Chapter 125

Shallan confronts the traumatic memory of her mother's death in the Spiritual Realm, revisiting the day when her mother Chana—revealed to be the Herald Shallan—attempted to kill her on orders from Nale and the Skybreaker Dreder. Young Shallan killed both her mother and Dreder with a Shardblade in self-defense, an act that shattered her family and fractured her psyche.

Adult Shallan enters the Spiritual Realm to revisit a critical memory from her childhood at the Davar estate when she was eleven. She observes her younger self in the gardens with Testament, her spren, expressing fear of the future. Following young Shallan to her mother's chamber, adult Shallan witnesses a conversation between her mother Chana and Nale, the Herald, who arrives via a seon construct. Nale orders Chana to kill young Shallan, citing the Veden Voidcraft Act and stating that Dreder will execute her if Chana refuses. Chana believes she has passed her Herald bond to Shallan, making her daughter immortal and herself mortal. When Dreder and Chana confront Shallan's father, a struggle ensues. Dreder subdues the father and hands Chana a knife. Though Chana hesitates, young Shallan materializes a Shardblade and fatally wounds her mother; Dreder is killed as well. Adult Shallan processes the trauma—her mother was a Herald, her father was complicit in the aftermath, and she killed both her mother and a Skybreaker in self-defense as a child. Testament confirms the memory is accurate. Shallan realizes she has survived and endured, filling the cracks that trauma created. Pattern raises the horrifying realization that Chana, being a Herald, cannot be permanently dead and may still exist somewhere—including, Shallan notes, at her own wedding.