Words of Radiance

The climax converges at the Shattered Plains as Dalinar's alliance assaults the Parshendi stronghold of Narak just as the Parshendi, led by the newly transformed Eshonai, summon the Everstorm. In the chaos, Adolin's forces defeat Eshonai's warriors and Adolin pushes her into a chasm during the fighting. Meanwhile Kaladin, still recovering from his injuries and torn over whether to save King Elhokar, is cornered by his former friend Moash and the conspirator Graves. Moash, unwilling to abandon his vendetta against the king, betrays and mortally wounds Kaladin. Refusing to die, Kaladin speaks the Third Ideal of the Windrunners; Syl defies the Stormfather to return to him, manifesting as a living, shapeshifting Shardblade, and Kaladin's Surgebinding is restored.

Elsewhere, Szeth catches up to Dalinar and, after overpowering Adolin, duels and defeats him, lashing him into the sky to fall to his death. Kaladin arrives in a burst of Stormlight and saves Dalinar, then battles Szeth amid the raging Everstorm. During the fight Szeth comes to accept that Kaladin is a genuine Knight Radiant and that his own years of assassination were built on a lie he was never bound to obey. He severs his bond with his Honorblade and falls, apparently to his death, into the storm. Dalinar and his army retreat into Narak to escape the Everstorm's destruction.

At the same time, Shallan and a group of scholars locate the ancient Oathgate at the heart of Narak. Using her Surgebinding abilities and her Shardblade, she activates it, teleporting Dalinar's forces to the legendary lost city of Urithiru. In the aftermath, long-buried truth about Shallan's past surfaces: as a child she killed her abusive mother in self-defense after her mother tried to kill her because of her burgeoning powers, and her father took the blame, a trauma that eventually drove him mad. The secretive Ghostbloods learn her true identity and invite her into their organization. Dalinar, confronting the being he has been hearing in visions, learns it is the spren called the Stormfather, who bonds with him and makes him a Radiant of the Bondsmith order. Renarin then reveals that he too is a Radiant, a Truthwatcher, and had likely been the one leaving cryptic warning messages in Dalinar's chambers. Adolin, having discovered Sadeas's repeated treachery, kills him in a confrontation and casts aside his father's ancestral Shardblade, Oathbringer, in disgust. Kaladin, his body healed by his restored bond with Syl, departs for his hometown of Hearthstone to check on his family. It is confirmed that the Everstorm will now permanently circle Roshar alongside the highstorms, and that any parshmen caught within it will be transformed into the aggressive Stormform, as Eshonai and her people were.

Szeth, though he fell into the storm, survives and awakens healed. He is met by Nale, the Herald of Justice and leader of an order called the Skybreakers, who gives him a new sentient Shardblade named Nightblood and recruits him as a Radiant bound to a very different code of justice. In the epilogue, Jasnah Kholin, long believed dead after the assassination attempt on the ship, is revealed to have survived by escaping into the parallel realm of Shadesmar. There she is found by the mysterious wanderer Hoid, who offers her an alliance as the book closes.

Words of Radiance picks up after the assassination of King Gavilar and the founding of the Alethi Vengeance Pact against the Parshendi. Jasnah Kholin, having discovered she can Soulcast and having witnessed her father's murder by Szeth years earlier, is investigating the Parshendi's history and the nature of the coming Desolation, with her ward Shallan Davar in tow. Their ship is attacked and Jasnah is believed killed; Shallan escapes with Jasnah's research and resolves to continue the mission alone, having learned that the Parshendi and the Voidbringers are one and the same people.

Shallan travels to the Shattered Plains, befriending a spren she names Pattern and developing her own Surgebinding powers. Along the way she kills the con-artist Tyn (who had orchestrated the attack on Jasnah), assumes her identity, and infiltrates the secretive Ghostbloods, who are hunting for lost knowledge about the Radiants and Urithiru. She uncovers her own dark past: she killed her abusive mother as a child in self-defense, and her father took the blame and was destroyed by guilt. By the book's end the Ghostbloods know her true identity and have recruited her, and she is betrothed to Adolin Kholin.

Kaladin, having survived his period as a military slave, is given command of the royal bodyguard, a controversial appointment for a darkeyes. He bonds ever more deeply with his honorspren Syl and slowly develops Windrunner powers. He clashes with Brightlord Amaram, who once stole his Shardblade and had his friends killed, but is initially rebuffed when he tells Dalinar the truth. His old friend Moash draws him into a conspiracy to assassinate King Elhokar, and Kaladin nearly turns a blind eye to it out of contempt for the king's weak leadership. During a chasm mission with Shallan, the two grow close and he loses (and later regains) his connection to Syl. When Moash ultimately betrays and nearly kills him, Kaladin speaks the Third Ideal, reunites with Syl in living Shardblade form, and his powers are fully restored. He publicly exposes Amaram's crimes, ending Amaram's reputation.

Dalinar continues his effort to unify the fractious Alethi highprinces and restore the Knights Radiant, all while receiving mysterious countdown messages in his quarters (later revealed to be left by his son Renarin, who turns out to be a Truthwatcher Radiant). Adolin duels rival lighteyes for their Shards to strengthen his father's position, and ultimately kills the treacherous Highprince Sadeas after Sadeas's repeated betrayals culminate in an assassination attempt that nearly kills both Kaladin and Shallan. Among the Parshendi, the researcher Venli develops a new "Stormform" that her sister Eshonai, the Parshendi war leader, adopts first; it grants great power but is driven by Odium and turns Eshonai increasingly violent and unstable, setting the Parshendi on a path to summon the catastrophic Everstorm.

The book climaxes with the Alethi assault on the Parshendi capital, Narak, coinciding with the Parshendi's summoning of the Everstorm. Eshonai is defeated and falls into a chasm during the battle. Szeth, the Assassin in White, confronts and nearly kills Dalinar, but Kaladin intervenes and defeats him in an aerial duel; Szeth, accepting that Kaladin is a true Radiant, surrenders his Honorblade and falls, seemingly to his death (though he later resurfaces, healed, and is recruited by the Herald Nale as a new kind of Radiant, a Skybreaker, wielding the sentient blade Nightblood). Shallan discovers and activates an ancient Oathgate, teleporting Dalinar's entire army to the lost Radiant city of Urithiru. There, Dalinar bonds with the spren called the Stormfather and becomes a Bondsmith Radiant, and Renarin reveals his own Radiant powers. Kaladin, healed, sets off for his hometown of Hearthstone to see his family.

Going into the next book, the surviving cast is now based at Urithiru: Dalinar as a Bondsmith, Kaladin as a Windrunner, Shallan as a developing Radiant and secret Ghostblood, and Renarin as a Truthwatcher. Adolin has killed Sadeas and discarded the family Shardblade Oathbringer, leaving political fallout unresolved. The Everstorm now circles the world alongside the highstorms, turning parshmen everywhere into aggressive Voidbringer-aligned Stormform, a looming worldwide threat. Moash remains at large, embittered and aware of a mysterious "Diagram" tied to King Taravangian, who has secretly been manipulating world events and has just seized the throne of Jah Keved. Szeth is alive and has become a Skybreaker under Herald Nale. And Jasnah, believed dead, is revealed in the epilogue to have survived in the shadow realm of Shadesmar, where she is approached by the enigmatic Hoid with an offer of alliance — a thread left open for the next installment.