The man’s grin widened, and even before I saw his eyes focus on something behind me, I heard a sound.
A footfall.
I spun, dagger half drawn—
And a fist crashed down against my face, striking hard along my jaw, so hard I stumbled backward, fell into a clutter of netting resting against a crate. My free hand groped at empty air, my head resting against the crate, a sudden dull roar filling my ears. I’d lost the package, but not my dagger. It was caught in my shirt, still hidden.
My hand found the edge of the crate and the disorientation vanished. Blinking against the rain, against the darkness, I shifted forward, dragged myself into a crouch.
Through the roar in my ears, I heard someone laugh, the sound dull and empty.
Anger flared, frigid and tinged with Fire.
I lowered my head, spat blood onto the rain-slicked cobbles of the alley—
And felt myself slip into the river. Smoothly, cleanly. Like a knife into flesh.
And without any pain. No spiked headache. No nausea.
I almost cried out in joy, hope and relief surging upward into my throat, but I choked it down.
“Come on, Cristoph,” someone said. The second man. The one who’d struck me. “Take whatever she’s got. It’s not safe here.”
“Shut up. It’s perfectly safe here. No one will see a thing. Besides, this won’t take long.”
I lifted my head. The alley was no longer dark. I could see the wash of red that was Cristoph, another wash of red that was the second man. The rest of the alley was gray, but with a push I slid deeper, the gray taking on edges, and deeper still, until I could see the crates, the cobbles, the slashes of rain as it fell. The blurs of red deepened as well, until I could see the cloaks, the belts, the knives that had been drawn. I could see their rain-drenched hair, their faces.
Cristoph was moving forward, knife held ready.
The second man’s face pinched into a frown. “What are you doing? Just take whatever she dropped!”
“I want more than just the packages this time.”
The second man grabbed Cristoph’s shoulder, brought him to a halt. “What do you mean?”
Cristoph jerked out of the second man’s grip. “Don’t touch me.”
I slid my dagger out from under my shirt.
Cristoph turned back toward me and I could see what he intended, with a sickened heart could see how it would end.
Amenkor—the real Amenkor—was just like the Dredge. The streets might be cleaner, but the people were the same.
“Don’t,” I said, and I could hear beneath the warning in my voice an edge of pleading. “Don’t,” I said again, shaking my head. Softer this time, but more steeled.
Cristoph grinned and I shifted my weight.
He came at me in a rush, his knife forward but not ready to strike. He wanted me docile, immobile, not dead. At least not at first.
I stepped to the side, just out of his path, and brought my dagger around in a hard, vicious slash, all of the training Erick had given me in the depths of the Dredge sliding smoothly into place.
My dagger cut across his arm, high, near the shoulder. I heard him gasp, saw him stumble into the crate.
“Shit!” the second man cried out, then stepped to Cristoph’s side, pulling him up roughly. “Stop this!”
“No!” Cristoph hissed as he lurched out of the second man’s grasp, glanced at his torn shirt, at the stain of blood there.
Then his gaze leveled on me. “So the bitch knows some knife-play.” With a wince of pain, he reached up and tore off the clasp of his cloak, freeing both arms.
“Oh, gods, Cristoph,” the second man muttered, still leaning against the crate behind him.
Cristoph ignored him. He edged toward me, eyes intent, breath coming in short little gasps through his nose.
He lunged.
I stepped aside again, slashed, connected with his upper back, slicing along the shoulder muscles, but not deep. Cristoph grunted, spun, slashed low, across my stomach, but I’d already stepped back, out of reach. He changed tactics, tried to slash upward. I leaned back, felt his blade slick past my neck, nick a tangle of my hair, but my own blade had already risen, had slashed across his face, along one cheek. But without pause, without even a gasp, Cristoph pressed forward, forced me to step back, to one side, pushing me—
And suddenly I felt the second man’s presence at my back, felt it like an undertow, felt his knife, tasted his knife—
I turned, ducking beneath one of Cristoph’s slashes, and drove my dagger up into the second man’s gut, up under the ribs, in and out with a single hard thrust, and then I stepped back, still half crouched.
