POV: dalinar
Summary
*You cannot have my pain.* Dalinar forces himself to his feet and bellows it at Odium in front of the Fused, Amaram and the parshwoman Venli. *I killed those children. I burned the people of Rathalas. I made the choice; I decided. I killed her.* He will keep the pain because if he didn't do those things, he can't have grown beyond them. A warmth he has felt once before stirs in him. *Journey before destination. It cannot be a journey if it doesn't have a beginning.* A thunderclap in his mind — and the Stormfather is back, frightened and surprised. Dalinar whispers the words plainly: *I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.*
Renarin races after Jasnah through the Loft Wards, leaping from roof to roof. He thinks he isn't a Knight Radiant; she tells him *I know what you are — you're my cousin. Hold my hand and run with me.* A stream of gloryspren sweeps past them in a curving formation toward something glowing down at the base of the city.
Around Dalinar the gloryspren thicken into a column of golden light. He thrusts a hand into the realm of thought and another into the realm of spirit, stands suspended between the realms with Evi's voice forgiving him in the stillness, and tells the parshwoman who alone of all the Fused does not flinch — *I am Unity*. He slams the realms together.
In Shadesmar light explodes outward. Fused are blown away. A brilliant pillar of light stands in the bead sea; under it the beads lock into a highway of glass. Syl names it. *Honor's Perpendicularity — a well of power that pierces all three realms. A pathway home.*
Taln grips Ash's hand and asks how long. Four millennia, she tells him. He stands, walks out of the tent, and — instead of hating her as she begs him to — calls it a wonderful gift, time for the world to recover between Desolations. He takes her hand again and pulls her after him through the camp: *He's waiting. I don't know.*
In a dark passage of Urithiru, the unnamed honorspren who has been trying to bond Teft whispers that everyone is broken; life breaks us, and we fill the cracks with something stronger. Teft licks his lips and speaks the Windrunner Third Ideal: *I will protect those I hate. Even if the one I hate most is myself.*
Renarin catches up to Jasnah in the Low Ward and watches her go through Sadeas soldiers: one shove crystallises a man in midair, the impact transferred through six more like a contagion; her Blade sweeps through six in a stroke; a wall puffs to smoke; air freezes into stone steps under her feet. A well of power opens inside Renarin himself — Glys crying that this will be vast, wonderful — and he sees the pillar of light rising above the city.
Navani leans far out from the wall and laughs as gloryspren stream around her and pour toward the column. Across the field the scattered gemstones of the broken reserve drink in Stormlight from Dalinar and ignite the ground in a thousand pinpricks of color.
*No! No, we killed you! WE KILLED YOU!* Odium orders his soldiers to attack. Only the parshwoman holds still. Amaram lifts Oathbringer — *he'll never forgive me*, he tells Dalinar; not the bridgeman, himself — and strikes. A spear of light splits from Dalinar's column to meet the Blade in a burst of sparks that throws Amaram back, and resolves into Kaladin with the Sylspear. A second light becomes Shallan in white with a long curved Blade. A third — blessedly — Adolin.
Vines retreat from Lift's arms as gemstones across the field flare alight; the sword gorges itself on the new Stormlight until its hunger is slaked. Lift finally hears the sword in her mind — sleepy, apologetic, claiming it doesn't eat people. Szeth stands up with his skin streaked grey where the vines had crawled, scoops his sword's sheath off the ground, and walks toward the pillar of light. *Come*.
Kaladin takes Shallan's hand and rises to his feet. Syl names the pillar. Dalinar's power withdraws as the column fades; the Stormfather notes wonderingly that he was bonded to men before but this never happened then. *Honor was alive then. We are something different. His remnants, your soul, my will.* Around Dalinar the Radiants step into place: Kaladin on one side, Shallan on the other, then Jasnah from the city, Renarin running to embrace and heal Adolin, Lift and Szeth across the field. *There — behind your niece*, the Stormfather says: a powerful dark-skinned man and a long-haired woman whose eyes are wrong, Taln and Ash. Two Heralds. *Dalinar, you are in the presence of divinities.* That makes nine. He had expected ten.
Dalinar gives orders. Renarin to the Oathgate to stop the thunderclast climbing toward it and open the portal so troops can come from Urithiru; Shallan to weave an army to keep the bloodlusted Sadeas troops distracted; Jasnah to hold the rent in the wall; Kaladin as his bodyguard, since the highlord will try to kill him for what he means to do next; Lift and Szeth back after the ruby. Lift would like to know where she can get something to eat. Then Dalinar starts walking toward the bay. *The enemy brought a very big stick to this battle, Captain. I'm going to take it away.*