Chapter 7
A
MENKOR.
The real Amenkor.
I stumbled to my knees in the half-light of dawn and vomited into the corner at the base of a stone-brick wall. My stomach cramped and I heaved again, muscles tightening in pain, but nothing came. There was nothing left in my stomach. Nothing but a horrible sickness.
When the spasms ended, I spat and crawled along the length of the alley to a barrel set near its end. I hunched back against the barrel, arms tight across my chest, as shudders ran through me. Reaction to the use of the river had never been this bad. But then, I’d never used it so heavily before, never kept myself submerged for so long. I’d never needed to use it so heavily.
I shuddered again, this time because of the image of Bloodmark choking on his own blood, and the sight of the Skewed Throne carved into the white-dusty man’s chest.
I pulled myself hard against the barrel, eyes squeezed tight. I had no defense against the pain. The river, the run to Amenkor along the Dredge, the tension of waiting for the right moment to slip past the guards and cross the bridge and the real River, they’d all taken their toll. There was only weariness, an exhaustion that had settled into my muscles, into my bones. A weariness that dragged at me like a relentless tide.
I leaned my head against the stone-brick wall deep inside Amenkor and let the tide claim me.
A whip cracked, the snap startling me awake with a lurch.
“Hee-ah!” someone cried, and the clatter of hooves and wheels on cobbles receded.
I blinked into raw sunlight, eyes blurred, then shifted.
A boy stood before me.
I froze, muscles tensing.
The boy—no more than six years old, dressed in hand-stitched, fitted breeches, a vest, a white shirt; clothing far too fine for the slums or the Dredge—watched me with intent brown eyes. His hands were clutched behind his back, and he rocked back and forth, onto his heels and then his toes. A strange flattened hat covered shiny blond hair.
“Who are you?” he asked in a clear, precise voice. There was no malice, no fear in his round face. Nothing but curiosity.
I drew breath, my chest, my lungs, burning with the effort. But before I could answer—not even knowing what I would say—a woman stepped into view.
“Perci, what in the White Heavens are you—Oh!” The woman gasped, stepped back unconsciously, one hand reaching for Perci, the other reaching for the clasp on the dress near her throat. Her shocked face quickly hardened into something I knew, something I recognized:
Disdain tainted with fear. Mostly disdain.
My eyes narrowed, jaw clenching. My hand slid to the dagger tucked at my side. She wore a blue-dyed dress, fitted at the waist, with sleeves reaching to her wrists. Sandals with many straps covered washed feet. Simple clothes, not as fancy as Perci’s. But there were no stains, no ragged edges, no wear marks. The clothes looked fresh, like puddles of water immediately after a storm, before scum slicked the surface.
My gaze returned to her eyes.
Some of the disdain slipped away, the fear edging forward.
“Come, Perci.” The hand on Perci’s shoulder tightened and she began to draw him toward the mouth of the alley, toward the bright sunlight.
Perci resisted, his face squeezing into a frown of defiance, but when the woman’s hand tightened further, he let himself be dragged away. I slid into a crouch behind the barrel as they moved, relaxing only when they’d vanished into the flow of people at the edge of the alley.
The people.
My hand tightened on the dagger and I drew farther back behind the barrel. A fresh wave of nausea swept through me, more fear and dread than sickness from the use of the river.
On the street, men and women moved among carts pulled by horses. Most carried satchels and small bundles tied with twine. A few carried baskets, bread sticking out of raised lids. All wore unstained clothing in strange, bright colors—blues, dark reds, a width of bright yellow. The men wore breeches, boots, white shirts, vests, wide belts with pouches openly displayed. The women wore dresses with long sleeves and sandals, long hair tied back with thin leather straps, some with hats or folded scarves over their hair. They moved without rushing, with heads high, eyes forward. Tall.
They moved without fear.
A pair of black horses clattered into view, tied to . . . a cart. Except it wasn’t a cart. It was a little enclosed room, a small door in its side. Through the window cut into the door, I could see a man with a thin, angular face.
When he turned toward me, I ducked behind the barrel.
