The Throne of Amenkor

by Joshua Palmatier

  Avrell stood when I said nothing, gave a short bow, and then left, moving slowly. I watched his retreating back, then said softly to myself, “One month.”

  * * *

  Westen, captain of the Seekers, was waiting for me outside the meeting room where I’d met with Avrell and the merchants. He stood leaning casually against one wall, body relaxed, arms crossed in front of his chest. The stance sent a shiver of recognition through me, rewoke the ache I’d felt since rising that morning.

  Erick had stood that way while waiting outside my niche to give me a new mark.

  When I hesitated, Westen pushed himself away from the wall and smiled. “I’d like to speak to you, if you have the time.”

  I was suddenly aware of the four guardsmen who’d fallen in around me. Without looking, I sensed that they were all Seekers, their presence too still, the tension on the river sharp and ready.

  The hairs on the nape of my neck stirred. The palace guardsmen who had accompanied me to the meeting had been replaced.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched, and he motioned me forward, falling into step beside me. “You are the Mistress. You always have a choice.”

  I snorted, felt the other four Seekers reposition themselves behind us. We moved deeper into the palace, passing open windows looking out onto gardens and through wide rooms decorated with trees and tables. We passed a few servants, all of whom paused and nodded or bowed their heads as I passed. Westen said nothing for a long while, content to simply walk beside me. But he never relaxed, the tension that all Seekers radiated never faltering.

  When he finally did speak, his soft voice startled me. He’d said nothing at all during the meeting the day before, but for some reason, I’d expected his voice to be harsh, like the Dredge.

  “Erick’s told me much about you,” he said.

  Wary, I glanced at his face, at the dark brown hair, the dark eyes, the nose that had been broken at least twice. There was none of the deadly danger I associated with the Seekers in those eyes now. I felt myself relaxing. “Such as?”

  He grinned. “He told me how you killed that man the first time he saw you, how you used the dagger to slice the cord wrapped around your neck, how you punched the dagger into his chest.”

  I snorted. “I didn’t punch the dagger into his chest. The man fell on top of me. I was lucky the dagger was pointing up. And I puked after the man died.”

  Westen chuckled. “Everyone reacts differently after their first kill. Puking is not uncommon.”

  I frowned. That man hadn’t been my first kill—and Erick knew that. He hadn’t told Westen everything, then.

  “He also told me how you helped him hunt for his marks in the slums beyond the Dredge,” Westen continued. “How you eventually helped him kill them as well.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he told me of Bloodmark.”

  I halted at the tone in his voice and he turned to face me.

  “What about Bloodmark?”

  Westen was no longer smiling. “Bloodmark wasn’t one of your marks, was he? He wasn’t someone the Mistress had sent Erick to find, to judge?”

  “No.”

  “And yet you hunted him down and killed him.”

  I felt a flush of shame course through me, old shame that I thought had faded. But this tasted fresh and bitter against my tongue. “He killed the baker and his wife—people who helped me survive the slums, who cared for me—for no other reason than to hurt me. He deserved to die.”

  Westen watched me closely, his eyes searching my face, then he grunted. “Perhaps. But back then it wasn’t your decision to make, was it?”

  He turned away, continued walking down the length of the corridor. We’d descended to the level of the courtyard and the main gates, but were on the opposite side of the palace. I didn’t recognize any of the rooms. None of this had been on the maps Avrell had given me when I infiltrated the palace and was making my way to the throne room.

  Reluctantly, I followed Westen as he emerged into an open room with darkened alcoves on either side, a door on the far side, and nothing else. The floor and walls were bare stone—no tapestries or banners, no furniture or potted plants. Tall metal sconces with bowls of burning oil at the top lined the walls, three on each side of the room.

  Westen halted halfway to the far side, turning to face me. “But none of that matters now. You are the Mistress, and I agree that Bloodmark needed to die.” Belatedly, I realized that the four Seekers that had accompanied us were gone. We were the only two in the room. “What’s more interesting is that Erick told me he trained you. I’d like to see how much you’ve learned.”