The second man tried to gasp, choked instead. The arm that had been raised to slit my throat from behind dropped to his side. He stared down at the gush of blood that had begun to seep into his shirt, that had already spread down to his breeches.
He glanced back up and in a soft, confused, wet voice, said, “Cristoph?”
Then he dropped to his knees, hard, and fell back, knife hitting the cobbles with a thin clatter, body with a solid thump.
I turned to Cristoph. He’d stepped back, almost to the alley wall, and now stared down at the second man’s body in cold shock. His knife arm hung at his side, and blood seeped from the slash across his face.
I straightened, and his gaze shifted to me, his eyes sharp and wide. He blew air out through his mouth, rainwater spluttering outward.
“Gods,” he whispered.
And then he ran, heading toward the alley’s entrance, leaving his cloak and the second man behind.
I watched him go, watched the empty entrance to the alley for a long moment, then realized that someone was watching me.
I turned.
At the far end of the alley, at the other entrance, two figures stood, one slightly behind the other. The second man held a lantern, the light almost white in the gray.
I let the river slip away.
The man at the end of the alley was dressed in a blood-red jacket with gold threading. When he turned, lantern light reflected off the wire he wore on his face.
I tensed, but the two men walked away, leaving me alone.
I stared down at the body.
I felt nothing inside except a cold, flat hollowness.
I thought of the boy, of Perci.
Looking down at the body, rain pattering against the fine clothing, a darker stain beginning to seep out from underneath along the cobbles, I said in a dull voice, “This is who I am.”
I turned, picked up the package I’d taken. I ripped away the paper, felt the twine cut into my fingers. But I didn’t care.
It was a book.
I flipped through the pages, stared blankly at the black markings.
I couldn’t read.
I turned back to the dead body. “You died for a fucking book,” I said.
I dropped the book onto his chest.
Then I walked away.
The Palace
“ TOOlate, too late, too late,” I mumbled under my breath as I rounded a corner at almost a dead run. The linen closet should be inside the room just ahead. But I could feel the night sky pressing down on me even inside the palace, could feel time slipping away. I should never have been held up by Avrell and Nathem, shouldn’t have paused in the concourse, staring at the immense hall, at the guards. I was going to miss the changing of the guard.
“Stupid, stupid.”
I rounded the corner and almost slammed into the back of another servant.
Pulling up short, I slid back around the corner and pressed flat against the wall, listening. My breath came in barely controlled gasps. I’d sprinted from the waiting room where I’d overheard Avrell and Nathem talking.
In the adjacent hall, I heard the servant’s footsteps pause and I held my breath. After an agonizing moment, the footsteps resumed, receding down the hallway.
I let out a long breath, stole a quick glance around the corner to make certai
n the corridor was empty, then ducked to the only doorway off of the hall.
It was open.
I slid through it, then closed it behind me and locked it. I scanned the darkened room after my eyes had adjusted. Some kind of library, shelves of books lining three walls. A large table surrounded by chairs filled the center of the room, books stacked haphazardly on the table among numerous candlesticks and half-burned, unlit candles. Parchment and quills and ink were placed before some of the chairs.
Against the back wall, inconspicuous among a few scattered plants and more comfortable reading chairs, sat a door with wooden slats and inset panels. The linen closet.
I bolted across the room. The door was locked.
Reaching into the inner pocket, I drew out the key Avrell had provided, thinking once again it was odd to lock a linen closet, then inserted the key and turned. The catch sprang and the door snicked open.
I stepped inside, closed the door behind me and took a moment to peer through the wooden slats into the library.
No one had followed.
Then I turned and my heart froze.
The closet was full of . . . of linens. Stacked floor to ceiling. No wall was bare. There was no entrance to the inner sanctum.
