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

by Megan Whalen Turner

He knew that the stillness was as near as she could come to peace, and he offered it to her.

For a moment Costis could see, not so much what was hidden but that there were things hidden that the king did not choose to reveal. Things that were not for Costis to see. There was no understanding him, but Costis knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king, as he would for his queen.

Moving cautiously, he approached the bed. The king’s face was turned away. Costis bent to look at it closely, aware that he was taking a liberty very few must have.

“I didn’t think he ever did as he was told,” she said, smiling. “I only told him what he was going to do anyway,” said Costis. “That would be the trick,” Ileia agreed.

The king opened his eyes and smiled at the queen in a companionship that was as unassailable as it was, to Costis, unfathomable.

The king, the master of the fates of men, before their eyes was reduced to a man, very young himself, and in love. Picking again at the coverlet, he answered, with his eyes cast down, “Wildly.”

Relius lay alone with his thoughts. What kind of man, he wondered, referred to himself as “safely dead”?

Costis straightened, prepared to defend his king to the death against this huge Eddisian nanny.

Don’t look so uncomfortable. I have learned that there is a flaw in your philosophy. If we truly trust no one, we cannot survive.”