POV: rysn
Summary
Rysn rides the lift up through the levels of Urithiru with Brakt and Ytredn of the Thaylen Patent Office, Chiri-Chiri in her lap and curious eyes following the now-large larkin and the floating chair as she passes. The Alethi have abruptly conceded the patent wording the Thaylens have been pressing for decades — extracted under duress from Queen Navani during the recent occupation — and Vstim wants the treaty tested before anyone can argue it should be thrown out.
In the conference room she presents her demands to a panel of mid-level Alethi ardents. They balk; the agreement, the lead ardent insists, is not retroactive. She offers a sweetener: there is more behind the chair than they have seen. To demonstrate, she switches her chair into the lateral-flight modes she and her partner Huio cracked — modes which the Alethi turned into the Fourth Bridge but which the chair handles with finesse. The bureaucrats are stunned. Brakt steps in to bind the schematic disclosure to a full ratification of the treaty and to royalties for Rysn and Huio on every device built atop their work; Ytredn explains the moral case for patents. The ardents slowly capitulate.
The negotiation is going beautifully when Dalinar Kholin walks in — and the Dawnshard inside her starts vibrating discordantly. She knows immediately that this is not the Blackthorn; the image fuzzes; this is someone wearing him as a mask. He orders the room cleared but for her. The illusion drops and reveals a shorter white-haired Shin man. He is another bearer.
Nikli pours out of an air duct in alarm — recognizes him at once as a Dawnshard holder who had walked away from the duty centuries ago and now, impossibly, holds one again. The Sleepless go to pieces. The two powers begin to align. Rysn is dragged out of her chair across the floor; Chiri-Chiri writhes; Nikli and her second guard Alalhawithador unravel into scrambling cremlings. She knows, instantly, that the collision will pulp her.
The white-haired man frames his hands at his temples, perspective bends — time stretches forward, back, sideways — and he speaks a single word: "No." The vibration stops. The powers release her. He tells her, calmly, that he will see to it they never meet again, restores the Dalinar illusion, and leaves.
The Sleepless re-cohere and help her up. They cannot think of anyone in the cosmere worse to have stumbled across their secret. They name the visitor the Mythwalker and say he will keep what he has learned to himself — and use it against them. Rysn accepts that she has to vanish from Roshar to keep the two Dawnshards safely apart. But, having earned the Sleepless respect across the years she has borne the burden, she proposes the hiding take the shape of a long-deferred expedition aboard her own ship with her own crew. They agree. She will lose her patent, her city, and her routine; she will keep the sea. Just as her life was finally coming together, she prepares to say goodbye.