Navani feels Dalinar’s final surge of love, then senses his soul vanish. The Sibling tells Navani that Dalinar is dead, the contract and Honor have been shattered, and the enemy now holds both Shards as Retribution. Because Retribution is coming for the spren, Navani immediately turns from grief to defense, while elsewhere Shallan begs the Oathgate spren to transport her and learns they cannot because all Stormlight has been drawn away. The spren tell Shallan that the Stormfather and Honor are gone, Stormlight is gone forever, and the age of the Oathgates has ended.

Taravangian exults in becoming Retribution, believing the union of Honor and Odium makes him stronger than any other power nearby. He consumes the highstorm into the Everstorm, warping Roshar’s spiritual nature so that only his Light and his storm will remain, forcing the world to depend on him. He then tries to pull all spren into himself to eliminate a future threat, but his power refuses: ten figures standing in an oath-bound circle are protecting the spren through the strength of Adonalsium and Honor’s demand that oaths be honored.

As Retribution senses the attention of the other Shards, Taravangian realizes Dalinar has forced the wider cosmere conflict to begin immediately, robbing him of centuries to prepare. He forms an avatar to confront Dalinar, only to find Dalinar’s corpse by the railing and Gavinor alive beneath him, protected by Dalinar’s final act. Taravangian restrains his spite because Honor within him insists on the precise keeping of promises, and he begins planning to preserve his deals on Roshar, leave a regent behind, escape the system quickly, and redirect danger toward Scadrial before the other Shards can move against him.

Taravangian then seizes Dalinar’s lingering soul, because Dalinar died as an oathbreaker, and tries to gloat over him and claim him for eternal punishment or transformation into an Unmade. Dalinar refuses to yield morally, and then his soul slips away into the Beyond because it has been claimed by another power. Searching for what remains, Taravangian finds instead the Spiritual legend of the Blackthorn, a version of Dalinar shaped by memory, reputation, and possibility. Recognizing it as a fiercer, less restrained war-self, Taravangian recruits the Blackthorn to serve him in future cosmic conquest.

At the same time, Kaladin kneels before Ishar as the Heralds’ circle begins to consume its swords. Ishar uses an ancient method tied to oath and divinity to restore the Oathpact without Stormlight, and Kaladin feels the other Heralds through the bond. The Wind assures Kaladin that the process is working and that the Oathpact will preserve the spren. After Nale vanishes and Ishar warns that Kaladin’s soul will be pulled from his original body, Syl takes Kaladin’s hand as the agonizing transition begins and Kaladin is drawn into the reforged pact.