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The peace Kaladin found on the hillside evaporates as the party climbs toward the Dustbringer monastery. It does not matter to him whether Szeth fights one more Honorbearer or refuses; what matters is that he is being asked to kill without the full story. They wind up a switchback into highlands on the border between Shinovar and the eastern lands, Syl flying on ahead. The view is spectacular — verdant lakes and rivers, mountains in the distance, the river of spren still faintly visible in daylight overhead. Nale tells Szeth this land is a fragment of the old world they came from, its laws as deep as the bones of his ancestors. *Because laws are old, they're good?* Kaladin asks. *My elders were shockingly keen on slavery.*

Logic does not work on Nale, and Kaladin knows it. He changes tack. He asks Nale to tell him about the best of the early days, the way Adolin used to just *listen.* Nale takes the bait warily, walks them toward the trees, and for a long stride is talking — the early war with the singers, Odium persuading some that humans had to be exterminated and executing the singers who refused, centuries of training the unwilling for slaughter. Then he stops mid-step. *I stopped them,* he whispers. *I stood between darkness and life, and I was the light.* For a moment he is back there, head cocked, remembering. Kaladin asks how it felt. *Painful. But glorious. I wasn't always so harsh.* Then Nale waves it off — *I was flawed then. I have learned and grown this last year* — and shuts the conversation down. Kaladin sees what he should have done — listen, not push — and at least now believes reaching him is about reminding him of who he was, not arguing with what he has become.

*It doesn't matter anyway,* Szeth says quietly from behind. *The past is dead. There is an Unmade here.* Nale nods and confers the legal frame: Szeth-son-Neturo is *Truthed*, a bearer of his people's history and oaths; an Unmade has no jurisdiction in Shinovar; the six Honorblades he carries are no longer anchored to any Herald since Jezrien's death and are properly his. They reach a small walled town nestled among strange cone-shaped trees with spiky leaves, and Kaladin sees the signs at once — furtive windows, doors shaking with listeners, an unsettled air. The place is corrupted; the Honorbearer here is holding an Unmade. For a moment Kaladin doubts the whole project of urging Szeth to stop. He reaffirms the principle. Every soldier should be allowed to put down the spear and pay the cost.

In the chasms of the Shattered Plains, Venli leads her listeners and Leshwi's rebel Heavenly Ones inward toward the central plateaus. Above them, the battle of Narak continues in shouts and the lightning-thunder of the Everstorm. Corpses float past — Fused, Radiants, the best of Roshar murdering one another again. The chasmfiends want to eat the dead and only refrain because Venli asks; they make do with fallen chulls. The Five confer in the water. The tone calling her is louder, just ahead, beneath the heart of Narak itself.

Venli is afraid. She remembers playing into Odium's hands before and not being deceived. *Do you reject him?* Bila asks. *Yes.* *Then he cannot control you.* Kivor is less certain — Eshonai had not gone willingly to him either — and insists the Five vote. Leshwi arrives from the shadows and breaks in: *whatever you are hearing has been sent for a purpose.* Mid-sentence her eyes glow red and she falters, then shakes it off — Odium has just offered his power to every Fused on the battlefield. *I should be held to a higher standard,* she says, ashamed. *Think of yourself as young again,* Venli tells her gently. *Right now what matters is whether your nature will give us away.* Leshwi offers to hold the rebel Heavenly Ones back. The Five vote unanimous: continue.

The fifteen listeners creep onto the central plateau itself. The watchposts overhead are tattered. Venli peeks into Shadesmar and sees only beads — no Fused nearby, the fighting above showing as distant flames. The tone is below the beads. Below the ground. She crouches in the flowing water and presses her hand to the chasm wall. *You are nearly here,* the stones tell her. She draws Stormlight and Soulcasts the rock into a sheltered alcove, and from it down into a tunnel deep into the earth. Light shines at the far end. Thude tells the nine others to hold the entrance and only the Five descend, humming to Determination.

Across the world in Thaylen City, Jasnah has won a compromise with Fen: the Radiants go to support Sigzil on the Shattered Plains through the Oathgate, while Fen keeps her conventional army at home. She watches the platform flash empty as the last batch transfers and considers the wobbling joints of the coalition. Too few troops at Azimir; Emul and Tashikk turning on the Alethi relief column — the final shattering of the Azish Empire. Adolin is fighting low and isolated. The Crzmak Stability, she thinks, walking unaccompanied through the city to the old temple. Without the Shattered Plains Urithiru loses its farms; without Urithiru autonomy Fen's good will is the only supply line and merchant councils outlive queens. She sets Ivory secretly listening to Fen's report to the Thaylen Council and sits down at her own desk to project the Plains.

The clouds darken the windows — except the clouds, when she looks up, are not clouds. A black mist with a golden core tinged red at the edges billows forward like an Everstorm front. *I had hoped you wouldn't realise the ships were empty,* a soft voice says from within. Jasnah freezes. Fearspren wiggle at her feet. *Odium. You cannot touch me. Not without violating your pact.* She summons her armour. *Wit has explained well, I see,* the voice replies. *Do not fear. I'm here to compliment you. I was worried you might see through my ruse with the ships.* The mist coalesces. Into Taravangian. *Thaylen City will fall by tomorrow evening,* the figure says, *and I've come to see to it personally.*