Lyn: Happy Thursday, Cosmere chickens! I’m back from my two week trip to Ireland and Scotland (I bet you didn’t even realize I was gone, did you? We were sneaky and I did my work on the reread chapters before I left!) and while I loved seeing a million castles and abandoned ruins and sheep (so many sheep), I’m excited to be back home and working on another fun chapter of the reread!
Paige: Yes, we were definitely sneaky and I had conversations with past Lyndsey for two weeks while she was gallivanting around Ireland and Scotland!
L: Wibbly wobbly timey-wimey and all that. Paige and I hope you had a lovely week, and a bit of time to recuperate after last week’s heart-breaker of a chapter. This one’s a lot more fun and fist-pump-worthy, so let’s dive in, shall we?
Reminder: We’ll be discussing spoilers for the entirety of the series up until now. If you haven’t read ALL of the published entries of The Stormlight Archive (this includes Edgedancer and Dawnshard as well as the entirety of Rhythm of War), best to wait to join us until you’re done.
There are no wider Cosmere spoilers in this chapter.
Heralds:
- Jezrien (Jezerezeh, Yaezir, Ahu), Herald of Kings. Windrunners (Adhesion, Gravitation). Protecting/Leading. Role: King.
- Ishi (Ishar), Herald of Luck. Bondsmiths (Tension, Adhesion). Pious/Guiding. Role: Priest.
L: Well, this week’s Heralds are pretty self-explanatory. Jezrien for Kal and his new Shardplate, Ishi for Navani, having Bonded the Sibling.
Icon: Banner and Spears for a Kaladin chapter.
Epigraph:
Radiant.
—Musings of El, on the first of the Final Ten Days
P: Yes. Yes, they are.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin, Navani
WHEN: 1175.4.10.4
WHERE: Urithiru
(Note: For the “when” notations, we are using this wonderful timeline provided by the folks at The 17th Shard.)
RECAP: Kaladin’s windspren friends gather around him and coalesce into Shardplate, just in time to save his father from a grisly demise at the end of a long fall. Lirin apologizes for being an utter jackass all this time and (to quote another series,) we all say thankya. Meanwhile, Navani convinces the Sibling to Bond with her and in so doing stops Moash dead in his tracks.
Chapter Chat—Worthy
Buy the Book
The Lost Metal
A black storm.
Black wind.
Black rain.
Then, piercing the blackness like a spear, a lance of light.
Kaladin Stormblessed.
Reborn.
Kaladin exploded through the darkness, surrounded by a thousand joyful windspren, swirling like a vortex.
P: Now if this isn’t a leap out of your chair and crow with joy kind of moment, I don’t know what is. I shed many a tear during the reread of this chapter, and this was the first teary-eyed moment for me. But they were tears of joy in this case. Just like… finally!
Not worthy.
The words echoed against Navani’s soul, and for the moment she forgot Moash. She forgot the tower. She was someplace else.
Not good enough.
Not a scholar.
Not a creator.
You have no fame, accomplishment, or capacity of your own. Everything that is distinctive about you came from someone else.
“Lies,” she whispered. And they were.
They truly were.
L: I’m so proud of Navani for realizing this. Imposter syndrome is so difficult to overcome.
P: This just makes me crazy, that Gavilar is still in her head. But it’s so liberating for her to know those words as lies. Another tear-inducing moment for me.
“We can find the answers!” Navani said, blood dribbling from her lips. “Together.”
You… just want… to live.
“Don’t you?”
P: Seriously. You want to live too, Sibling. Don’t play.
Lirin dangled from the gauntleted fist of a Shardbearer in resplendent Shardplate. Armor that seemed alive as it glowed a vibrant blue at the seams, Bridge Four glyphs emblazoned across the chest.
A flying Shardbearer. Storms. It was him.
P: BE IN AWE OF YOUR SON!
“I’m sorry, Father,” Kaladin said.
“Sorry? For … for what?”
“I thought your way might be correct,” Kaladin said. “And that I’d been wrong. But I don’t think it’s that simple. I think we’re both correct. For us.”
“I think perhaps I can accept that,” Lirin said.
P: Oh, Kaladin… you have absolutely nothing to be sorry about, sweetheart! NOTHING.
Kaladin touched Lirin’s forehead with fingers that felt normal, despite being faintly outlined by the gauntlet.
“What is this?” Kaladin asked.
Lirin remembered, with some embarrassment, what he’d finally let that one-armed fool Noril do to him. A painted shash glyph on Lirin’s forehead.
P: Honor love you, Noril!
…he found scabs flaking away, the brands falling off to the stones below like a shell outgrown, discarded. Clean, smooth skin was left behind. Kaladin reached to his forehead in shock. He prodded at the skin, as if amazed. Then he laughed, grabbing Lirin in a tighter embrace.
L: Finally, Kaladin sees himself as worthy. His internal image of himself matches what we all know. He’s not a slave any longer. He hasn’t been for a long time… but now he’s not a slave to his own failings and insecurities.
