Denth released her mouth and slapped Tonk Fah on the back of the head.
“Hey,” Tonk Fah said, rubbing his head.
“Pay attention,” Denth said. Then he glanced at Vivenna, holding her arm tightly.
Blood seeped between his fingers from her wounded wrist. Denth froze, obviously seeing her bloodied wrists for the first time; the dark cellar had obscured them. He looked up, meeting her eyes. “Aw, hell,” he cursed. “You didn’t run from us, did you?”
“Huh?” Tonk Fah asked.
Vivenna was numb.
“What happened?” Denth asked. “Was it him?”
She didn’t respond.
Denth grimaced, then twisted her arm, causing her to yelp. “All right. It looks like my hand has been forced. Let’s deal with that Breath of yours first, and then we can have a chat—nicely, like friends—about what has happened to you.”
Clod stepped up beside Denth, grey eyes staring forward, empty as always. Except . . . could she see something in them? Was she imagining it? Her emotions were so strained lately that she really couldn’t trust her perceptions. Clod seemed to meet her eyes.
“Now,” Denth said, face growing harder. “Repeat after me. My Life to yours. My Breath become yours.”
Vivenna looked up at him, meeting his eyes. “Howl of the sun,” she whispered.
Denth frowned. “What?”
“Attack Denth. Howl of the sun.”
“I—” Denth began. At that moment, Clod’s fist hit his face.
The blow threw Denth to the side and into Tonk Fah, who cursed and stumbled. Vivenna wrenched free, ducking past Clod—nearly tripping on her dress—and threw her shoulder into the surprised Jewels.
Jewels fell. Vivenna scrambled up the stairs.
“You let her hear the security phrase?” Denth bellowed, sounds of struggle coming from where he was wrestling with Clod.
Jewels gained her feet and followed Vivenna. The woman’s foot broke through a step, however. Vivenna stumbled into the room above, then threw the door shut. She reached over, turning the latch.
Won’t hold them for long, she thought, feeling helpless. They’ll keep coming. Chasing me. Just like Vasher. God of Colors. What am I going to do?
She rushed out onto the street, now lit by the dawn light filling into the city, and ducked down an alleyway. Then she just kept running—this time trying to pick the smallest, dirtiest, darkest alleyways she could.
36
I will not leave you, Susebron wrote, sitting on the floor beside the bed, his back propped up by pillows. I promise.
“How can you be sure?” Siri asked from her place on the bed. “Maybe once you have an heir, you’ll grow tired of life, then give away your Breath.”
First of all, he wrote, I’m still not even sure how I would get an heir. You refuse to explain it to me, nor will you answer my questions.
“They’re embarrassing!” Siri said, feeling her short hair grow red. She turned it back to yellow in an instant.
Secondly, he wrote, I cannot give away my Breath, not if what I understand about BioChroma is true. Do you think I’ve been lied to about how Breath works?
He’s getting much more articulate in his writing, Siri thought as she watched him erase. It’s such a shame that he’s been locked up his entire life.
“I really don’t know that much about it,” she said. “BioChroma isn’t exactly something we focus on in Idris. I suspect that half of the things I know are rumors and exaggerations. For instance, back in Idris, they think you sacrifice people on altars in the court here—I heard that a dozen times from different people.”
He paused, then continued writing. Regardless, we argue something that is absurd. I will not change. I am not going to suddenly decide to kill myself. You do not need to worry.
She sighed.
Siri, he wrote, I lived for fifty years with no information, no knowledge, barely able to communicate. Can you really think that I would kill myself now? Now, when I’ve discovered how to write? When I’ve discovered someone to talk to? When I’ve discovered you?
She smiled. “All right. I believe you. But I still think we have to worry about your priests.”
He didn’t respond, looking away.
Why is he so cursedly loyal to them? she thought.
Finally, he looked back at her. Would you grow your hair?
She raised an eyebrow. “And what color am I to make it?”
Red, he wrote.
“You Hallandren and your bright colors,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you realize that my people considered red the most flagrant of all colors?”
He paused. I’m sorry, he wrote. I did not mean to offend you. I—
He broke off as she reached down and touched his arm. “No,” she said. “Look, I wasn’t arguing. I was just being flirtatious. I’m sorry.”
Flirtatious? he wrote. My storybook doesn’t use this term.
“I know,” Siri said. “That book is too full of stories about children getting eaten by trees and things.”
The stories are metaphors meant to teach—
“Yes, I know,” she said, interrupting him again.
So, what is flirtatious?
“It’s . . .” Colors! How do I get myself into these situations? “It’s when a girl acts hesitant—or sometimes silly—in order to make a man pay more attention to her.”
Why would that make a man pay attention to her?
