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Vivenna nodded slowly.
“You remember what to have them make?” Denth asked.
“Of course I do,” she said. “This particular plan was my idea, remember?”
“Just checking,” he said.
“You’re worried that I’ll mess things up, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “You’re the leader in this little dance, Princess. I’m just the guy who mops the floor afterward.” He eyed her. “I hate mopping up blood.”
“Oh, please,” she said, rolling her eyes, walking faster and leaving him behind. As he fell back, she could hear him talking to Tonk Fah. “Bad metaphor?” Denth asked.
“Nah,” Tonk Fah said. “It had blood in it. That makes it a good meta phor.”
“I think it lacked poetic style.”
“Find something that rhymes with ‘blood’ then,” Tonk Fah suggested. He paused. “Mud? Thud? Uh . . . tastebud?”
They sure are literate, for a bunch of thugs, she thought.
She didn’t have to go far before she spotted the men. They waited beside the agreed meeting place—a large D’Denir with a weathered axe. The group of people were having a picnic and chatting among themselves, a picture of harmless innocence.
Vivenna slowed.
“That’s them,” Denth whispered. “Let’s go sit beside the D’Denir across from them.”
Jewels, Clod, and Parlin hung back while Tonk Fah strolled away to watch the perimeter. Vivenna and Denth approached the statue near the forgers. Denth spread out a blanket for her, then stood to the side, as if he were a manservant.
One of the men beside the other statue looked across as Vivenna sat down; then he nodded. The others continued to eat. The Hallandren underground’s penchant for working in broad daylight still unnerved Vivenna, but she supposed it had advantages over skulking about at night.
“You want some work commissioned?” the forger closest to her asked, just loudly enough that Vivenna could hear. It almost seemed part of his conversation with his friends.
“Yes,” she said.
“It costs.”
“I can pay.”
“You’re the princess everyone is talking about?”
She paused, noticing Denth’s hand leisurely going to his sword hilt.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good,” the forger said. “Royalty always seems to know how to handle itself. What is it you desire?”
“Letters,” Vivenna said. “I want them to appear as if they were between certain members of the Hallandren priesthood and the king of Idris. They need to have official seals and convincing signatures.”
“Difficult,” the man said.
Vivenna pulled something from her dress pocket. “I have a letter written in King Dedelin’s hand. It has his seal on the wax, his signature at the bottom.”
The man seemed intrigued, though she could only see the side of his face. “That makes it possible. Still hard. What do you want these documents to prove?”
“That these particular priests are corrupt,” Vivenna said. “I have a list on this sheet. I want you to make it look like they’ve been extorting Idris for years, forcing our king to pay outrageous sums and make extreme promises in order to prevent war. I want you to show that Idris doesn’t want war and that the priests are hypocrites.”
The man nodded. “Is that everything?”
“Yes.”
“It can be done. We’ll be in touch. Instructions and explanations are on the back of the paper?”
“As requested,” Vivenna said.
The group of men stood, a servant moving forward to pack up their lunch. As he did so, he let a napkin blow in the wind, then rushed over and picked it up, grabbing Vivenna’s paper too. Soon, all of them were gone.
“Well?” Vivenna asked, looking up.
“Good,” Denth said, nodding to himself. “You’re becoming an expert.”
Vivenna smiled, settling back on her blanket to wait. The next appointment consisted of a group of thieves who had stolen—at Vivenna and Denth’s request—various goods from the war offices in the Hallandren bureaucratic building. The documents were of relatively little import themselves, but their absence would cause confusion and frustration.
That appointment wasn’t for a few hours, which meant she could enjoy some time relaxing on the lawn, away from the unnatural colors of the city. Denth seemed to sense her inclination, and he sat down, leaning back against the side of the statue’s bare pedestal. As Vivenna waited, she saw that Parlin was over talking to Jewels again. Denth was right; though his clothing looked ridiculous to her, that was because she knew him as an Idrian. Looking at him more objectively, she saw that he fit in remarkably well with other young men in the city.
That’s well and good for him, Vivenna thought with annoyance, looking away. He can dress as he wishes—he doesn’t have to worry about his neckline or hemline.
Jewels laughed. It was almost a snort of derision, but there was some mirth in it. Vivenna looked back immediately, watching Jewels roll her eyes at Parlin, a self-effacing smirk on his face. He knew he’d said something wrong. He didn’t know what. Vivenna knew him well enough to read the expression and to know that he’d just smile and go along with it.
Jewels saw his face, then laughed again.
Vivenna gritted her teeth. “I should send him back to Idris,” she said.
Denth turned, looking down at her. “Hum?”
