“I dreamed that you would come,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I saw it in the pictures a week ago. All week, I’ve seen patterns of circles in the paintings, all red and gold. Your colors.”
“Coincidence,” he said.
She snorted quietly. “Someday, you’ll have to get over your foolish selfishness, Lightsong. This isn’t just about us. I’ve decided to start doing a better job of things. Perhaps you should take a look at who you are and what you are doing.”
“Ah, my dear Allmother,” Lightsong said. “You see, the problem in that challenge is the presumption that I haven’t tried to be something other than what I am. Every time I do, disaster is the result.”
“Well, you now have my Commands. For better, or for worse.” The aged goddess turned away, walking back toward her room of supplicants. “I, for one, am curious to see how you handle them.”
43
Vivenna awoke, sick, tired, thirsty, starving.
But alive.
She opened her eyes, feeling a strange sensation. Comfort. She was in a comfortable soft bed. She sat up immediately; her head spun.
“I’d be careful,” a voice said. “Your body is weak.”
She blinked fuzzy eyes, focusing on a figure sitting at a table a short distance away, his back to her. He appeared to be eating.
A black sword in a silver sheath rested against the table.
“You,” she whispered.
“Me,” he said between bites.
She looked down at herself. She wasn’t wearing her shift anymore, but instead had on a set of soft cotton sleeping garments. Her body was clean. She raised a hand to her hair, feeling that the tangles and mats were gone. It was still white.
She felt so strange to be clean.
“Did you rape me?” she asked quietly.
He snorted. “A woman who’s been to Denth’s bed holds no temptation for me.”
“I never slept with him,” she said, though she didn’t know why she cared to tell him.
Vasher turned, face still framed by the patchy, ragged beard. His clothing was far less fine than her own. He studied her eyes. “He had you fooled, didn’t he?”
She nodded.
“Idiot.”
She nodded again.
He turned back to his meal. “The woman who runs this building,” he said. “I paid her to bathe you, dress you, and change your bedpan. I never touched you.”
She frowned. “What . . . happened?”
“Do you remember the fight on the street?”
“With your sword?”
He nodded.
“Vaguely. You saved me.”
“I kept a tool out of Denth’s hands,” he said. “That’s all that really matters.”
“Thank you anyway.”
He was silent for a few moments. “You’re welcome,” he finally said.
“Why do I feel so ill?”
“Tramaria,” the man said. “It’s a disease you don’t have in the highlands. Insect bites spread it. You probably got it a few weeks before I found you. It stays with you, if you’re weak.”
She put a hand to her head.
“You probably had a pretty bad time lately,” Vasher noted. “What with the dizziness, the dementia, and the hunger.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You deserved it.” He continued to eat.
She didn’t move for a long moment. His food smelled so good, but she’d apparently been fed during the fevers, for she wasn’t as famished as she might have expected. Just mildly hungry. “How long was I unconscious?” she asked.
“A week,” he said. “You should sleep some more.”
“What are you going to do with me?”
He didn’t reply. “The BioChromatic Breaths you had,” he said. “You gave them to Denth?”
She paused, thinking. “Yes.”
He glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” she admitted, looking away. “I put them in the shawl I was wearing.”
He stood, leaving the room. She considered running. Instead, she got out of the bed and began to eat his food—a fish, whole and fried. Seafood didn’t bother her anymore.
He returned, then stopped in the doorway, watching her ravage the fish bones. He didn’t force her out of the seat; he simply took the other chair at the table. Finally, he held up the shawl, washed and clean.
“This?” he asked.
She froze, a bit of fish on her cheek.
He set the shawl on the table beside her.
“You’re giving it back to me?” she asked.
He shrugged. “If there really is Breath stored in it, I can’t get to it. Only you can.”
She picked it up. “I don’t know the Command.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You escaped those ropes of mine without Awakening them?”
She shook her head. “I guessed that one.”
“I should have gagged you better. What do you mean you ‘guessed’ it?”
“It was the first time I’d ever used Breath.”
“That’s right, you’re of the royal line.”
“What does that mean?”
He just shook his head, pointing toward the shawl. “Your Breath to mine,” he said. “That’s the Command you want.”
She laid her hand on the shawl and said the words. Immediately, everything changed.
Her dizziness went away. Her deadness to the world vanished. She gasped, shaking with the pleasure of Breath restored. It was so strong that she actually fell from the chair, quivering like a person having a fit with the wonder of it. It was amazing. She could sense life. Could sense Vasher making a pocket of color around him that was bright and beautiful. She was alive again.
She basked in that for a long moment.
