A tower falls, a god dies, and a broken soldier learns he cannot save everyone.
Who drives the story
A Windrunner hollowed out by depression and loss, fighting a one-man war inside a captured tower. Caring for the abandoned mentally ill teaches him more than battle ever did, and he survives to swear the Fourth Ideal and save his father.
A scholar-queen captured in her own tower, forced to research beside her captor. She cracks the nature of Roshar's Lights, bonds the Sibling as a Bondsmith, and grants her enemy's dying wish with tears.
A Fused scholar exhausted by millennia of reincarnation, who invades Urithiru to end the eternal war. She becomes Navani's friend and foil, and dies by choice at Navani's hand.
The Blackthorn Bondsmith chasing a mad Herald for answers, then bargaining with Odium himself. He saves Kaladin with a vision of Tien and signs away ten days to a contest of champions.
A duelist without a spren who volunteers to stand trial for all humanity before the honorspren. His faith in his deadeye blade Maya cracks the whole spren nation open.
A Lightweaver sent by the Ghostbloods to assassinate Restares, who turns out to be the Herald Kelek. She refuses the kill, absorbs Veil, and remembers Testament, the first spren she broke.
The ancient spren of Urithiru, dying of corrupted towerlight and distrustful of humans after the Recreance. It reluctantly bonds Navani and is restored by her.
Also in the story
A singer working secretly against the Fused, sworn to free those in bondage. She saves Kaladin's family, reunites the surviving listeners, and learns her sister Eshonai briefly rode the storms as a Radiant.
The scheming king of compassion and cruelty who draws Nightblood at the perfect moment. He kills Rayse and ascends as the new vessel of Odium, then fools even Wit.
Kaladin's gruff mentor among Bridge Four, killed by Moash with anti-Stormlight after his spren Phendorana is destroyed. His death nearly kills Kaladin too.
The man who keeps choosing to feel nothing, arriving to kill Kaladin and Navani. Navani permanently blinds him with an outpouring of light.
How they are connected
She cracks the nature of Roshar's Lights, bonds the Sibling as a Bondsmith, and grants her enemy's dying wish with tears.
She becomes Navani's friend and foil, and dies by choice at Navani's hand.
He saves Kaladin with a vision of Tien and signs away ten days to a contest of champions.
She saves Kaladin's family, reunites the surviving listeners, and learns her sister Eshonai briefly rode the storms as a Radiant.
Kaladin's gruff mentor among Bridge Four, killed by Moash with anti-Stormlight after his spren Phendorana is destroyed.
Kaladin's gruff mentor among Bridge Four, killed by Moash with anti-Stormlight after his spren Phendorana is destroyed.
The man who keeps choosing to feel nothing, arriving to kill Kaladin and Navani.
The man who keeps choosing to feel nothing, arriving to kill Kaladin and Navani.
Go deeper
The limits of protection · Enemies as mirrors · Minds worth mending · The price of knowledge
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
Open the summary