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Today he found the Windrunners visited by an unusual number of Thaylens. The stews tended to attract whichever soldiers felt most out of place, and Dalinar suspected the Thaylens were feeling that way, being so far from the oceans. Companylord Sigzil was taking a turn at storytelling. Renarin was there too in his Bridge Four uniform, watching Sigzil with rapt attention. Regardless of war or storm, the boy tried to find his way to this fire every evening.
Dalinar approached, and only then did he realize the stir he was causing. Soldiers nudged one another, and someone ran to get him a stool. Sigzil paused in his story, saluting smartly.
They think I’ve come to approve of the tradition, Dalinar realized. They seemed to have been waiting for it, judging by how eagerly one of the Windrunner squires brought him a bowl. Dalinar accepted the food and took a bite, then nodded approvingly. That inspired applause. After that, there was nothing to do but settle down and keep eating, indicating that the rest of them could go on with their ritual.
When he glanced over at his son, Renarin was smiling. A reserved grin; you rarely saw teeth from Renarin. However, the lad didn’t have his box out, the one he often used to occupy his hands. He was relaxed here among these people.
“That was good of you, Father,” Renarin whispered, moving closer. “They’ve been waiting for you to stop by.”
“It’s good stew,” Dalinar noted.
“Secret Horneater recipe,” Renarin said. “Apparently it has only two lines of instructions. ‘Take everything you have, and put him in pot. Don’t let anyone airsick touch seasonings.’” Renarin said it fondly, but he hadn’t finished his bowl. He seemed distracted. Though … he always seemed distracted. “I assume you’re here to talk about … what I told you? The episode?”
Dalinar nodded.
Renarin tapped his spoon against the side of his bowl, a rhythmic click. He stared at the cookfire flamespren. “Does it strike you as cruel of fate, Father? My blood sickness gets healed, so I can finally be a soldier like I always wanted. But that same healing has given me another kind of fit. More dangerous than the other by far.”
“What did you see this time?”
“I’m not sure I should say. I know I told you to come talk to me, but … I vacillate. The things I see, they’re of him, right? I think he shows me what he wants. That’s why I saw you becoming his champion.” He glanced down at his bowl. “Glys isn’t convinced the visions are bad. He says we’re something new, and he doesn’t think the visions are specifically from Odium—though perhaps his desires taint what we see.”
“Any information—even if you suspect your enemy is feeding it to you—is useful, son. More wars are lost to lack of information than are lost to lack of courage.”
Renarin set his bowl beside his seat. It was easy to fall into the habit of underestimating Renarin. He always moved in this deliberate, careful way. It made him seem fragile.
Don’t forget, part of Dalinar thought. When you were broken on the floor, consumed by your past, this boy held you. Don’t forget who was strong, when you—the Blackthorn—were weak.
The youth stood up, then gestured for Dalinar to follow. They left the circle of firelight, waving farewell to the others. Lopen called out, asking Renarin to “look into the future and find out if I beat Huio at cards tomorrow.” It seemed a little crass to Dalinar, bringing up his son’s strange disorder, but Renarin took it with a chuckle.
The sky had grown dim, though the sun wasn’t fully set yet. These western lands were warmer than Dalinar liked—particularly at night. They didn’t cool off as was proper.
The Windrunner camp was near the edge of the village, so they strolled out into the wilderness near some snarls of bushes and a few tall trees—with broad canopies—that had grown out of the center, perhaps somehow using the bushes for extra strength. This area was relatively quiet, and soon the two of them were alone.
“Renarin?” Dalinar asked. “Are you going to tell me what you saw?”
His son slowed. His eyes caught the light of the now-distant campfire. “Yes,” he said. “But I want to get it right, Father. So I need to summon it again.”
“You can summon it?” Dalinar said. “I thought it came upon you unexpectedly.”
“It did,” Renarin said. “And it will again. But right now, it simply is.” He turned forward and stepped into the darkness.
* * *
As Renarin stepped forward, the ground beneath his feet became dark glass, spreading from the heel of his boot. It cracked in a web of lines, a purposeful pattern, black on black.
Glys, who preferred to hide within Renarin, grew excited. He’d captured this vision as it came, so they could study it. Renarin wasn’t quite so enthusiastic. It would be so much easier if he were like other Radiants.
Stained glass spread out around him, engulfing the landscape, a phantom light shimmering and glowing from behind in the darkness. As he walked, each of his footsteps made the ground pulse red, light shining up through the cracks. His father wouldn’t be able to see what he did. But hopefully Renarin could describe it properly.
“I see you in this vision,” Renarin said to his father. “You’re in a lot of them. In this one you stand tall, formed as if from stained glass, and you wear Shardplate. Stark white Shardplate, though you are pierced with a black arrow.”
“Do you know what it means?” Dalinar said, a shadow barely visible from behind the glass window depicting him.
“I think it might be a symbol of you, who you were, who you become. The more important part is the enemy. He makes up the bulk of this image. A window of yellow-white light breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, into infinity.
“He is like the sun, Father. He controls and dominates everything—and although your figure raises a sword high, it’s facing the wrong direction. You’re fighting and you’re fighting, but not him. I think I understand the meaning: you want a deal, you want a contest of champions, but you’re going to keep fighting, and fighting, and fighting distractions. Because why would the enemy agree to a contest that he can theoretically lose?”
“He already agreed,” Dalinar said.
“Were terms set?” Renarin asked. “A date picked? I don’t know if this vision is what he wants us to see. But either way … I don’t think he’s worried enough to agree to terms. He can wait, keep you fighting, keep us fighting. Forever. He can make this war so it never ends.”
Dalinar stepped forward, passing through the stained glass that represented him—though he wouldn’t know he had done so.
It seemed to Renarin as if his father never aged. Even in his earliest memories, Renarin remembered him looking like this—so powerful, so unchanging, so strong. Some of that was from the things his mother had told Renarin, building an image in his head of the perfect Alethi officer.
It was a tragedy that she hadn’t lived to see Dalinar become the man she’d imagined him to be. A shame that Odium had seen her killed. That was the way Renarin had to present it to himself. Better to turn his pain against the enemy than to lose his father along with his mother.
“I have stared Odium in the eyes,” Dalinar said. “I have faced him. He expected me to break. By refusing, I’ve upended his plans. It means he can be defeated—and equally important, it means he doesn’t know everything or see everything.”
