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The wagons roll on. Kaladin sits with his back to the bars while the small the windspren asks him why he does not weep when the other slaves do at night. He has no answer for her. Past noon there is still no slop and the caravan grinds to a halt — Tvlakv and his mercenaries Bluth and Tag are arguing over a map. The slavemaster comes around to ask Kaladin if he knows the country. Kaladin reaches through the bars, snatches the map, and shreds it into confetti.

Tvlakv keeps his temper. He admits to Kaladin that he knows the truth of the deserter brand — that it traces to Amaram — because, he says, slavers talk to slavers. He proposes that they continue to play along with the deserter story for sale: Kaladin gets a livable price, and Tvlakv reaches market alive. Kaladin notes wryly that he could learn to want vengeance after all.

A highstorm passes; Tvlakv shelters in the wagon's belly box while the slaves huddle on the far side of Kaladin's cage. The other slaves whisper of the Stormfather, the Lost Radiants, and the Voidbringers that ride the most violent storms. Kaladin, whose father once tracked storms as a hobby, knows the real danger is rocks and broken branches caught up in the stormwall; he is more afraid that an unlucky boulder will kill Tvlakv and leave them all locked in their cages to die.

The storm passes into its riddens. Bluth drops the wagon sides so the rain can wash the slaves clean — earlier than usual, because Tvlakv wants them presentable. The land is changing too: jagged cliff country, then weathered hills covered with rockbuds split open in greeting and lifespren rising green around the new growth, deep-purple leggers climbing the cart, a strange shrub Kaladin does not recognize. the windspren reports there are people ahead, "many, many." Kaladin smells the smoke before he sees the chimneys.

The wagon crests a hill. Ahead is not a city but an enormous army encampment — ten masses of troops camped in crater-like jagged rock formations, banners flying for a thousand houses. The banner directly ahead is the white sword-and-crown of House Kholin on deep blue. Beyond the camps lies the Shattered Plains itself — broken rock and unending chasms — and the muster for the Vengeance Pact against the Parshendi. Kaladin recognizes, with a bitter laugh, that he has finally come to the place Tien dreamed of reaching, eight months too late and in a cage. The other slaves whisper hopefully of Alethi law, wages, and a chance at justice. Kaladin lets himself hope only for one thing — the chance to hold a spear again.