The funneling of power increased, surging forward, sweeping down and down until it split into two distinct vortices, one for each throne, the power seeping into the simple stone of the two thrones, saturating them, and still the thrones wanted more.
I began to feel it pulling at me, felt myself caught at its very lip. With a gut-wrenching churn of despair, I knew none of us would escape. The thrones needed too much. But I began to struggle anyway, like Atreus, tried to draw myself up over the edge of the funnel, the whirlpool of energy. New pain shot into my side, paralyzed my left arm with a burning tingle. I collapsed to the floor, juddered there, seizures racking my body. My head pounded into the black stone. I felt blood seep, felt my hair grow matted, felt warm coppery wetness slip down my back.
Then the funnel took me.
I screamed, my roar echoing in the cavernous room, and for an instant I saw my lifeless body crumbled to the stone, saw my empty eyes, saw my face stained with blood, my silk shirt soaked, the fine yellow stained a deep red.
I had a moment to think, We are the last. What have we done?
* * *
And then I gasped, the vision tattering away as I wrenched myself from the maelstrom.
I had time for a single desperate breath, a single desperate thought—Two thrones?—and then
* * *
Someone wrapped their thick-fingered hands around my throat from behind and squeezed.
I gagged, hands flying up to scrabble at the heavily-muscled forearms, managed to suck in a strangled, weak sliver of air—
And then the muscles in the arms bunched and the man flung me into the wall to the right. I struck the rough eggshell-colored stone hard, my head cracking against an edge, and then I was falling, slumping downward, my vision spinning.
It’s dark, I thought, staring up into the night sky. Through blurred vision, disoriented, I noticed stars, saw the edge of the palace. I recognized the architecture: one of the balustrades before the palace, on the promenade. Flames from the oil sconce flapped raggedly in the wind, like a banner.
Then someone kicked me, the pain sharp, drawing me up out of the daze, and I screamed, the terror I’d felt an hour before as the strange White Fire swept over the city returning. I could feel the city surging in my blood, could feel its terror, and I screamed again as the foot dug deep into my side, rolling me over onto my stomach.
The blood-pulse of the city thrummed in my ears, and beneath that the thousand voices of the throne, all screaming, all horrified. But I still held them under control, still contained them.
Then the hands returned to my throat, crushed it closed. I gagged again, felt the hands shift until only one held me by the neck, fingers large enough to squeeze out all but the barest of breaths. The other hand began tearing at my robes, ripped them back from my shoulders, the man behind me, pressing his weight down hard into my back, grunting with the effort.
The hand at my throat lifted me roughly, my back arching. The other hand reached around and cupped my exposed breast, then squeezed it with bruising force.
“This,” a ragged voice hissed in my ear, spittle flecking my cheek, “is for refusing me.”
My eyes widened in shock as I recognized the voice.
Neville.
Neville twisted my captured breast viciously, then thrust me hard to the stone of the portico above the promenade, hand still tight across my throat.
A fumbling of clothes, a shifting, and I felt night air against my exposed legs. Blind spots began to appear in my vision and I sucked in a hard breath under the grip of Neville’s hand.
And then he thrust, penetrated with a guttural, visceral grunt of pure pleasure, and I screamed, screamed so hard my throat tore, his hand jerking my head so far back I could no longer breathe.
The scream cut short. The blind spots wavered and grew as he thrust again, crying out. Something tore, deep inside, and I felt blood, but the blind spots were widening, reaching out to engulf me. Another thrust, another tearing, and the voices of the throne inside me screamed.
* * *
I spun away, caught and pulled and throttled by the maelstrom.
Panic began to set in. I felt myself fraying, felt everything I knew—the Dredge, the wharf, Amenkor—losing cohesion, tattering and ripping under the force of the voices.
I was losing myself to the throne. I couldn’t control it.
It was going to win.
* * *
I stood on a tower overlooking the night harbor. Light reflected on the water from lanterns on ships. Lights glowed in the windows of the houses below the palace.
