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Szeth drives the wagon east through the highland borderland between Shinovar and Iri, humming the tune Kaladin played the night before. The air carries a highland chill and more stone than soil. Behind him, Nin lies quiet in the wagon bed; Kaladin sits in the front seat between Szeth and Syl, strangely calm. *Aboshi,* Szeth asks, *why did Ishar do this? What did he think it might accomplish?* Syl presses too, impatient — *and? so? how does this relate to Shinovar?*

Nin gives them the long answer at last. Taln had endured thousands of years on the other side; the rest of the Heralds were not all so resilient — Kalak, Chana, Vedel were growing weaker, unable to reach their natures and blessings. Ishar walked the Spiritual Realm and saw threats coming; he needed time. So he set Nin to stall the next Return — kill the new orders before they could draw the enemy — while he himself stepped into the Well of Control, took on a portion of Odium, and began crafting new soldiers. Physical spren in possession of Surges. And — worse — human Fused whose souls could be recalled to new, painfully rebuilt bodies. Szeth understands at once: *my father. My sister.* Each Honorbearer but Sivi was made that way.

Kaladin won't have it. The cost, he says — integrity, identity, happiness — is never worth the edge. *That's a lie* that says everyone everywhere must sacrifice; a world that demands it is a world of misery. Better to lose and remain themselves. Nin whispers agreement: *the Wind is right. The music is right.* Szeth listens, asks about Skybreaker dissenters — a man named Billid once claimed to have found older oaths — then lets the conversation lapse. *Kaladin is right,* he concludes. *And Ishar must be stopped.* As the last bearer of Truth in Shinovar, the final Honorbearer, that decision is his — not for masters, not for the Wind, but for himself.

In Urithiru, Wit keeps walking Dalinar toward the lift, still telling the lumberman's son tale. The boy was tested in three things — swordsmanship, history, and poetry — and Dalinar sees at once the flaw: one experiment with one boy proves nothing about the worth of a class. The poetry test, Wit admits, was unlosable: originality is impossible, because the dragons and the gods have already done everything — and yet unavoidable, because none of *us* have existed before. The boy could have belched and won, because Wit was the judge. But he ran. Off to war. Cajoled. *Tanavast ran,* Dalinar realises, *instead of facing Odium.*

They reach the lift, and Wit confesses what scares him: he can no longer see how this ends. Renarin and Dalinar's link to him may be the cause, but Odium is likely blind to the contest too. *I don't know the right story to tell.* He finishes the tale anyway: the contest didn't matter. The next day the barons launched a coup and executed the king; the boy came back years later and killed the barons in turn. *All governments are technically a form of republic.* Dalinar follows the moral through — contests, contracts, posturing, words — and lands on the truth he needs: *I am not pointless.* The contest of champions is a distraction. The meaning is in the people of Roshar; that is what Nohadon meant. *Journey before destination,* Wit tells him as the lift thumps into place on the last level. *We're not sending a soldier up those steps. We're sending a king.*

In the Azimir saferoom, Rahel burns precious Light to harden Adolin's peg-stump for the march, and the doctor mixes him a tincture of firemoss in alcohol — a drug normally reserved for the dying — to mute the pain. *After the deadline?* Adolin asks. The surgeon nods. Adolin drinks the whole thing. Then the band leaves: three groups of ten plus Notum scouting, two breaking toward rally points to feign a Windrunner arrival and draw the Heavenly Ones off, Adolin's group last and slowest. Azimir has gone foul: looting singers, harsh smoke, dismal spren, citizens fleeing in scattered clusters. Colot reads it as evidence of Abidi's slack hand. Adolin reads it as evidence of his father — and finds, walking through it, that he is finally at peace with Dalinar not as paragon but as a man. *Humans don't make sense,* he tells Maya. *Spren don't either,* she answers.

At the palace wall, Yanagawn reveals what Noura never knew existed: a smuggler's port, behind vines, set into the stone — a chamber the size of the saferoom with water-trap drains, where minor contraband and quiet entries are bribed through. *There's no such thing,* she insists. *Um — yes there is.* They drop into the chamber to find refugees, two wounded soldiers, and a startled man named Jaskkeem who runs the place. Rahel spends nearly the last of her Light on his bleeding comrade. *Yanagawn,* Noura demands, *why didn't you tell me?* *Because you'd have shut it down.* The thieves are loyal to the empire, Jaskkeem swears — and after Yanagawn addresses him by name, agrees on the spot to lead the band through a tunnel that surfaces beside the main palace building. *May Yaezir guide us,* Yanagawn whispers, *for I fear we have less than an hour.*