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Navani feels the oddest sensation: love. An overwhelming sense of love — and then, farewell. *Navani!* the Sibling's voice cries in her mind. *NAVANI!* The room around her can hear the tempest shaking the tower but not what she hears: *He is dead, Navani. I'm sorry.* No. But — she had just felt him. Impossibly, somehow, sending her love. Followed by regret. Followed by nothing — his soul vanishing. *He serves the enemy?* she asks. *No, he shattered it all. The contract, Honor — all done. All dead. It's brilliant. And terrible. The enemy holds both Shards and becomes Retribution. Cultivation flees. Navani, we are in serious danger. This could destroy me.* *Grieve later.* Storms. Could she — *grieve later.* *What do we do?* *We have to keep Retribution out of Urithiru. He's going to destroy the spren, but not us here, if we can create defenses. It will be your will and mine against his. I don't know if — Oh, Shards, Navani. He's coming!* *Do it.*

On the Oathgate platform of Urithiru in Shadesmar, Shallan is begging. *What do you mean you can't? Transfer me. Please.* The Oathgate spren are shrinking, the booming voices becoming ordinary. *With what Stormlight? The enemy has drawn it all back to him, pulling Light from holes in people and gems. It is gone.* She fishes in her pocket — she had spheres when she entered the Spiritual Realm, but they are dun. *There is no more Stormfather. There is no more Honor. There is no more Stormlight. Our era has ended.* *No more Stormlight? For how long?* *Forever.*

Taravangian, now Retribution, revels in his new strength. He is more powerful than anything; only one rival approaches him, and those powers are misaligned, while Honor and Odium want nearly the same things — they will work together. A whisper of the past reaches him, an echo of his predecessor, Rayse, who had killed several other gods and refused their power. A fool, Retribution decides; this is glorious. He consumes the highstorm into the Everstorm at his will, a ripple through nature that warps the passage of time around the planet. Only his Light. Only his storm. A dark tempest that will blanket the land, that all will need to depend on him to survive. Then he reaches for the spren, to draw them all to himself.

Nothing happens. *They are protected,* the powers say. *By what?* *By an oath and a circle. By Adonalsium's strength. Ten stand against you, using the piece of us within them. Honor demands their oaths be followed.* That is frustrating. He sees he will have to be careful — not act against the Shard's will, or suffer Tanavast's fate. Then he notices the watchers. The other Shards. Cultivation has ejected herself from Roshar; the rest stand around him, attention fixed. He sees what Dalinar has done. Centuries of plotting — gone. *No. I'm not ready.* He calms himself, asserts control, forms an avatar to confront Dalinar — and finds only a corpse beside the stone railing, sheltering Gavinor unconscious but alive beneath him. The sweetness of victory thins if Dalinar cannot be made to confess he was right. He would consider destroying Gavinor out of spite — but, oddly, the power within him is concerned: had he acted with honor toward the boy? He had. The power accepts it. Likewise he will let Azir keep its land, and the Shattered Plains their autonomy — for Honor inside him is fragile and oath-bound, and he can no longer afford its rebellion.

Dalinar's soul lingers on the other side of things, infused with power, unable yet to pass. *I can do with you what I will,* Retribution says. *I could torture you for eternity. You really think your sacrifice was worth the cost?* *What is my life worth?* the soul ripples. *Nothing, anymore. Dalinar, you are NOTHING.* *If so, then I trade it for everything. Taravangian … I call that a bargain.* Retribution rages — but the soul slips like water through fingers and vanishes into the Beyond. *You cannot have him, for he is claimed by another.* Defeat. Why should he feel defeated when he had won everything? He searches the Spiritual Realm and finds something of Dalinar yet remaining — in the vision in which the man had thrown an oil barrel and refused to burn a room. There, the Blackthorn had formed: a legend-spren shaped by everything people had told themselves about Dalinar as the warlord, fed by memories Dalinar had unwisely shared. Retribution cradles it. *You are right,* it says, its ego soothing him. *He was weak. I am not. I will not weep, drunken, when an assassin must be fought. I will not back down. I am the Blackthorn.* *Will you serve me when I take war to the stars?* *It is what I do.* Yes. The Blackthorn will live, even though Dalinar Kholin has died. He turns next to one other oathbreaker — and asks the powers where Wit is.

Swords begin vanishing from the ring. Kaladin kneels before Ishar, who lays hands on the sides of his head. *This is Vedel's method. It relies on skills I have not used in a long time — powers of the Surges outside of Stormlight, Radiance, or the Honorblades. It requires an oath forged, and a bit of a god.* Kaladin's eyes widen as something burns within him. He feels the others — Taln, Ash, Vedel, Chana — terrified, worried they are heading toward torture. *This is working,* the Wind whispers. *Kaladin, it's working. The Oathpact preserves the spren.* *I hope we will be beyond him too,* Ishar says, seizing his Blade. *But — even so — I might lose myself again. Not all of the rot upon my soul was because of the power of Odium, Stormblessed. I … am weak. Of mind.* *I will help,* Kaladin promises. Nearby Nale stiffens and evaporates into nothingness; his sword disappears from the ring. *We use bodies of power when we Return, child. No one dies to create us. Honor found such an idea as the Fused abhorrent. Once.* Kaladin nods, steeling himself as his soul begins to vibrate. Light envelops him. Syl finds his hand, and he feels her grip it. *You still have your original body,* Ishar says as he vanishes. *Your soul will be pulled with us, leaving the body behind. I'm sorry. It might hurt.* Kaladin squeezes Syl's hand, then gasps as a terrible fire rips through him — a flaring in his skull, agonizing. He feels his eyes burn away, as if he had been struck by a Shardblade. Followed by — nothing.