His eyes were confused, uncertain, his face taut with anger. He knew Bloodmark was dangerous—I could see it—but he did nothing.
He must have seen the betrayal in my face for his shoulders sagged. He dropped his gaze and continued on toward the Dredge without a word.
Behind him, Bloodmark looked at me, eyes smug and defiant.
A cold, hard stone of hatred solidified in my chest, just beneath my breastbone.
When Bloodmark turned and left me alone with Tomas’ body in the rain-soaked narrow, the stone remained.
I should have let Tomas kill him.
Chapter 5
I made my way to Cobbler’s Fountain purposefully, walking down the Dredge until I was within a few alleys of the fountain, then veering off into the side streets and narrows. I was early—a full hour before dusk—but I wasn’t here to meet with Erick.
I was here to stalk him.
I ducked into a narrow and crouched down, slipping from shadow to shadow, until I reached an alcove overlooking the circular fountain. Tucked into the alcove’s depths, the wood planking of the door pressed into my back, I could see the statue of the woman holding the urn, her back toward me. Sunlight still touched the top of her head.
I glanced back down the alley, a nervous twinge in my stomach. It was early enough for people to be moving about, early enough someone might notice me. In the slums, no one would do anything but keep their distance. Here, closer to the real Amenkor . . .
There was no one in sight. I settled in to wait.
The sunlight shifted. Overhead, the few clouds in the sky burned a deep orange, like fire. The light began to fade.
Someone entered the area surrounding the fountain, footsteps clicking on the cobbles. I tensed, heart thudding in my chest, but it wasn’t Erick. The woman cut across the open area and entered another street, a wooden box clutched to her chest.
I sank back against the door, felt sweat prickle my forehead, between my shoulder blades.
“What am I doing here?” I murmured to myself, my voice barely more than a breath, nerves making me feel sick.
But I knew. I could still taste the betrayal of the night before, like ash in my mouth. Erick should have stood up to Bloodmark, should have threatened him, abandoned him. He should have done something.
My brow creased with anger. Instead, he’d walked away. I needed to know why.
Something moved near the fountain, a subtle shift of shadow. I scanned the area but saw nothing.
I was just about to use the river when Erick stepped from the darkness of a narrow.
Bitterness flooded my mouth. I reached for my dagger, but halted, my hand trembling. I tried to ignore it.
Erick moved to the fountain, stared up at the woman’s bowed head. In the fading light, I could see his face clearly. His eyes were troubled, the skin around his mouth pinched with worry, with doubt. He searched the woman’s features for a long moment, then turned away with a sigh, still troubled. He began pacing the cobbles, circling the fountain slowly, waiting.
For me. Or Bloodmark.
I sat back. The bitterness retreated slightly, still there but not as strong. A queasy uneasiness in my stomach had taken its place beside the anger. Erick’s face had been too open, too exposed. My presence suddenly felt wrong, a betrayal of Erick’s trust.
But I didn’t move.
Dusk fell, deepened into night.
My legs had begun to cramp when Erick’s pacing halted. He glanced once up into the night sky, the stars brittle, the moon high, then headed toward the Dredge, not trying to hide, his stride steady.
I waited, felt my heartbeat skip, then cursed my hesitation—cursed the bitterness, Bloodmark, the sense of wrongness—and followed.
I kept far enough back that Erick’s figure was just a shadow, seen only in the moonlight that filtered down into the alleys. He moved straight toward the Dredge, but turned before reaching it, paralleling it using the side streets and narrows, heading farther from the slums, toward the bridge where the Dredge crossed over the River into the city proper. The texture of the buildings changed. Crumbling mud-brick no longer littered the alleys, cobbles lay mostly whole underfoot. Candlelight appeared in a few windows, glowing behind chinks in the wood used to cover the openings.
My uneasiness grew. We were moving outside of the slums. The alleys and narrows—the buildings themselves—no longer felt familiar.
