Hesina studies a cache of Alethkar maps Rlain provided, noting troop placements and a report by Kara the Windrunner on Tomat. The singers are repairing the long-broken city wall—the Gap—and there are no signs of widespread burnings, suggesting a surrender. She records observations but worries for her father’s fate.

Lirin enters, and their banter about Hesina’s domineering father turns into a confrontation over Kaladin. Hesina hasn’t forgiven Lirin for driving Kaladin away. Lirin insists on his convictions against killing and says he might have brought Kaladin to the infirmary for safety, even if it meant imprisonment. Hesina challenges his consistency, arguing he wouldn’t do that to other soldiers and that he only resists fighting when it involves his son.

After Lirin promises to listen, Hesina shows him the infirmary floor: civilians—many wearing painted shash glyphs—tend comatose Radiants while two stormform Regals watch. Lirin calls them fools resisting inevitability. They speak with Noril, a one-armed refugee painting shash glyphs, who explains he honors “Stormblessed” and draws strength from Kaladin getting up each day despite the same emptiness: “He still gets up.”

Hesina asks Lirin to talk to the people without arguing, to hear why they wear the glyph and to truly see them. Leaving him with that charge, she returns to her maps, trusting the man she married to reconsider.