The Throne of Amenkor

by Joshua Palmatier

  And still no sign of the Chorl. No sign of the Protectorate or guardsmen or any of the Council members either.

  We were three cross streets away from the Stone Garden when the White Fire inside me sparked into sudden life. Ahead, I could see the first of the hundred stone statues that had given the plaza its name—a huge hawk, wings spread up and out high over the crowd beneath it, talons poised, already extending to grasp its prey. Behind, I glimpsed a few of the other statues—the raised head of a phoenix engulfed in flames, the smooth curve of a dolphin in mid leap—

  Then the Fire inside me flared in warning.

  Without thought, I brought a shield up around myself so fast it felt as if I’d ripped it from the very essence of the river itself. It had barely formed—

  And then something punched hard into my chest, a punch softened by the shield but still with enough force to fling me back into Erick, who grunted as he caught my weight. My vision wavered, my grasp on the river shuddering, beginning to loosen, to break apart, and I found myself struggling to take a breath.

  Everything around me blurred. I heard Erick bellow an order, felt something soaking into my shirt on my chest, and still I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force my lungs to work. The world began to blacken, shadow encroaching on the dazzling sunlight before me, on the faces suddenly leaning down over me, too bleary to recognize. The blue sky above began to burn with the sunlight, engulfed by whiteness, and I felt myself beginning to fall into it, to be consumed by it—

  And then something in my chest tore, a wrenching pain that seemed to split my chest in two.

  I arched backward, heard someone—Gwenn?—scream, rolled to the side and dry heaved onto the slate paving of the roadway, coughing and choking and retching all at once.

  “Back off!” Erick shouted, and I heard a sword being drawn, heard fresh screams, this time from the crowd.

  Taking their cue from Erick, the rest of the Amenkor guardsmen drew weapons as well.

  The screams from the surrounding crowd tripled.

  “Varis! Varis, are you all right!”

  The retching ceased. Still coughing, I rolled onto my back again, blinked up into the sunlight, into the blue sky, into William’s terrified face, Avrell’s right behind, Marielle and Gwenn on the other side, tears streaking down Gwenn’s cheeks as she sobbed, her hands reaching forward but afraid to touch. Brandan moved in next to Avrell, his expression horrified. They’d all removed their masks, William’s shoved up onto his head.

  All except Ottul.

  The expressionless blue-white mask stared down at me as well, above all of the others.

  “Shit, she’s bleeding,” William muttered.

  I glanced down, pain seething in my chest at the movement, and noticed the blood on my shirt. And something else.

  I reached up and drew a splintered length of wood as long as my hand from a rent in my shirt. It snagged in the cloth, but I jerked it free.

  The end of the wood was fletched with gray feathers.

  An arrow.

  The breath caught in my throat.

  Someone had tried to kill me. Someone had tried to assassinate me.

  Rage filled me, and I began to choke.

  William snatched the remains of the arrow out of my hand, handed it off to Westen as he leaned in close.

  The Seeker took one look at it, his body going still. He stood quietly a moment, then turned and scanned the crowd.

  His eyes settled on something. His face darkened . . . and then went utterly calm.

  Then he was gone.

  William began picking more splinters out of my shirt, his hands coming away stained with blood.

  But not coated with blood. Not saturated with blood.

  “I need some cloth, some water,” William said. Too calm. He swallowed, his face pale, his eyes too wide. Then suddenly: “Water! Can someone get me some damn water!”

  “I’m fine,” I whispered, voice hoarse. It hurt to breathe, my entire chest throbbing, but I reached up and grabbed William’s hands, forced them to halt, forced him to look me in the eye. “I’m fine, William. I used the river to stop the arrow. It must have splintered. The bleeding’s already stopped.”

  I felt William trembling, saw the panic in his eyes, panic barely held in check.

  But then, abruptly, it receded.

  He sat back on his heels. “I thought—”

  I squeezed his hands, halted the words. “I know.” Still hoarse, still raw with pain. I coughed again, weakly, tried a grin.

  William smiled back. A smile touched with fear and worry, but a smile. A smile I remembered from the deck of the Defiant, in the darkness, when he’d pointed out the stars.

  “Help me up,” I said.

  “I’m not certain that’s a good idea,” Avrell said. “The assassin . . .”

  “Westen’s handling it,” I said, wincing as William helped me lean forward. I paused, knees drawn in tight, head forward, until the throbbing in my chest lessened.

  All of them helped me stand.

  I surveyed the street, saw it cleared of pedestrians for at least a hundred feet in all directions, the flagstone paving littered with broken horns, streamers, discarded masks, tufts of feathers.

  But the panic hadn’t spread far. Ahead, the crowd still packed the plaza of the Stone Garden.

  I glared in that direction, the anger over the attack reasserting itself, my heart thudding in my bruised chest. I narrowed my eyes, stretched outward on the river, sensed the Fire inside Westen off to one side, moving away, fast and furious—

  And felt another disturbance a moment before the screams started. Distant. Somewhere inside the plaza itself.

  “What in hells?” Erick muttered.

  The guardsmen on all sides shifted nervously.

