Dalinar settled down on a stool to wait.
“You didn’t expect this?” Zahel said, sounding amused.
“No. I thought … well, they’re fighting ardents. Swordsmen. Soldiers, at heart.”
“You’re dangerously close to threatening them with a decision, Brightlord: choose between God and their highprince. The fact that they like you doesn’t make the decision easier, but more difficult.”
“Their discomfort will pass,” Dalinar said. “My marriage, though it seems dramatic now, will eventually be a mere trivial note in history.”
“Perhaps.”
“You disagree?”
“Every moment in our lives seems trivial,” Zahel said. “Most are forgotten while some, equally humble, become the points upon which history pivots. Like white on black.”
“White … on black?” Dalinar asked.
“Figure of speech. I don’t really care what you did, Highprince. Lighteyed self-indulgence or serious sacrilege, either way it doesn’t affect me. But there are those who are asking how far you’re going to end up straying.”
Dalinar grunted. Honestly, had he expected Zahel of all people to be helpful? He stood up and began to pace, annoyed at his own nervous energy. Before the ardents could return with someone for him to duel, he stalked back into the middle of the room, looking for soldiers he recognized. Men who wouldn’t feel inhibited sparring with a highprince.
He eventually located one of General Khal’s sons. Not the Shardbearer, Captain Halam Khal, but the next oldest son—a beefy man with a head that had always seemed a little too small for his body. He was stretching after some wrestling matches.
“Aratin,” Dalinar said. “You ever sparred with a highprince?”
The younger man turned, then immediately snapped to attention. “Sir?”
“No need for formality. I’m just looking for a match.”
“I’m not equipped for a proper duel, Brightlord,” he said. “Give me some time.”
“No need,” Dalinar said. “I’m fine for a wrestling match. It’s been too long.”
Some men would rather not spar with a man as important as Dalinar, for fear of hurting him. Khal had trained his sons better than that. The young man grinned, displaying a prominent gap in his teeth. “Fine with me, Brightlord. But I’ll have you know, I’ve not lost a match in months.”
“Good,” Dalinar said. “I need a challenge.”
The swordmasters finally returned as Dalinar, stripped to the waist, was pulling on a pair of sparring leggings over his undershorts. The tight leggings came down only to his knees. He nodded to the swordmasters—ignoring the gentlemanly lighteyes they’d sought out for him to spar—and stepped into the wrestling ring with Aratin Khal.
His guards gave the swordmasters a kind of apologetic shrug, then Rial counted off a start to the wrestling match. Dalinar immediately lunged forward and slammed into Khal, grabbing him under the arms, struggling to hold his feet back and force his opponent off balance. The wrestling match would eventually go to the ground, but you wanted to be the one who controlled when and how that happened.
There was no grabbing the leggings in a traditional vehah match, and of course no grabbing hair, so Dalinar twisted, trying to get his opponent into a sturdy hold while preventing the man from shoving Dalinar over. Dalinar scrambled, his muscles taut, his fingers slipping on his opponent’s skin.
For those frantic moments, he could focus only on the match. His strength against that of his opponent. Sliding his feet, twisting his weight, straining for purchase. There was a purity to the contest, a simplicity that he hadn’t experienced in what seemed like ages.
Aratin pulled Dalinar tight, then managed to twist, tripping Dalinar over his hip. They went to the mat, and Dalinar grunted, raising his arm to his neck to prevent a chokehold, turning his head. Old training prompted him to twist and writhe before the opponent could get a good grip on him.
Too slow. It had been years since he’d done this regularly. The other man moved with Dalinar’s twist, forgoing the attempt at a chokehold, instead getting Dalinar under the arms from behind and pressing him down, face against the mat, his weight on top of Dalinar.
Dalinar growled, and by instinct reached out for that extra reserve he’d always had. The pulse of the fight, the edge.
The Thrill. Soldiers spoke of it in the quiet of the night, over campfires. That battle rage unique to the Alethi. Some called it the power of their ancestors, others the true mindset of the soldier. It had driven the Sunmaker to glory. It was the open secret of Alethi success.
No. Dalinar stopped himself from reaching for it, but he needn’t have worried. He couldn’t remember feeling the Thrill in months—and the longer he’d been apart from it, the more he’d begun to recognize that there was something profoundly wrong about the Thrill.
So he gritted his teeth and struggled—cleanly and fairly—with his opponent.
And got pinned.
Aratin was younger, more practiced at this style of fight. Dalinar didn’t make it easy, but he was on the bottom, lacked leverage, and simply wasn’t as young as he’d once been. Aratin twisted him over, and before too long Dalinar found himself pressed to the mat, shoulders down, completely immobilized.
Dalinar knew he was beaten, but couldn’t bring himself to tap out. Instead he strained against the hold, teeth gritted and sweat pouring down the sides of his face. He became aware of something. Not the Thrill … but Stormlight in the pocket of his uniform trousers, lying beside the ring.
Aratin grunted, arms like steel. Dalinar smelled his own sweat, the rough cloth of the mat. His muscles protested the treatment.
He knew he could seize the Stormlight power, but his sense of fairness protested at the mere thought. Instead he arched his back, holding his breath and heaving with everything he had, then twisted, trying to get back on his face for the leverage to escape.
His opponent shifted. Then groaned, and Dalinar felt the man’s grip slipping … slowly.…
“Oh, for storm’s sake,” a feminine voice said. “Dalinar?”
Dalinar’s opponent let go immediately, backing away. Dalinar twisted, puffing from exertion, to find Navani standing outside the ring with arms folded. He grinned at her, then stood up and accepted a light takama overshirt and towel from an aide. As Aratin Khal retreated, Dalinar raised a fist to him and bowed his head—a sign that Dalinar considered Aratin the victor. “Well played, son.”
“An honor, sir!”
Dalinar threw on the takama, turning to Navani and wiping his brow with the towel. “Come to watch me spar?”
“Yes, what every wife loves,” Navani said. “Seeing that in his spare time, her husband likes to roll around on the floor with half-naked, sweaty men.” She glanced at Aratin. “Shouldn’t you be sparring with men closer to your own age?”
“On the battlefield,” Dalinar said, “I don’t have the luxury of choosing the age of my opponent. Best to fight at a disadvantage here to prepare.” He hesitated, then said more softly, “I think I almost had him anyway.”
“Your definition of ‘almost’ is particularly ambitious, gemheart.”
Dalinar accepted a waterskin from an aide. Though Navani and her aides weren’t the only women in the room, the others were ardents. Navani in her bright yellow gown still stood out like a flower on a barren stone field.
As Dalinar scanned the chamber, he found that many of the ardents—not just the swordmasters—failed to meet his gaze. And there was Kadash, his former comrade-in-arms, speaking with the swordmasters.