Thanks for the read; I've been having a lot of fun with this!
Here -- for your amusement, I suspect -- are some guesses about what's going to happen next:
- I think this chapter makes it pretty obvious that Lightsong wasn't a cop. I'm pretty sure he was on the other side of the law in his former life. I kind of halfways suspect he was Arsteel, but I can't remember everything that's been said about that guy, so maybe it's impossible.
- Vivenna has to become an awakener, so that she can show off your awesome magic system, which up to now hasn't done much of anything. (Also, she'll get to angst about it. But she'll have no choice because otherwise somebody would die or something.)
- When she does, her hair will give her incredible super power. (Awakeners have to drain the color from something in order to get power to do their magic, but Vivenna's hair can change color from bland brownish to vibrant red whenever she wants, making it a limitless source of color-power. Also, the fact that she can grow more as fast as she needs to means that she can easily use it for awakener-dolls and stuff.)
- Peprin Must Die. Either that, or fall in love with somebody other than Vivenna -- probably somebody working for The Other Side, so that he can perpetrate a heartwrenching betrayal. He certainly cannot end up as Vivenna's love interest -- he would have needed way more character development at the beginning in order to do that.
- If Nightblood kills things by draining their color, I wonder if it can be defeated by Vivenna's hair too? (Also, are greys/lifeless immune?)
- I can't decide whether Siri is going to end up pregnant at the end of this story, but I'm pretty sure Susebron is not going to survive. (It just wouldn't work out between them -- he's too old, too mute, and too undead.)
Incidentally, back in Chapter 23, is there any particular reason you picked mussels (or muscles) as the Food That Freaks Vivenna Out? As far as I know, cooked mussels are kind of a bland beige-ish, in black shells, and they're completely, er, organic, so they should be relatively Austre-friendly. If I wanted to freak Vivenna out, I'd have picked something like strawberry ice cream. With sprinkles on top, with all of the sprinkles meticulously arranged in patterns to look like hearts and smiley faces. For bonus points, the chef is an awakener, and he comes to the table, awakens the sprinkles, and gets them to arrange themselves into cute shapes. (I imagine it would take a ton of life points, or whatever they were called, in order to awaken sprinkles, but so what? The chef gets them all back after.)
Also, I was half-expecting Lightsong to try to get Blushweaver to juggle, in order to see whether that's really something he's remembering from his past life, or if it's just something all gods can do. But I guess he's not quite that dumb.