Warbreaker (82 page)

Vivenna turned from the God King. “Our homeland is under attack.”

“I know,” Siri said. “We’re working on that. I’m preparing messengers to send to Father.”

“I have a better way,” Vivenna said. “But you’ll have to trust me.”

“Of course,” Siri said. “I have a friend who needs to speak with the God King,” Vivenna said. “Where he can’t be overheard by guards.”

Siri hesitated.
Silly
, she thought.
This is Vivenna. I can trust her.

She’d thought she could trust Bluefingers too. Vivenna regarded her with a curious expression.

“If this can help save Idris,” Susebron said, “then I will do it. Who is this person?”

~

Moments later, Vivenna stood quietly on the roof of the palace with the God King of Hallandren. Siri stood a short walk away, watching the Lifeless churn dust in the distance. All of them waited while the soldiers searched Vasher for weapons; he stood with arms upraised on the other side of the rooftop, surrounded by suspicious guards. He had wisely left Nightblood below and didn’t have any other weapons on him. He didn’t even have any Breath.

“Your sister is an amazing woman,” the God King said.

Vivenna glanced at him. This was the man she was to have married. The terrible creature that she was supposed to have given herself to. She’d never expected to end up like this, pleasantly chatting with him.

She’d also never expected that she’d like him.

It was a quick judgment. She’d gotten over chastising herself for making those, though she had learned to leave them open for revision. She saw kindness in his fondness for Siri. How had a man like this ended up as God King of terrible Hallandren?

“Yes,” she said. “She is.”

“I love her,” Susebron said. “I would have you know this.”

Slowly, Vivenna nodded, glancing over at Siri.
She’s changed so much
, Vivenna thought.
When did she become so regal, with that commanding bearing and ability to keep her hair black?
Her little sister, no longer quite as little, seemed to wear the expensive dress well. It fit her. Odd.

On the other end of the rooftop, the guards took Vasher behind a screen to change. They obviously wanted to be certain none of his clothing was Awakened. He left a few moments later, wearing a wrap around his waist, but nothing else. His chest was cut and bruised, and Vivenna thought it shameful that he should be forced to undergo such humiliation.

He suffered it, walking across the rooftop with an escort. As he did, Siri walked back, eyes watching him keenly. Vivenna had spoken with her sister briefly, but could already tell that Siri no longer took pride in being unimportant. Changed indeed.

Vasher arrived, and Susebron dismissed the guards. Behind him, the jungles extended to the north, toward Idris. Vasher glanced at Vivenna, and she thought he might tell her to go. However, he finally just turned away from her, looking resigned.

“Who are you?” Susebron asked.

“The one responsible for you getting your tongue cut out,” Vasher said.

Susebron raised an eyebrow.

Vasher closed his eyes. He didn’t speak, didn’t use his Breath or make a Command. Yet suddenly, he started to glow. Not as a lantern would glow, not as the sun glowed, but with an aura that made colors brighter. Vivenna started as Vasher increased in size. He opened his eyes and adjusted the wrap at his waist, making room for his growth. His chest became more firm, the muscles bulging, and the scruffy beard on his face retreated, leaving him clean-shaven.

His hair turned golden. He still bore the cuts on his body, but they seemed inconsequential. He seemed...divine. The God King watched with interest. He was now faced by a fellow god, a man of his own stature.

“I don’t care if you believe me or not,” Vasher said, his voice sounding more noble. “But I will have you know that I left something here, long ago. A wealth of power that I promised to one day recover. I gave instructions for its care, and a charge that it should not be used. The priests, apparently, took this to heart.”

Susebron, surprisingly, dropped to one knee. “My lord. Where have you been?”

“Paying for what I’ve done,” Vasher said. “Or trying to. That is unimportant. Stand.”

What is going on?
Vivenna thought. Siri looked equally confused, and the sisters shared a look.

Susebron stood, though he kept his posture reverent.

“You have a group of rogue Lifeless,” Vasher said. “You’ve lost control of them.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” the God King said.

