Weeks after losing contact with a mysterious tower spren, Navani struggles to locate the source despite triangulating it near a fourth-floor monastery. She visits the scholars and tests Tomor’s imaginative conjoined-lift gauntlet, offering safety and control improvements while encouraging further iteration and broader math work on multi-axis movement.

Navani then springs a sting: guards seize a wiry man caught placing a replacement spanreed at a bait workstation. Intending to interrogate him—ideally with a Lightweaver present to see the spren—she learns a soldier recognizes the captive as a Radiants’ servant, complicating her assumption about the correspondent’s identity. As the spanreed gem blinks for contact, Navani asserts control of the exchange and orders the prisoner taken to her audience chamber, but a spanreed message interrupts with alarming words: “explosion” and “dead.”

Elsewhere, under the slow onrush of the Everstorm, Venli marches with Raboniel’s strike force toward Urithiru. Deepest One scouts report ralkalest has fallen from the tunnel walls and that the Sibling’s spiritual protections are only partially active; a Masked One’s illusions are disrupted near the tower. Raboniel presses the attack, sending the Deepest Ones ahead to meet at the southwest opening.

At the tower clinic, Kaladin discusses mental illness with Lirin, concluding Alethkar needs a medical revolution—proper study, acceptance of surgeons, and better care for battle shock. As the Everstorm arrives, Teft reports that Dabbid hasn’t been seen for three days; Kaladin decides to check with Rlain, noting Teft’s returning headaches and cravings.

During the tunnel incursion, Venli is ambushed and kills a human soldier—her first—leaving her rattled and remorseful. Raboniel strides through the melee, disintegrates a spear with her powers, kills a spanreed operator, and seizes the fabrial, then orders the scouts to ensure the path is clear. The force continues upward into the tower, hoping their “silence from the dead” goes unnoticed.