Rhythm of War

Adolin agonizes over an outfit for the day of their departure as he considers his father’s disapproval of many of his choices. Before leaving, he checks in on Kaladin, who is doing better mentally in his role as a surgeon.

Before the envoys’ departure, Dalinar lectures Adolin about honorable behavior and becoming the man he can be, once more oppressing Adolin with his suffocating fatherly and kingly expectations.

The envoys reach Shadesmar, the dimension of the spren. In this Cognitive Realm, the spren can take actual forms rather than existing as spirits in the Physical Realm. Maya, the deadeye spren of Adolin’s Shardblade, awaits them in Shadesmar. Like other deadeye spren, Maya can ostensibly only exist only as Adolin’s magical weapon. However, Adolin firmly believes in Maya’s ability to communicate (and her ability to do basic tasks like brushing his horse), which confuses the spren who populate Shadesmar. These living spren believe that deadeye spren became that way after being betrayed by the human Radiants with whom they bonded; they also assume that deadeye spren can never heal.

On the barge awaiting them, Shallan panics when she sees that Mraize’s communication device has been moved, revealing that the spy is indeed among the team.

Kaladin finds working as a surgeon restorative to his mental health, despite his sadness watching his Windrunners depart for the offensive in Emul. Only one of his companions remains: Teft, who claims to have battle shock so he can stay in Urithiru with Kaladin, providing the friendship that Kaladin craves.

Veil and Radiant convince Shallan to try drawing to relax. The practice helps her stay calm enough to admit to Adolin that she once tried to steal a magical artifact from her former guardian, Jasnah. Although she is worried about his reaction, he only laughs in response, amused rather than rejecting.

Shallan asks one of the spren about the Unmade (the nine most powerful voidspren) that Ialai connected to the Ghostbloods. The spren knows nothing and suggests speaking to anyone who was alive when the Unmade were imprisoned thousands of years prior.

At the request of a patient, Kaladin and Teft seek out a man whom Lirin had sent to the ardents for help with his melancholy. An ardent reveals that after a suicide attempt, the man was sent to a religious treatment facility that cares for patients with mental and emotional disorders.

The two men discover that in this facility, patients are kept in dark, isolated conditions, immiserated according to the historical way of approaching mental illness. Kaladin has the man they seek brought outside; they speak to the man about his feelings and almost immediately see slight improvement in his state, as he feels heard. Kaladin decides to remove as many patients from the place as he can—helping them may fulfill his knightly oaths in a way he had not expected.

Veil coaches Shallan in espionage, refusing to take over her body and wanting Shallan to do it herself. Veil helps Shallan interrogate her Lightweavers to figure out which of them is the spy, using discomfort to pull secrets from them and planting untruthful information that they might leak to Mraize and thereby reveal themselves. However, when two of the conversations get too close to Shallan’s own struggles with self-worth, she withdraws, forcing Radiant to take over.

After seeing off the army heading for Emul, Navani explores a newly discovered room in the tower. Previously sealed off, it contains a mysterious miniature replica of Urithiru. She asks an ardent to study the embedded gemstone that they think once powered the room’s door, hoping to uncover more of the tower’s secrets.

Meanwhile, the spanreed—a long-distance communication fabrial—with the strange gemstone blinks, indicating that the person who contacted Navani on the Shattered Plains wishes to speak again.

Navani’s ardents set up equipment to measure how far away the other speaker is. The other person condemns Navani for continuing her work with fabrials, calling it heresy to lock up a spren in a gemstone, denying their freedom. When the measurements indicate that the person on the other end of the spanreed is close, Navani moves around to triangulate the speaker’s location. In turn, the speaker indicates knowing that Navani moved. This, and the speaker’s disparaging comments about humans, convinces Navani that she is talking to a spren. When the spren cuts off communication, Navani breaks the spanreed gemstone, hoping to lure the spren into finding another way to communicate.

The deadeye spren Maya’s ability to follow Adolin’s direction continues to shock the spren in the Cognitive Realm.

Meanwhile, when Shallan determines the port where they have landed to be safe, Adolin seeks supplies while Shallan seeks out privacy to contact Mraize. She sees that the communication device box has been moved again.

In town, Adolin finds a deadeye spren whose friend claims she was betrayed recently, rather than thousands of years ago like most deadeyes.

Shallan feels a sense of déjà vu as she contacts Mraize with the box, reminding her of the holes in her memories. Mraize reports back the misinformation Shallan had given to Beryl, revealing Beryl as the spy.

Adolin and his men approach a caravan of humans outside the town. The men turn Adolin away, and he notes uneasily that they carry concealed weapons.

Veil challenges the idea that Beryl is the spy, claiming they found her too easily. Meanwhile, Shallan’s spren, Pattern, admits that he only avoids talk of Shallan’s childhood because of something dark that appears in her eyes when he does.

