Warbreaker (Warbreaker #1)(8)

“No,” Dedelin said.

Yarda and Vivenna both turned.

“Father,” Vivenna said. “If we break this treaty, it will mean war. I am prepared to sacrifice for our people. You taught me that.”

“You will not go,” Dedelin said firmly, turning back toward the window. Outside, Siri was laughing with one of the stablemen. Dedelin could hear her outburst even from a distance; her hair had turned a flame-colored red.

Lord God of Colors, forgive me, he thought. What a terrible choice for a father to make. The treaty is specific: I must send the Hallandren my daughter when Vivenna reaches her twenty-second birthday. But it doesn’t actually say which daughter I am required to send.

If he didn’t send Hallandren one of his daughters, they would attack immediately. If he sent the wrong one, they might be angered, but he knew they wouldn’t attack. They would wait until they had an heir. That would gain Idris at least nine months.

And . . . he thought, If they were to try to use Vivenna against me, I know that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from giving in. It was shameful to admit that fact, but in the end, it was what made the decision for him.

Dedelin turned back toward the room. “Vivenna, you will not go to wed the tyrant god of our enemies. I’m sending Siri in your place.”

2

Siri sat, stunned, in a rattling carriage, her homeland growing more and more distant with each bump and shake.

Two days had passed, and she still didn’t understand. This was supposed to be Vivenna’s task. Everybody understood that. Idris had thrown a celebration on the day of Vivenna’s birth. The king had started her classes from the day she could walk, training her in the ways of court life and politics. Fafen, the second daughter, had also taken the lessons in case Vivenna died before the day of the wedding. But not Siri. She’d been redundant. Unimportant.

No more.

She glanced out the window. Her father had sent the kingdom’s nicest carriage—along with an honor guard of twenty soldiers—to bear her southward. That, combined with a steward and several serving boys, made for a procession as grand as Siri had ever seen. It bordered on ostentation, which might have thrilled her, had it not been bearing her away from Idris.

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, she thought. This isn’t the way any of it is supposed to happen!

And yet it had.

Nothing made sense. The carriage bumped, but she just sat, numb. At the very least, she thought, they could have let me ride horse back, rather than forcing me to sit in this carriage. But that, unfortunately, wouldn’t have been an appropriate way to enter Hallandren.

Hallandren.

She felt her hair bleach white with fear. She was being sent to Hallandren, a kingdom her people cursed with every second breath. She wouldn’t see her father again for a long while, if ever. She wouldn’t speak with Vivenna, or listen to the tutors, or be chided by Mab, or ride the royal horses, or go looking for flowers in the wilderness, or work in the kitchens. She’d . . .

Marry the God King. The terror of Hallandren, the monster that had never drawn a living breath. In Hallandren, his power was absolute. He could order an execution on a whim.

I’ll be safe, though, won’t I? she thought. I’ll be his wife.

Wife. I’m getting married.

Oh Austre, God of Colors . . . she thought, feeling sick. She curled up with her legs against her chest—her hair growing so white that it seemed to shine—and lay down on the seat of the carriage, not sure if the shaking she felt was her own trembling or the carriage continuing its inexorable path southward.
* * *

“I THINK that you should reconsider your decision, Father,” Vivenna said calmly, sitting decorously—as she’d been trained—with hands in her lap.

“I’ve considered and reconsidered, Vivenna,” King Dedelin said, waving his hand. “My mind is made up.”

“Siri is not suited to this task.”

“She’ll do fine,” her father said, looking through some papers on his desk. “All she really needs to do is have a baby. I’m certain she’s ‘suited’ to that task.”

What then of my training? Vivenna thought. Twenty-two years of preparation? What was that, if the only point in being sent was to provide a convenient womb?

She kept her hair black, her voice solemn, her face calm. “Siri must be distraught,” she said. “I don’t think she’s emotionally capable of dealing with this.”

Her father looked up, his hair fading a bit red—the black bleeding away like paint running off a canvas. It showed his annoyance.

He’s more upset by her departure than he’s willing to admit.

“This is for the best for our people, Vivenna,” he said, working—with obvious effort—to turn his hair black again. “If war comes, Idris will need you here.”

“If war comes, what of Siri?”

Her father fell silent. “Perhaps it won’t come,” he finally said.

Austre . . . Vivenna thought with shock. He doesn’t believe that. He thinks he’s sent her to her death.

“I know what you are thinking,” her father said, drawing her attention back to his eyes. So solemn. “How could I choose one over the other? How could I send Siri to die and leave you here to live? I didn’t do it based on personal preference, no matter what people may think. I did what will be best for Idris when this war comes.”