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Dalinar opens the perpendicularity inside the Urithiru cistern chamber: a glowing rift tears reality apart as a pillar of light bursts from his clasped hands, gloryspren exploding around him and a sound like a great river filling the room. The light washes out everything else; power flows through it in a torrent that he can feel is not a violation of natural law but the expression of laws more fundamental than his own. He holds the rift open as one might part drapes at a window. Navani joins him, safehand in his, and reaches with her fingers toward what she calls the tones of Roshar; she has been hearing them for weeks, she says, and they are familiar to her now. Wit coaches them from somewhere in the omnipresent light — step in, let the brightness wash over them, then reach for the Spiritual Realm. Cords of Stormlight trail behind them as tethers back to the Physical Realm, and visions of places and people begin to form from the swirling brightness, winking away in seconds. *It was working.* He grins at Navani. Then, behind them, something snapped.

A floor above and a realm across, Shallan is mid-sentence about Lightweaver disguises when her eyes catch on the three new guards she herself posted outside the Shadesmar cistern: two short, one tall. Veil mutters the answer — when a guard is watching for you, you *become* the guard. Too late: Mraize sees her through the wall and the three Ghostbloods burst the door in their stolen Alethi faces, Mraize already drawing a dagger that warps the air around it. *Protect the spren!* Shallan shouts, and the room becomes chaos — three killers against two Windrunners with their spren, Renarin, Rlain, Radiant, Pattern and Testament.

Iyatil and Lieke go straight for Breteh as the strongest threat. Isasik — the younger one — tries to tackle Iyatil and is opened across the throat in one fluid motion before Radiant can reach him. At that exact instant the perpendicularity opens below; the room thrums, Shallan feels the power surge through her like hot water, and spren outside scrabble at the door. Radiant separates fully from Shallan — armoured in Shardplate given physical weight by Lightweaving — and slams Iyatil into the crystalline floor. Iyatil wrestles free with an expert twist, her stolen face evaporating to reveal the wooden mask beneath, and fixates on Shallan.

Recognising that Iyatil has more than one anti-Light dagger and will use one to kill her and Radiant together, Shallan dances backward — grateful for Adolin's drilling — past where Renarin is healing Isasik's opened neck. Pattern stands with one hand to his chest like a hostess whose garden party has been ruined by rain, Testament hiding behind him. A careening Breteh, in an uncontrolled Lashing, comes barrelling past; Iyatil dodges, Shallan sees her chance, and Radiant tackles the Ghostblood hard enough to knock the warping dagger skidding across the floor. Shallan scoops it up — and takes a blowgun dart through the eye for her smile of triumph.

She illusions herself in three directions, pulls the dart, and stops to take stock. Lieke is dying against the wall, run through by one of the Windrunner honorspren who has unsheathed a light duelling sword and used it with the bearing of an old soldier — Shallan finds herself nodding in appreciation, noting that only Maya and Notum have struck her as warriors among spren before, and reflecting that perhaps it stands to reason others would emerge among the honorspren who left Lasting Integrity to bond. Mraize is pinned to the ceiling, Lashed there by Breteh at some point she missed; as Adolin warned her so many months ago, fights are short and brutal and a year of training comes down to a handful of clashes. They have won.

Except Iyatil is still talking. The three real guards she and Lieke replaced, she announces, are bound at the foot of the Oathgate pillar and will be executed unless they reach them in minutes. Shallan tries to wave it off as a feint, but Mraize confirms it; the two Windrunners tear off through the wall, their spren after them. *Windrunners*, Iyatil says dryly. *So easy to play with.*

Then Shallan looks up. Mraize still has his dagger. *Have you ever seen a perpendicularity collapse on itself, little knife?* he asks, calm as a man recalling a story. *Neither have I. It's reportedly spectacular.* He hurls the anti-Light blade through the centre of the rift. Shallan leaps for it and is too far away. The blast shatters the room.

Below, Dalinar feels the cord back to the Physical Realm sever in a single jerking snap — power, wind and screams come rushing toward him as the Spiritual Realm closes around him and Navani with no way home.