And so, I’ll die.

Yes, die. If you’re reading this and wondering what went wrong—why my soul evaporated soon after being claimed by the gemstone in your knife—then I name you idiot for playing with powers you only presume to understand.

Teft felt like a wet sack of socks that had been left out in a storm. The honest-by-Kelek’s-own-breath truth was that he’d figured he’d done it again. When he’d woken up naked and sickly, he’d assumed he’d gone back to the moss. In that moment, he’d hated himself.

Then he’d seen Dabbid and Rlain. When he saw their joy—more heard it in Rlain’s case—Teft knew he couldn’t truly hate himself. This was where the oaths had brought him. His self-loathing was, day by day, fading away. Sometimes it surged again. But he was stronger than it was.

The others loved him. So, whatever he’d done, he would get up and make it right. That was the oath he’d taken, and by the Almighty’s tenth name, he would keep it.

For them.

Then he’d found out the truth. He hadn’t broken. He hadn’t taken up the moss. It wasn’t his fault. For once in his storming excuse for a life, he had been kicked to the gutter and woken up with a headache—and it hadn’t been due to his own weakness.

A few days of healing later, he still found it remarkable. His streak held strong. Almost seven months with no moss. Damnation. He had an urge for some moss now, honestly. It would take the edge off his pounding headache.

But Damnation. Seven months. That was the longest he’d gone without touching the stuff since … well, since joining the army. Thirty years.

Never count those years, Teft, he told himself as Dabbid brought him some soup. Count the ones you’ve been with friends.

The soup had some meat in it, finally. What did they think would happen if he ate something proper? He’d been out for a few days, not a few years. That wasn’t enough time to turn into some kind of invalid.

In fact, he seemed to have weathered it better than Kaladin. Stormblessed sat on the floor—refused to take the bench because it was “Teft’s.” Had a haunted look to him and was a little shrunken, like he’d been hollowed out with a spoon. Whatever he’d seen when suffering those fevers, it hadn’t done him any good.

Teft had felt that way before. Right now he was mostly aches, but he’d felt that way too.

“And we were supposed to be off storming duty,” Teft grumbled, eating the cold soup. “Civvies. This is how we end up? Fate can be a bastard, eh, Kal?”

“I’m just glad to hear your voice,” Kaladin said, taking a bowl of soup from Dabbid. “Wish I could hear hers…”

His spren. He’d lost her somehow, in the fighting when he’d gotten wounded.

Teft glanced to the side, to where Phendorana sat primly on the edge of his bench. He’d needed to reach to summon her, and she said she didn’t remember anything that had happened since he went unconscious. She’d been … sort of unconscious herself.

Phendorana manifested as an older human woman, with mature features and no-nonsense Thaylen-style clothing, a skirt and a blouse. Her hair blew free as if in a phantom wind. Unlike Syl or some of the other honorspren, Phendorana preferred to manifest at the same size as a human.

She glanced at Teft, and he nodded toward Kaladin. Phendorana drew in a breath and sighed pointedly. Then—judging by how Kaladin’s spoon paused halfway to his mouth—she let the others in the room see her.

“Your Surgebinding still works?” Phendorana asked Kaladin.

“Not as well as it did before the last fight,” Kaladin said. “But I can draw in Stormlight, stick things together.”

It was the same for Teft, but they’d found that if Lift didn’t show up and do her little Regrowth thing to him every ten hours or so, he’d start to slip back into a coma. Something was definitely strange about that kid.

“If you can Surgebind,” Phendorana said, “your bond is intact. The Ancient Daughter might have lost herself through separation—it is difficult for us to exist fully in this realm. However, I suspect she will stay close by instinct. If you can get to where you lost her, you should be fine.”

“Should be,” Kaladin said softly, then started eating again. He nodded in thanks as Dabbid brought him a drink.

They hadn’t pushed Dabbid too hard on the fact that he could talk. It wasn’t a lie, keeping quiet like he had. Not a betrayal. They each fought their own personal Voidbringers, and they each chose their own weapons. When it had come time to face the storm, Dabbid had done right by Teft and Kaladin. That was what mattered. That was what it meant to be Bridge Four.

A man could choose not to talk if he didn’t want to. Wasn’t no law against it. Teft knew a handful of people who should maybe try a similar tactic.

They continued eating in silence. After their initial joy at reuniting, their enthusiasm had dampened. Each thing Teft heard about their situation seemed worse than the one before. Fused in the tower. The queen captive. Radiants fallen. The tower spren slowly being corrupted, to the point that it was almost dead. Kaladin couldn’t get it to talk to him anymore, and neither could Dabbid.