Horror set in—that I’d made a mistake, that someone had betrayed me. Taking a quick step forward, I grabbed a stack of linen and yanked. The stack gave way, collapsing with a low, rustling whmmp into the small space behind the door, revealing a rough stone wall. In the center of the wall, but low to the floor, a narrow aperture glowed with torchlight coming from the opposite side.
I drew in a steadying breath of relief, then crouched down next to the opening.
It was three hands high, almost two hands wide, and had originally been a slot for archers on the outer wall of the castle, a window so that they could fire down onto an invading force. For some unknown reason, during the construction of the newest parts of the palace, the archer’s niche had not been filled in and sealed up. I knelt and placed a hand against the outside of the opening, felt the grit of the granite that had made up that original wall. Not the smooth white stone of the more recent palace. This stone was rough, flecked with impurities, colored a blackened and sooty gray by exposure to the elements, even though now it never saw daylight.
Through the archer’s window I could see the small niche where the archer would have sat, ready to defend the wall, and beyond that a hallway. Shifting slightly, so that the torchlight from the hallway lit my face in a long thin bar, I could see a doorway guarded by two guardsmen. They wore the edged clothing of the guards of the real Amenkor, carried themselves with the same blatant sense of danger and arrogance, but they wore more armor. The Skewed Throne symbol stitched to their clothing was gold. Firelight from the palace’s wide bowls of burning oil glinted off the metal of wrist guards, of the pommels of sheathed swords, and of shoulder guards.
Perhaps I hadn’t been slowed down as much as I thought.
I’d just turned to settle in and wait when one of the guardsmen looked toward the other and sighed. “We’ve only just started and already I’m tired. It’s going to be a long watch.”
I fell back against the granite wall and said, “Shit,” even as the other guard grunted in agreement.
I’d missed the changing of the guard after all.
Drawing in a deep breath, fingering the handle of my dagger, I grunted and bit my lower lip.
Shit, shit, shit. Now what?
Chapter 8
I WASworking the wharf, had been working the wharf for the past week, ever since killing the man in the alley. I was leaning on a support, the sounds of the docks a muted rush of wind in the background. Beneath me, I could feel the support quiver as waves slapped up against it below. The world was a wash of blurred gray, except for a narrow window of focus, where sunlight glared on a mostly-white cloth spread out over the back end of a cart. Stacked on the cloth were piles of vegetables and fruit.
In the sunlight, the colors of the fruit stood out vibrant and harsh. Everything looked perfect, the flesh smooth, unblemished. There were no scabs, no bruises, no softened spots of decay.
Since coming to the wharf, I hadn’t seen anyone selling fruit. I’d seen nothing but fish—fish heads, fish bones, fish guts—and crabs, which smelled like fish but tasted sweet.
I glanced up from the apples, from the apple that had rolled slightly to one side, near the edge of the cart, and watched the man who knelt in the back of the cart behind his wares. He was arguing with a woman over the price of some carrots, but his eyes flicked toward everyone that came within two paces of his cart.
I frowned . . . and my stomach growled. I looked at the apple again, thought for a moment I could actually taste it.
The sunlight brightened, the narrow field of focus widening. More people slid out of the gray, and everything took on a sharper edge.
I pushed deeper, until the world in focus had sharpened so far it felt brittle.
Then I relaxed . . . and waited.
The crowds of dockworkers and fishermen, of fish- wives and seamen, ebbed and flowed around the cart. The fruit seller eventually threw up his heavyset arms in disgust with the woman, tossing the carrots back onto the cart. The woman spat on the wharf, flung a rude gesture at him with one hand, and huffed off.
More customers came, and still the fruit seller eyed everyone who approached.
And then a woman towing three young children bled out of the gray.
I straightened, and with single-minded intent pushed at the river, forced it forward . . . and saw what would happen, saw how I could get the apple . . . how I could get more than just the apple.
