She sat back in her chair, shaking her head as one of the servants offered her food. There were still four or five gods left to arrive. Apparently, the Hallandren deities weren’t as punctual as Bluefingers’s schedule-keeping had led her to believe.
* * *

VIVENNA STEPPED THROUGH THE GATES, passing into the Hallandren Court of Gods, which was dominated by a group of large palaces. She hesitated, and small groups of people passed through on either side of her, though there wasn’t much of a crowd.

Denth had been right; it had been easy for her to get into the court. The priests at the gate had waved Vivenna through without even asking her identity. They had even let Parlin pass, assuming him to be her attendant. She turned back, glancing at the priests in their blue robes. She could see bubbles of colorfulness around them, indications of their strong BioChroma.

She’d been tutored about this. The priests guarding the gates had enough Breath to get them to the First Heightening, the state at which a person gained the ability to distinguish levels of Breath in other people. Vivenna had it too. It wasn’t that auras or colors looked different to her. In fact, the ability to distinguish Breath was similar to the perfect pitch she had gained. Other people heard the same sounds she did, she just had the ability to pick them apart.

She saw how close a person had to get to one of the priests before the colors increased, and she saw exactly how much more colorful those hues became. This information let her know instinctively that each of the priests was of the First Heightening. Parlin had one Breath. The ordinary citizens, who had to present papers to gain entrance to the court, also each had only one Breath. She could tell how strong that Breath was, and if the person was sick or not.

The priests each had exactly fifty Breaths, as did the majority of the wealthier individuals entering through the gates. A fair number had at least two hundred Breaths, enough for the Second Heightening and the perfect pitch it granted. Only a couple had more Breaths than Vivenna, who had reached all the way to the Third Heightening and the perfect color perception it granted.

She turned away from her study of the crowd. She’d been tutored about the Heightenings, but she’d never expected to experience one firsthand. She felt dirty. Perverse. Particularly because the colors were just so beautiful.

Her tutors had explained how the court was composed of a wide circle of palaces, but they had not mentioned how each palace was so harmoniously balanced in color. Each was a work of art, utilizing subtle color gradients that normal people just wouldn’t be able to appreciate. These sat on a perfect, uniformly green lawn. It was trimmed carefully, and it was marred by neither road nor walkway. Vivenna stepped onto it, Parlin at her side, and she felt an urge to kick off her shoes and walk barefoot in the dew-moistened grass. That wouldn’t be appropriate at all, and she stifled the impulse.

The drizzle was finally starting to let up, and Parlin lowered the umbrella he’d bought to keep them both dry. “So, this is it,” he said, shaking off the umbrella. “The Court of Gods.”

Vivenna nodded.

“Good place to graze sheep.”

“I doubt that,” she said quietly.

Parlin frowned. “Goats, then?” he said finally.

Vivenna sighed, and they joined the small procession walking across the grass toward a large structure outside the circle of palaces. She’d been worried about standing out—after all, she still wore her simple Idrian dress, with its high neck, practical fabric, and muted colors. She was beginning to realize that there just wasn’t a way to stand out in T’Telir.

The people around her wore such a stunning variety of costumes that she wondered who had the imagination to design them all. Some were as modest as Vivenna’s and others even had muted colors—though these were usually accented by bright scarves or hats. Modesty in both design and color was obviously unfashionable, but not nonexistent.

It’s all about drawing attention, she realized. The whites and faded colors are a reaction against the bright colors. But because everyone tries so hard to look distinctive, nobody does!

Feeling a little more secure, she glanced at Parlin, who seemed more at peace now that they were away from the larger crowds in the city below. “Interesting buildings,” he said. “The people wear so much color, but that palace is just one color. Wonder why that is.”

“It’s not one color. It’s many different shades of the same color.”

Parlin shrugged. “Red is red.”

How could she explain? Each red was different, like notes on a musical scale. The walls were of pure red. The roof tiles, side columns, and other ornamentations were of slightly different shades, each distinct and intentional. The columns, for instance, formed stepping fifths of color, harmonizing with the base tint of the walls.

It was like a symphony of hues. The building had obviously been constructed for a person who had achieved the Third Heightening, as only such a person would be able to see the ideal resonance. To others . . . well, it was just a bunch of red.

They passed the red palace, approaching the arena. Entertainment was central to the lives of the Hallandren gods. After all, one couldn’t expect gods to do anything useful with their time. Often they were diverted in their palaces or on the courtyard lawn, but for particularly large events, there was the arena—which also served as the location of Hallandren legislative debates. Today, the priests would argue for the sport of their deities.