Adolin finds Notum, the honorspren ship captain who transported Adolin and his companions on their last trip through Shadesmar. Notum, who has been banished for helping Kaladin’s spren, Syl, escape the spren city Lasting Integrity, warns Adolin not to go there, but Adolin decides the mission is too important to abandon.

Raboniel’s team, including Venli, hikes through the mountains around Urithiru to avoid Alethi patrols and enters the tower quietly through the basement. Raboniel encourages Venli’s curiosity and teaches her about why they serve Odium.

Adolin observes that the human caravan is following them; he wants advice about the honorspren from Shallan, but she has withdrawn in exhaustion after a long debate with her personas about the traitor problem.

Adolin believes that the pleading letters from Dalinar and Jasnah will not work on the honorspren; he concludes that he must surprise the honorspren but has no ideas yet about how. Adolin questions Radiant and Veil about Shallan’s well-being, and Veil explains that Shallan’s repressed memories have made her believe that the real Shallan is a monster. Veil does not share details, but this admission still causes Shallan to retreat further, even as Adolin asks Veil to make sure Shallan knows that he loves her and does not care about her past.

At Lirin’s urging, Kaladin starts small with the sanitarium patients, limiting his efforts to those with battle shock or melancholy. Kaladin organizes group therapy for the patients, where conversation about their feelings helps them. Through his work, Kaladin begins to truly understand that there is more than one way to protect others.

Adolin and his team discuss plans for approaching the honorspren, but none of their ideas seems feasible. Adolin brings Shallan, still hiding under her personas, for a walk, where the appearance of a starspren—a rare, beautiful creature of the night sky—brings out the real Shallan, who cannot resist the opportunity to draw the view. As she sketches, Adolin reminds her that he does not judge her, reassuring her even though Shallan still maintains her secrets. Adolin admits that he too often feels that he can never be himself under the weight of his father’s expectations.

When the caravan following Adolin’s group turns away, Adolin realizes that they were following Notum. Adolin pursues the caravan on horseback, concerned for Notum’s safety. As he gallops ahead of his team, he finds the humans torturing Notum after having tied up Notum’s team. Adolin fights them all, with Maya standing at his back with another of his swords. When he kills several of the men, the rest flee.

No one can determine why the humans would have attacked the spren, but Adolin has Notum join their group in case the caravan returns.

Meanwhile, Shallan sees that the communication device has been moved again. Veil questions Pattern and realizes that he is the spy. Shallan, hurt at the idea that her bonded spren is betraying her, withdraws further.

When the team reaches the city Lasting Integrity, honorspren guards rip up the letters from Dalinar and Jasnah. Angry at their refusal to even hear him out, Adolin demands the spren put him on trial in place of the ancient Radiants to determine his honor. Only allowed to take his spren, Maya; Shallan; and her spren, Pattern, with him, he sends half of the remaining group to give Dalinar a report and is placed under arrest as soon as he steps through the gates.

One of Navani’s ardent scholars has invented a glove that can allow levitation; she notes its impracticality but allows him to continue exploring its uses. Her guards catch a man named Dabbid, who was leaving another communication gemstone from the mysterious spren. Before Navani can answer the blinking gemstone, there is an explosion in the tower.

Kaladin and Lirin discuss the historically unsatisfactory treatment of those with mental or emotional ailments; Kaladin argues for a medical revolution.

Raboniel orders the Deepest Ones—Fused who can move through rock—to test the tower’s protections and clear the way for her troops to enter the tower.

At the scene of the explosion, Navani discovers that two scholars studying the odd Voidlight sphere were killed while conducting experiments. The sphere has also been destroyed.

Venli prays that the rest of the occupation will happen without killing as she enters the corpse-filled basement of the tower. Raboniel works to corrupt the powerful spren the Sibling, hoping to reverse the tower’s defenses so that Radiant powers rather than those of Fused are muted.

Over drinks, Teft and Rlain urge Kaladin to join the meetings for those with melancholy. Kaladin agrees, and Syl glows brighter as Kaladin internalizes that his mental health challenges are not shameful, but rather allow him to help others.

An alarm goes up in the tower as the Sibling resists Raboniel. As her troops fight human soldiers, she activates and inverts the tower’s protections, but the tower has not yet been fully corrupted.

Suddenly, Teft collapses, and Kaladin is unable to use his powers to lift Teft into the air. Other Radiants faint in the halls and in the infirmary, but Kaladin finds he can still use some of his powers. Word reaches them that the Fused are attacking the tower.

