There was no blood. And the mark didn’t have the smooth lines of the mark Erick had made on the man who’d tried to strangle me. But it was clear it was the Skewed Throne.
Erick moved forward, rested his hand on my shoulder. “Good.”
But I barely heard him. Instead I shuddered.
Erick squeezed my shoulder.
Bloodmark snorted. “That’s it? She kills him, she marks him, and that’s it? You’re the fucking guard!”
Erick moved so fast I barely saw him. In three short steps he was at Bloodmark’s side. His hand clamped onto the back of Bloodmark’s neck where he crouched and with a sharp shove he crushed Bloodmark to the ground, face turned, Bloodmark’s ear and cheek pressed into the sludge of the narrow.
“I told you,” Erick said, “not another word.” He drew his dagger, brought it down to Bloodmark’s face.
Bloodmark cried out, began to flail, his eyes wide. But Erick pressed his knee into Bloodmark’s back, pinned him hard, hand still on his neck. He leaned close to Bloodmark’s ear and the struggles ceased. Bloodmark closed his eyes and whimpered, mouth drawn back in a clenched grin of pain.
“The Mistress wanted him dead,” Erick said. “It doesn’t matter who killed him. I asked Varis to find him, and she did. It was her mark, her choice. The only question is—” Erick shifted slightly closer, his dagger touching Bloodmark’s exposed cheek. Bloodmark gasped. “—what am I going to do with you?”
The narrow grew silent except for Bloodmark’s ragged breath, rushing through clenched teeth. I didn’t move.
Then Bloodmark grunted, “Use me.”
I straightened, panic slicing through me. And something else. Something like what I’d felt when the rag woman had demanded my apple.
The apple was mine. I didn’t want to share it. I didn’t want to lose it.
Erick paused, drew back, his knee releasing some of its pressure from Bloodmark’s back. Bloodmark sucked in a deep breath, coughed hoarsely into the muck. But he didn’t move. Erick still knelt over him, hand clutching his neck.
“Use you?”
I shifted forward, started to shake my head in disbelief, in panic, but halted.
Erick was considering it. I could hear it in his voice.
Bloodmark coughed again, then said in a choked voice, “Use me. Like you use her.” He shot a glare of hatred toward me, one that Erick couldn’t see. “Have me hunt for these marks. I can find them as easily as she can.”
I drew breath to tell Erick, “No,” to tell him about Bloodmark leaning close and breathing, Don’t mess with me, bitch, to tell him that Bloodmark couldn’t be trusted.
But Erick looked at me. He’d already decided. I could see it in his eyes.
“Two pairs of eyes would be better than one,” he said.
I let the drawn breath out in a ragged sigh.
It was already too late.
The Palace
DRESSED as a page boy, I walked down the center of the hallway, face intent with concentration, as if I were on a crucial errand for someone important and could not be disturbed. I’d worked my way from the outskirts of the main palace to within a few rooms of the edge of the inner sanctum, delineated by the original castle’s wall. Those stone ramparts, rather than being torn down, had been subsumed as the original castle grew in size, so that what had once been the castle’s main defense now formed the walls of numerous rooms inside the palace itself. What had once been a gate was now the main door into the inner sanctum, where the throne room and the Mistress’ chambers lay.
That doorway would be heavily guarded.
I referred to my mental map of the palace, then slowed as the hallway came to an end. The room beyond was lit with oil sconces set into the ceiling’s support pillars, but only down its center. To either side, the room was dark and empty of people, but lined with plants—small trees in wide pots; scattered smaller bushes with scented flowers in urns. A complex tracery of vines clung to the wall.
I moved through the room without pausing, intent on the hallway beyond. The main entrance to the inner sanctum should be just ahead.
A moment later, the light in the corridor increased. Then the hallway opened up into a high-ceilinged concourse to the left and right.
I slowed, footsteps echoing as I moved farther out into the open space. Potted trees lined either side of the concourse, separated by huge tapestries taking up entire sections of wall between one arching support and the next. The ceiling rose at least twenty feet overhead, the stone supports curving together and meeting at a sharp peak. Windows appeared black with night high above, darker than the shadows.
