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have let me ride horseback, rather than forcing me to sit in this carriage.
But that, unfortunately, wouldn’t have been an appropriate way to enter Hallandren.
    Hallandren.
    She felt her hair bleach white with fear. She was being sent to
Hallandren
, a kingdom her people cursed with every second breath. She wouldn’t see her father again for a long while, if ever. She wouldn’t speak with Vivenna, or listen to the tutors, or be chided by Mab, or ride the royal horses, or go looking for flowers in the wilderness, or work in the kitchens. She’d...
    Marry the God King. The terror of Hallandren, the monster that had never drawn a living breath. In Hallandren, his power was absolute. He could order an execution on a whim.
    I’ll be safe, though, won’t I?
she thought.
I’ll be his wife. Wife. I’m getting married. Oh Austre, God of Colors...
she thought, feeling sick. She curled up with her legs against her chest—her hair growing so white that it seemed to shine—and lay down on the seat of the carriage, not sure if the shaking she felt was her own trembling or the carriage continuing its inexorable path southward.
    ~
    “I think that you should reconsider your decision, Father,” Vivenna said calmly, sitting decorously—as she’d been trained—with hands in her lap.
    “I’ve considered and reconsidered, Vivenna,” King Dedelin said, waving his hand. “My mind is made up.”
    “Siri is not suited to this task.”
    “She’ll do fine,” her father said, looking through some papers on his desk. “All she really needs to do is have a baby. I’m certain she’s ‘suited’ to that task.”
    What then of my training?
Vivenna thought.
Twenty-two years of preparation? What was that, if the only point in being sent was to provide a convenient womb?
    She kept her hair black, her voice solemn, her face calm. “Siri must be distraught,” she said. “I don’t think she’s emotionally capable of dealing with this.”
    Her father looked up, his hair fading a bit red—the black bleeding away like paint running off a canvas. It showed his annoyance.
    He’s more upset by her departure than he’s willing to admit.
    “This is for the best for our people, Vivenna,” he said, working—with obvious effort—to turn his hair black again. “If war comes, Idris will need you here.”
    “If war comes, what of Siri?”
    Her father fell silent. “Perhaps it won’t come,” he finally said.
    Austre...
Vivenna thought with shock.
He doesn’t believe that. He thinks he’s sent her to her death.
    “I know what you are thinking,” her father said, drawing her attention back to his eyes. So solemn. “How could I choose one over the other? How could I send Siri to die and leave you here to live? I didn’t do it based on personal preference, no matter what people may think. I did what will be best for Idris when this war comes.”
    When
this war comes. Vivenna looked up, meeting his eyes. “I was going to stop the war, Father. I was to be the God King’s bride! I was going to speak with him, persuade him. I’ve been trained with the political knowledge, the understanding of customs, the—”
    “Stop the war?” her father asked, cutting in. Only then did Vivenna realize how brash she must have sounded. She looked away.
    “Vivenna, child,” her father said. “There is no stopping this war. Only the promise of a daughter of the royal line kept them away this long, and sending Siri may buy us time. And...perhaps I’ve sent her to safety, even when war flares. Perhaps they will value her bloodline to the point that they leave her alive—a backup should the heir she bears pass away.” He grew distant. “Yes,” he continued, “perhaps it is not Siri we should be fearing for, but...”
    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