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In a closet on the third floor of the palace, Vasher kneels and unties Vivenna, looking very tired, dragging Nightblood behind him in its silver sheath. He has no Breath left; the sword devoured most of it. Denth is dead. Tonk Fah and Jewels have taken their money and fled. *So it's over,* she says. He shakes his head. They have lost. Denth was being employed by Pahn Kahl scribes in the palace who wanted a war between Idris and Hallandren to weaken both kingdoms and leave their own people room to gain independence. The scribes who held the Command phrases are dead. The forty thousand Lifeless left the city over an hour ago, marching on the highlands. The fight with Denth was the distraction the whole way. The war has begun. There is no way to stop it.

Susebron walks Siri down through the palace cradled in his arm, a hundred lazy Awakened cloths spinning around them. Wherever they pass, every color blazes; the black stones run bone-white where his Breath touches them and then prism back into colour. He brings her into the dungeon chamber and warns her of what she will see. Crushed Pahn Kahl scribes, torn bars, broken walls. Blushweaver bloody and red on the stones. And beside her Lightsong, every color drained out of him as if he were Lifeless himself, eyes closed, at peace. His high priest sits beside the body, holding the head in his lap.

*I don't understand,* she says. Susebron tells her. *Lightsong gave his life to heal me. He somehow knew that my tongue had been removed.* The priest says it gently — the Returned can heal one person; it is their duty to choose who and when. Some say it is what they Return for. *I never knew him*, Susebron says. *He was a very good person*, Siri tells him. The priest smiles down at the body: the amazing thing is that Lightsong did that twice. *He told me I couldn't depend on him in the end*, she thinks, *I guess he lied about that.*

In the same closet, Vivenna presses Vasher for a way and gets only the inventory of options he has already run through and dismissed. He cannot fight forty thousand. Hallandren's living troops cannot match the marching pace of Lifeless that do not eat or sleep. The Treasure of Peacegiver is locked behind the God King's missing tongue and the years of Tenth-Heightening training he has never had. Awakening an answering army would need forty thousand bodies and forty thousand Breaths neither of them has. Then the sword cuts in, in both their heads — apparently it has decided to include her in his thoughts now — to remind Vasher that he left an army behind here last time. *Yesterday*, the sword tells them, and *yesterday* turns out to mean *when the Manywar stopped*. Vivenna's eyes go wide. *Kalad's army. His phantoms. You know where they are.* He hesitates, then nods. Here, in the city. She tells him to use them. He warns her she is asking him to give Hallandren a tool worse than what they have now. *They're not my enemies. Even if I hate them. Please.* He stands.

One of the God King's actual priests bows: rumours of a plot had reached them; they had locked their lord and lady away to protect them — please believe it. They imprison the rest of the men in priest's robes until impostors can be told from real. The city guard begins to clean the wreckage of the palace. Siri and Susebron go up to the rooftop for air and for sight-lines, and look out across the city toward the smudge of dust on the northern road. *That smoke?* she asks. *Dust of its passing, my lady,* a guard tells her. *That's a lot of soldiers.* *I could stop them*, he says — voice deeper, more his own, than she expected. He could ride out with his cloths and tie them down. The guard hesitates: there are forty thousand of them. *I have to try.* *No*, she tells him, hand on his chest. She is preparing messengers; her people can withdraw and ambush. Privately she knows it will not be enough, but he getting himself killed in a hopeless field would gain nothing. He reads her face: *you don't believe they can get away. You're just trying to protect me.* Surprising, how well he understands her already.

A guard runs up. A visitor — a woman with the Royal Locks. Vivenna steps onto the roof in trousers and a tunic, a sword at her hip, a bloody wound on her shoulder, hair yellow at the sight of her sister. They embrace. *Vivenna?* *Mostly.* *I came to rescue you.* *I don't need rescuing.* Siri introduces her to the God King, who bows his head and tells her he wishes they were meeting under better circumstances. *He's not really as bad as they say. Most of the time.* *That is sarcasm,* he notes. *She is quite fond of it.* Vivenna turns to the matter: *our homeland is under attack.* *I know. We're working on it.* *I have a better way. But you'll have to trust me. I have a friend who needs to speak with the God King where he can't be overheard.*

The guards strip and search Vasher for Awakened cloth, and bring him before the God King wearing a wrap and nothing else. The sword is below. He has no Breath. *Who are you?* Susebron asks. *The one responsible for you getting your tongue cut out.* He closes his eyes; he does not speak, does not draw on Breath, makes no Command — and begins to glow. He grows. The scruffy beard retreats. The chest fills out. The hair runs to gold. The cuts stay, but seem inconsequential. He stands as a Returned, a god of the God King's own stature, the same scarred body in Returned form. Susebron drops to one knee. *My lord. Where have you been?* *Paying for what I've done. Or trying to. Stand.*

Vasher tells him there is a wealth of power he left here long ago that he charged the priests to keep and never use; the priesthood, it seems, took it to heart. He gives the God King his army — *not that army; the one I left behind three hundred years ago. The people call them Kalad's Phantoms. They are the force by which I made Hallandren stop its war.* The Command phrase to direct them: *my sin be hidden.* *Stone cannot be Awakened,* Susebron protests. *The stone hasn't been Awakened*, Vasher tells him. *There are human bones in those statues. They are Lifeless.* A thousand D'Denir in the city, made to last, virtually impervious to weapons; the God King will imprint them with a new security phrase and send them out to stop the other army. *They are your responsibility now. Do better with them than I did.*