Inside the vision, Dalinar inhabits the ancient Windrunner Garith during a secret meeting with Garith's singer lover. As she explains their hidden relationship to skeptical Windrunners, Dalinar realizes the bond between them is genuine and that this meeting is not a trap but a sincere attempt to prove that humans and singers can make peace. That recognition fills him with dread, because he already knows this moment will end in catastrophe.

Ba-Ado-Mishram arrives in singer form, flickering between a calm presence and a screaming, unstable one. She says she took up Odium's power while he was trapped on Braize because she wanted to protect the singers and replace him, not lead them to destruction. When hidden observers are revealed, Melishi steps forward carrying a huge gemstone; Dalinar immediately understands that Mishram does not realize the danger, because trapping spren is still a new human discovery.

Melishi pretends to join Mishram's peace effort, then, at Honor's command, uses a Bondsmith Connection to seize and imprison her in the gemstone. Dalinar and Navani hear the world's rhythms stop for a few horrifying seconds, and the singers in the hollow collapse together. Garith's lover, Shmone, loses her form in a violent transformation and becomes one of the confused, nearly mute servant singers humans had long used, making the scale of the betrayal brutally personal.

Garith accuses Melishi and Honor of breaking sworn oaths, but Honor answers by forcing a vision into every Radiant's mind: Roshar destroyed by unchecked Surgebinding. Dalinar understands at last how this betrayal, followed by the revelation that the Radiants could doom the world, helped drive the Recreance. The apparent Honor then reveals himself to be the Stormfather, created in Honor's image; he admits he remembered this truth, says he can no longer hide Dalinar from Odium, and vanishes.

The viewpoint shifts to Renarin, who grieves with Rlain over what was done and hears Rlain insist that hating all humans only serves Odium's desire for simple enemies. Shallan rejoins them, and the group concludes that Melishi carried Mishram's prison into the Spiritual Realm, but that finding it will require a deeper Connection to Mishram's feelings, not just knowledge of the event. Before they can act, a strange shadow linked to Shallan appears, Odium notices the intruders in his domain, and he tears apart the vision and scatters them.