Brandon Sanderson: Warbreaker

Despite the advent of spring, his chamber was cold. Warmth was a rare thing in the Idris highlands; it was coveted and enjoyed, for it lingered only briefly each summer. The chambers were also stark. There was a beauty in simplicity. Even a king had no right to display arrogance by ostentation.

Dedelin stood up, looking out his window and into the courtyard. The palace was small by the world’s standards—only a single story high, with a peaked wooden roof and squat stone walls. But it was large by Idris standards, and it bordered on flamboyant. This could be forgiven, for the palace was also a meeting hall and center of operations for his entire kingdom.

The king could see General Yarda out of the corner of his eye. The burly man stood waiting, his hands clasped behind his back, his thick beard tied in three places. He was the only other person in the room.

Dedelin glanced back at the letter. The paper was a bright pink, and the garish color stood out on his desk like a drop of blood in the snow. Pink was a color one would never see in Idris. In Hallandren, however—center of the world’s dye industry—such tasteless hues were commonplace.

“Well, old friend?” Dedelin asked. “Do you have any advice for me?”

General Yarda shook his head. “War is coming, Your Majesty. I feel it in the winds and read it in the reports of our spies. Hallandren still considers us rebels, and our passes to the north are too tempting. They will attack.”

“Then I shouldn’t send her,” Dedelin said, looking back out his window. The courtyard bustled with people in furs and cloaks coming to market.

“We can’t stop the war, Your Majesty,” Yarda said. “But . . . we can slow it.”

Dedelin turned back.

Yarda stepped forward, speaking softly. “This is not a good time. Our troops still haven’t recovered from those Vendis raids last fall, and with the fires in the granary this winter . . .” Yarda shook his head. “We cannot afford to get into a defensive war in the summer. Our best ally against the Hallandren are the snows. We can’t let this conflict occur on their terms. If we do, we are dead.”

The words all made sense.

“Your Majesty,” Yarda said, “they are waiting for us to break the treaty as an excuse to attack. If we move first, they will strike.”

“If we keep the treaty, they will still strike,” Dedelin said.

“But later. Perhaps months later. You know how slow Hallandren politics are. If we keep the treaty, there will be debates and arguments. If those last until the snows, then we will have gained the time we need so badly.”

It all made sense. Brutal, honest sense. All these years, Dedelin had stalled and watched as the Hallandren court grew more and more aggressive, more and more agitated. Every year, voices called for an assault on the “rebel Idrians” living up in the highlands. Every year, those voices grew louder and more plentiful. Every year, Dedelin’s placating and politics kept the armies away. He had hoped, perhaps, that the rebel leader Vahr and his Pahn Kahl dissidents would draw attention away from Idris, but Vahr had been captured, his so-called army dispersed. His actions had only served to make Hallandren more focused on its enemies.

The peace would not last. Not with Idris ripe, not with the trade routes worth so much. Not with the current crop of Hallandren gods, who seemed so much more erratic than their predecessors. He knew all of that. But he also knew that breaking the treaty would be foolish. When you were cast into the den of a beast, you did not provoke it to anger.

Yarda joined him beside the window, looking out, leaning one elbow against the side of the frame. He was a harsh man born of harsh winters. But he was also as good a man as Dedelin had ever known—a part of the king longed to marry Vivenna to the general’s own son.

That was foolishness. Dedelin had always known this day would come. He’d crafted the treaty himself, and it demanded he send his daughter to marry the God King. The Hallandren needed a daughter of the royal blood to reintroduce the traditional bloodline into their monarchy. It was something the depraved and vainglorious people of the lowlands had long coveted, and only that specific clause in the treaty had saved Idris these twenty years.

That treaty had been the first official act of Dedelin’s reign, negotiated furiously following his father’s assassination. Dedelin gritted his teeth. How quickly he’d bowed before the whims of his enemies. Yet he would do it again; an Idris monarch would do anything for his people. That was one big difference between Idris and Hallandren.

“If we send her, Yarda,” Dedelin said, “we send her to her death.”

“Maybe they won’t harm her,” Yarda finally said.

“You know better than that. The first thing they’ll do when war comes is use her against me. This is Hallandren. They invite Awakeners into their palaces, for Austre’s sake!”

Yarda fell silent. Finally, he shook his head. “Latest reports say their army has grown to include some forty thousand Lifeless.”

Lord God of Colors, Dedelin thought, glancing at the letter again. Its language was simple. Vivenna’s twenty-second birthday had come, and the terms of the treaty stipulated that Dedelin could wait no longer.

“Sending Vivenna is a poor plan, but it’s our only plan,” Yarda said. “With more time, I know I can bring the Tedradel to our cause—they’ve hated Hallandren since the Manywar. And perhaps I can find a way to rile Vahr’s broken rebel faction in Hallandren itself. At the very least, we can build, gather supplies, live another year.” Yarda turned to him. “If we don’t send the Hallandren their princess, the war will be seen as our fault. Who will support us? They will demand to know why we refused to follow the treaty our own king wrote!”

“And if we do send them Vivenna, it will introduce the royal blood into their monarchy, and that will have an even more legitimate claim on the highlands!”

“Perhaps,” Yarda said. “But if we both know they’re going to attack anyway, then what do we care about their claim? At least this way, perhaps they will wait until an heir is born before the assault comes.”

More time. The general always asked for more time. But what about when that time came at the cost of Dedelin’s own child?

Yarda wouldn’t hesitate to send one soldier to die if it would mean time enough to get the rest of his troops into better position to attack, Dedelin thought. We are Idris. How can I ask anything less of my daughter than I’d demand of one of my troops?

It was just that thinking of Vivenna in the God King’s arms, being forced to bear that creature’s child . . . it nearly made his hair bleach with concern. That child would become a stillborn monster who would become the next Returned god of the Hallandren.

There is another way, a part of his mind whispered. You don’t have to send Vivenna. . . .

A knock came at his door. Both he and Yarda turned, and Dedelin called for the visitor to enter. He should have been able to guess whom it would be.

Vivenna stood in a quiet grey dress, looking so young to him still. Yet she was the perfect image of an Idris woman—hair kept in a modest knot, no makeup to draw attention to the face. She was not timid or soft, like some noblewomen from the northern kingdoms. She was just composed. Composed, simple, hard, and capable. Idrian.

“You have been in here for several hours, Father,” Vivenna said, bowing her head respectfully to Yarda. “The servants speak of a colorful envelope carried by the general when he entered. I believe I know what it contained.”

Dedelin met her eyes, then waved for her to seat herself. She softly closed the door, then took one of the wooden chairs from the side of the room. Yarda remained standing, after the masculine fashion. Vivenna eyed the letter sitting on the desk. She was calm, her hair controlled and kept a respectful black. She was twice as devout as Dedelin, and—unlike her youngest sister—she never drew attention to herself with fits of emotion.