A door. I needed a door, a window, an escape.
Behind, the footfalls burst into a run. Someone shouted, cursed as he stumbled into a stack of garbage, tripped, and fell.
I darted along the new alley. Still nothing. No door, no window. I sobbed, breath hitching in my throat. The dagger of pain in my side dug deeper. I was no longer running smoothly, the pain too harsh, making me stumble. I’d been running too long.
A cloud moved across the moon. The alley plunged itself into total darkness. I stumbled to a halt, leaned heavily against one wall, one hand still clutching my side. My breath came in ragged gasps. Too loud, too filled with desolation. My eyes widened as I tried to catch even the faintest light, but there was nothing. Only the reek of shit and stone, rot and death.
The footsteps behind stopped.
I drew a deep breath, held it to listen.
Breathing. He was still there. But he’d learned caution. I’d hurt him when I’d first escaped, bitten into the fleshy part of his hand hard enough to break the skin, then shook it like a dog with a rat carcass while he screamed. I could still taste the blood in my mouth and smiled with grim satisfaction. He’d let his guard down, but that wouldn’t happen again.
Use the river!
I tried to slip into that other world, tried to force everything to blur and gray, tried to suppress all sound into a dull wind—something I’d been able to do without thought since I was six; something I’d relied on to survive on my own since then—but nothing happened.
The river was gone.
Choking down a sob, smile fading, I turned to the wall I could no longer see, pressed my shoulder against it a moment, then, with effort, forced my weight away and began edging down its length. With my shoulder scraping the stone for support, I ran with one hand ahead of me, felt for a corner, an edge, an opening. I’d only get one chance at escape.
Behind, the man heard my movements and edged forward. But he came too fast in the total darkness. His foot splashed in the stream, and then he stumbled over loose stone. I heard a bark of pain, followed by a bitten-off curse. But he got back up. I heard clothing rustling against stone, more cautious this time.
My fingers slid off the stone wall in front of me into open space. I halted, explored with my hand.
Another corner. The alley turned again.
I edged around the side. The sounds of pursuit quieted, but I pushed on. He wasn’t going to give up, even in the dark. I’d hurt him too much for that, dared to defy him in front of all the others, dared to run.
A sense of uselessness, of total despair, washed over me. I tasted it, like grit in the back of my throat, and forced it back with a hard swallow. For a moment, I leaned more weight against the wall, heard my tattered clothes scraping harshly against the mudbrick. But I kept moving. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? Why couldn’t he just let me go? He had other workers. He didn’t need me.
But I knew. It was because I’d bitten him. I could still hear his howl of shock and rage.
“I won’t go back,” I mumbled, too softly for anyone to hear, voice choked with tears and anger.
My fingers found another opening: a window, its edges ragged and broken with decayed stone.
With a surge of hope, I stepped back from the wall, placed both hands on the crumbling ledge, and pushed my small form upward. Stone ground into my stomach and the sharp pain in my side lanced down into my leg. I began to flail, tilting forward. I couldn’t see where the window led, but it didn’t matter. Anywhere was better than here.
I began to fall forward into the darkness, gasping with effort and triumph.
A hand latched onto my ankle.
“No!” I screamed, hope flailing desperately in my chest. “I won’t go back! I won’t!”
“You bloody well will,” the man grunted.
Another hand grabbed the waist of my breeches, gripped the cloth tight, and as the man heaved, I felt myself lifted up off the window’s ledge by the pants and ankle and thrown backward, out into the alley.
I hit the opposite wall hard. As I collapsed to the ground, no longer able to breathe, the moon reappeared from behind the clouds, startlingly bright. I tried to catch myself with my hands, but I had no strength left. My arms crumpled and the side of my face struck the mud-slicked cobbles. Pain jolted through my jaw, and I tasted fresh blood. My own blood. I moaned.
