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Renarin stands frozen as the entire tent waits for him to answer Jezrien in Vedel's voice. He thinks back on a life of saying the wrong thing — or saying nothing — and accepting odd looks rather than offence. Today silence will out him; silence will get Shallan killed. Then Glys reaches him from outside the vision: *now that you're inside, yes — I can see what happened in the original event. Say this.* Renarin relays the script. *Yes, we presented Ishar's plan to him, and he listened. All is ready — as am I.* For once in his life he is handed the correct answer in advance, and it feels, briefly, the way he imagines his father feels every day.

Glys worries — *is this what you want, to always give answers expected?* — but Renarin is growing to respect who he is rather than who he thought he should be, and he loves the people he disappoints. Then Gav, wearing some unimportant bystander, asks the gathered Heralds why everyone is so sad and whether they could play chasmfiends instead. *He's gone off-script*, Glys tells him. *Yes — that's how we can tell. The real members know what to say; the intruders won't.* Renarin passes the trick to Rlain across the tent.

The vision adapts. Jezrien explains *Vedel*'s sadness — her entire nation did not make the transition with her, and burned. Vedel (still Renarin in her body) whispers *so I left them. To burn.* The room steadies. Then Tanavast arrives in a flash of light beside her, regal in golden clothing from another age, white-haired, dark-skinned, far too fine for these tents. Dalinar, standing as Kalak, silently prays for the Blade he means to use as his anchor.

Out on the Shattered Plains, Sigzil rolls dazed through rain as the thunderclast Kai-garnis punches the wall of Narak Four inward — her feet braced across the chasm, sinking under the Stonewards working the rock beneath them. He flies in and slams a spear through her glowing eye; she stills. Magnified Ones use her corpse as a bridge. He calls a hold, refuses Kushkam's urge to retreat (it is only day five), and stands his line. Then he meets the new Fused for the first time properly — a Focused One crushes an Edgedancer's skull and turns toward him. He cannot pierce its skin with an ordinary thrust; Hoid's warning was right. A second Focused One crushes a fully armoured soldier's head with a single grip — the wraps around its forearm unspooling like rope as it releases its tension. Vienta whispers numbers. *Four Lashings at three hundred feet.* He gains distance, dives, and drives a Shardspear through chest and out the back. The body inflates and bursts. *They can be killed!* The line rallies.

A rope-rig of Windrunners drops four Shardbearers and then Dami — *the Stormwall*, the Riran Stoneward who said his Fourth Ideal after Emul — into the breach: a bulkier suit of Plate than Sigzil has ever seen, glowing golden orange at every joint, spiked tower shield instead of a Blade, ribbons spiralling out from his wrists into blade-instruments around his fists. He hands Dami the ground and Skar the sky and slips away to answer the *something is happening* warning ticking on his bracer from Leyten.

In the dome at Azimir, Adolin charges into his own Plate for speed, takes Kushkam's coded warning (*Cast the Banner?*) and answers *Arms Aloft*, then trots into the line behind Hmask and a fresh honor guard. He wades from weak spot to weak spot, sweeping with his Shardhammer, swapping ranks to rest. Two hours in, the enemy throws everything — direforms, stormforms, conventional troops — at his flank. He realises mid-fight that it is a feint: the real attack is on the Azish Shardbearer Neziham on the far side of the dome, who is down with aluminum-banded shields against his Blade.

Adolin makes a snap decision. He does not retreat. He charges *through* the central Fused fortification — bashes in the bronze door, throws his bent Shardhammer through a knot of singers, crushes skulls with his fists, beats one direform to death and uses the corpse as a swinging weapon to break the rest. The enemy breaks and runs. He reaches Neziham in time. Abidi the Monarch watches him fight, then names him Radiant — he sees Notum's honorspren influence flickering nearby — *I know you, Kholin. The blood of Radiants quiets the voices in my head. I will bathe in yours.* Adolin raises metal fists; Abidi judges himself surrounded and retreats. Adolin turns to find Hmask grinning at his back, having followed him into the fortification.