They fought in a trio, Vasher and his two sets of Awakened clothing. The guards cursed, much more wary now. Vasher eyed them, planning an attack. At that moment, a troop of some fifty Lifeless barreled around the corner, charging toward him.

Colors! Vasher thought. He growled in rage, striking and taking down another soldier.

Colors, Colors, Colors!

You shouldn’t swear, a voice said in his head. Shashara told me that was evil.

Vasher spun toward the sound. A little line of black smoke was trailing out from beneath the closed front doors of the palace.

Aren’t you going to thank me? Nightblood said. I came to save you.

One of his sets of clothing fell, the leg cut off by soldier’s clever strike. Vasher reached back, drawing the Breath back from the second set of clothing, then stepped with an unclothed toe on the fallen set, recovering the Breath from it as well. The soldiers backed away, wary, more than happy to let the Lifeless take him.

And in that moment of peace, Vasher charged for the gates to the palace. He threw his shoulder against them, slamming them open, skidding into the entryway.

A large group of men lay dead on the ground. Nightblood sprouted from one man’s chest, as usual, hilt pointing toward the sky. Vasher hesitated only briefly. He could hear Lifeless charging up behind him.

He ran forward and grabbed Nightblood’s hilt and pulled the sword free, leaving the sheath behind in the body.

The blade sprayed a wave of black liquid as he swung it. The liquid dissolved into smoke before touching walls or floor, like water in an oven. Smoke twisted, some rising from the blade, some falling in a stream to the floor, dripping like black blood.

Destroy! Nightblood’s voice boomed in his head. The evil must be destroyed! Pain shot up Vasher’s arm, and he felt his Breath being leached away, sucked into the blade, fueling its hunger. Drawing the weapon had a terrible cost. At that moment, he didn’t really care. He spun toward the charging Lifeless and—enraged—attacked.

Each creature he struck with the blade immediately flashed and became smoke. A single scratch and the bodies dissolved like paper being consumed by an invisible fire, leaving behind only a large stain of blackness in the air. Vasher spun among them, striking with wrath, killing Lifeless after Lifeless. Black smoke churned around him, and his arm twisted with pain as veinlike tendrils climbed up the hilt and around his forearm—like black blood vessels that latched on to his skin, feeding off his Breath.

In a matter of minutes, the Breath Vivenna had given him had been reduced by half. Yet in those moments, he destroyed all fifty Lifeless. The soldiers outside pulled to a halt, watching the display. Vasher stood amidst a churning mass of deep ebony smoke. It slowly rose into the air, the only remnants of the fifty creatures he had destroyed.

The soldiers ran away.

Vasher screamed, charging toward the side of the room. He slammed Nightblood through a wall. The stone dissolved just as easily as flesh had, evaporating away before him. He burst through the dissipating black smoke, entering the next room. He didn’t bother with a stairwell. He simply jumped onto a table and rammed Nightblood into the ceiling.

A circle ten feet wide vanished. Dark, mistlike smoke fell around him like streaks of paint. He Awakened his rope again then tossed it up, using it to pull himself up onto the next floor. A moment later, he did it again, climbing onto the third floor.

He spun, slashing through walls, bellowing as he ran back toward Denth. The pain in his arm was incredible, and his Breath was draining away at an alarming rate. Once it was gone, Nightblood would kill him.

Everything was growing fuzzy. He slashed through a final wall, finding the room where he had been tortured.

It was empty.

He cried out, arm shaking. Destroy . . . evil . . . Nightblood said in his mind, all lightness gone from the tone, all familiarity. It boomed like a command. An awful, inhuman thing. The longer Vasher held the sword, the faster it drained his Breath.

Gasping, he threw the sword aside and fell to his knees. It skidded, tearing a rip in the floor that puffed away into smoke, but hit a wall with a pling and fell still. Smoke rose from the blade.

Vasher knelt, arm twitching. The black veins on his skin slowly evaporated. He was left with just barely enough Breath to reach the First Heightening. Another few seconds, and Nightblood would have sucked the rest away. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision.

Something fell to the tiled floor in front of him. A dueling blade. Vasher looked up.

“Stand up,” Denth said, eyes hard. “We’re going to finish what we started.”

57

Bluefingers led Siri—held by several Lifeless—up to the fourth floor of the palace. The top floor. They entered a room lavishly decorated with rich colors, even for Hallandren. Lifeless guards there let them pass, bowing their heads to Bluefingers.

All the Lifeless in the city are controlled by Bluefingers and his scribes, she thought. But even before that, the scribes had great power over the bureaucracy and workings of the kingdom. Did the Hallandren realize that they were dooming themselves by relegating the Pahn Kahl people to such lowly—yet important—positions?

“My people will not fall for this,” Siri found herself saying as she was pulled to the front of the room. “They won’t fight Hallandren. They’ll retreat through the passes. Take refuge in the highland valleys or one of the outer kingdoms.”

The front of the room held a black block of stone, shaped like an altar. Siri frowned. From behind, a group of Lifeless entered the room, carrying the corpses of several priests. She saw Treledees’s body among them.

