In famine-stricken Tu Bayla, Odium manifests a body and kneels with a dying child. He reflects on the nation’s overlooked beauty and on the causes of its suffering: the Everstorm destroyed crops, war cut off trade, and the collapse of government let warlords hoard supplies. Seeing this misery everywhere overwhelms him, and he grieves that his vast divine awareness means infinite exposure to pain.

Cultivation appears and reminds Odium that, because of the pact made by his predecessor, he is forbidden from directly intervening for people who are not fully his. Odium rages against that limit, wanting to save the child immediately, but his more rational side admits that simple miracles would not solve the deeper problem. Healing one child or forcing a temporary fix would leave the broken systems intact, and heavy-handed divine rule could halt growth, responsibility, mercy, art, and progress.

When the child dies, Cultivation pushes Odium to articulate the alternative. Odium concedes that gods should steer through teachings, incentives, and long-term structures that encourage peace and accountability rather than domination. Even so, he turns his anger on Cultivation, accusing her and the other gods of failing Roshar for eight thousand years and insisting that he could create better limits on human choice while still preventing horrors like famine.

The argument escalates into a deeper philosophical conflict. Cultivation defends freedom and warns him away from this path, but Odium says the true problem is not ordinary people; it is the competing manipulations of gods. Feeling the pain and fury of all suffering beings, he declares that this burden is unbearable and implies that lasting peace cannot come while power remains divided among multiple divine forces.

At last Odium states his conclusion: suffering will not truly end until there is only one god. Cultivation leaves, knowing he will pursue a dangerous course and that she must oppose him. Alone again, he rejects being ruled by the Shard’s intent, reminds himself that he is not merely Odium but Taravangian, and recommits to the mission that has guided him since Kharbranth: to save everyone by confronting the greater threat he believes only he can stop.