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Shallan spots the Azimir Oathgate platform breaking through the bead ocean — two towering spren, one coal black and one bone white, over a disc of stone with Azish guards holding lanterns. Adolin and Gallant come down under Shiosak's guidance and the Ryshadium *prances* on landing — a thing she has never seen one do. She lands under Drehy's care, her weight settling, beads falling from her clothing and following her across the platform. She kneels and picks one up: it reads as a rooftop, no a cavern, no a goblet — flickering — and then becomes a swirl of colour. Creationspren. Pattern explains that creationspren in Shadesmar try to mimic Physical Realm objects, which here mostly look like beads — and that this is why she kept finding *creationspren* in her satchel during the trip: they have been swarming her since long before she realized. The ones at her feet bounce her name in her mind in eager little voices. It will matter shortly.

Drehy reports a problem: the two giant inkspren that ARE the Oathgate — its working mechanism — have stopped answering. The Azish soldier in charge (sash of intricate colour, no salute because she is not in their chain of command) confirms it. Shallan goes up under Drehy to the black spren's head and sees the mother-of-pearl sheen now common to Sja-anat's touched line, with parts of the face turning a deep blood red like impurities in a gemstone. She has been corrupted; her bone-white companion has too, and is already staring out toward the singer fleet. The black one calls itself ready for freedom — *not Odium, not Honor, free* — having agreed first to bondage, now to liberation. It will transfer Shallan's party now, and the singers when they arrive. Shallan tries empathy, doesn't try persuasion — that task is beyond her — and decides to get the warning to Dalinar, Navani and Jasnah before the spren changes its mind.

They gather, Windrunners touching stone, and the transfer drops them into the small control building inside the Azish defensive dome — and into the warmth and smells of the Physical Realm in the middle of a highstorm. As she breathes it in, a suit of red armor crashes around her out of mist — crumpling her coat, smashing the satchel into her ribs, locking her head in a helmet. The pieces of it speak her name in her mind in the same eager voices. Fourth Ideal armor — the creationspren in her satchel were never just creationspren — earned, she suspects, either when she confronted Veil or when she spoke the Words earlier. Adolin grins like a schoolboy and surrounds in joyspren; Radiant takes over and instructs the new armor by mental image to free her hair and externalize the satchel — the strap promptly snaps and the armor improvises a metal side-holster instead. She dismisses, summons again to practice, watches the Lightweaver glyph emblazoned on the front of the suit. Adolin advises against handshakes, holding things, etc.

The Azish make them vacate the control building and process the paperwork — it is Azir — while the news heads to the emperor by spanreed, and to Dalinar and Navani before Shallan herself will arrive. It is nearly midnight, mid-highstorm. Kaladin enters the tent, Syl follows at human size in her ko-takama uniform, and Adolin cannot help complimenting the hem. Shallan hugs Kaladin (a log, as usual) and then Syl (mostly incorporeal in the Physical Realm, like pushing same-pole magnets together). News exchange: an army is sailing in Shadesmar for Azimir and the Oathgate will let them through. Kaladin is not coming to the battle: Dalinar has him going to Shinovar with Szeth to scout and hunt Ishar the Herald. He shows them a calm, almost optimistic face that Shallan cannot quite parse, and he refuses to be turned around. Adolin reframes the old line — *Honor isn't dead* — as *not so long as he, it, lives on in us*. Kaladin, remarkably, hugs them both. Shallan flatly refuses to say goodbye and pins him to a promise: drinks, jokes, laughter, at the end, the four of them. He gives it.

She summons her Shardblade in the control building — and the weapon is Testament. She freezes through an echo of loss, then meets it. Pattern hums in her coat: two Shardblades in hand. Adolin doubts the value of two-blade forms — Radiant files the *sword and shield* angle for later — and Radiant keys the Oathgate back to Urithiru. The plateau they appear on is wrong: humid, warm, no ear-pop from the altitude. Light pours from the windows up and down the tower — pure, steady, a green-shaded shy of Stormlight. The path to the entry glows from below. The tower has come alive in the days she has been gone. The Windrunners streak off ahead to bring the news to the Bondsmiths and generals while Shallan and Adolin walk, calculating: she needs to gather her Lightweavers and finally move on Mraize.

Back in Azimir, Kaladin watches them cross the dome hand in hand and finds himself — relieved. Syl asks the obvious question; he answers it honestly. There is still some latent ache about being turned down, but he is genuinely glad of them. He imagines himself in Adolin's place and can see how his and Shallan's neuroses would have fed each other. *And what do you need?* she asks. He admits part of the point of this trip is finding out. The Oathgate flashes. He thinks idly that if Dalinar makes him line-of-succession Kholin, Alethi succession law would make him, Adolin, and Renarin brothers. After Tien and Bridge Four, he finds he has more brothers and sisters than he can count.

He and Syl meet Szeth in the waiting room and fly up to skim the top of the highstorm outside Azimir, where their Stormlight renews constantly but the winds are manageable. He drinks in the storm and feels — satisfaction. He tells Syl he is proud of what they helped build and protect, and that he is not worried: they are going to survive this, regardless of what Wit said; they are going to have that drink. He holds out his hand to her; she takes it; and with Szeth trailing, they join the winds and ride west. END OF DAY ONE.