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The call comes. With thunder and red lightning as accompaniment, Venli and her crew launch Thundercloud and the other two chasmfiends toward the human position at Narak. Mist and rain pelt her on the slick ropes; arrows scribe lines past her head even though the humans are deliberately aiming wide. Thundercloud crashes through the wall at the section the defenders had quietly cracked further for him. *We eat humans this once,* she suggests to him through the rhythms. *Only the correct humans.* He stomps wooden rooftops, sweeps his tail through walls, and trumpets while Thude whoops on his back like the old him. A second chasmfiend, Venli thinks of as Skyblue, rips down the gate to the bridge — not the bridge itself, which the humans need — and they watch the Oathgate start flashing as the camp evacuates. Thundercloud is steered to the line of corpses left for him, and decides he finally understands why his rider would not let him chase the small ones: humans are not fatty enough to be worth eating.

Meanwhile, Shallan ducks through waves of possibility in the Spiritual Realm, dodging the eyes of the great shadow she knows is Odium. She sends Lightweavings of frightened versions of herself in every direction; it works, because in this place even a god has trouble telling her real shape from her drawn ones. The shadow finally leaves — annoyed, she dares to think. She has just begun to wonder how to find Renarin or Rlain without Glys or Tumi when something pulls her into one of the off-colour visions. She lands on a rocky beach at sunset — an island shore, mountains rising on one side, a fishing village along the curve, ships coming in for the night. A pile of *rocks* up the slope turns out to be the long-legged shelled carcass of a dead ocean greatshell, twenty-five feet tall on its side. And sitting high on its carapace, one leg swinging, is Mraize.

Across the world, Sigzil's job is to make the retreat look like a rout. He screams orders, fights the enemy Heavenly Ones hard enough to be convincing, and finds one moment to toss Venli a small pouch of papers — the plan the two of them have been hashing all morning. The silver-carapaced Fused commanding the Narak assault is too smart to be lured onto the bridge plateau into a trap. Dami argues for staying — *the Bondsmith said to hold; the Alethi queen does not override that.* *Trust me,* Sigzil tells him, and the Stormwall does. Before going, he asks one thing: that Sigzil is doing this because he believes it is right, not because losing Leyten has scared him into protecting everyone else. *I believe I'm learning to lead,* Sigzil answers, *and either way it is my call.* The Stonewards get fifteen minutes; the surgeons go; the Windrunners make the final rearguard.

Sigzil gives one last look at the Shattered Plains — a land he first arrived in covered in crem as a slave — and salutes it. Then he drops out of the sky. Shockspren burst around him; Vienta screams in his ear; he hits the plateau hard with a crack of bones and cannot feel his legs. A figure in black lands beside him, a fabrial in his hand and a knife in his belt. *They only have a few of these,* Moash whispers. *I demanded one.* He steps on Sigzil's wrist and tells him he has a new god now — one who teaches him to love his pain — and that Sigzil is in the way of what he is building. He raises his anti-Light knife and slashes at the invisible Vienta; she becomes visible, half her arm gone, dropping in a puff of blue cloth to land beside him. Leyten's last words ring in Sigzil's ears: the prophecy that Vienta and he would fall by Moash's hand.

The future is never set. Sigzil screams, then screams again, that he renounces his oaths. *I am no Radiant.* Something rips inside him. Vienta vanishes as the knife strikes stone, and a Shardblade clangs down beside him on the plateau. *That,* Moash says, *was exceptionally stupid of you.* Sigzil rolls and swings the Blade — her — and narrowly misses Moash's legs. Lopen arrives from the side, slams Moash to the ground, shatters the fabrial against the stone, and summons his Shardspear. *It's not the number of hands that makes a man,* he tells Moash, *but the number of cousins.* A flood of Bridge Four led by Huio — Skar, Peet, Natam — comes in over the wall, and Moash flees back toward the Fused lines.

Lopen gathers Sigzil up. *That was maybe the bravest thing I've ever seen a man do.* *Not your gancho any longer,* Sigzil whispers. *Not a Windrunner any longer. It's up to you and Skar to lead now.* They go through the Oathgate to Urithiru and lock it from the human side. An Edgedancer heals his body; nothing heals the rest. Vienta lies as a Shardblade beside him on the floor. Painspren crawl over him.

Back on the captured plateau, Venli leans against Thundercloud while he naps off the carnage, fetches Sigzil's pouch of papers, and stands to attention as El himself is carried in. Vyre reports the last humans gone. El orders her to a staging plateau and warns of the *unexpected rally* he expects the humans to attempt. He watches the Oathgate, suspicious of the wrong kind of trap. Venli and her listeners huddle, none daring to hum what they feel. Only Timbre sings, deep within her. The Rhythm of Optimistic Joy. Had it actually worked? They will see on the morrow.