Chapter 10
WILLIAM thrust open the door to Borund’s office with such force it cracked against the wall and almost rebounded back into his face. I’d moved halfway across the room without making a sound, dagger drawn, before I recognized him. Even after two months guarding Borund, I still hadn’t relaxed when in his manse. Some habits from the Dredge were hard to break.
William stood in the doorway, mouth opening and closing, staring at Borund.
“What is it?” Borund said, rising from his seat behind his desk. His voice was steady, but since I’d been guarding him, I’d learned to read the undertones. They were touched with dread, as if he already knew the news, or already suspected.
William must have noticed as well, for he sagged slightly and drew in a breath. “Marcus is dead.”
I frowned down at the floor, raced through all of the merchants I’d met. I’d accompanied Borund everywhere for the last two months—on excursions to the warehouses, to the docks to meet the ships, to the local taverns and the guild hall for meetings with merchants and captains and sources of information. I’d met dozens of merchants, some from the cities along the Frigean coast, others from more distant places, like Warawi, a city in the southern islands.
At first the outings had been tense, Borund expecting another attack. He’d gone to the palace to complain to Avrell but had been met by the palace guard instead. They’d sent for Baill, refused to send a message to Avrell or even the Second, Nathem, until we’d spoken to the captain.
I’d been on edge the entire time, eyes furtively scanning the guardsmen as they passed through the gates of the inner wall, expecting to see Erick, expecting one of the guards to gasp and point, then drag me away.
Instead, Baill had arrived, his bald head shiny in the sunlight, his eyes flat and impregnable. The moment I saw him, I knew we weren’t going to see Avrell or Nathem. We weren’t going to see anyone. Baill was a wall—dressed in armor, body solid, face scarred, but a wall nonetheless.
Borund sensed it as well. He straightened outside the gates, jaw tightening.
He told Baill of the attack at the tavern, told him of the attempt on his life, even implicated Charls.
“Can you prove it?” Baill had asked. His eyes were intent, attention completely on Borund and his story, noting everything—every frown, every glance, every nervous shift in position.
Borund motioned toward me. “Varis, my bodyguard, saw Charls outside the tavern, saw him give the order.”
Baill turned his gaze on me and inside I felt myself cringe. Baill was the man Erick would report to. If Erick had told anyone about me, about how I’d killed Bloodmark, it would be his captain.
But there was no recognition in Baill’s eyes. Nothing but the same harsh glare he’d given Borund. As if he were assessing me, deciding whether I was a threat or merely an inconvenience.
We were a distraction, one that he did not want to deal with right now. There was something else weighing on his mind.
“What exactly did you see?” he asked. His voice was low, rolled like thunder.
I told him—of the hatred in Charls’s eyes, of the nod.
Baill grunted, turned back to Borund. “I can’t arrest anyone based on a look and a nod.”
Then he headed back inside the gates, the matter already dismissed from his mind. In that single unguarded moment, when he was turned away, I saw something in his eyes. Fear, concern, uncertainty. Nothing but a flicker, there and then gone.
Borund watched Baill’s retreating back in shock.
Borund protested again, but there was no proof that the attack at the tavern had been anything but a simple theft gone bad, a consequence of the rich roughing it where they shouldn’t be. And when no more attacks occurred against Borund, the matter was shrugged aside by the guard.
The Mistress wasn’t informed. Any attempts to see her, or Avrell, or any of the rest of Avrell’s staff concerning the attack, were blocked by Baill and the guardsmen. Access to the palace had been restricted. On the Mistress’ orders.
Two weeks passed without anything suspicious occurring as Borund went about his business. No subtle threats except through words on the floor of the guild hall. No one following Borund or William on the streets between his manse, the wharf, and the warehouse district.
After a while, Borund began to relax, began to think that perhaps Baill was right, that perhaps having a bodyguard was unnecessary.
My stomach had tightened at the muttered thought, but he never approached me about leaving. He looked at me with a troubled glance, as if he didn’t know what to do with me, as if he wanted to let me go but found that he couldn’t.
Then the attacks had begun on other merchants. All of them had been described as accidents, or muggings. And all of them reeked of something else.
Borund stopped mumbling about letting me go.
He discussed the situation—Baill, the attacks, the threat—with William. We all knew who was behind it. But nothing could be proved.
Borund went back to the palace anyway, met with Baill again. But the answer was the same. There wasn’t enough to convince Baill that these weren’t simply random attacks. That had been four weeks ago, after the second death. Captain Baill had been so abrupt and condescending that Borund hadn’t bothered when the third merchant died. The palace guard wasn’t going to help.
Marcus. I suddenly remembered the dark blue-coated man at the merchant’s guild. The one with dimples. The one who didn’t want spice. From Marlett.
The attacks were no longer restricted to the merchants of Amenkor. They’d expanded to include merchants from other cities along the coast.
I heard something fall heavily, like deadweight, and glanced up. Borund had collapsed back into his chair.
“Marcus?” He stared down at the papers before him blankly, then said again, “Marcus?”
William moved into the room, shut the door behind himself.
At the small noise, Borund looked up and he slapped his palm flat against his desk, sat up straight. “That’s the fourth one since the attack in the tavern.
And he wasn’t even from Amenkor. This merchants’ war has gone too far. It has to end.”
“It’s not going to stop,” I said.
Both William and Borund looked toward me. I rarely spoke, kept myself in the background, uninvolved unless one of them addressed me with a specific question, especially when it dealt with Borund’s business.
But this wasn’t business. At least, not normal business.
Borund’s eyes held mine, mouth pulled down into a frown. He didn’t want to believe what I said, didn’t want to think that Amenkor had degenerated that far.
“No,” he said, turning away from my blunt stance. “No, it must stop. It’s gone on long enough. I don’t care how ‘accidental’ some of the previous deaths looked, they weren’t accidents. And I don’t care that we can’t prove anything, that it’s all hearsay and circumstance. Baill can just . . .” He paused, steadied himself with an effort, then asked in a harsh voice, “How did Marcus die?”
“Knife to the throat, on the docks. It happened a few days ago, or at least that’s when he was last seen. They found him floating in the harbor this morning. It looks like another random mugging.”
Borund snorted. “This was no mugging. We all know that. I’m beginning to think even Baill knows it, and he’s simply choosing to do nothing about it, for whatever reason.” The longer he sat behind his desk, the angrier he became. His fingers were tapping at the papers, his eyes flicking blindly from sheet to sheet.
Finally, he slapped his palm down on the desk again and stood. “No. It has to stop. Get Gerrold to ready the horses. We’re going to the old city.”
“The guild?” William asked, moving to the door.
“No. To the palace. I want to speak to the Mistress herself this time. Or at the very least Avrell. If I have to, I’ll tell Baill it’s guild related. He’ll have to let me in then. It’s my right as a member of the merchants’ guild, damn it!”
William paused at the door, back rigid in shock, but nodded and left without a word.
“My apologies, Master Borund,” Avrell, the First of the Mistress, said as he emerged from an open arch into the sitting room, “but the Mistress is not seeing anyone today.”
