Haliya reaches Taro-duend under orders that treat exposure to the artifact as contamination. In one possible chain she kills Sami and Tannuk; in another Alpharael stops her; in every version the stone searches for a route that preserves the pieces it still needs. Personal responsibility does not disappear, but certainty about which actions became real does.
Vondam's protocol demands total destruction if recovery fails. He believes an object capable of revising causes is worth a settlement, a station or his own life. Yet he cannot easily extend that arithmetic to Haliya. The squire who learned duty from him has become both risk and person, an inconsistency no doctrine can compress without revealing the affection underneath.
The Endstone makes survival possible while leaving everyone less sure that survival was their choice. Haliya begins to see that the Bright Sum can be made to excuse any horror once its horizon grows large enough. Alpharael, who has already abandoned one promised eternity, recognises her crisis without claiming that his former faith supplies a better answer.