What? Siri thought.

Bluefingers turned toward her. “We’ll make certain they’re angry,” he said. “Trust me. When this is through, Princess, Idris will fight until either it or Hallandren is destroyed.”
* * *

THEY TOSSED SOMEONE into the cell next to Lightsong. He looked up with weary eyes, uncaring. It was another Returned. Which of the gods had they taken captive now?

The God King, he thought. Interesting.

He looked down again. What did it matter? He’d failed Blushweaver. He’d failed everyone. The Lifeless armies were probably already marching on Idris. Hallandren and Idris would fight and the Pahn Kahl would have their revenge. It had been three hundred years coming.
* * *

VASHER STOOD UP WITH DIFFICULTY. He held the dueling sword in a weak hand, looking at Denth, still shaken by his use of Nightblood. The empty black hallway was now open around them. Vasher had destroyed several of the walls. It was amazing the roof hadn’t fallen in.

Corpses littered the floor, the result of the fights when Denth’s men had taken over the palace.

“I’ll let you die easily,” Denth said, raising his blade. “Just tell me the truth. You never beat Arsteel in a duel, did you?”

Vasher raised his own blade. The cuts, the pain in his arm, the exhaustion of being awake so long . . . it was all wearing on him. Adrenaline could only get him so far, and even his body could only take so much. He didn’t reply.

“Have it your way,” Denth said, attacking.

Vasher backed away, forced to the defensive. Denth had always been better at swordplay. Vasher had been better at research, but what had that earned him? Discoveries that had caused the Manywar, an army of monsters that had killed so many.

He fought. He fought well, he knew, considering how tired he was. But it did little good. Denth drove his blade through Vasher’s left shoulder—Denth’s favorite place for a first strike. It allowed his opponent to keep fighting, wounded, and drew out the fight for Denth’s enjoyment.

“You never beat Arsteel,” Denth whispered.
* * *

“YOU’RE GOING TO KILL me on an altar,” Siri said, standing in the strange room, held by Lifeless. Around her, other Lifeless placed bodies on the floor. Priests. “It doesn’t make sense, Bluefingers. You don’t follow their religion. Why do this?”

Bluefingers stood to the side, holding a knife. She could see the shame in his eyes. “Bluefingers,” she said, forcing her voice to remain even, her hair to stay black. “Bluefingers, you don’t have to do this.”

Bluefingers finally looked at her. “After all I’ve already done, do you think one more death means anything to me?”

“After all you’ve done,” she said, “do you really think one more death will matter for your cause?”

He glanced at the altar. “Yes,” he said. “You know how the Idrians whisper of the things that go on in the Court of Gods. Your people hate and distrust the Hallandren priests; they speak of murders done on dark altars in the backs of the palaces. Well, we are going to let a group of those Idrian mercenaries see this, once you are dead. We’ll show them that we were too late to save you, that the twisted priests had already killed you on one of their profane altars. We’ll show them the dead priests we killed trying to save you.

“The Idrians will riot in the city. They’re strained to snapping anyway—we have you to thank for that. The city will be in chaos, and there will be a slaughter the like of which hasn’t been seen since the Manywar as the Hallandren kill Idrian peasants to maintain order. Those Idrians that live will return to their homeland to tell the tale. They’ll let everyone know that the Hallandren only wanted a princess of the royal blood so that they could sacrifice her to their God King. It is exaggerated and foolish to think that the Hallandren would really do such a thing, but sometimes the wildest tales are the ones best believed, and the Idrians will accept this one. You know they will.”

And she did. She’d heard similar stories since her childhood. Hallandren was remote to her people: frightening, bizarre. Siri struggled, feeling even more worried.

Bluefingers glanced back at her. “I truly am sorry.”
* * *

I AM NOTHING, Lightsong thought. Why couldn’t I save her? Why couldn’t I protect her?

He was crying again. Oddly, someone else was too. The man in the cell next to him. The God King. Susebron moaned with frustration, pounding against the bars of his cage. He didn’t speak, though, or denounce his captors.

I wonder why that is, Lightsong thought.

Men approached the God King’s cell. Pahn Kahl men, with weapons. Their expressions were grim.

Lightsong found it hard to care.

You are a god. Llarimar’s words still challenged him. The high priest lay in his own cell, to Lightsong’s left, eyes closed against the terrors around them.

You are a god. To me at least.

Lightsong shook his head. No. I’m nothing! No god. Not even a good man.

You are . . . to me . . .

Water splashed against him. Lightsong shook his head, shocked. Thunder sounded, distant, in his head. Nobody else seemed to notice.

It was growing dark.

What?

He was on a ship. Tossing, pitching, on a dark sea. Lightsong stood on the deck, trying to stay upright on the slick boards. Part of him knew it was simply a hallucination, that he was still back in the prison cell, but it felt real. Very real.

The waves churned, black sky ripped by lightning ahead, and the ship’s motion slammed his face against the wall of the ship’s cabin. Light from a pole-mounted lantern flickered uncertainly. It seemed weak compared with the lightning, which was so violent and angry.