Borund rose from his seat among the pillows, stiff with angry irritation. William rose as well. I was already standing, back to a wall so I could see the entire room. It was small, scattered with low seats, piles of cushions, and tables holding pitchers of water and plates of fruit. A few lattice-worked screens placed near the corners of the room sectioned off areas where people could meet more discreetly.
“I don’t understand why it’s taken so long for someone to see us,” Borund said. “We’ve been waiting for an audience all afternoon!”
“I know. I was informed just now by the Second and came immediately.” The First bowed his head and cast a measured glance toward me.
For a moment, he stiffened, his eyes widening slightly in surprise. Then he seemed to catch himself, his expression going blank, revealing nothing.
I frowned, felt a tingle of worry across my skin. I concentrated, pushed beneath the river.
The First swirled both gray and red. When I shifted the focus to Borund, the First was simply gray.
Avrell had raised his head and was now regarding Borund, but his attention seemed fixed on me, as if he were still watching, still . . . assessing.
I shifted uncomfortably. The First wore dark blue robes, an eight-pointed star symbol stitched on the chest in gold. His hands were clasped inside the wide sleeves, hidden. But he wasn’t a threat to Borund, and wasn’t an immediate or direct threat to me, if the red-gray coloration was any indication, so I forced myself to relax.
Instead, I took in his dark blue eyes, the lines of his face, his dark features, eyebrows and hair black. I listened to his voice, steady and soft, and watched his movements, every motion precise, considered. Occasionally, he would look in my direction. Nothing direct, but enough to make me stir. After a moment I realized why.
I never faded into the background for him as I did with almost everyone Borund dealt with. I never became gray.
Avrell was far too interested in me.
“I’ve tried to see you or the Mistress repeatedly over the last few months,” Borund said, “and I’ve been turned aside by Captain Baill at every attempt. I’m beginning to think the rumors about the Mistress are true!”
Avrell froze, every muscle stilling with sudden interest. For the first time, his attention seemed to focus completely on Borund. “The Mistress is simply unavailable today,” he said, voice hard as stone. “And, in general, I have been extremely busy. As you know, the coastal cities are in a stage of flux, everyone uncertain about the meaning of the passage of the White Fire six years ago. Now we’ve lost contact with Kandish and the other nations on the far side of the mountains, and winter is bearing down on us. . . . It is a difficult time. Surely, as a merchant of the guild, you see that?”
Borund sighed. “Of course. Business has been rough lately. That is precisely why I wanted to speak to you. Forgive my irritation, but Captain Baill. . . .” Borund clenched his jaw, shook his head slightly.
Avrell’s stance relaxed, so subtly that Borund didn’t seem to notice. The First seemed relieved.
In much too casual a tone, he asked, “Baill?”
“Yes, Captain Baill,” Borund said shortly.
“He did not inform me that you had come to the palace to see me regarding guild matters before this.”
Borund winced. “This does not pertain directly to the guild. I used the guild to gain access to the palace. To you.”
Avrell did not react at first. “I see,” he said finally. His brow creased in confusion. “So what did you need to see me or the Mistress about then, if not for guild matters?”
Borund hesitated, shot a quick glance toward William and me, then straightened. “I trust you will bring this to the Mistress’ attention?”
“Of course.”
Borund nodded in relief. “Another merchant has died. Master Marcus, a representative of Marlett.”
I felt the air in the room grow tense.
“ ‘Another ’ merchant?”
Borund stared at Avrell in shock. “Yes. I would have thought you would have been informed.”
“I should have been informed,” the First said, his tone harsh. He stared for a moment at a blank wall, gaze abstracted and annoyed, as if he were looking at something deeper inside the palace. Unnoticed by Borund or William, he mouthed “Baill” as if it were a curse under his breath. Then his attention snapped back to Borund. “Captain Baill has not kept me informed of your . . . complaints,” the First said. “Nor of the deaths of any merchants. When did this happen? How?”
Borund sighed, the sound short and sharp. “Marcus’ body was found this morning in the harbor, a knife wound in the throat.”
“And there are more deaths? How many have there been?”
“Four.”
The First’s eyes narrowed. “Four? Amenkor has become extremely dangerous for merchants lately.”
Borund barked a short laugh that held no humor, then caught the intent look in the First’s eyes and went still. They watched each other a long moment, something passing between them wordlessly. Borund’s expression grew grim.
Eventually, the First stirred. “Thank you, Master Borund. I’ll see what can be done. I’m sorry to say that I’ve been extremely distracted lately with other matters pertaining to the Throne and outside the guild. But perhaps I can pay you a visit sometime, so that we can discuss this problem,” he cast a quick glance toward me, “and perhaps other issues, in more detail?”
Borund hesitated, then nodded. “Very well.” He wasn’t totally placated, that was clear in his voice, but he motioned William to his side. William nodded as well.
The First acknowledged them, then turned to leave, but not before glancing once more toward me.
I didn’t move, kept my eyes hooded, unreadable, stance rigid.
A slight smile tugged at the corner of the First’s mouth a moment before he passed through the arched opening into the next room. He seemed somehow satisfied, as if a nagging problem he’d been fretting over for days had just been solved.
“Do you think anything will change?” William asked Borund as we passed through the gates of the inner ward of the palace into the middle ward containing the guild halls. William and Borund were both mounted. I stood between the two horses and slightly forward, on foot.
“Perhaps,” Borund answered distractedly. He’d been deep in thought since the meeting with the First. “There’s more going on here than a shifting of power in the guild of merchants. Much more.”
“But what?”
Borund shook his head. “I don’t know. Something in the palace? Something to do with the Mistress? I don’t know. If Avrell and Baill are involved, then it must have something to do with the throne.” Borund’s voice was lowered, as if speaking to himself.
I was more concerned about Avrell himself. He’d watched me too closely, had been far too interested in me for comfort.
They fell silent and I scanned ahead. We were on one of the narrow streets behind the guild halls, headed toward the large market square with the horse fountain. The last of the sunlight was fading from the sky, and the shadows were collecting beneath the buildings, dark and thick like on the Dredge.
The thought sent a shiver through me, and with a cold start I realized the Fire inside my gut had shuddered to life. Low, almost nonexistent, but there, trembling.
I straightened. But there were few people out this late, not in the middle ward of the old city. The old city was dead.
I shifted back, moved in closer to Borund, William, and the horses. None of them seemed to notice.
“What can they do to stop the killings?” William asked again a short while later.
Borund didn’t reply. Not even with a grunt.
William sighed and gave up, staring forward into the darkened street.
The Fire was burning higher now, curling up into my chest. We passed a cross street and I tensed, glancing down the new street in both directions, but it was empty. Most of the windows in the surrounding buildings were dark as well, only a few glowing with internal candlelight. Torchlight flickered on the old city’s surrounding walls, but it was distant, out of reach.
The cross street fell behind. I glanced back once, but saw nothing.
The cold Fire began to travel through my shoulders, prickled the base of my neck.
We passed into the shadows of the next building and I looked up, toward the thin band of the night sky, toward the stars. The stone of the buildings seemed suddenly too close, too confining, pressing down, cold and immobile.