A breeze touched my face and I lifted my head to meet it, closed my eyes.
In the darkness of my mind I could hear the throne, could feel the entire city resting below me. It throbbed and flowed, beat with its own pulse. A living thing that I could feel in my blood. Amenkor.
I smiled, drew in a deep satisfied breath of clear, salty sea air.
And then, far out over the sea, there was a pulse of power.
I opened my eyes, the smile fading away. I watched the horizon.
An invisible wave, like a ripple on a pool of water, rushed out from the ocean, brushed past me with a gust that pushed me back a step. I blinked at it, frowned at its taste. Something powerful, something immense. Something greater than the throne itself. Older. Ancient.
I waited. Dread stirred in my stomach, thickened in my throat.
In the back of my mind, the voices of the throne paused.
Some of them recognized the taste of the power, but not what it was for. One of them knew it personally, had seen it before.
It had spelled her doom.
I leaned forward, hands resting on the top of the tower. I waited.
There.
The western horizon was tinged with white, as if the sun were beginning to rise.
But the sun rose in the east.
My hands tightened against the grit of the stone wall.
The white light grew, spread across the sky, a wall of pure white Fire. It swept in from the sea, swift, stretching from the ocean to the clouds, immense and horrifying.
The voice in my head that had seen it once before cowered before it in gibbering fear.
The Fire struck the bay, surged through the harbor, seared its way forward, utterly silent. It swallowed up the ships, swallowed the docks, scorched onto land, up toward the palace, sweeping forward with swift, cold intent.
I gasped the moment before it consumed me, stepped back—
And then it filled me, burned down to my core, wrenched me open and exposed me, exposed all of the voices of the throne. For a moment, everything was silent, the voices stilled for the first time since they’d tossed me on the throne to see if I’d survive. I tasted the Fire, felt it burn deep, deeper, felt it judge me.
I felt its purpose. Nothing to do with Amenkor, nothing to do with me. It was residual energy, the remains of an event so powerful it had stretched across the ocean, burned across the sea from a distant land. The consequence of a magic that no one in the throne knew the intent of, that was totally unfamiliar. It was nothing to us.
I felt it beginning to fade, felt the voices of the throne returning to normal.
Then something inside the throne twisted and tore. Pain lanced up from my stomach into my throat and head and the Fire left me, passed on, sweeping across the city behind and onward, toward the mountains. I staggered into the stone wall, felt its rough surface bite into my arms, and almost vomited over the side. Breathing shallowly, I pulled myself upright.
The pain receded, drew away almost as swiftly as it had come.
I frowned, tested the throne, tested the voices. They were quieter than usual, but that wasn’t unexpected. The one that had recognized the Fire was utterly silent.
When I freed her, I found her lying on the steps of the promenade leading
up to the palace, her robe torn and ragged about her waist. There were bruises on her neck, on her breasts. And there was blood.
I pushed her back, shuddered at her pain.
The Fire had destroyed her. The guard Neville had raped and killed her over a thousand years before.
I turned and stared in the direction of the mountains. The Fire was a white light beyond their rim, fading even as I watched.
I reached for the city, felt its pulse. I could hear screams already, could see lights appearing in all quarters. The people were panicked, some driven mad. I could feel the disturbance, the throb of the city swift and erratic. It would take time to settle.
But at least the Fire, wherever it came from, whatever it had done, had done no harm here.
