Caleb Durrant

“You cannot have my pain.”

“Dalinar—”

Dalinar forced himself to his feet. “You. Cannot. Have. My. Pain.”

“Be sensible.”

“I killed those children,” Dalinar said.

“No, it—”

“I burned the people of Rathalas.”

“I was there, influencing you—”

“YOU CANNOT HAVE MY PAIN!” Dalinar bellowed, stepping toward Odium. The god frowned. His Fused companions shied back, and Amaram raised a hand before his eyes and squinted.

Were those gloryspren spinning around Dalinar?

“I did kill the people of Rathalas,” Dalinar shouted. “You might have been there, but I made the choice. I decided!” He stilled. “I killed her. It hurts so much, but I did it. I accept that. You cannot have her. You cannot take her from me again.”

“Dalinar,” Odium said. “What do you hope to gain, keeping this burden?”

Dalinar sneered at the god. “If I pretend … If I pretend I didn’t do those things, it means that I can’t have grown to become someone else.”

“A failure.”

Something stirred inside of Dalinar. A warmth that he had known once before. A warm, calming light.

Unite them.

“Journey before destination,” Dalinar said. “It cannot be a journey if it doesn’t have a beginning.”

A thunderclap sounded in his mind. Suddenly, awareness poured back into him. The Stormfather, distant, feeling frightened—but also surprised.

Dalinar?

“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer

“Elend: I kind of lost track of time…
Breeze: For two hours?
Elend: There were books involved.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“We rode on the winds of the rising storm,
We ran to the sounds of the thunder.
We danced among the lightning bolts,
and tore the world asunder.”
― Robert Jordan, The Dragon Reborn

“Every person you encounter, whom you interact with, is there to teach you something. Sometimes it may be years before you realize what each had to show you.”
― Raymond E. Feist, Rise of a Merchant Prince