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Lightsong walks the arena ring beside Blushweaver before the general assembly. Both have refused palanquin and parasol; their priests and attendants follow in a holy little herd at the polite distance. Blushweaver, unusually, is wearing a gown that actually covers her — and looks the better for it, he thinks privately. The arena is filling. Only Weatherlove is late; he often is. *Important events are imminent,* Lightsong thinks, *and they have been building for years. Why should I be at the centre of them?* The night before he had dreamed no fire, only the moon and twisting tunnels.

Blushweaver asks again: each of them should share the other's Lifeless command-phrases, so each holds all four. He says nothing. She turns it into a joke — couldn't even the crowd be bothered to be dazzled by her today? — and they fall into their old banter about which of them is ignoring whom as the higher compliment, about his never-quite-credible reputation for laziness, about pretending the joke is a feint. And then the bantering thins. He tells her that the gods give the heavy choices to the people least equipped to make them, because nobody else wants to be responsible; and that is why he and she ended up with the armies. She lets him hear her plainly back. He is wonderful. The others fear and adore him in equal measure because he is the one Returned who actually listens — to every petitioner, to every poem, to every painting. That, in her opinion, is why he has the armies. *You're not going to give me your Command Phrases, are you?* she asks. He shakes his head. She tells him she does not know whether she loves him or is angrier at him in this moment. He takes her hand and kisses it and answers that he accepts both. He goes to his box. Weatherlove has finally arrived. Only the God King and his bride are missing.

Siri is walking the palace corridors at exactly the wrong moment, surrounded by her Pahn Kahl serving women, going over the plan she and Susebron settled at dawn. Sit with Lightsong. Wait for Susebron's arrival. Ask for an audience away from servants and priests. Tell him the truth about the God King's captivity. Trust him to bring in other gods whose mouths the priests cannot all close. She passes from the lit rooms into the dark outer hallway and slows: two groups of priests, Lifeless soldiers between them, are closing on her from both ends. She is too far in her long dress to outrun them. She raises her chin and demands what they mean by it. The lead priest is gentle. They are terribly sorry, *Vessel*, but it has been decided that you must not exert yourself in your condition. Her child must not be put at risk; many would harm her to harm the kingdom's heir.

She freezes. She knows perfectly well there is no child — they cannot know, because she would know first. And then the trap snaps into place: they do not need her actually to be pregnant. They only need everyone to believe she is, and they have given themselves until tonight to make a *Returned* announcement of their own. She does not bother to deny it usefully. *There is no child,* she says. *You just had to stall until you had an excuse to lock me away.* A Lifeless takes her arm. She does not fight. She forces calmness into her face and watches the priest's eyes slide away from hers as he tells her this is for her own good.

Up in the stands Vivenna is sitting among the crowds with Vasher at the standing rail above the benches. She has left her seat to join him; someone else has it before her cushion is cold. Nightblood is locked in the closet at home at her insistence. The crowd is enormous: people are spending the one-time tokens of entry they save for years on the chance that this is the assembly that declares war. Down on the floor Nanrovah has reopened the case against war and is being roundly ignored — he has reversed twice now, and the very stubborn pride Vasher warned of is the same pride that will not let him admit publicly why. Vasher reports he cannot find Denth in the crowd. He fidgets at the rail; he says he does not like leaving the sword alone for too long. She rolls her eyes. The God King has not arrived; Siri has not arrived; Vasher goes down to find out why, and comes back with the news she least wanted to hear. Siri is pregnant. The priests will make a formal announcement tonight. The God King is remaining in his palace to celebrate.

She stands there with the ground gone out under her. Her plans are useless: with an heir Hallandren has no further use for the woman who carried it. *We have to get her out,* she tells Vasher. *Please. She's my sister.* Vasher is quiet a moment, then agrees: he will do what he can. Below them, the priests are withdrawing toward their gods. *Where are they going?* she asks. *To their gods,* the answer comes back. *To seek the will of the pantheon in formal vote.* About the war? Yes. *It is time.*

Lightsong watches it from under his canopy. Llarimar returns and kneels and asks for his god's verdict. He does not answer. He watches the high priests run their flags down the walkways from gods who have already chosen: green, green, green — five of the first seven for war. He stands, leaves his canopy, and walks across the open arena to Blushweaver's pavilion. He tells her bluntly that the pantheon can shout *war* until the city goes blue and it will buy them nothing. He holds the armies. Without his Lifeless, Hallandren cannot win one. And he has every right to defy the Will of the Pantheon, as any of them do. She gives the gesture to her own priestess, who rises and runs her own green flag down with the rest. The crowd roars; Blushweaver, who started this with no soldiers of her own, has just emerged with command over a third of the kingdom's Lifeless and a seat at the head of any war planning.

She asks whether he will declare. He thinks of the moon in his dreams, of Llarimar's nod the night before — *yes, she is still alive* — of the woman in his memory whose name he does not have. He tells her he needs more time to think, and turns to go. She protests that he cannot leave the assembly hanging. He shrugs over his shoulder that he can — he has long claimed to be frustrating that way — and walks out of the arena toward his palace without casting a verdict at all.