82. For Glory Lit

Kaladin fights through pain and hesitation to reach the palace and prevent the king's assassination, ultimately killing one conspirator and rescuing a drunk and wounded Elhokar. Meanwhile, Adolin commands troops against the Parshendi on multiple fronts, Dalinar hears a mysterious voice claiming to be a fragment of the dead Almighty and races to save Roion's surrounded forces using Navani's innovative fabrials, and Moash arrives with the assassin Graves to complete their plot.

Kaladin limps to the palace, wracked with doubt about his decision to save King Elhokar after learning the king was genuine in his efforts, though not fully understanding his own motivations. Finding the palace guards absent, he encounters two of Graves's men at the king's chambers. When they refuse to let him pass, he attacks them and defeats both. Inside the king's room, he finds Elhokar drunk and despondent on a couch, lamenting that even assassins don't think him worthy. As Kaladin helps the king toward safety, one of the supposedly defeated guards—Cleft-chin—rises with a knife and stabs Elhokar in the side. Kaladin kills him with his spear, then tends the king's survivable wound and begins escaping through the palace's lower corridors. He carries Elhokar partway before the king, weakened by alcohol and blood loss, collapses. As Kaladin kneels beside the unconscious king to rebind the wound, Moash appears at the corridor's end with Graves in full Shardplate, knife drawn. On the battlefield, Adolin fends off teams of Parshendi using ropes meant to entangle him and learns they are deliberately keeping him distracted rather than fighting him directly. He orders a battalion and a diversionary assault to flank the Parshendi reserves. Dalinar, positioned between three battle plateaus, hears the mysterious voice again—claiming to be a fragment of the dead Almighty left behind after Odium's murder—though no one around him can hear it. A messenger arrives reporting that Highprince Roion has been routed and surrounded on the northern plateau. Dalinar takes a horse and races toward Roion's position, finding Navani at work with her engineers. He orders her to execute her plan immediately, and she deploys improvised pavilions across the chasm using pulled tarps and weights, beneath which she positions Roion's renowned archers. She activates a moisture-absorbing fabrial to protect the bowstrings from rain, allowing the archers to provide covering fire for Roion's trapped forces. Dalinar mounts his horse and rides back into battle, hoping the archer support will provide the opening needed to save Roion.