The story opens six years earlier at a treaty feast, where Jasnah Kholin glimpses impossible phenomena: her shadow misbehaves and a hallway dissolves into a sea of beads. She survives a frightening foray into Shadesmar—the Cognitive Realm—then hires an assassin, Liss, to spy on the future queen. Moments later a Shin killer in white murders King Gavilar. Parshendi elders admit hiring the assassin, claiming Gavilar intended something dangerous, igniting the long war that follows.

In the present, three paths take shape. At sea, Jasnah tutors Shallan Davar, explaining that spren are living ideas and Shadesmar is real. A geometric pattern—later known as Pattern, a Cryptic—begins following Shallan. Jasnah arranges Shallan’s betrothal to Adolin Kholin to stabilize House Davar. Their voyage ends in disaster: assassins board their ship, murder Jasnah, and capture the crew. Alone, Shallan draws Stormlight, projects an illusion to mislead pursuers, enters Shadesmar, and persuades the ship’s mind to “change.” The hull becomes water; the ship sinks. Washed ashore by a santhid, Shallan salvages Jasnah’s notes and, determined to continue the mission, coerces a slaver’s caravan to take her toward the Shattered Plains.

On the Plains, Kaladin emerges from slavery as captain over nearly a thousand former bridgemen. He forges them into soldiers, seeds training across crews, and vows to protect Dalinar Kholin despite a bitter history with lighteyes. Kaladin’s Surgebinding—Stormlight-fueled Lashings and binding—grows under the quiet prodding of his honorspren Syl, though he conceals it. Dalinar, guided by visions from the Almighty, proclaims a rotation for gemheart hunts to force cooperation; highprinces seethe. He tasks Adolin to duel rival Shardbearers and win their Shards to strengthen a coalition. A wall carving in Dalinar’s rooms begins a countdown to catastrophe.

Shallan survives the Frostlands under the hard tutelage of Tyn, a con artist who probes her secrets via spanreed. Pattern manifests fully, and Shallan learns Illumination—Lightweaving—while piecing together that Urithiru, the fabled Radiant city, may be reachable from the Shattered Plains. Tyn’s ties to the Ghostbloods surface; she plans to sell out Shallan’s followers. When a spanreed exchange exposes that Tyn helped arrange Jasnah’s assassination, Tyn attacks. Cornered, Shallan summons a Shardblade and kills her, then assumes Tyn’s network and, disguised as “Veil,” infiltrates the Ghostbloods. Mraize recruits her to steal Meridas Amaram’s secrets; Shallan discovers a locked study of stormwarden maps on the Parshendi and “returning” the Voidbringers, and recognizes Amaram’s Shardblade as her brother Helaran’s.

At the Kholin warcamp, assassins strike in a highstorm: the Shin killer, Szeth, breaches the king’s quarters. Dalinar rallies, Adolin is hurled to the ceiling, and Kaladin engages but has his arm deadened by Szeth’s Blade. Dalinar catches a killing blow in his hands, buying a heartbeat; Kaladin body-slams Szeth, and both tumble into the night. Szeth flees, rattled by the existence of another Surgebinder. The countdown scratches return: an end in sixty-two days.

Adolin resumes duels to strip Shards from opponents, but his enemies twist protocol. He is trapped into a four-on-one bout, his surrender ignored; Renarin leaps down unarmored and becomes leverage. Kaladin rejects passivity, leaps into the arena, and with precise Lashings and grit forces multiple yields. He saves Renarin by catching a live Shardblade in his bare hands—triggering a scream only he and Relis hear—and Adolin claims victory. In the aftermath, Kaladin publicly accuses Amaram of theft and murder; King Elhokar orders him imprisoned. In his cell Kaladin wavers, courted by Moash and conspirators who argue Elhokar must die so Dalinar can rule. Wit visits and tells the tale of Fleet, framing perseverance as victory. Dalinar promises a pardon; Kaladin’s anger hardens into the belief that the king’s death might be necessary.

