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Sigzil kneels in the middle of a broken plateau, holding his squire Deti as the boy bleeds out. The enemy has poured through the gap left by a dead thunderclast, direform Regals and Heavenly Ones driving the Windrunner line back. Sigzil's spheres are dry; he has no Light to give. Deti gasps out a Death Rattle — *the Night of Sorrows comes* — and dies. Sigzil takes a fallen Heavenly One's Voidlight-draining lance and rages into the nearest Regals until Vienta talks him out of it: *you are in command; you cannot afford rage.*

He breaks through to a knot of his soldiers — two Edgedancers among them who could have saved Deti had they known — and pulls the line back behind a Stoneward-built rampart. General Winn joins him, and at Sigzil's order calls the retreat. With his last drops of Light Sigzil lifts above the bastion so his men can see him fly, and they hold long enough for the Edgedancers to sweep the fallen and carry the survivors off. The Stormwall and the Shardbearers cover the bridgehead, the Stonewards drop the bridge, and Narak Four is lost. Vienta tells him the enemy is celebrating; his plan worked. He cannot feel it.

Standing among his rallied men, Sigzil feels what Kaladin must have felt at every loss — that treasonous powerlessness that almost broke his captain. He resists running through what he should have done differently in training, in formation, in the air; he forces himself instead to praise the living, to credit the troops for the discipline that made the retreat work. The generals are already turning to the next problem, drawing Odium's attention toward Narak Three, the only other plateau they can afford to lose. He has ideas. He files them.

Skar and Leyten land, already aware of Deti's body from a pass over the plateau. Sigzil tells them the dying boy spoke a Rattle: Moelach is somewhere near, and likely not alone, and warns them to pass the word to the squires. He admits he is fighting not to blame himself, and they admit they know the feeling. *Storms,* Leyten tells him, *Sig, you really sound like a leader.* Sigzil blames Kaladin — wryly, fondly — for whatever he is becoming. Leyten promises that the moment Moash shows his face on this battlefield, Sigzil will hear of it first.

Far away in the Spiritual Realm, Shallan climbs Renarin's scaffold for the third time. Glys and Tumi have built a wooden framework around a cloudy glass pillar, modelled on a monastery Renarin remembers from his youth, that lets her team peek into the vision Dalinar and Navani are walking without entering it. They have watched Desolation after Desolation roll past, Dalinar skipping over Nohadon and the founding of the Knights Radiant in pursuit of the Recreance — still no Mraize, no Iyatil. Today's battle is in a greener Shinovar than the one Szeth left behind, and through a clear panel Shallan watches Windrunners dive across a shield wall of bronze-armed humans.

Rlain and Renarin read the field with her. The humans are at last holding continuity across Desolations — drilled infantry, then Knights Radiant kept *as watchers at the rim* between Returns. Rlain will not let Shallan keep her side's tidy framing. Humans broke promises and invaded; the Fused were created to stop the incursion; each side hardened, learning the other's tricks. He decries the bloodshed without blaming the singers of those days for the war. Renarin reminds him that his father is trying to end this one with peace; Rlain grieves that no peace Dalinar can offer reaches his people — they are still abandoned to the enemy god.

Glys shifts the window to a hilltop. Shallan finds Dalinar and Navani watching from another rise, two Heralds cresting nearby — among them a red-haired woman walking beside Jezrien the king. Veil insists she look. Radiant notes the implications are daunting. Shallan forces herself to turn away, points to a darkened patch on the grass — and Renarin tells her that is Ba-Ado-Mishram herself, *not the real one — a historical reconstruction in the vision.* They have never caught sight of her before.

Shallan decides to go in. Renarin reminds her of their rule — only illusions; stay outside — but Rlain sides with her, hums a rhythm under his breath, and tells Renarin to send her. *Wave if something is wrong, and we'll pull you out.* An eyeblink later, Shallan is gone.