#or maybe it's just a nightmare the king of braels will be having for the rest of his life :)

[nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui]

"It will be so"

Fordad said apologetically, "Please understand, Your Majesty, that I acted in obedience to my king." Eugenides laughed. "When I lie, Fordad, I don't beg people to forgive me for it." Fordad bowed stiffly and said, "I will pray for your victory on the field, Your Majesty." "Pray that I triumph today, Fordad, or that I die, " said Eugenides, bending from the back of the horse to look the Braeling in the eye. "If I live through this day and I am not king, then all that remains will be the Thief, and every sovereign of the Continent who betrayed me will wake choking on their own blood, I swear it. Your king in his innermost chamber, with his rune stones laid out on the table and his ship lamps by his bed and his curtains trimmed in beads of carved jet, he will not be the first one to die, but the last. I say it three times, Fordad. It will be so. It will be so. It will be so."

~ Megan Whalen Turner, The Return of the Thief

AU in that this happens, I guess, but the imagery was too powerful not to be illustrated. Imagine you're Yorn Fordad and the guy you've tricked at the command of your king not just delivers the most bad-ass threat imaginable but also casually reveals that he knows exactly what your far-away king's innermost chamber (probably heavily guarded) and private sleeping arrangements (probably also heavily guarded) are like, thereby suggesting that not only can he get in there, but that he has in fact already been in there. Granted, it is probably Eugenides the god speaking here rather than Eugenides the thief and king, but I doubt Fordad is aware of that!

The king of Braels has not, as it is, woken choking on his blood. I wanted to give Gen the occasion to gloat a little first. Yes, that is a fairly simple bed. It's the king's innermost chamber, he doesn't have to impress anyone.