I settled into a guarded position. The Ochean did the same.
She closed in again. But this time, I couldn’t dodge as quickly, the slice along my thigh burning, seething in pain. I cried out, cut in hard, and twisted as she lunged, missed, brought my dagger back up and out, but her elbow crunched into my wrist. My hand went numb, and I dropped the dagger, even as she grabbed me hard about the waist and drew me in tight against her, my head against her shoulder.
Before I could react, she brought the sword up, placed its edge against my throat.
I gasped, tried to arch away, but she tightened her grip, pressed the blade even closer, enough that I felt it cut into flesh.
I grew still.
She chuckled, the sound reverberating through my skin, her breath against my cheek.
Then the muscles in her arm tensed as she readied to slit my throat.
I closed my eyes and dove, down and down, deep inside myself, deep below the plaza, deeper and deeper into the throne, into its essence, into its heart. I felt the others in the throne brushing past me, like spider’s silk, their threads subdued and tangled in the Ochean’s power. I felt their wrath at being overtaken, and it drove me onward.
Until suddenly the spider’s silk of the others thinned, until only seven threads remained, converging and twining together the deeper I sank, throbbing with life, with power. I followed the threads, dove faster as I felt the Ochean’s blade far above begin to cut deeper, felt skin parting, felt blood beginning to flow—
And then suddenly the threads ended, all seven coming together at the throne’s heart: a blinding, pulsing, pure-white light.
I hesitated a moment, transfixed. The ends of the seven threads at the center of the light touched, were held together by the Seven who had created the throne, by the strength of the magic that had bound them, by the strength of the throne itself. The raw energy, the pureness of it, made me shudder in awe.
Then I reached out, and with a twist, broke the seven threads apart.
I gasped, breath entering my lungs with a shudder, and reached up for my throat. My arm screamed with pain, my hand touching blood, and my heart stopped, fear slashing through my heart—that I’d been too late, that the Ochean had cut my throat.
But then I heard someone else gasp, heard voices cry out in shock.
I opened my eyes and stared across the stone floor of the throne room. The blood came from my split lip, not a cut throat. The pain came from the bruises of the Ochean’s rage.
The Ochean.
I lurched upright, almost passed out as every muscle in my body shrieked, but steadied myself with my hands.
The Ochean still sat on the Skewed Throne. Her face was intent, focused inward, but it was the throne that caught my attention.
It had settled into a shape: a granite seat, wide, with arms that flared slightly to the side; short, fat legs; a back rounded and scalloped like a seashell.
But something wasn’t quite right. One of the arms of the throne hadn’t changed to fit the new form. Its top was curled, the side shaped like an S.
Like the arm of my throne.
Something pulsed, as if a wave had swept over the room, a wave felt only in your skin. The air thickened, grew suddenly heavy, and began to tingle. The guardsmen to either side shifted back; the Chorl at the door backed out into the corridor. All except the Chorl captain Atlatik and the Chorl priest Haqtl.
The Ochean stiffened, cried out sharply, then arched back, the muscles in her neck standing out in a silent scream.
Beneath her, the throne began to twist, slowly at first, then the pace accelerated, faster and faster, shifting from throne to throne, passing through all of the previous forms, from ruler to ruler starting with my own and working backward. A grating sound filled the room, began to shudder through the stone of the floor, through the pillars, escalating to a piercing shriek.
And then suddenly the throne stopped. On a form I’d seen once before, when Eryn had first thrust me onto its seat: a rough granite block with a straight rectangular back.
Its original form, before it had become the Skewed Throne, before the Seven had lost their lives in its forging.
The grating sound peaked, steadied, began to tremble—
And then it snapped.
There was no sound, no light, no smell. There was nothing to feel, nothing to touch.
Except on the river.
On the river, something exploded.
I felt the force blow over me, a gale that thrust me back, that shoved me hard into the pillar behind me, that deafened me with its intensity. It washed over me for a heartbeat, two, three . . .
