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Dalinar walks the grounds of Elhokar's raised field palace at dusk with Navani at his side. They move slowly past hedges of cremgrass and lifespren-haunted shaped stone, and she asks him — gently, but plainly — why he keeps stepping toward her and then stepping away. He doesn't have a good answer, and admits as much. She tells him he is the most decided man she has ever known, except about this. He laughs once, quietly, and concedes that perhaps she has been getting through to him after all.

A messenger interrupts: word has come from Sadeas. The plateau watch has confirmed a long-baked Parshendi gemheart on the Tower — the formation no Alethi highprince has ever successfully claimed because of how the chasm wraps it. Sadeas cannot wait. He wants Dalinar to bring his army out tomorrow and assault the Tower with him, together. He offers, in writing, to lead his own bridges in first if Dalinar still fears bridgeman losses; he will take the danger, if Dalinar will commit to the joint attack.

Dalinar turns the letter over once in his hand and looks at Adolin, who has come up at the end of the conversation. *Send messengers to mobilise the Fourth through Eighth Divisions*, he says. *Prepare the men to march. Let's end this war.* Adolin — who has spent the whole book arguing exactly this — pauses for a heartbeat as if he expected more resistance, then bows and leaves to give the order. Navani watches the messenger go and says nothing; her hand brushes Dalinar's, briefly, and stays there.