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Kaladin hears something incongruous as he lies broken on the floor of the Skybreaker monastery — a flute, frail and far, playing the song he has been practising. The Wind is using the only thing she has left, returning his song to him as she once returned it to Cephandrius. Nale hears it too and stops, frowning. *That song again.* The spear could not win this fight; nor could logic. The song, though, has always moved something in him. Kaladin pulls a wooden flute from the heap of his pack and stands, instrument raised instead of a weapon. *There is a story you need to hear. It is the story of the—*

Nale punches him in the gut with inhuman speed and bones crack. The flute falls. Szeth catches him and holds out a pouch of spheres — *this is an execution.* In his pain Kaladin reflexively draws Stormlight, but Nale strides past, pulls every spark of Light from every pouch in the room into himself, and releases it into the air with a puff. *No Stormlight. That was the agreement.* He sets a heel on the wooden flute and crushes it. Without Light the Honorblades grant no Surges, and Nightblood in Szeth's pack would devour them in a breath. Syl does not understand why a flute matters. *Nale knows this song,* Kaladin whispers. *He understands what it means to care for people more than rules. We have to make him remember.*

He reaches out and a flute forms in his hand from Radiant mist — silver, his. The far music swells, halting notes from his own practice overlapping into a chorus, and the Wind teases a single quiet note from the metal in his hand. Nale glances out an arrow-slit. *What army comes to your aid?* Only hills. He decides it must be offworlder magic — *you've been talking to Midius; his illusions are meaningless against one who knows them for the falsehoods they are.* Kaladin sets the flute to his lips and plays the bars cleanly. *This story is about Derethil and the Wandersail.*

Nale's calm cracks and he surges in — but his uncanny speed fails him. He stumbles, and Kaladin retreats over the rubble of the fallen chimney, the Wind almost lifting him. Kaladin tells the tale as he goes: Derethil and his crew set out to cross the great ocean — some said to find the birthplace of the Voidbringers, others to find the Origin itself — and wrecked instead on the island of *Uvala* near a great whirlpool, where a tall people wore shells in their hair and everything appeared so perfect no guards were needed. *Pity,* Kaladin says. *Made-up things have proven to be some of the most real in my life.*

*Why did you become a Herald, Nale?* Kaladin asks. *Can you remember how you felt?* *Emotion can't be trusted!* *Is it your emotions you can't trust, or your mind?* Nale tips back his head: *I used to see clearly … then my mind changed.* Kaladin reads it. *Is that why you started trusting only in the law? You felt yourself slipping, and you fixated on something external — hoping it would be a guiding light as your own mind deteriorated.* *The law is perfect,* Nale growls.

The tale continues. On the perfect island, Derethil watched the islanders kill a serving girl for breaking goblets. *It was obviously the law. The law of the emperor.* Kaladin rounds him, asking instead about memory. Did he remember people trapped in rubble — darkness, then light, as he dug them out smothered in ash and blood? A child cowering as red-eyed figures broke down a door, saved when he came back for those left behind? Gratitude as he stood with sword like a banner, blood dripping down his arm? *You will not have them,* Nale whispers, tears at the corners of his eyes. *I woke one day, a thousand years ago or more, and realised I'd hurt someone by accident. Out of irritation. I thought — I'm losing it. Losing myself.* *So you sought a way to control your actions.* *I turned to the law. To force myself to hold on to the person I wanted to be.*

Kaladin has backed himself to the gates. He stops. *I can't go back!* Nale shouts. *I can't trust you, or what I see, or what I think! I must follow the law!* Kaladin presses on. Derethil and his men found more brutality — extreme punishments for ordinary acts — and always the same answer: the will of the emperor. Finally they stormed the tower to demand accountability. Nale strides to the wall, grabs the dazed Szeth, puts the Blade to his throat. *Come fight me!*

The flutes soften to a held breath. *Nale, is this what you've become?* The Herald looks at Szeth as if seeing him newly, drops him, puts a hand to his chest. Then he turns on Kaladin with his face twisted. *This is your fault! It all made sense before you. You are my flaw — the one I let slip past, the one who started the events that ruined it all.* He starts forward with sword high. Kaladin raises his arms — and the Wind explodes through the gates, slamming the doors wide, carrying a tide of music: every practice he has ever played, belted out by a thousand voices at once. Nale reels as if staring into a great light. *What did they find in the top of the tower, Nale? WHAT WAS IN THE TOWER?* *NOTHING!* he yells back, falling to his knees, his face wet. *There was nothing in the tower. There was … He's dead.*

Nale drops his Blade. *Honor is … dead. Jezrien is gone. Ishar is as good as dead too.* Kaladin closes the tale: *Derethil learned a lesson that day. Even if an emperor makes the laws, when we uphold them the laws become ours. The responsibility ours. The blood on those islanders' hands was their own.* Nale weeps. *Why did you become a Herald?* *I feared the others, highborn save Taln, would forget the little people of the lands. I fought on their behalf, for centuries. Oh … my god … What has happened to me?* The law cannot shelter him; he asks if that black sword could destroy him. Szeth reaches out a trembling hand. *We can help you. We can't make it all better, but we can help. Right, Kaladin?* *Even those I hate,* Kaladin thinks. *Yes. We will help, Nale.* Nale takes Szeth's hand and clings to it on his knees, weeping into the broken floor. Syl forms on one side, Szeth's spren on the other. Nale's own spren appears not as a person but as a rip in the sky, then streaks off and is gone.