(title hidden — not yet read)

(summary hidden — not yet read)

Adolin is tiring. The leg stump aches, the blisters there have broken, sweat is sliding the fit. He needs a plan to *win,* not just survive. Abidi fights like many soldiers new to their Shards — he assumes the Plate makes him invulnerable, and so does not guard the same way against blows to it. Adolin cannot break a section of Plate with a common sword; it would take dozens of precise strikes. But Abidi will *expect* him to try, and that misdirection is the strategy. So Adolin musters what is left in him and pushes into an offensive. *This was Adolin's world. This was who Adolin was.* The thick moment bursts aflame; clarity gathers around the sword.

Crack. The first hit on a section of Plate over Abidi's left side. The Fused pauses, posture suddenly stiff. *The mortal landed a hit on me?* Rage flows through the next sequence. Adolin dodges, parries, and at the right moment lands a second crack on the same place. *You are Radiant. You must be!* *Do you see Stormlight rising from me?* And here, in the burning clarity of the perfect duel, Adolin goes a level deeper than he ever has. Why fight for Azir? Because his mother had trained him to care. Where Dalinar worked to make him a weapon, Evi worked to give that weapon meaning. Why be so furious with his father for being flawed? Because Evi had loved him anyway — against all evidence — and Adolin, her little boy, wanted desperately for her to be right. *That was why.* He lets her rest. Lets the anger out like expelled heat. He cannot become many things, but this one is possible: the man Evi envisioned. A man who cares. A man who fights for a purpose. Crack. Third hit on that very same section.

Abidi roars and throws himself in. Adolin sets his foot, slides on the peg, steps *into* the furious blow — scrape — the Blade hits the candelabra he placed exactly where he knew it would arrive. Then, instead of striking the cracked section again, Adolin rams his sword straight into the eye-slit of his own helm, where he knows the angle better than he knows his name. One glowing eye goes out, pierced clean through. In any ordinary duel that would have been the end. Against a Fused it is not. Abidi brushes the sword aside, snapping off six inches of it, then rips the rest out of Adolin's hand and reaches for him. A gauntleted hand seizes him under the arm and lifts. The eye heals.

Sometimes your best is not enough. Every general has to learn it; Adolin never expected to learn it in a duel. *Not enough.* *Maya was right,* he thinks, smiling. *I am like my father. I rushed in here alone. Tried to do this by myself.* And another thing comes to him, in Abidi's grip: a day when he had told his father *no.* Refused the throne, refused to be a king — because he had been too frightened to live up to a reputation he didn't think he deserved. *I'll lead them,* he whispers. *They don't need a swordsman. They've got plenty. They need a leader.* And then, eyes squeezed shut: *I'll do it. But I could use a little help right here. Please.*

A chorus of voices answers in his mind. *…Sir? Sir!* Abidi takes him in two hands and hurls him at the wall eight feet away. Sir! A burst of light like sparks from a hammer on steel explodes from Abidi and becomes a swarm of embers that flashes around Adolin. The wall cracks. Adolin does not. Strength. Metal. *His Plate.* The leg armour re-forms around his peg into a metal foot crafted of curved pieces wrapping each other, three toes, sprung — a design the spren say they remember from long ago. The helmet goes nearly transparent from the inside. And then, in the dark throne room, an orange-red light like a fire's flame starts glowing from the joints and helm-slit. No symbols on the breastplate; he is no Radiant. He is, as he tells the silence in his head, the son of both Dalinar and Evi Kholin, the product of both their hopes. Adolin Kholin. A man with very good friends. *Sir!* the Plate says, satisfied, as he charges forward and Abidi swears: *Oh, songs.*

Across the world, Neturo keeps picking Szeth up by his clothing, hauling him nose-to-nose, growling and crying. Closer this time, words forced between clenched teeth: *Please. Help. Us. Son.* Szeth's eyes focus. The mask is anger; the mask is not Neturo's. *Please, Szeth — it hurts.* Neturo hurls him away as if to protect him, then stalks back to attack. *Puppets,* Szeth understands. *Ishu made them puppets.* And everyone in this land is one to some degree, trapped in the darkness, all of it the spread of a Herald's madness through the land he Connected to himself.

The six surround him again and kick. Bones crack inside him; Stormlight, dwindling, struggles to keep up. A boot breaks his nose and it doesn't heal. Another takes him square in the ribs. *Obey,* Ishu shouts from far off. *If you'd just do as I say! Bah! I will stand against the darkness alone. You are all worthless!*

Then Szeth hears a voice. His own, as a child. *What is right, Father? Can't you just tell me?* His own again, to the Farmer: *How do you know what to do?* To the captain of the guard: *Just tell me what to do, sir.* To Sivi at the monastery: *I'm sure you know what is right.* Taravangian. Dalinar. Nin. Each time it was less and less a question and more and more a mantra. *I am Truthless. I do not ask. I do as my masters require.*

Never. Again. Szeth raises his head, finds his knees as they pummel him, and turns his eyes to the sky. Something ignites inside him. *Never. AGAIN.* *I am my own agent,* he shouts. *I make my own choices. I. Am. THE LAW!* Light erupts around him.