As a highstorm rages, Adolin shelters in a winehouse bunker, trading barbs with Elit about their delayed duel while brooding over the looming parley with the Parshendi Shardbearer. Highprince Sadeas approaches, flaunting uncut, glowing emeralds taken on an unauthorized plateau run, and needles Adolin about Bridge Four and justice.

Sadeas then reveals he has renounced the title of Highprince of Information, implying other highprinces will refuse such royal appointments. He frames the Kholins as precipitating collapse, predicts civil strife, and coolly suggests he and Adolin will one day be allies after a civil war. Adolin barely restrains himself from violence and lets Sadeas walk away.

After the storm, Adolin walks back through the markets to Dalinar’s warcamp, musing on Shallan and the future of the Shattered Plains. At the family quarters, he finds extra Bridge Four guards—among them a parshman—gathered around new floor scratchings. The glyphs read, “Thirty-two days. Seek the center.”

In private with Dalinar and Navani, they determine the marks were cut with Dalinar’s own side knife, confirming he likely made them while in his visions—and by extension, that earlier messages were also his. Adolin is unsettled by the lack of control this implies, while Dalinar and Navani debate the meaning of “the center,” likely the heart of the Shattered Plains and the Parshendi’s base.

Navani notes that thirty-two days falls mid-Weeping, not aligned with a highstorm. Dalinar orders the scratches filled with crem and concealed, and the guards sworn to secrecy. Adolin raises the armed parshman in Bridge Four; Dalinar admits he approved it out of curiosity as they brace for the upcoming parley.