  And with that, he drew his dagger.

  I stopped, ten paces from the door, only five paces away from Westen. His voice had grown even softer, and the dark dangerous glint that I recognized in all the Seekers had returned to his eyes. I kicked myself for having followed him, for allowing myself to be drawn into an unknown part of the palace, into a room I didn’t know how to escape. On the Dredge, such a mistake would have meant rape at the very least. More likely death.

  Or both.

  “Go ahead,” Westen said. “Draw your dagger. You are the Mistress, and unlike Avrell or Baill or any of the other guardsmen, the Seekers are sworn to the Mistress, sworn to protect the Mistress, not the city and the throne.”

  Angry at myself, I reached for my dagger, slid into a stance that made Westen nod in approval, still uncertain what the Seeker intended. At the same time I slid beneath the river, wrapped the currents around me, and reached toward the Seeker captain. He held no malice, no hatred; he didn’t intend to hurt me.

  “You don’t report to Baill?” I asked, and even before Westen answered, I felt myself slipping into old rhythms, into old patterns that I’d learned while sparring with Erick in the back alleys and decaying courtyards of the slums of Amenkor. I hadn’t trained with Erick in over two years, hadn’t faced a true Seeker since then.

  “No. The Seekers report only to the Mistress.” He grinned slightly. “To you. We consult with Baill as a courtesy. And even then . . .” He shrugged.

  And then he attacked.

  He cleared the five paces between us with a speed I never expected, faster than Erick, faster than anyone I’d ever seen before, his blade flashing out and to the side. I barked in surprise, lunged hard to the left, his dagger slashing through the space where I’d just stood, and in the same movement I twisted, dropping my weight down onto one hand and sweeping out with my foot in an attempt to trip him, momentum and a push with my supporting arm thrusting me back up into a crouch when my foot connected with empty air. Heart pounding in my throat, breath coming harder, I pushed myself deeper into the river, felt the textures of the room darken, tasted the burning oil on the air, the smoke and the sweat and the blood. New sweat, but also old. The blood old as well.

  “This is a training room,” I murmured, my attention shifting back to Westen, who crouched as I did a few paces away.

  “Yes,” he said, but he spoke in a distracted voice, his attention on me, his eyes hard, measuring, judging. “For the Seekers.”

  Then he spun forward, his motions fluid, graceful, his weight perfectly balanced. As I parried, raising a hand to block his forearm, thrusting him away even as I sliced in tight with my own dagger, I found myself sinking deeper, found the room itself fading, until there was only Westen, only the subtle shift in stance, the liquid and deadly flick of his dagger, the movements of his arms, his feet, his body. He flowed, a slow and dangerous dance, closing in for a wicked cut, a sharp block, a vicious slash, and then away to circle, to watch, and then back again, smoother than Erick had ever been.

  There was no sound except the rustle of cloth, a grunt, a gasp as a hand connected with chest or an elbow with a thigh. Sweat broke out in my armpits, slicked my arms and chest beneath my breasts, t
he white shirt Marielle had found for me stuck to my skin. My hair grew matted and clung to my neck in wet tendrils. And still Westen attacked, sweat sheening his own face, his eyes narrowing as he moved faster, his tactics changing, his thrusts aimed toward my chest at first, then shifting to my legs, then my back, testing me and withdrawing before striking again.

  Then Westen closed in hard and quick, changing tactics yet again, one hand clamping around my free wrist and twisting me around, catching me across my chest with my own arm, pulling me in tight to his body, so that I couldn’t move, my dagger arm caught in the strange embrace.

  I spat a curse, breath heaving in and out through clenched teeth.

  I felt Westen shift, but not enough for me to break free. His breath cooled the sweat of my neck as he leaned in close. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “You’re only defending yourself,” he whispered. “I want you to attack.”

  Before I could respond, his dagger snicked across my arm, slicing through cloth and scoring along flesh as he released me and he thrust me away. I hissed, in both shock and pain, stumbled to a halt and stared down dumbfounded at the beads of blood welling in the rent of cloth, staining the fabric in bright little circles.

