Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(28)
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.