And then I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
My gaze snapped down to the street, to the sides of the buildings, and in the patterned gray I saw the darknesses: the arch on the left side that led to an inner courtyard, the niches on the right that led to small doors. The movement had come from one of the niches twelve paces ahead, but we’d already drawn abreast of the first niche, were pulling up alongside the arch to the courtyard.
The Fire inside suddenly flared, but it was too late.
I drew my dagger, yelled out, “Borund!” in warning, but the figures hidden in the niches and in the arch dove out of the darkness.
Borund’s horse reared as he pulled on the reins, then it screamed, hooves kicking the air, and came down hard, caught one of the men with a crushing blow, trampling him underfoot. The sharp scent of blood flooded my senses, staggering in its intensity. I turned and surged forward, but Borund’s horse foundered, fell to one side, knocked William’s horse away. Startled, William lost his seat, slipped sideways in his saddle as it danced for footing, but the motion forced me back.
And then I felt the man behind me.
I stilled, plunged deeper, beneath the scent of blood, beneath the chaos of the men and the huff and stamp of the horses. Like that first fight on the wharf, with the merchant’s sons, I sank deep enough I could taste the metal of the knives the men held, could feel their sweat, their desperation. Deep enough that I could sense their movements before they made them.
The man behind me swung, the blade silent as it slashed through air. With the cold grace and brutal quickness Erick had trained into me, I ducked to one side, beneath the man’s too wide slash, and thrust backward, hard, felt my dagger slip in and out of flesh, scrape against bone, and then I shifted forward, before the man had even gasped. I felt his knees hit the cobbles at the same time as William’s body struck the wall of the building to the right. For a moment, a horrible pain swept through my stomach as I thought he’d been crushed between the building and his horse, but Fetlock gained his balance at the last moment, William slipping gracelessly between the horse and the wall to the road, foot still caught in one stirrup.
One of the horses screamed again. The other snorted in terror.
My attention flicked to Borund. His horse had separated from William’s. Borund and the horse stood in the center of the street, one of the attackers crumpled at the horse’s dancing feet, three others closing in tight, hemming in the terrified horse. Of the three, two were too close, a danger to Borund. The third wouldn’t get to Borund in time. I could finish him off later.
One of the attackers reached up to pull Borund from his mount, and I moved.
The first never saw me, never heard me. My blade slid across his throat even as he took a step toward Borund. The man gripping Borund saw the movement, released Borund and jerked back, his face startled, but he was too slow. I felt warm blood on my hand as my dagger darted upward and across into his exposed armpit, sinking deep. It slid out, slick and smooth and silent.
I turned toward the last man, on the other side of Borund and his horse, but he wasn’t there, wasn’t where I expected—
And then I felt William, felt the cold Fire surging along my arms, tingling in my fingers.
No.
I halted, searching, feeling too slow, the same terror I’d felt when racing across the Dredge toward the white-dusty man’s house now mingling with the Fire.
William had regained his feet. His horse had moved a few paces farther down the street. William was still leaning over, gasping for breath, when the last man’s knife sank into his side from behind.
I felt the pain, tasted it, like stinging, bitter sap. It seared through me, through the Fire, through the terror, slashed into my side like molten metal, and I gasped.
William arched back, the shock on his face clear, so close, almost tangible. Neck muscles pulled taut with pain, jaw clenched, he stared toward me, toward Borund, then sank to his knees, arms lax.
The man jerked the knife from his side, shoved him forward to the cobbles, then ran.
For a moment, the narrow street was silent, still, nothing but the nervous snort of the horses at the scent of blood. Then Borund shouted, “William!” and stumbled down from his mount. He tripped on the cobbles, but lurched to William’s side.
Blood was already pooling on the street, dark and black and cold in the starlight.
The serpent of rage around my heart that I hadn’t felt since the Dredge uncoiled and slid free. I tasted the blood—William’s blood—tasted the scent of the man who had stabbed him.
The scent led into the night, down the street to another arch. I could almost touch it.
My nostrils flared. The same calm anger that had consumed me on the Dredge after finding the white-dusty man’s body enveloped me. I could hunt this man down, could find him no matter where he hid. . . .
I’d made it to the arch, not even conscious of moving, when Borund snapped, “Varis!”
I glared back at him, saw him recoil at whatever he saw in my eyes, on my face. I didn’t care. This was my hunt. This was what I was.
But then Borund gasped, “He’s still alive! We need to get him out of here and I can’t move him myself!”
The naked desperation in his voice, the pure pain and the force behind it, cut through the white-cold anger. My gaze flicked down to William’s face, held in Borund’s hands. Beneath the river, I could see William breathing, his breath like steam in the air.
“Please,” Borund whispered.
With effort, I let the scent of the man slip away, shoved the anger aside, and ran to William’s side.
“We have to stop the bleeding,” Borund muttered, shrugging out of his jacket with the gold embroidery. The white ruffled undershirt beneath was already flecked black with William’s blood. “Get his horse. I’ll have to hold him in the saddle as best I can while you run ahead to the house and tell Gerrold and Lizbeth to find a healer and prepare a bed.”
“I can get the guards,” I said, rising, but Borund’s hand clamped down hard on my wrist, halting me.
“Tell no one else!” he hissed, eyes black with anger. “Especially the guards. After what Avrell told us, and especially after dealing with Baill, I don’t trust the guards. Only Gerrold, Lizbeth, and the healer.”
I hesitated, ready to protest that there was still one man out there, that leaving him alone with William was dangerous, that the manse was too far away, but the desperation in his eyes halted me.
He’d never listen, and I already knew that the last man had fled.
We hefted William up into the saddle of his horse, Borund grunting with effort, Fetlock snorting and shying, eyes white at the smell of blood. I suddenly recalled carrying the dead girl back to her mother, remembered how weightless the girl had felt in my arms, as if she were nothing but an empty grain sack, loose and useless.
William didn’t feel empty, nor weightless.
Hope surged through me, like warm water.
Then William was seated as best we could manage and Borund snapped, “Go! Tell Gerrold to fetch Isaiah. Quick!”
And I ran, faster than I’d ever fled on the Dredge.
I stood inside one of the empty bedrooms at Borund’s manse, tight against one corner, and watched the healer lean over William’s body. He moved frantically, sweat dripping from his face, even though he wiped at it continuously with a cloth. His eyes were wide but intent, trained on his swiftly moving hands as they ripped clothes, pressed clean rags against the flow of blood, held them until they were soaked through, then tossed them aside. He whispered as he worked, short, terse statements that sounded almost like prayer.
Already, the floor was covered with blood-soaked rags. A black-red fan of blood stained the sheets of the bed, dripped with slow, viscous droplets to the hardwood floor. I stood still in the corner and watched the blood gather at the edge of the bedsheet, form into a pregnant drop, then stretch.
“Blessed Mistress, help us! Why won’t the bleeding stop?” Isaiah hissed to himself.
And suddenly it was too much.
I fled the room, startled Lizbeth in the hall outside as she rushed to the room with more linen. She called out, “Varis!” but I was already past.
