During the Alethi–Parshendi treaty feast, Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wears white and moves unnoticed among revelers. Ordered to kill the king and to be seen doing it, he draws Stormlight from lamps and uses Lashings and his Shardblade to bypass and slaughter guards, his actions baffling the Alethi who have never witnessed such powers.

Szeth fortifies a storage room, cuts through stone, and ambushes soldiers with Reverse Lashings, then advances along a blood-red carpet toward the king’s quarters. A Shardbearer in ornate blue Plate confronts him, and they duel through walls and ceilings as Szeth exploits gravity Lashings while the Plate resists his Blade.

Guards try to extract a hooded “king,” but Szeth realizes the Shardbearer is actually Gavilar himself, feigning as a bodyguard. He reengages, weaponizing furniture by Lashing it toward Gavilar, cracking the Plate and shattering the helm. Gavilar counters with a crushing punch that hurls Szeth onto the balcony, injured and nearly out of Stormlight.

Szeth Lashes the balcony downward multiple times, breaking it free. Gavilar falls with the collapsing structure and survives only to be mortally impaled where his Plate was broken. Szeth drains remaining Stormlight from the Plate’s gems, resummons his Blade, and hears Gavilar name possible conspirators and insist a secret must be kept. Gavilar gives Szeth a strange, lightless yet glowing black sphere and a dying message for Dalinar to find “the most important words a man can say.”

Honoring the sacred nature of final requests, Szeth writes the message in Gavilar’s blood, leaves the king’s fallen Shardblade untouched, and escapes into the night, the Parshendi’s sudden betrayal of the treaty unexplained.