More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
She wasn’t supposed to get any older; the Nightwatcher had promised her she wouldn’t.
Alone. Dalinar held a fist to his chest. So alone. It hurt to breathe, to think. But something stirred inside his fist. He opened bleeding fingers. The most … the most important … Inside his fist, he somehow found a golden sphere. A solitary gloryspren. The most important step a man can take. It’s not the first one, is it? It’s the next one. Always the next step, Dalinar. Trembling, bleeding, agonized, Dalinar forced air into his lungs and spoke a single ragged sentence. “You cannot have my pain.”
“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”
“I am Unity.” He slammed both hands together. And combined three realms into one.
“I’m broken.” “Who isn’t? Life breaks us, Teft. Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”
“I will protect those I hate. Even … even if the one I hate most … is … myself.”
I knew I liked you, a voice said in Lift’s mind. The sword. So it was a spren? “You almost ate him,” Lift said. “You almost starvin’ ate me!” Oh, I wouldn’t do that, the voice said. She seemed completely baffled, voice growing slow, like she was drowsy. But … maybe I was just really, really hungry.… Well, Lift supposed she couldn’t blame someone for that.
Elhokar? Dalinar thought. But no one else came through the column of light. And he knew. Knew, somehow, that the king was not coming. He closed his eyes, and accepted that grief. He had failed the king in many ways. Stand up, he thought. And do better.
Szeth settled down lightly beside her. “I have failed to carry this burden.” “That’s okay. Your weird face is burden enough for one man.” “Your words are wise,” he said, nodding.
Kaladin floated downward toward him. “Ten spears go to battle,” he whispered, “and nine shatter. Did that war forge the one that remained? No, Amaram. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.”
He’d once believed he had been four men in his life, but he now saw he’d grossly underestimated. He hadn’t lived as two, or four, or six men—he had lived as thousands, for each day he became someone slightly different. He hadn’t changed in one giant leap, but across a million little steps. The most important always being the next,
Dalinar’s entire life had been a competition: a struggle from one conquest to the next. He accepted what he had done. It would always be part of him. And though he was determined to resist, he would not cast aside what he had learned. That very thirst for the struggle—the fight, the victory—had also prepared him to refuse Odium. “Thank you,” he whispered again to the Thrill, “for giving me strength when I needed it.”
Oathbringer, My Glory and My Shame. Written by the hand of Dalinar Kholin.
