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Dalinar holds to the Stormfather as the long vision fades — a dead god's voice still booming in his ears. The Stormfather then runs him quickly through the two thousand years after Tanavast's death: time spent riding storms, drifting between god and spren, quietly showing visions to mortals in search of someone who could persuade Odium into a contest of champions. Each candidate grew too haughty, too hungry for immortality or power, and was rejected. Last of all the Stormfather shows Gavilar — and Dalinar watches with a sinking feeling all the things Navani and the Stormfather have hinted about his brother quietly resolve into one terrible fact: Gavilar Kholin had brought about his own death.

*I can't trust someone who wants the power, Dalinar,* the Stormfather says through tears, frail and emaciated in his arms. *Whoever takes the power could attack Odium — which is what our enemy ultimately wants, because it would free his anger to destroy.* Dalinar understands the unsaid part: the power of Honor, if given the choice, would simply circumvent the contest and burn the planet to win. *That's why you're wrong too. The real Tanavast might have chosen better. I clearly never should have chosen you, but the wounds you bore …* *Mirror your own,* Dalinar finishes. *Those of a god who failed.*

They discuss what is left. Tanavast's peace — the accommodation that traps Odium on Roshar without solving him — is, Dalinar sees, only another iteration of what every previous generation has done. Odium is trapped now, but the moment he wishes to conquer this land he will find a way to provoke the coalition into attacking him. *He can't be merely locked away or appeased. Someone has to destroy him.* *You cannot fight!* *I know. Peace. I know.* Dalinar tries to take up the Shard. It watches him and refuses with two words — *No. Humans break oaths.*

Dalinar forces himself, at last, to forgive the Stormfather for the centuries of withholding — *you are a storm, not a human, and even with a piece of Tanavast in you, it is unreasonable for me to expect you to act as a human would* — and to forgive Tanavast for fleeing the final clash. *Many would have burned this planet to prove themselves right. He ran. I've known plenty of soldiers who lacked the bravery to run when they should have.* He hesitates, asks for Navani and Gav — both already home, by her bond to the Sibling — and learns that Renarin, Shallan, and a singer are still in the Spiritual Realm but hidden even from gods. He'll come back for them later. A portal of light opens. He walks from memory to the present.

In the saferoom beneath the Azimir hospital, Kaminah reads quietly from her spanreed: the Shattered Plains have fallen and Thaylenah has signed for Odium as the Emuli did. The little knot of officers goes silent. Adolin sits on the floor, back to the wall, feeling like a leaf after a highstorm: every muscle sore, his missing leg aching enough to draw a confused painspren. *Traitors,* Noura spits. *They serve the enemy!* *They trade one tyrant for another,* Yanagawn answers — small in his finery, eyes haunted — *we dominated Emul for centuries; you are surprised they are taking the chance to be rid of us? Resisting hasn't helped us and we have no protection in place.*

Adolin holds onto one shred of light: in the moment he was sure he would die, what he wanted was to make peace with his father. *If Dalinar Kholin of all people can find forgiveness and hope, can't I do so as well?* May, drawing towers pieces on scraps for the emperor, reports from her Windrunner squire that the rescuers have landed outside the city — two full Windrunners and a handful of squires, with Notum already among them. Three hours remain until Dalinar's deadline. Yanagawn removes his massive headpiece and asks, *what if we do something?* The room takes inventory of who can stand. Adolin gently tells the emperor there is nothing they can do; he is sorry. Yanagawn looks down. Noura suggests the survivors surrender once the emperor is safe. Yanagawn will not have her stay to be executed. She agrees, weeping. Adolin lies back and tries to sleep, the splinter of light whispering — *second chance, Adolin. You know what your father did with his.*

In the pre-dawn dark of Shinovar, Szeth helps Nin into the bed of a borrowed wagon, then Kaladin slides in beside him the bundle: eight Honorblades and one pitch-black sword in its silver sheath. *Ooh — a chariot? You got me a chariot?* says Nightblood. Szeth thanks the Shin couple who lent the wagon and the horses, pays them with two ruby broams now drained of Stormlight — *the gems were grown in the hearts of beasts; they have value* — and hitches up the team. Kaladin and Syl watch with bewilderment. *Are those horses all right? They look …* *They're so small! Are these kid horses?* *They're not child horses,* Szeth says, smiling, and explains Shin breeds.

He hesitates, then waves to his spren, lurking in the shadows; the creature climbs into the wagon bed in human shape and sits beside Nin. They roll out across rain-soaked land, two hours from the Bondsmith monastery, a chest of infused gems in the back. They had talked about flying. Both wanted to save Stormlight and ready themselves. *And so,* Szeth muses, *we begin our final charge toward destiny. Riding in an old wagon. Seems appropriate.* Kaladin's journey started in a small town far from anywhere important; Szeth's among sheep. Syl interjects: *my journey did start in a throne room, admittedly* — the Godforge — *I poofed into existence, fully formed by the Stormfather, right in the middle of his throne room.* She is inquisitive, Kaladin calls her nosy; she once cornered a midwife into showing her puppies being born, and snuck into a human birth besides.

*You are,* Nin says quietly from behind them, *not what I imagined.* Szeth asks what to expect. *Ishar will want to see you humbled,* Nin replies. *A Herald must be accomplished, but he cannot be arrogant. I do not know the final trial. Only that you are expected to fail it.* Kaladin presses — if Szeth passes, he becomes a Herald? Yes. Nin goes on, frail and almost sickly: now that he sees clearly again, much of what Ishar has been doing for centuries — building an army of physical spren and Fused against far-distant conflicts — has begun to disturb him deeply. He fears what drinking of Odium's power did to him. *Like I have been saying,* Syl adds, *we don't need Heralds anymore.* *Maybe,* Nin says, *that was our mistake. We were so much more than locks. We were leaders once. Teachers. What if we'd stayed on Roshar and taught?* He trails off. Together they ride in silence beneath the bright highway of spren light in the sky, pointed toward destiny.