But ourselves, Vivenna finished in her mind. She was not privy to all of her father’s war planning, but she knew enough. War would not favor Idris. In a conflict with Hallandren, there was little chance they would win. It would be devastating for their people and their way of life.

“Father, I—”

“Please, Vivenna,” he said quietly. “I cannot speak of this further. Go now. We will converse later.”

Later. After Siri had traveled even farther away, after it would be much more difficult to bring her back. Yet Vivenna rose. She was obedient; it was the way she had been trained. That was one of the things that had always separated her from her sister.

She left her father’s study, closing the door behind her, then walked through the wooden palace hallways, pretending that she didn’t see the stares or hear the whispers. She made her way to her room—which was small and unadorned—and sat down on her bed, hands in her lap.

She didn’t agree at all with her father’s assessment. She could have done something. She was to have been the God King’s bride. That would have given her influence in the court. Everyone knew that the God King himself was distant when it came to the politics of his nation, but surely his wife could have played a role in defending the interests of her people.

And her father had thrown that away?

He really must believe that there is nothing that can be done to stop the invasion. That turned sending Siri into simply another political maneuver to buy time. Just as Idris had been doing for decades. Either way, if the sacrifice of a royal daughter to the Hallandren was that important, then it still should have been Vivenna’s place to go. It had always been her duty to prepare for marriage to the God King. Not Siri’s, not Fafen’s. Vivenna’s.

In being saved, she didn’t feel grateful. Nor did she feel that she would better serve Idris by staying in Bevalis. If her father died, Yarda would be far better suited to rule during war time than Vivenna. Besides, Ridger—Vivenna’s younger brother—had been groomed as heir for years.

She had been preserved for no reason. It seemed a punishment, in some ways. She’d listened, prepared, learned, and practiced. Everyone said that she was perfect. Why, then, wasn’t she good enough to serve as intended?

She had no good answer for herself. She could only sit and fret, hands in her lap, and face the awful truth. Her purpose in life had been stolen and given to another. She was redundant now. Useless.

Unimportant.

“WHAT WAS HE THINKING!” Siri snapped, hanging half out the window of her carriage as it bounced along the earthen road. A young soldier marched beside the vehicle, looking uncomfortable in the afternoon light.

“I mean really,” Siri said. “Sending me to marry the Hallandren king. That’s silly, isn’t it? Surely you’ve heard about the kinds of things I do. Wandering off when nobody’s looking. Ignoring my lessons. I throw angry fits, for Color’s sake!!”

The guard glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but otherwise gave no reaction. Siri didn’t really care. She wasn’t yelling at him so much as just yelling. She hung precariously from the window, feeling the wind play with her hair—long, red, straight—and stoking her anger. Fury kept her from weeping.

The green spring hills of the Idris Highlands had slowly faded away as the days had passed. In fact, they were probably in Hallandren already—the border between the two kingdoms was vague, which wasn’t surprising, considering that they’d been one nation up until the Manywar.

She eyed the poor guard—whose only way of dealing with a raving princess was ignoring her. Then she finally slumped back into the carriage. She shouldn’t have treated him so, but, well, she’d just been sold off like some hunk of mutton—doomed by a document that had been written years before she’d even been born. If anyone had a right to a tantrum, it was Siri.

Maybe that’s the reason for all of this, she thought, crossing her arms on the windowsill. Maybe Father was tired of my tantrums, and just wanted to get rid of me.

That seemed a little far-fetched. There were easier ways to deal with Siri—ways that didn’t include sending her to represent Idris in a foreign court. Why, then? Did he really think she’d do a good job? That gave her pause. Then she considered how ridiculous it was. Her father wouldn’t have assumed that she’d do a better job than Vivenna. Nobody did anything better than Vivenna.

Siri sighed, feeling her hair turn a pensive brown. At least the landscape was interesting, and in order to keep herself from feeling any more frustrated, she let it distract her for the moment. Hallandren was in the lowlands, a place of tropical forests and strange, colorful animals. Siri had heard the descriptions from ramblemen, and even confirmed their accounts in the occasional book she’d been forced to read. She’d thought she knew what to expect. Yet as the hills gave way to deep grasslands and then the trees finally began to crowd the road, Siri began to realize that there was something no tome or tale could adequately describe.

Colors.

In the highlands, flower patches were rare and unconnected, as if they understood how poorly they fit with Idris philosophy. Here, they appeared to be everywhere. Tiny flowers grew in great blanketing swaths on the ground. Large, drooping pink blossoms hung from trees, like bundles of grapes, flowers growing practically on top of one another in a large cluster. Even the weeds had flowers. Siri would have picked some of them, if not for the way that the soldiers regarded them with hostility.

If I feel this anxious, she realized, those guards must feel more so. She wasn’t the only one who had been sent away from family and friends. When would these men be allowed to return? Suddenly, she felt even more guilty for subjecting the young soldier to her outburst.

I’ll send them back when I arrive, she thought. Then she immediately felt her hair grow white. Sending the men back would leave her alone in a city filled with Lifeless, Awakeners, and pagans.

Yet what good would twenty soldiers do her? Better that someone, at least, be allowed to return home.

“ONE WOULD THINK that you would be happy,” Fafen said. “After all, you no longer have to marry a tyrant.”

Vivenna plopped a bruise-colored berry into her basket, then moved on to a different bush. Fafen worked on one nearby. She wore the white robes of a monk, her hair completely shorn. Fafen was the middle sister in almost every way—midway between Siri and Vivenna in height, less proper than Vivenna, yet hardly as careless as Siri. Fafen was a bit curvier than either of them, which had caught the eyes of several young men in the village. However, the fact that they would have to become monks themselves if they wanted to marry her kept them in check. If Fafen noticed how popular she was, she’d never shown it. She’d made the decision to become a monk before her tenth birthday, and her father had wholeheartedly approved. Every noble or rich family was traditionally obligated to provide one person to the monasteries. It was against the Five Visions to be selfish, even with one’s own blood.

The two sisters gathered berries that Fafen would later distribute to those in need. The monk’s fingers were dyed slightly purple by the work. Vivenna wore gloves. That much color on her hands would be unseemly.

“Yes,” Fafen said, “I do think you’re taking this all wrong. Why, you act as if you want to go down and be married to that Lifeless monster.”

“He’s not Lifeless,” Vivenna said. “Susebron is Returned, and there is a large difference.”

“Yes, but he’s a false god. Besides, everyone knows what a terrible creature he is.”