Shallan’s Sketchbook: Peakspren

This is Shallan's Sketchbook interlude from Venli's perspective. Venli meets with Rlain in the tower infirmary to receive maps of Urithiru that Rlain stole from the queen's vault, including crucial tunnel blueprints. The chapter explores the tension of resistance within the occupied tower and Venli's struggle with her past complicity in the conquest.

Venli walks through Urithiru with Rlain, who carries a crate ostensibly on her orders to maintain appearances. She struggles with attuning emotions she doesn't genuinely feel and grapples with her guilt over her role in aiding the Voidspren during the conquest. At the infirmary, Rlain reveals he stole detailed maps from the queen's information vault while disguised as a singer worker during the immediate aftermath of the tower's fall. He provides maps of multiple floors, but Venli is most interested in the tunnel complex beneath the tower—a potential escape route if she can create a passage through stone using her powers to bypass the Fused's research station. Lirin, the human surgeon, questions the value of the maps and suggests turning them in for favor, but Venli explains that only Lady Leshwi's protection keeps them safe from the Pursuer's brutality. As water carriers deliver supplies, Lirin discovers some workers bearing the shash glyph on their foreheads—Kaladin's brand—marked as a symbol of hope and resistance. Lirin fears such symbols will provoke a massacre, but Venli suggests the humans need something to sustain them.