I flung myself into my room, so small in comparison to the one that held William, but I wrapped the closeness about me as I crouched into the corner, pulled myself into a tight ball. Tears threatened, but I thrust them back, cloaked myself in the coiled anger that still simmered, hot and deep. As deep as the Fire.
In the harshness of the anger I saw the street again, saw the fight, saw the three men surrounding Borund’s horse. I felt my dagger slit the first man’s throat, shudder into the second man’s armpit. And the third man. . . .
I heard someone open the door to my room, slowly, hesitantly, and I pulled deeper into myself, the skin around my eyes tightening. Footsteps crossed the room, light and careful, and then Lizbeth murmured, “Oh, Varis.”
She hesitated a long moment, her uncertainty like a stench on the air, then touched my shoulder.
At Lizbeth’s touch I gasped, choked on the taste of thick phlegm in my throat, and crushed my knees in close.
Lizbeth sat awkwardly on the floor in the corner, hesitated again, then pulled me close to her chest, brushed my hair with one hand.
“I thought the last man was going for Borund,” I hitched between gasps, voice so thick the words were almost unintelligible. But I would not cry. “I thought. . . .”
“I know,” Lizbeth said. “Hush now. I know.” And she began rocking back and forth, holding me tight, like the woman on the Dredge had rocked as she held the dead girl with the green ribbon in her arms.
Slowly, reluctantly, I let the tension drain out of my body, curled tighter to Lizbeth’s chest.
A long time later, when the anger had finally settled, when my chest ached and I felt empty and weak, Lizbeth still stroking my hair, I glared out at the floor of my room, unseeing, and said quietly to myself, “I thought he was going for Borund.”
Borund sat at his desk in his office, the papers that littered his desktop forgotten. A large decanter of wine sat squarely on top of them, a glass to one side, mostly empty. Some wine had spilled, but Borund didn’t seem to notice.
I stood against one wall, a few paces distant, where I always stood. The large room, with the chairs, the tables, the scattering of statues and vases and shaped stones, felt hollow and empty.
Borund reached for the glass without looking, tipped it back with a violent gesture, and swallowed the remaining wine, placing the glass back on the table gently. His eyes never left the blank spot on the wall in front of him.
I shifted uncomfortably.
“He began his apprenticeship with me when he was nine, you know,” Borund said suddenly, his voice too loud in the silence.
I didn’t respond, watching him warily. It had been two days since we’d brought William back to the manse and Borund hadn’t left the grounds once. He’d barely left his office, Gerrold bringing him food and wine. Lots of wine. Borund had sent Gerrold and Gart back to the street where we’d been attacked with a cart to take care of the bodies, but when Gerrold and the stableboy returned, they’d reported they’d found only blood on the cobbles. No bodies. Someone had already carted them away. Charls wouldn’t have wanted Borund’s body to be found in the middle ward. Not when he needed everyone to believe that the deaths were accidents. He must have had a cart waiting, ready to transport the corpses.
He just didn’t get the corpses he expected.
A few doors away, William slept fitfully and deeply. Isaiah had stopped the bleeding eventually, had cleansed and sewn shut the wound, but he’d said it was up to the Mistress whether William would live. The knife had gone deep, and William had lost more blood than he’d ever seen a man lose before and still live. There was nothing any of us could do now except wait.
Borund smiled. “I remember him standing at the edge of the desk, barely able to contain himself, his hands twitching as he clutched them behind his back. He’d glare at me when I ordered him to stand still. Oh, not openly. When he thought I wasn’t looking. And he hated keeping the records, writing down all those numbers in the logbooks, keeping track of the price of acquisition, the price the goods were sold for, the amount of the sale and to whom.” Borund’s smile widened. “But he got over that with time.” His voice was slightly slurred, the imperfections caused by the wine barely noticeable.
He looked up at me. “You don’t read or write, do you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, merely grunted, as if he were disgusted with himself for not thinking about it in the first place. “We’ll have to fix that. But not today.”
It’s what he’d said about the horses. I hadn’t ridden one yet.
His attention faded for a moment, then focused on the empty glass. He shifted forward enough so that he could reach the decanter and poured himself another glass, taking a good swallow before dropping back into his chair with a heavy sigh.
“Nine,” he muttered, and his eyes darkened. “The bastard.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about William anymore. Over the last two days, he’d only talked of two things: memories of William. . . .
And Charls.
I shifted again, straightened slightly, suddenly attentive. The last few days I’d moved around the manse in a state of shock much like Borund’s. This morning, something had changed. I’d had an idea. But I didn’t know if Borund would agree to it.
“The bloody bastard,” Borund hissed. “Vincentt, Sedwick, Terell, Marcus . . . all dead. Accidents, my ass.” He took another swallow. “Charls has to be stopped.”
I shifted forward, hesitated barely a breath, then said coldly, “I can do it.”
He didn’t seem to hear at first, his gaze fixed again on the blank wall. Then he looked up, almost startled. But the expression faded fast, smoothed out into cold consideration, the expression of a merchant, weighing options, gains, risks.
This didn’t last long either. The cold consideration of the merchant slowly shifted into dark anger. An anger I recognized. It was the anger that had seized me on the Dredge, when I’d gone in search of Bloodmark that final time, the same anger I’d felt on the street in the middle circle, when Borund had called me back from the hunt for the man who’d stabbed William.
“You can kill him? Without being seen?” he asked.
“It will take a little time. I’ll have to follow him, figure out his patterns. But I can do it.”
Something between us shifted. For the last few months, he’d wavered between ordering me to do things, and asking me, one moment laughing and joking with me, the next wondering whether a bodyguard was necessary, worth the expense. It had been awkward and unsettling. He didn’t know whether to treat me as family, like William, or as a servant.
But now, as he watched me, I saw his uncertainty over how to treat me, how to think of me, solidify.
He’d seen me kill before, had seen me stand over the bodies. And this was the image that settled into his eyes there, in his office, as he leaned slightly forward, one hand resting on the desk. He saw me as I was: a dagger, a weapon, a tool.
I’d never be family.
Some part of me twisted inside, tightened with regret. But it was small and was smothered by anger. At that moment, I wanted Charls dead as well.
“Then do it,” Borund said, and there was no longer a slur in his voice.
I straightened, hand resting on my dagger.
I would have done it anyway, no matter what Borund said.
But it felt good to have his approval.
I followed Charls and his men for the next two weeks, noted the taverns he liked to visit, the streets he traveled to get to his warehouses and the wharf, his manse behind the first set of walls in the residential district. At first, I stayed back, over fifty paces, just close enough I could keep him in sight. It wasn’t hard to track him; he always kept at least two men at his side, like that first night I’d seen him, outside Borund’s tavern. Bodyguards, like me. Gutterscum. But after a while I realized his bodyguards weren’t as wary as someone from the Dredge would be, and so I shifted closer. Not enough to catch their attention, but enough to note that I wouldn’t be able to kill Charls on the street, or at the warehouses or wharf. Not without being seen.
That left only one option: his manse.
At the end of one of these excursions, coming up onto the gates of Borund’s manse, I saw Avrell leaving through the side entrance to the gardens. He checked the night-darkened street, but didn’t see me. Then he drew a hood up over his head and moved away, toward the old city, his pace quick.
