This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 

Title: Incomplete Truths
At first I was going to accuse this of being a reference to Wit or Cultivation with hidden cosmere info, but now I see from the chapter symbol that this is a Shallan chapter, so it’s most likely a confrontation with Mraize. It feels a bit fast for that, though, so maybe it has to do with the way Shallan’s truths about herself, spoken to reach this path on her lightbringer journey, are still missing important pieces as she re-accesses her memories.

Icons: Taln and Pali
Taln for endurance or resourcefulness, Pali for learning?

Epigraph: Nohadon sent the people looking for a good king on to his kingdom, not warning them that he’d abdicated. Which, I mean, why shatter their hopes when you presumably left the kingdom in the best hands you could find? He’s traveling incognito anyway, the decision makes sense. I’m guessing the point will be about not living up to one's own reputation?

 

Shallan recognizes that Mraize and Iyatil have an information advantage and have used that for manipulation before, including info about the gods, heralds, and other significant beings of of Roshar. This could all be a trap, or at least an assault the ghostbloods fully expect.

Wait, no, I projected my own concerns onto her. She’s worried about other things, about not knowing how big their plans are because they span beyond the shores of Roshar into systems and commodities she doesn’t know about.

Wait, it’s only been a year and a half since the advent of the Everstorm? I thought it had been longer than that, combining the time gap before the battle of Thaylen Fields, and then between that and the assault on Urithiru. 

The description of the defensive emplacements they’ve constructed around and in Narak sounds like some impressive work. It’s not something I’d want to try to hold against a thunderclast or a thousand Fused who can fly and flow through rock, but it’s still a substantial effort that will make a big difference in how the coming fight plays out.

All of the members of the Unseen Court are doing very well with their lightweaving disguises. Darcira fabricating a scroll of orders on the spot is a particularly deft touch. Now that I write that, though, what was on that scroll? The sergeant she handed it to was male and presumably not able to read. Is it just glyphs and numbers to designate a barracks? Maybe a Kholin seal or one from another highprince? Or is it in writing and there was an unmentioned scribe helping out?

New member Jayn brings them up to six. The Ghostblood hideout is drawing more and more people in, and all of them are being checked with sand for invested status as they enter, making disguises tricky. 

I’m also impressed by the way her team just falls into their disguised roles so easily every time. They act like a squad of spearmen, a team of road workers, etc. with knowledge and activity, really committing themselves to the role. She’s trained them well.

Two more ghostbloods showed up, including an Azish vizier they hadn’t known about before. Presumably the ghostblood network is wide by now, since they’ve been operating on this planet for years and have had a good idea of the timing for when everything would come to a head.

Oh, Shallan just said basically the same: giant network that she’s been isolated from noticing by Mraize’s compartmentalization. And the doorguard is one of the assassins, which is concerning.

One more name to add to the Court: Jeneh.

Darcira, the former ardent, draws logicspren as often as creationspren, making her an outlier among the Court. Does that mean that her armor will eventually incorporate both types? I hadn’t considered that possibility, that the type of armor spren isn’t strictly set for each order and rather a manifestation of the character traits each Radiant embodies. There is a norm, but those can be defied in part or in whole. I suppose it’s not too much of a surprise that multiple types of spren could work together to become armor just as well as a single type, since all of them do it separately. I had just made assumptions to the contrary.

Red’s cryptic, named Array, likes alliteration rather than the lies that Pattern is so fond of. Is that unusual for so-called “lie spren” or is Pattern just one interest among many?

Ah, the sand reveals not just lightweavings, but nahel spren who get close. 

Pattern hums, presumably detecting a lie, but there’s no indication why. Does it have to do with her thoughts about the changing weather? Their disguise as crem scrapers? Something the Ghostbloods are doing?

And of course we are switching POVs to Sigzil. Too much going on to just let us progress a single plot line. 
Oh, I forgot that Sig was Azish, so he would revere the Prime Aqasix of the empire. I want to see him interact with Gawx now.

His spren Vienta is very affirming. “You are a hero. Live that truth.”

Ka, a Windrunner scribe, uses her shardblade as a pen to write with. I like it.

Kmakl suspects something strange about the numbers of ordinary singers available to throw into this war. When your people can change to warform every time a storm passes, though, it wouldn’t be hard to source those soldiers from your population, and if slaves were as widespread across all nations as they were in Alethkar, then it would be hard to overestimate the total singer population.

And the Mink disappeared. Is he sneaking into Dalinar’s meeting, or somewhere else? His nose for trouble is highly attuned.

A Jasnah POV again! Yay! Ivory is riding around on her earring, which is sneaky/cute.

The Tower made a forest room with fake sun and lots of plants. Dalinar hates it. “Clean up this mess!” But the Sibling intends it as a place for the Nightwatcher to feel at home if she visits–something also not likely to make Dalinar appreciate the room any more.
Jasnah’s take on Dalinar’s disapproval feels very personal. More Kholin drama perpetuated across years of messy relationships. I like all of these people now, but they were a pretty awful disaster of a family for a very long time.

Quote

“The Nightwatcher came from the Night, as the Stormfather came from the Wind. Though, when I was young, the Wind was different. So very different.”