The sight of the horse-drawn room, of the clothes, of the colors, felt like a kick to the gut. What had I done? This was not the Dredge. This was Amenkor. The real Amenkor. I didn’t belong here, didn’t know the streets, the alleys, or narrows. I didn’t know the people, their patterns and reactions. They didn’t dress the same, didn’t even seem to move the same, the ebb and flow of the street subtly different, more sedate, less frantic.
A strong urge to retreat seized me, clamped onto my throat and held on tight. Run, flee, cower in the nether regions of the Dredge.
But as soon as the urge took hold, it was crushed by despair.
I couldn’t go back to the slums. Not now. Not ever. Erick would be looking for me. The first place he’d look would be my niche.
Where he’d find Bloodmark. Erick would know that I’d killed him.
Guilt stabbed hard into my stomach. And shame as I imagined Erick kneeling over Bloodmark’s body, checking out the wound, scanning the body for marks. But he wouldn’t need confirmation of who had driven the dagger into Bloodmark’s neck. He’d know as soon as he saw the body.
No, I couldn’t go back to the slums. I’d killed so many for Erick, for the Mistress, but Bloodmark had been different. I’d killed him for myself. For the white-dusty man and his wife.
But mostly for myself.
I drew in two long, deep breaths to steady myself, felt the shame fade, replaced with regret. Not regret that I’d killed Bloodmark, but that somehow in the process I’d lost Erick as well.
I suddenly thought of that last vision of Erick at Cobbler ’s Fountain, of seeing him for the first time beneath the river, his essence a strange mixture of gray and red. No one had ever appeared both colors before. Those that were harmless or presented no immediate danger were always gray; those that weren’t were red.
So what did the mixture mean? Could Erick somehow be both? Harmless and dangerous at the same time?
Or was it not that simple?
I thought about Erick outside the iron gate, stalking Jobriah, the first mark I’d led him to. He’d been dangerous that day, enough that I’d shied away from him. I’d seen that same black look in his eyes many times since then. And every time I’d shuddered, pulled back and away.
But I could still feel his arms around me as he held me and I told him about the ex-guardsman trying to rape me, of how I’d stolen the dagger and killed the bastard as the White Fire swept through the city. I’d settled closer to Erick then, had been comforted by him.
Was it possible for someone to be both?
I shook myself, thrust the unanswered questions away. Harmless or dangerous, red or gray, it didn’t matter anymore. Erick was gone, lost, stolen from me. Just like the Dredge.
I shifted forward, stared down the length of the alley to the bustle of the street, to the ebb and flow of strangers in fine clothing and clean skin.
Who are you? Perci had asked.
I glanced down at my hands. Bloodmark’s blood had dried into the creases of the palm, had caked between my fingers. I closed my hands into fists and felt flakes fall away, felt the dried blood like grit between my skin.
“I’m gutterscum,” I murmured to myself.
The sensation of having been kicked hard remained, deep inside, the ache like a stone in my gut. I drew in a deep breath through my nose, snorted back snot and phlegm and swallowed it, coughing slightly.
I couldn’t return to the slums, but I couldn’t remain here either. I was too different. I’d be noticed the instant I entered the street. I needed to get cleaned up, wash the slums from my face, from my clothes.
I stood, slowly, with effort, feeling aches throughout my body, but mostly in my chest and stomach from where Bloodmark had kicked me. Back pressed against the stone-brick wall for support, I lifted my dirt-, blood-, and vomit-smeared shirt. A livid bruise in the shape of a foot lay in the center of my chest, black and purplish-blue, edged in a horrid yellow. Another bruise rose along my side.
I saw Bloodmark’s foot stomping down out of the night, winced as I dropped the shirt back into place. I glanced down the alley again in both directions, frowned.
Something else was different here. Something I’d noticed the night I’d followed Erick to the bridge. Something that reinforced the fact that I was no longer on the Dredge with more power than the people on the street, or their clothes, or the strange room on wheels.
The alley had edges, seemed somehow more defined, more there. There were sharp corners at its mouth, clear recesses for windows, for doors, and none of the windows were boarded up. The cobbles that covered the ground were mostly intact; the path for the runnel of water down its center mostly straight.
