Riding with Tvlakv’s three-wagon caravan, Shallan suppresses anxiety about pursuing deserters by studying plants and sketching Bluth, first as he is and then idealized as a proper guard. A smoke column behind confirms pursuit, making Tvlakv nervous. Shallan questions the two parshmen—who call themselves One and Two—but they do not understand the concept of freedom, underscoring how hard Jasnah’s warnings will be to prove.

Shallan spots a second, thicker smoke column ahead. Tvlakv and Tag debate skirting east to avoid being trapped between forces, but Shallan judges deserters will target slow wagons and orders them toward the larger group, hoping for strength in numbers. The caravan rolls north while she sketches imagined, more confident versions of herself and a precise image of a strained Jasnah.

Moving to the enclosed wagon, Shallan treats her injured feet with knobweed and consults Pattern about Surgebinding. Lamenting the loss of Words of Radiance, she reasons through her bond: spren and humans in symbiosis, granting Illumination. On Pattern’s suggestion she experiments, inhaling Stormlight from a sphere; she glows and feels energized but cannot control Lightweaving to repair her dress.

Shallan then notices the Stormlight actively healing her feet. In conversation, Pattern admits he came to learn and fears she will “kill” him as Radiants once killed their spren through their oaths. He explains unbonded spren withdrew, and that bonded spren gain sapience through humans. Shallan vows not to harm him, while Pattern insists growth requires speaking truths.

Saving her remaining spheres as her only real defense, Shallan returns to the driver’s bench with markedly less pain. The forward smoke has thickened into dark, roiling columns. Bluth grimly identifies it as wagons burning, implying the large group ahead has been attacked, and the caravan approaches escalating danger between foes.