Interlude 12

O dium worked on teaching Dalinar his lessons until something pulled him away. Something surprising, alarming.

Cultivation was moving against him.

Odium was shocked, for he had genuinely not thought her capable. Her movements made him turn from the Spiritual Realm and focus his attention on Kharbranth, his quiet seaside city, protected from storm and war.

There, Cultivation’s agents were in motion. People with faintly blue veins beneath the skin, wearing black, their faces covered. They carried modern equipment: crossbows, half-shard shields, blades of the finest steel, and armor of some strange Soulcast material. Which was hard enough to stop an arrow, yet lightweight, and left them limber.

Her forces sliced through Kharbranth, having arrived in sleek black boats in the night.

He was … impressed. This was incredible. A tactical, precision strike on his home and family? He formed an invisible avatar, standing in the sky, the wind playing at his robes. He watched with mounting concern as his city guard fell to grisly deaths, each of them choking on their own blood as fighters with no uniforms cut through the city. His defenders didn’t have a chance, and Taravangian could do nothing. The Fused and Unmade were both forbidden this city, so none were close enough to help.

In minutes, Cultivation’s forces were assaulting the palace at the top of the city, cut into the stone cliff face. Odium trembled, feeling—for the first time since his Ascension— panic. Like all emotions, it welled inside him more strongly than any mortal could feel, making him tremble and gasp.

Cultivation appeared next to him. “I will not hurt them unless you refuse to back down.”

“You …” Odium said, his anger stoking. “You monster. ”

“I do what must be done.”

He laughed, tears of pain forming at his eyes—because he’d created this avatar to simulate mortal responses. The tempests within his power, the changes to his rhythms, were far, far more terrible signs—but even still, tears were familiar to him.

So many emotions. He wrestled with them, his mortal training and his divine mind struggling together. Betrayal, fear, and … and satisfaction.

“You use my methods, Cultivation,” he whispered. “You know the true way of kings.”

Her avatar would not meet his eyes. Her forces broke into the palace, and several members of his staff … were plants of hers. They gave up his daughter and his grandchildren, who were soon imprisoned in their own rooms. With murderers poised to strike.

“You would actually do it,” Taravangian said. “You did have another plan! You didn’t simply pick me because you suspected I could hold Odium’s power. You picked me because you thought you could control me!”

“I don’t think it, Taravangian,” she said. “I know there is only one thing in all this world you’ve ever legitimately cared for. Now I hold it. Back down. Go to the human coalition and agree to an immediate armistice. Give the Kholins their kingdom and be content with the lands you already hold. They are more than your share anyway. Make peace.”

“And what growth can come from peace?” he asked, quivering with the weight of so many emotions. “Admit it, Cultivation. You let the war proceed for millennia and did not intercede, because conflict doesn’t just inflame emotion, it forces growth. Your power’s Intent.”

Her avatar stared at him boldly, but he felt the tremble in her power. Yes. It did like war, didn’t it? She hated suffering, but she was the Vessel. Her power loved anything that encouraged people to learn, better themselves, and achieve. That was often accelerated by conflict.

“You force me to make peace now,” he said, “not because you want to end the hostilities—but because you don’t want to be wrong in having chosen me to Ascend.”

“You do not know my heart.”

“And you,” he whispered, “do not know what you have created, Koravellium Avast. I no longer question. I know my path is right, and so—at each point—the next step is clearly manifest. No longer is my challenge about decisions, but merely about having the strength to execute them.”

In the ocean several miles from Kharbranth, a wave began to build.

“Taravangian,” Cultivation said. “What … what is this?”

“A … lesson,” he whispered, a profound sadness welling within him as the wave grew. Larger and larger.

Cultivation gasped, horror vibrating from her. “Taravangian. No. You can’t.”

“I will weep,” he whispered. “Know that I will weep.”

His avatar closed its eyes, tears leaking down its cheeks. He thought of his family—not only his daughter, dear Savrahalidem, but his grandchildren. Gvori, Karavangia, and little Ruli—whom he’d been forced to use in schemes before. And of course there were his dear friends of the Diagram. Faithful Maben, who sat with her own granddaughter in the morning light, knitting, completely unaware of the incursion force. Mrall, already dead, having tried to protect Taravangian’s family. Adrotagia … she was walking the palace gardens, and assassins crept up behind her.

“I will remember you,” he whispered as the wave surged toward the city, now a hundred feet tall. It was an action he could not have taken anywhere else, for it was too direct an intervention. But Kharbranth … he, as a mortal, had been promised Kharbranth. That still held.

“Taravangian!” Cultivation said. “I will back down. Stay your h and ! ”

“Ah,” he said, “but the lesson is not just for you; it is for any who would think to intimidate me. A god must have no holes in his armor, Cultivation.”

He steeled himself, observing her panic and pain for her followers who would be consumed. She could not watch. She turned away, which gave him peace, and let him summon his power.

Then Odium, God of Passions, destroyed Kharbranth entirely—the one city he’d bargained all his mortal life to protect.