“Ah,” Tyn said with a smile. “No use denying. That was fun.”

“I’m still going to strangle you,” Shallan said. “He knew we were playing with him. That has to be the worst Horneater impression a woman has ever done.”

“It was actually pretty good,” Tyn said. “You overdid the words, but the accent itself was spot on. That wasn’t the point, though.” She handed back the boots.

“What was the point?” Shallan asked as they hiked back toward the caravan. “Making a fool out of me?”

“Partially,” Tyn said.

“That was sarcasm.”

“If you’re going to learn to do this,” Tyn said, “you have to be comfortable in situations like that. You can’t be embarrassed when you pose as someone else. The more outrageous the attempt, the straighter you have to play it. The only way to get better is to practice—and in front of people who very well might catch you.”

“I suppose,” Shallan said.

“Those boots are too big for you,” Tyn noted. “Though I did love the look on his face when you asked for them. ‘No apologize. Boots!’”

“I really need some boots,” Shallan said. “I’m tired of walking around on rock barefoot or in slippers. A little padding, and these will fit.” She held them up. They were rather large. “Er, maybe.” She looked backward. “I hope he’ll be all right without them. What if he has to fight bandits on his way back?”

Tyn rolled her eyes. “We’re going to have to talk about that kindheartedness of yours sometime, kid.”

“It’s not a bad thing to be nice.”

“You’re training to be a con artist,” Tyn said. “For now, let’s get back to the caravan. I want to talk you through the finer points of a Horneater accent. With that red hair of yours, you’ll probably find more chances to use it than you would others.”

Artform for colors beyond our ken;

For its grand songs we yearn.

We must attract creationspren;

These songs suffice ’til we learn.

—From the Listener Song of Revision, 279th stanza

Torol Sadeas closed his eyes and rested Oathbringer on his shoulder, breathing in the sweet, moldy scent of Parshendi blood. The Thrill of battle surged within him, a blessed and beautiful strength.

His own blood pumped so loudly in his ears he almost couldn’t hear the battlefield shouts and groans of pain. For a moment, he reveled only in the delicious glow of the Thrill, the heady euphoria at having spent an hour engaged in the only thing that brought true joy anymore: contending for his life, and taking those of enemies lesser than himself.

It faded. As always, the Thrill was fleeting once battle itself ended. It had grown less and less sweet during these raids on the Parshendi, likely because he knew deep inside that this contest was pointless. It did not stretch him, did not carry him further toward his ultimate goals of conquest. Slaughtering crem-covered savages in a Heralds-forsaken land had truly lost its savor.

He sighed, lowering his Blade, opening his eyes. Amaram approached across the battlefield, stepping over corpses of men and Parshendi. His Shardplate was bloodied purple up to the elbows, and he carried a glimmering gemheart in one gauntleted hand. He kicked aside a Parshendi corpse and joined Sadeas, his own honor guard fanning out to join those of his highprince. Sadeas spared a moment of annoyance for how efficiently they moved, particularly when compared to his own men.

Amaram pulled off his helm and hefted the gemheart, tossing it up and catching it. “Your maneuver here today failed, you realize?”

“Failed?” Sadeas said, lifting his faceplate. Nearby, his soldiers slaughtered a pocket of fifty Parshendi who hadn’t managed to get off the plateau when the rest retreated. “I think this went quite nicely.”

Amaram pointed. A stain had appeared on the plateaus to the west, toward the warcamps. The banners indicated that Hatham and Roion, the two highprinces who were supposed to have gone on this plateau run, had arrived together—they used bridges like Dalinar’s, slow plodding things it had been easy to outrun. One of the advantages of the bridge crews Sadeas preferred was that they needed very little training to function. If Dalinar had thought to slow him down with his stunt of trading Oathbringer for Sadeas’s bridgemen, he had been proven a fool.

“We needed to get out here,” Amaram said, “seize the gemheart, and return before the others arrived. Then you could have claimed that you didn’t realize you weren’t in the rotation today. The arrival of both other armies removes that shred of deniability.”

“You mistake me,” Sadeas said. “You assume I still care about deniability.” The last Parshendi died with enraged screams; Sadeas felt proud of that. Others said Parshendi warriors on the field never surrendered, but he’d seen them try it once, long ago, in the first year of the war. They’d laid down their weapons. He’d slaughtered them all personally, with Shardhammer and Plate, beneath the eyes of their retreating companions watching from a nearby plateau.

Never again had any Parshendi denied him or his men their right to finish a battle the proper way. Sadeas waved for the vanguard to gather and escort him back to the warcamps while the rest of the army licked its wounds. Amaram joined him, crossing a bridge and passing idling bridgemen who lay on the ground and slept while better men died.

“I am duty-bound to join you on the battlefield, Your Highness,” Amaram said as they walked, “but I want you to know that I do not approve of our actions here. We should be seeking to bridge our differences with the king and Dalinar, not trying to agitate them further.”

Sadeas snorted. “Don’t give me that noble talk. It works fine for others, but I know you for the ruthless bastard you really are.”

Amaram set his jaw, eyes forward. When they reached their horses, he reached out, hand on Sadeas’s arm. “Torol,” he said softly, “there is so much more to the world than your squabbles. You’re right about me, of course. Take that admission with the understanding that to you, above all others, I can speak the truth. Alethkar needs to be strong for what is coming.”

Sadeas climbed the mounting block the groom had set out. Getting onto a horse in Shardplate could be dangerous to the animal if not done correctly. Besides, he’d once had a stirrup snap on him when he stepped into it to haul himself into the saddle. He’d ended up on his backside.

“Alethkar does need to be strong,” Sadeas said, holding out a gauntleted hand. “So I’ll make it so by force of fist and the rule of blood.”

Amaram reluctantly placed the gemheart there, and Sadeas gripped it, holding his reins in the other hand.

“Do you ever worry?” Amaram asked. “About what you do? About what we must do?” He nodded 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.”