Erick only stopped once, half-turned as I slid into hiding behind the remains of a shattered barrel. Breath held tight, I waited—for him to turn back, to pick me out of the shadows and frown down at me in deep disappointment.
My stomach twisted in anticipation. . . .
But after a moment he continued.
A few streets later, he turned. When I edged up to the end of the narrow, glanced around the corner, I could see the arch of the bridge, could see moonlight reflected on the River, could hear the slap of water against the stone channel.
And on the far bank, Amenkor . . . the real Amenkor.
I stared at the buildings, noted with a strange disappointment that they seemed no different than the buildings surrounding me now. But different than those in the slums. These buildings were not half collapsed, stone sagging in on itself under decades of disuse. These buildings had edges and corners.
“Who goes there!”
I tensed, shrank back farther into the shadows, but the rough voice had called out to Erick.
“It’s me, you bloody bastard,” Erick growled, humor in his voice.
Two guards stood watch at the end of the bridge, pikes held ready. One of them shifted, pulled the pike back into a guard position with a grunt. “It’s Erick,” he said to the second guard, “the Seeker.”
The second guard relaxed, fell back slightly as Erick approached. He appeared younger than the first. Both wore gold-stitched thrones on their shirts and were more heavily armored than any guardsmen I’d seen in the slums.
“Gave me quite a start sneaking out of the shadows like that,” the first guardsman grumbled as Erick halted beside him. “You shouldn’t scare us regulars.”
Erick frowned. “I didn’t realize there’d be guardsmen here.”
The man grunted. “Captain Baill’s orders, straight from the Mistress. ‘All entrances to the city proper are to be guarded at all times.’ The captain’s set patrols throughout the city as well, and increased the night watch near the palace.”
“What for?” Erick asked. “What are we guarding against?”
The guardsman shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t think Baill knows either, but if the orders came from the Mistress. . . .”
Erick shifted uncomfortably, cast a glance across the river, toward the palace.
“If you ask me,” the second guardsman said, “the Mistress has lost it.”
“We didn’t ask you, did we?” the first guardsman barked. “Now stand up! Hold that pike like you mean to use it, not like some slack-jawed lackwit!”
The second guardsman glared, but straightened, back as rigid as stone, and turned his attention toward the street. The first guardsman grunted, shot a glance toward Erick.
There was fear in his eyes. Hidden behind a thick layer of loyalty, but fear nonetheless.
It sent a shiver through my skin. The Mistress ruled the city. . . . No. The Mistress was the city. If something happened to her, it would affect everyone.
Even us gutterscum in the slums.
“Are you headed back to the palace to report?” the first guardsman asked.
Erick nodded, his attention still on the other guardsman, his face creased in thought. “Yes. But I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Good hunting?”
All emotion left Erick’s face. He turned and caught the first guardsman’s eye.
The guardsman stepped back sharply, gaze falling to the stone cobbles of t
he road. “Forget I asked,” he mumbled, voice thin, thready.
Erick didn’t answer, simply stepped around him and crossed the bridge.
The guard waited a moment, then turned to the other guardsman and scowled.
Back pressed against the stone of the narrow, I hesitated. I could follow Erick farther if I wanted. The two guardsmen would be easy to distract, and they were watching the street, not the water. . . .
But I was already too far beyond the slums. If I entered the real Amenkor, I’d be stepping onto totally unfamiliar ground.
I wasn’t ready to do that.
I hesitated a moment more, then slid back down the narrow, back into the darkness, wrapping it around me like a cloak.
I still didn’t have any answers, but I’d seen and heard enough. For now.
* * *
I was moving through the depths of the Dredge, moving toward the white-dusty man’s door, when I ran across the body. The man had been thrown into a corner of the narrow, where it turned and cut left. His head rested on one shoulder, rolled slightly forward. His hands lay in his lap, his legs stretched out before him, one knee bent outward. He was barefoot, breeches coated with mud, and his muscled chest was bare and streaked with blood. He’d been stabbed four times. Twice in the chest, once in the side, low, and once in the gut.
