Blushweaver shook her head. “You confuse me sometimes, Lightsong. If it weren’t for your reputation, I’d simply presume you to be shy. How could you have slept with Calmseer, but consistently ignore me?”

Calmseer was the last honorable Returned this city has known, Lightsong thought, sipping his drink. Nobody left has a shred of her decency. Myself included.

Blushweaver fell silent, watching the latest display from the firemasters. The show had grown progressively more ornate, and Lightsong was considering calling halt, lest they use up all of their fireworks on him and not have any left should another god call upon them.

Blushweaver didn’t make any move to return to her own palace grounds, and Lightsong said nothing further. He suspected that she hadn’t come simply for verbal sparring, or even to try and bed him. Blushweaver always had her plans. In Lightsong’s experience, there was more depth to the woman than her gaudy surface suggested.

Eventually, his hunch paid off. She turned from the fireworks, eyeing the dark palace of the God King. “We have a new queen.”

“I noticed,” Lightsong said. “Though, admittedly, only because I was reminded several times.”

They fell silent.

“Have you no thoughts on the matter?” Blushweaver finally asked.

“I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you’re not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.”

Blushweaver sighed. “You avoid thinking, you avoid me, you avoid effort . . . is there anything you don’t avoid?”

“Breakfast.”

Blushweaver didn’t react to this, which Lightsong found disappointing. She was too focused on the king’s palace. Lightsong usually tried to ignore the large black building; he didn’t like how it seemed to loom over him.

“Perhaps you should make an exception,” Blushweaver said, “and give some thought to this particular situation. This queen means something.”

Lightsong turned his cup around in his fingers. He knew that Blushweaver’s priests were among those who called most strongly for war in the Court Assembly. He hadn’t forgotten his phantom nightmare from earlier, the vision of T’Telir on fire. That image refused to fade from his mind. He never said anything for or against the idea of war. He just didn’t want to be involved.

“We’ve had queens before,” he finally said.

“Never one of the royal line,” Blushweaver replied. “At least, there hasn’t been one since the days of Kalad the Usurper.”

Kalad. The man who had started the Manywar, the one who had used his knowledge of BioChromatic Breath to create a vast army of Lifeless and seize power in Hallandren. He had protected the kingdom with his armies, yet had shattered the kingdom as well by driving the royals into the highlands.

Now they were back. Or, at least, one of them was.

“This is a dangerous day, Lightsong,” Blushweaver said quietly. “What happens if that woman bears a child who isn’t Returned?”

“Impossible,” Lightsong said.

“Oh? You are that confident?”

Lightsong nodded. “Of the Returned, only the God King can engender children, and they’re always stillborn.”

Blushweaver shook her head. “The only word we have for that is from the palace priests themselves. Yet I’ve heard of . . . discrepancies in the records. Even if we don’t worry about those, there are plenty of other considerations. Why do we need a royal to ‘legitimize’ our throne? Isn’t three hundred years of rule by the Court of Gods sufficient to make the kingdom legitimate?”

Lightsong didn’t respond.

“This marriage implies that we still accept royal authority,” Blushweaver said. “What happens if that king up in the highlands decides to take his lands back? What happens if that queen of ours in there has a child by another man? Who is the heir? Who rules?”

“The God King rules. Everyone knows that.”

“He didn’t rule three hundred years ago,” Blushweaver said. “The royals did. Then, after them, Kalad did—and after him, Peacegiver. Change can happen quickly. By inviting that woman into our city, we may have initiated the end of Returned rule in Hallandren.”

She fell silent, pensive. Lightsong studied the beautiful goddess. It had been fifteen years since her Return—which made her old, for a Returned. Old, wise, and incredibly crafty.

Blushweaver glanced at him. “I don’t intend to find myself caught, surprised, like the royals were when Kalad seized their throne. Some of us are planning, Lightsong. You can join us, if you wish.”

“Politics, my dear,” he said with a sigh. “You know how I loathe it.”

“You’re the god of bravery. We could use your confidence.”

“At this point, I’m only confident that I’ll be of no use to you.”

Her face stiffened as she tried not to show her frustration. Eventually, she sighed and stood, stretching, showing off her perfect figure once more. “You’ll have to stand for something eventually, Lightsong,” she said. “You’re a god to these people.”

“Not by choice, my dear.”

She smiled, then bent down and kissed him softly. “Just consider what I said. You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for being. You think I’d offer myself to just anyone?”

He hesitated, then frowned. “Actually . . . yes. I do.”

She laughed, turning as her servants picked up her couch. “Oh, come now! There must be at least three of the other gods I wouldn’t think of letting touch me. Enjoy the party, and do try to imagine what our king is doing to our legacy up there in his chambers right now.” She glanced back at him. “Particularly if that imagining reminds you of what you just missed out on.” She winked, then glided away.

