Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(144)

Llarimar eyed a lesser scribe, who lowered his pen. Servants clustered around the edges of the bedchamber. They had, at his request, woken him up unusually early in the morning.

“Your Grace?” Llarimar asked.

It’s nothing, Lightsong thought. I dream of war because I’m thinking about it. Not because of prophecy. Not because I’m a god.

It felt so real. In the dream he had been a man, on the battlefield, with no weapon. Soldiers had died around him. Friend after friend. He had known them, each one close to him.

A war against Idris wouldn’t be like that, he thought. It would be fought by our Lifeless.

He didn’t want to acknowledge that his friends during the dream hadn’t been wearing bright colors. He hadn’t been seeing through the eyes of a Hallandren soldier, but an Idrian. Perhaps that was why it had been such a slaughter.

The Idrians are the ones threatening us. They’re the rebels who broke off, maintaining a second throne inside of Hallandren borders. They need to be quelled.

They deserve it.

“What did you see, Your Grace?” Llarimar asked again.

Lightsong closed his eyes. There were other images. The recurring ones.

The glowing red panther. The tempest. A young woman’s face, being absorbed by darkness. Eaten alive.

“I saw Blushweaver,” he said, speaking only of the very last part of the dreams. “Her face red and flushed. I saw you, and you were sleeping. And I saw the God King.”

“The God King?” Llarimar asked, sounding excited.

Lightsong nodded. “He was crying.”

The scribe wrote the images down. Llarimar, for once, didn’t prompt further. Lightsong stood, forcing the images out of his mind. Yet he couldn’t ignore that his body felt weak. It was his feast day, and he would have to take in a Breath or he would die.

“I’m going to need some urns,” Lightsong said. “Two dozen of them, one for each of the gods, painted after their colors.”

Llarimar gave the order without even asking why. “I’ll also need some pebbles,” Lightsong said as the servants dressed him. “Lots of them.”

Llarimar nodded. Once Lightsong was dressed, he turned to leave the room. Off once again to feed on the soul of a child.
* * *

LIGHTSONG THREW A PEBBLE into one of the urns in front of him. It made a slight ringing sound.

“Well done, Your Grace,” Llarimar complimented him, standing beside Lightsong’s chair.

“Nothing to it,” Lightsong said, tossing another pebble. It fell short of the intended urn, and a servant rushed forward, plucking it off the ground and depositing it in the proper container.

“I appear to be a natural,” Lightsong noted. “I get it in every time.” He felt much better, having been given fresh Breath.

“Indeed, Your Grace,” Llarimar said. “I believe that Her Grace the goddess Blushweaver is approaching.”

“Good,” Lightsong said, throwing another pebble. He hit the target this time. Of course, the urns were only a few feet from his seat. “I can show off my pebble-throwing skills.”

He sat on the green of the courtyard, a cool breeze blowing, his pavilion set up just inside the court’s gates. He could see the blocking wall, the one that kept him from looking out at the city proper. With the wall in the way, it was a rather depressing sight.

If they’re going to lock us in here, he thought, they could at least give us the courtesy of a decent view out.

“What in the name of the Iridescent Tones are you doing?”

Lightsong didn’t need to look to know that Blushweaver was standing with hands on hips beside him. He threw another pebble.

“You know,” he said, “it’s always struck me as strange. When we say oaths like that, we use the colors. Why not use our own names? We are, allegedly, gods.”

“Most gods don’t like their names being used as an oath,” Blushweaver said, sitting beside him.

“Then they are far too pompous for my taste,” Lightsong said, tossing a pebble. It missed, and a servant deposited it. “I, personally, should find it very flattering to have my name used as an oath. Lightsong the Brave! Or, by Lightsong the Bold! I suppose that’s a bit of a mouthful. Perhaps we could shorten it to simple Lightsong!”



“I swear,” she said. “You are getting stranger by the day.”

“No, actually,” he said. “You didn’t swear in that particular statement. Unless you’re proposing we should swear using the personal pronoun. You! So, your line at this point is ‘What in the name of You are you doing?’”

She grumbled at him under her breath.

He eyed her. “I certainly don’t deserve that yet. I’ve barely gotten started. Something else must be bothering you.”

“Allmother,” she said.

“Still won’t give you the Commands?”

“Refuses to even speak with me now.”

Lightsong threw a pebble into one of the urns. “Ah, if only she knew the refreshing sense of frustration she was missing out on knowing by refusing your acquaintance.”

“I’m not that frustrating!” Blushweaver said. “I’ve actually been rather charming with her.”

“Then that is your problem, I surmise,” Lightsong said. “We’re gods, my dear, and we quickly grow tired of our immortal existences. Surely we seek for extreme ranges in emotion—good or bad, it doesn’t matter. In a way, it’s the absolute value of emotion that is important, rather than the positive or negative nature of that emotion.”