“Well, like this.” She looked at him, leaning forward a bit. “Do you want me to grow my hair?”
Yes.
“Do you really want me to?”
Of course.
“Well then, if I must,” she said, tossing her head and commanding her hair become a deep auburn red. It flushed midtoss, flaring from yellow to red like ink bleeding into a pool of clear water. Then she made it grow. The ability was more instinctive than conscious—like flexing a muscle. In this case, it was a “muscle” she’d been using a lot lately, since she tended to cut her hair off in the evenings rather than spending the time combing it.
Even as the hair whipped past her face, it grew in length. She tossed her head, one final time—the hair making it feel more heavy, her neck warm from the locks that now tumbled down around her shoulders and down her back, twisting in loose curls.
Susebron looked at her with wide eyes. She met them, then tried a seductive glance. The result seemed so ridiculous to her, however, that she just found herself laughing. She fell back on the bed, newly grown hair flaring around her.
Susebron tapped her leg. She looked over at him, and he stood up, sitting on the side of the bed so that she could see his tablet as he wrote.
You are very strange, he said.
She smiled. “I know. I’m not meant to be a seductress. I can’t keep a straight face.”
Seductress, he wrote. I know that word. It is used in a story when the evil queen tries to tempt the young prince with something, though I don’t know what.
She smiled.
I think she must have been planning to offer him food.
“Yeah,” Siri said. “Good interpretation, there, Seb. Completely right.”
He hesitated. She wasn’t offering food, was she?
Siri smiled again.
He flushed. I feel like such an idiot. There is so much that everyone else understands intrinsically. Yet I have only the stories of a children’s book to guide me. I’ve read them so often that it’s hard to separate myself—and the way I view them—from the child I was when I first read them.
He began to erase furiously. She sat up then laid a hand on his arm.
I know that there are things I’m missing, he wrote. Things that embarrass you, and I have guesses. I am not a fool. And yet, I get frustrated. With your flirtation and sarcasm—both behaviors where you apparently act opposite to what you want—I fear that I will never understand you.
He stared with frustration at his board, wiping cloth held in one hand, charcoal in the other. The fire cracked quietly in the fireplace, throwing waves of overbright yellow against his clean-shaven face.
“I’m sorry,” she said, scooting closer to him. She wrapped her arms around his elbow, laying her head against his upper arm. He actually didn’t seem that much bigger than she, now that she was used to it. There had been men back in Idris who had stood as much as six and a half feet tall, and Susebron was only a few inches taller than that. Plus, because his body was so perfectly proportioned, he didn’t seem spindly or unnatural. He was normal, just bigger.
He glanced at her as she rested her head on his arm and closed her eyes. “I think you are doing better than you think. Most people back in my homeland didn’t understand me half as well as you do.”
He began to write, and she opened her eyes.
I find that hard to believe.
“It’s true,” she said. “They kept telling me to become someone else.”
Who?
“My sister,” she said with a sigh. “The woman you were supposed to marry. She was everything the daughter of a king should be. Controlled, soft-spoken, obedient, learned.”
She sounds boring, he wrote, smiling.
“Vivenna is a wonderful person,” Siri said. “She was always very kind to me. It’s just that . . . well, I think even she felt that I should have been more reserved.”
I can’t understand that, he wrote. You’re wonderful. So full of life and excitement. The priests and servants of the palace, they wear colors, but there’s no color inside of them. They just go about their duties, eyes down, solemn. You’ve got color on the inside, so much of it that it bursts out and colors everything around you.
She smiled. “That sounds like BioChroma.”
You are more honest than BioChroma, he wrote. My Breath, it makes things more bright, but it isn’t mine. It was given to me. Yours is your own.
She felt her hair shift from the deep red into a golden tone, and she sighed softly with contentment, pulling herself a little closer to him.
How do you do that? he wrote.
“Do what?”
Change your hair.
“That one was unconscious,” she said. “It goes blond if I feel happy or content.”
You’re happy, then? he wrote. With me?
“Of course.”
But when you speak of the mountains, there is such longing in your voice.
“I miss them,” she said. “But if I left here, I’d miss you too. Sometimes, you can’t have everything you want, since the wants contradict each other.”
They fell silent for a time, and he set aside his board, hesitantly wrapping his arm around her and leaning back against the headboard. A blushful tinge of red crept into her hair as she realized that they were still sitting on the bed, and she was snuggling up beside him wearing only her shift.
But, well, she thought, we are married, after all.
The only thing that spoiled the moment was the occasional rumbling of her stomach. After a few minutes, Susebron reached for his board.
You are hungry? he wrote.
“No,” she said. “My stomach is an anarchist; it likes to growl when it’s full.”
He paused. Sarcasm?
“A poor attempt,” she said. “It’s all right—I’ll survive.”