Released days later—Adolin had voluntarily imprisoned himself in solidarity—Kaladin refuses a Shardblade and rewards it to Moash. Meanwhile, Sadeas circulates altered transcripts of Dalinar’s visions to mock him; Dalinar embraces the attack and redoubles his unification push. Amid escalating tensions, a sabotaged mechanical bridge collapses under Dalinar’s feet on the Plains. Kaladin and Shallan plunge into the chasms and must survive together. Hunted by a chasmfiend, they trade barbs that peel back class prejudice and pain. When cornered, Shallan summons her hidden Blade, aids Kaladin with illusions, and carves a storm refuge. During the highstorm they share hard truths—his enslavement and her patricide. The Stormfather appears to Kaladin, declaring Syl dead for his wavering oaths, severing him from the winds. At dawn they climb out. Shallan’s uncanny mapping reveals the Plains’ cymatic pattern and a buried city at the center; she urges an expedition and warns Dalinar to leave parshmen behind.

On the listener side, Venli unveils stormform; Eshonai, fearing extinction, takes it and returns with red eyes, a new Rhythm, and a plan to convert her people and summon a storm to destroy the humans. Despite internal dissent, mass transformation begins. A parley fails—Eshonai promises peace only in death. Dalinar commits to march for the center of the Plains before the countdown expires, aiming either for parley on Alethi terms or decisive battle.

As the armies press inward during the Weeping, red-eyed patrols and burned scouts confirm something unnatural. Rlain (once Shen), a parshman bridgeman revealed as a listener spy, surrenders and warns that “gods” have returned. On the eve of battle, Moash and Graves move to execute their coup. Kaladin, crippled and Stormlightless, confronts them in the palace, rescues a drunken Elhokar, and is cornered. Choosing duty over hatred, he speaks the Third Ideal—to protect even those he hates, so long as it is right. Syl returns as his Shardblade; Stormlight floods him. Graves admits the Diagram sought to separate Kaladin from Dalinar; Moash flees.

At the center, Parshendi chant a destructive song as red lightning hammers the field. Adolin discovers Shardplate can blunt the strikes, rallies men, and then ambushes reserves through a hollowed hill, dueling Eshonai and knocking her into a chasm. Shallan identifies a circular plateau as an Oathgate dais, enters a mural-lined chamber, and learns the gateway is a fabrial keyed to living spren-Blades. With Pattern, she unlocks it and prepares to move the army—Stormlight permitting. The Assassin in White arrives at the command; Dalinar duels and is lashed into the sky as Roion dies. Kaladin catches Dalinar midair and launches after Szeth into the colliding Everstorm and highstorm. On the ground Shallan turns the Oathgate to Urithiru; the plateau and packed armies vanish from the Plains and reappear atop a mountain, safe.

Kaladin and Szeth race the stormwall. Szeth, confronted with Radiants’ return, admits he was never truly Truthless. Kaladin kills him and claims his dropped Honorblade. In Urithiru, leaders reckon with new limits: Oathgates consume Stormlight in proportion to passengers, making Light strategic; Shallan becomes essential for travel. Lopen begins regrowing his missing arm after inhaling Stormlight, hinting at Windrunner squires. Moash flees with Graves to the Diagram. The Ghostbloods draw Shallan deeper—Mraize reveals her brothers were extracted and demands debts paid; Pattern forces Shallan to remember killing her mother as a child. Amaram abducts a madman who claims to be Talenel’Elin, while Nale resurrects Szeth, recruiting him to the Skybreakers and gifting a strange dark Blade.

The book closes with transformations. Dalinar bonds the Stormfather, swearing to unite rather than divide, and discards his Shardblade. Renarin reveals himself a Truthwatcher. In a private hallway Adolin confronts Sadeas and, pushed past endurance, kills him, courting future ruin. Wit greets Jasnah Kholin, who Escapes back from Shadesmar alive. With the Everstorm now a second, recurring tempest that will transform parshmen worldwide, the Radiants’ return becomes not a legend but a necessity.