“You already have my Command, Allmother,” he said with a shrug, walking toward a doorway to leave. “Do what you will with it.”

“Verdant bells,” Allmother said. “That’s mine.”

Lightsong froze in midstep.

“Now two of us know both of them,” Allmother said. “If what you said earlier was true, then it’s better that our Commands be distributed.”

He spun. “You were just calling me a fool! Now you entrust me with command of your soldiers? I must ask, Allmother, and please think me not rude. But what in the name of the Colors is wrong with you?”

“I dreamed that you would come,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I saw it in the pictures a week ago. All week, I’ve seen patterns of circles in the paintings, all red and gold. Your colors.”

“Coincidence,” he said.

She snorted quietly. “Someday, you’ll have to get over your foolish selfishness, Lightsong. This isn’t just about us. I’ve decided to start doing a better job of things. Perhaps you should take a look at who you are and what you are doing.”

“Ah, my dear Allmother,” Lightsong said. “You see, the problem in that challenge is the presumption that I haven’t tried to be something other than what I am. Every time I do, disaster is the result.”

“Well, you now have my Commands. For better, or for worse.” The aged goddess turned away, walking back toward her room of supplicants. “I, for one, am curious to see how you handle them.”

Vivenna awoke, sick, tired, thirsty, starving.

But alive.

She opened her eyes, feeling a strange sensation. Comfort. She was in a comfortable soft bed. She sat up immediately; her head spun.

“I’d be careful,” a voice said. “Your body is weak.”

She blinked fuzzy eyes, focusing on a figure sitting at a table a short distance away, his back to her. He appeared to be eating.

A black sword in a silver sheath rested against the table.

“You,” she whispered.

“Me,” he said between bites.

She looked down at herself. She wasn’t wearing her shift anymore, but instead had on a set of soft cotton sleeping garments. Her body was clean. She raised a hand to her hair, feeling that the tangles and mats were gone. It was still white.

She felt so strange to be clean.

“Did you rape me?” she asked quietly.

He snorted. “A woman who’s been to Denth’s bed holds no temptation for me.”

“I never slept with him,” she said, though she didn’t know why she cared to tell him.

Vasher turned, face still framed by the patchy, ragged beard. His clothing was far less fine than her own. He studied her eyes. “He had you fooled, didn’t he?”

She nodded.

“Idiot.”

She nodded again.

He turned back to his meal. “The woman who runs this building,” he said. “I paid her to bathe you, dress you, and change your bedpan. I never touched you.”

She frowned. “What . . . happened?”

“Do you remember the fight on the street?”

“With your sword?”

He nodded.

“Vaguely. You saved me.”

“I kept a tool out of Denth’s hands,” he said. “That’s all that really matters.”

“Thank you anyway.”

He was silent for a few moments. “You’re welcome,” he finally said.

“Why do I feel so ill?”

“Tramaria,” the man said. “It’s a disease you don’t have in the highlands. Insect bites spread it. You probably got it a few weeks before I found you. It stays with you, if you’re weak.”

She put a hand to her head.

“You probably had a pretty bad time lately,” Vasher noted. “What with the dizziness, the dementia, and the hunger.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You deserved it.” He continued to eat.

She didn’t move for a long moment. His food smelled so good, but she’d apparently been fed during the fevers, for she wasn’t as famished as she might have expected. Just mildly hungry. “How long was I unconscious?” she asked.

“A week,” he said. “You should sleep some more.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

He didn’t reply. “The BioChromatic Breaths you had,” he said. “You gave them to Denth?”

She paused, thinking. “Yes.”

He glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” she admitted, looking away. “I put them in the shawl I was wearing.”

He stood, leaving the room. She considered running. Instead, she got out of the bed and began to eat his food—a fish, whole and fried. Seafood didn’t bother her anymore.

He returned, then stopped in the doorway, watching her ravage the fish bones. He didn’t force her out of the seat; he simply took the other chair at the table. Finally, he held up the shawl, washed and clean.

“This?” he asked.

She froze, a bit of fish on her cheek.

He set the shawl on the table beside her.

“You’re giving it back to me?” she asked.

He shrugged. “If there really is Breath stored in it, I can’t get to it. Only you can.”

She picked it up. “I don’t know the Command.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You escaped those ropes of mine without Awakening them?”

She shook her head. “I guessed that one.”

“I should have gagged you better. What do you mean you ‘guessed’ it?”

“It was the first time I’d ever used Breath.”

“That’s right, you’re of the royal line.”

“What does that mean?”

He just shook his head, pointing toward the shawl. “Your Breath to mine,” he said. “That’s the Command you want.”

She laid her hand on the shawl and said the words. Immediately, everything changed.

Her dizziness went away. Her deadness to the world vanished. She gasped, shaking with the pleasure of Breath restored. It was so strong that she actually fell from the chair, quivering like a person having a fit with the wonder of it. It was amazing. She could sense life. Could sense Vasher making a pocket of color around him that was bright and beautiful. She was alive again.

She basked in that for a long moment.

“It’s shocking, when you first get it,” Vasher said. “It’s usually not too bad if you take the Breath back after only an hour or so. Wait weeks, or even a few days, and it’s like taking it in for the first time.”

Smiling, feeling amazing, she climbed back into the seat and wiped the fish from her face. “My sickness is gone!”

“Of course,” he said. “You’ve got enough Breath for at least the Third Heightening, if I’m reading you right. You’ll never know sickness. You’ll barely even age. Assuming you manage to hang on to the Breath, of course.”

She looked up at him in a panic.

“No,” he said. “I’m not going to force you to give it to me. Though I probably should. You’re far more trouble than you’re worth, Princess.”

She turned back to the food, feeling more confident. It seemed now as if the last few weeks had been a nightmare. A bubble, surreal, disconnected from her life. Had it really been she who had sat on the street, begging? Had she really slept in the rain, lived in the mud? Had she really considered turning to prostitution?

She had. She couldn’t forget that just because she now had Breath again. But had becoming a Drab had a hand in her actions? Had the sickness had a part in it too? Either way, the greatest part had been simple desperation.

“All right,” he said, standing, picking up the black sword. “Time to go.”

“Go where?” she asked, suspicious. The last time she had met this man, he’d bound her, forced her to touch that sword of his, and left her gagged.

He ignored her concern, tossing a pile of clothing onto the table. “Put this on.”

She picked through it. Thick trousers, a tunic that tucked into them, a vest to go over the tunic. All of various shades of blue. There were undergarments of a less bright color.

“That’s a man’s clothing,” she said.

“It’s utilitarian,” Vasher said, walking toward the doorway. “I’m not going to waste money buying you fancy dresses, Princess. You’ll just have to get used to those.”