Her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth.

As soon as the guards where gone, I lay down on my stone bench and dumped the king and his threats out of my head without ceremony. They were too unpleasant to worry over anyway.

That one,"-he nodded toward the closed door-" will rule more than just Attolia before he is done. He is an Annux, a king of kings.

He should have said something, why hadn't he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they'd ignored it. If he'd been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, Eddisian soldiers on the move. He'd meant to deceive them, and he'd succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.

What kind of man refers to himself as safely dead?

I would very much like to strangle someone. Why don't you go away until I decide it isn't you?

Then come out," said the king, helping him, "knowing you'll never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you.