toward a group of surgeons, carrying wounded men across the bridges.
“Worry?” Sadeas said. “Why should I? It gives the wretches a chance to die in battle for something worthwhile.”
“You say things like that a lot these days, I’ve noticed,” Amaram said. “You weren’t like that before.”
“I’ve learned to accept the world as it is, Amaram,” Sadeas said, turning his horse. “That’s something very few people are willing to do. They stumble along, hoping, dreaming, pretending. That doesn’t change a single storming thing in life. You have to stare the world in the eyes, in all its grimy brutality. You have to acknowledge its depravities. Live with them. It’s the only way to accomplish anything meaningful.”
With a squeeze of the knees, Sadeas started his horse forward, leaving Amaram behind for the moment.
The man would remain loyal. Sadeas and Amaram had an understanding. Even Amaram now being a Shardbearer would not change that.
As Sadeas and his vanguard approached Hatham’s army, he noticed a group of Parshendi on a nearby plateau, watching. Those scouts of theirs were getting bold. He sent a team of archers to go chase them off, then rode toward a figure in resplendent Shardplate at the front of Hatham’s army: the highprince himself, seated upon a Ryshadium. Damnation. Those animals were far superior to any other horseflesh. How to get one?
“Sadeas?” Hatham called out to him. “What have you done here?”
After a quick moment of decision, Sadeas lifted his arm back and hurled the gemheart across the plateau separating them. It hit the rock near Hatham and bounced along in a roll, glowing faintly.
“I was bored,” Sadeas shouted back. “I thought I’d save you some trouble.”
Then, ignoring further questions, Sadeas continued on his way. Adolin Kholin had a duel today, and he’d decided not to miss it, just in case the youth embarrassed himself again.
* * *
A few hours later, Sadeas settled down into his place in the dueling arena, tugging at the stock on his neck. Insufferable things—fashionable, but insufferable. He would never tell a soul, not even Ialai, that he secretly wished he could just go about in a simple uniform like Dalinar.
He couldn’t ever do that, of course. Not just because he wouldn’t be seen bowing to the Codes and the king’s authority, but because a military uniform was actually the wrong uniform for these days. The battles they fought for Alethkar at the moment weren’t battles with sword and shield.
It was important to dress the part when you had a role to play. Dalinar’s military outfits proved he was lost, that he didn’t understand the game he was playing.
Sadeas leaned back to wait as whispers filled the arena like water in a bowl. A large attendance today. Adolin’s stunt in his previous duel had drawn attention, and anything novel was of interest to the court. Sadeas’s seat had a space cleared around it to give him extra room and privacy, though it was really just a simple chair built onto the stone bleachers of this pit of an arena.
He hated how his body felt outside of Shardplate, and he hated more how he looked. Once, he’d turned heads as he walked. His power had filled a room; everyone had looked to him, and many had lusted when seeing him. Lusted for his power, for who he was.
He was losing that. Oh, he was still powerful—perhaps more so. But the look in their eyes was different. And every way of responding to his loss of youthfulness made him look petulant.
He was dying, step by step. Like every man, true, but he felt that death looming. Decades away, hopefully, but it cast a long, long shadow. The only path to immortality was through conquest.
Rustling cloth announced Ialai slipping into the seat beside his. Sadeas reached out absently, resting his hand on the small of her back and scratching at that place she liked. Her name was symmetrical. A tiny bit of blasphemy from her parents—some people dared imply such holiness of their children. Sadeas liked those types. Indeed, the name was what had first intrigued him about her.
“Mmmm,” his wife said with a sigh. “Very nice. The duel hasn’t started yet, I see.”
“Mere moments away, I believe.”
“Good. I can’t stand waiting. I hear you gave away the gemheart you captured today.”
“Threw it at Hatham’s feet and rode away, as if I didn’t have a care.”
“Clever. I should have seen that as an option. You’ll undermine Dalinar’s claim that we only resist him because of our greed.”
Below, Adolin