  A scratch, nothing more, the blood already congealing. But during all of the sparring with Erick, he had never intentionally drawn blood.

  “But . . . I’m the Mistress,” I hissed, shooting Westen an angry glare.

  He shook his head, face deadly serious. “Not here. Here you’re only a Seeker. Now attack!”

  Anger flaring, I slid into a new crouch. Westen responded, circling. Vaguely, I sensed others in the room now, hidden in the darkness behind the alcoves, watching. But I ignored them, focused exclusively on Westen, watched his muscles as they tensed and relaxed, watched his eyes as they watched me.

  I lunged forward, not as graceful as Westen, not as smooth, but I had the river and I used it. Pushing along its flows, I saw where Westen intended to shift, saw his movements before he made them, before his muscles even flexed, tasted his blade as it arced through the air, every motion distinct and brittle under the gray glare of the river. My blade flicked in hard and sharp, caught nothing but air as Westen twisted, but I brought it back in tight again, shifting my grip, and felt it catch cloth. Westen barked out in surprise, even though I knew I hadn’t touched skin with the blade, couldn’t taste the blood on the river, and in the moment of his distraction the palm of my empty hand slammed into the joint of his shoulder.

  He staggered back, his arm hanging momentarily limp, his dagger falling from his hand and clattering to the floor. Even as he recovered, slipping into a new stance, his empty dagger hand flexed, fingers clenching. The numbness was already wearing off, so I pressed my attack, hoping to take him down now and end this while he was defenseless.

  But even as I closed in, he grinned, as if he knew what I was going to do, and the next thing I knew his other hand punched forward and struck me in the gut. All strength fled from my legs, and I dropped to my knees with a sharp cry, my dagger forgotten as pain flashed upward from my stomach, hot and visceral. One arm still twitching back to life, he twisted my dagger hand up behind my back with the other, my own hand going numb, and I heard my dagger clatter to the stone floor.

  Both of us gasping, Westen once again behind me, my hand throbbing with pain in his grip, he chuckled.

  “Erick taught you many things, but you still have much to learn.”

  He waited, the heat and intensity of the fight bleeding out of the room, out of our bodies. Then he let my hand go.

  I sagged forward, coughed as I relaxed enough to taste the acrid smoke in the air, my throat dry.

  Then Westen stood before me, one hand extended to help me up. His eyes were bright.

  “I look forward to training you in the ways of the Seeker, my Mistress,” he said, and then he grasped my hand and pulled me to my feet.

  * * *

  I followed Borund as we approached the throng of angry people outside the closed doors of the gates to the inner ward, eyes scanning the crowd as he pressed ahead, shoulders tensed as I tried to stay close, my hand on my dagger, the river pulsing around me. But no one seemed interested in Borund, and no one seemed interested in me. I was just his bodyguard. Everyone was focused on the guardsmen at the gates, demanding answers, demanding to know why the harbor had been shut, why their ships and cargo were being kept in the city.

  Someone shoved me into Borund’s back and I hissed, apprehension rising as the angry crowd pushed closer. I barely had enough room to wield my dagger to protect Borund if necessary and felt sweat break out between my shoulders.

  I was about to grab Borund’s shoulder and pull him back when he turned and swore, eyes blazing.

  “We’ll never get into the palace. They’ve closed the gates, and this crowd isn’t likely to disperse any time soon. Damn! I need to know what’s going on!”

  I drew breath to suggest retreating to the guild hall, feeling as if I’d done this all before, the sensation prickling along the nape of my neck, but a boy with a round face and dressed as a dockworker stepped from the crowd. When I saw him, my uneasiness grew, my hand falling to my dagger. But the boy was gray. Harmless.

  Yet I felt I knew him, even though I’d never seen him before.

  “Master Borund?” the boy asked.

  Borund frowned. “Yes?”

  “Avrell, the First of the Mistress, would like to see you,” the boy said. “He said to give you this.”

  The boy held out a chunk of stone, the outline of a snail embedded in one side.

