Oathbringer

The listener invasion begins; Dalinar watches as their ships approach during the Everstorm, which Odium controls. Amaram’s soldiers move onto the field in front of the city.

Kaladin and the others watch from Shadesmar in despair as the spren army and the waiting Fused descend over Thaylen City. They think Odium might have led them there with Kaladin’s vision, but Kaladin still believes it was not from Odium. Too far from other portals, they decide to try the Oathgate nonetheless. Kaladin notices some of the spren disappear from Shadesmar and manifest in the Physical Realm. He sees the Fused use the Oathgate and disappear into the Physical Realm, as well. He offers to distract the remaining Fused while Shallan tries to work the Oathgate.

Jasnah watches the battle as it commences and believes they will lose Thaylen City. Reviewing evidence that confirms that Renarin’s spren is not what it seems, she draws her Shardblade and searches for her cousin. A massive monster, called a thunderclast, pulls itself from a large crack that appears in the field.

Venli acts as the translator between the Fused and the singer army they lead and watches as the spirits of Fused who have not yet been reborn hover over the battlefield. A spren appears as a column of red smoke and towers above the rest. Odium appears as an image of light. He informs his Fused that the army they gathered is only a group of spectators; the red smoke is a spren that he uses to claim the minds of the Alethi on the field. The 10,000 Alethi on the field suddenly have red glowing eyes, and Odium uses their passion, telling them that Dalinar intends to sacrifice them. The army, led by Amaram, turns and attacks the city.

Dalinar feels the Thrill hit and pushes it away with immense effort. A thunderclast rips open the gemstone reserve; inside, Dalinar finds Rysn the banker, who tells him the King’s Drop has been taken by the thunderclast. Jasnah approaches Renarin and hears him pleading, “Not Father” (1098).

Adolin and Kaladin create diversions, with Kaladin fighting the Fused, while Shallan approaches the stone sentinels in front of the Oathgate.

The thunderclast places the King’s Drop outside the city; Odium explains to Venli that it is a last-minute precaution against disaster in their assault.

The guardians of the Oathgate tell Shallan that in his last days, Honor forbade travel to and from Shadesmar, therefore they refuse to let her use the gate. They explain that the souls of the dead, the Fused, did not use the Oathgate as Shallan believes; they were instead “pulled along ancient paths to waiting hosts” (1103).

Szeth and Nale watch the battle at Thaylen City. Szeth knows the truth about who the Voidbringers actually are. Nale asks Szeth whether the Skybreakers should follow the laws of humans or those of the original inhabitants of the planet. Szeth struggles with the question; at first, he thinks he should follow the parshmen.

Navani watches as Dalinar carries a book, but no weapon, and walks through the broken city wall and onto the battlefield.

A Fused stabs Adolin, but he survives the attack. Once she realizes the stone guardians will not allow her through, Shallan searches for Kaladin. The injured Adolin joins in the search. Meanwhile, Syl pushes Kaladin to speak his next Ideal in the hope that this will provide more power to help them.

Szeth admits that he does not trust himself to choose whom to follow and asks if he can follow a person instead of the law. Nale admits Szeth should not choose him, as others have, because he is “getting worse” (1115). He suggests Szeth shouldn’t follow men because they caused him pain in the past, but Szeth, watching Dalinar on the field, suggests that instead powers he did not control forced him to follow the wrong men. He joins Lift on the battlefield, saving her from a Fused and offering to help her.

Ash, the woman that Mraize lured to him and called a Herald, searches the Alethi camp outside Thaylen City and finds Taln, the Herald who bore the burden of the Oathpact longer than any of them.

Renarin knows Jasnah will kill him. He sees numbers and words in visions. These visions told him of the Everstorm and how to find the drawers in Urithiru. He sees a vision of his father kneeling before a god of gold and white, and this is when Jasnah hears him plead for his father.

Dalinar stares over the battlefield, intending to confront Odium. When Lift appears, he asks her to steal back the gemstone from Odium’s Fused. Dalinar demands a contest of champions once more. Odium agrees to the contest. He reveals that his champion is Dalinar himself, and the Thrill overwhelms Dalinar.

Kaladin cannot say the words of the next Ideal, crying in Syl’s arms.

The sword begins to feed on Szeth’s soul, but he has lost the sheath. Lift pulls him toward Dalinar. Lift touches Szeth and the sword begins to feed on her as well.

Jasnah, hearing Renarin’s cry, chooses not to kill him and instead embraces him, telling him they will find a way through it. Renarin realizes that if he saw Jasnah kill him in a vision, but that she did not end up killing him, then his visions about Dalinar falling might be wrong, too.

Odium attempts to force Dalinar, with visions of Evi, to give in to the Thrill. He orders the Fused to follow Dalinar, although they resist. When Amaram approaches, Odium praises him and rewards him with a small gemstone that he tells Amaram to swallow to gain the promised power. Amaram reveals that Odium spoke to him for some time. Dalinar feels abandoned as anger, pain, and memories wash over him. This is Odium’s plan. Dalinar, amid his despair, finds he clasps a gloryspren in his fist. He remembers the words from The Way of Kings. He says to Odium, “You cannot have my pain” (1133).

