Venli, haunted by songs that recall her mother Jaxlim and wracked with guilt over the flood that killed her, moves through Urithiru determined to test what it means to be Radiant. Timbre consoles her, and Venli recognizes she cannot blame forms alone for past choices.

With Raboniel focused on Navani, Venli selects a deserted eighth-floor corridor the Pursuer’s scouts already searched. She draws Stormlight but finds the tower’s suppression blocks its use. Reluctantly turning to Voidlight, she infuses her gemheart despite her misgivings about Odium’s power, then presses her hand to the wall.

The stone awakens and greets her as a Radiant, singing an ancient, sonorous rhythm. It shows memories of Dawnsingers shaping stone into homes and tools. Draining her Light, Venli still manages to mold the rock—leaving a handprint, forming and rejoining a stone ball—and realizes she belongs to this forgotten art.

Three lightspren arrive, eager to bond Venli’s friends as squires, but Venli fears discovery by Voidspren. Despite Timbre’s reassurances, she orders the spren to leave the tower for now. She commits to a careful plan: sculpt a passage through the collapsed tunnels to smuggle her group out, perhaps masking the escape as another cave-in.