Adolin spends the night rotating through Azimir’s defensive line with shield, spear, and pike, never getting the chance to use his sword. Surrounded by dying soldiers, slipping in blood, and watching trained fighters replaced by frightened townspeople, Adolin sinks into exhaustion and fatalism. The endless brutality of war makes him recoil from the Vorin promise of an eternal afterlife of fighting, and his thoughts turn bitterly toward Dalinar, whose hopeful spiritual message feels unbearable coming from a man Adolin still blames for Evi’s death and for judging Adolin over Sadeas.

When Adolin is called back to the front after what feels like no rest at all, he is tempted to stay down and let others carry on without him. Adolin realizes, however, that doing so would mean truly abandoning his men, repeating the failure that still haunts him from Kholinar. That thought forces him to stand, and he finds an unexpected source of strength in Kaladin’s example as a bridgeman: if Kaladin endured worse while unable to fight back, then Adolin can endure this. Smiling at the absurdity of being inspired by “bridgeboy,” Adolin returns to the line.

Elsewhere, Jasnah remains alone in the temple after Fen leaves and Odium’s negotiation concludes. Sick with failure, Jasnah dissects what went wrong: she let herself become absorbed in winning the argument and, by doing so, proved to Fen that Odium was dangerous to Roshar but potentially useful to Thaylenah. Worse, the crisis shakes Jasnah’s faith in her own guiding philosophy, because she can no longer reconcile pursuing the greater good at any cost with the moral horror of actually paying any cost. History offers no comfort, and even her trust in her own mind falters as she remembers the time her family confined her as a child.

Taravangian then reappears and presses Jasnah further. When Jasnah challenges his divinity, Taravangian demonstrates that he did not need rhetoric alone to win: he reveals that the anti-Fused warning fabrials were a lie created by artifabrians loyal to him, that he knows the hidden location of the Thaylen council, and that he had Deepest Ones prepared to murder council members if negotiations failed. He explains that he also had long-standing agents on the council from the Diagram, and that Jasnah and Dalinar made a strategic mistake by focusing on Fen while neglecting the broader Thaylen government. Taravangian shows that he could already have taken the city by force and political manipulation, meaning Jasnah had been outmaneuvered from the start.

Having established his dominance, Taravangian claims that Jasnah has always acted in ways compatible with his methods and tells her he may one day want her to help rule Roshar while he turns his attention to the wider cosmere. He offers Jasnah immortality as a Fused and frames service to him as a possible path to doing long-term good, exploiting the very moral logic that has just failed her. Jasnah cannot honestly dismiss the argument outright, which leaves her feeling defeated a second time. Soon afterward, official news arrives that the Thaylen Central Council has voted by an overwhelming margin to accept Odium’s offer, with Fen ratifying the contract, and Jasnah receives the signed agreement as a final reminder of her failure.