I frowned, wondered what he had come to Borund to discuss. But I said nothing.
That was Borund’s business. My business was Charls.
And I was ready.
I stood at the side of the bed and stared down at William, at his rounded face, his wild hair, his eyes closed in sleep. His breathing came in soft sighs, barely audible. Even in the moonlight that came in through the open window, I could see that the grayness of his skin had faded in the two weeks since the attack. He was still weak, could move about his room with the aid of the wall and the furniture, but it caused him extreme pain.
The anger inside me writhed as I remembered how his face had contorted the first time he collapsed. Sweat had drenched his skin just from sitting upright. His face had blanched. When he’d tried to shift his weight to his legs, his feet hanging over the side of the bed, they’d given out, folded like cloth.
He’d gasped as he was falling, but when he hit the floor, Borund not swift enough to catch him—
I flinched back, heard the scream again, heard the agony. And as I drew in a deep breath I smelled the stench of his pain—old sweat and rotten meat.
I shook myself. The anger held a moment more, then calmed. The remembered stench faded into the salt of the sea as a breeze pushed past the curtains at the window.
William.
His brow creased, face tightened. Sweat sheened his skin, and one arm twitched.
“No,” he murmured. “No!”
I reached forward, almost touched his cheek, but halted at the last moment.
Something twisted in my stomach and I snatched my hand back.
I’d seen the way he looked at me at the tavern, after I’d killed that first man. Not fear. I’d seen fear plenty of times on the Dredge. No. William was more than afraid, he was terrified. Of me. Of what I could do, what I held inside. He was afraid of who I was.
I crouched down beside the bed, shifted closer so that I could see William’s face better in the darkness. I could smell his sweat, his scent. On the sheets, in the air.
His face was still contorted, and this close I could hear him whimpering.
I’d come into his room every night since I’d offered to kill Charls, and every night William fell into nightmare. Borund didn’t know, but Lizbeth did. I wasn’t certain how, since I made certain no one was near before I came, but somehow she knew.
Leaning even closer, I said softly, “Tonight.”
William shook his head, mumbled “No” again, but the tension around his eyes relaxed. His brow smoothed and his breath calmed.
I watched him a moment more, then looked up toward the window, out into the night.
Tonight.
Gerrold let me out of the side entrance, the one Borund and William had used to bring me to the manse. I stood in the shadow of its alcove and stared out at the side street. I wouldn’t move until the patrol had passed by.
A few days after the attempt on Borund in the middle ward, palace guardsmen began to appear in the city. Patrols had wandered the city at random before; that had started even before I killed Bloodmark and fled along the Dredge. I remembered the woman who’d halted one that first day in the real Amenkor, remembered watching them move on the streets after that, some on horseback, others walking. But after the attack on Borund. . . .
Now the guardsmen were everywhere, their patrols passing through the streets of the upper city at regular intervals, a few patrols scouring the wharf and docks below. Neither Borund nor I knew who had ordered them, Avrell or Baill. Perhaps it had been the Mistress. The guardsmen did nothing except ride by, watching, their eyes hard and dangerous, cold, their horses’ hooves clopping on the cobbles. No words were spoken, unless they were interrupting a fight. But they were felt.
Instead of making Amenkor feel safer, the streets now felt closed, somehow restrictive. As if the hand resting at the back of your neck, meant to be reassuring, had suddenly grown more viselike.
The first time Borund and I had seen them in the street, he’d watched them canter by with surprised approval. But when we’d passed the third patrol an hour later, he’d sent me a grim look, mouth pressed tight. “Heavy-handed,” he’d muttered.
The rest of Amenkor agreed. I could see it in the people’s eyes, in the way they kept their heads down, shoulders lowered. Hooded capes had become common almost overnight.
And it had made following Charls harder.
I pulled back deeper into the alcove as I heard clipped hooves on stone. A moment later, two guardsmen appeared on horseback, moving sedately down the street. One of the horses snuffled and nodded its head as it passed, scenting me, but the guards didn’t pause.
As soon as they vanished around the corner of the main thoroughfare, I slid from the alcove and into the lesser shadows of the street. I knew where I was headed: the outer circle of the old city, where most of the merchants had their own estates, including Charls.
The streets of Amenkor were empty. Completely empty. It sent shivers down my back as I moved. On the Dredge and the wharf there were always movements, a sense of motion, even if the alley or street seemed clear. Things moved behind the walls, sometimes in the walls—dogs and rats and gutterscum.
Here, there was no life. Nothing but stone.
I moved swiftly, but slowed when I neared the gates to the outer circle.
They were open. Occasional patrols passed through them, the guards saluting each other or pausing to talk in low, mumbled voices to the two sentries posted there. The sentries stood to one side of the open arch, but they were relaxed, occasionally speaking to each other. Laughter broke out across the street as I settled into shadow twenty paces away from their position.
I glanced up to the night sky, toward the slice of the moon and the stars. There were no clouds tonight, nothing to obscure the light.
I suppressed a sigh and crouched low, grew still.
I submerged myself, deeper and deeper, until the balance felt right, until I could see into every shadow, see every guardsman’s face as they passed by and the lines of exhaustion and boredom on the sentries’ faces.
Then I focused, felt the currents alter around me, bend and twist, tighten, so I could see what would happen—
There.
I relaxed, shifted where I crouched, and waited. Guards moved, chuckled quietly, slapped their horses’ necks, a steady flow. A few breaks occurred, where no one passed through the gate, but none long enough for me to move, and none where the two sentries were distracted.
A hundred measured breaths later, a pair of guardsmen disappeared down the street. As the last hoofbeat faded into silence, one of the sentries turned to the other, motioned out toward the city below, away from my position.
I moved.
As I slipped into the shadows of the outer ward, the gates behind me, I heard one of the sentries grunt and chuckle, slapping the other on his back. I paused a moment to make certain they hadn’t seen me, then continued on.
The streets of the outer circle were subtly different. Closer, near the main thoroughfare leading up through the old city’s walls, but then they widened out. As I moved, I found myself settling down into a familiar pattern, one I didn’t recognize at first. But, pausing at a corner, I realized that the tension in my shoulders, in my legs as I balanced on the balls of my feet, came from the Dredge, from Erick.
I smiled slowly. I was hunting.
Sliding from darkness to darkness, I came up on Charls’ manse, stared up at the top of the wall above my head. Reaching for familiar handholds, I hefted myself up to the top. I watched the building closely, my heart beating faster in my chest. As soon as I slid down into the garden I’d be in unfamiliar territory. I’d only come to the top of the wall in my previous excursions, watched the house from a distance to get an idea of where Charls’ rooms were, to get a feel for the movements of his servants.
The manse should have been quiet, but candlelight glowed in a few of the lower windows.
I hesitated, considered leaving.
I saw William’s face, eyes closed in sleep, brows furrowed and sweaty.
I dropped into the garden. The moment my feet hit the ground, the Fire awoke, spreading cold across my chest. I ran across the garden to the house, toward a side door used by the servants to get to the carriage house and stables. I sensed nothing, heard nothing.
