The Vacant Throne

by Joshua Palmatier

  Haqtl. The head priest. Black eyes. To complement the black tattoos that writhed on his face, stark against his yellow-and-red-banded shirt.

  I sucked in a ragged breath, tasted blood on my lips, phlegm. Today would be a bad day.

  Haqtl thrust my head back down into the sand, ground it in deep, grit getting into my eyes, sucked into my lungs as I tried to breathe, as he shoved harder, closing off the last tendrils of air. I struggled, began to kick and twist, thrashing my legs, the muscles in my chest reawakening with renewed pain, the white-hot patch on my thigh cracking open, blood trickling down my leg, but the struggles were weak . . . so weak. I’d been here for days, for weeks, each day the same, each torture unique.

  But the worst days were with Haqtl.

  I ceased struggling, and with a wrench, Haqtl lifted my head free, glared down at me as I spat blood and sand into his face. He didn’t flinch, simply thrust me onto my back.

  “Queotl,” he barked, a phrase he’d repeated a thousand times during these sessions. He placed one foot on my chest, began exerting pressure. “Queotl!”

  The pressure increased, pain beginning to shoot through my back, my arms caught beneath me. The thorns from the vines used to tie them began to dig into flesh, into scratches that had finally scabbed over that morning after days of abuse.

  I began to roar, Haqtl pressing down harder, the thorns digging deeper, until the roar broke into wretched sobbing.

  Haqtl’s weight lifted. I rolled to the side instantly, released the tension in my arms, on the vines twisted around and around the muscles there.

  “I don’t understand you,” I spat in anger, then rolled back again.

  Haqtl glared down at me, face severe.

  “I don’t understand you!” I bellowed.

  Without flinching, Haqtl stepped forward, barked something else, something I’d never heard him say before.

  The Chorl behind him moved instantly, bringing forth a box. Carved of wood, riddled with curved icons like the tattoos on the Chorl men’s faces, on Haqtl’s face, the Chorl priest set the box down in the sand beside him and lifted off the lid.

  From within, he withdrew a thin needle as long as his hand, the spine of some seashell or sea creature, and a clay bottle stoppered with wax. He pierced the wax with the spine, withdrew it slowly, then set the bottle back into the box.

  I jerked back when he stepped forward, a drop of liquid falling from the tip of the needle onto my skin. Where it landed on my chest, my skin burned, an agonizing burn that spread into the surrounding muscle, deep, deeper, like a thousand needles, as if my skin had literally caught fire.

  And he hadn’t even touched me with the spine.

  I writhed to one side, sand spraying outward as I kicked, and Haqtl barked another command, the two Chorl warriors stepping forward. One kicked me in the stomach, then fell to my side with one knee planted on my chest. The other grabbed my legs.

  Immobilized, I could only watch as Haqtl came around to my head, knelt beside me and raised the spine over my chest, over my heart. He glared down into my face, mouth set . . . and then he closed his eyes.

  A blanket fell over me, a pressure that smothered me from neck to toe.

  Haqtl began to murmur something, a whisper, barely audible.

  And the spine began to descend.

  I tried to struggle, felt the muscles in my neck tense as I willed myself to jerk free of the Chorl warrior’s hands, as I commanded my body to move!

  But the blanket that smothered me didn’t slacken.

  A moment before the spine touched the skin over my heart, before it sank into flesh, pierced skin and dug deeper, and deeper still, Haqtl opened his eyes . . . and smiled, his whispered chant falling silent.

  And then I screamed—

  And Erick thrust me back, pushed me from the memory with a roaring cry of his own, our two howls melding until we both broke at the same time, gasping into the trembling silence.

  Still heaving, Erick said, more calmly than I expected, voice hoarse, ragged, That is what I’m living with. Those memories. That pain. That is what you’re asking me to endure, over and over again.

  Varis, I can’t remain in this body. I can’t live with it anymore. You need to set me free, Varis. You need to end it.

  You need to kill me.

