51: SAS NAHN

In a flashback to one year before the present narrative, this interlude reveals how elite officer brightlord amaram claimed the shardblade and plate after kaladin killed the shardbearer, then murdered kaladin's surviving squad members to control the story. kaladin is branded a slave and discharged as a deserter, left alive only because amaram claims it is mercy.

The chapter opens with kaladin sitting in amaram's warcenter one year ago, mentally reeling from having killed a shardbearer in battle but rejecting the shardblade and plate for himself. He feels guilt over the loss of his squad and questions his own decisions. When amaram enters with his stormwarden and officers, he praises kaladin's bravery in attacking the shardbearer while others fled. Under questioning, kaladin reveals he rejected the shards and intended to give them to coreb, the highest-ranked survivor of his four remaining soldiers. immediately after this statement, amaram orders his men to execute all four members of kaladin's squad—reesh, hab, alabet, and coreb—slaughtering them in moments. kaladin fights back but is overwhelmed and restrained. amaram reveals he cannot risk the men telling what they witnessed; he plans to claim the kill himself and spread a false story that kaladin's squad aided the shardbearer. amaram justifies the murders by invoking necessity for alethkar's good and claims kaladin would have demanded the shards back after initial rejection. The stormwarden produces a branding iron heated in the brazier. As final punishment and to silence kaladin's testimony, amaram brands kaladin with the mark sas nahn—a slave's brand—and dismisses him as a deserter, claiming to spare his life as mercy. kaladin is left devastated and screaming as the brand sears his skin.