We hope, anyway. I don’t know what Kal’s character arc in the next book will be, let alone the back five. But I truly hope that Our Boy has finally found some internal peace.
P: Ugh, this just makes me want to cry. At long last, he doesn’t see himself as a slave. And as you say, we’ve known he’s not for a long time, but he sure hasn’t. And it’s so wonderful to see this happen!
Music, Mechanisms, and Manifestations of Light
She found herself humming a different tone instead. The one Raboniel had always given her, with its chaotic rhythm. Yes, this close to death, Navani could only hear that. His tone. Eager to claim her.
The Sibling whimpered.
And Navani inverted the tone.
All it took was Intent. Odium gave her the song, but she twisted it back upon him. She hummed the song of anti-Voidlight, her hand pressed to the pillar.
Navani! the Sibling said, voice growing stronger. The darkness retreats ever so slightly. What are you doing?
P: This is sooo exciting! Navani is trying, some way, any way to get the Sibling to respond to her. And finally, she does!
Honor’s song welled up inside her, and she sang it. The pillar began to vibrate as the Sibling sang Cultivation’s song. The pure sound of Lifelight. The sound began to shift, and Navani modulated her tone, inching it closer and closer to …
The two snapped into harmony. The boundless energy of Cultivation, always growing and changing, and the calm solidity of Honor—organized, structured. They vibrated together. Structure and nature. Knowledge and wonder. Mixing.
The song of science itself.
P: Who would have thought that Brandon writing about “the song of science” would be so exciting? This moment is just… it gave me chills!
Lirin hung in the air, his eyes squeezed closed, trembling. He remembered falling, and the awful tempest. Darkness.
It had all vanished. Something had yanked on his arm—slowing him carefully enough to not rip his arm off, but jarringly enough that it ached.
Stillness. In a storm. Was he dead?
He opened his eyes and searched upward to find a column of radiant light stretching hundreds of feet in the air, holding back the storm. Windspren? Thousands upon thousands of them.
P: A “column of radiant light stretching hundreds of feet in the air.” This is what they saw from inside the atrium during the last chapter. I keep getting chills… Is there a draft in here?
Relationships and Romances
“I figured,” Lirin said, “that if an entire tower was going to show faith in my son, I could maybe try to do the same. I’m sorry, son. For my part.”
L: About time, you jerk.
P: Gonna take more than that for this girl to forgive you, Lirin. ::sniff::
Oaths Spoken, Powers Awakened
Kaladin pointed downward, reaching out, preparing himself as hundreds of windspren met the storm and blew it back, creating an open path.
P: Again the spren affect the storm for him. This chapter (my happy-weepy moments aside) is so fun to read!
With his hand outstretched, Kaladin watched as a windspren slammed into it and flashed, outlining his hand with a glowing transparent gauntlet.
L: Yessssss! We finally have living Shardplate!
P: We’ve had hints and teasers, but seeing it happen like this was amazing!
She pressed her hand to the pillar. “Take me as your Bondsmith. I am worthy, Sibling. I say the Words. Life before death.”
P: Navani, sneaking in the words to the First Ideal all casual like.
“Who better to work together than two who believe differently?” she said. “Strength before weakness. We can compromise. Isn’t that the soul of building bonds? Of uniting?”
L: She’s got a good point. There can be no compromise without difference.
Odium gave her the song, but she twisted it back upon him. She hummed the song of anti-Voidlight, her hand pressed to the pillar.
L: There are so many songs and Rhythms. I honestly wish that there were actual rhythms associated with them and that the audiobook readers would read the lines to the correct rhythms. But I recognize that that’s a pipe dream.
P: Wouldn’t that be amazing? If only we had a hint of what speaking to the rhythms sounded like.
“Honor…” Navani whispered. “Honor is not… dead. He lives inside the hearts… of his children…”
L: Aww.
P: Right? This is quite touching. The more so because it’s painfully obvious that Navani is not doing well at this moment, and she still has the presence of mind to relay this information to the Sibling.
Had she done harm without realizing it? Possibly. Had she made mistakes? Certainly. But she’d been trying to help. That was her journey. A journey to discover, learn, and make the world better.
L: What a beautiful realization to come to. We all make mistakes, we all harm others when we didn’t mean to. It’s part of being human. Part of the journey. The best we can hope for is to live life with good intent and hope that we make enough right decisions along the way to balance out the mistakes.
P: Her journey before destination, if you will.
“Journey before destination, you bastard.”
L: The only fighting reaction here.
P: And one of the catchphrases that the fandom has adopted since the book was released. A battle cry, if you will.
We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments, and hope to join you there! Next week, we’ll be back with chapter 111, in which Dalinar finds Ishar at last…
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course. She very much misses baseball and can’t wait to go to a Spring Training game in a few weeks! Links to her other writing are available in her profile.
Lyndsey lives in Connecticut and makes magic wands for a living, as well as working as the costumer for two of her local Renaissance Faires. If you enjoy queer protagonists, snarky humor, and don’t mind some salty language, check out book 1 of her fantasy series. Follow her on Facebook or TikTok!
