59. The Lattice of a Growing Crystal

Kaladin infiltrates the occupied tower to steal Voidlight spanreeds for Navani, successfully retrieving a case of twenty reeds from a hub room. However, a distress call arrives from one of the protective nodes, revealing that the Lady of Pains has been sent to destroy it, forcing Kaladin to abandon his escape plan and prepare for combat.

Kaladin enters the tower's third floor under cover of darkness, using Syl to scout ahead. He navigates through a laundry facility while avoiding singer guards and water-carrying teams. When two singers attempt to enter his hiding spot, he Lashes a broom across the door and experiences a severe episode of exhaustion and traumatic flashbacks to his bridgeman days before they leave. Syl locates a spanreed hub where multiple reeds are kept and managed by singer attendants, revealing it won't be a simple theft. Kaladin also notices an unusual Voidspren leaving a visible trail, suggesting the tower interferes with spren invisibility. To bypass a four-guard post, Kaladin instructs Syl to disguise herself as a Voidspren and create a disturbance by directing them to an infused rope on the wall, allowing him to slip past. He then climbs through a ventilation shaft in the tower's thick walls, positioning himself above the spanreed hub. While two singer attendants are distracted by multiple incoming reports, he uses a Reverse Lashed brush to pull a leather case containing approximately twenty paired spanreeds up into the shaft and retrieves it successfully. As Kaladin prepares to use Syl's Voidspren disguise again to escape past the guards, he notices a blinking garnet light farther down the hallway. Investigating, he makes contact with one of the protective nodes through the spanreed, which sends a desperate plea for help: the node has been discovered and the Lady of Pains has been sent to destroy it and extract its knowledge. The node's location is the second level near the central atrium. Despite his overwhelming fatigue, Kaladin resolves to defend it and immediately begins planning for combat.