Dabbid acknowledges leaving the spheres for Navani and gestures frantically for her to speak to the spren. Through the gemstone, the mystery spren identifies herself as the Sibling and informs Navani that the tower is under attack. The Sibling tries to give Navani instructions but is cut off as the fabrial stops working. As the Radiants around Navani collapse, Dabbid reveals that he communicates with the Sibling by touching the crystal veins in the walls, and Navani frees him.

Kaladin is ready to fight the approaching singers, but Lirin convinces him to stand down—the invading forces are only killing those who resist. If Kaladin attacks, the singers might kill his family in retaliation.

Navani gives orders to the military leaders remaining in the tower, some of whom balk at taking orders from a woman. Afterward, Navani speaks to the Sibling through the wall crystal. The Sibling does not trust Navani but needs help to avoid being corrupted by Raboniel. The Sibling does have a way to protect herself against people, but Navani will need a great deal of Stormlight to activate it.

Raboniel orders her soldiers only to harm those who fight them, but she grants the Pursuer—the Fused whose body Kaladin destroyed in the Hearthstone rescue—permission to kill Kaladin.

When they are alone, Raboniel shares with Venli that she admires the technological advances humans have made and wishes to learn from their discoveries—the Fused have not pursued such advances. Raboniel believes that partnership with the humans will lead to the end of the war.

A singer confronts Kaladin as he takes blankets to families. Kaladin wishes to fight but keeps his head down instead.

The Sibling leads Navani and her scholars to a hidden room with a large gemstone that they must infuse to activate the Sibling’s shield. When the infusion takes too long, Navani pleads with rival scholars to share their method of speeding up the process. They nearly refuse to reveal trade secrets, but Navani’s reminder of a possible Fused occupation convinces one of them to share their use of sound frequencies. Meanwhile, the Sibling informs Navani that the Fused are working with Moash to bring more troops through the Oathgate, a teleportation device.

Rlain decides to infiltrate the singers to avoid being labeled a traitor. He assures Kaladin he will be a spy for the humans. Seeing him leave, the normally lighthearted Syl realizes that everyone will eventually leave or die, worrying Kaladin.

Venli watches the final wave of human soldiers fighting to protect the tower, impressed by their tenacity. The Pursuer arrives to end the fight, killing the human leader and causing those remaining to flee.

With the gemstone fully infused, the shield is now in place. The Sibling orders Navani to destroy the gemstone and fabrial, as the Fused could corrupt the Sibling through it, and Navani does not have enough men to protect it. Navani does so and then offers her surrender.

Intrigued by the appearance of the Sibling’s shield, Raboniel is convinced that the tower and human inventions will help her end the war. Raboniel meets Navani to discuss terms of surrender; she shows surprising respect, stating that as a queen, Navani has a right to speak to Raboniel as an equal. Raboniel offers lenient terms, as long as Navani gives up the Radiants and works for Raboniel as a scholar—otherwise, Raboniel will kill them all. Navani accepts.

When Kaladin and his family receive news of the surrender, Lirin is relieved, but Kaladin recognizes that humans may be doomed without access to Urithiru and the Oathgates. When higher ranking singers called Regals try to take Teft and the other Radiants in Lirin’s care, Kaladin can no longer stay silent. When the Regals refuse to leave Teft, Kaladin’s use of Stormlight makes them realize he is the one the Pursuer seeks. They fight Kaladin, who kills all but one—a singer who huddles in the corner in fear and whom Kaladin allows to flee. Lirin is outraged at Kaladin’s killing within his sanctuary of healing and orders his son to leave.

Moash works in a quarry, enjoying physical labor and his lack of negative emotions, thanks to Odium. In a vision, Moash learns that Odium needs him at Urithiru to open the Oathgates. Odium also asks about Kaladin; when Moash claims that Kaladin can be broken emotionally, Odium agrees to send Moash to Kaladin through nightmares.

When the Fused take the tower, Lift, a young Edgedancer, ends up like Kaladin— she can use some powers but has lost access to others. A man appears, recognizing Lift and sharing his long-time desire to hunt her. Lift runs as his laughter follows her.

On the day of Taravangian’s planned betrayal of Dalinar and the coalition, he waits for word from Odium. It is not one of Taravangian intelligence days; instead, he is flooded with compassion, feeling regret over those who will die because of his deal with Odium.

Reviewing his remaining notes on the Diagram, he reads a question asking why the Diagram could not see or predict the birth of Dalinar’s younger son, Renarin Kholin (Adolin’s brother). In a vision, Taravangian recognizes in Odium human loneliness and the ability to make mistakes. Taravangian tricks the god into revealing an image of his plan, where Taravangian sees that, like the Diagram, Odium’s plan contains black emptiness around Renarin, whose future Odium cannot see. This weakness gives Taravangian hope that Odium can be defeated, even as he follows through on the plan to betray Dalinar and the others.