Lightsong sat back on his couch, then dismissed the firemasters with words of praise. As the minstrels began to play, he tried to empty his mind of both Blushweaver’s ominous words and the visions of war that had plagued his dreams.

He failed on both counts.

8

Siri groaned, rolling over. Her back hurt, her arms hurt, and her head hurt. In fact, she was so uncomfortable that she couldn’t stay asleep, despite her fatigue. She sat up, holding her head.

She’d spent the night on the floor of the God King’s bedchamber—sleeping, kind of. Sunlight poured into the room, reflecting off of the marble where the floor wasn’t covered with rugs.

Black rugs, she thought, sitting in the middle of the rumpled blue dress, which she’d used as both blanket and pillow. Black rugs on a black floor with black furniture. These Hallandren certainly know how to run with a motif.

The God King wasn’t in the room. Siri glanced toward the oversized black leather chair where he’d spent much of the night. She hadn’t noticed him leave.

She yawned, then rose, pulling her shift out of the wadded mound of dress and putting it on over her head. She pulled her hair out, flipping it behind her. Keeping it so long was going to take some getting used to. It fell down against her back, a contented blond in color.

She’d somehow survived the night untouched.

She walked on bare feet over to the leather chair, running her fingers along its smooth surface. She’d been less than respectful. She’d dozed off. She’d curled up and pulled her dress close. She’d even glanced over at the chair a few times. Not because of defiance or a disobedient heart; she’d simply been too drowsy to remember that she wasn’t supposed to look at the God King. And he hadn’t ordered her executed. Bluefingers had made her worry that the God King was volatile and quick to anger, yet if that was the case, then he had held his temper with her. What else was he going to do? The Hallandren had waited for decades to get a royal princess to marry into their line of God Kings. She smiled. I do have some power. He couldn’t kill her—not until he had what he wanted.

It wasn’t much, but it did give her a bit more confidence. She walked around the chair, noting its size. Everything in the room was built to be just a little too large, skewing her perspective, making her feel shorter than she was. She rested her hand on the arm of the chair, and found herself wondering why he hadn’t decided to take her. What was wrong with her? Wasn’t she desirable?

Foolish girl, she told herself, shaking her head and walking over to the still-undisturbed bed. You spent most of the trip here worrying about what would happen on your wedding night, and then when nothing happens, you complain about that too?

She knew she wasn’t free. He would take her eventually—that was the point of the entire arrangement. But it hadn’t happened last night. She smiled, yawning, then she climbed up into the bed and curled up under the covers, drifting off.
* * *

THE NEXT TIME SHE WOKE was a great deal more pleasant than the previous one had been. Siri stretched, and then noticed something.

Her dress, which she’d left sitting in a heap on the floor, was gone. Also, the fire in the hearth had been rebuilt—though why that was necessary was beyond her. The day was warm, and she’d kicked off the covers as she’d slept.

I’m supposed to burn the sheets, she remembered. That’s the reason they stoked the fire.

She sat up in her shift, alone in the black room. The servants and priests wouldn’t know that she’d spent the entire night on the floor unless the God King had told someone. How likely would it be for a man of his power to speak with his priests about intimate details?

Slowly, Siri climbed out of bed and pulled the sheets free. She wadded them up, walked over, and threw them into the large hearth. Then she watched the flames. She still didn’t know why the God King had left her alone. Until she knew, it was surely better to just let everyone assume that the marriage had been consummated.

After the sheets were done burning, Siri scanned the room, looking for something to wear. She found nothing. Sighing, she walked to the door, clothed only in her shift. She pulled it open, and jumped slightly. Two dozen serving women of varying ages knelt outside.

God of Colors! Siri thought. How long have they been kneeling out here? Suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so indignant at being forced to wait upon the God King’s whims.

The women stood up, heads bowed, and walked into the room. Siri backed up, cocking her head she noticed that several of the women carried in large chests. They’re dressed in different colors from yesterday, Siri thought. The cut was the same—divided skirts, like flowing trousers, topped with sleeveless blouses and small caps, their hair coming out the back. Instead of the blue and silver, the outfits were now yellow and copper.

The women opened the trunks, removing various layers of clothing. All were of bright colors, and each was of a different cut. The women spread them out on the floor before Siri, then settled back on their knees, waiting.

Siri hesitated. She’d grown up the daughter of a king, so she’d never lacked. Yet, life in Idris was austere. She’d owned five dresses, which had nearly been an extravagant number. One had been white, and the other four had been the same wan blue.