Grim days he’d awakened to. Almost wished they’d left him in a storming coma. What good was he at fixing any of this?

Phendorana glanced at him, sensing his emotions. He pointed his spoon at her and winked in thanks. No, he wasn’t going to be down on himself. He’d sworn an Ideal.

Regardless. Grim days. Grim storming days.

The door opened a short time later, and Rlain entered with Lift, who scuttled forward and sniffed at the pot of soup. She wrinkled her nose.

“Be glad we have anything,” Kaladin said. “That ardent in the monastery deserves credit. More than we gave him when we visited, Teft.”

“Most people want to be helpful,” Teft said. “Even if they need a nudge now and then. Kelek knows I do.”

Lift hopped up onto his bench and stepped around Phendorana, then touched Teft, infusing him with Stormlight. He took a deep breath. And storm him, the air felt a little warmer. At least now he wouldn’t fall asleep in his soup.

Rlain closed the door, then settled on the ground in the tight confines, his back to the stone wall, bits of his carapace scraping the stone.

“No news from the queen,” Rlain said. “Lift managed to talk to one of the scholars, and she says Navani has been isolated for over two weeks now. She’s imprisoned, forced to sleep in the scholars’ rooms by herself.”

“We’re all basically imprisoned,” Teft said. “Every storming one of us.”

“No,” Kaladin said. “We five are free.”

“So what do we do?” Rlain asked. “We don’t know where the last node is, the one keeping that shield up on the Sibling. If we did, it’s not like we could protect it.”

Kaladin had told them, in disheartening detail, about how difficult it had been to get in and destroy the previous two. Protecting one against the entire might of Odium’s forces? Impossible. Teft agreed on that.

“If we break this last one,” Teft said, “that’s it. Tower’s finished. But if we wait, the Fused will find a way to break it themselves. Tower’s finished.”

“We can’t fight an entire army on our own,” Kaladin said. “Teft and I have barely recovered, and our powers are temperamental at best. Two of us have lost our spren.”

“The girl can wake the other Radiants,” Teft said.

“The other Radiants are guarded,” Kaladin said.

“Guards can be distracted or dealt with,” Rlain said. “We did something similar to get Lift out. Venli is on our side. Or at least she’s not on the other side—and she’s Voice to the head Fused leading the occupation. We have resources.”

Kaladin tipped his head back, his eyes closed.

“Lad?” Teft asked.

“I don’t want any of you to take this the wrong way,” Kaladin said, not opening his eyes. “I’m not giving up. I’m not broken. No more than usual. But I’m tired. Extremely tired. And I have to wonder. I have to ask myself. Should we keep fighting? What do we want to accomplish?”

“We want to win,” Rlain said. “Free the tower. Restore the Radiants.”

“And if we can’t plausibly do that?” Kaladin leaned his head forward and opened his eyes. They’d gone dark again, of course, now that he’d been days without his Blade. The longer you kept your spren bonded, the more slowly the color faded. “I have to at least ask. Is it possible my father is correct? I’m starting to worry about what we might cause people to do if we keep fighting.”

They grew quiet. And storm Teft if it wasn’t a valid question. One not enough soldiers asked themselves. Right here, right now, should I be fighting? Is there a better way?

Teft took a spoonful of soup. “Did Sigzil ever explain to you boys how I got my father killed?”

The other occupants of the room turned to stare at him with slack jaws. He knew the rumors of what he’d done had moved through Bridge Four—and in the past he’d snapped at people who’d asked him about it. Storming fools.

“What?” Teft said. “It happened a long time ago. I’m over it, mostly. And a man shouldn’t hide from what he’s done. Gotta air things like this.” He dug into his soup, but found his appetite waning. He set the bowl aside, and Phendorana put her hand on his.

“You were … young, weren’t you?” Kaladin asked, carefully.

“I was eight when my father died,” Teft said. “But the problems all started far earlier. It was some travelers, I think, who introduced the idea to the people of my hometown. Not quite a city. You might know it. Talinar? No? Nice place. Smells like flowers. Least in my memory it does. Anyway, the people of the town started meeting secretly. Talking about things they shouldn’t have. The return of the Lost Radiants.”

“How do you think they knew?” Kaladin asked. “You gave me Stormlight when I was dying, all the way back when I didn’t know what I was doing. You recognized that it would heal me.”