Vasher regarded him. Then he glanced at Vivenna. She nodded her head. “I trust him.”

“It’s not about trust,” Vasher said, turning back to Susebron. “Either way, I am going to give you something.”

“What?”

“My army,” Vasher said.

Susebron frowned. “But, my lord. Our Lifeless just marched away, to attack Idris.”

“No,” Vasher said. “Not that army. I’m going to give you the one I left behind three hundred years ago. The people call them Kalad’s Phantoms. They are the force by which I made Hallandren stop its war.”

“Stop the Manywar, my lord?” Susebron said. “You did that by negotiation.”

Vasher snorted. “You don’t know much about war, do you?”

The God King paused, then shook his head. “No.”

“Well, learn,” Vasher said. “Because I charge you with command of my army. Use it to protect, not attack. Only use it in an emergency.”

The God King nodded dumbly.

Vasher glanced at him, then sighed. “My sin be hidden.”

“What?” Susebron asked.

“It’s a Command phrase,” Vasher said. “The one you can use to give new orders to the D’Denir statues I left in your city.”

“But my lord!” Susebron said. “Stone cannot be awakened.”

“The stone hasn’t been Awakened,” Vasher said. “There are human bones in those statues. They are Lifeless.”

Human bones. Vivenna felt a chill. He’d told her that bones were usually a bad choice to awaken because it was hard to keep them in the shape of a man during the Awakening process. But what if those bones were encased in stone? Stone that held its shape, stone that would protect them from harm, make them nearly impossible to hurt or break? Awakened objects could be so much stronger than human muscles. If a Lifeless could be created from bones, made strong enough to move a rock body around it...You’d have soldiers unlike any that had ever existed.

Colors!
she thought.

“There are some thousand original D’Denir in the city,” Vasher said, “and most of them should still function, even still. I created them to last.”

“But they have no ichor-alcohol,” Vivenna said. “They don’t even have veins!”

Vasher looked at her. It
was
him. The same look to the face, the same expressions. He hadn’t changed shape to look like someone else. He just looked like a
Returned
version of himself. What was going on?

“We didn’t always have ichor-alcohol,” Vasher said. “It makes the Awakening easier and cheaper, but it isn’t the only way. And, in the minds of many, I believe it has become a crutch.” He glanced at the God King again. “You should be able to imprint them quickly with a new security phrase, then order them out to stop the other army. I think you’ll find those phantoms of mine to be...very effective. Weapons are virtually useless against the stone.”

Susebron nodded again.

“They are your responsibility now,” Vasher said, turning away. “Do better with them than I did.”

Annotations for Chapter 58

Epilogue

Annotations for the Epilogue

The next day, an army of a thousand stone soldiers charged from the gates of the city, running down the highway after the Lifeless who had left the day before.

Vivenna stood outside the city, leaning against the wall, watching them go.

How often did I stand under the gaze of those D’Denir
, she thought.
Never knowing they were alive, just waiting to be Commanded again?
Everyone said that Peacegiver had left the statues behind as a gift to the people, a symbol to remind them not to go to war. She’d always found it strange. A bunch of statues of soldiers, a gift to remind the people that war was terrible?

And yet, they
were
a gift. The gift that had ended the Manywar.

She turned toward Vasher. He, too, leaned against the city wall, Nightblood in one hand. His body had reverted to its mortal form, scraggly hair and all.

“What was that first thing you taught me about Awakening?” she asked.

“That we don’t know much?” he asked. “That there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Commands that we haven’t discovered yet?”

“That’s the one,” she said, turning to watch the Awakened statues charge into the distance. “I think you were right.”

“You think?”

She smiled. “Will they really be able to stop the other army?”

“Probably,” Vasher said, shrugging. “They’ll be fast enough to catch up—the flesh Lifeless won’t be able to march as quickly as ones with stone feet. I’ve seen those things fight before. They’re
really
tough to beat.”

She nodded. “So my people will be safe.”

“Unless that God King decides to use the Lifeless statues to conquer them.”

She snorted. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a grump, Vasher?”

Finally
, Nightblood said.
Someone agrees with me!

