Warbreaker (62 page)

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?

Did she want war? No, of course she didn’t. Particularly not a war Idris would have a very hard time surviving, let alone winning. Vivenna had worked so hard to undermine Hallandren’s ability to wage war. Why hadn’t she ever considered trying to head it off?

I did
, she realized.
That was my original plan when I was back in Idris. I’d intended to talk the God King out of war when I became his bride.

She’d given up on that plan. No, she’d been manipulated into giving up on it. Either by her father’s sense of inevitability or by Denth’s subtlety—or by both—it didn’t really matter. Her initial instinct had been to prevent the conflict. That was the best way to protect Idris; and it was—she now realized—also the best way to protect Siri. She’d practically given up on saving her sister, focusing on her own hate and arrogance instead.

Stopping the war wouldn’t protect Siri from being abused by the God King. But it would probably keep her from being used as a pawn or a hostage. It could save her life.

That was enough for Vivenna.

“It’s too late,” one of the men said.

“No,” Vivenna said. “Please.”

The men in the circle paused, looking over at her. She walked back to the circle and then knelt before them. “Please do not say such things.”

“But Princess,” one of the men said, “what can we do? The slumlords rile the people to anger. We have no power compared to them.”

“You must have some influence,” she said. “You seem like men of wisdom.”

“We’re family men and workers,” another said. “We have no riches.”

“But people listen to you?” she asked.

“Some do.”

“Then tell them that there
are
more options,” Vivenna said, bowing her head. “Tell them to be stronger than I was. The Idrians here in the slums— I’ve seen their strength. If you tell them that they’ve been used, maybe they can avoid being manipulated further.”

The men fell silent.

“I don’t know if everything this man says is true,” she said, nodding to Vasher. “But I do know that Idris will not win this war. We should be doing everything we can to prevent a conflict, not to encourage one.” She felt a tear on her cheek, and her hair had grown a pale white. “You can see. I...no longer have the control a princess and follower of Austre should show. I am a disgrace to you, but please don’t let my failure doom you. The Hallandren don’t hate us. They barely even notice us. I know this is frustrating, but if you
make
them notice you by rioting and destroying, they will only be shaken into anger against our homeland.”

“So we should just roll over?” the younger man asked. “Let them step on us? What does it matter if they do it unintentionally? We still get crushed.”

“No,” Vivenna said. “There must be a better way. An Idrian is their queen, now. Perhaps, if we give them time, they will get over their prejudice. We
must
focus our energies now on keeping them from attacking!”

“Your words make sense, Princess,” said the older man wearing the cap. “But—and forgive me for my ostentation—those of us here in Hallandren find it difficult to care about Idris much anymore. It failed us before we even left, and now we can’t really go back.”

“We
are
Idrians,” one of the others said. “But...well, our families here are more important.”

A month ago, Vivenna would have been offended. Her sojourn on the streets, though, had taught her a little of what desperation could do to a person. What was Idris to them if their families starved? She could not blame them for their attitude.

“You think you will fare better if Idris is conquered?” Vasher asked. “If there’s war, you’ll be treated even worse than you are now.”

“There
are
other options,” Vivenna said. “I know of your plight. If I return to my father and explain it, perhaps we can find a way to return you to Idris.”

“Return us to Idris?” one of the men said. “My family has been here in Hallandren for fifty years now!”

“Yes, but as long as the king of Idris lives,” Vivenna said, “you have an ally. We can work with diplomacy to make things better for you.”

“The king doesn’t care about us,” another said sadly.

“I care,” Vivenna said.

And she did. She found it strange, but a part of her felt more of a kinship with the Idrians in the city than with those she had left behind. She understood.

“We must find a way to bring attention to your suffering without bringing hatred as well,” she said. “We will find a way. As I said, my sister is married to the God King himself. Perhaps through her, he can be persuaded to improve the slums. Not because he’s afraid of the violence our people might cause, but because of the pity he feels for their situation.”

She continued to kneel, ashamed before these men. Ashamed to be crying, to be seen in the immodest clothing and with ragged, short hair. Ashamed to have failed them so completely.

How could I fail so easily?
she thought.
I, who was supposed to be so prepared, so in control. How could I be so angry that I ignored my people’s needs just because I wanted to see Hallandren pay?

“She is sincere,” one of the men finally said. “I will give her that.”

“I don’t know,” said another. “I still feel it’s too late.”

“If that’s the case,” Vivenna said, still looking at the floor, “what do you have to lose? Think of the lives you could save. I promise. Idris will not forget you any longer. If you make peace with Hallandren, I will ensure that you are seen as heroes back in our homeland.”

“Heroes, eh?” one of them said. “It would be nice to be known as a hero, rather than the ones who left the highlands to live in brazen Hallandren.”

“Please,” Vivenna whispered.

“I’ll see what I can do,” one of the men said, standing.