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Dalinar lurches to his feet on the rocks before Feverstone Keep and reaches for a weapon he does not have. Odium is standing in front of him. The Stormfather has all but vanished — only a faint, whimpering pressure remains where the great rumble used to be. The kindly old Shin face rests its golden scepter against its palm and watches the men of the vision claw at one another over the abandoned Blades with an indulgent, almost wistful eye. The Radiants did not fall, Odium tells him, for the petty reasons Dalinar just blamed them with. There was infighting, yes, no more than in other eras; they were honest people unified in trying to do what was right.

Pressed on what he wants, Odium strolls to a small boulder and settles down on it with the sigh of a man putting down a heavy load, and pats the place beside him. Dalinar does not sit. He has been placed, Odium says, in a difficult position — the first to bond the Stormfather in his current state, deeply tied to the remnants of a god whom Odium killed. He will kill the other one too, eventually, when she stops hiding and he stops being so *shackled*. Dalinar names him a monster; Odium turns the accusation back with a paternal smile — has the Blackthorn never been in conflict with a man he respected? Never killed someone he had to? Dalinar sits down on the boulder, stiff, and listens.

What does Dalinar know of the three of them? Honestly — almost nothing. There are more, Odium tells him absently, but only three matter to him: himself, Honor, and Cultivation. Cultivation is the one some men identify with Roshar itself, the spren of the world. *She'd like that,* Odium muses. He wishes he could simply leave the place to her. *Then do it,* says Dalinar — go away. Odium turns on him so sharply that Dalinar flinches. Is that, he asks softly, an offer to release him from his bonds, coming from the man who holds the remnants of Honor's name and power? *No,* Dalinar manages. *Ah,* says Odium with a twinkle. These things must be done properly. He will go if he is released, but only by Intent.

The consequences? First, Cultivation's death. There would be others. A man cannot serve two gods at once, and now that he has had time to think, Odium cannot leave behind Honor's Splinters either, as he once thought he could; once released, his transformation of this realm would be substantial. *You think you'll do better,* Dalinar manages, *as a manifestation of hatred and pain?* The old man laughs. *Odium* is just a name. It bites usefully but is too narrow. He is *passion*. He is emotion incarnate — lust and joy and hatred and exultation, glory and vice, the soul of spren and of men. Honor cared only that bonds were kept, not what they meant; Cultivation only that things grew, never whether the growth was good or ill. Strip emotion away and you get creatures like Nale and his Skybreakers — and that, he says, is what Honor's pure influence would have left the world. Only he understands the pain of men. Only he cares.

Dalinar cannot believe him, will not believe him, and nods at the dying field. *Then what really caused the Recreance?* Odium smiles. Passion. Glorious, wondrous passion. Men are poor vessels for emotion; it fills them and breaks them unless they find someone to share the burden. Ask Cultivation, he adds, what she would want for Roshar — next time you see her. *I have never seen her.* Odium, turning to walk away: *Of course you have. She simply robbed you of that memory. Her touch is not how I would have helped you. It stole a part of you away and left you like a blind man who can't remember he once had sight.*

Dalinar stands. He offers a challenge of champions, with terms still to be discussed. Odium turns slowly. *Do you speak for the world, Dalinar Kholin?* The hesitation lasts an instant. Odium declines either way: he will not take such a risk, because he is certain that Dalinar will free him on his own. *You shouldn't have revealed yourself,* says Dalinar, shakily — it is easier to fear what you do not understand. *Curious,* Odium says, smiling.

Then everything goes white. Dalinar stands on a speck of nothingness that is the whole world, looking up at an eternal, all-embracing flame — red into orange into a blazing white, then deeper, into a violet-black that consumes light itself. Heat and weight and pressure. The scream of a thousand warriors. The most sensual touch. The sorrow of loss, the joy of victory, and beneath it all a hatred so dense it could turn the planet of Roshar into a puff of snuffed candle-smoke. Even the smallest fraction of it nearly unmakes Dalinar. When he comes to himself again he is lying on the rock, with Odium kneeling beside him offering a waterskin. The old man with the kindly eyes is not the god. He is a face, a mask, set in front of that violet-black fire so that mortal minds will not die from looking at it.

Odium pats him on the shoulder and starts to apologise — and then stops mid-sentence, spinning to search the rocks. *Nothing. An old man's mind playing tricks.* He pats Dalinar on the arm, promises another conversation, and vanishes in an eyeblink. *That guy is creepy,* says a girl's voice from behind some rocks. Lift climbs out in fine Azish robes and an opinion that old men are *all* creepy and nobody gets old without ruining a few lives along the way. Odium did not, she notes, even smell like a real person. She agrees to come visit Urithiru, decides on the strength of the food alone that they're a serious operation, and tells Dalinar not to tell Gawx about *that Odium thing* — he already has too many old people to worry about. Then she vanishes too, and the vision finally fades. End of Part Two.