The door opened easily.
Charls’ manse was similar in layout to Borund’s. I stood in a servants’ entranceway, a narrow door before me. Stairs to my left ascended to the servants’ rooms above. The kitchen stood on the other side of the manse, with another set of servants’ stairs there. The door before me should open onto a long hallway running the length of the house, intercepted only by the large open foyer with the main stairs leading up to the second floor. Rooms opened up on either side.
I stepped to the inner door, past the stairs, listened, then stepped into the long inner hallway. Two doors down, candlelight spilled out into the hall. I stilled, heart halting, but the hallway remained empty.
Silently, I edged up to the open doorway, heard voices as I approached.
“Tarrence has seized all of the available resources in Marlett. It took him longer than expected though, even with Marcus gone. Some of what we expected to find in Marcus’ warehouses had already been purchased by others.”
“By whom?”
At the door, I settled down on my heels, one hand on the floor for support. I recognized the first voice as Charls, but didn’t recognize the second. Sliding deeper beneath the river, I stole a glance into the room.
Four men, seated at a round table in a room like Borund’s office, but more sparse.
“Regin, Yvan. And Borund.” Contempt filled Charls’ voice.
“Borund,” the second man said flatly. He watched Charls carefully as he spoke. He had a long nose, mustache, gray-streaked hair pulled back in a ponytail, vaguely familiar.
I frowned, then remembered: the merchant with the mustard-colored coat from the guild hall. The one Charls had spoken to at the edge of the room, before Borund had approached him.
The other two merchants were familiar as well, people Borund spoke to in the hall on a regular basis. Both shared a glance and shifted in their seats, but said nothing.
I pulled back, contemplated moving back to the servants’ entrance.
“Yes, Borund,” Charls spat. “He’s become increasingly annoying. If he’d only died that night in the tavern. Or at least during the ambush in the middle ward.”
“But he didn’t,” the other merchant continued. “In fact, since that night, the other merchants have begun hiring their own bodyguards. And Borund has increased his purchases of essentials like grain and salt and fish, storing them in the warehouses here in Amenkor rather than shipping them out to the other cities. This is why he was to be eliminated in the first place.”
“He’s proving harder to get rid of than expected.”
“Obviously.”
I heard someone shift forward, his chair creaking.
In a much softer voice, the unknown merchant said, “In order for this to work, in order for us to gain and keep control of the city, our little group must be the only ones in the city with vital goods to sell. If we cannot get our hands on what Borund has stored away . . .”
He let the sentence trail off and I heard him shift again.
After a long silence, Charls said, “I’ll take care of Borund . . . and his bodyguard.”
A cold shiver of fear coursed through me, tinged with anger. Charls wasn’t going to let it go.
Then, farther down the hallway, I heard footsteps.
I spun and headed back to the servants’ entrance, closing the door softly behind me. But not before I saw a servant carrying a tray with a decanter of wine and four glasses into the room.
I paused in the small entryway, wondering if I should return to warn Borund that there were more merchants involved than just Charls. But I’d come for Charls, and now that I’d actually heard him threaten Borund, I found I couldn’t leave.
Warning Borund of the others could wait.
I took the stairs two at a time, easing out into the hallway at the top. It was a servants’ corridor, narrower than the one below, running the full length of the manse. The main hallway on the second floor par alleled this one, the two separated only by a wall. A single door on the left opened onto the main corridor at this end of the servants’ hallway, other doors on the right leading to the servants’ rooms.
Charls’ bedroom was the closest on this side of the house, off the main corridor.
I pulled open the door into the main hallway and peered out.
Nothing. But the tendrils of Fire inside my gut increased slightly.
I slid out into the upper hall, stepped to Charls’ bedroom door, and entered.
The room held a bed, a large chest at its foot, a desk, two chests of drawers, and a stone fireplace against the right wall. No candles were lit, but everything was clear. Papers and a small knife used to break wax seals sat out on the desk, everything organized and neat. Clothes were tossed onto the chest at the end of the bed. The curtains over the windows were drawn, letting in no moonlight.
There were no places to hide, no real darknesses except the room itself.
Frowning, I stepped to the side of the door and readied myself for the wait.
I’d shifted into a casual crouch by the time Charls finally retired for the night, my legs beginning to cramp from standing. I didn’t hear him approach. The door suddenly opened, swinging wide at my side, almost striking my knees.
I stood in one fluid motion, feeling the door before me, concealing me. On the other side, Charls sighed with exhaustion, stepped into his bedroom, and brushed the door closed behind him. No one else entered, and I heard no one else in the hall.
As the door swung away, revealing Charls, his back to me, I stepped forward, brought the dagger up, and sliced cleanly across his neck.
Charls hunched forward, a sickening gurgling sound filling the room as blood fountained, spraying his upraised hand, the edge of the bed, the clothes on the chest, the rug over the hardwood flooring. He staggered a step forward, stumbled to one knee, then twisted as he fell, a hand reaching toward the chest for support.
I stepped forward as he collapsed, his body turned toward me now, his eyes opened in shock, in terror, his face a cold white in the moonlight, the blood black in a sheet across his chest. I wanted him to see me, to recognize me. I wanted him to know.
And he did see. He jerked, shoulders pressing back, eyebrows rising.
Warmth spread through my chest, deep and satisfying.
I knelt a pace from him, a hard frown tightening my mouth, the corners of my eyes. “You should have left Borund alone,” I said. But I wasn’t thinking of Borund at all.
He sagged against the arm holding the chest, the other hand clutched against his throat. But the strength was leaving his body. He shuddered, lost his grip on the chest and fell to the rug. The blood began to pool, spreading.
The hand at his throat reached for me, trembling, grasping. His eyes caught mine, held me, pleading, and in their shimmering depths I saw—
I saw Charls. Not the businessman at the tavern, turning and nodding to the killer waiting for his instructions. Not the merchant on the guild hall floor, speaking quietly of threats and death. I saw none of these.
Instead, I saw Charls as he saw himself. A man who had clawed his way up into the highest ranks of the merchant guild. A man who had allied himself with someone too powerful for him to control and had found himself lost. A man who was even now trying to find some way to survive.
He’d let the face he presented to the world slip when he entered his own bedroom, had let it fall away when he knew he was a dead man but was unwilling to accept it.
I saw it all there, in his eyes. His dreams, his hopes, his desperation. He wanted to live, fought hard even as the strength drained from his arms and he sagged back against the chest. I saw the man beneath the merchant. The man I’d just killed.
The realization sent a shiver of shock through me, down to my core, and I jerked back. All of the satisfied warmth fled, gone in one gasp.
I stood abruptly, and Charls’ outstretched hand dropped to the floor, all of the life, all of the straining tension leaving his body. I backed away from the corpse. Panic tingled through my arms, through my skin, prickled the hair on my arms, at the base of my neck.
When my back hit the wall, I gasped and grew still.
