The King of Attolia (The Queen's Thief, #3)

by Megan Whalen Turner

Because you’re a jumped-up barbarian goatfoot who abducted the Queen of Attolia and forced her to accept you as a husband and you have no right to be king, was Costis’s thought.

The queen had been undismayed; she had seemed almost vindicated in her manner. It had been the king who had been more disturbed with each toss of the coin. He’d looked almost sick, Relius thought, by the time he put the coin away.

“I could send you to ask them.” The man laughed. His laughter was edged with contempt. “It would be a long trip, Your Majesty. I would so much rather hear the answer from you.” “Oh, the trip would be quicker than you think,” said the king, pleasantly. “Most of my male cousins are dead.”

“Take mine,” she said.

Gen had returned to the throne

When Phresine knocked to say that it was time to dress for dinner, she waited for the click of the latch and then she called her attendants in.

“I thought that being king meant I didn’t have to kill people myself. I see now that was another misconception.”

The king lifted a hand to her cheek and kissed her. It was not a kiss between strangers, not even a kiss between a bride and a groom. It was a kiss between a man and his wife, and when it was over, the king closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the hollow of the queen’s shoulder, like a man seeking respite, like a man reaching home at the end of the day. “I didn’t have the gardens searched,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“The queen!” someone shouted in alarm, and the king erupted like a wild animal caught in a snare.

It made Costis wonder what else the king could hide so well that no one even thought to look for it.

If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating.

The king’s attendants remained, digesting the fact that their helpless, inept king had promised his wife to destroy the house of Erondites in six months and had done it in ninety-eight days.

He heard a shout and rushed into the bushes, where he saw a slave— “I knew I would be in this story somewhere,” Eugenides interjected. “Oh, no,” said Phresine, “this was a humble slave.” “Ouch.” “Though very courageous.” “Not me,” whispered Eugenides to his pillow. “Shhh.”

Ever since the gods created the world, mortals have been forgetting from where their blessings come.

There was a crash like a crockery jar exploding behind him, and he jumped forward out of the way of the next batch of tiles that slid down.

Gens on the rooooof

“Jealous, Relius?” With no sign of embarrassment, or of jest, he brushed the former secretary’s hair back and kissed him as well.

“He didn’t marry you to become king. He became king because he wanted to marry you.”

If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.”

That’s the public perception of your honor. It has nothing to do with anything important, except perhaps for manipulating fools who mistake honor for its bright, shiny trappings. You can always change the perceptions of fools.”

“The Basileus was a prince of his people, what we call a king now,” Teleus explained. “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.”