“It’s shocking, when you first get it,” Vasher said. “It’s usually not too bad if you take the Breath back after only an hour or so. Wait weeks, or even a few days, and it’s like taking it in for the first time.”
Smiling, feeling amazing, she climbed back into the seat and wiped the fish from her face. “My sickness is gone!”
“Of course,” he said. “You’ve got enough Breath for at least the Third Heightening, if I’m reading you right. You’ll never know sickness. You’ll barely even age. Assuming you manage to hang on to the Breath, of course.”
She looked up at him in a panic.
“No,” he said. “I’m not going to force you to give it to me. Though I probably should. You’re far more trouble than you’re worth, Princess.”
She turned back to the food, feeling more confident. It seemed now as if the last few weeks had been a nightmare. A bubble, surreal, disconnected from her life. Had it really been she who had sat on the street, begging? Had she really slept in the rain, lived in the mud? Had she really considered turning to prostitution?
She had. She couldn’t forget that just because she now had Breath again. But had becoming a Drab had a hand in her actions? Had the sickness had a part in it too? Either way, the greatest part had been simple desperation.
“All right,” he said, standing, picking up the black sword. “Time to go.”
“Go where?” she asked, suspicious. The last time she had met this man, he’d bound her, forced her to touch that sword of his, and left her gagged.
He ignored her concern, tossing a pile of clothing onto the table. “Put this on.”
She picked through it. Thick trousers, a tunic that tucked into them, a vest to go over the tunic. All of various shades of blue. There were undergarments of a less bright color.
“That’s a man’s clothing,” she said.
“It’s utilitarian,” Vasher said, walking toward the doorway. “I’m not going to waste money buying you fancy dresses, Princess. You’ll just have to get used to those.”
She opened her mouth, but then shut it, discarding her complaint. She’d just spent . . . she didn’t know how long running around in a thin, nearly translucent shift that had only covered her to midthigh. She took the trousers and shirts gratefully.
“Please,” she said, turning toward him. “I appreciate this clothing. But can I at least know what you intend to do with me?”
Vasher hesitated in the doorway. “I have work for you to do.”
She shivered, thinking of the bodies Denth had shown her, and of the men Vasher had killed. “You’re going to kill again, aren’t you?”
He turned back toward her, frowning. “Denth is working toward something. I’m going to block him.”
“Denth was working for me,” she said. “Or, at least, he was pretending to. All of those things he did, they were at my command. He was just playing along to keep me complacent.”
Vasher gave a barking laugh, and Vivenna flushed. Her hair—responding to her mood for the first time since her shock at seeing Parlin dead—turned red.
It felt so surreal. Two weeks on the street? It felt so much longer. But now, suddenly, she was cleaned and fed, and somehow she felt like her old self again. Part of it was the Breath. The beautiful, wonderful Breath. She never wanted to be parted from it again.
Not her old self at all. Who was she, then? Did it matter?
“You laugh at me,” she said, turning to Vasher. “But I was just doing the best I could. I wanted to help my people in the upcoming war. Fight against Hallandren.”
“Hallandren isn’t your enemy.”
“It is,” she said sharply. “And it is planning to march on my people.”
“The priests have good reasons for acting as they do.”
Vivenna snorted. “Denth said that every man thinks he’s doing the right thing.”
“Denth is too smart for his own good. He was playing with you, Princess.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you?” Vasher asked. “Attacking supply caravans? Rousing the Idrian poor to rebel? Reminding them of Vahr and his promises of freedom, which were so fresh in their minds? Showing yourself to thug lords, making them think that Idris was working to undermine the Hallandren government? Princess, you say every man thinks he’s on the right side, that every man who opposed you was deluding himself.” He met her eyes. “Didn’t you ever once stop to think that maybe you were the one on the wrong side?”
Vivenna froze.
“Denth wasn’t working for you,” Vasher said. “He wasn’t even pretending to. Someone in this city hired him to start a war between Idris and Hallandren, and he’s spent these last few months using you to make it happen. I’m trying to figure out why. Who’s behind it, and why would a war serve them?”
Vivenna sat back, eyes wide. It couldn’t be. He had to be wrong.
“You were the perfect pawn,” Vasher said. “You reminded the people in the slums of their true heritage, giving Denth someone to rally them behind. The Court of Gods is a hair’s breadth away from marching on your homeland. Not because they hate Idrians, but because they feel like Idris insurgents have already been attacking them.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t believe that you didn’t realize what you were doing. I assumed you had to be working with him intentionally to start the war.” He eyed her. “I underestimated your stupidity. Get dressed. I don’t know if we have enough time to undo what you’ve done, but I intend to try.”