“Teft and I used to think,” Phendorana said, “that the group who visited Teft’s hometown—the Envisagers, they called themselves—were servants of some important lighteyes in Kholinar. Maybe they overheard what people like Amaram were planning, and ran with it. Only…”

“… Only that was forty-five years ago,” Teft said. “And when I asked Brightness Shallan about the group Amaram was part of, everything she’d found indicated they’d started less than ten years ago. But that’s beside the point. I mean, I only met the leaders once, when my parents brought me to the initiation ceremony.”

He shivered, remembering. The blasphemous things they’d chanted—shrouded in dark robes, with spheres affixed to masks to represent glowing eyes—had terrified the boy he’d been. But that hadn’t been the worst. The worst had been what they’d done to try to become Radiants. The things they’d pushed their members to do. His mother had been one of those.…

“It turned dark,” Teft said. “The things my people—my family—did … Well, I was around eight when I went to the citylord. I told him, thinking he’d run the worst of the troublemakers out of town. I didn’t realize…”

“What nahn was your family?” Kaladin asked.

“Sixth,” Teft said. “Should have been high enough to avoid execution. My mother was already dead by then, and my father…” He glanced up at the rest of them, and felt their sympathy. Well, he didn’t want any storming sympathy. “Don’t look at me like that. It was a long time ago, like I said. I eventually joined the military to get away from that town.

“It haunted me for a long time. But ultimately, you know what? You know Kelek’s own storming truth? Because of what my parents did and taught me, I was able to save you, Kal. They won in the end. They were right in the end.” He picked up his soup and forced himself to begin eating it. “We can’t storming see the future, like Renarin can. We’ve gotta do what we think is best, and be fine with that. It’s all a man can do.”

“You think we should keep fighting?” Rlain said.

“I think,” Teft said, “that we need to rescue those Radiants. Maybe we don’t need to fight, but we’ve got to get them out. I don’t like the smell of what you’ve been telling me. Lined up like that, watched over? The enemy is planning something for our friends.”

“I can wake them,” Lift said. “But they ain’t gonna be in fightin’ shape. And I’ll need a whole bunch of food. Like … an entire chull’s worth.”

“If we can wake them,” Rlain said, “we don’t need to fight. We can have them run. Escape.”

“How?” Kaladin asked. “We can’t possibly hope to get all the way to the Oathgates.”

“There’s a window,” Rlain said. “In the infirmary room. We can break it maybe, and escape out that way.”

“To fall hundreds of feet,” Kaladin said.

“That might take the Windrunners out of the influence of the tower,” Teft said with a grunt. He thought about dropping hundreds of feet, not knowing if his powers would reactivate before he hit bottom. “I’d try it, and prove it can be done. The rest of you could watch and see if I fly up in the distance. If I do, you could follow.”

Kaladin rubbed his forehead. “Assuming we could break the glass. Assuming we could get enough Stormlight to infuse the Windrunners. Assuming they’re strong enough, after being incapacitated for so long, to try something that insane. Look, I like that we’re exploring ideas … but we need to take time to consider all our options.”

Teft nodded. “You’re the officer. I leave the decision to you.”

“I’m not an officer any longer, Teft,” Kaladin said.

Teft let the objection slide, though it was completely wrong. One thing a good sergeant knew was when to let the officer be wrong. And Kaladin was an officer. He’d acted like one even when he’d been a slave. Like he’d been raised by a bunch of lighteyes or something. His official status or rank couldn’t change what he was.

“For now,” Kaladin said, “we wait. If we have to, we will break in and rescue the Radiants. But first we need to recover, we need to plan, and we need to find a way to contact the queen. I’d like her input.”

“I might be able to get in to see her,” Rlain said. “They have servants cart food and water to her and her scholars. Venli’s people are often assigned that detail, and I could hide my tattoo and substitute for one of them.”

“Good,” Kaladin said. “That would be great. And while we wait, we don’t do anything too rash. Agreed?”

The others nodded, even Lift and Dabbid. Teft too, though this wasn’t the sort of situation where you had luxuries like time to come up with the perfect plan. Teft determined he’d just have to be ready to act. Take that next storming step. You couldn’t change the past, only the future.

He ate his soup as the conversation turned to lighter topics, and found himself smiling. Smiling because they were still together. Smiling because he’d made the right decision to stay in the tower when Kal needed him. Smiling because he had survived so long without moss or drink, and was able to wake up and see color to the world.

Smiling because, for how bad everything could be, some things were still good.

He shifted as Phendorana poked him. He looked over and caught her grinning as well.

“Fine,” he muttered. “You were storming right. You have always been right.”

Teft was worth saving.