Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(109)

“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.



“I guess,” she said. “I liked it in Idris—I didn’t want to know anything else. For someone like you, though, it would probably be boring.”

More boring than sitting in the same palace every day, not allowed to leave, not allowed to speak, being dressed and pampered?

“Okay, you win.”

Tell me of them, please. His handwriting was getting very good. Plus, the more he wrote, the more he seemed to understand. She wished so much that she could find him books to read—she suspected that he’d absorb them quickly, becoming as learned as any of the scholars who had tried to tutor her.

And yet, all he had was Siri. He seemed to appreciate what she gave him—but that was probably only because he didn’t know just how ignorant she was. I suspect, she thought, that my tutors would laugh themselves silly if they knew how much I’d come to regret ignoring them.

“The mountains are vast,” she said. “You can’t really get a sense of it here, in the lowlands. It’s by seeing them that you know just how insignificant people really are. I mean, no matter how long we worked and built, we could never pile up anything as high as one of the mountains.

“They’re rocks, like you said, but they’re not lifeless. They’re green—as green as your jungles. But it’s a different green. I heard some of the traveling merchants complain that the mountains cut off their view, but I think you can see more. They let you see the surface of the land as it extends upward, toward Austre’s domain in the sky.”