POV: dalinar
Summary
Exhausted, Dalinar and the Windrunners land back in the Emuli warcamp minutes ahead of a highstorm. He feels the weight of failure pulling on him — no closer to understanding his powers, no closer to taking back Urithiru, no closer to rescuing Navani. Then runners begin reaching him with spanreeds suddenly working again, gloryspren around them: Navani is in contact, the tower and Oathgates are functioning. He sends word to her promising to come before day's end, asks Jasnah and the Prime for a meeting after the storm, and walks back to his small house. The Stormfather, distracted earlier by the dissected spren, marvels that the Sibling has fully awakened — another Bondsmith.
He pushes open the door and steps into a vast golden field under a sunset-red sky. The door is gone. He is in a vision, but not a highstorm one. On a nearby hilltop, in golden robes and resting his hand on a small scepter, stands Odium — facing away. The first time he has appeared to Dalinar in a year. He looks different: still the wise old grey-bearded paternal figure, but his skin glows in places as if a light inside is trying to escape, and his eyes are chunks of golden metal. When he speaks his words are clipped, his anger barely contained.
Their Connection grows, Odium says; he can reach Dalinar as one of his own. He demands to know what Ishar told him. Dalinar uses the old commander's trick of silence, and realises the answer to a question he has long carried: Odium lost the tower, gained a second Bondsmith opposing him, lost his planned champion in Dalinar, and now fears Dalinar has Ishar's wisdom too. Cultivation's gift bled Dalinar and gave him the strength to defy this god. What does a god fear? Men who will not obey him. So Dalinar bluffs — implies Ishar gave him books and showed him a Bondsmith's true unchained powers — and feels Odium's heat rise as the god calls Cephandrius a rat who burrows into his strongholds and could have been a god himself.
Dalinar has terms on his desk. Odium waves them into the sky in glowing golden ink. If Dalinar's champion wins, Odium withdraws to Braize for a thousand years; Dalinar's add-on demands that the Fused, the spren that make Regals, and the Voidspren be locked away with him. Odium refuses — the Everstorm has changed everything; Regals can be made without his intervention, Fused can be reborn without him, the Oathpact is defunct. Doing what Dalinar asks would destroy him. They are at impasse. Dalinar turns to leave.
Heat flares behind him. Odium glows red-gold, eyes wide, teeth clenched. Dalinar holds his ground. *Wit said he cannot hurt you. Not without breaking his word.* The power abates. Odium wants a real ending. New offer: he gives up his grand plans, leaves Roshar for a thousand years, but in exchange Honor's prohibitions on him fall away — he wants out of this system. Wit warned this would not be easy. Dalinar weighs whom he trusts more: Wit, who looks out for himself, or the god of anger. Not really a question.
Odium counters that giving up Roshar is too much; his minions are tired, the Fused want endings, terrible endings. *I want so much more than one planet — but my people tire.* He proposes a final accommodation. New terms, his own this time. *A contest of champions on the tenth of Palah, tenth hour, at the top of Urithiru. I know my champion. Do you know yours? Then let us stop dancing.* If Dalinar wins, Odium remains bound to Roshar, ceases hostilities, and returns Alethkar and Herdaz — Dalinar insists on Herdaz, *the matter of an oath*. If Odium wins, he keeps every conquest including the homeland — and he takes Dalinar's soul. Dalinar intends to be his own champion; he will already have died. He will become immortal and join the Fused, bound by his oaths to serve Odium in the cosmere.
Cold dread, like the surprise of being stabbed. But the deal stops the war. Azir and Thaylenah are safe; Alethkar and Herdaz are within reach. He has seen the alternative: years, decades of fighting an enemy whose Fused are constantly reborn. Honor said as much. Renarin said as much. Taravangian said as much. Their best chance is for his champion to win. He hadn't gotten this far through indecision. He trusts his instincts and his god.
He breathes in. *Final terms are these.* A contest of champions to the death, tenth of Palah, tenth hour, willing champions unharmed by either side's forces, meeting atop Urithiru. If he wins: Odium remains bound, returns Alethkar and Herdaz intact, vows no further hostilities. Odium agrees, and adds his own: if he wins he keeps every conquest and remains bound to the system, still ceases hostilities — and he has Dalinar's soul, immortal and in service. *Will you do this? Because I agree to these terms.* *And I,* Dalinar whispers. *I agree to these terms.* *It is done.*