And then it faded.
The density on the air sank down to nothing.
I sat on the floor and breathed in deeply, blood coating my neck, my entire body throbbing, my lip pulsing with the beat of my heart . . .
And then realized something was missing.
I could no longer feel the city, could no longer feel its pulse, the throb of its life, of its people.
I felt strangely empty. Hollow.
On the throne, the Ochean’s body suddenly slumped forward, then tilted and fell to the dais, her dress rustling. Behind her, the throne split, a jagged crack appearing in the granite down its back.
No one in the throne room moved.
I shifted, winced as I pulled my legs underneath me and forced myself to a crouch, then up, using the pillar for support, until I faced the Chorl captain, until I faced Atlatik.
Trying not to tremble, gathering what little strength I had left, I growled, “It’s over.”
I don’t know if he understood me, but he glared at me. Behind him, his warriors suddenly stepped forward, surrounding him and Haqtl in a wall of men.
Instantly, the palace guardsmen under Keven’s control leaped forward, swords snicking from sheaths. I had my own escort in no more than a breath.
Pushing myself away from the pillar at my back, I stepped forward, raised my hands as if I were going to use the river, as the Ochean would have done.
Haqtl barked a sharp order, and I felt the river ripple as he erected a defense around them both.
I hesitated. I couldn’t sustain another pitched battle using the river.
Haqtl spat something else, his voice leaden with scorn. He motioned toward the Ochean’s dead body, to the cracked throne on the dais, and spat on the ground. He would have felt the power of the throne being released, could sense that there was no power there now.
And he could sense that the throne had nothing to do with the White Fire, what the Chorl called the Fire of Heaven.
Behind me, I heard Keven stir where he’d collapsed, regaining consciousness.
Atlatik frowned as Haqtl spoke, seemed shocked when he spat in the direction of the Ochean. But he was listening, his eyes never leaving my face.
Keven stood and came to my side, one hand on the pommel of his sword.
“Go!” I shouted at the Chorl. And then I gathered as much of the river as I could, saw Haqtl’s eyes go wide, saw him reach out and catch Atlatik’s arm.
Atlatik broke. With a barked order, the Chorl on edge, they began a careful backward retreat to the door of the throne room.
The palace guardsmen shifted forward, following them.
As soon as they left the room, vanishing in a sudden dash down the outside corridor, I let the river go, sweat pouring down my face.
“Mistress?” Keven said, and I heard the request in his voice.
“Kill them,” I said, voice wavering with exhaustion, thinking of Erick, of Laurren, of everyone who’d died in the city today. “Kill them all.”
And then I collapsed.
Epilogue
I awoke in my chambers, the breeze from the ocean billowing in the curtains over the balcony. Keven was speaking quietly to Avrell and Eryn near the open door
way, half hidden by the curtains.
I tried to sit up, but moaned instead.
The conversation broke off, and all three rushed over to the bed, smiling. Eryn seemed on the verge of tears, and even Avrell’s smile was strained, the skin around his eyes tight. His arm was in a sling and tied across his chest.
“Don’t get up,” Keven commanded. “The healer said you weren’t to move.”
I didn’t tell him I couldn’t move. Every part of my body protested when I breathed.
I caught Avrell’s eyes, held them. “The Chorl?”
He straightened. “They retreated to their ships and left.”
“Once the Ochean died,” Keven added, “all of the fight seemed to leave them. We harried them to the wharf, slaughtered them as they boarded their ships.”
I sighed in relief. Amenkor had been the Ochean’s target, Haqtl’s target, not Atlatik’s. And they’d wanted the Fire of Heaven. Once Haqtl realized the Fire wasn’t here, there was no reason to stay and fight. Not when they’d lost the Ochean.
“And the city?”
Avrell smiled thinly. “It will survive.”
I snorted, but nodded, settling back into the pillows.
