The Vacant Throne Page 2

  “No, no! Take the reusable stone over there. The rest pile up on the side street so that we can cart it off later.” Avrell shook his head, one hand on his hip. The other arm was tied up in a sling across his chest, his shoulder hurt during the attack on the walls. The First of the Mistress, Avrell oversaw the administrative details of Amenkor, which included its rebuilding.

  He turned as he heard my escort’s approach, his posture stiffening, becoming more formal as he raised one eyebrow in question. He would have folded his hands inside the sleeves of his dark blue robes if he could have, but the sling wouldn’t allow it. “Mistress? How may I help you?”

  “Actually,” I said, “I came to help you.” I reached down and picked up a chunk of shattered stone, what had once been part of the outermost wall of the palace. We stood where the gates had held the Chorl at bay . . . for approximately ten minutes. Weighing the stone in one hand, I glanced around at the jagged edges of the wall to either side, at the debris that lay in a fan spread outward from where we stood into the outer ward. I could see how much force had been behind the explosion in the pattern of stone, could see where the stone arch over the gates had collapsed in upon itself once the wall had been breached. Buildings to either side of the wide street leading up to the palace had been shattered in the blast, walls caved in, windows and doors nothing but gaping, empty holes. One entire building had sagged inward, on the verge of imploding. It reminded me of the Dredge. Except this damage was new, fresh. The pall of dust still hung in the air, the broken stone sharp with edges. On the Dredge, everything would have been coated with the slick ruin of age, would have reeked of decay, would be worn smooth with defeat.

  A narrow corridor had been cleared through the debris immediately after the attack, to allow access between the city and the palace, but other than that, everything lay where it had fallen.

  I turned back to Avrell with a grunt. “And I brought helpers.” I motioned to Keven, my personal escort, and the remaining guardsmen behind me. They shifted in surprise, until Keven gave them a harsh glare.

  “You heard the Mistress,” he barked. “Let’s move some stone! Arcus, you take the left, I’ll handle the right. Move, move!”

  I grinned as Avrell’s eyebrows rose in surprise, then reached down and picked up a few more chunks of stone, moving to toss them into the discard heap. All around us, the men and women of Avrell’s work detail paused in surprise as well, then grinned as the guardsmen joined them. They’d gotten used to the guardsmen being in the city since the attack.

  Avrell watched until he was satisfied the two groups were working well together, then turned back to me, taking up a position halfway between the pile of stone I was digging into and the heap that would be carted out into the city.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” he said in disapproval.

  “Why not?” I gasped, straining as I hauled a stone a little too heavy for me to the reusable heap.

  “Because you’re the Mistress.”

  I snorted. “And . . . ?”

  Avrell pursed his lips but didn’t answer.

  I motioned to Avrell’s work detail. It was composed of only fifteen men and women, all of them still lean from the harsh winter, most from the lower city—the portion above the wharf but below the walls. I knew there would be other work details like this one spread throughout the city. Catrell would be at the wharf, overseeing the cleanup there; Nathem—the Second—would be doing the same on the Dredge, which had been left mostly untouched, and in the lower city. Darryn was in the marketplace, training any citizens who would come in the basics of swordsmanship and self-defense. “You need the help, Avrell. And we don’t have enough people to let anyone rest.” I paused as the words sank in. “How bad is it? Do we have anything other than estimates yet?”

  He frowned as he glanced around at those working. “Nothing precise. But at this point I don’t think we’ll ever have anything precise. We lost almost half of the militia in the attack, mostly men from the Dredge. Darryn’s men.”

  I grimaced. Darryn had been a dispossessed mercenary, relegated to the Dredge when the White Fire had scoured its way across the city and sent the trade routes into a death spiral, cutting off his source of income as a guard-for-hire. I’d gone against Baill’s and Catrell’s wishes and put him in charge of the militia after he’d helped quell one riot and interceded in another to save Avrell’s life. But Captain Baill had ended up betraying us to the Chorl, and Catrell had changed his mind after training with those from the Dredge for a few weeks.

