POV: kaladin
Summary
The Wind herself accepts Kaladin's Words, and the Fifth Ideal of the Windrunners comes to him not as pain but as recognition. Power explodes around him on the Shin field — and along the Bondsmith tether Ishar still holds to him, the wave runs backward like a drain reversed. Ishar is hurled against a stone pillar, washed in pure Spiritual Realm light, and black smoke pushes out of his pores as if it were Stormlight. Through that failing bond Kaladin distinctly hears the gasps of eight other people far away — an oppressive cloud the Herald had thought he was holding back but had in fact been bleeding into every one of his fellows for centuries, the blackness he had absorbed from Odium when he first reached his pool. It will not heal them. Their wounds run far older than that one decision. But it might open the path that healing would take.
Ishar slumps to the stones. The tethers, though, are still there — and Kaladin kneels for Nightblood and saws each cord free in turn, releasing Syl, Nale, and Szeth. Syl laughs. Szeth sighs. Nearby, the six Honorbearers stir and rise with the same darkness still in their faces — masks of rage in the moment they were made for. When Kaladin sets Nightblood down he notices a black line still tethered to his hand: his Light is draining away as if onto some great task. *I have learned from the other swords,* the black sword says in his mind. *I know the Surges. I will Connect to you. You will feed me!* Kaladin tells him to let go. Nightblood refuses: *Give me to Szeth. I will draw from you, not him.* If today's fighting belongs to anyone, it belongs to Szeth. Kaladin tosses him the black sword and helps Syl up. *What have you done?* she whispers. *Figured myself out, finally,* he says, smiling.
Szeth lifts the sword. *Destroy evil!* Nightblood cries, inky black liquid sloughing off the blade and evaporating before it reaches the ground. *No, sword-nimi,* Szeth says. *Today, we simply restore what is right.* The six Honorbearers close in, his father weeping among them. They are abominations made from people he loved, and where he had once seen contempt in their eyes he now sees pain — teeth gritted at being made puppets. *Oh, Father,* he whispers. *I've been there. I have walked that road. I understand.* He asks the sword if, having Connected to Kaladin and learned from the Honorblades, he can restore the Lashings. Nightblood answers yes — even a spren can give those. A chill spreads in his right palm. The price is being paid across the field. For now, Szeth has what he needs: his Lashings, and more. It has been since he first picked up a Blade and found it a dance.
On the roof of Urithiru the perpendicularity glows like a star, and Taravangian speaks from inside his storm. *Dalinar? What do you think you're doing?* *I cannot face you as a man and win, Taravangian. It is time for Honor to return.* *It cannot return to you. The power rejects humankind, and it will reject you in particular — because you are an oathbreaker.* *Then explain what is happening,* Dalinar says, and pushes the column of light wider. For perhaps the first time in their long acquaintance, Taravangian has no good answer. Dalinar reaches through the perpendicularity. *Come on,* he says to the power. *You are needed!* It floods around him without entering, and he finds himself in a vision that has nothing to see — a grey, formless infinity with glistening power overhead. *Why do you hesitate?* The power answers in fragments — humankind, pain, except —
And in a flash he sees them. Two young men holding a gemstone prison high. The Bridger of Minds. The Son of Thorns. On the lip of a future none of the gods could see.
Inside the prison chamber, Rlain attunes Determination, his hand beside Renarin's on the gem. Shallan is calling for them to stop. They glance at her, then at one another. *You sure?* Renarin asks. *Yes. You?* *Yes,* Renarin says to Determination. Together they slam the gem against the stone, and it shatters completely. A dark storm escapes.