The man didn’t give me time to recuperate. My arms still useless, my hands grasping feebly at nothing, the man kicked me hard in the stomach, the force of the blow throwing me onto my back. I coughed as blood trickled down into my throat, tried to curl into a protective ball, but a hand latched onto the front of my shirt and hauled me upright. The man loomed over me, then jerked me in close, my feet no longer touching the ground.
“Thought you could run, eh?” Putrid breath blew across my face. “No one runs from Corum.”
My head rolled sideways, no longer under my own control. I had no more strength left. And for the first time I saw my attacker.
His face was screwed up into a snarl of hatred, eyes sharp and black in the moonlight, teeth yellowed and crooked. Brown hair lay in tangles on fatty, bulging skin, a few locks twisted and tied together with thin, colored string.
“No one,” he said again when he saw he’d caught my attention.
I spat into his face.
He hesitated a single moment, trembling in shock. Then he growled and threw me again.
I hit the mud-brick wall, bounced off it into something wooden resting in another corner, where the alley turned yet again. I caught myself on its edge, one hand holding, the other slipping off and splashing into collected water.
A rain barrel. Or what was left of one.
I steadied myself, pulled myself upright so that I was kneeling over the water.
And then I froze.
Confusion stabbed deep into my gut as I stared down into the reflection on the rippled surface of the water.
It wasn’t me. It was a boy, not yet ten. Round face with smooth skin encrusted with the Dredge, with dirt and blood and tears. Light brown eyes wide and desperate. Hair short and crawling with lice.
Then the reflection of the moon in the water was eclipsed by Corum’s shadow.
I jerked back, but Corum was too quick. His hand fell onto the back of my head, fingers curling tight in my hair. I screamed as Corum, nearly three times my height and weight, dropped to one knee beside me and in a rough voice spat, “No one!”
He placed his other hand over the one wrapped in my hair, then thrust my head downward. Stagnant water closed up and over my ears, drowning out my screams, drowning out Corum’s harsh breathing as he held me down with his full weight. I struggled, pushed back from the barrel, kicked my legs, writhed and squirmed and fought. Water splashed out of the barrel, soaked into my clothing. But there was no purchase, no strength left in me, and then water filled my mouth and I drew it in, pulled its coldness down into my lungs and I felt it filling me, seeping into every part of my body. And as it touched my arms, I felt my struggling relax, felt my arms go numb and slack. Strength ebbed from my legs. And then I felt myself sinking, down and down into the depths of the barrel, down and down forever.
As I sank, I suddenly realized why I couldn’t use the river.
Because this wasn’t me dying. It was someone else. Someone who lived in the slums beyond the Dredge.
And then I woke.
* * *
I lurched out of the dream with a sharp cry, choking on the slick coolness of rainwater even though my mouth was dry. Sick, I crawled to the edge of the immense bed, arms tangled in sweaty sheets, and coughed into the darkness of the room. Harsh, racking coughs, as if I were trying to purge my lungs of nonexistent water.
When the coughing faded, I fell back onto the bed, my entire body trembling with weakness. I swallowed, throat raw, then felt the strangeness of th
e room around me and sat up slowly.
The Mistress’ chambers.
Because I was the new Mistress.
I shuddered, drew my knees up to my chest and hugged them close, the unfamiliar cloth of the shift I wore rustling in the darkness.
As the last of the dream faded, reality returned. Except that the dream felt more real. I knew the Dredge, knew the warren of alleys and niches filled with filth and refuse. From the age of six until I’d fled to the upper city at fifteen, I’d spent my life living in its decaying buildings, surviving off of the streets any way I could, stealing my food, rooting through the garbage for that discarded chunk of moldy cheese, that weevil-ridden crust of bread. I was a thief, gutterscum, spat upon and kicked out of the way. The only reason I’d survived as long as I had was because of the Seeker assassin, Erick . . . and because of the river.
