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Adolin grins behind the three-pronged aluminum candelabra — sturdy enough, shaped a little like a Marati swordbreaker — that has caught the Shardblade inches from his face. The dynamic changes. Abidi starts to try in earnest, attacking more relentlessly, and Adolin discovers — in this dim foreign throne room — that there is a place here for a swordsman. He fights knife and sword, the unorthodox style Zahel drilled into him outside formal duels: dodge, parry, divert rather than catch. Let the Fused overstep with all that Plate he has not yet learned to wield. Make the strength meaningless because it never quite lands.

Time thickens into the strange wax of a duel done right. *Why?* Abidi finally demands. *Why do you even bother? Azir isn't your land.* *You made it our fight,* Adolin answers. *Besides — I promised I would help.* *Bah! You humans and your oaths.* *Not an oath,* Adolin whispers, parrying with a clang. *A promise.* The distinction matters to him in ways he is only beginning to put words to.

Across the world on the stone field, Szeth is not allowed to look out for anything — attacks land from every angle, his broken arm not yet healed, a Stoneward's whip wrapping his leg and going hard as steel to yank him back from the air. The pain is new each time. *I yield,* he tells the stone. *Please, I yield.* *No,* Ishu calls back. *You are not permitted to yield. This is over only when I say it is.* He drops his head back to the stone and counts: six Honorbearers including his father. There should be seven. He's been adding Ishu, Nin, Sivi, and the empty space for him to make ten. With both Neturo and Ishu that double-counts Bondsmiths. Only nine. He fought the young Edgedancer alongside Pozen in Shadesmar; she has not been reborn. *Storms.* She was the one he killed with Nightblood.

Kneeling beside the cracked heliodor, Rlain takes Renarin's hand for support and is startled by how easy the touch is, how much he enjoys it, how naturally his rhythm attunes Joy. *We found the prison,* Renarin says. *So we have to decide. What do you think?* *We take it with us. Hide it deeper.* *To wander forever? Storms — is that what we're here to do? Patch the gemstone so she can't send hints to anyone else, then die in here like Melishi did?* They cycle through alternatives. Take it to Urithiru — *which has been broken into twice in the past year. The Sibling is awake now to stop them* — though Rlain sounds Skepticism. The tower might keep Fused out, but what of other humans? Someone would want this prison. It is too valuable.

*Because Odium fears her,* Rlain thinks. The other option flickers at the edge of his mind, the one neither of them has yet said aloud: this is the god his people rejected long ago. Would freeing her be a betrayal — or, late but real, a justice? Would she just start another war? Would she kill them, destroy them, unleash a terror? Tumi whispers from inside him: *be very careful, please.* And in her heliodor, Mishram retreats, the tempest stilling. Resigned. *You led us to you,* Renarin says. *Why?* *To destroy you.* *Locked in a prison? With only the faintest crack to speak through?* The voice softens. *Destroy you. Get… vengeance…* But she is small now in the gemstone, afraid, alone, trapped. *You led us,* Rlain says to the Rhythm of Hope, *because you thought we might help you, didn't you?* Silence. Not even a pulsed rhythm. Two thousand years in there, betrayed, hating humans, still hoping enough to call out.

*Defend yourself!* Ishar shouts on the stone field, face reddening as Szeth takes the beating. *You are to be a Herald! Show some pride!* Kaladin notices, with a chill, that the Honorbearers react to Ishar's emotions — speeding up when he shouts, calming when his voice does. They are puppets. *Ishar,* Kaladin tries, then Syl tries, then Nin tries from across the field — *you took the power of Odium, and it's corrupting you.* *I subsume that power and make it mine. I corrupt it.* Kaladin sweats. There is no healing of body or mind on a deadline like this. He shifts tactic. *You are a god, yet leave your people without choices? How can you be a god if nobody worships you?* *This entire land worships me!* the Honorbearers attack more violently in the same breath. *They pray to the Almighty.* *Who they think is Tanavast,* Kaladin answers. *You force them. You haven't become their god. You're just another pretender.* Ishar turns on him. *Child. I am over seven thousand years old. You think you can trick me?*

Then the cut: *Why are you here? You add nothing. Dalinar sent you because he needed you out of the way. Your part is done, and you scramble for relevance. Sit down and stop trying to distract me.* Each word should have been a spear. A week ago it might have been. But something has been changing in Kaladin for a long time, and the answer comes back with no defence: his worth does not come from whether he helps. Only from whether he tries. He is not crushed. He is, in fact, free.

Playing into Ishar's delusion to manipulate him was the wrong angle anyway. *Underhanded,* he thinks, and lets it go. He says instead the words Ishar will ignore but that need saying. *You aren't a god, Ishar. You're a man. Seven thousand years old, yes. But still a man. And you need help.* Ishar's blue robes ripple. The Wind starts to return. *The spren are afraid,* Syl tells him beside Kaladin. *Terrified, Ishar. They know what's coming. Let's face it together. You know you've driven them away. Shouldn't that be a sign you're wrong?* *I have plans for the spren,* Ishar answers, soft enough that Kaladin's hair stands on end. *Their fear of me should be greater.* And then, furious: *Of all the things I expected of you, Szeth, disobedience is not one. Fight!* All attention turns back to the ragged man in white whose Stormlight is starting to fail.