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Siri stands again at the door to her husband's bedchamber, Bluefingers silent at her side. The day's events are still in her head — Treledees's order to produce an heir, Lightsong's strange parting kindness, her husband silent on his fractured halo above the arena, the priests below arguing whether to march on her homeland. Everyone wants something different from her, none of them will tell her plainly how to give it, and she has decided to do nothing they have asked. Tonight she will refuse to strip. Tonight she will sit down, dressed, on the God King's floor, and tell him in plain words that she has had enough of being ogled.

She catches Bluefingers's eye. *Do they really watch me?* she mouths. He hesitates, then mimes carefully: not watch — listen. He points to a doorway down the hall and tells her, in a hushed whisper, that the priests would never desecrate their holy God King by spying on him in his bed; but listen, yes — they always listen. *Am I in danger from them?* He meets her eyes and tells her: *more than you know, Vessel.* Then he holds his hands up at her plea for help — *not now* — and scuttles away.

Inside the dark room, the God King waits in his corner. Siri looks at him and her plan dies. She is, she realises, tired of defiance for its own sake. Defiance has always been her way of being noticed against her sister, her trick at her father's court, where the worst penalty was being shouted at. The men listening at this door are not her father. They will not grumble; they will retaliate. She has to do something other than spite. She pulls off her dress to the shift; she hesitates; she does not strip the rest. Then — for no better reason than that she is curious — she walks across the room toward him. She has never done it before. He tenses. She sees it in his eyes and around his mouth: not anger. *Fear.* He does not move. She turns past him, climbs onto the bed, and kneels.

*This is going to be exceptionally embarrassing,* she thinks. Then she begins to bounce on the mattress, making the springs creak; then she begins to moan, louder and more furious, for what she hopes is a convincing duration. She finishes with a final cry and falls back onto the comforter. She catches the God King's eye in the dim light. The careful mask he wears has cracked: he looks, frankly, baffled. She nearly laughs. He says nothing, does nothing, and lets her go to sleep there in the comforter. The illusion holds for the priests beyond the door.

The next morning Lightsong does not get out of bed. His servants stand around the perimeter of the room like waiting birds; the tray of food sits untouched. He has dreamed of war again. After some time Llarimar crosses the room, dismisses everyone, sits down on the low table beside his god, and asks what it is this time. *I'm sick,* says Lightsong. *You can't get sick,* says Llarimar. *I'm no god,* whispers Lightsong, and is told, gently, not to say so even if he believes it.

What it is, of course, is Blushweaver and the queen and the war. He tells Llarimar the shape of it: Blushweaver wants his Lifeless Commands and the Idrian royals probably are making a play for the throne — but the girl, the new queen, has no idea she is part of anything, and he is afraid Blushweaver will crush her out of fear and tip them all into the wrong war. He wants to stay in bed and not be part of it. Llarimar points out that he is part of it regardless — that not acting is itself a choice — and refuses to take it any further than that.

Then Llarimar says, almost in passing, *you've always been one of the best men I have known.* Lightsong sits up. The phrasing has caught him: *known.* *You knew me*, he says. *That's why you chose to be my priest.* Llarimar will not confirm it, will not deny it, will not say a word about how Lightsong died or the woman who runs through his dreams. He claims theology: as you cannot command the weather, you cannot command me. *Convenient,* Lightsong thinks.

Llarimar crosses to the door, calls the servants back, and reminds Lightsong that there are paintings waiting to be judged. Lightsong catches him at the door one more time. *What should I do?* he asks. *About Blushweaver and the queen?* Llarimar only tells him to do his best, and goes. The trouble, Lightsong reflects, getting out of bed for the first time, is that he has never bothered to find out what his best is.