Someone coughed, the sound loud in the silence of the concourse. I started and turned to the right, where according to the map, the main entrance lay.
The door was huge, banded with iron and polished to a sheen that almost glowed with its own light. It was recessed almost ten feet, and the original arch of what had been the outer gate of the wall could be seen clearly, the stone gray and stained with the exposure to the elements. Banners of all colors were arrayed around the door to either side, each on its own pole. Standing at attention in filed rank before the door were six palace guardsmen, heavily armored. If it hadn’t been for the cough, I would have thought they were statues.
Suddenly aware that I stood in the middle of the concourse staring down its length at six trained men with sharp swords, I turned and hurried to where the hallway I’d used to enter the concourse continued on the far side. I tried to act like a page boy who’d been awed by the spectacle but had suddenly remembered his duty.
Once out of sight of the guardsmen, the look of awe on my face fell into a scowl.
Fool! Gawking before men who’d only want to kill me if they knew who I really was, why I was really here.
I shook my head but kept moving. A few empty rooms, a few more empty, half-lit corridors. After a moment, when there was no sound of pursuit, I allowed myself to breathe again.
There was no way to get through the main doorway, not with all of those guardsmen watching. There were a few other entrances—for cooks, maids, dignitaries that shouldn’t be seen entering through the front—but all of those would be guarded as well. The page boy’s outfit wouldn’t work there either. The guards checked too carefully.
But there was another way.
I entered a waiting room. Pillows were scattered throughout the room amid low tables. A half empty pitcher of water and a tray of picked-over fruit rested on one of the tables. I lifted a clutch of grapes as I passed, but kept moving.
Then I froze, a grape half raised to my mouth, ears pricked. Someone was approaching. Two men, arguing.
As they drew closer, I realized I recognized one of the voices.
I scanned the waiting room, saw a latticework of carved wood screening off a small portion of the room for privacy, and dove for it. Crouched down low in the corner, I plopped the last grape into my mouth as the men entered the room, still out of sight.
“—don’t think I can take another one,” a man said. His voice shook. “The last one . . . I can still hear her screams. And the way she thrashed in the throne, as if . . . as if it were a bed of hot coals! As if we’d tossed her into a gods-damned bed of hot coals!” He drew in a trembling breath. “I really don’t think I can stand to watch another one die. Not if it’s like that.”
“I agree.”
I shifted forward, eyes narrowed. The second man to speak was Avrell, the First of the Mistress . . . the man who had sent me into the palace to kill the Mistress, had provided the map and the clothes and the key. Unlike the other man, his voice was steady and smooth, and soft like warm sunlight.
They were getting closer. But I still couldn’t see them, not from this vantage. I pulled myself back against the wall and grew still.
Avrell continued, “You agree that there is no question now, Nathem? That the Mistress is truly insane?”
Silence for a moment, and then, reluctantly, “Yes.” A pause. Then with more force.
“Yes. Yes, there is no question now. Not after the fire in the merchants’ quarter.”
I flinched with guilt and shifted uneasily.
“It took the fire to convince you?” Avrell said. “I was convinced when she closed the harbor.”
Nathem sighed. “Yes, that, too. How could she order the harbor closed? How can she keep it closed, with resources so tight, winter so close, and now the fire? It makes no sense. We must open the harbor. It’s our only chance of surviving the winter.”
They stepped into view.
Both wore the dark blue of the priesthood, the robes appearing black in the darkness; they walked without any light. A four-pointed gold star was stitched onto the chest of Nathem’s robe, signifying his rank as Second. He was older than Avrell, with dull gray hair and an age-lined face; broader of shoulder as well, but he held his back straighter. And yet Avrell appeared the more poised, his hands hidden inside the wide sleeves of his robes. An eight-pointed star was stitched into Avrell’s robe—the four-pointed star that adorned Nathem’s robe but with four shorter, daggerlike triangles woven in between.
