* * *
THE CLOTHING FELT STRANGE. The trousers pulled at her thighs, making her feel like she was exposed. It was odd not to have the swishing of skirts at her ankles.
She walked beside Vasher without comment, head bowed, hair too short to even put into a braid. She didn’t try to regrow it yet. That would draw needed nourishment from her body.
They passed through the Idrian slum, and Vivenna had to fight to keep herself from jumping at every sound, looking over her shoulder to see if someone was following her. Was that an urchin wanting to steal the money she’d begged? Was that a group of thugs, wishing to sell her to Denth? Were those shadows grey-eyed Lifeless, come to attack and slaughter? They passed a waif beside the road, a young woman of indeterminable age but with a soot-covered face and bright eyes that watched them. Vivenna could read the hunger in those eyes. The woman was trying to decide whether or not to try stealing from them.
The sword in Vasher’s hand was obviously enough to ward the girl away. Vivenna watched her scurry down an alleyway, feeling an odd sense of connection.
Colors, she thought. Was that really me?
No. She hadn’t even been as capable as that girl. Vivenna had been so naive that she’d been kidnapped without knowing it, then worked to start a war without realizing what she was doing.
Didn’t you ever stop to think that maybe you were on the wrong side?
She wasn’t sure what to believe. She’d been taken in so quickly by Denth that she was hesitant to accept anything this Vasher said. However, she could see signs that some of what he had told her were true.
Denth had always taken her to meet with the less reputable elements in the city. Not only were they the ones a mercenary like him would know, but they would be more likely to prefer the chaos of war. Attacking the Hallandren supplies wouldn’t only make it more difficult to administer the war, it would make the priests more likely to attack while they were still strong. The losses would also serve to make them angrier.
It made chilling sense—sense it was hard for her to ignore. “Denth made me think that the war was inevitable,” Vivenna whispered as they walked through the slums. “My father thinks it’s inevitable. Everyone says it’s going to happen.”
“They’re wrong,” Vasher said. “War between Hallandren and Idris has been close for decades, but never inevitable. Getting this kingdom to attack requires convincing the Returned—and they’re generally too focused on themselves to want something as disruptive as a war. Only an extended effort—first convincing the priests, then getting them to argue until the gods believed them—would be successful.”
Vivenna stared ahead down the dirty streets with their colorful refuse. “I really am useless, aren’t I?” she whispered.
Vasher glanced over at her.
“First, my father sent my sister to marry the God King instead of me. I followed, but I didn’t even know what I was doing—Denth took me on the very first day I was here. When I finally escaped him, I couldn’t make it a month on the street without getting robbed, beaten, and then captured. Now you claim that I’ve single-handedly brought my people to the edge of war.”
Vasher snorted. “Don’t give yourself too much credit. Denth has been working on this war for a long time. From what I hear, he corrupted the Idrian ambassador himself. Plus there are elements in the Hallandren government—the ones who hired Denth in the first place—who want this conflict to happen.”
It was all so confusing. What he said made sense, but Denth had made sense too. She needed to know more. “Do you have any guesses who they might be? The ones who hired Denth?”
Vasher shook his head. “One of the gods, I think—or perhaps a cabal of them. Maybe a group of priests, working on their own.”
They fell silent again.
“Why?” Vivenna finally asked.
“How should I know?” Vasher asked. “I can’t even figure out who’s behind it.”
“No,” Vivenna said. “Not that. I mean, why are you involved? Why do you care?”
“Because,” Vasher said.
“Because why?”
Vasher sighed. “Look, Princess. I’m not like Denth; I don’t have his ability with words, and I don’t really like people in the first place. Don’t expect me to chat with you. All right?”
Vivenna shut her mouth in surprise. If he’s trying to manipulate me, she thought, he has a very strange way of doing it.
Their destination turned out to be a run-down building on the corner of a run-down intersection. As they approached, Vivenna paused to wonder exactly how slums like this one came to exist. Did people build them cramped and shoddy on purpose? Had these streets, like others she’d seen, once been part of a better section of town that had fallen into disrepair?
Vasher grabbed her arm as she stood there, then pulled her up to the door, upon which he pounded with the hilt of his sword. The door creaked open a second later, and a pair of nervous eyes glanced out.
“Get out of the way,” Vasher said, testily shoving the door open the rest of the way and pulling Vivenna inside. A young man stumbled back, pressing up against the wall of the hallway and letting Vasher and Vivenna pass. He closed the door behind them.
Vivenna felt as if she should be frightened, or at least angry, at the treatment. However, after what she had been through, it just didn’t seem like much. Vasher let go of her and thumped his way down a set of stairs. Vivenna followed more carefully, the dark stairwell reminding her of the cellar in Denth’s hideout. She shivered. At the bottom, fortunately, the similarities between cellars ended. This one had a wooden floor and walls. A rug sat in the middle of the room with a group of men sitting on it. A couple of them rose as Vasher rounded the stairs.
