The God King
The reigning Returned of Hallandren, custodian of the Peacegiver Treasure of fifty thousand Breaths. The office passes not by birth but by transfer: whenever an infant Returns, the sitting God King invests the Treasure into the new child and lives the rest of his life in peace, surviving on his innate weekly Breath like any other Returned. The current God King is Susebron. STD:WB:Ch 54
Ruler of Hallandren, holder of the Tenth Heightening through the Light of Peace hoard. In practice a figurehead: each God King has his tongue cut out as a child so he cannot speak Awakening Commands, and is kept unlettered, the priesthood ruling in his name. STD:WB:Ch 20 superseded at STD:WB:Ch 54
Ruler of Hallandren, and reputed to be the only living man holding enough Breath to reach the Ninth Heightening — enough to Awaken objects he isn't even touching, only speaking near. His dungeons under T'Telir hold the kingdom's most valuable prisoners. STD:WB:Prologue superseded at STD:WB:Ch 20
Known facts
- does-not-speak-with-mortalsThe God King does not speak with people such as Bluefingers or Siri: she may not address him on pain of execution. When he must communicate, he delivers his judgments to his priests and they relay them. The Court Assembly handles ordinary governance for him; he is above the day-to-day.STD:WB:Ch 6
- two-breaths-a-weekReceives two new Breaths every week from his subjects, where the other Returned each receive only one — the slow continual feed by which the Light of Peace is enlarged from one God King to the next.STD:WB:Ch 15
- only-four-predecessorsThere have only been four God Kings of Hallandren before Susebron in several hundred years, and he does not know for certain how any of them died. He was told as a child that his father, like other Returned, released his own BioChromatic Breath to heal — though the Returned can ordinarily cure only one person, a God King could cure many.STD:WB:Ch 24
- deaths-follow-the-heirThe previous two God Kings both died within months of their first heir being born — Susebron the Fourth weeks after his only son, his predecessor a month after a second child, and both deaths officially explained as voluntary sacrifices to heal a plague or a stricken village. The pattern is what convinces Siri that the priesthood's eagerness for her to bear an heir is the same machinery that will then kill her husband.STD:WB:Ch 27
- official-departure-storyThe priesthood's public account, as Hoid tells it: a God King — being Returned — eventually tires of life, and once an heir exists he chooses an opportunity to spend his accumulated Breath for the kingdom's benefit and pass on. Siri knows from Susebron that he does not have a tongue with which to speak the necessary Commands, and that he loves his life; the official story cannot survive either fact.STD:WB:Ch 32
- succession-by-returned-infant-swap-theoryReasoning the conspiracy through together, Siri and Susebron arrive at a working theory of God King succession: every generation, a peasant infant Returns somewhere in Hallandren and is taken in secret to the palace; the reigning God King is kept alive only until he fathers an heir, after which he is killed, the heir is swapped for the foreign infant, and the Breath hoard Peacegiver left in trust is transferred to the new vessel. The monarchy is a succession of disposable Returned children carrying the same hoard.STD:WB:Ch 44
- can-break-lifeless-command-faster-than-othersLightsong notes the one countermeasure against losing the Lifeless command-phrases: the God King's vast BioChromatic reserve lets him override a Lifeless more quickly than an ordinary Awakener could. Even for him, however, retaking ten thousand would be a matter of weeks rather than days.STD:WB:Ch 46
Backreferences
- summarySTD:WB:Prologue
- factVasher
- factVahr
- factT'Telir
- factBioChromatic Breath
- factHeightenings
- factThe Iridescent Tones
- factPahn Kahl
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 1
- factVivenna
- factVivenna
- factDedelin
- factThe Idris–Hallandren Treaty
- factSusebron
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 2
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 3
- factReturned
- factThe Court of Gods
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 4
- factTreledees
- factTreledees
- factThe God King's Palace
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 6
- factThe God King
- factSusebron
- factBluefingers
- factCourt Assembly
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 7
- factReturned
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 8
- factSisirinah
- factWedding Jubilation
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 9
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 10
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 11
- factTreledees
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 12
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 13
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 14
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 15
- factVasher
- factHeightenings
- factBluefingers
- factLight of Peace
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 16
- factSisirinah
- factTreledees
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 18
- factSisirinah
- factSusebron
- factBluefingers
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 20
- factSusebron
- factSusebron
- factSusebron
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 24
- factReturned
- factThe God King
- factSisirinah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 27
- factThe God King
- factSusebron the Fourth
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 29
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 32
- factHallandren
- factThe God King
- factIdris
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 34
- factBluefingers
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 36
- factSusebron
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 38
- factLightsong
- factAllmother
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 40
- factVasher
- factTreledees
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 42
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 44
- factThe God King
- factSisirinah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 46
- factThe God King
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 47
- factSusebron
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 49
- factThe Pantheon of Returned
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 52
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 54
- factReturned
- factSusebron
- summarySTD:WB:Epilogue