“But these attempts to replace the Mistress aren’t working,” Nathem continued as they walked slowly across the room. Neither looked toward the latticework. “We’ve tried . . . what? Seven times now? Something isn’t working.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Avrell said thoughtfully. “We’re selecting the girls from the Servants as we’ve always selected them. We’ve used those with the most talent, those who’ve shown the most promise and the most skill at using it, but it’s as if that isn’t enough anymore, as if something more is needed.” He shook his head, as if confused, but he kept his eyes on Nathem. “This has always been sufficient in the past.”
“Yes, but in the past the Mistress wasn’t insane!” Nathem interjected. “In the past, we were trying to find a successor because the Mistress was dead!”
Avrell halted. His back straightened, his lips pressed together. He eyed Nathem as the Second continued for another few paces before realizing Avrell had stopped.
When Nathem turned, his brow was furrowed. “What?” he asked.
Avrell said nothing, only gazed hard at Nathem. They’d halted near the table containing the pitcher of water and the remains of the fruit.
Nathem’s brow furrowed further, then cleared as realization struck. His head lifted, eyes widened.
“On the Mistress’—” he began. But something seemed to catch in his throat, choked him off.
The room no longer felt open and airy and soft. Now it felt close and tense.
I drew back farther behind the screen separating me from the outer room. Nathem’s face was clear through the latticework, even in the darkness.
“You said so yourself,” Avrell murmured. “We’ve tried seven times, used the most powerful Servants, and in all cases the replacement—” Avrell halted, seemed to harden himself even further. “No. Let’s be realistic. We can’t afford to be anything else. Not now. Winter is too close. In all seven cases, the women set to replace the Mistress have died. Good women. Trusting women. Women we’ve found and raised and trained for this one purpose since they were children. Others have died trying to ascend the throne in the past, but none have died like this.” Avrell’s voice had risen slightly, but now he paused, collected himself. “Something is wrong. Something is different this time.”
Nathem sighed. “The Fire.”
Avrell nodded. “The Fire. And as you said yourself, in the past the Mistress has already been dead when a successor was seated on the throne. Even when the Fire first passed through Amenkor. That time, the Mistress was murdered so that another could be placed on the throne. Murdered because the Fire drove the Mistress insane and a successor needed to be named.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Nathem said sharply. “We only know she was killed. Not why. It was too long ago. There are no records.”
Avrell didn’t answer. Avrell and Nathem held perfectly still, Avrell rigid and imposing, Nathem indignant and stern, their eyes locked. Nathem’s gaze searched Avrell’s face, searched hard and quick.
Then Nathem rocked back slightly, as if struck.
A subtle move, but Avrell’s shoulders relaxed.
“You can’t be suggesting—” Nathem began.
“I’m suggesting nothing,” Avrell countered, and his voice fell in the room like stone.
Nathem paused. “We’re sworn to serve her,” he protested, but there was no force behind his words. “We’re sworn to protect her.”
Avrell reached forward to grasp Nathem’s shoulder. “We’re sworn to protect the Skewed Throne, Nathem. We’re sworn to protect Amenkor. Can you honestly say the throne is safe? That the city is safe? Think about the fire, about the closing of the harbor. What will she do next? As it is, we may already have waited too long.”
Nathem still seemed unconvinced, his brow furrowed in thought.
“And then there’s Captain Baill to consider,” Avrell said, stepping back, his hand falling from Nathem’s shoulder.
Nathem snorted in contempt. “Baill is a fool.”
Avrell shook his head. “Not a fool, Nathem. He has never been a fool. He’s following the Mistress’ orders to the letter. He’s filled the streets with his guardsmen to protect the citizens of Amenkor as she requested, closed the harbor as she ordered—”
“But what are we protecting the people from?” Nathem spat. “It doesn’t make any sense! Baill has seen the Mistress. He knows the orders make no sense!”
“And yet he carries them out without question,” Avrell said, voice weighted with meaning. He caught Nathem’s eye. “Not even a token protest.”