I halted as soon as I saw him, scanned the narrow in both directions. It was littered with refuse, with broken stone. A rat skittered along the base of the wall, then vanished through a crevice in the mud-brick. But otherwise I was alone.
Stepping close, I knelt, reached forward to push the man’s face into view. But I already knew what I’d find, had known the moment I’d seen the body.
It was the mercenary, Bloodmark’s and my current mark. Blue eyes, brown hair, sun-weathered skin shaved smooth except for a narrow band of beard on each side of his face, stretching from his ears to the base of his jaw. He reeked of ale, his dried sweat sick with its stench. A trail of vomit touched the corner of his mouth. A pool of vomit had congealed near his side.
Carved into his forehead was the Skewed Throne. Brutal and deep.
Bloodmark.
I lowered the mercenary’s head slowly and sat back on my heels. The hot anger had flushed my skin again, but now it felt worn and used. I thought about telling Erick. But Bloodmark always killed the marks now, our marks. At least, if he got to them first. And Erick did nothing, said nothing.
Not after Tomas.
The thought sent a pulse of bitterness through the flush of anger, hotter and heavier, aimed at Erick.
I stood, staring down at the mercenary. He was only a shadow in the moonlight now. The sun had set.
I turned away, heading again toward the Dredge. I was hungry.
* * *
I crouched down at the entrance to the alley across from the white-dusty man’s door and immediately noticed the tuft of cloth peeking out from the stone where the white-dusty man hid the bundles of food. A prickling sensation, like gooseflesh, swept through me and I smiled, my stomach growling. I’d left the linen beneath the stone a few days before, but there’d been no response. I’d thought that perhaps the desperation that haunted everyone’s eyes on the Dredge now had finally forced the white-dusty man away, that he’d left, that he’d forgotten me. The thought had hurt. But the white-dusty man hadn’t gone, hadn’t forgotten.
I almost stepped out onto the Dredge, heading for the bundle without thought, my stomach clenching with hunger. But at the last moment, weight already shifted forward, I remembered Bloodmark, felt his breath against my neck from weeks before.
What are we watching?
I shuddered, pulled back and scanned the nearest alleys, the darknesses.
Nothing.
I hesitated at the world of gray and red and wind, then pushed deeper.
I saw nothing, felt nothing, smelled nothing, until I’d pushed myself as deep as I’d ever gone before. There, the ice-rimmed hand began to press against my chest, so faintly it barely touched my skin, as if the hand were hovering a hairbreadth above my breastbone.
I sensed that I could go deeper, but the grayness had solidified so I could see into the shadows, could see oil light flickering a lighter gray in the cracks around the white-dusty man’s door and window—oil light I had not seen from the alley. And the ice of the hand seemed distant, removed.
I drew back until only moonlight lit the Dredge, the tuft of cloth.
The hand against my chest faded.
I hesitated a moment more, then scurried across the Dredge, keeping low, keeping to the shadows. I crouched in the thin recess of the white-dusty man’s door, removed the loose stone, then dragged out and opened the bundle.
Inside, there was a small loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese the size of my fist.
I smiled, realized I’d been more worried than I’d thought. And hungrier.
I sniffed back the worry, and grabbed the loaf of bread. I was just about to bite into it when the door opened.
Oil light flooded out onto the Dredge. With it came a wash of dense heat—
And the heady, overpowering scent of flour, of yeast and dough.
The scent struck me like a fist and suddenly I was nine again. Nine and cowering in the shadows of an alley, watching a man and woman approach each other, both lost, their eyes vague, in their own gray worlds. The woman had straight black hair, brown eyes like the mud of the buildings after a rain, and a bundle tied too loosely and held too far from her body. The man wore a rough homespun shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, old breeches, no shoes. His clothes were coated with white dust . . . with flour. His hands and face were immaculately clean.