And then I ran, out into the hall, to the servants’ passage, down the stairs, and out into the garden. I met no one, saw no one, not even as I dropped down from the wall surrounding Charls’ manse. I fled through the streets of the outer ward, barely seeing where I ran, moving without thought, hearing nothing, smelling only the dark, viscous scent of blood. I saw only the bodies, all of the bodies, but mostly Charls, his eyes, the thick spatter of blood on his sheets, on his clothes, saw his mouth working to say something, to draw in breath when there was nothing left to do but choke.
I rounded a corner, entered the main thoroughfare near the gates, and slammed into a guardsman. The shock of the collision sent both of us sprawling, my body hitting the ground hard, head cracking into the stone cobbles of the street. My teeth rattled, bit the edge of my tongue, and I tasted blood, like bitter copper. Back against the ground, I swallowed the blood, heaved in deep ragged breaths and stared up at the moon and stars, stunned.
I heard the guardsman curse, heard shifting cloth as he climbed to his feet.
Then he leaned over me, blocked out the night sky, and I froze with a sharp, drawn breath.
He stared down at me in shock, one hand reaching tentatively for my face, reaching to brush away my hair. “Varis?”
Erick.
The panic returned, sharper than before, seizing my heart, my throat. I couldn’t speak, and the breath I held escaped in a harsh rush that tore at my throat.
I had to get away. Guilt rose up, like acid, and I felt sick. I’d killed Bloodmark without Erick’s permission, without the Mistress’ blessing. Somehow, since meeting Borund, I’d managed to shove that fact deep down inside me, managed to forget it. I’d allowed myself to relax.
But now Erick had found me.
And I suddenly realized it was infinitely worse than just Bloodmark.
I’d just killed again. Not to save myself, not to save Borund. I’d killed Charls because I’d wanted to, because he’d hurt William.
I had to get away. The impulse was like a scream. I couldn’t face Erick now, not with blood on my hands, on my shirt and dagger.
But I couldn’t move. Erick held me with his eyes, softening from shock and irritation to something else . . . concern and wonder.
And then he touched my face, his fingers trailing down my forehead to my ear, and I broke, the tears coming harsh and hot and wet. My breath hitched in my chest.
“Varis,” he said again, without question.
“I killed him,” I sobbed, the words thick with phlegm, almost incoherent. “I killed him, I killed him, I killed him.”
“Who?” He was cupping the back of my neck now, had lifted me to his shoulder, my eyes closed. I held him tight, feeling as if I were fourteen again.
“Bloodmark,” I gasped into his shoulder. “Charls.” He grew still, but his hold didn’t lessen.
On the street, someone gasped, and I drew back from Erick’s shoulder sharply, the tears choked back, abruptly realizing I no longer held my dagger. It had clattered to the street when we collided, lay just out of reach.
Vulnerability hit me, even as Erick rose.
Twenty paces away, a man stood at the edge of a cross street, wearing a cloak with the hood pulled back. I could see his face clearly in the moonlight, recognized the arrogant stance, the shocked look on his face.
The merchant’s son, Cristoph. The man I’d fought in the alley on the wharf after first coming down to the docks.
I’d killed his friend.
And he’d heard me tell Erick I’d killed Bloodmark and Charls. I knew it as clearly as if I’d been beneath the river, had smelled it there. And there was something else, something that took me a moment to recognize.
Cristoph reminded me of the merchant with the mustard-colored coat, a younger version. That’s why the merchant had seemed familiar at the guild hall talking to Charls, why he’d seemed familiar tonight.
Cristoph must be that merchant’s son.
Erick took a single step forward and Cristoph turned and fled, his footsteps echoing off the outer walls before fading completely.
Panic seized me. I lurched toward my knife, grabbed the bloody blade in one hand and turned to face Erick in one smooth move. The urge to cry was gone now, the tears dried. Only a raw hollow near my heart remained, and I could feel myself pushing that away, discarding it, hardening myself against the pain. The emotion was useless.
I was no longer on the Dredge, no longer fourteen. I didn’t need Erick.
We stared at each other a long moment, and then I said, “You can’t protect me anymore.”
And I ran.
I dodged into the street where Cristoph had vanished, eyes hard and intent, Erick shoved into the back of my mind. I’d deal with his reappearance later. For now, Cristoph was a threat. He’d seen me, had heard me say I’d killed Charls. I wasn’t supposed to be associated with Charls’ death at all.
I saw a flash of movement farther down the street as someone dodged into an alley, nothing more than a flicker of a cloak. I focused, drew the river up around me, but saw no one on the street. Nostrils flaring, I dashed down to the alley, ducked around the corner and searched the darkness.
Nothing.
I drew a deep breath, sorted through the scents on the river. But there was nothing I could attribute to Cristoph. I didn’t remember him having a scent down on the wharf, when I’d killed his friend. But not everyone had scents.
Not willing to give up, I searched the alley, the recessed doorways, the alcoves. All of the doors were locked, and the alley ended at the edge of an empty street.
Shit!
The pressure of running into other guardsmen began to assert itself. And then there was Erick.
Would he send the guard to find me? Would he warn the sentries at the gate? He knew I’d killed someone. He’d seen the blood, heard me confess.
The guilt stabbed again into my gut, sliced through the last of my hesitation.
Cristoph had escaped. I’d have to deal with him later.
I headed back toward the gates, approaching warily.
The two sentries remained on duty. They didn’t appear to be any more alert than when I’d passed through earlier that night.
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, wondered why Erick had not warned them, but pushed the thought aside and concentrated on getting through the gates without being seen by the sentries.
I had to wait an hour, but eventually they were distracted long enough so I could sneak through. I headed into the outer city, back toward Borund’s manse to report.
I did not see Erick or any other guardsmen along the way.
The Palace
I DIDN’T wait at the audience room’s door. Instead, I moved immediately across the dark room, slipping between chairs and tables in the darkness, between vases of flowers, sculptures, and plants. On the far side of the room was another door, smaller, heading deeper into the inner sanctum, leading toward the throne room and the Mistress’ chambers.
I padded toward the door, hesitated before opening it in order to listen. I couldn’t use the river to see if anyone was on the far side since the door was blocking my view, but it was possible to pick up noises, scents. . . .
Nothing.
I was just about to open the door when something whispered at the edge of hearing. Stilling, I concentrated, let my breath out slowly and held it—
And heard a soft rustling, like dry leaves scraping across cobbles. I frowned, brow creasing. I’d heard this once before when inside the palace, during one of Avrell and Borund’s meetings. But then it had only been a whisper, there and then gone. This was much louder.
Hesitating a moment, I focused.
The sound of leaves intensified, seemed to reach out toward me from a distance, and as it grew louder, the rustling sound began to resolve into voices . . . hundreds of voices all speaking at the same time, all clamoring for attention.
I jerked back from the door, but the voices vanished as soon as I quit concentrating, as soon as I let the river slip away. The room was silent. Dead.
Something clattered against the door on the other side of the room, where the guards had been posted. Without thought, heart thudding sharply in my chest, I pulled the door in front of me open and slid through, ignoring the strange voices for now. They would have to wait.
The door led to a narrow corridor, a hall for the servants that curved slightly away out of sight. I scanned in both directions. No one was in sight.