  And then he released me, withdrew, left me sobbing again, my essence twisting in upon itself, unable to reach out for comfort, unable to find comfort within. Is this what it had felt like for Avrell, when he’d tried to free Eryn from the throne and finally realized his only way to save her was to kill her? Had he suffered like this?

  I didn’t know. I’d dealt with him for less than a year on a regular basis. He’d shown none of this pain when he and Borund had ordered the Mistress’ death. But if he had felt this way, if he had felt this vicious scintillant pain, as if someone had knifed him in the gut, someone close, someone trusted, how had he survived?

  Varis . . . please.

  And I fled, pushed up and out of the Fire, collapsed back into myself with a wrenching half gasp, half sob.

  “Varis?”

  A concerned hand fell onto my shoulder and I opened tear-blurred eyes. “He wants me to kill him, Keven. He wants me to end it.”

  Keven recoiled, hand jerking back from my shoulder, head snapping to look at Erick.

  Erick’s face was streaked with tears where he lay on the bed, but it was utterly calm. There was no emotion there. No tension around the eyes, no frown, no hint of a smile. Perfectly empty.

  Except for the tears. Tears that I had most likely unconsciously forced him to shed as I shared his body, as I felt the pain inflicted upon him by Haqtl, by the Chorl.

  When Keven turned back, I saw acceptance in his face. Understanding.

  And with a strange horror I realized I understood as well, perhaps more so than Keven.

  Because I couldn’t even remain trapped in a city without rebelling, let alone remain trapped in my own body, trapped reliving those memories.

  Death would be better.

  And with that, the tears stopped. Suddenly, abruptly. Without even a hitch.

  Keven stood, his eyes never leaving mine. “If you won’t,” he said, “if you can’t, I will. For Erick.”

  “No,” I said, rising slowly. I could feel the weight of my sheathed dagger pressing into my back. “No. I’ll do it.”

  Drawing the blade, I felt Keven nod and step back, heard a rustle of cloth as someone else stepped forward.

  I was so focused on Erick, on his face, so expressionless, so devoid of anything I thought of as truly Erick, that I didn’t acknowledge Isaiah until he gripped the wrist of the hand holding the dagger with the force and strength of iron and said, “I can’t let you do that.”

  His voice, usually bitter and resentful, now reverberated with pure and utter resistance.

  “You would defy me?” I asked, anger bleeding through the words, laced with pain.

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m the Mistress.”

  He nodded. “I would defy even the Mistress over this.” His eyes never left my face; his hold on my wrist never wavered. I could break that grip with a sharp twist, could kill Isaiah and Erick both in the space of two breaths, the potential hanging in the air between me and the healer like a living thing. Isaiah knew it, recognized it . . . and still he held me.

  “There’s nothing left to try,” I argued, trying to break him, heard the tremor in my voice and forced it down. “You don’t know what he’s living through. You don’t know what it’s like. This is what he wants!”

  Isaiah’s eyes narrowed. “Sometimes, the patient—and those that are closest to the patient—are too blind to see. He is alive now, which means there is still hope. Mistress.”

  We glared at each silently for the space of a breath, for two—

  And then I felt an unidentifiable surge on the river and the door burst open.

  “Mistress!” someone shouted in warning.

  With one quick tur
n, I broke free of Isaiah’s gaze, ripped my hand free of his hold, and stepped in front of Erick’s bed, Keven at my side an instant later, both of us facing the intruder at the door.

  Brandan Vard.

  “Venitte!” he shouted, stepping forward once, twice, the palace guardsmen that had been set to guard the door stumbling into the room behind him, kept at bay by some invisible shield, by the Sight. “They intend to attack Venitte—and you didn’t tell me!”

  “Mistress!” one of the stumbling guards barked. “We tried to halt him at the door, but—”

  “Enough,” I spat, cutting the explanation short. I could feel the effects of the force Brandan used on the river, even if I couldn’t see the manipulations myself. He truly was a Servant of Venitte. “What do you want, Brandan? This is not a good time.”

  Face twisted in rage, he growled, “You find out that the Chorl are going to attack Venitte and you don’t warn me! I had to learn this from one of your servants? Amenkor and Venitte have an alliance!”

