Lightsong knew he didn’t deserve his powerful physique. Like the knowledge of how to juggle, he somehow understood that a person usually had to work hard at manual labor to have such a muscular body. Lounging about, eating and drinking, should have made him plump and flabby.

But there have been gods who were fat, he thought, remembering some of the pictures he had seen of Returned who had come before him. There was a time in our culture’s history when that was seen as the ideal. . . . Did Returned looks have something to do with the way society saw them? Perhaps their opinion of ideal beauty? That would certainly explain Blushweaver.

Some things survived the transformation. Language. Skills. And, as he thought about it, social competence. Considering the fact that the gods spent their lives locked up atop a plateau, they probably should have been far less well adjusted than they were. At the very least, they should have been ignorant and naive. Yet most of them were consummate schemers, sophisticates with a surprisingly good grasp of what happened in the outside world.

Memory itself didn’t survive. Why? Why could Lightsong juggle and understand the meaning of the word “bowsprit,” yet at the same time be unable to remember who his parents had been? And who was that face he saw in his dreams? Why had storms and tempests dominated his dreams lately? What was the red panther that had appeared, yet again, in his nightmares the night before?

“Blushweaver,” Hopefinder said, holding up a hand. “Enough. Before we go any further, I must point out that your obvious attempts to seduce me will gain you nothing.”

Blushweaver glanced away, looking embarrassed.

Lightsong shook himself out of his contemplations. “My dear Hopefinder,” he said. “She was not trying to seduce you. You must understand; Blushweaver’s aura of allure is simply a part of who she is; it’s part of what makes her so charming.”

“Regardless,” he said. “I will not be swayed by it or by her paranoid arguments and fears.”

“My contacts do not think that these things are simple ‘paranoia,’” Blushweaver said as the fruit dishes were removed. A small chilled fish fillet arrived next.

“Contacts?” Hopefinder asked. “And just who are these ‘contacts’ you keep mentioning?”

“People within the God King’s palace itself.”

“We all have people in the God King’s palace,” Hopefinder said.

“I don’t,” Lightsong said. “Can I have one of yours?”

Blushweaver rolled her eyes. “My contact is quite important. He hears things, knows things. War is coming.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said, picking at his food, “but that doesn’t really matter now, does it? You’re not here to get me to believe you. You just want my army.”

“Your codes,” Blushweaver said. “Lifeless security phrases. What will it cost us to get them?”

Hopefinder picked at his fish some more. “Do you know, Blushweaver, why I find my existence so boring?”

She shook her head. “Honestly, I still think you’re bluffing on that count.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Eleven years. Eleven years of peace. Eleven years to grow to sincerely loathe this system of government we have. We all attend the assembly court of judgment. We listen to the arguments. But most of us don’t matter. In any given vote, only those with sway in that field have any real say over anything. During war times, those of us with Lifeless Commands are important. The rest of the time, our opinion rarely matters.

“You want my Lifeless? Be welcome to them! I have had no opportunity to use them in eleven years, and I venture that another eleven will pass without incident. I will give you those Commands, Blushweaver—but only in exchange for your vote. You sit on the council of social ills. You have an important vote practically every week. In exchange for my security phrases, you must promise to vote in social matters as I say, from now until one of us dies.”

The pavilion fell silent.

“Ah, so now you reconsider,” Hopefinder said, smiling. “I’ve heard you complain about your duties in court—that you find your votes trivial. Well, it’s not so easy to let go of them, is it? Your vote is all the influence you have. It isn’t flashy, but it is potent. It—”

“Done,” Blushweaver said sharply.

Hopefinder cut off.

“My vote is yours,” Blushweaver said, meeting his eyes. “The terms are acceptable. I swear it in front of your priests and mine, before another god even.”

By the Colors, Lightsong thought. She really is serious. Part of him had presumed, all along, that her posturing about the war was just another game. Yet the woman who stared Hopefinder in the eyes was not playing. She sincerely believed that Hallandren was in danger, and she wanted to make certain that the armies were unified and prepared. She cared.

And that left him worried. What had he gotten himself into? What if there really was a war? As he watched the interaction of the two gods, he was left chilled by how easily and quickly they dealt with the fate of the Hallandren people. To Hopefinder, his control of a quarter of the Hallandren armies should have been a sacred obligation. He was ready to toss that aside simply because he had grown bored.

Who am I to chastise another’s lack of piety? Lightsong thought. I, who don’t even believe in my own divinity.

And yet . . . at that moment, as Hopefinder prepared to release his Commands to Blushweaver, Lightsong thought he saw something. Like a remembered fragment of a memory. A dream that he might never have dreamed.

A shining room, glowing, reflecting light. A room of steel.

A prison.

“Servants and priests, withdraw,” Hopefinder commanded.

They retreated, leaving the three gods alone beside their half-eaten meals, pavilion silk flapping slightly in the wind.

“The security phrase,” Hopefinder said, looking at Blushweaver, “is ‘A candle by which to see.’”

It was the title of a famous poem; even Lightsong knew it. Blushweaver smiled. Speaking those words to any of Hopefinder’s ten thousand Lifeless in the barracks would allow her to override their current orders and take complete control of them. Lightsong suspected that by the end of the day, she’d make the trip down to the barracks—which lay at the base of the court, and were considered part of it—and begin imprinting Hopefinder’s soldiers with a new security phrase, known only to her and perhaps a few of her most trusted priests.

“And now, I withdraw,” Hopefinder said, standing. “There is a vote this evening at the court. You will attend, Blushweaver, and you will cast your vote in favor of the reformist arguments.”

With that, he left.

“Why do I feel like we’ve just been manipulated?” Lightsong asked.

“We only got manipulated, my dear, if there isn’t war. If there is, then we may have just set ourselves up to save the entire court—perhaps the kingdom itself.”

“How very altruistic of us,” Lightsong said.

“We’re like that,” Blushweaver said as the servants returned. “So selfless at times it’s painful. Either way, that means we control two gods’ worth of Lifeless.”

“Mine and Hopefinder’s?”

“Actually,” she said, “I was speaking of Hopefinder’s and Mercystar’s. She confided hers to me yesterday, all the while talking about how comforting she found it that you’d taken a personal interest in the incident at her palace. That was very well done, by the way.”

She seemed to be fishing for something. Lightsong smiled. “No, I didn’t know that would encourage her to release her Commands to you. I was just curious.”

“Curious about a murdered servant?”

“Actually, yes,” Lightsong said. “The death of a servant of the Returned is quite disconcerting to me, particularly in its proximity to our own palaces.”

Blushweaver raised an eyebrow.