Their destination turned out to be a run-down building on the corner of a run-down intersection. As they approached, Vivenna paused to wonder exactly how slums like this one came to exist. Did people build them cramped and shoddy on purpose? Had these streets, like others she’d seen, once been part of a better section of town that had fallen into disrepair?

Vasher grabbed her arm as she stood there, then pulled her up to the door, upon which he pounded with the hilt of his sword. The door creaked open a second later, and a pair of nervous eyes glanced out.

“Get out of the way,” Vasher said, testily shoving the door open the rest of the way and pulling Vivenna inside. A young man stumbled back, pressing up against the wall of the hallway and letting Vasher and Vivenna pass. He closed the door behind them.

Vivenna felt as if she should be frightened, or at least angry, at the treatment. However, after what she had been through, it just didn’t seem like much. Vasher let go of her and thumped his way down a set of stairs. Vivenna followed more carefully, the dark stairwell reminding her of the cellar in Denth’s hideout. She shivered. At the bottom, fortunately, the similarities between cellars ended. This one had a wooden floor and walls. A rug sat in the middle of the room with a group of men sitting on it. A couple of them rose as Vasher rounded the stairs.

“Vasher!” one said. “Welcome. Do you want something to drink?”

“No.”

The men glanced uncomfortably at each other as Vasher tossed his sword toward the side of the room. It hit with a clank, skidding on the wood. Then he reached back and pulled Vivenna forward.

“Hair,” he said.

She hesitated. He was using her just as Denth had. But rather than make him angry, she obliged, changing the color of her hair. The men watched with awe; then several of them bowed their heads. “Princess,” one whispered.

“Tell them you don’t want them to go to war,” Vasher said.

“I don’t,” she said honestly. “I have never wanted my people to fight Hallandren. They would lose, almost certainly.”

The men turned to Vasher. “But she was working with the slumlords. Why did she change her mind?”

Vasher looked at her. “Well?”

Why did she change her mind? Had she changed her mind? It was all too quick.

“I . . .” she said. “I’m sorry. I . . . didn’t realize. I’ve never wanted war. I thought it was inevitable, and so I tried to plan for it. I might have been manipulated, though.”

Vasher nodded, then pushed her aside. He left her and joined the men as they sat back on the rug. Vivenna remained where she was. She wrapped her hands around herself, feeling the unfamiliar cloth of the tunic and coat.

These men are Idrians, she realized, listening to their accents. And now they’ve seen me, their princess, wearing a man’s clothing. How is it that I can still care about such things, considering everything else that is happening?

“All right,” Vasher said, squatting. “What are you doing to stop this?”

“Wait,” one of the men said. “You expect that to change our minds? A few words from the princess, and we’re supposed to believe everything you’ve been telling us?”

“If Hallandren goes to war, you’re dead,” Vasher snapped. “Can’t you see that? What do you think will happen to the Idrians in these slums? You think things are bad now, wait until you’re seen as enemy sympathizers.”

“We know that, Vasher,” another said. “But what do you expect us to do? Submit to Hallandren treatment of us? Cave in and worship their indolent gods?”

“I don’t really care what you do,” Vasher said, “as long as it doesn’t involve threatening the security of the Hallandren government.”

“Maybe we should just admit that war is coming and fight,” another said. “Maybe the slumlords are right. Maybe the best thing to do is hope that Idris wins.”

“They hate us,” another of them said, a man in his twenties with anger in his eyes. “They treat us worse than they do the statues in their streets! We’re less than Lifeless, to them.”

I know that anger, Vivenna realized. I felt it. Feel it still. Anger at Hallandren.

The man’s words rang hollow to her now. The truth was, she hadn’t really felt any ire from the Hallandren people. If anything, she’d felt indifference. She was just another body on the street to them.

Perhaps that’s why she hated them. She’d worked all of her life to become something important for them—in her mind, she’d been dominated by the monster that was Hallandren and its God King. And then, in the end, the city and its people had simply ignored her. She didn’t matter to them. And that was infuriating.

One of the Idrian men, an older man wearing a dark tan cap, shook his head in thought. “The people are restless, Vasher. Half the men talk of storming the Court of Gods in anger. The women store up food, waiting for the inevitable. Our youths go out in secret groups, searching the jungles for Kalad’s legendary army.”

“They believe that old myth?” Vasher asked.

The man shrugged. “It offers hope. A hidden army, powerful enough that it nearly ended the Manywar itself.”

“Believing myths isn’t what frightens me,” another man said. “It’s that our youths would even think of using Lifeless as soldiers. Kalad’s Phantoms. Bah!” He spat to the side.

“What it means is that we’re desperate,” one of the older men said. “The people are angry. We can’t stop the riots, Vasher. Not after that slaughter a few weeks back.”

Vasher pounded the floor with a fist. “That’s what they want! Can’t you fools see that you’re giving your enemies perfect scapegoats? Those Lifeless that attacked the slum weren’t given their orders by the government. Someone slipped a few broken Lifeless into the group with orders to kill so that things would turn ugly!”

What? Vivenna thought.

“The Hallandren theocracy is a top-heavy structure laden with bureaucratic foolishness and inertia,” Vasher said. “It never moves unless someone pushes it! If we have riots in the street, that will be just what the war faction needs.”

I could help him, Vivenna thought, watching the reactions of the Idrians. She knew them instinctively in a way Vasher obviously didn’t. He made good arguments, but he approached them in the wrong way. He needed credibility.

She could help. But should she?

Vivenna didn’t know what to think anymore. If Vasher was right, she’d been played like a puppet by Denth. She believed that was true, but how could she know that Vasher wasn’t doing the same thing?

Did she want war? No, of course she didn’t. Particularly not a war Idris would have a very hard time surviving, let alone winning. Vivenna had worked so hard to undermine Hallandren’s ability to wage war. Why hadn’t she ever considered trying to head it off?

I did, she realized. That was my original plan when I was back in Idris. I’d intended to talk the God King out of war when I became his bride.

She’d given up on that plan. No, she’d been manipulated into giving up on it. Either by her father’s sense of inevitability or by Denth’s subtlety—or by both—it didn’t really matter. Her initial instinct had been to prevent the conflict. That was the best way to protect Idris; and it was—she now realized—also the best way to protect Siri. She’d practically given up on saving her sister, focusing on her own hate and arrogance instead.

Stopping the war wouldn’t protect Siri from being abused by the God King. But it would probably keep her from being used as a pawn or a hostage. It could save her life.

That was enough for Vivenna.

“It’s too late,” one of the men said.

“No,” Vivenna said. “Please.”

The men in the circle paused, looking over at her. She walked back to the circle and then knelt before them. “Please do not say such things.”