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Dalinar jolts into wakefulness in front of a mirror that reflects Elhokar. He raises his hands — they are his nephew's — and his heart breaks open again to see the boy he loved like a son. Was there a way he could have saved him? Should he have gone to Kholinar himself? Something moves in the mirror. *Show yourselves!* A voice answers from the air. *We seek truth.* A Cryptic. Wit had always told him Elhokar was on the path to Radiance; Dalinar had underestimated him.

The armourers come in and clamp him into Plate at Elhokar's standing orders — the late paranoia of a man haunted by spren he could not explain. Through the body he feels his nephew's frustration at not being believed, the gnawing worry of his own madness, the longing to live up to his father's name, and the uncertainty about broaching the rumours of him and his mother — would that make the Blackthorn proud or furious? The lad had needed someone who listened.

The door bangs open. The younger Dalinar walks in with thunder in his face. The older Dalinar recognises the day at once. Not the drunkard from the night Gavilar died — this is the Radiance-curious Blackthorn who solved one problem in one blunt way. The older Dalinar catches in himself the same instinct he had answered earlier with a slap to his younger self's face. He is still that man. *Do we have to do this?* he asks. *Yes,* the younger Dalinar growls, and kicks him in the chest. Indignation crowds in: this younger version is going to consolidate power by removing every highprince who disagrees with him, install himself as a despot for the good of the world, and in the process push Elhokar into the insecurity that gets him killed in Kholinar. He can hear Taravangian's voice in his head — *the monarch must do what needs to be done.* He fights back. He kicks free, smashes the table down on the younger him, and goes in pounding gauntlet against breastplate, cracking both equally and not caring. He is no longer the man who went on plateau assaults. The younger him forces him to stumble, kicks him in the chest, and cracks his breastplate in an explosion of glowing metal. He lies on the floor. *You cut your own straps. On the horse. You faked an assassination attempt.* Dalinar turns his head toward the guards. One of them is small. Gav. Watching. Witnessing his grandpa beat his father bloody. The vision was *meant* for this. Gav reaches for him with tears in his eyes. *I didn't mean to hurt him, son. I was just trying — my best —* The vision ends.

Across the world in Thaylen City, Jasnah forms two quick theories about the figure now standing in her temple. Either Odium is using Taravangian's face to unsettle her, or Taravangian himself has become Odium. Any question relying on shared memory would be suspect either way. More information. She always craves more, even when it does not help. *How?* Taravangian tells her: Szeth came to kill him the very night he was already interacting with the previous Odium, bearing the sword that bleeds darkness — the opportunity arrived in his hand at precisely the right moment, he slew Rayse, and Ascended. *It was Cultivation's plan,* he says. *I am, like Roshar itself, a dupe in a larger game.* It really does seem like him. She cannot know for certain, and there is not much she can. If a god has gone to this much trouble to imitate him, what is the difference?

She asks him to stop. To call off the attacks. They could be allies. He winces. *We never truly were. Were we.* *No. I suppose we were not.* He walks into the room on a golden scepter that he uses as a cane, less bowed than she remembers, and offers her — as a courtesy — the chance to argue against him tomorrow before Fen. He is already speaking to Fen elsewhere in the same moment, his elevated status letting him be in many places at once. *She is much less logical than you are.* He intends to recruit Thaylenah not by force but by *a gentle tug.* *Prepare your arguments well.* He dissolves out the way he came. *Don't waste too much of your time wondering if this is a trick.*

In the rain on a plateau a short distance from the Narak fighting, Venli is set down by two of El's Heavenly Ones — not Leshwi's — to face a Fused like none she has seen. Tall, magnificent metal horns, his carapace transformed into shimmering steel, smooth lines breaking into points. Leshwi and the rebel Heavenly Ones kneel before him in agony, trembling. Venli is not afraid. Timbre pulses inside her, and she remembers she has faced Odium himself. *I am my own. Not his.* *And here,* the Fused says, completely without rhythm, *the ringleader herself. Once Odium's own Voice. Venli, Last Listener. Welcome.* He is unusually polite. She hums back.

He tells her something most Fused would not. Those who rebel against Odium are often their best. The previous Odium stamped them out, and what a waste — *if we cull ourselves of our strongest wills, what is left?* He glances at a motionless Husked One sitting back in the rain, an example of the price of long life at war. He has finally, he says, a god who shares his mindset. He offers Venli elevation to Fused herself, pardon and reward for Leshwi and the others, in exchange for her loyalty and her chasmfiends — and adds, mildly, that Odium knows about her listener refugees at the edge of the plateaus and will deal with them soon. The offer, he says, is survival. *Do not dismiss it lightly.* Venli asks for time to consult her people. He grants it. *I will have this land tomorrow, one way or another.*

Leshwi takes Venli by the arm and flies her down into the chasms. *I'm sorry. But Venli — that's El.* No title. The only one of his kind. *Not to be trifled with — but if he is willing to pardon us, this could be the way out.* He rarely lies, she says, and a new Odium remade is an incredible event she cannot fathom. Venli attunes Skepticism. The last time she put any of her people in Odium's power it did not go well. But there is a real chance of annihilation otherwise. They land where the others wait, the chasmfiends called back under Odium's careful watch into a wide gap between plateaus, and Venli sits down to put the offer to them. She hates it. They at least have to discuss it.