* * *
I cried out, wrenched myself away from the maelstrom and the memory of the Mistress. My breath came in ragged gasps. More memories surged forward. I saw a thousand deaths, saw the city burn, the palace gates collapse, walls crumble, the palace rebuilt, the palace expanded, another tier of walls go up, all in a blinding flash. Sunsets roared across my vision, starscapes, gardens, streams, grottoes, storms, lightning flaring sharp and smelling of seared air. I was slapped, choked, knifed, spat upon. I was kissed, hefted up into an embrace, dropped down to a bed, to a rug, thrust to a stone wall, onto the seat of a rattling carriage, onto cool grass. I was held to a wall and lashed, held to the ground and raped as I screamed, moaned and bucked, gibbering in fear. I was tortured, hot iron pressed into flesh, charred and blinded, my toenails ripped out, wood shoved under my fingernails. I was kicked, feet driving into my stomach. I was drowned, water closing up over my head, cold and terrifying and inviting. I heard my mother’s laugh.
I latched onto the memory, onto Cobbler’s Fountain. I latched onto the sensation of water, filling my nose, my ears, muting out the sound of the world, everything collapsing down into a blur of wind, a wash of gray filled with ripples from the surface of the water above. I saw shadowy shapes there, saw sunlight reflected, refracted, dazzling and bright. But that was above the water, removed.
Beneath the water, it was just me. Not the man being sucked into the two thrones at their creation. Not the woman being raped above the steps of the promenade. Not the woman who’d witnessed the Fire from the tower of the palace.
Just Varis.
I felt something else struggling deep inside me, pushing forward. Someone young, no more than six. Someone who had died that day at the fountain, when she had witnessed her mother’s death in the alley at the hands of the red men.
Ash.
The name was no more than a whisper, spoken with my mother’s voice. The name I had been given, that I could not reveal to Erick when he asked. But the little six-year-old girl who had tripped and fallen in Cobbler’s Fountain eleven years before stood beside me now. I could feel her.
We were both drowning. Varis and Ash. We were dying inside the throne, together, as one.
I could let the throne consume me. There would be no more deaths then, no more marks. There would be nothing.
But then the Mistress would not be released.
No, not the Mistress. Her name was Eryn. Eryn would not be released.
And then what of Amenkor? The Mistress had said it would survive, but barely. It would survive but would not be the same.
I stared up at the shapes moving above the water, blurred beyond recognition. The shapes of the people inside the throne, those that had created it, those that had sat upon it or touched it since its creation.
If I stayed, I needed to find a way to control them, and I suddenly realized I knew how. It was just like the crowd at the tavern. It was a choice. I could be Ash, sit back and watch, hover around the dead body of Amenkor and do nothing, let the throne overwhelm me, let the guards send me where they willed.
Or I could be Varis. Ruthless. Hard. Forceful. I could seize control.
This is who I am.
I drew a deep breath and pulled everything that I thought of as myself, all of my memories of the Dredge, all of my emotions, everything that was me together, wove it tight.
And then I pushed myself up through the water. I left my mother behind. Left the six-year-old girl named Ash behind. That wasn’t me anymore. I’d changed.
At the last moment, just before I breached the surface of the water, I felt the Mistress’ hands—Eryn’s hands—reach down to grab me beneath my arms and help pull me up into the sunlight.
Welcome to the throne, Varis.
And it was just like the tavern.
* * *
I opened my eyes to the throne room in Amenkor. Baill and Avrell stood a few steps down from the dais, watching me carefully. Baill’s sword was drawn, but he was a step behind Avrell, the First of the Mistress holding him back with one hand. The rest of the guards were farther back, clustered around the broken throne room door and the pillars to the right and left.
I glanced down. The Mistress had collapsed to the floor, her figure crumpled. Her face was worn, sheened with sweat and tears.
Beneath me, the throne no longer twisted and turned, warping itself into different shapes. It had solidified into a stone curve with armrests and no back, the edges of the armrests curled under. My arms rested lightly on its edges, hands gripping the ends. My back was rigid.
I felt a heavy throb beating all around me, recognized it from Eryn’s memory of the tower.
It was the city. Amenkor. From the Dredge to the palace. A steady pulse of teeming life. I could reach out and touch each one of those lives if I wanted, could watch them live, could help them. Those in the slums, rooting through garbage. Those on the wharfs and in the ships blockaded inside the harbor. Even those sorting through the burned-out rubble of the warehouse district.