  And Darryn had done well, keeping those on the Dredge alive as best he could, protecting the warehouse and kitchen we’d set up there to feed them. During the Chorl attack, he’d led the Dredge in a raid on the Chorl’s flanks, had kept the Chorl out of the slums altogether.

  Since then, the people of Amenkor had been calling him Lord of the Dredge. Not the most gratifying title, but fitting. It was also the reason he’d been chosen to teach the citizens how to fight. They already trusted him, and he could relate to them better than Catrell.

  “And what about the people? What about the guardsmen?” I asked.

  “There were casualties among the people, but it’s hard to judge how many. If we include the Dredge, we never had a viable count to start with. We lost some to starvation, others to disease, and then the Chorl arrived. . . .”

  I stopped hauling stone, caught Avrell’s gaze. “How many?”

  “Three to four hundred. Maybe more.”

  I winced as if punched in the gut, the sensation similar to the pain that Cerrin had felt over the loss of his wife and daughters. Similar, but not the same. Not as visceral; not as deep.

  “And the guard?”

  “A third of the men died in the attack, about eighty overall.”

  I lowered my head a moment, closed my eyes, then straightened and returned to sorting stone. I’d known the losses had been bad. I’d watched the columns of oily black smoke rise from the stockyards to the east of the city, where the bodies had been taken to be burned to prevent the spread of disease. Some of those burned had been Chorl, but not all.

  The smoke had marred the sky for four days.

  “What else?” I asked, shrugging the grisly image aside.

  “We’ve cleared the majority of the streets between here and the wharf as you directed. I have men inspecting the watchtowers now, to determine what’s necessary to make repairs there. The engineers are already arguing about how to repair the three gates and the walls.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “May I ask why?”

  I halted, wiped sweat that had mixed with grit and dust from the stone from my forehead. My shirt stuck to my back, my hair lying in sweaty tendrils across my forehead and neck. “What do you mean?”

  “Why rebuild the watchtowers, the walls, when we know the Chorl can destroy them so easily?” he spat, his free hand motioning toward all the debris, his face twisted into a scowl. He shifted where he stood, unable to look at me. “Why waste the effort?”

  The bitterness shocked me, and hidden behind that, the fear.

  Then I remembered. He’d stood on one of these walls during the battle, had watched the Chorl approach, had felt the wall crumbling beneath him.

  And he’d been helpless, unable to do anything but choke on the dust and escape before the shattered stone crushed him.

  “Because,” I started to say, then hesitated. Avrell needed more than a flippant answer.

  I moved toward him, caught his gaze, held it, my expression stern, harsh. “Because the Chorl will come back, Avrell. And the Chorl—the warriors themselves—can be stopped by the walls, by the watchtowers and the gates. The Ochean and the Servants destroyed the walls last time, and the Ochean is dead.”

  “There will be another,” he said hoarsely.

  “But we’ll be better prepared for her and the Chorl Servants next time. With Darryn’s training, the citizens will be better able to defend against the Chorl warriors. I’ve learned a few things a
bout the Chorl and their Servants since then. And I intend to learn even more.”

  He heard the emphasis I placed on the last sentence. His brow creased in confusion, then smoothed in comprehension.

  We’d found more than the dead in the debris of Amenkor. But only a few knew about our captive—Keven, Eryn, Avrell, Catrell, and Westen, the captain of the Seekers; the Seekers and Servants who guarded her; and the guardsmen who had found her, of course.

  Avrell’s eyes searched mine, and then he nodded.

  “What about the wharf?” I asked, brushing dust off of my clothes.

  “The engineers and carpenters say it can be rebuilt easily, in comparison to the rest of what needs to be done.”

  “Good. Have them start on that as soon as they’re ready.”

  “And where are you going?” he asked as I moved toward Keven.

  “To visit Erick,” I said, and then, my voice laced with hatred, “and after that, our . . . guests.”

  There were two guardsmen outside the door to the chambers I’d had Avrell set up for Erick, one of them a Seeker. He nodded as I approached, murmured, “Mistress.”