Beyond the Dredge, the alleys and narrows were worn, rounded, used. The shit and piss and lichen that stained the stone and mud-brick were permanent. The slush of rotten garbage that slicked the niches, collected in the crevices and corners, only shifted. It was never removed.
And on the Dredge, there were no barrels. None completely intact anyway.
I turned to the barrel, leaned down over its opening. It was just over half full of rainwater. I stared down at the ripples on the water, at the face reflected there.
The hair was flat, slicked with mud, matted with splatters of blood. It hung in thin tendrils, like rat tails, shorn short and uneven, nothing reaching farther than the chin. It framed a thin face, mouth pressed tight into a thin line, most of the skin smudged with more dirt, more blood, all dried and flaked like the blood on my hands. What skin wasn’t covered with grit—with the Dredge—was sallow, almost gray. And the eyes . . .
I flinched.
The eyes were hollow, wasted, crusted with dried tears. And in the muddy depths—
I stood a long moment, looked deep into the water, into those eyes.
Then I plunged my hands down into the water and scrubbed the blood away, scrubbed until my skin felt raw, until my ragged fingernails left marks. Then, before the water could settle and the reflection could return, I dipped my head into the barrel.
Water closed over my face and I shut my eyes, remembering Cobbler’s Fountain, feeling again the terror of that six-year-old girl as she tripped, as the water enveloped her, closed up and over her head. . . .
I jerked out of the rain barrel, water streaming from my hair, down my face. I gasped, sputtered, but scrubbed at my skin and pulled at my hair before dipping back down into the barrel again to wash away the grime, resurfacing with another choked gasp.
“Where did you see this woman?”
The voice filtered out of the general noise of the street. I turned, hair still dripping water. I scanned the alley and realized one more thing that made the real Amenkor different from the Dredge.
The alleys had fewer darknesses, fewer hiding places. Windows and doors actually existed, were not simply empty openings leading to deeper darknesses. I had few places to escape to here.
“Down that alley,” a woman said. I glanced back to the street and saw her—the woman who’d dragged Perci away. She stood with Perci, nodding toward the alley. A guardsman, dressed like Erick, but with finer clothing, more armor, and a sword instead of a dagger, followed the direction of her nod.
“And you say she had blood on her hands?” the guard asked. His voice sounded dubious.
“Yes. And on her face and clothes. And I think she had a knife.”
The guard grunted and began moving toward the alley.
I turned and moved into its depths, moved without conscious thought. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay here any longer. I’d have to finish cleaning up somewhere else.
The first time I tried to use the river after killing Bloodmark, a spike of pain slashed into my head behind my eyes and my stomach clenched so hard I collapsed to the ground at the mouth of the alley where I stood. I lay curled where I’d fallen, drawing in breaths in huge gasps. Panic smothered me as the pain escalated, the spike driving deeper, harder, turning white-hot.
I’d never had pain like this. Not days after my last use of the river. Especially not after the nausea and weakness had receded.
And then a horrifying thought surfaced, stilled my gasping breath with a twinge of pain in my lungs.
What if I couldn’t use the river anymore at all? What if somehow in my push to find Bloodmark I’d overex tended myself, burned myself out?
The thought shoved everything away, crushed everything but the spike of pain behind my eyes and a hollow sound in my ears. It left me stunned.
I couldn’t survive without the river.
Someone touched me, a gentle hand on my shoulder.
I jerked back with a gasp, struck the wall of the alley.
“Are you all right?”
I could barely see the woman who knelt beside me, her hands lying cupped on her knees. A strange field of yellow, like a film of scum over water, covered my vision, pulsing with the pulse of the spike. Jagged little streaks, like flares of lightning, ran through the field of yellow.
“I’m . . . fine,” I gasped, too frightened of what was happening in my head to really respond, to think.
The woman sat back slightly, her dress rustling, the sound unnaturally loud. “You don’t look fine.” Her voice seemed dull, faded, and seemed to come from much farther away.
I tried to focus through the field of yellow, pushed myself up onto my hands. The pulsing lightning began to recede. “I’m fine,” I said with more force.
The woman frowned doubtfully and glanced back toward the street. Her dress was a plain brown, but still clean. Her long, light-brown hair was tied back with a simple green ribbon, pulled away from her round face. And she wore an earring in one ear—gold with a bluish-green iridescent bead.
