Returned
The gods of Hallandren — beings who, by the Iridescent Tones' account, died and came back. Each carries a single, immense Breath, sustained by one ordinary Breath consumed per week — without it they die. They cannot sire children: the God King's royal line is, by the priesthood's reckoning, a fabrication. Any Returned can survive indefinitely on stockpiled Breath beyond their innate one, and use it to Awaken — a fact the priesthood has not encouraged the pantheon to discover. STD:WB:Ch 54
The gods of Hallandren — beings who, by the Iridescent Tones' account, died and came back. Each carries a single, immense Breath, and even the strongest Awakener holds nothing close to it. The aura of a Returned is unmistakable to anyone with Breath of their own. STD:WB:Prologue superseded at STD:WB:Ch 54
Known facts
- weekly-breath-costA Returned subsists by drinking one fresh Breath every week and dies without it. Most Returned outside Hallandren live only eight days for lack of a willing donor; the Court of Gods exists in large part to keep them fed. The donor — typically a child whose family has been paid for the gift — leaves the chamber a Drab for life.STD:WB:Ch 3
- fifth-heightening-innateReturned innately stand at the Fifth Heightening — perfect pitch, perfect hue, an aura saturated enough to make every colour around them blaze when they pass — but cannot loan, donate, or Awaken with their single deific Breath. The only way to give it away is to die, which they may do only once.STD:WB:Ch 3
- no-children-except-god-kingReturned cannot have children — except the God King himself, who has never drawn a breath as a living man and is the one Returned permitted to marry. The queen Hallandren is bringing in is for him alone.STD:WB:Ch 3
- bodies-immune-to-toxinsA Returned cannot become drunk and cannot get headaches; their bodies are immune to all toxins, as Llarimar points out to Lightsong when he calls for more wine. They can, and do, take Returned and mortal lovers — childlessness makes the court lax about such things — but no child is ever expected of the union.STD:WB:Ch 7
- only-god-king-engendersOf all the Returned, only the God King can engender children, and those children are without exception stillborn — at least, that is what the palace priests insist, and they are the sole source of the claim. Blushweaver tells Lightsong she has heard there are discrepancies in the records.STD:WB:Ch 7
- heal-and-dieCan grant a single miraculous healing — the standard form of a petition — but the act consumes their borrowed life and they die immediately; no Returned has spent themselves this way in roughly three years.STD:WB:Ch 12
- purposeful-returnAre believed to have chosen to come back across the Iridescent Wave for a specific reason — a person to save, a vision to deliver, an event to attend — but the crossing fragments memory, so the petitions and dreams they receive in court are meant to help them remember.STD:WB:Ch 12
- single-immeasurable-breathRead to a Heightening-trained sense as if they carry a single Breath so powerful that it alone propels them to the upper Heightenings — distinguishing them from Awakeners who have merely accumulated a great hoard.STD:WB:Ch 14
- three-years-no-sacrificeThree years have passed since any of the Returned gave up his or her life to heal someone, and the Hallandren people are beginning to grumble that the present generation of gods is less benevolent and less wise than the last — a perception Lightsong privately shares.STD:WB:Ch 16
- need-weekly-breathEach Returned consumes one Breath every week to remain alive — a cost paid out of the petitioners' tribute of Breath sold or given into the court, and Denth's offhand explanation for why a market in Drabs exists at all.STD:WB:Ch 22
- cure-with-breathA Returned can release the BioChromatic Breath that sustains them and use it to cure a sick or dying person — the cure ends the Returned's own existence. An ordinary Returned can heal one person this way; the God King, whose accumulated hoard is far larger, can heal many.STD:WB:Ch 24
- retain-skills-not-memoryA Returned loses personal memory at death but keeps the trained skills of their prior life — speech, reading, walking, and (as Lightsong discovers when an instinct for investigation surfaces unbidden) the deeper habits of a profession.STD:WB:Ch 26
- cannot-awakenA Returned cannot use their own Breath to Awaken — the sustaining Breath that keeps them alive is locked to that purpose. Susebron tells Siri this as fact; whether it also locks the extra Breaths he has accumulated above his sustaining one, he does not know.STD:WB:Ch 29
- child-returned-mature-mentally-fastA Returned who comes back in a child's body matures mentally to an adult within roughly a year, then keeps growing physically until the body reaches the prime of adulthood, at which point ageing halts. Hopefinder — Returned at two, presenting as a thirteen-year-old — is the case Lightsong reasons from.STD:WB:Ch 30
- pass-on-when-wearyHoid's storyteller account: a Returned does not die of age — agelessness is the gift of the Fifth Heightening — but tires, and when he can no longer endure life he passes on by giving away his Breath. The court has lasted decades of gods on the principle.STD:WB:Ch 32
