Vasher [quietly]: Torturing me won't bring her back.
Denth [turning, the moonlight glinting on his blade]: No. It won't.
Vivenna's time in the streets and the descriptions of her utter desperation, her starvation and filth, and the way her body and mind are slowly shutting down from lack of food — especially knowing that the mercs are hunting her and will torture her if they find her. Thankfully, this culminates in her being picked up by Vasher. However, while the reader knows this is probably the best possible thing that could happen to Vivenna at this point, Vivenna's previous meeting with Vasher involved kidnapping and threats of murder. So when she wakes and sees who's in the room with her, her first question — upon realizing that she's been bathed and is wearing different clothes — is to quietly ask Vasher if he raped her. The nightmare fuel is the way she's so calm about asking; after all she's been through, she seems resigned to the idea that another trauma might have been just heaped on her to top off all the rest.
Signature Scene: Vivenna returning to the hideout after Vasher kidnaps her, and discovering that the mercenaries killed the guards the king sent after her.
Squick: Per Word of God, Clod the Lifeless was once Arsteel. Denth's teammate Jewels was once in love with Arsteel. Now that he's a Lifeless, she still sometimes sleeps with him. Yeah, Denth's team all have issues.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Early on in the book, it's established that you can make Awakenings cheaper by making the object you are Awakening shaped like a human, or by putting a bit of your own body (hair or such) on the item to be Awakened as a focus. This never really comes up again, because the protagonists have access to so many Breaths that they don't need to bother with such crutches. Brandon Sanderson has mentioned in the Annotations that he hopes to make more use of these concepts in the sequel
