Vivenna
King Dedelin's eldest daughter, twenty-two and the picture of Idrian composure: hair held in a modest knot, no makeup, Royal Locks disciplined to a respectful black. By the treaty her father signed, her twenty-second birthday makes her the daughter promised in marriage to the God King of Hallandren — and she has spent her entire life preparing for the role. STD:WB:Ch 1
Known facts
- trained-from-birthHas been trained from the day she could walk for the role the treaty assigned her — court politics, custom, and composure for the marriage to the God King of Hallandren she has always known would come.STD:WB:Ch 1
- decides-to-follow-siriBerry-picking with Fafen, begins to assemble her own plan to leave Bevalis for Hallandren in spite of her father — Siri needs someone trained in lowland court life, and Vivenna is the only person who has been prepared for it.STD:WB:Ch 2
- travels-to-ttelir-to-rescue-siriSlips out of Idris under cover of an "expedition to gather highland roots" — emergency-kit supplies, Parlin and a few of his woodsman friends as escort — and rides south to T'Telir without telling her father, intending to rescue Siri before war breaks. She leaves Dedelin a letter explaining herself and a warning: if she sees Idrian troops searching for her, she will walk into the Court of Gods and offer to trade herself for her sister.STD:WB:Ch 9
- forced-awakenerReceived Lemex's entire hoard of BioChromatic Breaths in a deathbed Command she could not refuse, becoming, against her Austrinist conscience, a high-Heightening Awakener.STD:WB:Ch 10
- third-heighteningNow holds roughly five hundred Breaths — enough to reach the Third Heightening and the perfect colour perception it grants — and casts a faint halo of enhanced colour around herself wherever she walks.STD:WB:Ch 13
- takes-up-lemex-workDecides, after reading her father's candid letters, to continue Lemex's sabotage of the Hallandren war effort: rescuing Siri is the first priority, but she will also undermine Hallandren's ability to march on Idris. She hires Denth's mercenaries to do the work.STD:WB:Ch 17
- refuses-awakeningTells Denth that she will tolerate Lifeless in the work — for now — but will not become an Awakener herself. She intends to carry the Breaths she now holds to her grave so no one else can use them.STD:WB:Ch 19
- agrees-to-meet-idriansOver Denth's objection, promises Thame she will meet the city's Idrian expatriates — a class of stranded countrymen too poor to pay their way home, working the lowest jobs in T'Telir — and asks him to gather them. Her first deliberate move toward helping her own people rather than merely sabotaging Hallandren.STD:WB:Ch 22
- refuses-to-awakenIn the D'Denir Garden she decides she will not Awaken anything with the Breath she now carries — to do so would be to divorce belief from action the way she thinks mercenaries do, and if the temptation grows worse she resolves to give the lot away and become a Drab herself.STD:WB:Ch 28
- failed-first-awakening-attemptCornered by three Lifeless in a Highlands alleyway, she tried to Awaken a length of rope with her stripped skirt as the colour source. She knew the mechanics from her childhood tutors but the Command did not take — the rope did nothing, and only Clod's arrival saved her. It was the first time she had attempted Awakening at all, having sworn for weeks she never would.STD:WB:Ch 31
- chose-to-learn-awakeningHours after the Highlands raid, sitting on the safehouse floor with her arms around her knees, Vivenna asked Denth to teach her Awakening. The conviction that her religion would let her die before she used her Breaths had collapsed in the alleyway; she decided that if she was already damned she might as well be armed. It reversed her resolve only days earlier to give her Breaths away and become a Drab.STD:WB:Ch 33
- came-to-hallandren-for-herselfPressed by Denth on why she had really come to T'Telir, Vivenna admitted — first to him, then to herself — that it was not to rescue Siri. She had been trained from childhood to sacrifice herself for Idris; when Siri was sent in her place she became nothing, and she had come south to take back her own importance.STD:WB:Ch 33
- first-awakeningBound to a doorknob in Vasher's slum room, Vivenna performs her first Awakening — Commanding the rope around her wrists to *untie* — and escapes. She carries the spent rope out with her, hoping its Breath can be recovered.STD:WB:Ch 35
- invested-breath-into-shawl-became-drabTo hide herself from any Awakener with the First Heightening, Vivenna invests all of her stored Breath into a stinking rag-shawl pulled from a refuse pile — *my life to yours, my Breath become yours* — rendering herself a Drab and the city's BioChromatic life around her into stillness. She does not know how to draw the Breath back out and goes on nonetheless, carrying the shawl with her everywhere.STD:WB:Ch 37
- sold-her-hair-during-week-on-streetsOn her second day living rough, Vivenna sells her locks for a depressingly small sum, all of which goes to food that does not fill her stomach. Without spare Breath to draw on, she does not have the strength to regrow them; her remaining hair stays ragged, matted, dirt-blackened, and would still be bleached white underneath were it not for the soot.STD:WB:Ch 39
- third-heightening-no-sickness-slow-agingVasher tells Vivenna her recovered Breath puts her at the Third Heightening at least, which is why the fever vanished the instant she drew the Breath back: at this level she will not know sickness and will barely age, so long as she keeps the Breath.STD:WB:Ch 43