I bit my lower lip, took a moment to consult the mental map Avrell had given me. It wasn’t as complete as the one for the outer portion of the palace, did not include all of the servants’ passages.
I grunted in annoyance and turned right, slipping forward without a sound, one hand brushing along the rough granite wall to my left for reference. Ten steps farther on, my outstretched hand found the edge of a door.
I placed an ear to the wood, heard nothing on the far side.
I moved on.
Two doors later, the flickering light of a torch appeared at the end of the hall, around the edge of the curved corridor, followed by voices and the soft thud of a closing door.
I crouched down immediately, felt for the latch on the door at my back.
“What’s going on?” someone demanded, his voice tired.
“Baill’s got the entire guard out looking,” someone else growled, “but he decided that wasn’t enough so he called out all the servants as well.” For a moment the torchlight flared, and in the brighter light I could see small bowls of oil lining the wall on either side.
They were lighting the sconces. The entire palace would be lit within the next fifteen minutes.
“And what in hell does he expect us to do!”
“Help him.”
“And then what?”
I drew in a tight breath, then opened the door at my back and slid through it as the light of the torches and oil sconces grew, the voices getting closer. The door shut with a faint click, the wood muffling the conversation in the hall on the other side.
I waited until I heard their voices receding down the corridor, then turned to see where I was.
My stomach tightened.
“Shit,” I muttered.
I’d backed myself into a storage closet with no other exit.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered under my breath, then turned back to the door. Pressing my ear to the wood, I listened intently for sounds in the corridor outside, but heard nothing. The men lighting the oil sconces in the hallway had passed by, but anyone could be out there now. The entire palace had been awakened.
I sighed heavily, cast an angry look at the door, then slid beneath the river.
The instant I submerged, I felt the strange whispering of leaves I’d heard in the outer room rushing forward. Only this time it was much louder, the hundreds of voices streaming out of the silence like a gale-force wind, reaching for me. I gasped, jerked back away from them, and at the same time shoved myself up and out of the river, hard, fast.
The real world returned with a lurch. I sat back on my heels, still gasping, felt sweat prickle my chest. Reaching forward, I hugged my knees to my chest until my heart stopped racing.
I had no idea what the leaf voices were, had no idea where they were coming from. But whatever they were, they wanted me. I’d felt them reaching for me, straining. And I’d felt the force behind them, a weight that could crush me.
I shuddered, pushed myself back up into a kneeling position before the door. I listened, using only my ears.
Nothing.
I nudged the river, as if I were at its edge and had dipped my toe into its waters.
A whisper of dead leaves, calling me.
I shivered, then leaned my forehead against the wood of the door. Until I knew what the leaf voices were, I didn’t dare use the river.
Which made killing the Mistress that much harder.
I pulled myself upright, jaw clenched, then opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
No yell of alarm. No shrieks. The hall was empty.
But completely lit. The only places left to hide were the doorways.
I bit off another curse at Avrell, at Baill, at life in general, and continued down the hall at a brisk but quiet trot. No use skulking now.
I paused at the next door, heard muffled voices, and moved on quickly. The hall continued to curve, most of the doors on the left side. But, according to Avrell, they wouldn’t lead me to the Mistress’ chambers. Her rooms lay on the other side of the palace, to the right.
I came to another door on the right and paused again. Nothing. Opening it a crack, I peered into another antechamber like the first. Only someone had been here recently. All the candles were lit.
I closed the door quietly and proceeded down the hall.
Twenty steps farther on, I heard someone enter the hall behind me, heard the distinct sound of metal armor.
Guardsmen.
Without hesitation, I sprinted forward, eyes wide, heart pounding. The hall curved away, the right wall maddeningly empty, two doors, no three, passing on the left. The sounds of the guards grew louder, but I hadn’t heard a shout. They were getting closer, though. I could hear their voices.
I’d almost decided to duck into one of the doors on the left, risk another closet, or something worse, when a door on the right appeared. The hall ended shortly after that, with one last door on the left. I darted toward the door on the right, grabbed its handle and eased it open smoothly. No time to listen for someone on the far side. The guards were too close.
I slid through, pulled the door closed behind me as quietly as possible, and then turned and halted, heart wrenching in my chest. I let out an involuntary gasp.
I’d entered a long, wide hall from a side entrance. To my right, four huge pillars stretched from the marbled floor to the ceiling. Another four pillars stood on the far side of the room. Shadows filled the recesses behind the pillars where I stood, and behind the pillars on the opposite side of the hall. Down the center, between the two rows of pillars, stretched a wide walkway, leading to two large wooden doors banded with metal.
Directly ahead, at the height of a dais, I could see the side of a throne lit by torchlight, the throne facing the walkway and the double doors.
The Skewed Throne.
My body shuddered and I blinked in the half-light, tried to focus on the throne, my eyes refusing to settle, the air distorted somehow. After a moment, I realized that the problem wasn’t with my eyes at all, but with the throne itself.
It was a simple stone slab with no back and four supports, one on each corner. But even as my eyes held onto this image, it seemed to waver, twisting, one leg suddenly shorter but supporting a corner that appeared higher than all the others. The throne warped, turned in upon itself, the stone slab that formed the seat was no longer flat, the edges that had appeared sharp and well defined before were now smooth and rounded. Then it shifted again, now chipped and chiseled, rough-hewn.
The motion turned my stomach, sent a feverish heat tingling through my skin. I shuddered again and turned away from the throne, away from the dais and the three wide stone steps that led from the main walkway between the pillars up to the throne itself.
With a deep breath, I steadied myself.
And felt the throne at my back reach out toward me, felt it pushing against my shoulders, almost like a physical presence. The rustling of dead leaves returned, shivering through the air, growing even as the skin at the nape of my neck began to prickle. The voices emerged from the rustling sound, called to me, echoed in my ears.
I tensed in horror. The voices came from the throne. The throne knew me, had tried to call to me earlier, was calling to me now.
And I hadn’t touched the river since the voices had rushed me in the closet.
I stepped back, tried to block the voices out—
Then I heard the clatter of the guards on the other side of the door, in the hallway behind me.
Not looking toward the throne, I darted to the right, down the long walkway, between the rows of pillars, across the half-dark room to the main entrance. I felt the throne behind me, a hot, scrabbling pressure against my back, felt it flowing from shape to shape, twisted and tormented, calling to me, the voices more urgent now, more desperate.
I gasped as I neared the doorway, passed through and out into the empty hallway beyond with a low, moaning cry. The gasp turned into a shudder of relief as I felt the ornate oaken door thud home behind me, cutting off the voices and the sensation of hands scrabbling across my back.
I leaned against the door a long moment, shudders running through my body. Sweat dripped down my face and I wiped it away with the back of my arm, heart thundering in my chest. I drew in deep, ragged breaths, steadied myself.
It took longer than I expected.
Then I straightened. I set the eerie sensation of the Throne, of the haunting voices and their immense power, aside.
I’d reached the edge of the Mistress’ private rooms. Time to shed the page boy disguise. It was almost finished.
My gaze hardened, face grim as I stepped down the unguarded hall to a new set of double doors, the last set of double doors, drawing my dagger as I went.