It reminded me strangely of water.
Across the street, a man and two older boys were unloading sacks of potatoes from a wagon, tossing a heavy bag over each shoulder before toting them through a wide door into the building beyond. One sack had split while being hefted, spilling a few potatoes to the ground. The sack itself had been set to one side at the back of the wagon.
When she turned back, the woman with the iridescent earring scrutinized me through narrowed eyes. Her frown had deepened. Her gaze flicked to my clothes, to my hair.
Neither was splattered with blood now. After eluding the guardsman in the backstreets, I’d gone down to Amenkor’s River, washed everything as clean as I could make it. On the Dredge, the clothes Erick had given me had seemed clean, almost too nice to be worn. But at the edge of the River, at the bottom of the stone steps that led down to its walled-in banks, I’d seen the stains, the tattered edges, the small tears.
I felt those tears, those stains, now, under the scrutiny of the woman. Tight anger burned in my chest and I pushed myself back onto my heels.
“I said I’m fine,” I repeated, harshly.
Her brow creased. Then she stood and said, “Very well.”
I flinched at the slight coldness in her voice, the remoteness.
She moved away, stepped back into the street, but paused when she saw the wagon again, the potatoes. The last of the sacks had been toted into the building and the older of the two boys was holding the split sack while the younger collected the dropped potatoes from the street. They cinched the sack closed as best they could and hauled it inside the building as well.
The woman turned back. “Perhaps . . .” She hesitated, seemed to reconsider, then added in a rush, “Perhaps you should try the marketplace. Or the wharf. You might have better luck there, on the docks.”
Then she cut across the street, pausing only long enough to let a man on a horse pass.
I watched where she had vanished for a long moment, feeling a dull ache in my chest, for a brief moment smelling yeast, feeling a brush of oven heat against my face.
But I pushed the ache down, smothered the scents. The spiking pain had dropped down to a throbbing stab and my vision had begun to clear. I still felt weak, but even that was fading.
I stood carefully, then scanned the street.
People moved from shop to shop, building to building. They paused to talk, to laugh. Bells jangled as someone entered a narrow door in the building beside me. The smell of tallow drifted out. But not the harsh, oily tallow of the Dredge. This tallow was mixed with strange scents, wild foreign scents that prickled the inside of my nose. Across the street, another door opened and a roar of laughter escaped into the street, the man who had left waving to the others inside.
I’d have no luck hunting here. The closest I’d come in the last two days had been the split sack of potatoes, and even that would have been risky. That’s why I’d tried to use the river. But this wasn’t the Dredge. The people might not be wary, but they had nothing to fear. There were too few of them, nothing like the crowds on the Dredge. There were no places for me to blend into, no niches to hide in.
And then there were the guards.
I stepped deeper into the alley as two appeared on horseback. Like the guard the other day, these two were dressed like Erick, but cleaner. Edged, like the alleys. They held themselves stiff and straight, and their eyes . . .
As they passed, the closest guard’s gaze fell on me. His eyes were like Erick’s as well, but the danger, the darkness that I’d seen hidden in Erick’s gaze was blunt and blatant. And arrogant.
The guard’s eyes narrowed, as if it had finally registered that he’d seen something out of place, something wrong.
The two passed beyond the entrance to the alley.
I didn’t wait for them to return. I moved back into the depths and began to work my way toward Amenkor’s River. I’d stayed near the water the last few nights. Because the riverbank wasn’t as active as the inner streets, it provided a few more places to hide. And because I could see the slums on the far side, the familiar sight was comforting. But the woman was right. I couldn’t continue hunting in this area, especially if I couldn’t use the river.
I halted, bit my lower lip, then tentatively tried to push myself beneath the surface. For a moment, the world grayed, noises receded to wind. But the sense was distorted, watery and indistinct.
And then the spike of pain returned, slicing down through my temple. Weakness shot through my legs.
I shoved the river away before the pain increased, sighed in relief as the searing spike began to recede.
When my legs felt stable again, I continued. I didn’t know where the marketplace was, but the wharf. . . .