- do-not-age-after-maturityReturned who have reached maturity do not visibly age; Lightsong notes that Allmother *looks* older than when he last saw her years ago but reminds himself that this is impossible.STD:WB:Ch 42
- infants-also-returnSusebron tells Siri that infants do Return. The Hallandren theology that Returned are chosen for virtue they exemplified in life has no obvious answer for what an infant could have done to earn the gift; the Idrians take this as evidence the theology is hollow.STD:WB:Ch 44
- one-life-healingA Returned can give up their divine Breath to heal one other person in a single complete act of bestowal — *my life to yours, my Breath become yours* — at the cost of their own life. It is sometimes said this is what the Returned come back for in the first place: to be present, in one moment, to save one person who needs them. Lightsong does this for the God King.STD:WB:Ch 57
- one-life-healing-restores-tongueSusebron's tongue, cut out as a child, is regrown by Lightsong's dying bestowal — and the Returned healing gives him not just the organ but the immediate fluency to use it, full sentences in a clear voice the same hour.STD:WB:Ch 58
- one-strong-divine-breathReturned reach the Fifth Heightening not by counting Breaths but by the *quality* of a single divine Breath their body holds. Their body feeds on that Breath the way Nightblood feeds on Breath when drawn — devouring it once a week. If no Breath is supplied that week, the body eats the divine Breath itself; that kills them. If extra Breaths are given on top of the divine one, the body feeds on those instead and stockpiles can be kept against lean weeks.STD:WB:Epilogue
Backreferences
- summarySTD:WB:Prologue
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 3
- factReturned
- factReturned
- factLightsong
- factThe Court of Gods
- factDrab
- factOfferings
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 4
- factThe God King's Palace
- factBrightvison the True
- factMercystar
- factSusebron
- factCourt Assembly
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 7
- factVasher
- factReturned
- factReturned
- factBlushweaver the Beautiful
- factBlushweaver the Beautiful
- factCalmseer
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 9
- factVasher
- factD'Denir Celabrin
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 12
- factReturned
- factIridescent Wave
- factBrighthue
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 14
- factThe Court of Gods
- factLifeblesser
- factCourt Arena
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 15
- factThe God King
- factLight of Peace
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 16
- factReturned
- factCourt Assembly
- factStillmark
- factMirthgiver
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 21
- factThe Iridescent Tones
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 22
- factReturned
- factJewels
- factWeatherlove
- factTruthcall
- factTarachin
- factFob
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 23
- factLifeless
- factMercystar
- factMercystar
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 24
- factReturned
- factThe God King
- factSisirinah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 26
- factReturned
- factLightsong
- factAllmother
- factAllmother
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 29
- factReturned
- factSusebron
- factVo
- factVo
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 30
- factReturned
- factHopefinder the Just
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 32
- factHallandren
- factReturned
- factThe God King
- factStrifelover
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 34
- factAllmother
- factCourt of Gods Tunnels
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 38
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 42
- factReturned
- factLifeless
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 43
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 44
- factReturned
- factThe God King
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 45
- factType One BioChromatic Entity
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 46
- factLightsong
- factCalmseer
- factCalmseer
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 47
- factSusebron
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 49
- factThe Pantheon of Returned
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 50
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 51
- factCourt of Gods Tunnels
- factCourt of Gods Tunnels
- factLightsong
- factBlushweaver the Beautiful
- factKindwinds the Honest
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 54
- factThe God King
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 57
- factReturned
- factSusebron
- factLightsong
- factLightsong
- factDenth
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 58
- factVasher
- factVasher
- factVasher
- factReturned
- factD'Denir Celabrin
- summarySTD:WB:Epilogue
- factVasher
- factVasher
- factReturned
- factYesteel
- factWarbreaker the Peaceful