He felt sometimes like the name Rheuben was an alias and he was not truly who he said he was. H felt like he was missing something fundamental that all the others seemed to have. In his more arrogant moments, he decided he had something extra, that all the others did not have, but it amounted to the same thing.
He felt a brush with it, that something extra or that void (as the case may be), during the match with the charity case. Loren. No surname; the boy was a bastard and made no secret of it, or of anything else for that matter.
When he'd crushed that elegant riposte back into the upstart's stomach, he'd felt two contrary things, and that was very much troubling him.
Primarily he'd felt wonderful, as though he were meant for nothing less than standing over a helpless opponent, reveling in victory. He'd felt superior, and he told himself that he felt it because it was true. The boy had nothing, no money or birthrights or anything.
But he had also felt as though he had violated something he should have left be. There had been nothing wrong with the riposte; the form was beautiful. But he was the stronger, wasn't he? The part of him that wasn't supposed to exist, the part that lived under Good Rheuben, Strong Rheuben, Merciful Knight of Truth Rheuben, gloried in the defeat of a weaker opponent.
He didn't know if he was ashamed or proud.