100. Watchers at the Rim

Jasnah reviews her interviews with the Heralds while securing her isolated study room in the command camp, grappling with how living history undermines her life's work as a scholar. Wit presents her with a contract proposal for a contest between Dalinar and Odium that would contain the enemy god regardless of the outcome, revealing cryptic details about his own immortal nature and ancient origins.

Jasnah sits in her fortified second-floor study, having just received word that the coalition's offensive has successfully taken Emul. She reflects on how her decades of historical scholarship feel diminished now that she can directly question the Heralds Ash and Taln about the events she studied. Her interviews with them have revealed that many historical debates she engaged in were decided by their firsthand knowledge, making her theoretical reconstructions seem worthless. She remains frustrated that even the Heralds know little about the Sibling, the mysterious tower spren at Urithiru. Jasnah is deeply troubled by the strategic problem that Odium can see the future while she can only learn from the past, giving the enemy a profound advantage. Wit emerges from his corner and engages her in conversation about defeating an opponent who can foresee events. He tells her a parable about a master gambler and cheater whom he once defeated by rigging a game so completely that neither of them could win—making it a tie he hadn't anticipated. This leads him to present a written contract: a formal challenge between Dalinar and Odium with terms that constrain Odium's victory regardless of outcome. If Dalinar wins, Odium retreats to Damnation for a thousand years; if Odium wins, he must remain in the Rosharan system but gains control of Roshar and its people. Jasnah recognizes this ensures Wit's victory either way—Odium remains planetary-bound. Wit argues that Odium's arrogance and desire for theatrical victory make him susceptible to such a contract, and that Odium's confidence in turning Dalinar was so great he's now vulnerable. He proposes that the contract should name him as a contractual liaison for Honor, which would protect him from Odium's direct attacks under the terms of the Shard itself. Jasnah probes Wit's identity, and he reveals he is something ancient and eternal—someone who refused the power that other beings took, thereby gaining freedoms they cannot have. He describes himself as unbound. The chapter ends with Wit praising Jasnah's paranoia as her greatest strength when her other tools fail.