“Varis?” Eryn stepped forward, her face lined with concern. There were shadows under her eyes, and it looked as if she’d aged ten years. One arm lay over her stomach and I remembered the pain she’d felt as she’d resisted the Ochean’s advance at the gates. “Varis, the throne—”
“I know,” I said, cutting her off.
She didn’t know what to say, her expression lost.
Then Keven cleared his throat and Eryn stepped back awkwardly. “There is one other thing,” he said, then hesitated, as if uncertain he should tell me.
“What?”
He glanced toward Avrell and Eryn, then said, “Westen brought Erick back.”
I sat up instantly, sucked in a sharp breath, and through gritted teeth said, “Take me to him.”
All three seemed about to protest.
I let my expression darken.
“Take me to him now.”
* * *
Westen had hidden Erick in a back room of a tavern near the wharf, afraid to move him any farther from the ships in the condition he was in.
The captain of the Seekers opened the door warily, the room beyond dark, so that I couldn’t even see him through the crack. But a moment later, he opened the door completely and stepped aside, going to light a lantern.
I moved to the edge of the bed that had been shoved into the far corner and stared down at Erick. Avrell hovered at my side, ready to catch me if I fell. Keven stood on the other side.
Erick’s eyes were closed, his face twisted up in pain. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and his skin was pale, the bones of his cheeks clear. His torso was covered in cuts and burns, the skin around most of the wounds red and swollen. Where the Ochean had not touched him, you could see the older scars, covering his chest, his arms; the scars of a Seeker.
“The healer said he should recover,” Westen said from deeper in the room. His voice was muted.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak. Something had forced itself up from my chest and lodged itself in my throat, something hot and solid. I swallowed, but it didn’t seem to help.
I reached out a tentative hand and touched Erick lightly on the forehead.
For a moment, his pain seemed to ease, as if he sensed the touch, but as soon as I withdrew, his face contorted again.
I fought for control, and when I felt composed, turned to Westen.
The Seeker had seated himself in a chair against the wall, his arm resting on the table beside the lantern. Like Eryn, he also looked older, and I thought suddenly of his wife, of his son, wondered if they’d survived the battle.
But instead, I asked, “The priest? The man who guarded him on the ship?”
He shook his head. “He wasn’t there.” He sounded disappointed.
For some reason, I wasn’t surprised.
I nodded, glanced back to Erick.
Avrell shifted awkwardly. “Do you think they’ll be back?”
I thought about the Ochean, about Haqtl and the priests and the volcanic islands that had been their home, about the Chorl captain, Atlatik, then sighed.
“They’ll be back,” I said. “They have nowhere else to go.”
Part I: Amenkor
Chapter 1
I stood in the middle of a field of wheat, the bristly heads of grain pattering against my outstretched hands. The breeze that rippled through the stalks tugged at my hair, at the folds of my sweat-stained shirt. In the moment before dawn, the world was quiet, expectant.
Then, far ahead over the fields, near the road that snaked down from the city of Venitte into the hills, a flare of light lit the darkness. Harsh and orange, the fire arched up into the sky, and I felt a tug of grief, a pain that bit deeper every time I felt it, still new and raw and fresh. It twisted in my chest, burned at the edges of my eyes, but I clenched my jaw as I watched the fire crest, begin a long descent, fall down and down—
And explode among the trunks of olive trees. In the burst of light when it struck, I saw an army marching through the fields. A moment later I heard screams, faint with distance.
The pain in my chest writhed.
I’d moved before I’d made a conscious decision to move, pushed through the wheat toward the road. As I plowed forward, grain rattling against my legs, catching, holding me back, more fire bloomed and I marked its source, marked my targets. Then I reached the road, broke into a sprint, the screams from my fellow Venittians among the olive trees growing louder. Heart thundering in my chest, I stretched out with my mind, drew the Threads around me, wove them tight, bound them, twisted them, prepared. Ahead, the screams intensified, grew heated, broke into a rumbling roar of challenge and hatred and fear as the two armies met. Sunlight touched the surrounding hills and fields with a patina of gold, although I didn’t need the light. Through the Threads, I could see everything. The Venittians charged through the low, flattened branches of the olives, fire lancing out, roaring through their ranks, leaving behind charred bodies and burning trees, and in the backwash of light . . .