I drew in a deep breath, felt the city warm and vibrant inside of me.
I let the breath out with a sigh. The city could wait.
I turned toward the Mistress, who began to stir. On the river, lines of energy entrapped her, bound her to the throne. I began to pull the threads apart, carefully. The voices fought me, but I knew myself and ignored them, thrust them into the background as I’d done my entire life with all the noises of the Dredge that were unimportant. Just like the tavern.
By the time the Mistress roused completely, sitting upright with a groan, she was no longer the Mistress. She was Eryn again, wholly her own.
She raised a trembling hand to her head and gasped, shooting a glance toward me. Avrell stepped toward her, one hand outstretched.
“Mistress?”
She turned toward him, then shook her head. “No,” she said, then sobbed, hiding her hands in her face.
Avrell’s hand dropped and he stood up straight, turning toward me. His face became a solemn mask and he folded his hands formally before him. He bowed his head slightly.
“Mistress.”
I turned to Baill, eyes hard and intent.
He glanced toward Avrell with a frown, then lowered his sword and sheathed it. He bowed down, the motion quick and barely deferential. “Mistress.”
Behind him, the guards that had gathered, mixed with a few white-robed servants, bowed down as well, a clatter of sound and shuffling cloth.
I wondered briefly how many of those servants were true Servants, young girls and women who had a touch of the power like me, who had been brought here to be trained with the hopes that one day they could control the throne.
I wondered how many of those Servants had died on the throne when Avrell and Nathem had tried to replace Eryn.
Avrell stepped forward to catch my attention.
“What of the city?”
I felt the city rushing inside me, hurt but vital, beaten but not destroyed.
I smiled and thought of the Dredge, of the wharf, of the palace itself. I felt the scar of the fire in the warehouse district, felt the ships glid
ing on the waters of the bay, felt the River surging through the center of the city. I heard the steady pulse of its blood in my ears, full of heat and strength.
“It will survive,” I said, and behind my voice I heard other voices, all of the women who had sat on the throne after its forging, all of their strengths, all of their memories.
It would not be easy.
But it would survive.
Chapter 1
I crouched down behind a pile of broken stone to catch my breath and gazed down the darkened narrow in the warren of buildings of the Dredge. In the moonlight, the alley was mainly shadow, with edges of dull light. Water gleamed in a thin stream in the alley’s center. No doorways, no windows here. At least none that I could see.
A sound came from behind, a rattle of stone against stone.
I spun, breath catching, heard my heart thudding in my ears, poised on the verge of bolting. My feet skidded in the wet dirt on the cobbles—
But there was nothing behind me. The alley was as dark as it was ahead. There were many places to hide, but nowhere to escape to. He could be waiting for me, hidden in any of the shadows, ready to pounce if I turned back.
A sob tightened my chest and I fought it back, closed my eyes against the sensation. I breathed in slowly, tried to calm myself.
Use the river.
The thought slid across the darkness behind my eyes and I frowned. But then there was the unmistakable tread of a foot, moving cautiously, and far, far too close.
My eyes flew open, my heart shuddered, and I lurched out from the shelter of the broken stone into the alley, moving almost blindly, eyes catching glimpses of heaped stone, piles of shattered crates, and rotting refuse. My bare feet pounded against the slick cobbles, splashed in the trickling stream. I heard a curse, and a hail of loose dirt and stone as someone pushed away from a crumbling wall, then heavy footfalls. A cold sliver of fear lanced down my side, sharp with pain. I slapped a hand against it, tried to force it away, and then the alley turned.
I swerved too late, felt my feet skid in the muck, slip, begin to pull out from under me, and then I slammed into the mud-brick wall in the corner. My breath whooshed from my lungs, but I didn’t pause. I used the wall to catch my balance, shoved away from it before I’d truly gained purchase, and stumbled down the left turn.
The Throne of Amenkor Page 31