  Trying to keep my voice level, I said, “We did warn you, as soon as we found out ourselves. We told Captain Tristan. He informed us that he would let you know immediately. Obviously, he didn’t.”

  That brought Brandan up short. He spluttered for a moment, his anger spiking—

  And then, abruptly, all of his anger settled into a tight coiled ball. His stance shifted, stiffened, grew formal.

  “I apologize for this intrusion. I will speak to Tristan—” he spat the captain’s name, “—and find out why he did not feel it important to inform me of—”

  He cut off, his gaze falling on Erick’s prone form. “What’s this?” Sharp, commanding, but without any of the anger of his earlier words.

  “This . . . is none of your business.”

  We locked eyes. “That man is under a spell.”

  “I know that,” I began.

  And then realized what Brandan was saying.

  Stepping forward, fighting against the hope that surged forward with the force of an ocean’s wave, I asked, “You can see it? You can see the spell?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can you break it?” Keven said.

  Brandan frowned, uncertain now, confused.

  Drawing a deep breath to calm myself, feeling the wave rising inside me, surrounding me, I tried to explain. “This man’s name is Erick. He’s a guardsman here in the palace, a Seeker, and my personal bodyguard. He was captured by the Chorl, and then rescued during the attack on Amenkor. But when we brought him back, we found this spell on him, one that none of us can see and only a few of us can feel. If you can see it, if you can break it . . .”

  Brandan hesitated, watching me intently, as if trying to decide whether I spoke the truth, if I was deceiving him, but then he nodded. “I can try.”

  Without waiting for permission from Keven or the guardsmen, he stepped up to Isaiah’s side of the bed, Keven and I moving to the other, and leaned over Erick’s body. Slipping beneath the river, where the hope I was trying to suppress grew almost overwhelming, I felt the river shift beneath his probing. I couldn’t tell what he was doing, but I could see the occasional consequences of his actions, like ripples on water caused by a fish hidden beneath the surface.

  “It’s some kind of shield,” he muttered after a long moment, “layered close to his body, like a second skin. And it’s secured near his heart.”

  “Yes.” I thought about the needle that had been pressed into Erick’s skin by Haqtl, about the burning sensation of the poison that had coated the needle. “Can you remove it?”

  Brandan glanced up. “No.”

  I almost staggered back, the wave of hope cresting, beginning to crash down, threatening to crush me.

  But then Brandan added, nonchalantly, “But Zachari could.”

  “And where is Zachari?”

  Brandan leaned back. “Venitte.”

  “We’ll have to bring Zachari here,” Keven said. “Quickly.”

  “There won’t be enough time,” Isaiah said, and his voice was calm, collected. The familiar resentful bitterness had returned. “Erick won’t survive long enough for you to send word to Venitte, get Zachari on a ship, and get him back here. Erick’s too close to death.”

  “Then what can we do?” Keven said in frustration.

  I leaned over Erick’s placid face. I reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair away from his closed eyes.

  “We take him with us to Venitte,” I said.

  “Why couldn’t we see it?” Eryn asked.

  On the wharf, the four nearest docks were a torrent of activity, the two Chorl ships, Borund’s trader, and Tristan’s ship all being loaded at the same time, casks and crates winched up and overhead or hefted onto shoulders and hauled up planks. The lower city itself was a riotous mix of guardsmen, their families, hawkers, Servants, carts, horses, carriages, and sailors.

  I couldn’t help thinking it was a gutterscum’s dream. Easy marks, easy pickings.

  “Because we’re women,” I said, turning my attention from the ships and docks to Eryn. “Brandan said that the Sight, and another one of the Five Magics he calls the Threads, are split into two sources—male and female. Essentially, the Servants of both Amenkor and Venitte are using both the Sight and the Threads when we manipulate the river, even though we think of it as only one source of power. But for the most part, whether or not we can see what each of us has done depends on our skill with both magics . . . and whether we’re male or female. He can’t see what we’re doing when we manipulate the river any more than we can see what he does. Some can feel the other side of the magic, like you could feel the spell on Erick, but no one he knows can see both sides.