“Vasher!” one said. “Welcome. Do you want something to drink?”
“No.”
The men glanced uncomfortably at each other as Vasher tossed his sword toward the side of the room. It hit with a clank, skidding on the wood. Then he reached back and pulled Vivenna forward.
“Hair,” he said.
She hesitated. He was using her just as Denth had. But rather than make him angry, she obliged, changing the color of her hair. The men watched with awe; then several of them bowed their heads. “Princess,” one whispered.
“Tell them you don’t want them to go to war,” Vasher said.
“I don’t,” she said honestly. “I have never wanted my people to fight Hallandren. They would lose, almost certainly.”
The men turned to Vasher. “But she was working with the slumlords. Why did she change her mind?”
Vasher looked at her. “Well?”
Why did she change her mind? Had she changed her mind? It was all too quick.
“I . . .” she said. “I’m sorry. I . . . didn’t realize. I’ve never wanted war. I thought it was inevitable, and so I tried to plan for it. I might have been manipulated, though.”
Vasher nodded, then pushed her aside. He left her and joined the men as they sat back on the rug. Vivenna remained where she was. She wrapped her hands around herself, feeling the unfamiliar cloth of the tunic and coat.
These men are Idrians, she realized, listening to their accents. And now they’ve seen me, their princess, wearing a man’s clothing. How is it that I can still care about such things, considering everything else that is happening?
“All right,” Vasher said, squatting. “What are you doing to stop this?”
“Wait,” one of the men said. “You expect that to change our minds? A few words from the princess, and we’re supposed to believe everything you’ve been telling us?”
“If Hallandren goes to war, you’re dead,” Vasher snapped. “Can’t you see that? What do you think will happen to the Idrians in these slums? You think things are bad now, wait until you’re seen as enemy sympathizers.”
“We know that, Vasher,” another said. “But what do you expect us to do? Submit to Hallandren treatment of us? Cave in and worship their indolent gods?”
“I don’t really care what you do,” Vasher said, “as long as it doesn’t involve threatening the security of the Hallandren government.”
“Maybe we should just admit that war is coming and fight,” another said. “Maybe the slumlords are right. Maybe the best thing to do is hope that Idris wins.”
“They hate us,” another of them said, a man in his twenties with anger in his eyes. “They treat us worse than they do the statues in their streets! We’re less than Lifeless, to them.”
I know that anger, Vivenna realized. I felt it. Feel it still. Anger at Hallandren.
The man’s words rang hollow to her now. The truth was, she hadn’t really felt any ire from the Hallandren people. If anything, she’d felt indifference. She was just another body on the street to them.
Perhaps that’s why she hated them. She’d worked all of her life to become something important for them—in her mind, she’d been dominated by the monster that was Hallandren and its God King. And then, in the end, the city and its people had simply ignored her. She didn’t matter to them. And that was infuriating.
One of the Idrian men, an older man wearing a dark tan cap, shook his head in thought. “The people are restless, Vasher. Half the men talk of storming the Court of Gods in anger. The women store up food, waiting for the inevitable. Our youths go out in secret groups, searching the jungles for Kalad’s legendary army.”
“They believe that old myth?” Vasher asked.
The man shrugged. “It offers hope. A hidden army, powerful enough that it nearly ended the Manywar itself.”
“Believing myths isn’t what frightens me,” another man said. “It’s that our youths would even think of using Lifeless as soldiers. Kalad’s Phantoms. Bah!” He spat to the side.
“What it means is that we’re desperate,” one of the older men said. “The people are angry. We can’t stop the riots, Vasher. Not after that slaughter a few weeks back.”
Vasher pounded the floor with a fist. “That’s what they want! Can’t you fools see that you’re giving your enemies perfect scapegoats? Those Lifeless that attacked the slum weren’t given their orders by the government. Someone slipped a few broken Lifeless into the group with orders to kill so that things would turn ugly!”
What? Vivenna thought.
“The Hallandren theocracy is a top-heavy structure laden with bureaucratic foolishness and inertia,” Vasher said. “It never moves unless someone pushes it! If we have riots in the street, that will be just what the war faction needs.”
I could help him, Vivenna thought, watching the reactions of the Idrians. She knew them instinctively in a way Vasher obviously didn’t. He made good arguments, but he approached them in the wrong way. He needed credibility.
She could help. But should she?
Vivenna didn’t know what to think anymore. If Vasher was right, she’d been played like a puppet by Denth. She believed that was true, but how could she know that Vasher wasn’t doing the same thing?