Vivenna and Parlin waited their turn as the people crowded around the arena entrance. Vivenna glanced toward another gateway, wondering why nobody used it. The answer was made manifest as a figure approached. He was surrounded by servants, some carrying a canopy. All were dressed in blue and silver, matching their leader, who stood a good head taller than the others. He gave off a BioChromatic aura such as Vivenna had never seen—though, admittedly, she’d been able to see them for only a few hours. His bubble of enhanced color was enormous; it extended nearly thirty feet. To her First Heightening senses, the god’s Breath registered as infinite. Immeasurable. For the first time, Vivenna could see that there was something different about the Returned. They weren’t just Awakeners with more power; it was like they had only a single Breath, but that Breath was so immensely powerful that it single-handedly propelled them to the upper Heightenings.

The god entered the arena through the open gateway. As she watched him, Vivenna’s sense of awe dissipated. There was an arrogance in this man’s posture, a dismissiveness to the way he entered freely while others waited their turn at an overcrowded entrance.

To keep him alive, Vivenna thought, he has to absorb a person’s Breath each week.

She’d let herself become too relaxed, and she felt her revulsion return. Color and beauty couldn’t cover up such enormous conceit, nor could it hide the sin of being a parasite living on the common people.

The god disappeared into the arena. Vivenna waited, thinking for a time about her own BioChroma and what it meant. She was completely shocked when a man beside her suddenly lifted off the ground.

The man rose into the air, lifted by his unusually long cloak. The cloth had stiffened, looking a little like a hand as it held the man up high so he could see over the crowd. How does it do that? She’d been told that Breath could give life to objects, but what did “life” mean? It seemed as if the fibers in the cloak were taut, like muscles, but how did it lift something so much heavier than it was?

The man descended to the ground. He muttered something Vivenna couldn’t hear, and his BioChromatic aura grew stronger as he recovered his Breath from the cloak. “We should be moving again soon,” the man said to his friends. “The crowd is thinning up ahead.”

Indeed, soon the crowd started to progress. It wasn’t long before Vivenna and Parlin entered the arena itself. They moved through the stone benches, choosing a place that wasn’t too crowded, and Vivenna looked urgently through the boxes set above. The building was ornate, but not really very big, and so it didn’t take her long to locate Siri.

When she did, her heart sank. My . . . sister, Vivenna thought with a chill. My poor sister.

Siri was dressed in a scandalous golden dress that didn’t even come down to her knees. It also had a plunging neckline. Siri’s hair, which even she should have been able to keep a dark brown, was instead the golden yellow of enjoyment, and there were deep red ribbons woven through it. She was being attended by dozens of servants.

“Look what they’ve done to her,” Vivenna said. “She must be frightened senseless, forced to wear something like that, forced to keep her hair a color that matches her clothing . . .” Forced to be slave to the God King.

Parlin’s square-jawed face grew hard. He didn’t often get angry, but Vivenna could see it in him now. She agreed. Siri was being exploited; they were carrying her around and displaying her like some kind of trophy. It seemed to Vivenna a statement. They were saying they could take a chaste, innocent Idris woman and do whatever they wished with her.

What I’m doing is right, Vivenna thought with growing determination. Coming to Hallandren was the best thing to do. Lemex might be dead, but I have to press onward. I have to find a way.

I have to save my sister.

“Vivenna?” Parlin said.

“Hum?” Vivenna asked, distracted.

“Why is everyone starting to bow?”
* * *

SIRI PLAYED idly with one of the tassels on her dress. The final god was seating himself in his box. That’s twenty-five, she thought. That should be all of them.

Suddenly, out in the audience, people began to rise, then kneel to the ground. Siri stood, searching anxiously. What was she missing? Had the God King arrived, or was this something else? Even the gods had gone down on their knees, though they didn’t prostrate themselves as the mortals did. They all seemed to be bowing toward Siri. Some sort of ritual greeting for their new queen?

Then she saw it. Her dress exploded with color, the stone at her feet gained luster, and her very skin became more vibrant. In front of her, a white serving bowl began to shine; then it seemed to stretch, the white color splitting into the colors of the rainbow.

A serving woman tugged on Siri’s sleeve from where she knelt below. “Vessel,” the woman whispered, “behind you!”

15

Breath catching in her chest, Siri turned. She found him standing behind her, though she had no idea how he had arrived. There was no entrance back there, just the stone wall.

He wore white. She hadn’t expected that. Something about his BioChroma made the pure white split as she’d seen before, breaking up like light passed through a prism. Now, in daylight, she could finally see this properly. His clothing seemed to stretch, forming a robe-shaped rainbow in a colorful aura around him.

And he was young. Far younger than her shadowed meetings had suggested. He had supposedly reigned in Hallandren for decades, yet the man standing behind her appeared to be no more than twenty. She stared at him, awed, mouth opening slightly, and any words she had planned to say escaped her. This man was a god. The very air distorted around him. How could she have not seen it? How could she possibly have treated him as she had? She felt like a fool.