Gloryspren surround Dalinar and Odium fails to regain control over him, Dalinar reaches his hands between realms to bring them all together into a perpendicularity, which acts as both a portal and a way to refill gemstones and Radiants with Stormlight. Syl recognizes it as Honor’s Perpendicularity and the group’s way home. As Amaram, on Odium’s orders, moves to attack Dalinar, Kaladin, Shallan, and Adolin appear from the column of light. Szeth and Lift, saved from Nightblood by the flood of Stormlight, run to Dalinar’s side.

Jasnah fights her way through Sadeas’s army with Renarin in tow. Teft begins to speak the words of his next Ideal.

All of the Radiants who serve Dalinar appear by his side, and Renarin heals Adolin. Taln leads Ash to stand beside Dalinar, as well, and Szeth announces his desire to follow Dalinar. Dalinar gives each of them their orders to defend the city.

Kaladin fights a transformed Amaram after the man swallows the gemstone from Odium. Amaram is poised to kill Kaladin when Rock shoots an arrow from the walls and kills Amaram.

Adolin watches as Shallan creates illusions of hundreds of people on the battlefield. Shallan’s illusions distract the Alethi soldiers, who do not care that they fight illusions, only that they fight. Without specific orders from Dalinar, Adolin decides to muster defenders inside the city and fight the Thrill-controlled Alethi.

Venli feels despair over the loss on the battlefield. She speaks the Ideal to bond Timbre as she attunes the Rhythm of the Lost, and Timbre admits to holding the Voidspren inside Venli’s gemheart, the one that was supposed to take her over as Odium’s captive. Venli rushes into a ship’s cabin for privacy and speaks the full Words.

Lift and Szeth trick and distract the Fused until Lift has the real one in her possession. Szeth carries her to Dalinar, then leaves.

Renarin reaches the Oathgate and finds out about the attack at Urithiru and the Fused who guard the access to the gate. Renarin faces the Fused as the gate is opened from the other side, where Teft, now a Knight Radiant provides powers for all the Windrunner squires.

Dalinar steps into the red mist of the Thrill to face it, thanking it for the strength it provided when he needed it. He now understands the Thrill. With the gemstone from Lift, he approaches the Thrill. On the field, the Alethi’s eyes lose the red light, and the Fused and parshmen retreat as Dalinar traps the spren of the Thrill within the gemstone.

Moash works for the Fused, breaking pieces of the Kholinar palace walls. He is given an audience with one of the Fused, who praises him for killing Elhokar and offers him a strange knife, asking if he would kill a god. He takes the knife and kills one of the surviving Heralds, Jezrien. Ash senses the fact that Jezrien was killed, as she tries to get Taln to move. She notices a woman in the crowd with drawings of her and Taln. Before Ash collapses, she wonders why someone named Midius gives away pictures of them.

Navani and Dalinar reunite as Shallan and Adolin do the same; Shallan finally chooses Adolin over Kaladin, and Dalinar asks Navani to teach him to read.

Venli and Timbre communicate as Venli remains with the Fused, wondering why Timbre chose her and listening to some of the parshmen around her question the idea of killing humans, despite their enslavement. Venli offers to tell them about listener culture.

Kaladin considers the implications of their new knowledge, of humans’ role as the actual interlopers on Roshar. He hears reports that the parshmen armies push north, and he wonders what will happen to his home and his family.

In private, Taravangian admits to Dalinar that he positioned himself to take over the coalition in the aftermath of its downfall. Dalinar begins to understand that Taravangian is more than he seems, and he believes he might be the traitor.

Kaladin flies to Alethkar, and on the road, he finds Drehy and Skar, who escaped Kholinar along with Gavinor, Elhokar’s son, whom they saved from the queen’s guards.

Odium sees Taravangian’s attempts to gain his attention and visits Taravangian on a day when he is not at full mental capacity. Taravangian offers his aid as a traitor within Urithiru; in return, he begs Odium to spare the people of Kharbranth.

Shallan and Adolin, with a wedding date now set, attend a meeting of the monarchs and highprinces. The group discusses plans for the future and what to do about Kholinar. They know they have a traitor in their midst, but despite what Taravangian admitted, Dalinar does not believe he betrayed them to Odium, since he acted to save Roshar. Adolin admits to Dalinar in private that he killed Sadeas and refuses to become king of Alethkar. Shallan suggests Jasnah wear the crown.

Leshwi offers Moash the Honorblade he had once carried, renaming him Vyre.

On the day of her wedding, Shallan’s brothers return to her, as Mraize promised. A note comes from Mraize, as well, in which he asks her to persuade another Unmade to serve the Ghostbloods—or capture and deliver the Unmade to them.

After the festivities, Dalinar practices his writing: He sets down the story of his own life in what will become the text of Oathbringer.

Wit waits in line for food in Kholinar, weeks after its fall. He speaks with several inhabitants and offers a little girl a doll. He tells her he has to leave and that she needs someone to care for her. He speaks to something in the cracks of the palace walls, offering to take it with him away from the city to avoid capture. A spren, like Pattern, slips into his clothing, and when Wit is away from the sentries, he whispers the first Ideal.