Formless awakens before Adolin’s final judgment, dressing in Veil’s clothing and planning to impersonate the honorspren Lusintia to infiltrate the High Judge’s quarters and kill Kelek with Mraize’s knife. Adolin senses a change and argues that true strength is forged through weakness. Pattern, chastened for speaking to Wit, relays Wit's message that Shallan is loved and trusted. Formless proceeds, Lightweaving Lusintia’s likeness and intending to replace Kelek for the trial.

At Kelek’s door, Radiant’s distant voice admits she killed Ialai to protect Shallan from crossing that line. Inside, as Shallan advances toward the study, her Stormlight drains and Veil appears, confronting her. Veil dismantles the “Formless” lie, naming Shallan’s flight from feared rejection and using Adolin’s analogies to argue that enduring weakness is strength. Pressed, Shallan admits killing her father and relives killing her mother.

Shallan refuses to run. She floods the room with a Lightweaving of her childhood garden and faces the truth: as a child she broke her oaths and killed her first Cryptic spren. Accepting the memories of her recent self-destructive path—including preparing to murder Ialai—Shallan integrates Veil, who dissolves, leaving Shallan whole. She resolves to find her first spren’s deadeye later and focus on the present task.

Kelek emerges. Shallan sets down the knife and reveals the Ghostbloods ordered the assassination, naming Thaidakar. Kelek admits his indecision and frames the honorspren conflict as a generational ideological struggle. Shallan presses him to reconsider condemning Adolin and offers information in trade, while Kelek muses about finding a way offworld.

Honorspren—led by Lusintia and the elder Sekeir—burst in. With her gemstone spent, Shallan cannot Lightweave. Kelek defends her purpose there, but Sekeir declares Kelek is suffering another bout of weakness and orders him sequestered, imperiling the fairness of Adolin’s looming judgment.