  “Tomus,” I said. I knew all the Seekers by name; had trained with them under Westen’s direction. “How is he?”

  Tomus didn’t need to answer, I saw it in his eyes and felt something grip my heart and squeeze.

  I dropped my gaze, not willing to let Tomus see the pain, then straightened my shoulders with an effort and stepped past the two guards to the door. I heard Keven following, almost ordered him to wait outside . . . but Erick had chosen Keven to take his place as my personal guard after I’d sent him on the trading ship we’d used as a lure to draw the Chorl out of hiding. It had been a trap, one that those on the ship hadn’t been expected to survive.

  And only one of those on the ship had.

  I stepped into a room harsh with sunlight, glanced sharply toward the servant inside, to the healer Isaiah who’d been assigned permanently to Erick’s care, the same healer that Borund had found to help William when he’d been stabbed by Charls’ men. Isaiah met my gaze without flinching, stood abruptly behind the desk where he’d been sitting, one hand keeping his place in the book he was reading. He was thin—we were all thin after the winter—but his was a natural thinness, not one brought on solely by starvation. A slim build, narrow face, sharp features. Lanky brown hair peppered with gray fell down over the narrow glasses he wore for reading. He was dressed like a merchant’s apprentice: white shirt, brown-cloth breeches, shoes rather than boots. Except, unlike an apprentice, his breeches were tied off at the knees and beneath those, visible from shoe to knee—

  I halted. “What are those?”

  Isaiah frowned, caught off guard. “What are what, Mistress?”

  “Those,” I said, motioning toward his legs.

  He glanced downward, still frowning. “Ah. You mean my stockings.”

  “Stockings?”

  “Yes,” he said, a little sarcastic. “Something to cover my legs when I wear shoes instead of boots. To keep warm.”

  “They look . . .” Stupid, I almost said, but caught myself, fumbling for something else instead.

  Isaiah raised an eyebrow and waited, shifting where he stood.

  I was saved by Erick, who sighed heavily and stirred.

  Both Isaiah and I looked toward the bed, and both of us moved at the same moment, Isaiah unconsciously placing a small rectangular stone in the book to hold it open. We went to opposite sides of the bed, Isaiah leaning forward to scan Erick’s face, reaching for his wrist to take his pulse. The servant assigned to assist Isaiah moved up beside him, a damp cloth in one hand; I felt Keven halt behind me.

  I stared down into Erick’s face and tensed.

  Erick’s gray-brown hair lay matted to his head with sweat, his skin held a sick pallor I’d seen on the Dredge a hundred times. Those who’d looked like this had been avoided by even the deepest denizens of the slums, the threat of disease on the Dredge a constant fear. He was covered in scars—on his face, on his chest and arms and shoulders—most of them old, achingly familiar to me after days upon days of training with him, but some were new, given to him by the Ochean, by Haqtl—the leader of the Chorl priests—and by the priests that had tortured him to find out about the Fire. A Fire I’d placed inside of Erick so that I could see who attacked the ship we’d sent as bait. In the process they’d learned of the Skewed Throne.

  And that had led them to Amenkor.

  My hand itched, fingers opening and closing into a fist. I wanted my dagger, wanted its weight in my hand, wanted the comforting feel of the handle pressing into my skin. I wanted to hunt, to kill, the instinct trained into me by Erick on the Dredge. But I choked the instinct down, tasted bitterness and blood as I did so, and swallowed hard.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  Isaiah shook his head. “I don’t know. He should have healed completely by now, at least in body, if not in mind. He should have woken, should be conscious. His wounds have healed a little, but not as they normally would have, and the fever, the tremors . . . He should have healed. It’s as if something is actively stopping him from healing.”

  The servant brushed Isaiah’s arm, and he took the proffered cloth, wiping the sweat from Erick’s brow. Erick moaned, the sound long and low and torn. Isaiah grimaced, then caught my eye.

  “I’m not certain there’s anything else I can do.”