For a moment, I let the darkened room around me shift, let myself sink into the special sight that I called the river. The blackness shifted to a lighter gray, took on edges and forms as I picked up the faint moonlight seeping around the drawn curtains leading to the balcony. It was like sliding beneath the surface of water, and as I pushed myself deeper, the details of the room clarified. Still gray, but now they were visible when before there hadn’t been enough light.
But it was more than that now, different than what it had been even on the Dredge. Because now I had the power of the Skewed Throne augmenting the river. I could feel the throne pulsing around me, heightening my awareness, taking it beyond what I was used to. The new power felt raw, almost unwieldy, barely under control.
I shifted my focus, turned back to the bedroom.
It was large, the largest room I’d ever slept in, even after I’d escaped the Dredge and taken up residence in the merchant Borund’s manse as his bodyguard. The bed stood against one wall, four posts rising from its corners, the canopy tied high above bowing down toward me. Tables stood at various points about the room, mixed in with potted trees and plants, a settee, chairs. Large wardrobes stood off to my left, and chests with linens and clothes, none of the contents mine. One of the tables held a large pitcher filled with water set in a basin so that I could wash my face in the morning; another held the dagger I’d taken from an ex-guardsman after he’d tried to rape me and I’d killed him. I’d only been eleven then.
Across the room, opposite the bed, were a set of double doors leading to the antechamber and the rest of the palace. In the grayness of the river, I could sense the two guardsmen who waited on the other side of the doors, in the antechamber itself. They were arguing, their voices too low for me to catch. But their emotions coursed through the river like a current. Fear and uncertainty; mostly uncertainty. They must have heard me thrashing around in my sleep, couldn’t decide whether to enter the room.
Before I’d taken control of the throne, I wouldn’t have been able to sense their emotions in such detail. I wouldn’t have been able to sense them at all, since they were behind a closed door. On the Dredge and then later in the upper city as a bodyguard for Borund, I needed to be able to see my targets before I could use the river against them. But now, with the power of the throne behind me . . .
The guardsmen didn’t know what to think of their new Mistress, of the seventeen-year-old girl who had somehow entered the palace two nights ago dressed as a page boy, had slipped through all of the patrols, had bypassed every guardsman, and somehow made it to the throne room and taken control of the Skewed Throne.
I pushed the river away, let the darkness of the room return, the emotions of the two guardsmen fade. I’d done more than taken control of the throne, though. Because whoever controlled the throne controlled the entire city of Amenkor.
I pulled my knees in tighter, tried to suppress a sudden flare of anger but failed.
I’d never intended to seize the throne. I’d been sent by the administrator Avrell, the First of the Mistress, and Borund after I’d escaped the Dredge. Sent to kill the previous Mistress so that someone else could take her place. They’d claimed it was the only way to get the insane Mistress off the throne, that they’d tried everything else and failed; that if it wasn’t done soon, the city would never survive the winter. In her insanity, the previous Mistress had blockaded the harbor and cut off trade when food was desperately needed, had allowed a quarter of the city and a significant portion of the stored food to burn, had ordered the city and palace guardsmen not to help in putting out the fire. She had to be removed, and I was the only one who could do it. Because I’d been trained by the Seeker Erick to be an assassin . . . and because of the river. I was the only one who could get close enough to kill her.
So I’d agreed. Because I’d believed the Mistress had gone insane, and because Erick, my mentor, convinced me that I was the only one who could succeed.
But it had been a trap. The Mistress had been waiting for me, had manipulated the guardsmen and servants of the palace so that I would make it to the throne room unimpeded.
Instead of killing her, I’d been forced to touch the Skewed Throne.
My anger flared higher—at Avrell, at Borund, and especially at Erick’s betrayal—but it paled at the sudden surge of horror at the memory of the throne.
I shuddered, stifled a moan, laid my head down on my knees and closed my eyes, felt the exhaustion that had plagued me since that night washing over me.
