“Susebron,” she whispered. “These men are not looking after your best interests. They did more than cut out your tongue. They speak in your name, doing whatever they please.”

They are not my enemes, he wrote stubbornly. They are good men.

“Oh?” she said. “Then why do you hide from them the fact that you’re learning to read?”

He paused again, glancing downward.

So much humility for one who has ruled Hallandren for fifty years, she thought. In many ways, he’s like a child.

I do not want them to know, he finally wrote. I do not want to upset them.

“I’m sure,” Siri said flatly.

He paused. You are shur? he wrote. Does that mean you beleve me?

“No,” Siri said. “That was sarcasm, Susebron.”

He frowned. I do not know this thing. Sarkazm.

“Sarcasm,” she said, spelling it. “It’s . . .” She trailed off. “It’s when you say one thing, but you really mean the opposite.”

He frowned at her, then furiously erased his board and began writing again. This thing makes no sense. Why not say what you mean?

“Because,” Siri said. “It’s just like . . . oh, I don’t know. It’s a way to be clever when you make fun of people.”

Make fun of people? he wrote.

God of Colors! Siri thought, trying to think of how to explain. It seemed ridiculous to her that he would know nothing of mockery. And yet, he had lived his entire life as a revered deity and monarch. “Mockery is when you say things to tease,” Siri said. “Things that might be hurtful to someone if said in anger, but you say them in an affectionate or in a playful way. Sometimes you do just say them to be mean. Sarcasm is one of the ways we mock—we say the opposite, but in an exaggerated way.”

How do you know if the person is affekshonate, playful, or mean?

“I don’t know,” Siri said. “It’s the way they say it, I guess.”

The God King sat, looking confused but thoughtful. You are very normal, he finally wrote.

Siri frowned. “Um. Thank you?”

Was that good sarcasm? he wrote. Because in reality, you are quite strange.

She smiled. “I try my best.”

He looked up.

“That was sarcasm again,” she said. “I don’t ‘try’ to be strange. It just happens.”

He looked at her. How had she ever been frightened of this man? How had she misunderstood? The look in his eyes, it wasn’t arrogance or emotionlessness. It was the look of a man who was trying very hard to understand the world around him. It was innocence. Earnestness.

However, he was not simple. The speed at which he’d learned to write proved that. True, he’d already understood the spoken version of the language—and he’d memorized all of the letters in the book years before meeting her. She’d only needed to explain the rules of spelling and sound for him to make the final jump.

She still found it amazing how quickly he picked things up. She smiled at him, and he hesitantly smiled back.

“Why do you say that I’m strange?” she asked.

You do not do things like other people, he wrote. Everyone else bows before me all of the time. Nobody talks to me. Even the prests, they only okashonally give me instrukshons—and they haven’t done that in years.

“Does it offend you that I don’t bow, and that I talk to you like a friend?”

He erased his board. Offend me? Why would it offend me? Do you do it in sarcasm?

“No,” she said quickly. “I really like talking to you.”

Then I do not understand.

“Everyone else is afraid of you,” Siri said. “Because of how powerful you are.”

But they took away my tongue to make me safe.

“It’s not your Breath that scares them,” Siri said. “It’s your power over armies and people. You’re the God King. You could order anyone in the kingdom killed.”

But why would I do that? he wrote. I would not kill a good person. They must know that.

Siri sat back, resting on the plush bed, the fire crackling in the hearth behind them. “I know that, now,” she said. “But nobody else does. They don’t know you, they know only how powerful you are. So they fear you. And so they show their respect for you.”

He paused. And so, you do not respect me?

“Of course I do,” she said, sighing. “I’ve just never been very good at following rules. In fact, if someone tells me what to do, I usually want to do the opposite.”

That is very strange, he wrote. I thought all people did what they were told.

“I think you’ll find that most do not,” she said, smiling.

That will get you into trouble.

“Is that what the priests taught you?”

He shook his head; then he reached over and took out his book. The book of stories for children. He brought it with him always, and she could see from his reverent touch that he valued it greatly.

It’s probably his only real possession, she thought. Everything else is taken from him every day, then replaced the next morning.

This book, he wrote. My mother read the stories to me when I was a child. I memorized them all, before she was taken away. It speaks of many children who do not do as they are told. They are often eaten by monsters.

“Oh are they?” Siri said, smiling.

Do not be afraid, he wrote. My mother taught me that the monsters are not real. But I remember the lessons the stories taught. Obediance is good. You shud treat people well. Do not go into the jungle by yourself. Do not lie. Do not hurt others.

Siri’s smile deepened. Everything he’d learned in his life, he’d either gotten from moralistic folktales or from priests who were teaching him to be a figurehead. Once she realized that, the simple, honest man that he had become was not so difficult to understand.

Yet what had prompted him to defy that learning and ask her to teach him? Why was he willing to keep his learning secret from the men he had been taught all his life to obey and trust? He was not quite so innocent as he appeared.

“These stories,” she said. “Your desire to treat people well. Is that what kept you from . . . taking me on any of those nights when I first came into the room?”

From taking you? I do not understand.

Siri blushed, hair turning red to match. “I mean, why did you just sit there?”

Because I did not know what else to do, he said. I knew that we need to have a child. So I sat and waited for it to happen. We must be doing something wrong, for no child has come.

Siri paused, then blinked. He couldn’t possibly . . . “You don’t know how to have children?”

In the stories, he wrote, a man and a woman spend the night together. Then they have a child. We spent many nights together, and there were no children.

“And nobody—none of your priests—explained the process to you?”

No. What process do you mean?

She sat for a moment. No, she thought, feeling her blush deepen. I am not going to have that conversation with him. “I think we’ll talk about it another time.”

It was a very strange experiance when you came into the room that first night, he wrote. I must admit, I was very scared of you.

Siri smiled as she remembered her own terror. It hadn’t even occurred to her that he would be frightened. Why would it have? He was the God King.

“So,” she said, tapping the bedspread with one finger, “you were never taken to other women?”

No, he wrote. I did find it very interesting to see you naked.

She flushed again, though her hair had apparently decided to just stay red. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now,” she said. “I want to know about other women. No mistresses? No concubines?”

No.

“They really are scared of you having a child.”