Vasher scowled. “I’m not a grump,” he said. “I’m just bad with words.”

She smiled.

“Well, that’s it, then,” he said, picking up his pack. “See you around.” With that, he began to walk along the path away from the city.

Vivenna walked up next to him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Going with you,” she said.

“You’re a princess,” he said. “Stay with that girl who rules Hallandren or go back to Idris and be proclaimed as the heroine who saved them. Either way will give you a happy life.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. Even if my father
did
take me back, I doubt that I’ll ever be able to live a happy life in either a plush palace or a quiet town.”

“You’ll think differently, after a little time on the road. It’s a difficult life.”

“I know,” she said. “But...well, everything I’ve been—everything I was trained to do—has been a lie wrapped in hatred. I don’t want to go back to it. I’m not that person. I don’t want to be.”

“Who are you, then?”

“I don’t know,” she said, nodding toward the horizon. “But I think I’ll find the answer out there.”

They walked for another short time.

“Your family will worry about you,” Vasher finally said.

“They’ll get over it,” she replied.

Finally, he just shrugged. “All right. I don’t really care.”

She smiled.
It’s true
, she thought.
I don’t want to go back.
Princess Vivenna was dead. She’d died on the streets of T’Telir. Vivenna the Awakener had no desire to bring her back.

“So,” she asked as they walked along the jungle road, “I can’t figure it out. Which one are you? Kalad, who started the war, or Peacegiver, who ended it?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “It’s odd,” he finally said, “what history does to a man. I guess people couldn’t understand why I suddenly changed. Why I stopped fighting, and why I brought the Phantoms back to seize control of my own kingdom. So they decided I must have been two people. A man can get confused about his identity when things like that happen.”

She grunted in assent. “You’re still Returned, though.”

“Of course I am,” he said.

“Where did you get the Breath?” she asked. “The one a week you need to survive?”

“I carried them with me, on top of the one that makes me Returned. In a lot of ways, Returned aren’t quite what people think they are. They don’t automatically have hundreds or thousands of Breath.”

“But—”

“They’re of the fifth Heightening,” Vasher said, interrupting her. “But they don’t get there by the number of Breaths, but by the quality. Returned have a single, powerful Breath. One that takes them all the way to the fifth Heightening. It’s a divine Breath, you might say. But their body feeds on Breath, like...”

“The sword.”

Vasher nodded. “Nightblood only needs it when he’s drawn. Returned feed off their Breath once a week. So if you don’t give them one, they essentially eat themselves—devouring their one, single Breath. Killing them. However, if you give them extra Breath, on top of their single divine one, they’ll feed off those each week.”

“So the Hallandren gods could be fed more than one,” Vivenna said. “They could have a stock of Breaths, a buffer to keep them alive if one couldn’t be provided.”

Vasher nodded. “Wouldn’t make them as dependent on their religion to care for them, though.”

“That’s a cynical way of looking at it.”

He shrugged.

“So you’re going to burn up a Breath every week,” she said. “Reducing our stock?”

He nodded. “I used to have thousands of Breath. I ate all of those.”

“Thousands? But it would take you years and years to...” She trailed off. He’d been alive for over three hundred years. If he absorbed fifty Breaths a year, that
was
thousands of Breaths. “You’re an expensive guy to keep around,” she noted. “How do you keep yourself from looking like a Returned? And why don’t you die when you give away your Breaths?”

“Those are my secrets,” he said, not looking at her. “Though you should have figured out that Returned can change their forms.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve got Returned blood in you,” he said. “The royal line. Where do you think that ability to change your hair color comes from?”

“Does that mean I can change more than just my hair?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Takes time to learn. Go stroll around the Hallandren Court of Gods sometime, though. You’ll find that the gods look exactly as they think they should. The old ones look old, the heroic ones become strong, the ones who think a beautiful goddess should be well endowed become unnaturally voluptuous. It’s all about how they perceive themselves.”

And this is how you perceive yourself, Vasher?
she thought, curious.
As the scraggly man, rough and unkempt?