Oathbringer recap

With the dark Everstorm now circling Roshar and the world's parshmen awakening into potential enemies, Dalinar Kholin's fragile coalition holds the reclaimed city of Urithiru and races to unite the world's monarchs against the returned foe. Dalinar confronts the brutal truth of his own forgotten past, including atrocities he had bargained away his memory to escape, and grows into a true Bondsmith bound to the spirit of the storm. Kaladin's black-and-white view of the enemy is shaken when he travels among awakened, frightened parshmen. An expedition to reclaim the fallen Alethi capital ends in catastrophe: the city is lost and King Elhokar is murdered by his former guard Moash. The enemy god Odium, working through immortal warriors and a traitor within the coalition, presses toward the port city of Thaylenah. At the climactic battle of Thaylen Field, Dalinar rejects Odium's temptation, embraces his painful history, and channels a fragment of divine power to turn back the assault, uniting the Radiants. The coalition survives, but the war has only widened, and betrayal festers within it.

Previously: In The Way of Kings, a long war on the Shattered Plains pits the kingdom of Alethkar against the alien Parshendi to avenge a murdered king. Kaladin, a gifted spearman betrayed into slavery, refuses to let his bridge crew die, discovers he can draw power from the great storms, and is revealed as a reborn Knight Radiant bonded to the spirit Syl; he saves Highprince Dalinar Kholin's army when the traitor Sadeas abandons it. Dalinar, guided by storm-visions others call madness, seeks to reunite his people and restore the lost Knights Radiant. The young artist Shallan Davar begins manifesting Radiant powers of her own. In Words of Radiance, Shallan reaches the war camps, becomes betrothed to Dalinar's son Adolin, and masters illusion-craft while hunting the Radiants' lost city. Kaladin nearly joins a plot against the king before choosing honor and speaking a deeper oath. Cornered, the Parshendi take a dark new form and summon a second storm, the Everstorm. Kaladin comes into his full power and defeats the assassin Szeth, Shallan discovers an ancient portal and transports the army to the fabled city of Urithiru, and Adolin secretly kills the traitor Sadeas. The seemingly harmless King Taravangian is exposed as the mastermind behind the assassinations. The true Desolation has begun, and across the world the parshmen are waking.

The book opens in the aftermath of the Everstorm's arrival. The dark storm now circles Roshar, and the world's parshmen, long kept as docile servants, are waking with minds and purpose of their own, many becoming soldiers for the returned enemy. From the recovered mountain city of Urithiru, Dalinar's small coalition scrambles to warn the world's rulers and to bind them into an alliance before they are picked off one by one, using the ancient portal network the Radiants left behind. Dalinar leans on his storm-visions and his new bond with the spirit of the storm, even as fragments of a violent past he cannot fully recall begin to trouble him. Kaladin travels toward his home region and finds it changed, encountering awakened parshmen who are frightened and uncertain rather than monstrous, which unsettles his simple view of the enemy. The scattered new Radiants, Shallan and the Kholins among them, begin to understand the scale of the war they now face.

The coalition's diplomacy grinds forward as Dalinar works to draw wary foreign monarchs into his alliance through the restored portals, contending with old grievances and the fear that he means to make himself emperor. A plan forms to reclaim the occupied Alethi capital, which sits astride one of the vital portals, and a small group including Shallan, Adolin, and the young King Elhokar sets out to infiltrate the fallen city. Shallan's habit of hiding inside assumed identities deepens as the pressure mounts, threatening to fracture her sense of self. Dalinar's memories return in force, revealing the true brutality of his younger years as a conqueror and a bargain he once made to escape his own guilt. Kaladin's journey among the awakened singers leaves him torn over who the real enemy is, while far from the front the enemy god's plans and the traitor in the coalition's midst quietly advance.

The mission to retake the Alethi capital ends in disaster. The infiltrators find the occupied city warped and dangerous, the enemy entrenched, and their attempt to seize its portal collapses. In the chaos King Elhokar is killed by Moash, his former guardsman turned enemy, just as the young king had begun to find his courage, and the city is lost to the coalition. Shallan is pushed to the edge as her personas war within her. Meanwhile Dalinar completes his painful reckoning with the worst of his past and, rather than being broken by it, emerges transformed into a true Bondsmith, fully bonded to the spirit of the storm and able to wield rare, unifying power. With one capital fallen and a king dead, the coalition regroups at Urithiru and learns that the enemy's next great blow will fall on the wealthy port of Thaylenah, forcing the scattered Radiants to converge for a stand.

The war comes to a head at Thaylen Field, where Odium hurls immortal warriors and enemy Shardbearers against the port city and nearly overwhelms its defenders. Dalinar refuses Odium's offer to strip away his pain and guilt, claims his history as his own, and declares himself Unity, ascending fully as a Bondsmith and channeling a fragment of the dead god Honor's power to open a great portal and drive the enemy back. The reborn Knights Radiant fight openly together at last and turn the battle. The victory is real but costly: the Alethi capital has fallen and King Elhokar lies dead at Moash's hand, and Jasnah takes the throne of Alethkar. The gentle-seeming King Taravangian, still trusted, has secretly sworn himself to Odium to spare his own city, hiding a traitor at the coalition's heart. Unable to conquer outright, Odium steers the conflict toward a proposed contest of champions to settle everything. The coalition holds Urithiru and has gained new allies and knights, but a long war remains, and the awakened singers are once more a living people, some free, many enslaved to the returned immortals.

The battle of Thaylen Field decides the book. Odium's forces, including immortal Fused warriors and enemy Shardbearers, assault the port city, and for a time the coalition is overwhelmed. Dalinar, having finally faced the worst of his buried past, refuses Odium's offer to take away his pain and guilt, declaring himself Unity, and ascends fully as a Bondsmith bonded to the Stormfather. Channeling a sliver of the dead god Honor's power, he opens a great portal and drives back the enemy, rallying the newly reborn Knights Radiant, who converge to win the day. Kaladin's men and the other orders fight openly as knights for the first time in millennia. But the victory is narrow and shadowed. The Alethi capital has already fallen and King Elhokar is dead, killed by the embittered Moash, who now serves the enemy; Jasnah takes the Alethi throne. The seemingly gentle King Taravangian, still trusted by the coalition, has secretly sworn himself to Odium in exchange for sparing his own city, planting a traitor at the alliance's heart. Odium, unable to simply conquer, maneuvers toward a proposed contest of champions to settle the war. The coalition holds Urithiru and has gained allies and Radiants, but a long, uncertain conflict lies ahead, and the awakened singers are a people again, some free, many enslaved to the returned immortals.