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Taravangian took Rayse's place as the Vessel of Odium. The shard Odium is still there and unchanged, just a different person guiding it (and/or being its powerless figurehead?)

Hahaha, that's great. Though TBH, successfully getting all the Fused to call him "Defeated One" was also quite the flex. "Yeah, your name is Loser now. Deal with it."

Yes, it's currently the latest (chronologically) of all the published Cosmere works.

Well, at least Rysn has been told by the sleepless not to make a Nahel bond. We don't know whether this is common to other Dawnshard holders, and we don't even know whether Rysn will listen (though I suspect she will.)

Would be nice to have some of those interviews as epigraphs in the next parts!

What makes you think Ialai's never had him in the honor guard before? I assumed that had always been his day job/cover.

Hm. Interesting. Would be good to ask! I've interpreted the commonality there is that the spear is always the weapon of the underclasses - nobility have forged swords, but peasants always have a stick with a point at the end. But maybe there's more to it than that!

So, one thing I'd want to do is distinguish between Heightenings and whatever effects the Dawnshard or other concentration of investiture gives. It feels like Rosharans calling all birds chickens - Heightenings are specifically the effects of having different quantities of Breath. Some of the effects of having a lot of Breath are going to be the general effects of having a lot of Investiture (and that'll be the stuff that's similar between Heightenings and holding a Dawnshard) but other effects will probably be Breath-specific - and I would guess the ones that specifically have to do with Breath and Awakening are going to be granted only via Heightenings, not through holding a lot of any Investiture.

My read is that the Sleepless accepted the deal in part because they were desperate. Rysn made a good point - that now, Akinah had become interesting. The Radiants were trying to get there. Killing this expedition would just emphasize that there was something powerful and interesting there, and they'd be back. Or that would draw the attention of Odium's forces. To the flying radiants, the permanent storm was a big bullseye. The Sleepless' current plan for keeping the Dawnshard protected was now unviable. And they had no other plan. Until Rysn suggested one. No, it might not be a permanent one. But it would do for now. For the duration of the Desolation. And it was better than no plan at all.

It's a good question. I agree there's some internal Sleepless drama that we don't know about yet.

From an annotation by Brandon.

Ooh, could be from Mistborn Era 2,

I mean, she's not wrong. So far, the Ghostbloods have been positively straightforwardly good to and for Shallan. We know they're shady because of their methods, but so far it seems that they're pretty good to those who are in their in-group. It's why there's this dissonance about them - we want to think of them as evil because of all these asssassinations, but for Shallan they're just... not.

Ooh ,the cognitive anomaly being a Dawnshard. I like it.

FTFY. You missed the reveal, it was in Oroden's POV chapter.

I think that storyline's been exhausted. He doesn't need to pull various kings into the vision to see them - they're all together at Urithiru now. We can assume that via Navani and Jasnah's investigations, they've already pulled out all of the technical/scholarly detail that they could. So I don't see what else the visions could contribute.

To me, that just seemed like Iyatil pretending to be crazy for the watching Ardent. The "turning to Shallan with an inaudible sigh" seems to mean "Really, Shallan? You're going to make me do this? Fine, I'll play along."

One week moooooore

In addition, a power being "Of Odium" doesn't really say that it's bad to use! Shards cause magic systems, but it's not like by using the magic system you instantly turn to the intent of that Shard.

Timbre is nonverbal! Mostly just pulses to rhythms and Venli gets it.

We don't even know that much. We know that the one Dawnshard referenced by the Poem of Ista was known to bind any mortal, both voidish and human. We don't know whether that Dawnshard is this Dawnshard, or whether that generalizes to all dawnsards!

Venli is a Willshaper. She bonded a Lightspren, also known as a Reacher. Highspren are the spren of the Skybreaker order. Ashspren are the spren of the Dustbringer (AKA Releaser) order.

In Secret History,

Could also be Yolen, though I agree Ashyn seems more likely.