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Leading Kaladin up toward the Skybreaker monastery, Szeth crosses brown rolling highlands carpeted in scrub grass that Kaladin still investigates with childlike interest. *It doesn't move when you touch it, but it looks like it's hiding from the wind.* Syl drops down as a ribbon and tells Kaladin the world is *holding its breath.* Szeth tells him plainly he has decided to fight and kill despite his preferences; the duty he bears is too great. Kaladin nods. *I'm sorry. What can I do to help?* *I cannot be persuaded.* *I gathered that from your voice. Can I help?*

Kaladin tells him about his own version of the problem — that the longer he stayed a soldier, the more he saw *there can always be more them*; that he had to draw lines, and then, more painfully, step up and become one of the people who made the decisions if he wanted the killing to stop. Half-wry, he notes this might be why Dalinar had been trying to make him a lighteyes. Szeth stops on the path. *Kaladin. Tell me what to do at the next monastery. Should I fight or refuse? I will do as you say.* Kaladin smiles and shakes his head. *Not going to happen.* He is here not to make him do anything specific but to help him be *healthy* in his choice. The honesty lands on Szeth like nothing has in years. The last person who refused to give him orders was the Farmer in his childhood. The road that has been a road toward doom suddenly looks like a road forward. He remembers one of Kaladin's old lines: *don't expect to heal quickly.* He had been listening more than he assumed.

Then the monastery itself comes into view, and both of them know something is wrong. Fallen roofs, broken doors, walls left standing alone. They lift and circle. *Happened a while ago,* Kaladin says — burned, but no smell. Raided and abandoned. Movement in the rubble: not entirely abandoned. *The darkness covers this place,* Kaladin says. *I had hoped it would be different,* Szeth answers. *Why?* Syl asks. *Because we know this Honorbearer.*

They land before the monastery's heavy wooden gates and slip in between them. Inside the broken grand entryway, in his black uniform with his Blade planted point-first into the stone, Nin-son-God is already waiting — unchanged since the night before. Szeth hands his swords to Kaladin and walks forward into the light streaming through the broken roof. *Sir? What happened here?* *There are those who seek to prevent what is coming. What you will become.* Szeth asks if this challenge is like the others. *No. You would not survive a fight against me. So in this challenge, I simply command you to accept your place. The next monastery is the last, where you will be tested to your fullest. I demand your word that you will obey me, and do exactly as I tell you, once we reach it.* The easiest test Szeth has ever been set; he has always obeyed his masters. He opens his mouth. *No,* comes out instead.

The whispers in the room quiet, shocked. *Szeth, I require this.* *Tell me what you will make me do. I cannot judge if I do not know the cost.* Nale glides closer. *You never needed this before.* *I am not a thing,* Szeth says — quietly, then louder. *I'm not a rock to be handed between people. I'm a person. You ask me to be a Herald. A demigod. Yet you want me to do as I'm told? I was broken before. I was ripped away from my perfect life and beaten into a weapon. I can't be what you want unless I know what it will cost me. I get to choose what I'm walking toward instead.*

*So be it,* Nale says. He raises his sword. He warns Szeth he is very likely to kill him; even if Szeth kills him first, *I will be reborn — our immortality was sealed through ancient arts related to, but not dependent upon, the Oathpact.* He steps to the ground for purchase and lunges. Szeth drops his Blade — and a spear intercepts the cut with a clang. Kaladin is at his side. *Szeth, do you want my help?* *Yes, please. Nin — this is my champion. He defeated me. He can defeat you.* Nale raises his sword in a formal posture and accepts. *I will be your death, Stormblessed.* Kaladin presses for *more fair.* He will fight without Stormlight; will Nale? Nale tosses Szeth three pouches of spheres; Kaladin tosses him his own and infuses a rock with the last of his Light, sending it sailing into the sky. *Windrunners,* Nale says — almost a curse — *still, I commend you for your sacrifice.* He empties his own Light onto the floor. Sword against spear. *On your mark.* Kaladin raises the spear and gives the mental order that brings his armour to alert. *Go.*

Across the world, Jasnah meets Fen at the agreed time in the small temple Dalinar had restored in Thaylen City. She has spent the night drawing exhaustionspren. She and Fen have compared notes — both visited by Odium, both invited here for a *debate* over whether Thaylenah will join his empire — and she has gone to Wit by spanreed. He has confirmed it: Taravangian taking up Odium explains the deity's odd behaviour. *Rayse always assumed he was invincible. The power has been seeking someone more aligned to its interests.* He does not know Taravangian well enough to anticipate him. *Take care. He will no longer be the man you knew.*

Jasnah lays out books and notes. Fen paces and asks whether he will actually show. *Taravangian is a philosopher,* Jasnah says. *He will welcome the chance to prove himself in a debate.* Fen is intrigued — a conversation might stall them past the deadline. Jasnah rehearses appeals to Thaylen pride and a dossier of Odium's historical methods of rule. Then suddenly it feels foolish. Of *course* the Thaylens will not bend to the enemy — they spent the founding of the coalition worrying her uncle would dominate them. Why is she anxious?

The doorway darkens. The dark coalesces into Taravangian in orange and gold robes, gold walking stick, wispy beard. He sits on a stool of his own smoke and asks Fen to dismiss her guards. He gives them a *promise bound by deific powers* — no tricks, no attacks on the city, during their conversation — and apologises through Jasnah that he had to alter Wit's memories, because Wit had spotted him almost at once. They pull up chairs in the manner Dalinar always insists upon, and the stools melt back to smoke. *How is this going to proceed?* Fen asks. *You make an argument, and Jasnah counters?* *Actually,* he says, smiling, *I believe Jasnah is going to make my argument for me. You, Jasnah, are the reason Fen will decide to join my empire.* He smiles more broadly. *Thank you for your service all these years. Now, let us begin.*