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Szeth surprises himself with fondness for the small monastery city on the island — the place he had hated when he first arrived, set in the dark hours between moons. The pain that had once felt absolute now seems a moonless night with stars; what came after stripped even those away. He and Kaladin cross a permanent ice-fed river — *the river does not dry out* — and walk into a town empty of everyone but a single woman sweeping a floor in a merchant's house. *The shadow has passed*, Szeth tells her. *You know of what I speak — the darkness that came from the monastery.* She nods, asks how long it has been (*years*), and tells him the rest of the city was sent at the start to the Bondsmith monastery to muster against him.

Szeth enters the Stoneward monastery — the voices of the dead grow softer here, as if in reverence — and turns right without thinking. He counts the slit-windowed hallway down seven rooms to the bunk that was his as a boy, and kneels by it. Behind a loose block in the wall he finds a small wool sheep he hid as a child. He puts the toy to his forehead and weeps.

Kaladin watches from the doorway and finally understands what Syl has been trying to tell him. *You had a younger brother*, he says. *Why didn't you tell me?* Szeth, hoarse: *I didn't mention this toy in my story to you, did I?* *Kal*, Syl whispers — *can't you see? It's his. He was the child.* Szeth tells him: *eleven. I was eleven.* The angle of the world flips for Kaladin like the first time he stood on the wall of a chasm. He has been trying to understand Szeth by treating him as a version of himself — competent with a spear, conflicted soldier, the kind of man the men of Bridge Four became. Szeth is not that. Szeth is a version of Tien — a child stolen from a peaceful life and turned into a killer against his will. Suddenly Kaladin needs to help him, not because Dalinar asked, but because this is a person in pain.

Szeth has already recovered by the time Kaladin steps back in. The toy is back in its hole; he is pulling on his white raincloak and the bundle of swords. Kaladin follows him into the hallway and tries — carefully, like approaching a timid animal. *Rule one: you're not a thing, you're a person. Rule two: you get to choose. Rule three: you deserve to be happy.* Szeth braces against the wall and lets the bundle of swords slump to the floor. *Why? Give me a single good reason, bridgeman.* Kaladin takes the gamble. *One mother. One father. I don't know if your parents are still alive. But I'll tell you this: they loved you.* He pushes through Szeth's objections — *things you were made to do; I spent years believing my parents would hate me for my failings, and I always knew it was a lie; you know too* — and reaches the question that matters. *What do you, Szeth-son-Neturo, want?*

Szeth trembles, says it. *I want to stop killing. I want to be done with it. I want to cause no more pain.* He hesitates over Kaladin's extended hand, then walks past it into a full hug — a child looking for reassurance from a parent. Syl gives Kaladin a double thumbs-up from behind. *I never want to be forced to take another life. I want to be done.*

He steps back, doubting that he can have what he wants — *I have to cleanse my homeland; I'm too great a weapon to be left alone; someone will find me and use me.* *We'll find a way.* He asks his spren for ideas; Szeth tells him the highspren left that morning, running in shame after his failings in Shadesmar. Kaladin picks up the bundle of swords to spare him the weight. He turns back to see Syl straining to slide the loose brick aside; her bond is strong enough now that she can lift the toy sheep. He pockets it for her — *it's going to get really tiring to carry this a long distance.*

They walk out of the monastery into a thin, clean sunlight that has at last broken through the rain. An imperious figure stands in the courtyard, dark-skinned with a crescent birthmark on his cheek, bald, in a sharp black uniform marked silver, two highspren splitting the air near his head. *Nalan'Elin, Herald of Justice.* *Sir?* Szeth salutes. *I have come to accompany you on your quest*, Nale says, his eyes settling on Kaladin — *as I've been told that you need… minding.* Kaladin meets his gaze and softly curses. Szeth's spren had not gone running in shame. It had gone running for reinforcements.