That’s loaded with implications. Have we seen any indication of Night around? Are they the entity infesting Shinovar, rather than the suspected Unmade? Probably not, but that just means they’ll be an ominous background feature until the next sequence of five books. 

Quote

“When were you created, Sibling?” 
“Some six thousand years ago, when the Stones wanted a legacy in the form of a child of Honor and Cultivation. Back when Bondsmiths bonded not to spren, but to the ancient forces, left by gods.”

Okay, loredump is appreciated but still confusing. Stones sounds to me like the foundational spirit of Roshar, and probably remains an extant entity along with Night and Wind. Stones pretty clearly predates Honor and Cultivation’s arrival to Roshar, and I wonder about the relationship to the previous working title of this book “Stones Unhallowed.” That has obvious connections to the Stone Shamans as well. Oof. Lots to ponder here.
Also, pre-Radiant surgebinding was apparently unfiltered by the volition and sapient nature of spren, borrowing as the do from the collective (un)conscious of people, which likely contributed to the planet-destroying danger of that approach. It can’t be the whole thing, though, since Ishar apparently imposed rules on the nahel bond after humans and spren started exploring the possibilities of those bonds.

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“I knew the Stormfather when he was young. I, formed from the Stone, which was the sibling of Wind and Night. The Night left. Few loved her, or even spoke of her, and it seems Mother replaced her with a being of some of the same essence. A new creature, unconnected to anyone’s perception.
“Now, the Stormfather has changed, and the Nightwatcher has not spoken to me as she used to. My siblings are no longer as I remember. I hate that.”

I could have kept reading to answer some of my speculation, but this gives me more questions than before. Night, Wind, and Stones are a triumvirate of pre-shattering Roshar, mirror to the Nightwatcher, Stormfather, Sibling dynamic that is at the forefront today. Those three presumably still exist, though Night “left,” whatever that means. Departed to another shardworld? Faded to the Spiritual Realm or the Beyond?
It’s suspicious to me that the Nightwatcher was made of the same essence as Night, and we also have an unmade who creates Midnight Essence and is known as the Midnight Mother. Night may be gone, but she left more than one legacy made by more than one set of divine hands.

Dalinar surprises a hiding Lift, but just ignores it, unbothered by her presence. It’s unclear if he’s also spotted the Mink next to her, the way Jasnah just did, but either way he’s carrying on with the meeting. At least until he’s interrupted by Wit arriving with snacks.

This silent exchange between Jasnah and Dalinar is a good moment, with her tracking his character growth from indifference to coming to think about others in an overbearing way, to finally, for the first time in her experience, asking if Jasnah wants help with something. 

Wit isn’t a fan of the idea for Dalinar to seek out Honor’s core, but so far the only objection he’s actually voiced is that Dalinar would regret becoming its vessel, for the extraordinary burden it would become.

Huh. Probably because we’ve seen Sazed and Taravangian already ascend, I was thinking about this purely in practical terms, along the lines of tactics and strategy and feasibility. Jasnah is in a much more fraught position, as close to it as she is. An avowed atheist, who has seen her beliefs confirmed by messages left by the god who died and left them unprotected, now contemplating a day in the immediate future when her close family member would demonstrably become that lost deity. Oof!

After a shard dies, its power has different possible fates.

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“It’s different on each world. On one it was all around, and we didn’t realize it. In another, the god’s power was stuffed into a metaphorical closet–packed into Shadesmar, left to rot.”

The second would be Threnody, yes? Not sure about the first. It doesn’t sound like Sel, since the power is obvious.

Wit confirms again that Cultivation’s vessel is a dragon, not that anyone in the room can understand. And he reveals Lift, who Dalinar apparently hadn’t noticed yet. 

The Mink is teaching Lift contortionism and escapology. This can only be a good thing.

Oh, and the Mink wants to lead a strike force to reclaim Herdaz in the event of Dalinar’s loss. I see the appeal, but I’m not sure what good it will do you to own a small country surrounded by enemies on a planet controlled by an angry and hostile god.

And he’s calling in the oath Dalinar made, which is a potent tool to use here on a Bondsmith of Honor. How to deliver the troops? Fourth Bridge won’t work, they don’t have enough Windrunners without weakening the other fronts catastrophically. Maybe… has Jasnah learned actual elsecalling yet? They’re supposed to be able to do what oathgates do as part of their radiant abilities, right? It doesn’t seem like she’s mastered that yet, and there’s no indication of if she could take a group with her even if she did, but… that’s my suspicion about what will happen.

Nope. He’s sending the Windrunners. And he’s expecting them to make the round-trip in time to help with the battles after all.

Jasnah and Dalinar clashing over what’s right, with Jasnah taking the utilitarian position and Dalinar arguing for a more personal morality, is very tense. Short, but highly charged.
Thankfully, Lift is here to bring things back to important topics like snacks. The part that grabs my attention is that the fruits still move as you eat them. I thought that they’d become sessile once plucked, but no. In Roshar even your salad fights back.

Lift has lots of requests for Dalinar to get right once he does become a god, and also wonders if maybe the Almighty is failing to fix the world’s problems because he’s distracted by all the prayers. 

And predictably the Stormfather is unhappy with the discussion about appropriating Honor’s power. Not that I’m sure why he’s more upset now than when Dalinar brought it up the first time.