After a long moment, Nathem asked, “What do you suspect?”
Avrell drew in a deep breath, held it a moment before releasing it. “I suspect everything, Nathem, but can prove nothing. In any case, Captain Baill is not an immediate concern. The Mistress is. You’ve seen her wandering these halls. You’ve heard her muttering to herself, arguing with herself, sometimes in languages neither of us have ever heard. Are any of us safe?”
Nathem dropped his gaze to the table of fruit. “No,” he muttered, his voice so low I could barely hear it. Then, louder, more forceful: “No. None of us is safe. None of us has been safe since the Fire. It did something to her, changed her.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
Avrell stood silently, hands again folded inside the sleeves of his robe. He waited.
Nathem finally opened his eyes.
His face clouded as he looked down at the table and paused. “I could have sworn . . .” he began, but trailed off.
Behind the latticework, my neck prickled, the tiny hairs at its base rising. I drew back, even as Avrell tensed.
“What?” Avrell said. Like stone again, all the gentleness he’d shown Nathem gone.
Nathem frowned at the table. “I could have sworn I left a clutch of grapes right there.”
Shit!
Avrell turned sharply, his eyes darting around the room, hitting the shadows, the corners, the shield of the latticework.
And there they halted.
I stiffened, could barely breathe. Everything shrank down to Avrell’s eyes, to their dark blue intensity, to the narrowed, harsh lines that had formed between his eyebrows.
We held each other’s gazes for eternity, for the span of three heartbeats—
Then, in a taut voice, Avrell said, “One of the servants must have eaten them.”
Nathem frowned in consternation. “Then why didn’t they clean up the table?”
Avrell said nothing, turned toward Nathem.
I drew in a slow breath and shuddered. I tasted fear like blood at the back of my throat.
Avrell held Nathem’s gaze a long moment, until the frown faded from Nathem’s eyes and he sighed, shook his head.
“Something must be done with the Mistress,” he said.
Avrell hesitated a moment, not turning toward me, then said, “Something has already been do
ne.”
Nathem stood stunned, back rigid, mouth open, eyes angry. But then his shoulders slumped in resignation.
Avrell led him from the room. Against the realization that they intended to murder the Mistress, that events were already in motion, Nathem’s concern over the grapes had been forgotten.
As soon as they drifted from the room, I slid from hiding and moved to the corridor. Avrell had known I’d be in the palace tonight, but he wasn’t supposed to know where. And now I’d been held up, when I had to be in the linen closet at the time the guard changed. If I wasn’t . . .
I shoved the thought aside, jaw set.
Then I began to run.
Chapter 4
“ NO.Backoff,Varis. Try again.”
The river pulsed in my head, sweat running down my face in sheets. I barely heard Erick’s order, too intent on Bloodmark’s shifting movements before me, too focused on his eyes. His face was sheened with sweat as well, his hair plastered to his forehead in tendrils. Anger had locked his jaw rigid. A muscle twitched above his lip. His breath came in heaves through his teeth. We circled each other in the makeshift training yard, the light overhead beginning to fade. The Fire lay dormant inside me. Somehow it knew this was simply practice.
A surge in the currents warned me a bare instant before Bloodmark attacked. Bloodmark’s dagger sliced low across my front, trying to gut me. It wasn’t a smooth cut—Bloodmark’s moves were never smooth—but it was lightning quick and full of violence. I slid back from the arc, moved forward after it had passed, close enough so Bloodmark couldn’t maneuver easily, and made to slice across his face.
He jerked back from the stroke, anger flaring higher in his eyes as Erick barked, “Strike for Varis! Back off and reset. Bloodmark, you’re not controlling your slashes! Power means nothing without control.”
We began circling again. The anger had settled deeper, so deep Bloodmark was shaking. I’d tagged him five times already; he’d only managed to tag me twice. There’d been three draws. I only needed one more strike to win the bout. In all the weeks of training with him, he’d only won a single bout.
The Skewed Throne Page 7