POV: shallan
Summary
*Do you need me?* Radiant asks Shallan as she steps up to confront Mraize. He is in his own body for once — ruffles and embroidery contrasting with the scars and the lean, dangerous expression — waiting outside the corridor to Mishram's prison. Behind her, Radiant flickers into being, made of unsolidified Stormlight, while Pattern holds Testament back just inside the doorway. Formless lurks to her left, face a swirl, hair matching hers. *I don't need you right now,* Shallan says — and means it. Radiant withdraws. Shallan feels the knife she stole from Mraize in their last clash; both of them know what is coming, and one of them will heal and die or simply die.
*You should let me pass into that chamber, little knife.* *I basically beat you last time.* *You had help. Do you truly think you can fight me one-on-one?* She isn't certain. He is *too* confident, even for him. *Where is Iyatil?* she asks instead. *Watching Dalinar,* he answers, *I have done my job, which was to keep you distracted.* Reasonable. Except: why would Iyatil watch Dalinar? Dalinar was never looking for Mishram; they used him for the entry. The piece clicks. Shallan whips the anti-Stormlight knife around, spins — and plunges it directly toward the face of Formless.
On the Aharietiam field, Kaladin looks away from the farce — the six Honorbearers using only fists and feet on Szeth, who refuses to fight back and scrambles into the air with a Lashing only to be dragged back down. *How,* Kaladin wonders, *do I help a being who thinks himself God?* He starts with what worked on Nin — questions. *You were there from the very beginning? Is it true we came from another world?* Ishar confirms it: Alaswha. *I loved it very much. I am not eager to lose another world.* Kaladin presses: does it have to be like this? *A god must be willing to accept the pain of his people.* Syl becomes the silvery flute and Kaladin tries Derethil's tale — and Ishar cuts him off. *I wrote it. Three thousand years ago. When Derethil told me his tale.* The top room was empty save for a corpse, he adds — *I'm trying to fill it. I'm wise to Midius's tricks, child. He was there when we destroyed our previous world. Did your Wit tell you that?*
A cold shock. Kaladin reaches for another story; Ishar names them all back at him before he can start — *Gasha and the ten assassins? The wandering island? Tepra, the dragon child?* Kaladin tries Fleet. *Fleet never actually made it to Shinovar. He died somewhere in Marat, of dysentery.* And Nohadon did not race a highstorm so much as jog, slowly, over months. *Regardless, please keep your children's rhymes and songs to yourself. The adults are trying to save the world.* The argument Kaladin had ready for the wisdom of stories crumbles under a man who outlived the originals.
In Melishi's chamber, Renarin hesitantly prods the desiccated Bondsmith — withered skin, eyes gaping holes. *No wound,* Rlain says, recognising what dry-region death looks like. *He died… a terrible, wasting death, as he deserved,* a voice answers in their heads — Mishram, straining in her cracked heliodor, miniature Everstorm under glass. *He wandered, didn't he?* Renarin asks. *Trapped in the Spiritual Realm as his powers faded.* *He betrayed his spren as he betrayed me!* *No,* Renarin says. *What he did to you was terrible — but he did what he could to protect the Sibling. No need to magnify his sins.* He stands, worried for Shallan.
Rlain probes the walls. *This isn't Urithiru or Narak. The stone is wrong. Can you read these glyphs?* Renarin shakes his head; Glys reads them haltingly — *bless… this child…* It was Melishi's childhood room, glyphs painted in colour for a sick child, almost certainly shared with siblings. Rlain hums to Appreciation. They look at the gemstone again. They have a decision to make. *Whatever we're going to do, Renarin, we should do it soon.*
On the tower rooftop, Dalinar reels. *Elhokar? How could the champion be Elhokar?* Then the differences resolve: the jaw, the brow. This man looks like Elhokar *because he is his son.* Gavinor. But Gavinor is a child. *Twenty years in the Spiritual Realm,* Taravangian explains, *passed as an hour in this realm. That's where Gavinor lived after you abandoned him.* The sleeping body downstairs in Navani's arms is a flesh-doll. *I don't believe it,* Dalinar insists — but Gavinor raises Oathbringer and lays out grievances that crack back and forth between man and child. *I watched you beat my father senseless. I watched you kill your wife. I watched you burn that city. For twenty years, I remembered.* He claims the kingdom in his father's name and pledges to join Odium's coalition.
The Stormfather confirms it from the threads of Connection: this is really him, and decades have indeed passed. Dalinar's heart breaks. *If that is really Gavinor, what you've done is horrific. I will not fight my grandson. Choose someone else.* *Or what?* Taravangian answers calmly. *You cannot punch me into submission as you did Elhokar. This is my champion, chosen in accordance with our agreement.* Dalinar tries to reach the boy. *Gav, he's tricked you.* *He told me you'd say that — that you'd treat me like a child.* *Would you die for Alethkar?* Gavinor asks in a voice that holds echoes of the child he was. *If I kill you, the kingdom is mine under Odium. We will make Roshar the greatest power in the cosmere. Isn't that worth your life?* *Why this, Taravangian?* Dalinar whispers. *Why not a Fused, or an Unmade, or Moash?* *I'd rather it be Elhokar himself, but he is beyond even my touch. Regardless, this is appropriate.* And then the contract laid bare: *It won't actually be a fight, but you are going to kill him, Dalinar. That is how this ends. You will save Alethkar — and protect the cosmere from my influence — with one simple act: the murder of an innocent.*