They collided, and in the brief moment they were distracted, I stole two of the rolls that fell from the woman’s bundle.
I thought I’d escaped as I retreated to a narrow across the Dredge. I thought I hadn’t been seen. But when I turned to watch . . .
The man was leaning over the woman in concern. After a moment of wariness, she allowed him to help her to her feet. When she reached for her bundle, the man knelt and began gathering the fallen rolls. The woman joined him.
Then the man frowned, brow creasing. He scanned the ground, searching, as the woman slid the last roll into the bundle and cinched it closed.
He turned toward my darkness and stared straight at me.
I don’t know what he saw. A girl pressed flat against the wall, mud-streaked, clutching two rolls to her chest. That at least. But he must have seen something more, something else, for the frown softened, relaxed. He settled back onto the balls of his feet, hands dangling between his knees.
What is it? the woman asked.
The man held my gaze a moment more, until the woman began to look in my direction with her own frown.
Nothing, he said, and stood.
And before the woman with the straight black hair and the soft brown eyes turned completely toward me, he touched her arm, distracted her.
I fled. I ran deep, farther than I’d originally intended. Because of the man with the white-dusty clothing. Because of the way his eyes had softened. Because he’d relaxed onto the balls of his feet and dangled his hands, instead of leaping forward to snag my arm, to halt me.
I ate the bread. I cried when I did, and couldn’t understand why, but I ate the bread.
I’d followed him the next day, and the next. And eventually he’d begun to leave the bread beneath the stone outside his door when I returned the linen the bread had been wrapped in.
A shadow stepped into the light spilling from the white-dusty man’s door. I glanced up. Up into the white-dusty man’s eyes—older now, shaded with pain, with weariness. Gray streaked his hair, and wrinkles etched the corners of his eyes and mouth, etched his brow.
But I saw none of that.
Instead, I saw his eyes as they’d been on the Dredge
that day, saw them soften as he stared at a girl pressed flat against the mud-brick wall of an alley.
Tears bit at the corners of my eyes. Tears of shame, of need, of hunger. But not hunger for bread or cheese. For something more.
In the depths of the white-dusty man’s house, I heard movement. Then the black-haired woman stepped into view.
She held a long wooden paddle before her, charred and streaked with soot. A heap of dough rested on the long end of the paddle, ready to be placed into an oven.
“What is it?” she asked.
I stilled, as I had on the Dredge so long ago. I stilled and caught the white-dusty man’s eyes.
He held my gaze a long moment, then smiled.
“Nothing,” he said.
Something—a pain, an ache—surged up from deep in my chest and forced itself out in a hitching sob. I tried to hold it in, but it was too much, too large. Tears coursed down my face, and I closed my eyes, the sobs coming hard and deep. Not loud sobs. Wet, throaty sobs that forced deep breaths through my nose, my mouth closed tight, trying to hold it all back, to keep it all in.
The white-dusty man simply waited, not moving.
The ache—the pain—released, like the tension in the bundle when the blade finally cuts through the cloth. It released and the sobs quieted. My breath came smoother, deeper.
Someone touched my face, a gentle touch, and I glanced up into the white-dusty man’s eyes again. And this time I saw the gray in his hair, the lines on his face, the age.
His fingers traced down from my forehead to my chin. He tilted my head upward, stared deep into my eyes.
I felt myself trembling, still weak and fluid from the tears. The skin on my face felt tight, my eyes sore.
“You’ve grown,” he said.
Fresh tears burned at the corners of my eyes. It was too much.
And so I pulled away, his fingers sliding down the length of my chin. I stood, back straight, no longer the nine-year-old girl cowering in an alley, no longer a child.
I glanced down at the bread, at the cheese still bundled in the cloth. Then I looked the white-dusty man—the baker—in the eye. I held up the bread a moment, and said in a tight, strained voice, “Thank you.”
The Throne of Amenkor Page 10
