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Sigzil leads the retreat from Narak Three under the constant thunder of the Everstorm. Yelig-nar — dropped into the middle of the plateau to draw the defenders — has been brought down, his latest borrowed host slumped among a pile of corpses. The plateau is lost. The Fused that came with him are everywhere. Sigzil gathers his survivors onto the Oathgate platform, haunted by Leyten and Teft, and at his sign the Stonewards spend the last of the cached Stormlight to drop the bridge into the chasm. Across the gap the singers rejoice over a storehouse full of uninfused gemstones — the trick they have not yet noticed. He drifts back through hard rain to Narak Prime in misting breaths, lands on the battlements, and stays where his soldiers can see him while the healers do their work.

The new ranks of Radiants Jasnah sent are mustered below — and he cannot deploy them, because he is short not of bodies but of gemstones to feed them. General Winn, breathing hard from the climb in the rain, joins him. Sigzil asks the older man how he deals with losing soldiers. *At my age,* Winn tells him, *loss isn't an occasion, it's a state of being.* Forty-five officers from Gavilar's campaigns; he is the last. He commends Sigzil for not losing control today and tells him to be proud of facing loss as an officer must. Sigzil does not want to be proud. He wants to hold for two more days as ordered and is running out of Stormlight — Vienta estimates the reserves give out late today or tomorrow morning. Winn turns the question back on him: the next plan will have to be his. Something unconventional. Sigzil asks him to call a planning meeting and admits he is hoping someone else has a miracle.

Far away, Dalinar is somewhere else entirely. Faces shift past him — men he had known, men he had fought beside, men he had killed — and then a place he does not recognise: a world of strange beautiful architecture he ground to ash beneath his heels as the Blackthorn in armour the colour of coal. The vision jolts. He is in the Kholinar palace in an Alethi uniform with wine on the cuff, ardents bringing food to common people seated on the floor of a Beggars' Feast he recognises from Gavilar's reign. Someone slaps him on the shoulder. He is wearing the body of Rortel, one of his elites who would later die in a plateau assault. *Let's go,* Malan tells him, holding a jug of wine.

Dalinar follows out into the corridor and stops short. The dirty beggar by the wall is Ahu, his drinking buddy. Dalinar kneels. He sees, for the first time, who the beggar actually was. *Blood of my fathers — it is you. All those years, I never recognised you.* The king of Heralds had been there, this night of all nights. Jezrien takes his hand, lucid for a moment, and asks him whether he has seen the man he used to be. *Don't lose him,* he says. *Don't let go of him. I can sometimes feel where I need to be — so I came here.* Malan drags Dalinar away as shouts of an assassin echo down the hallway, and the Cobalt Guard sets out to be too late, for which it should be grateful — Szeth is at the height of his powers, and would slaughter anyone who reached him.

They reach the feast hall. The dancers have retreated, the Parshendi drums sit abandoned, and the news has not yet arrived. There at one of the lower tables, head down on the wood, slurring at the staff who refuse to bring him more wine, is the younger Dalinar — a man older Dalinar hates, both versions of him agreed on that. He slaps his younger self into spitting his mouthful, sidesteps the drunken lunge, slaps him again, and catches him by the wine-stained collar. *Your brother is dying right now. Is being murdered.* The drunk pulls free, stumbles two steps toward the door, and pitches face-down unconscious. Dalinar sighs. *What a disgrace.* The voice of Odium thrums through the walls: *the man you were — does it hurt to see it?* Dalinar tells him *yes — and I keep taking steps.*

The vision shifts. A colder room. Gavilar's body laid out on a table. The younger Dalinar stumbles down the stairs, howls, throws himself onto the body and weeps. The older Dalinar looks away — the wound is still there, still opened by knife and forceps. *Grampa?* a voice says behind him. Gav is standing among the guards. Dalinar gathers him as the realm goes dark again. *The dead man was your other grandpa,* he tells him. *My brother, the man you were named after. I let him die.* *Like you had to let Daddy die?* Gav whispers. The child has seen too much killing in these visions. *There will be peace, Gav. That's what I'm working for.* *Will there?* Gav whispers. *I see us fighting forever, and ever, and ever. And I have to be a soldier. Like you.*

Holding Gav against him in a storm of Honor's power, Dalinar finally understands the drift that drove him into the Spiritual Realm in the first place — a growing distrust of the Stormfather and Honor and their plan to bind Odium. He opens his eyes and asks the power what happens if he wins the contest and the world makes peace. It plays out for him in a thousand variants. Odium keeps his word and grinds the humans inside his lands into the dust until their kin demand reprisal. Humans always break first. The cycle restarts. A god cannot break his word; humans always can. *Peace via contract is a bandage on a gut wound,* Dalinar thinks. *I need the strength to deal with him personally.*

The voice of Odium answers — different from before, faintly familiar. *You? You think you can make peace? You break everything you touch. You took the throne from Elhokar, then sent him to die. You want to be a god because you want power.* Dalinar starts to push back — *you don't know me* — but Odium's strength sweeps over him. Gav is ripped from his arms. He tumbles through darkness, visions assaulting him without rest, his confidence wearing thin. He knows now what it is to be in Damnation itself.