65. Hypothesis

Jasnah fights in her first direct battlefield engagement during the pitched battle of Drunmu Basin in Emul, experiencing the brutal reality of war firsthand before discovering that a Sleepless spy has infiltrated Wit's equipment, compromising their secrets.

Jasnah enters the Battle of Drunmu Basin determined to experience actual warfare rather than rely on scholarly accounts. She fights within the coalition's pike formation as they advance uphill against forty thousand enemy singers, initially refusing to use her Surgebinding powers to understand true combat. When a Magnified Fused ambushes her, she is pinned down and nearly killed, forcing her to deploy Soulcasting to create oil and ignite flames that immolate the Fused and nearby enemies. She fights continuously for nearly two hours, becoming exhausted and increasingly numb to the violence until an Edgedancer convinces her to withdraw to the reserves. Wit appears to provide refreshment and counsel, warning her against abandoning her powers out of false notions of fairness and predicting that battlefield tactics will fundamentally change as individual Surgebinders become more powerful. The coalition achieves a strategic victory, breaking the enemy's core strength. Later that evening, after fighting for seven hours total, Wit reveals a catastrophic security breach: a Sleepless spy disguised as a pen was hidden in his writing case, potentially exposing all their secrets. He mentions that at least one Sleepless has allied with the Ghostbloods, and begins explaining the true nature of Thaidakar and the off-world threat the Ghostbloods represent.