  Erick glanced toward me, but I shook my head. “I don’t know. But let’s find out.”

  He nodded grimly. I caught Avrell’s eye and the First of the Mistress took Gwenn by the hand and pushed her behind him. Marielle stepped forward to my side, Erick on the other. William, Brandan, Ottul, and Heddan formed up behind Avrell and Gwenn, William borrowing a dagger from one of the guardsmen, Brandan doing the same, even though he could use the Sight to defend himself if necessary.

  The rest of the guardsmen on either side, we stalked forward and forced our way out into the crowd thronging the plaza.

  Beneath the river, I could sense the people’s confusion, spikes of fear rising in those closest as they saw the drawn swords of the guardsmen, as they met the cold anger on the guards’ faces. Unlike the mob in the streets, they gave way, allowed us to forge ahead. Unable to see over the heads of so many people crowded so close together, I extended myself forward using the Sight and felt Marielle doing the same.

  Almost immediately, I found a center of disturbance, drew breath to point Erick in that direction, but halted when I felt another, farther away to the left, and another, on the outskirts of the plaza.

  I hesitated only a moment. “Over there!” I shouted above the noise of the throng.

  Erick glanced in that direction, brow creased in concentration as he searched. Then he nodded, bellowed an order to clear the way as he struck out, the rest of us tight behind him. We passed a statue of a naked woman with long hair standing in a pool of glittering water, at least three times my height; a snarling wolf, the detail of the bristling hair so fine I could feel the animal’s hatred; a man, a crown upon his head, his hand reaching forward as if to grasp something from the air. . . .

  And then we broke through the crowd into a cleared circle, Venittian guardsmen at its edge holding the people back.

  In the center of the circle, Sorrenti sat beside Lady Casari’s body, her head held in his hands in his lap, a look of utter horror on his face.

  He glanced up as we entered the area and in a choked voice asked sharply, “
Can you help her?”

  I stalked forward, knelt at her side. Brandan followed, standing over Lord Sorrenti’s shoulder.

  An arrow protruded from Lady Casari’s chest, the end fletched with gray feathers. Blood had soaked into her yellow dress, a thick, viscous red, so dark it was almost black. It pooled on the gray flagstone beneath her, had begun to spread to one side. Blood flecked her lips, speckled her too pale skin, dripped from one corner of her mouth.

  I shared a look with Sorrenti, a look he couldn’t hold. Sucking in a harsh breath, he glanced away.

  “Mistress,” Lady Casari muttered, her voice nothing more than a breath, trapped between panting, liquid gasps. Her hand reached out blindly, and I caught it, felt the chill that had settled there.

  “Lady Casari.”

  Her head turned toward my voice, but her eyes were blank, staring out into nothing.

  But when she felt my touch, her breathing abruptly quieted.

  “I . . . should have . . . trusted you. . . . I should have . . . supported you. . . . In the Council.” The words were painful, her face contorted with the effort, tears squeezing from the corners of her eyes. She began to heave. “I’m . . . sorry.”

  And then her body slumped, chest collapsing without taking another breath, her head slipping to one side.

  I held her hand a moment longer, then placed it lightly on her chest.

  Sorrenti grew still, shoulders tensed. I thought for a moment he would break down and weep—

  But when he looked up, it wasn’t grief in his eyes. It was rage.

  We held each other’s gazes for a moment, and then his eyes shifted down to the rents in my shirt, the bloodstains there.

  “They tried to get you as well?” he asked.

  For the first time, I noticed the blood staining the sleeve of his shirt, the ragged hole that had been torn there.

  Sorrenti noticed the glance and his eyes darkened. “They missed. The blood is Elina’s.”

  “I was forewarned by the Fire,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “What happened?” I asked. When fresh screams broke out from a new direction, I added, “And what’s happening now?”

  “Someone—”

  “The Chorl,” Brandan interrupted. Sorrenti glanced up toward him, his face stricken.

  “They’re here,” I said, “in the marketplace, wearing masks. They’d already left Parmati’s estate when my Seekers arrived. I sent a warning to Daeriun, to the Protectorate, but I’m not certain they received it in time.”

  Sorrenti paused to assimilate this. “They must be trying to assassinate all of the Council members—at least those that aren’t allied with them.” He looked down at Lady Casari’s body, shifted, and laid her head gently down onto the pavement. “And for some they succeeded.”

  “It’s more than that,” Erick said.

  Both Sorrenti and I looked up to where Erick stood over us. He nodded toward the north, mouth pressed into a grim line. “Look.”

  We rose, turned northward, where the plaza looked out over the city, out toward the northern trading roads, Deranian’s Wall curving off to the east.

  On the northern road, a mass of armored men poured down from the top of the hill into the city. Blue-skinned men, the banners of the Chorl flying high at the head of the army.

  And then, much closer, at the massive gates of Deranian’s Wall, I felt a pulse of power, heard Sorrenti and Brandan gasp, Sorrenti taking a step forward—

  And the gates exploded.

  Chapter 15

  “Lords preserve us!”

