Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(128)

Denth raised an eyebrow. “You want to destroy them now, eh? No more simple sabotage and undermining?”

She shook her head. “I want this kingdom overthrown,” she whispered. “Just like the slumlords said. It can corrupt those poor people. It can corrupt even me. I hate it.”

“I—”

“No, Denth,” Vivenna said. Her hair bled to a deep red, and for once she didn’t care. “I really hate it. I’ve always hated this people. They took my childhood. I had to prepare. Become their queen. Get ready to marry their God King. Everyone said he was unholy and a heretic. Yet I was supposed to have sex with him!

“I hate this entire city, with its colors and its gods! I hate the fact that it stole away my life, then demanded that I leave behind all that I love! I hate the busy streets, the placating gardens, the commerce, and the suffocating weather.

“I hate their arrogance most of all. Thinking they could push my father around, force him into that treaty twenty years ago. They’ve controlled my life. Dominated it. Ruined it. And now they have my sister.”

She drew in a deep breath through gritted teeth.



“You’ll have your vengeance, Princess,” Denth whispered.

She looked at him. “I want them to hurt, Denth. The attack today wasn’t about subduing a rebellious element. The Hallandren sent those soldiers in to kill. Kill the poor that they created. We’re going to stop them from doing things like that. I don’t care what it takes. I’m tired of being pretty and nice and ignoring ostentation. I want to do something.”

Denth nodded slowly. “All right. We’ll change course, start making our attacks a little more painful.”

“Good,” she said. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling frustrated, wishing that she was strong enough to keep all of these emotions away. But she wasn’t. She’d kept them in too long. That was the problem.

“This was never about your sister, was it?” Denth asked. “Coming here?”

She shook her head, eyes still shut.

“Why, then?”

“I had trained all of my life,” she whispered. “I was the one who would sacrifice herself. When Siri left in my place, I became nothing. I had to come and get it back.”

“But you just said that you’ve always hated Hallandren,” he said, sounding confused.

“I have. And I do. That’s why I had to come.”

He was silent for a few moments. “Too complicated for a mercenary, I guess.”

She opened her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she understood, either. She’d always kept a firm grip on her hatred, only letting it manifest in disdain for Hallandren and its ways. She confronted the hatred now. Acknowledged it. Somehow, Hallandren could be loathsome yet enticing at the same time. It was as if . . . she knew that until she came and saw the place for herself, she wouldn’t have a real focus—a real understanding, a real image—of what it was that had destroyed her life.

Now she understood. If her Breaths would help, then she would use them. Just like Lemex. Just like those slumlords. She wasn’t above that. She never had been.

She doubted Denth would understand. Instead, Vivenna nodded toward Jewels. “What is she doing?”

Denth turned. “Attaching a new muscle,” he said. “One of the ones in his side got cut, sheared right through. Muscles won’t work right if you just sew them together. She has to replace the whole thing.”

“With screws?”

Denth nodded. “Right into the bone. It works all right. Not perfectly, but all right. No wound can ever be perfectly fixed on a Lifeless, though he will heal some. You just sew them up and pump them full of fresh ichor-alcohol. If you fix them enough times, the body will stop working right and you’ll have to spend another Breath to keep them going. By then, it’s usually just best to buy another body.”

Saved by a monster. Perhaps that was what made her so determined to use her Breath. She should be dead, but Clod had saved her. A Lifeless. She owed her life to something that should not exist. Even worse, if she looked deep within herself, she found herself feeling a traitorous pity for the thing. Even an affection. Considering that, she figured that she was already damned to the point where using her Breaths wouldn’t matter.

“He fought well,” she whispered. “Better than the Lifeless that the city guard was using.”

Denth glanced at Clod. “They’re not all equal. Most Lifeless, they’re just made out of whatever body happens to be around. If you pay good money, you can get one who was very skillful in life.”

She felt a chill, remembering then that moment of humanity she’d seen on Clod’s face as he defended her. If an undead monstrosity could be a hero, then a pious princess could blaspheme. Or was she still just trying to justify her actions?

“Skill,” she whispered. “They keep it?”

Denth nodded. “Some semblance of it, at least. Considering what we paid for this guy, he’d must have been quite the soldier. And that’s why it’s worth the money, time, and trouble to repair him, rather than buy a new Lifeless.”

They treat him just like a thing, Vivenna thought. Just as she should. And yet, more and more, she thought of Clod as a “he.” He had saved her life. Not Denth, not Tonk Fah. Clod. It seemed to her that they should show more respect for him.