He grabbed his attacker by the face with one of his arm tassels, then twisted the man back and threw him into the wall. Another figured charged him from behind, but Vasher’s Awakened cloak caught that one, tripping him.

“Grab things other than me,” Vasher said quickly, snatching the cloak of one of the fallen men and Awakening it. That cloak whipped about, taking down another man, whom Vasher then killed with a swipe of his dagger. He kicked another man, throwing him backward, opening a pathway.

Vasher lunged, making for Nightblood, but three more figures burst out the rooms around him, cutting him off. They were the same kind of brutish men that were now fighting over the sword. Men were all around. Dozens of them. Vasher kicked out, breaking a leg, but one man pulled Vasher’s cloak off with a lucky twist. Others piled on top of him. And then, another Awakened rope snapped out, tying his legs together.

Vasher reached for his vest. “Your Breath to—” he began, trying to draw in some Breath to use for an attack, but three men grabbed his hand and pulled it away. Within seconds, he was wrapped up in the Awakened rope. His cloak still fought against three men who were struggling to cut it up, but Vasher himself was pinned.

Someone emerged from the room to his left.

“Denth,” Vasher spat, struggling.

“My good friend,” Denth said, nodding for one of his lackeys—the one known as Tonk Fah—to move down the hallway toward the queen’s room. Denth knelt beside Vasher. “Very good to see you.”

Vasher spat again.

“Still as eloquent as ever, I see,” Denth said with a sigh. “You know the best thing about you, Vasher? You’re solid. Predictable. I guess I am too, in a way. Hard to live as long as we have without falling into patterns, eh?”

Vasher didn’t reply, though he did try to yell as some men gagged him. He noticed with satisfaction that he’d taken down a good dozen opponents before they’d managed to stop him.

Denth eyed the fallen soldiers. “Mercenaries,” he said. “No risk is too great, assuming the pay is right.” He said it with a twinkle in his eye. Then he leaned down, his joviality gone as he met Vasher’s eyes. “And you were always to be my payment, Vasher. I owe you. For Shashara, even still. We’ve been waiting, hidden in the palace here for a good two weeks, knowing that eventually the good Princess Vivenna would send you to save her sister.”

Tonk Fah returned with a bundle held in a blanket. Nightblood.

Denth eyed it. “Throw that out somewhere far away,” he said, grimacing.

“I don’t know, Denth,” Tonk Fah said. “I kind of think we should keep it. It could be very useful. . . .” The beginnings of the lust began to show in his eyes, the desire to draw Nightblood, to use the sword. To destroy evil. Or, really, just to destroy.

Denth stood and snatched the bundle away. Then he smacked Tonk Fah on the back of the head.

“Ow!” Tonk Fah said.

Denth rolled his eyes. “Stop whining; I just saved your life. Go check on the queen and then clean up that mess. I’ll take care of the sword myself.”

“You always get so nasty when Vasher’s around,” Tonk Fah grumbled, waddling away. Denth wrapped up Nightblood securely; Vasher watched, hoping to see the lust appear in Denth’s eyes. Unfortunately, Denth was far too strong-willed to be taken by the sword. He had nearly as much history with it as Vasher did.

“Take away all his Awakened clothing,” Denth said to his men, walking away. “Then hang him up in that room over there. He and I are going to have a long talk about what he did to my sister.”

Lightsong sat in one of the rooms of his palace, surrounded by finery, a cup of wine in his hand. Despite the very late hour, servants moved in and out, piling up furniture, paintings, vases, and small sculptures. Anything that could be moved.

The riches sat in heaps. Lightsong lounged back on his couch, ignoring empty plates of food and broken cups, which he refused to let his servants take away.

A pair of servants entered, carrying a red and gold couch. They propped it up by the far wall, nearly toppling a pile of rugs. Lightsong watched them leave then downed the rest of his wine. He dropped the empty cup to the floor beside the others, and held out his hand for another full one. A servant provided, as always.

He wasn’t drunk. He couldn’t get drunk.

“Do you ever feel,” Lightsong said, “like something is going on? Something far greater than you are? Like a painting you can only see the corner of, no matter how you squint and search?”

“Every day, Your Grace,” Llarimar said. He sat on a stool beside Lightsong’s couch. As always, he watched events calmly, though Lightsong could sense the man’s disapproval as another group of servants piled several marble figurines in the corner.

“How do you deal with it?” Lightsong asked.

“I have faith, Your Grace, that someone understands.”

“Not me, I hope,” Lightsong noted.

“You are part of it. But it is much larger than you.”

Lightsong frowned to himself, watching more servants enter. Soon the room would be so piled with his wealth that his servants wouldn’t be able to move in and out. “It’s odd, isn’t it,” Lightsong said, gesturing toward a pile of paintings. “Arranged like this, none of it looks beautiful anymore. When you put it together in piles, it just seems like junk.”

Llarimar raised an eyebrow. “The value in something relates to how it is treated, Your Grace. If you see these items as junk, then they are, regardless of what someone else would pay for them.”

“There’s a lesson in there somewhere, isn’t there?”

Llarimar shrugged. “I am a priest, after all. We have a tendency to preach.”

Lightsong snorted, then waved toward the servants. “That’s enough,” he said. “You can go now.”

The servants, having grown resigned to being banished, left the room promptly. Soon Lightsong and Llarimar were alone with piles and piles of riches, all stolen from other parts of his palace and brought into this one room.

Llarimar surveyed the mounds. “So what is the point of all this, Your Grace?”

“This is what I mean to them,” Lightsong said, gulping down some more wine. “The people. They’ll give up their riches for me. They sacrifice the Breath of their souls to keep me alive. I suspect that many would even die for me.”

Llarimar nodded quietly.

“And,” Lightsong said, “all I’m expected to do at the moment is choose their fates for them. Do we go to war or do we remain at peace? What do you think?”

“I could argue for either side, Your Grace,” Llarimar said. “It would be easy to sit here and condemn the war on mere principle. War is a terrible, terrible thing. And yet, it seems that few great accomplishments in history ever occur without the unfortunate fact of military action. Even the Manywar, which caused so much destruction, can be regarded as the foundation of modern Hallandren power in the Inner Sea region.”

Lightsong nodded.

“But,” Llarimar continued. “To attack our brethren? Despite provocation, I cannot help but think that invading is too extreme. How much death, how much suffering, are we willing to cause simply to prove that we won’t be pushed around?”

“And what would you decide?”

“Fortunately, I don’t have to.”

“And if you were forced to?” Lightsong asked.

Llarimar sat for a moment. Then, carefully, he removed the large miter from his head, revealing his thinning black hair plastered to the skull with sweat. He set aside the ceremonial headgear.

“I speak to you as a friend, Lightsong, not your priest,” Llarimar said quietly. “The priest cannot influence his god for fear of disrupting the future.”

Lightsong nodded.

“And as a friend,” Llarimar said, “I honestly have trouble deciding what I would do. I didn’t argue on the floor of the court.”