I’d seen it from the rooftops, seen it the night the ex-guardsman had caught me and dragged me there to rape me. I remembered the White Fire as it sped through the harbor, so cold and silent, remembered how it had engulfed the ships, the docks, before surging up onto the land. All I had to do was follow the River down to the sea.
I shivered, felt the Fire stir inside me.
I tensed, half expected the spiked headache to return and the nausea, but the cold flame of the Fire drifted away. Apparently, it wasn’t affected by the use of the river.
My stomach growled.
I picked up my pace. I’d have better luck at the docks.
I knelt between two crates behind a pile of tangled netting on the wharf and watched a ship with three masts bump hard into the long wooden dock. A man shouted, voice hard and vicious against the slap of the waves, and men scurried as ties were thrown over the edge of the boat. The dock groaned as the ship drifted away, and then a plank slapped down and more men began unloading cargo, crate after crate hauled down to the dock. Some of the men unloading crates had dark skin—darker than could be attributed to exposure to the sun—their faces flatter and wider, bodies shorter, more compact. All of the darker-skinned men had straight black hair, cut to the nape of the neck. Most had tattoos on their faces and down their necks.
Zorelli. Men from the far south.
I eased forward, hoping for a better look.
It was chaos, men on the ship, men on the dock, the man barking orders left and right, motioning with an arm toward the wharf, toward the ship, arguing with another man who came down the plank as if he owned it. The man coming down the plank glared at the one shouting orders, then gave a curt command. The other man turned back to the boat, bellowing more fiercely than before, cursing, pissed off, taking it out on the crew.
The captain stepped off the plank, dipped his head toward another man waiting on the pier. Both wore fine breeches, heavy boots, shirts with unnecessary ruffles near the throat, and long jackets that came down to their knees. The man on the dock had a dark-red jacket, like blood, with gold threading in strange patterns down the arms and near the cuffs. He was mostly bald, a fringe of dark hair with shots of gray surrounding his head like brown stone around a fountain. He wore rounded wire on his face, with hooks that went around his ears. Every now and then, when he turned, sunlight would glint off his eyes, as if it were reflecting off water, only this reflection appeared flat and rounded.
The captain of the ship wore dark green, with less gold threading, but with more hair and no wires on his face.
As I watched, the captain and the man in the red jacket began arguing. When the argument ended, the captain of the ship stormed back up the plank, the man with the wires on his face watching him go.
Then the man with the wires on his face began moving down the dock toward me, his eyes narrowed in anger. Another man—younger, paler—fell in beside him, dressed similarly but without the horrible jacket.
“What’s the matter, Master Borund? What did the captain say?”
The bald man growled. “He said he didn’t have the entire shipment. Said the cloth from Verano is missing and the Marland spice couldn’t be found. Someone in the city bought it all up before he could get any.” He cursed, then drew in a deep breath to steady himself as the two passed by the crates. I’d sprawled back, head down as if asleep, but I needn’t have bothered. They were too intent on their conversation to notice me. “This city is going to pieces, William. And neither Avrell nor the Mistress is doing anything about it. . . .”
Their voices receded.
I lifted my head to see if they were far enough away, then shifted forward and watched them merge with the crowd on the wharf, vanishing among the hawkers and dockworkers, the stench of seawater and fish. Then I turned back to the ship.
There was nothing on the ship for me, nothing I could steal. I’d already determined that. But I didn’t leave. The ships in the harbor intrigued me. I watched the men unload the crates, watched the ropes and pulleys on the masts sag and dip in the wind. Waves slapped against the ship’s sides, and now and then it bumped up against the dock where it was secured. Men shouted and cursed and spat and laughed. White-gray birds shrieked, dove for the water, for the men, before settling on the dock supports and flapping their wings. Someone dropped a crate and with a wrench and a crack of wood it split, sending some type of brown, hairy, rounded fruit rolling along the dock.
I leaned forward, possibilities leaping upward in my chest, but forced myself to settle back.
I couldn’t risk it. Not without the river. I’d learned that the first few days on the wharf. I could still feel the hawker ’s hand latching onto my wrist and jerking me around the first time I’d tried.
Where do you think you’re going with that? he’d spat, his voice somehow greasy.