  Borund drew in a breath sharply.

  We followed the dock boy through the edge of the mob, at first heading toward the gates, then angling away, passing into a side street running parallel to the palace wall. We passed no one, the buildings mostly vacant.

  A cloud drifted overhead, the bright sunlight fading to a dull gray. I shivered.

  The boy ducked into a small building that had once been a stable. The reek of manure still clung to the musty air inside, but there were no horses. Instead, the building was packed tight with marked crates, straw poking out through the cracks between the wood.

  Borund gasped as the dock boy led us into a narrow space between the stacked crates. “Capthian red! Crates of it! I haven’t been able to get this since last winter, not a single crate!”

  Irritated, the boy motioned for us to hurry, and I felt tension crawl across my shoulder blades again. As if I were missing something. Something important. I shrugged it aside as the narrow path between the crates turned, branched once, then opened up into a small niche that barely fit the three of us hunched over. The dock boy shoved us out of the way, then pulled at a chunk of the plank flooring. A section lifted upward, cut with a ragged edge so that it couldn’t be seen when set in place. I stared down into the rounded opening below. I could see that it dropped down into a thin tunnel, even though there was no light.

  Borund hesitated, glancing toward me for confirmation.

  “It’s safe,” I said. “It drops down to a tunnel. There’s no one down there, and I can see a lantern ready to be lit.”

  Borund nodded and managed to lower himself down into the hole.

  The dock boy stared at me the entire time.

  “How did you know there was a lantern?” he finally asked. “It’s too dark to see it.”

  I didn’t answer, simply dropped down smoothly after Borund as he moved to light the waiting lantern. Then I turned, expecting to see the dock boy staring down at me through the circular opening.

  But it wasn’t the dock boy anymore. It was Eryn.

  I shouted, lunged in front of Borund to protect him, drew my dagger without thought, the weight of the blade heavier than usual.

  At the edge of the tunnel’s entrance, Eryn’s face darkened into stern concern, eyes tight, lips thin. She knelt at t
he edge of the hole, hands gripping the edge of the entrance tightly, the motion sharp and urgent.

  “Do you see, Varis? Do you see?”

  Then the lantern flared to life behind me, yellow light pulsing outward in a blinding flash, and I jerked awake.

  * * *

  I gasped and flailed in the bedsheets, heart pounding. But then I recognized the room, realized I’d been dreaming, and collapsed back onto the tangled sheets, breathing shallow and fast.

  Slowly, my heart rate slackened, and my breathing eased. When I felt calm, I slid out of bed and padded to the dressing table to pour myself some water, moving through the now familiar room without pausing, wincing only slightly from the bruises I’d received the last few weeks while training with Westen. Washing the sour taste of sleep from my mouth, I drifted to the balcony, letting the doors swing shut behind me.

  Staring out over the darkness, I frowned. This was the third time in the last three weeks that I’d had the same dream. Except that it wasn’t truly a dream. It was a memory, from when I’d been a bodyguard for Borund. I remembered it clearly, heard the bells tolling in the harbor as word was spread that no ships were to leave the city, felt Borund’s rage that the Mistress would dare do such a thing. We’d tried to go to the palace to find out why, but the gates had been sealed. Then the dock boy had shown up and taken us to Avrell.

  The first two times I’d relived the memory as I slept, nothing had changed. We’d entered the tunnel, crawled through the passages to the palace. And then the dream had ended.

  But this time, Eryn had appeared.

  I hadn’t thought much about the dreams before. But now . . .

  I shivered and stood straighter, rubbing my upper arms for warmth. The night air was sharp. In the three weeks since the meeting with Avrell and the merchants, the signs of winter had become more obvious. The air had gotten colder, the daylight thinner. The vines of the plants on the balcony had begun to turn brown, some of the leaves dropping to the floor.

  And the day before, Marielle had pointed out across the harbor to the barely discernible waves of the ocean. “See?” she’d said. “There are more whitecaps now, no matter how the wind blows. And the spray of the waves pounding against the rocks is higher.”