Her back complained, and she ruefully contemplated another uncomfortable night. The least they could do, she thought, is make certain the fire is large enough. At night in the large stone palace, it got chilly despite the Hallandren tropical climate. Particularly if one were naked.
Focus on Bluefingers, she thought, trying to distract herself. What did he mean? Things are not what they seem in the palace?
Was he referring to the God King and his ability to have her killed? She was well aware of the God King’s power. How could she forget it, with him sitting not fifteen feet away, watching from the shadows? No, that wasn’t it. He’d felt he’d needed to give this warning quietly, without others hearing. Watch yourself. . . . .
It smelled of politics. She gritted her teeth. If she’d paid more attention to her tutors, might she have been able to pick out a more subtle meaning in Bluefingers’s warning?
As if I needed something else to be confused about, she thought. If Bluefingers had something to tell her, why hadn’t he just said it? As the minutes passed, his words turned over and over in her mind like a restless sleeper, but she was too uncomfortable and cold to come to any conclusions. That only left her feeling more annoyed.
Vivenna would have figured it out. Vivenna probably would have known instinctively why the God King hadn’t chosen to sleep with her. She would have fixed it the first night.
But Siri was incompetent. She tried so hard to do as Vivenna would have—to be the best wife she could, to serve Idris. To be the woman that everyone expected her to be.
But she wasn’t. She couldn’t just keep doing this. She felt trapped in the palace. She couldn’t get the priests to do more than roll their eyes at her. She couldn’t even tempt the God King to bed her. On top of that, she could very well be in danger, and she couldn’t even understand why or how.
In simpler terms, she was just plain frustrated.
Groaning at her aching limbs, Siri sat up in the dark room and looked at the shadowy form in the corner. “Will you please just get on with it?” she blurted out.
Silence.
Siri felt her hair bleach a terrible bone white as she realized what she’d just done. She stiffened, casting her eyes down, weariness fleeing in the face of sudden anxiety.
What had she been thinking? The God King could call servants to execute her. In fact, he didn’t even need that. He could bring her own dress to life, Awakening it to strangle her. He could make the rug rise up and smother her. He could probably bring the ceiling down on her, all without moving from his chair.
Siri waited, breathing with shallow anxiety, anticipating the fury and retribution. But . . . nothing happened. Minutes passed.
Finally, Siri glanced up. The God King had moved, sitting up straighter, regarding her from his darkened chair beside the bed. She could see his eyes reflecting the firelight. She couldn’t make out much of his face, but he didn’t seem angry. He just seemed cold and distant.
She almost cast her eyes down again, but hesitated. If snapping at him wouldn’t provoke a reaction, then looking at him wasn’t likely to either. So she turned her chin up and met his eyes, knowing full well that she was being foolish. Vivenna would never have provoked the man. She would have remained quiet and demure, either solving the problem or—if there was no solution—kneeling every night until her patience impressed even the God King of Hallandren.
But Siri was not Vivenna. She was just going to have to accept that fact.
The God King continued to look at her, and Siri found herself blushing. She’d knelt before him naked six nights in a row, but facing him unclothed was more embarrassing. Still, she didn’t back down. She continued to kneel, watching him, forcing herself to stay awake.
It was difficult. She was tired, and the position was actually less comfortable than bowing had been. She watched anyway, waiting, the hours passing.
Eventually—at about the same time that he left the room every night—the God King stood up. Siri stiffened, shocked alert. However, he simply walked to the door. He tapped quietly, and it opened for him, servants waiting on the other side. He stepped out and the door closed.
Siri waited tensely. No soldiers came to arrest her; no priests came to chastise her. Eventually, she just walked over to the bed and burrowed into its covers, savoring the warmth.
The God King’s wrath, she thought drowsily, is decidedly less wrathful than reported.
With that, she fell asleep.
12
Eventually, Lightsong had to hear petitions.
It was annoying, since the Wedding Jubilation wouldn’t even be over for another few days. The people, however, needed their gods. He knew he shouldn’t feel annoyed. He’d gotten most of a week off for the wedding fete—copiously unattended by either the bride or groom—and that was enough. All he had to do was spend a few hours each day looking at art and listening to the woes of the people. It wasn’t much. Even if it did wear away at his sanity.
He sighed, sitting back in his throne. He wore an embroidered cap on his head, matched by a loose robe of gold and red. The garment wrapped over both shoulders, twisted about his body, and was hung with golden tassels. Like all of his clothing, it was even more complicated to put on than it looked.
If my servants were to suddenly leave me, he thought with amusement, I’d be totally incapable of getting dressed.
He leaned his head on one fist, elbow on the throne’s armrest. This room of his palace opened directly out onto the lawn—harsh weather was rare in Hallandren, and a cool breeze blew in off of the sea, smelling of brine. He closed his eyes, breathing in.