- switches-from-war-effort-to-stopping-warConfronted with what she has actually been doing in T'Telir, Vivenna abandons the war effort she inherited from her father and commits to stopping the war instead. She kneels to a circle of Idrian community men in a cellar, tells them she has been used, and asks them to calm the slum rather than let it rise; from this moment on she works alongside Vasher rather than against him.STD:WB:Ch 43
- receives-dueling-blade-from-vasherVasher tosses Vivenna a cloth-wrapped, well-polished dueling blade and tells her to learn to use it, on the grounds that an armed companion is less work for him to drag out of trouble. She has never held one before; she keeps the sword.STD:WB:Ch 45
- saved-misel-from-denthBy recognising the staged carriage attack she had once helped distract for, Vivenna gives Vasher the thread that leads to Misel's rescue. Vasher tells her plainly that she saved the girl's life — without her, the child would not have been found.STD:WB:Ch 48
- leaves-with-vasherWalks away from T'Telir with Vasher, refusing both the Hallandren palace and a homecoming as the heroine who saved Idris. *Princess Vivenna died on the streets of T'Telir.* She has no idea who she is now; she will find out on the road. She and he split the remaining Breaths from his recovered clothes to the Second Heightening each.STD:WB:Epilogue
Events
- STD:WB:Ch 1 Walks in to her father's study composed and prepared, knowing what the pink envelope means, and announces she is ready to leave — only to be overruled.
- STD:WB:Ch 29 Marked from above as the *clueless princess* whose interference is collapsing Vasher's plans; he very nearly lets Nightblood take her and decides to wait.
- STD:WB:Ch 58 Refuses to let Vasher give up; gets the sword to spill the existence of the army he left behind; asks him plainly to give Hallandren a tool worse than what they have now, for her people.
- STD:WB:Ch 58 Steps onto the palace roof in trousers and a tunic, sword at the hip, wounded shoulder, hair yellow with joy at the sight of Siri; asks the God King to trust her and speak with a friend in private.
Backreferences
- summarySA:OB:Ch 92
- factNightblood
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 1
- factSisirinah
- factSisirinah
- factDedelin
- factYarda
- factFafen
- factRidger
- factRoyal Locks
- factRoyal Locks
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 2
- factVivenna
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 4
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 7
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 9
- factParlin
- factLemex
- factDenth
- factTonk Fah
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 10
- factLemex
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 11
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 13
- factDenth
- factJewels
- factThe Five Visions
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 14
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 15
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 16
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 17
- factDedelin
- factDedelin
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 18
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 19
- factJewels
- factVasher
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 22
- factDenth
- factJewels
- factGrable
- factThame
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 25
- factDenth
- factDenth
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 28
- factD'Denir Garden
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 29
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 31
- factClod
- factThe Highlands
- factRira
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 33
- factAwakening
- factVivenna
- factVivenna
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 34
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 35
- factVasher
- factVivenna
- factParlin
- factDenth
- factDenth
- factDenth
- factTonk Fah
- factJewels
- factClod
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 36
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 37
- factBioChromatic Breath
- factVivenna
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 39
- factVivenna
- factDrab
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 40
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 41
- factVasher
- factNightblood
- factCads
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 43
- factAwakening
- factVivenna
- factVivenna
- factDenth
- factDenth
- factTramaria
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 44
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 45
- factVasher
- factAwakening
- factAwakening
- factVivenna
- factAustrinism
- factType Four BioChromatic Entity
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 48
- factVasher
- factBioChromatic Breath
- factAwakening
- factAwakening
- factVivenna
- factNanrovah
- factNanrovah
- factMisel
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 49
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 50
- factDenth
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 52
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 53
- factTuft
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 54
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 55
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 56
- factNightblood
- summarySTD:WB:Ch 58
- summarySTD:WB:Epilogue
- factVasher
- factVivenna
- factKalad's Phantoms
- factYesteel
- factKuth and Huth
- factWarbreaker the Peaceful
- summarySA:WaT:Ch 35