The Oathgate control building shakes with a ripping sound and flash of light, sending Adolin, Shallan, Kaladin, and Azure plummeting. Adolin slams onto a white stone platform, then tumbles into a sea of tiny glass beads, panicking as he begins to suffocate.

Azure catches Adolin’s hand and hauls him back onto the platform. Regaining their breath, the group notes the alien sky: pitch-black with endless roadlike clouds leading toward a distant sun, and an ocean of beads dotted with hovering lights.

Kaladin rises and surveys while Shallan kneels by Adolin. Above them hover two enormous, humanlike spren—one black, one red—watching like sentinels. The platform appears to sit where the control building had been, now isolated amid the bead ocean.

Three smaller spren stand on the platform: a figure in a stiff black costume with a shifting geometric head warns, “Oh, this is bad”; a blue-white young woman in a filmy dress; and a ragged spren with ashen, corded features and eyes scratched out. Counting only four humans present, Adolin realizes only those in the control room were taken. Azure mutters that she hates this place as the group faces their new predicament.