Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(115)

“And the rumors out in the city?” Blushweaver said. “The Idrian agents who are causing such a ruckus? This so-called second princess somewhere in the city?”

Lightsong paused, spoon halfway to his lips. What was that?

“The city’s Idrians are always creating one crisis or another,” Hopefinder said, waving his fingers dismissively. “What was that disturbance six months ago, the rebel on the outer dye plantations? He died in prison, I recall. Foreign workers rarely provide a stable societal underclass, but I don’t fear them.”

“They’ve never claimed to have a royal agent working with them,” Blushweaver said. “Things could get out of hand very quickly.”

“My interests in the city are quite secure,” Hopefinder said, lacing his fingers in front of him. The servants took away his soup. He’d taken only three sips. “How about yours?”

“That’s what this meeting is for,” Blushweaver said.

“Excuse me,” Lightsong said, raising a finger. “But what in the Colors are we talking about?”

“Unrest in the city, Lightsong,” Hopefinder said. “Some of the locals are unsettled by the prospect of war.”

“They could turn dangerous very easily,” Blushweaver said, stirring her soup with a lazy motion. “I think that we should be prepared.”

“I am,” Hopefinder said, watching Blushweaver with his too-young face. Like all younger Returned—the God King included—Hopefinder would continue to age until his body reached maturity. Then, he would stop aging—just over the brink into the prime adulthood—until he gave up his Breath.

He acted so much like an adult. Lightsong hadn’t interacted much with children, but some of his attendants—when training—were youths. Hopefinder was not like those. All accounts said that Hopefinder, like other young Returned, had matured very quickly during his first year of life, coming to think and speak as an adult while his body was still that of a young child.

Hopefinder and Blushweaver continued to talk about the stability of the city, mentioning various acts of vandalism that had occurred. War plans stolen, city supply stations poisoned. Lightsong let them talk. He doesn’t seem to find Blushweaver’s beauty distracting, he thought as he watched. She turned to the fruit course, acting characteristically lascivious as she sucked on pieces of pineapple. Hopefinder either didn’t care, or didn’t notice, as she leaned forward, showing an impressive amount of cleavage.

Something is different about him, Lightsong thought. He Returned when he was a child and acted like one for a very short time. Now, he’s an adult in some ways, but a child in others.

The transformation had made Hopefinder more mature. He was also taller and more physically impressive than ordinary boys his age, even if he didn’t have the chiseled, majestic features of a fully grown god.

And yet, Lightsong thought, eating a piece of pineapple, different Gods have different body styles. Blushweaver is inhumanly well endowed, particularly for how thin she is. Yet Mercystar is plump and curvaceous all around. Others, like Allmother, look physically old.

Lightsong knew he didn’t deserve his powerful physique. Like the knowledge of how to juggle, he somehow understood that a person usually had to work hard at manual labor to have such a muscular body. Lounging about, eating and drinking, should have made him plump and flabby.

But there have been gods who were fat, he thought, remembering some of the pictures he had seen of Returned who had come before him. There was a time in our culture’s history when that was seen as the ideal. . . . Did Returned looks have something to do with the way society saw them? Perhaps their opinion of ideal beauty? That would certainly explain Blushweaver.

Some things survived the transformation. Language. Skills. And, as he thought about it, social competence. Considering the fact that the gods spent their lives locked up atop a plateau, they probably should have been far less well adjusted than they were. At the very least, they should have been ignorant and naive. Yet most of them were consummate schemers, sophisticates with a surprisingly good grasp of what happened in the outside world.

Memory itself didn’t survive. Why? Why could Lightsong juggle and understand the meaning of the word “bowsprit,” yet at the same time be unable to remember who his parents had been? And who was that face he saw in his dreams? Why had storms and tempests dominated his dreams lately? What was the red panther that had appeared, yet again, in his nightmares the night before?

“Blushweaver,” Hopefinder said, holding up a hand. “Enough. Before we go any further, I must point out that your obvious attempts to seduce me will gain you nothing.”

Blushweaver glanced away, looking embarrassed.

Lightsong shook himself out of his contemplations. “My dear Hopefinder,” he said. “She was not trying to seduce you. You must understand; Blushweaver’s aura of allure is simply a part of who she is; it’s part of what makes her so charming.”

“Regardless,” he said. “I will not be swayed by it or by her paranoid arguments and fears.”

“My contacts do not think that these things are simple ‘paranoia,’” Blushweaver said as the fruit dishes were removed. A small chilled fish fillet arrived next.

“Contacts?” Hopefinder asked. “And just who are these ‘contacts’ you keep mentioning?”