“Parlin,” she said. “I sent my other guides back. I should have sent him too. He serves no function.”
“He’s quick at adapting to situations,” Denth said. “And he’s trustworthy. That’s good enough reason to keep him.”
“He’s a fool,” Vivenna said. “Has trouble understanding half of what goes on around him.”
“He’s not got the wit of a scholar, true, but he seems to instinctively know how to blend in. Besides, we can’t all be geniuses like you.”
She glanced at Denth. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Denth said, “that you shouldn’t let your hair change colors in public, Princess.”
Vivenna started, noticing that her hair had shifted from a still, calm black to the red of frustration. Lord of Colors! she thought. I used to be so good at controlling that. What is happening to me?
“Don’t worry,” Denth said, settling back. “Jewels has no interest in your friend. I promise you.”
Vivenna snorted. “Parlin? Why should I care?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Denth said. “Maybe because you and he have been practically engaged since you were children?”
“That’s completely untrue,” Vivenna said. “I’ve been engaged to the God King since before my birth!”
“And your father always wished you could marry the son of his best friend instead,” Denth said. “At least, that’s what Parlin says.” He eyed her with a smirk.
“That boy talks too much.”
“Actually, he’s usually rather quiet,” Denth said. “You have to pry to get him to talk about himself. Either way, Jewels has other ties. So stop your worrying.”
“I’m not worried,” Vivenna said. “And I’m not interested in Parlin.”
“Of course not.”
Vivenna opened her mouth to object, but she noticed Tonk Fah wandering over, and didn’t want him to join this discussion as well. She snapped her jaw shut as the hefty mercenary arrived.
“Flood,” Tonk Fah said.
“Hum?” Denth asked.
“Rhymes with blood,” Tonk Fah said. “Now you can be poetic. Flood of Blood. It is a nice visual image. Far better than tastebud.”
“Ah, I see,” Denth said flatly. “Tonk Fah?”
“Yes?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Thanks.”
Vivenna stood up and began to walk through the statues, studying them—if only to escape having to watch Parlin and Jewels. Tonk Fah and Denth trailed along behind at a comfortable distance, keeping a watchful eye.
There was a beauty to the statues. They weren’t like the other kinds of art in T’Telir—flashy paintings, colorful buildings, exaggerated clothing. The D’Denir were solid blocks which had aged with dignity. The Hallandrens, of course, did their best to destroy this with the scarves, hats, or other colorful bits they tied on the stone memorials. Fortunately, there were too many in this garden for all to be decorated.
They stood, as if on guard, somehow more solid than much of the city. Most stared up into the sky or looked straight ahead. Each one was different, each pose distinct, each face unique. It must have taken decades to create all of these, she thought. Perhaps that’s where the Hallandren got their penchant for art.
Hallandren was such a place of contradictions. Warriors to represent peace. Idrians who exploited and protected each other at the same time. Mercenaries who seemed to be among the best men she had ever known. Bright colors that created a kind of uniformity.
And, over it all, BioChromatic Breath. It was exploitive, yet people like Jewels saw giving up their Breath as a privilege. Contradictions. The question was, could Vivenna afford to become another contradiction? A person who bent her beliefs in order to see that they were preserved?
The Breaths were wonderful. It was more than just the beauty or the ability to hear changes in sound and sense intrinsically the distinct hues of color. It was more even than the ability to sense life around her. More than the sounds of the wind and the tones of people talking, or her ability to feel her way through a group of people and move easily with the motions of a crowd.
It was a connection. The world around her felt close. Even inanimate things like her clothing or fallen twigs felt near to her. They were dead, yet seemed to yearn for life again.
She could give it to them. They remembered life and she could Awaken those memories. But what good would it do to save her people if she lost herself?
Denth doesn’t seem lost, she thought. He and the other mercenaries can separate what they believe from what they are forced to do.
In her opinion, that was why people regarded mercenaries as they did. If you divorced belief from action, then you were on dangerous ground.
No, she thought. No Awakening for me.
The Breath would remain untapped. If it tempted her too much further, she would give the lot away to somebody who had none.
And become a Drab herself.
29
Tell me about the mountains, Susebron wrote.
Siri smiled. “Mountains?”
Please, he wrote, sitting in his chair beside the bed. Siri lay on one side; her bulky dress had been too hot for this evening, so she sat in her shift with a sheet over her, resting on one elbow so she could see what he wrote. The fire crackled.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “I mean, the mountains aren’t amazing like the wonders you have in T’Telir. You have so many colors, so much variety.”
I think that rocks sticking from the ground and rising thousands of feet into the air count as a wonder, he wrote.
