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*Nine years ago.* Szeth stands at the cliff-top warcamp outside the Stoneward monastery — his old home — and pleads with Lumo, the red-bearded man he once dragged out of a burning ship, now General of the place. *I'm sorry, honor-nimi,* Lumo tells him. *I cannot authorise this for one Honorbearer. You have to know how this looks. It's insane.* Szeth offers his own word and his station as proof; Lumo tells him Pozen Elsecalled into the centre of camp the night before and named him a delusional heretic. Szeth asks what they think of Pozen — a man who never sent help, never brought his Blade, never seemed to care. The soldiers share looks. He presses on: *something is wrong in this land. Right before I left you, I was to be banished, then suddenly I was rewarded. It was the Unmade. They all obey it.* Lumo: *You … hear a voice telling you to do things.* *Each Honorbearer does.* Silence; Szeth knows he has failed.

Salvation arrives as the alarm. The banners of the other monasteries crest the ridge — an army many times his own size, brought through an Elsegate and impossible to retreat from. *It is time. We fight.* *I cannot join you, Szeth.* *Then,* Szeth says, *you shall instead have to watch them slaughter me.*

Szeth raises the flag of rebellion and leads his outnumbered army with their backs to the cliff, but today he does not kill. He glows, he hovers before the line, he shouts encouragement; his refusal to draw keeps the other Honorbearers off the field. He counts seven enemy banners — every monastery save Windrunner, Stoneward and Skybreaker — and notes with surprise that the Bondsmith banner is among them. His shamans push him to fall back up the switchback toward the camp. He keeps the men desperate, and at last the trumpets sound: the Stoneward army above marches down the switchbacks to his rescue, unable to watch one of their own destroyed. Szeth rises in a storm of Light as the Stoneward soldiers come on with bright helmets and shields high — to him, the moment the flaming ember of his rebellion becomes a wildfire, the true beginning of resistance against the Voidbringers.

He lands beside Drodli, one of his head shamans, helmet dented and someone else's blood on his armour. *They are coming, as you said. What would we have done if they hadn't?* *We'd have died,* Szeth tells him calmly. *Better to die than to let the Return happen unresisted.* Drodli looks horrified. Szeth flies up to Lumo at the head of the new troops. *We'll fight, Szeth,* Lumo says — *but only because you're on the defensive, and they apparently want to exterminate you. It's time we had some respect here, rather than being considered second-class because we lack an Honorbearer.* Not quite the words of a champion for Truth, but they will do.

Szeth descends to support his line, shouting a challenge at the enemy host. The other Honorbearers materialise. Moss comes first — a man who should have been a friend — sent forward by Pozen in hope that those nearest him would die by his Blade. Szeth refuses to be a murderer; he clashes without killing strokes until Moss breaks and flees. Then Sivi comes in next. She can bend stone, so he keeps to soil; she refuses to Elsegate away, and they fight sword to sword in the middle of the enemy ranks, who make room and do not interfere. Szeth honours her by minimising his powers, and spends a hard five minutes before disarming her — sending her sprawling on the grass, short hair falling across her eyes. *You're strong. Stones Unhallowed — how did you get so strong?* *Because I fight to protect our land. Join me, and we will be two.* She sighs. *Szeth, that wasn't an Unmade you saw.* *I will not be persuaded by you.* *Well, at least you let yourself be distracted by a duel.*

Distracted? Trumpets sound behind him. The Stoneward troops are retreating — worse, re-forming and turning their weapons against his own men. *Traitors! Treason!* His vision of glorious resistance crumbles. He screams in denial and shoots through the sky on a Lashing like a thrown arrow, slamming down between his forces and the traitors with Lumo at their head. He opens his mouth to demand answers — and a figure steps out from among them. A stout man with a short beard and thinning hair and a friendly smile.

Neturo. His father. A lightning bolt of shock. His father is a captive — a prisoner — a— *Hello, son,* Neturo says, stopping a few feet in front of him. *We thought Lumo and his troops might listen to reason if I spoke to them.* *Lightweaving,* Szeth whispers. *You aren't real.* *I'm sorry. I am real, Szeth.* His father wears his old uniform but in new colours — blue and brown and green. The Bondsmith colours. He summons an Honorblade with a wavy blade and writing along it and plants it point-down in the ground in front of him. *When Sivi and Pozen came to me with this offer, I didn't know what to think. Grand senator. Bondsmith. Leader of our people. They said it might be the only way to save you. So I listened. And … well, I've heard him now, son.* *The Voice?* *He says you turned your back on him.* *Father, he's—* *He's not a Voidbringer, son. I've met him. I don't know what he is. A god perhaps, as he says — but he's not one of them.*

Neturo dismisses his Blade and steps forward with his arms out. Szeth backs up; his father keeps coming until he embraces him. And — stones — it is him. *We have to stop this madness,* Neturo says into his shoulder. *The Voice is committed, but I know there must be another way.* *I'm following my heart, Father. I'm trying to do what is right. I've always tried to do what is right.* *I know.* Szeth closes his eyes and is a little boy again, standing before a rock that will go on to kill every bit of joy in his life. *Szeth,* Neturo says — arms warm, voice warmer — *I've realised why I followed you all those years. I thought you might lead me to answers.* He squeezes. *You did.* Neturo has answers. The horror of what Szeth has done overwhelms him: dozens killed with an Honorblade, an army raised against his own people. If he was wrong — why had he ever thought he could trust his own judgement? He is a fool and a child, and he always has been. *Tell me what to do,* he whispers. *And I'll do it. If you tell me.*