The Chorl—skin tainted a faint blue, like winter sky, tattoos black in the dawn, faces contorted with rage. The Chorl—curved steel swords raised to the sky as they screamed in a harsh, ululating language.
The Chorl—who had killed my wife and two daughters.
Cold, hard-edged rage tingled through my skin, rippled out on the Threads I’d bound around me, and I slowed as I came at the battle from the side. No need to run. There were plenty of Chorl to kill. They’d invaded the Frigean coast two weeks before, invaded the city of Venitte. They’d come from the western sea with no warning, had attacked the port and overrun a significant portion of the city before anyone had known what was happening.
But the Chorl themselves were not my targets. I would have attacked with the rest of the Venittian army if they had been. No, the attack was a diversion, the army bait. I wanted the Adepts, the ones wielding the Threads, the ones who’d thrown the fire that had killed so many in that initial attack on the city.
The ones who had killed Olivia, who’d killed five-year-old Jaer and her older sister Pallin.
I slid past the first of the Chorl, moving slowly, calmly, their piercing howls surrounding me as they tried to surge forward to the front of the battle. They broke around me as if I were a stone in their currents, not consciously realizing what they were doing, the Threads shunting them to one side while concealing me from their sight. I angled toward the back of their forces, focusing on the source of the fire that still arched up out of their ranks. The Chorl thinned. The road ended, and I was once again among wheat, the stalks trampled into the earth, broken and shattered. Ahead, a Chorl woman in a mud-splattered dress wove the Sight into a tight, blazing fireba
ll and hurled it high into the air, her face strained with effort, sweat streaming down her cheeks, down the cold blue skin of her throat, where corded muscle stood out in stark relief. She was surrounded by ten Chorl warriors and two Chorl priests. The warriors were dressed in a riot of colors—blue, red, orange, green—over crude leather armor. Their eyes were locked on the battle behind me, their bodies tense, hands on the hilts of their swords. The priests were dressed in vibrant yellow-and-red robes and wore necklaces of shells. One carried a scepter of some type of reed and feathers. All of the men were covered in tattoos; on their faces, their necks, their hands. The woman wore five earrings in each ear, the gold glinting occasionally through the long strands of her black hair. She had no visible tattoos whatsoever, her skin flawless.
I slipped through the ring of warriors without them noticing, one sidling away from me as I passed, and halted in front of the woman, looked up into her dark eyes, a surge of regret passing through me that there was only one Chorl Adept in this attack. This close, I could smell her sweat, could hear the priests chanting under their breath on either side of her, could feel the tension coursing around me on the Threads. It reeked of fear, of blood, of trampled wheat.
I glared up into the woman’s face.
Someone like this had stood on the Chorl ships that had entered Venitte’s harbor and attacked the fishing and trading ships, catching them unaware. Someone like this had flung fireball after fireball up onto the cliffs and houses that surrounded the harbor, had flung the fireball that had killed Olivia and Jaer and Pallin.
Jaer. I felt again her charred skin as I clutched her small body to my chest, felt it flaking off beneath my touch.
Only five years old.
The pain stabbed into my chest again, and tears seared the corners of my eyes. The queasy rush of emotion closed off my throat with the hot, sickening taste of phlegm, and I flung out my arms to both sides, gathering more Threads to me as bitter rage flooded my mouth, stained my tongue. I could kill them all with a touch of my hand, could stop their hearts in their chests. They’d drop to the ground, dead before they even knew what had happened. I could send invisible needles of pain into their skin and flay them where they stood. I could call down lightning from the clear morning sky, or open up the earth beneath them and bury them alive. I could kill them all in a hundred different ways, using any or all of the Five Magics.
The Throne of Amenkor Page 72