He’d dreamed of war again last night. Llarimar had found that particularly meaningful. Lightsong was just disturbed. Everyone said that if war did come, Hallandren would easily win. But if that were the case, then why did he always dream of T’Telir burning? Not some distant Idrian city, but his own home.
It means nothing, he told himself. Just a manifestation of my own worries.
“Next petition, Your Grace,” Llarimar whispered from his side.
Lightsong sighed, opening his eyes. Both edges of the room were lined with priests in their coifs and robes. Where had he gotten so many? Did any god need that much attention?
He could see a line of people extending outside onto the lawn. They were a sorry, forlorn lot, several coughing from some malady or another. So many, he thought as a woman was led into the room. He’d been seeing petitioners for over an hour already. I guess I should have expected this. It’s been almost a week.
“Scoot,” he said, turning to his priest. “Go tell those waiting people to sit down in the grass. There’s no reason for them to all stand there like that. This could take some time.”
Llarimar hesitated. Standing was, of course, a sign of respect. However, he nodded, waving over a lesser priest to carry the message.
Such a crowd, waiting to see me, Lightsong thought. What will it take to convince the people that I’m useless? What would it take to get them to stop coming to him? After five years of petitions, he honestly wasn’t certain if he could take another five.
The newest petitioner approached his throne. She carried a child in her arms.
Not a child . . . Lightsong thought, cringing mentally.
“Great One,” the woman said, falling to her knees on the carpet. “Lord of Bravery.”
Lightsong didn’t speak.
“This is my child, Halan,” the woman said, holding out the baby. As it got close enough to Lightsong’s aura, the blanket burst with a sharp blue color two and half steps from pure. He could easily see that the child was suffering from a terrible sickness. It had lost so much weight that its skin was shriveled. The baby’s Breath was so weak that it flickered like a candle running out of wick. It would be dead before the day was out. Perhaps before the hour was out.
“The healers, they say he has deathfever,” the woman said. “I know that he’s going to die.” The baby made a sound—a kind of half-cough, perhaps the closest it could get to a cry.
“Please, Great One,” the woman said. She sniffled, then bowed her head. “Oh, please. He was brave, like you. My Breath, it would be yours. The Breaths of my entire family. Service for a hundred years, anything. Please, just heal him.”
Lightsong closed his eyes.
“Please,” the woman whispered.
“I cannot,” Lightsong said.
Silence.
“I cannot,” Lightsong said.
“Thank you, my lord,” the woman finally whispered.
Lightsong opened his eyes to see the woman being led away, weeping quietly, child clutched close to her breast. The line of people watched her go, looking miserable yet hopeful at the same time. One more petitioner had failed. That meant they would get a chance.
A chance to beg Lightsong to kill himself.
Lightsong stood suddenly, grabbing the cap off his head and tossing it aside. He rushed away, throwing open a door at the back of the room. It slammed against the wall as he stumbled through.
Servants and priests immediately followed after him. He turned on them. “Go!” he said, waving them away. Many of them showed looks of surprise, unaccustomed to any kind of forcefulness on their master’s part.
“Leave me be!” he shouted, towering over them. Colors in the room flared brighter in response to his emotion, and the servants backed down, confused, stumbling back out into the petition hall and pulling the door closed.
Lightsong stood alone. He placed one hand against the wall, breathing in and out, other hand against his forehead. Why was he sweating so? He’d been through thousands of petitions, and many had been worse than the one he’d just seen. He’d sent pregnant women to their deaths, doomed children and parents, consigned the innocent and the faithful to misery.
There was no reason to overreact. He could take it. It was a little thing, really. Just like absorbing the Breath of a new person every week. A small price to pay. . . .
The door opened and a figure stepped in.
Lightsong didn’t turn. “What do they want of me, Llarimar?” he demanded. “Do they really think I’ll do it? Lightsong, the selfish? Do they really think I’d give my life for one of them?”
Llarimar was quiet for a few moments. “You offer hope, Your Grace,” he finally said. “A last, unlikely hope. Hope is part of faith—part of the knowledge that someday, one of your followers will receive a miracle.”
“And if they’re wrong?” Lightsong asked. “I have no desire to die. I’m an idle man, fond of luxury. People like me don’t give up their lives, even if they do happen to be gods.”
Llarimar didn’t reply.
“The good ones are all already dead, Scoot,” Lightsong said. “Calmseer, Brighthue: those were gods who would give themselves away. The rest of us are selfish. There hasn’t been a petition granted in what, three years?”
“About that, Your Grace,” Llarimar said quietly.
“And why should it be otherwise?” Lightsong said, laughing a bit. “I mean, we have to die to heal one of them. Doesn’t that strike you as ridiculous? What kind of religion encourages its members to come and petition for their god’s life?” Lightsong shook his head. “It’s ironic. We’re gods to them only until they kill us. And I think I might know why the gods give in. It’s those petitions, being forced to sit day after day, knowing that you could save one of them—that you probably should, since your life isn’t really worth anything. That’s enough to drive a man mad. Enough to drive him to kill himself!”