I licked my lips as my eyes darted to the fruit seller, to the sour-faced man he was currently haggling with, to the woman who had just seen the cart, to the three children. The oldest boy reached out for no apparent reason and shoved the middle girl to the ground. Without turning, the mother cuffed him on the back of the head and said, “Leave your sister alone.” Her voice sounded tired and bitter. The youngest boy hung back, out of the reach of both mother and older brother.
The mother swerved toward the cart and the three followed.
I pushed away from the support and began moving forward.
The fruit seller glanced from the man to the mother, then down toward the three trailing children, and frowned.
“How much for the turnips?” the mother asked. The daughter squeezed in front of her, her chin coming up to the lip of the cart. She reached for a turnip, but couldn’t quite make it.
The fruit seller opened his mouth to answer. At the same time, the older boy reached around his mother and hit his sister. Her arm, straining for the turnips, jerked and sent the entire pile tumbling.
I heard the fruit seller shout, heard the mother spit out a curse, heard the daughter scream and begin to wail. The fruit seller lurched to save the turnips, the daughter spun, eyes flaring with anger. Everyone was turning toward the boy, toward the rolling turnips, toward the noise.
I was two steps away from the apple—from an armful of apples—with no one watching, when a hand closed about my upper arm.
I jerked and spun, dagger out before I thought. I would have killed him, thinking This is who I am, but just before the dagger drove forward, toward the midsection just beneath the armpit, I smelled oranges. Not from the fruit seller’s cart. He had no oranges. I smelled oranges in the gray world of the river.
I pulled my thrust. The dagger sliced through the man’s shirt, beneath his arm and across his chest.
The man gasped and lurched back, releasing my arm. He stared at me in shock, the hand he had used to grip me held out to stop me from a second attack. The other hand clutched his chest over the rent in his shirt.
I glared at him, saw that he was gray, harmless, and turned to leave.
“Don’t!” he choked, stepping forward. “Just wait!”
I hesitated. Because even after I’d almost killed him, he’d stepped forward to halt me, not away. An
d because of the smell of oranges.
Behind me, I heard the mother bark at her oldest son, heard them drawing away. My chance for an apple was gone.
“What do you want?” I asked, shifting my focus completely toward the man. I suddenly realized I recognized him, recognized the finely-made breeches, the white shirt with ruffles at the throat.
It was the man who had accompanied the red-coated merchant I’d seen on the dock.
“I—or rather, someone else—wishes to speak to you.” He straightened, his outstretched hand dropping, then winced. When he drew his other hand away from his chest, I could see a few rounded stains of blood against the white of his shirt.
I crushed a pang of guilt. “What for?”
The man hesitated, then said stiffly, “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him yourself.”
I frowned.
He had black hair, shorn short, wild and untamed, but not dirty or matted. His face was rounded, the skin a little pale. His eyes were green, shadowed with fear, still a little too wide from shock. They kept darting toward the dagger. But there was nothing else beneath the fear: no hatred, no contempt, no danger. And no pity.
I slid the dagger back beneath my shirt. “Where?”
He heaved a sigh of relief, tension draining from his shoulders. “Not far. My name is William.” He held out a hand, as if expecting something, like a beggar on the Dredge.
I stared at it in confusion and said, “Varis.”
After a moment, he withdrew the hand, coughed slightly into it. “Ah, yes. Varis. If you’d follow me?”
He began to move away, off the docks, along the wharf toward the real Amenkor.
I waited a moment, thinking I should slip away.
But in the end I followed him. Because of the smell of oranges.
We moved through the back streets of the wharf, William ten paces ahead of me. I followed warily, my eyes darting toward every blur of red. I felt unsettled, and moved slowly. William turned back once, his eyes catching mine, and he smiled encouragingly. The scent of oranges drifted over the sharper smells of sea and salt, like a breath of wind.
I halted uncertainly, struggling with a new sensation, something deep in my gut that trembled.
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