I let myself sink back into the river, dove deep, heading straight for the edge of the spherical White Fire that burned continuously now at my core. A power separate from the river, the Fire had saved me more than once on the Dredge, flaring up to forewarn me of danger, of threats that I had not yet seen. And now it protected me from the voices within the throne and their immense force. I would never have survived the Skewed Throne without it. The voices would have crushed me, smothered me beneath their weight.
I winced as I grew closer to the boundary, drew a slow steadying breath as I felt the throbbing pulse of the throne’s power, and halted just outside the seething barrier of white flame.
On the far side, a maelstrom of voices roared, almost deafening. Hundreds upon hundreds of voices clamoring for my attention, screaming defiance and hatred, pleading for release, for pity, all of them trying to take over at once. They were the voices of all of the previous Mistresses, all who had sat upon the throne and ruled Amenkor since the throne was created, as well as the voices of any who had dared to touch it since then. Hundreds of Mistresses; even more of those who had touched the throne and not had the power to survive. I felt the pressure of their personalities, of their emotions, against my face like heat, white-hot and hissing. Anger and hatred and raw desperation—all trapped by the throne.
And now trapped by the Fire as well. After being thrust onto the throne, forced to face its power, I’d used the White Fire to capture those voices. I’d surrounded them in its protective flame and now held them deep inside myself with the power of the river.
The voices had driven the previous Mistress to the edge of madness. But she’d managed to lure me to the throne room by distracting the guards, had managed to use the throne to overpower me and shove me forcibly onto its seat.
And then she’d given me a choice: die and let the city of Amenkor die with me during the coming winter, or claim the power of the throne myself and release her, giving the city a chance to survive.
My anger returned, hot and fluid and bitter. It hadn’t been much of a choice at all.
I let the river go again with a hard thrust, sat up straight in the Mistress’ bed—my bed now—legs folded so I could rest my elbows on my knees. If they wanted a new Mistress, then I’d be Mistress. But I was tired of being manipulated, of being given choices that were not choices at all.
One of the guards knocked on the door to the antechamber, followed by a muffled argument, pitched high with concern.
I scowled. When the knocking resumed, more urgent, I slid off the bed and moved to the
door, walking carefully through the unfamiliar room in the darkness.
I jerked the door open, the two guards outside stepping back sharply. They regained their composure quickly, standing stiffly at attention, but still a little uncertain. One of them was one of the previous Mistress’ palace guardsmen, the other was one of the assassin Seekers.
“What?” I spat.
The regular guardsman, the one who had knocked on the door, licked his lips, glanced toward the Seeker for reassurance, then answered. “We heard a cry—”
“If there’d been an assassin,” I said, “I’d have been dead by the time you decided to open the door.”
The guardsman stood, mouth open, with no idea what to say.
I moved to close the door, but the Seeker stepped forward.
“Is everything all right, Mistress?”
My stomach clenched, a sudden wave of loneliness, of desolation and instability and doubt washing over me.
Two days ago, I’d been a bodyguard for a somewhat powerful merchant. Today, I ruled the entire city—a city on the verge of winter starvation.
A chill shivered through my skin, tingling, raising the hairs on my arms.
I swallowed, met the Seeker’s eyes. Dark eyes, with a dangerous glint that I recognized. I’d seen it in Erick’s eyes when I was fourteen and he’d found me in an alley off the Dredge, vomiting over the corpse of the second man I’d killed. Erick, the man who had trained me, had given me the chance to escape the Dredge when I was fifteen and become a bodyguard for Borund.
This man had the same stance as Erick, totally relaxed, fluid, with an edge of death. But unlike Erick, this man had few scars lining his face, had less gray in his dark hair, his nose more pointed and straight because it had never been broken.
Unlike the regular guardsman, the Seeker carried a dagger instead of a sword, wore leathers instead of armor. Of the two, he was the more dangerous, and yet I felt more comfortable speaking to him than to the palace guardsman.
The Throne of Amenkor Page 32