we run?* the boy asks him. Outside is a hillside with stumpweight trees on it — men yelling, men dying — and as the texture of the place settles around him he knows it: a battlefield from his youth, in Amaram's colours. The exhaustion has taken its toll; he is hallucinating, and the surgeon in him worries at that. A young squadleader walks up — no older than seventeen or eighteen — arguing with a shorter soldier that they cannot hold and that the orders to hold come from the highmarshal anyway. The squadleader looks at Kaladin and tells *the kid* that talk like that could get him strung up, then orders the messenger boys forward to grab spears and stand in the front line. *Work with what you have.*

The phrase staggers Kaladin. He knows the squadleader's face. He knows this hillside. He spins on his heel, and there — open-faced, too much spring in his step — comes Tien to volunteer to go with the boys. *They would have been alone,* his brother tells him gently. *They needed someone to help them feel brave.* They were slaughtered, Kaladin says. So were you. *So it was good someone was there, to help them not feel so alone as it happened.* The charge comes up the hillside and everything dissolves except Tien, who wraps his arms around Kaladin and holds him while Kaladin — full grown one instant, a child the next — finally weeps for Teft. *This is wrong,* Kaladin says; *I'm supposed to hold you.* *And you did. As I helped you.* Why do we fight, Tien asks. *I don't know. I've forgotten.* *It's so we can be with each other.*

Tien tells him gently that since everyone goes to the same place in the end, the moments they spent with each other are the only things that do matter. If letting Teft die is a failure but all the times Kaladin supported him are meaningless, no wonder it always hurts; instead, see how lucky they both were to have been able to help each other when they were together. *I'm not strong enough.* *You're strong enough for me.* *I'm not good enough.* *You're good enough for me.* *I wasn't there.* *You are here for me, Kal. You're here for all of us.* And if I fail again? *You can't. So long as you understand.* Tien pulls him tight. *Teft believes in you. The enemy thinks he's won. But I want to see his face when he realises the truth. Don't you?* If he kills us, Tien says, he has simply dropped us off at a place we were going anyway — sad, yes; but he cannot take our moments, our Connection, and those are what really matter. Kaladin asks whether it is real, whether Tien is real, or whether this is something made by the Stormfather or Wit or someone else. Tien smiles and presses a small wooden horse into his hand. *Try to keep track of him this time, Kal. I worked hard on that.*

Then Kaladin drops, the horse evaporating, into the endless blackness. He searches for Syl: pinpricks of light weave around him, but those aren't her. *SYL!* And one of them is. He reaches in, seizes her hand and pulls her to him — physical in this place and his own size — and she clings to him. *I've forgotten the Words. I'm supposed to help you, but I can't…* *You are helping,* Kaladin says, *by being here.* He closes his eyes, feels the storm as they break through the moment between and re-enter the real world. *Besides,* he whispers, *I know the Words. I have always known these Words.* *Say it, lad! Do it!* Tien whispers. *I accept it, Stormfather! I accept that there will be those I cannot protect!* The storm rumbles. He feels warmth surround him; Light infuses him; Syl gasps. And a familiar voice — not the Stormfather's — answers: *THESE WORDS ARE ACCEPTED.* *We couldn't save Teft, Syl,* Kaladin whispers. *We couldn't save Tien. But we can save my father.* When he opens his eyes, the sky explodes with a thousand pure lights.