Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(53)

“Displayed?”

“Of course,” Bluefingers said. “That is the main purpose of your visit here. The Returned didn’t get much of a chance to see you when you first came to us.”

Siri shivered, trying to maintain a better posture. “Shouldn’t they be paying attention to the priests down there? Instead of studying me, I mean.”

“Probably,” Bluefingers said, not looking up from his ledger. “In my experience, they rarely do what they’re supposed to.” He didn’t seem particularly reverent toward them.

Siri let the conversation lapse, thinking. Bluefingers had never explained his odd warning the other night. Things are not what they seem. “Bluefingers,” she said. “About the thing you told me the other night. The—”

He immediately shot her a look—eyes wide and insistent—cutting her off. He turned back to his ledger. The message was obvious. Not right now.

Siri sighed, resisting the urge to slump down. Below, priests of various colors stood on short platforms, debating despite the drizzling rain. She could hear them quite well, yet little of what they said made sense to her—the current debate appeared to have something to do with the way refuse and sewage was handled in the city.

“Bluefingers,” she asked. “Are they really gods?”

The scribe hesitated, then finally looked up from his ledger. “Vessel?”

“The Returned. Do you really think that they’re divine? That they can see the future?”

“I . . . don’t think I’m the right one to ask, Vessel. Let me fetch one of the priests. He can answer your questions. Just give me a—”

“No,” Siri said, causing him to stop. “I don’t want a priest’s opinion—I want the opinion of a regular person, like you. A typical follower.”

Bluefingers frowned. “All apologies, Vessel, but I’m not a follower of the Returned.”

“But you work in the palace.”

“And you live there, Vessel. Yet neither of us worship the Iridescent Tones. You are from Idris. I am from Pahn Kahl.”

“Pahn Kahl is the same as Hallandren.”

Bluefingers raised an eyebrow, pursing his lips. “Actually, Vessel, it’s quite different.”

“But you’re ruled by the God King.”

“We can accept him as king without worshipping him as our god,” Bluefingers said. “That is one of the reasons why I’m a steward in the palace instead of a priest.”

His robes, Siri thought. Maybe that’s why he always wears brown. She turned, glancing down at the priests upon their pedestals in the sand. Each wore a different set of colors, each representing—she assumed—a different one of the Returned. “So what do you think of them?”

“Good people,” Bluefingers said, “but misguided. A little like I think of you, Vessel.”

She glanced at him. He, however, had already turned back to his ledgers. He wasn’t the easiest man with whom to have a conversation. “But how do you explain the God King’s radiance?”

“BioChroma,” Bluefingers said, still scribbling, not sounding at all annoyed by her questions. He was obviously a man accustomed to dealing with interruption.

“The rest of the Returned don’t bend white into colors like he does, do they?”

“No,” Bluefingers said, “indeed they do not. They, however, don’t hold the wealth of Breaths that he does.”

“So he is different,” Siri said. “Why was he born with more?”

“He wasn’t, Vessel. The God King’s power does not derive from the inherent BioChroma of being a Returned—in that, he is identical to the others. However, he holds something else. The Light of Peace, they call it. A fancy word for a treasure trove of Breath that numbers somewhere in the tens of thousands.”

Tens of thousands? Siri thought. “That much?”

Bluefingers nodded distractedly. “The God Kings are said to be the only ones to ever achieve the Tenth Heightening. That is what makes light fracture around him, as well as gives him other abilities. The ability to break Lifeless Commands, for instance, or the ability to Awaken objects without touching them, using only the sound of his voice. These powers are less a function of divinity, and more a simple matter of holding so much Breath.”

“But where did he get it?”

“The majority of it was originally gathered by Peacegiver the Blessed,” Bluefingers said. “He collected thousands of Breaths during the days of the Manywar. He passed those on to the first Hallandren God King. That inheritance has been transferred from father to son for centuries—and has been enlarged, since each God King is given two Breaths a week, instead of the one that the other Returned receive.”

“Oh,” Siri said, sitting back, finding herself oddly disappointed by the news. Susebron was not a god, he was simply a man with far more BioChroma than normal.

But . . . what of the Returned themselves? Siri folded her arms again, still troubled. She’d never been forced to look objectively at what she believed. Austre was simply . . . well, God. You didn’t question people when they talked about God. The Returned were usurpers, who had cast the followers of Austre out of Hallandren, not true deities themselves.

Yet the they were so majestic. Why had the royal family been cast out of Hallandren? She knew the official story taught in Idris—that the royals hadn’t supported the conflicts that led up to the Manywar. For that, the people had revolted against them. That revolt had been led by Kalad the Usurper.