  I heard the dry bitterness in his voice, saw the grudging defeat and despair in his eyes. He’d been dealing with Erick for the last two weeks, first down in the back room of a tavern on the wharf, where Westen had stowed Erick after retrieving him from the Chorl ship where he’d been held captive, then later when we’d moved him up to the palace. At first, Isaiah had been optimistic, claiming Erick would be awake and moving around within a week. But then, after a week had passed, after ten days . . .

  Erick began trembling, shudders running up through his body, his arms flopping at his sides, dead white and lax. It hurt to watch, hurt even more when Isaiah and the servant reached out to control him and he cried out, face twisted with pain, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. I felt an invisible hand clench around my throat, felt my lungs burn as Erick’s trembling intensified, his cry escalating into a scream—

  And then the trembling stopped, Erick’s body falling back to the bed, his scream cut short, breath escaping in a long, wheezing sigh.

  Isaiah, hands on Erick’s shoulders, weight leaned into Erick’s chest, hesitated a moment, then drew back. “I just don’t know what else to do except wait.”

  We stood a moment in silence.

  Then I said, “Keven, catch me.”

  As I dove for the river, I heard Keven say, “What?” Then I Reached for the Fire inside of Erick. I hadn’t tried to Reach inside anyone since destroying the throne—there’d been no need—but now I wanted . . . no, needed . . . to know whether Erick was suffering. And so I Reached for him.

  Except it wasn’t as easy without the power of the throne behind me.

  I gasped as I hit a wall, as if something were trying to hold me back, to keep me from stretching outside my body. But I gathered all of my anger—all of the pain of watching Erick day after day in this state, all of the guilt I felt for sending him on a mission in which I knew he might be killed—I gathered all of that emotion into a sliver-thin blade and thrust it through the wall, pierced it with a sharp pain, and then I sped across the short distance to Erick, to the Fire that burned in his soul as behind I heard Keven curse and catch my body as it sagged and fell—

  And then I was inside Erick, and the pain . . . the pain burned.

  I writhed beneath it, drawing the Fire up higher around me, blocking the pain out, separating myself from Erick, until I huddled inside the Fire, completely free, gasping. The pain had been unexpected, because there was nothing, no wound, no visible reason why Erick should be in such pain.

  But he obviously was. And perhaps from here, I could
figure out why.

  As the last of the burning sensation faded, I gathered myself, then Reached out and touched the Fire, let its protective flames relax, let what Erick felt seep inward so that I felt what he felt. But slowly.

  I hissed when the pain first touched me, crawling across my skin like a thousand stinging ants. I held the pain constant, until I’d grown used to the sensation, and then I relaxed the Fire even more. The prickling of ants increased steadily, penetrated deeper, until it felt like a heavy blanket of needles, hot and piercing, just beneath the skin.

  And then the pain leveled out. It still seethed against Erick’s skin, but it no longer grew in intensity.

  I drew in a ragged breath, held it a moment, then released it in a sigh. I felt Erick’s chest rise and hold, heard him sigh through his own ears. His heart pulsed in his chest, strong and steady. Here and there, through the blanket of needles, I could feel smaller aches, recognized the places where he’d been cut while being tortured, where there were wounds that were not healing as fast as Isaiah expected. But these wounds were minor. His body was trying to fight the stinging needles, trying to heal that pain instead.

  But it couldn’t. There was nothing tangible for it to heal. It was pouring all of Erick’s energy into a hopeless battle.

  I turned my attention away from Erick’s body, began searching for Erick himself.

  I found him curled in upon himself in the deepest recesses of his mind. He lay huddled, trembling slightly, but not moving. This was how I’d found him on the Chorl ship, the pain inflicted upon him so great he’d retreated into himself, shut himself off from the world.

  And his situation hadn’t improved much since then. We thought we were healing him. And we had to some extent. His muscles no longer felt bruised, no longer hurt from kicks and blows. His chest and neck no longer ached from screaming. He’d healed a little.

  But not enough. Because the pain hadn’t stopped.

  I drifted down beside him, reached out and brushed his forehead, a gesture he’d done to me a thousand times since he’d first found me on the Dredge, vomiting over the dead body of the second man I’d killed.