Taravangian stops letting intellect dominate and deliberately allows emotion to take control. He braces for the change, then experiences a powerful surge of feelings, including worry, confidence, fear, and especially rage.

He instantly goes to Kharbranth and spreads his awareness over the city so he can feel its people. Taravangian is overwhelmed by love for the city’s beauty, learning, and hospitals. He also remembers the hidden murders committed there to gather Death Rattles, and he still frames those deaths as terrible but necessary sacrifices made in pursuit of knowledge about the future.

Taravangian then justifies his old policies by pointing to Kharbranth’s order and peace, including the city’s low crime and its practice of exiling offenders. But that reassurance collapses. When he visits his daughter’s room and sees her playing with his grandchildren, love immediately turns into terror because Taravangian now sees how vulnerable they are.

That fear drives Taravangian to a harsher conclusion. Exiling criminals is no longer enough; he decides threats must be punished or annihilated before they can endanger his family or his people. He extends that logic outward to the entire world, deciding that no one will ever be safe unless everything is under his control.

Taravangian does not reveal himself to his family, though he embraces them invisibly. By the end of the chapter, both his emotions and his intellect point him to the same answer: Cultivation was wrong, and war leading to total control is, in his mind, the only path to safety.