  I glanced toward the Venittian Protector on the edge of the crowd who’d gasped, noticed that all of the Protectorate surrounding Sorrenti, Brandan, and Lady Casari’s body had gone rigid with shock. Even the crowd had quieted, all eyes turned toward Deranian’s Wall, toward the chunks of wood and stone that were flying through the air, dust rising in an off-white cloud, wind taking it northeast of us.

  The only people not affected by the explosion were the guardsmen from Amenkor.

  Before the dust could completely clear, Sorrenti sucked in another breath, and this time even I felt the disturbance on the river before the pulse was released, even though I knew that those attacking the walls were not Chorl Servants, but Haqtl and his priests.

  The second explosion thudded across the distance, a huge block of stone hurtling skyward. But still the Wall didn’t crumble. It was thicker than the walls in Amenkor, had withstood thousands of attacks before this.

  But it wouldn’t last against the Chorl. Not this time. Because the Chorl had learned how to link.

  Confusion rippled through the crowd, through the stunned silence. People began to shift nervously, agitated. A thread of fear slid into the confusion, dark and insidious, tasting of metal.

  “Look!” the man on stilts and dressed as an ibis yelled. One feathered, winged arm pointed to the north, beyond the wall. “Someone’s attacking the city!”

  Sorrenti shot the birdman a vicious look, turned to me to say something—

  And that’s when the Chorl, an entire phalanx of blue-skinned warriors shrouded in the garb of the Fete, tore their masks free, garish robes flung aside to reveal slightly curved sheathed swords. They filled the center of the Stone Garden, over a hundred of them.

  When the leader drew his sword, the crowd broke.

  In the space of a breath, the entire plaza exploded into motion. The man on stilts gave a sharp outcry as the people around his feet lurched away from the Chorl. Arms flailing, he toppled, vanishing from sight, trailing loose feathers. Through the sudden piercing screams of the Venittian people, I heard Erick bellow an order, felt the river surge with panic—an overwhelming blanket of raw emotion—felt Sorrenti take a single step toward me, Brandan on his heels—

  And then the Amenkor guardsmen surrounded me, Erick and the others on the outside, a moment before the panicked crowd broke through Sorrenti’s guardsmen and surged over us.

  They struck with enough force to shove my guardsmen back, one of the men’s elbows striking hard into my cheek. I hissed at the pain, felt an echoing pain from my chest where the assassin’s arrow had struck, and then I was jostled into the guardsmen behind me, our bodies so close I couldn’t move to draw my dagger, my arms crushed as the crowd shoved us this way and that, the close bodies stifling and hot, rank with sweat. One of the guards barked a warning, and I realized their swords were already drawn, the blades bare, but no one in the crowd listened. The people’s faces were white, wide-eyed with fear, with tension, with unreason.

  Within moments, I tasted blood on the river, close, felt something soft roll beneath my feet as I was pushed to the side, heard a guardsman curse. I glanced down and through the crush of arms and armor I caught a glimpse of a woman’s face—long dark hair, skin pale with death, cat’s mask cracked and askew, covering half her face—

  And then someone shoved hard from the left, thrust me to one side. I lost my footing, began to slide down between the bodies of the guardsmen, down to the stone pavement where I’d be trampled like the cat-mask girl—

  Someone grabbed my arm, hauled me upright. “I don’t think so,” Erick said.

  His face was suffused with rage, turned outward, toward the Chorl, toward the insanity of the crowd, the raw fear breaking loose into chaos.

  I felt my own anger surge forward in response.

  “We have to get to the gates!” I yelled.

  He shook his head, a sharp, hard movement. “We’ll never make it! The streets are packed, the crowd’s too panicked.”

  I cursed, took another elbow to the side with a wince, thinking frantically.

  Fresh screams from the direction of the Chorl split the air. Hideous screams. I heard the slickness of blades falling, felt the shiver as metal passed through air, struck flesh. More blood tainted the river, the scent of copper sudde
nly so thick I gagged.

  The Chorl were slaughtering the people in the plaza.

  “Where’s Sorrenti? Where are the others? Avrell? Marielle?” Stupid questions. I could sense both through the Fire at their cores. Could feel them off to my right, closer to the Chorl than I was.

  “Sorrenti’s surrounded by his own guardsmen and Brandan. The others—”

  Before Erick could continue, I felt another hideous surge of strength on the river near the Wall, felt the pulse of power before the grinding thud reverberated through the plaza.

  And I felt the Wall give through the soles of my feet, felt the ground trembling as it fell.

  Erick shot me a grim look.

  “They’ve breached the gate,” I said in response. “They’re heading toward the Council chambers.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s where the Stone Throne is.”

  He caught my eyes, nodded. “What do you want to do?”

  “We have to get to Sorrenti,” I said. “We have to get to the throne before Haqtl touches it.” His brow creased in confusion and I suddenly remembered he hadn’t been in the throne room when the Ochean touched the Skewed Throne, hadn’t been there when we’d fought, when I’d collapsed and been forced to destroy it in order to survive.

  But that didn’t matter to Erick. He didn’t need to know, not when the order came from me. The momentary confusion cleared, replaced by intent.

  We began to shove back at the crowd, began to forge toward Sorrenti’s position. We made slow progress. There were too many people in the plaza. No one was moving far at all.