  “The spell put on Erick was placed there by Haqtl, not by the Ochean and the Servants. I know. I was there when Haqtl used the needle to pierce Erick above the heart and secured it. Erick showed me. That’s why that wound won’t heal when all of the others did. And since neither one of us can see the spell, we can’t remove it.”

  “What if Brandan is lying? What if he’s manipulating you for some unknown political reason? We know he and Tristan aren’t exactly friends, we know that there’s something else going on, and we have no idea what’s at stake there. In fact, we have no idea what the political climate in Venitte is at the moment at all.”

  I thought about Brandan barging into Erick’s chambers, about how confused he’d looked when he’d first spotted Erick. “I don’t think he’s lying about Erick. And I know he can see the spell. He described it and its effects too well.”

  “But he could still be lying about being able to remove it in Venitte.”

  I turned to Eryn. “I don’t have much choice. Neither one of us can help, and with what he’s told us, Ottul was never going to be of any use either.”

  Eryn shook her head. “I know. It’s just . . .”

  Farther down the wharf, a crate crashed to the planking and split open with a crunch, apples spilling out, the caged chickens nearby flapping in agitation, a goat bleating. The dockmaster bellowed in rage, dark-skinned Zorelli leaping to gather up the apples.

  Avrell stood watching from the end of the dock, a dark frown on his face. Eryn’s brow grew troubled and she coughed once, the sound halfhearted and empty, almost like a habit now.

  I glanced out toward the waters of the harbor. “Avrell can stay here. I can survive Venitte without him.”

  I felt Eryn’s eyes on me, felt her considering, but then she sighed. “No. You need him more than I do. We’ve been separated before, by duty, by choice. This is no different.”

  Except it was. The blood-speckled white cloth Eryn kept tucked in her sleeve spoke of that.

  But I didn’t say anything. Because I thought I would need Avrell in Venitte.

  “The carriages have arrived,” Eryn said.

  I turned back toward the city, caught sight of the three carriages as they drew up alongside the end of the Defiant’s dock, the crowd being pushed back by Catrell and a slew of guardsmen.
Most of those on the wharf weren’t interested in what was happening on the docks themselves, too busy hugging and sobbing and saying farewell to loved ones as guardsmen and sailors loaded themselves onto the four ships, but when the occupant of the first carriage emerged, a hush overtook those closest, and a dark surge of hatred and resentment and fear coursed through the river.

  “I still think you should leave Ottul here,” Eryn muttered.

  I didn’t answer.

  The darkness on the river swelled as Ottul was escorted down the pier toward us by four Servants and ten guardsmen. She hadn’t caused any serious problems since that first attempt to break free after we’d found her, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  She sensed the hatred on the river as well. Her eyes darkened, and that defensive arrogance settled into the lines of her face. Tossing her long black hair, she straightened, proceeding down the dock at a swift pace, as if she were being presented with honor, not guarded as a prisoner.

  “Mistress,” Marielle said. She, Trielle, Heddan, and Gwenn were the four Servants keeping Ottul under guard, Gwenn chosen because Ottul had bonded to her in some way during her excursions to the training grounds.

  “The room has been prepared and is ready,” I said.

  Marielle nodded, the others following suit, and then they swept past, heading for the Defiant. I’d already put Ottul out of my mind, stepped forward now to the end of the pier and the second carriage.

  Catrell and three other guardsmen helped Isaiah down from the carriage, then reached in to begin pulling out the carrying board that Erick had been lashed to for transport. He’d been made as comfortable as possible with pillows and blankets, but I still winced as they tilted him out using the handles built into the sides.

  The fiery pain of the needles caused by the lashing, by the jostling movements, would be excruciating.

  “Get him onto the ship and settled as quickly as possible,” I said to Isaiah.

  “Of course, Mistress.”

  As they moved carefully by, I dove into the Fire at Erick’s core, sent him a surge of hope, of sympathy, but retreated quickly.