Warbreaker

Chapter 37

In the slums it could seem like night, even during the full light of day.

Vivenna wandered, aimless, stepping over soiled bits of colorful trash. She knew that she should find a place to hide and stay there. Yet she wasn’t really thinking straight anymore.

Parlin was dead. He’d been her friend since childhood. She’d convinced him to come with her on what now seemed the most idiotic of quests. His death was her fault.

Denth and his team had betrayed her. No. They had never worked for her. Now that she looked back, she could see the signs. How conveniently they’d found her in the restaurant. How they’d used her to get at Lemex’s Breath. How they’d manipulated her, letting her feel that she was in control. They’d just been playing along.

She’d been a prisoner and never known it.

The betrayal felt so much the worse for how she’d come to trust, even befriend, them. She should have seen the warnings. Tonk Fah’s joking brutality. Denth’s explanations that mercenaries had no allegiances. He’d pointed out that Jewels would work against her own gods. Compared with that, what was betraying a friend?

She stumbled down yet another alleyway, hand on the wall of a brick building beside her. Dirt and soot stained her fingers. Her hair was a bleached white. It still hadn’t recovered.

The attack in the slum had been frightening. Getting captured by Vasher had been terrifying. But seeing Parlin, tied to that chair, blood coming from his nose, his cheeks sliced open to reveal the inside of his mouth . . .

She would never forget. Something inside of her seemed broken. Her ability to care. She was just . . . numb.

She reached the end of the alleyway, then looked up dully. There was a wall in front of her. A dead end. She turned to go back.

“You,” a voice said.

Vivenna turned, surprised at the speed of her own reaction. Her mind remained shocked, but a carnal part of her was still awake. Capable of defensive instinct.

She stood in a narrow alley like those she had walked down all day. She’d kept to the slums, figuring that Denth would expect her to run for the open city. He knew it better than she did. In her addled mind, staying in the cluttered, quiet slum seemed a much better idea.

A man sat on a small stack of boxes behind her, legs swinging over the sides. He was short, dark-haired, and wore typical slum clothing—a mixture of garments going through various stages of wear.

“You’ve been causing quite a stir,” the man said.

She stood quietly.

“Woman wandering the slums in a beautiful white dress, eyes dark, hair white and ragged. If everyone hadn’t been so paranoid following the raid the other day, you’d have been seen to hours ago.”

The man seemed faintly familiar. “You’re Idrian,” she whispered. “You were there, in the crowd, when I visited the slumlords.”

He shrugged.

“That means you know who I am,” she said.

“I don’t know anything,” he said. “Particularly not things that could get me into trouble.”

“Please,” she said. “You have to help me.” She took a step forward.

He hopped off his boxes, a knife flashing in his hand. “Help you?” he asked. “I saw that look in your eyes when you came to the meeting. You look down on us. Just like the Hallandren.”

She shied back.

“A lot of people have seen you wandering about like a wraith,” he said. “But nobody seems to know exactly where to find you. There’s quite a search going in some parts.”