I leaned back against the crates, brought up a hand to wipe at where I could still feel the spit on my face. I’d said nothing, too shocked that I’d been caught to speak.
I’d never been caught on the Dredge. Not since I’d figured out how to combine the river with what Dove and his street gang had taught me. And especially not after the Fire.
But here I had to be more careful, had to take fewer risks. All because every time I tried to use the river that spike of pain returned. I couldn’t tell if it was lessening as the days passed; it was still too sharp. So sharp that I hadn’t tried to use the river at all in the last two days.
I pushed the nagging worry back, continued to watch the last of the crates being unloaded. The strange hairy fruit was being repacked.
I sighed and turned back to the wharf. I couldn’t risk taking anything directly from the docks, where escape routes were restricted, but the wharf. . . .
I slid from my place among the crates and netting and merged with the crowd.
I spent the rest of the day on the wharf, shifting from place to place, watching the hawkers, watching the dockworkers, eyes sharp for the misplaced fishhead, the unwatched crust of bread. The crowds were slightly different here than on the Dredge. The majority of the people were the same—pale skin, darker hair in shades of brown and black, darker eyes as well— but there were more strangers on the wharf. Men with beads braided in their beards; women with feathers in their hair. Others wore cloth draped over them, secured with intricate folds and tucks, rather than being tailored. I saw a few with the blue paint smudge of the Tear of Taniece near the corner of their eye.
The streets and alleys just beyond the wharf were almost like the Dredge as well. The alleys were lined with bundles of netting and meshed crab traps with dried seaweed stuck to them, rather than heaps of broken stone and crumbling mud-brick. The stench: salt and dead fish, rather than shit and stagnant water. I’d even managed to find a new niche—the end of an alley, where crab traps had been piled high, covered over with a stretch of tanned hide against the rain. I’d forced a hole in the center, pulled traps out from inside, until I could squeeze into the narrow opening and move around beneath the tanned hide. It was much closer to the Dredge than the upper city, where I’d been before, where I’d woken to find Perci staring down at me.
I glanced away from the wharf, up past the buildings immediately next to the water to the slope of the hill behind. The roofs thinned as my gaze swept higher, the buildings larger, more ornate and isolated. At the top of the hill I could see three circular walls, the white stone of the palace gleaming in the sun in their center.
In the upper city, there were almost no foreigners, and almost no smells at all. At least nothing that stung the nose or made my eyes water.
My gaze dropped back to the wharf and I breathed in the stench of fish again.
A man cursed and the thud of a dropped bundle hitting the wood of the wharf drew me out of my daze. Night was beginning to settle, and clouds had begun to drift in from the sea.
It would rain tonight.
The man squatted down, began gathering up what had spilled from his bundle, the flow of the crowd parting around him. A few items had rolled. A flat package tied with twine slid against a dock support jutting up from the planking and the undulating water below.
For a moment, I tensed, ready to slip beneath the river, but stopped myself with a shudder, remembering the spiked headache.
I settled back against the alley wall and watched as the man grunted, reaching for a cylindrical package that had rolled farther away than the rest. Only the flat item that had slid to the support remained.
But the man stood abruptly, tossed the cylindrical package into the bundle, then swung it up over his shoulder and joined the crowd.
I stared in shock at the rectangular package he’d left behind.
Then, with a swift glance left and right, I shoved through the people to the dock support and snatched the package up.
Without opening it, I headed back to my niche, pushing through the crowd. Once in the back alleys, I slowed, relaxed, my arms tingling.
All I wanted was my niche.
I slipped down an empty street, toward an alley. Night had fallen completely now, and the first drizzle of rain began to fall. I’d almost reached the end of the alley, my hands still clutching the package, when someone stepped into my path.
I froze, water beginning to drip from the hair hanging before my face. Through the tangles, I could see the man’s grin, could see he wore finer clothes than the dockworkers, than the hawkers. Breeches without stains, a leather belt with a dagger tucked into it, a dark shirt, a cloak against the rain.
“What have we here?” he murmured, and like the hawker that had grabbed my arm days before, his voice sounded greasy.
I took a step back, one hand dropping from the package to the dagger hidden beneath my shirt.
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 certain 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?