Venli joins eight other selected listeners to stand in the returning Everstorm, confident her loyalty and past discoveries will be rewarded with greater power. Ulim arranges them, promising safety and urging them to welcome the transformation. Venli embraces the storm, seeking strength to never again be powerless.

Inside the Everstorm, pain and pressure seize Venli as a presence demands entry. A warm, commanding voice intercedes—“This one is mine”—and withdraws the stronger force. Venli bonds a smaller Voidspren instead and emerges in an unfamiliar, lighter form that still carries the new, violent rhythms. Around her, Demid and others manifest imposing bodies suffused with dark-violet light, speaking an alien tongue; one of their number lies crushed, and several act unstable.

Ulim panics and explains the truth: the Fused are ancient souls that Return by taking listener bodies, killing the former occupants. Demid is gone; his body now houses Hariel, a volatile Fused. When Venli seeks to reverse it, Hariel warns her off, commends her people’s recent war, and declares Demid beyond recovery. Hariel says Odium reserved Venli, denying a Fused her body, because Odium has a specific purpose for her; her bond is a lesser form of power.

Resolute, Venli suppresses her grief and observes the Fused converse. She notices a small spren like a ball of light and instinctively senses the Fused would destroy it. She discreetly covers and hides the spren. Hariel then orders Venli to prepare to be carried to Alethela, consolidating the Fused’s control and setting Venli on a new, perilous path.