“Darker thoughts crowded in during the deepest hours of the night when he woke listening to the secret mystifying sounds of the sleeping palace. Many nights, the king was there. Pleasant, irrelevant, and distracting, he eased Relius past nightmares and self-recrimination. Some nights he said nothing at all, just comforted with his presence. Other nights he related the events of his day, spewing out his insights and analyses of the Attolian court in a devastatingly funny critique.”

“Sophos, you sleep with a knife under your pillow? I'm hurt.""I'm sorry," said Sounis, afraid that he had made contact with his wild swing."I was joking. Wake up the rest of the way, would you?""Gen, it's the middle of the night.""I know," said the king of Attolia.Sounis tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He was sitting up in his bed. The sky was still entirely dark, and he couldn't have been asleep for long. He suspected that he had just dropped off. The bare knife was still in his hand, he realized, and he rooted under his pillow for the sheath."Don't you trust my palace security?""Yes, of course," Sounis said, trying to think of some other reason besides mistrust to sleep with a knife. He heard Eugenides laugh."My queen and I sleep with a matched set under our pillows, as well as handguns in pockets on the bedposts. Don't be embarrassed.”

“He loves me, and I reward his love by forcing on him something he hates. In the evening, after we dance, he rarely returns to the throne; he dances with others or moves from place to place through the room. The court thinks he is trying to be gracious, sharing his attention. Only I see that he moves always to the empty spot and the court always moves after him. He is like a dog trying to escape his own tail. He indulged himself in one brief moment of privacy, and almost died of it. Relius, he hates being king.”

“She reached out and touched the king’s face, cupping his cheek in her hand.“Just a nightmare,” he said, his voice still rough.The queen’s voice was cool. “How embarrassing,” she said, looking at his maimed arm.The king looked up then, and followed her gaze. If it was embarrassing to wake like a child screaming from a nightmare, how much more embarrassing to be the reason your husband woke screaming. A quick smile visited the king’s face. “Ouch,” he said, referring to more than the pain in his side. “Ouch,” he said again as the queen gathered him into her arms.”

“The gossip will carry to Attolian spies, who will report to Relius, Attolia's master of spies, and he will carry the news to her.""Her secretary of the archives," murmured the magus."Hmm?" asked the queen."Secretary of the archives, Relius. Master of spies is so-""Accurate?""Overtly direct," said the magus.Eddis laughed.”

“Lilies, I rule, heads, you do," he [the King] said, and threw the coin into the air."Lilies, you rule, heads, you throw again," said Attolia.The coin dropped. Eugenides looked at it and then showed it to her. "No need," he said. The coin sat in his palm, obverse, showing the lilies of Attolia. He flipped it again and again and again. Each time it landed showing the lilies. ...(Relius)He wanted to dismiss the coin toss as slight of hand. Any circus performer could control the drop of a coin, but he'd been puzzled. The queen had been undismayed; she had seemed almost vindicated in her manner. It had been the King who was more disturbed with each toss of the coin. He'd looked almost sick, Relius thought, by the time he put the coin away....Walking away along the arcade that lay perpendicular to the one where Relius lurked, the king pulled the coin from his pocket. He looked at the gold stater in sudden disgust and pitched it hard between the columns of the arcade into the shrubbery.”

“You have to believe him, because he's going to have your entire palace up in arms and your court in chaos and every member of it from the barons to the boot cleaners coming to you for his blood, and you are going to have to deal with it."Attolia smiled. "You make him sound like more trouble than he is worth."No," said Eddis thoughtfully. "Never more than he is worth.”