“What and where?” Avrell asked, leaning forward.
Obviously irritated, Eryn replied, “Some cured meats—pork and beef mainly—grain, potatoes . . . all staples. But not enough to feed the city for the entire winter.”
“But it’s more than we have now,” I said.
Eryn frowned. “What of the ships you sent out?”
I shook my head, and Eryn sat back heavily and bit her lower lip.
“But if you don’t remember smuggling in the wine,” I said, “then maybe there are other goods you smuggled in that you don’t remember.”
She nodded. “Or worse. We may find that what I do remember is not, in fact, true. At the end, the throne was too powerful. What I think I remember may have been delusions, thoughts brought on by the other voices in the throne, or perhaps even their own memories that I’ve absorbed as my own. That’s why I didn’t come to you earlier. I don’t know what I actually did, and what I only wanted to do, or attempted to do and failed.” A forlorn look passed across Eryn’s face, harsh with pain and loss. “For a time, I believe I actually was insane.”
No one spoke for a long moment. Then Avrell turned to me, concern for Eryn clear in his eyes. “Perhaps whoever touched your dream to show you the wine knows where the other stores are hidden.”
I nodded in agreement, but my mind had taken a different path.
I looked up at Eryn sharply. “Why did you blockade the harbor?”
When Eryn didn’t answer, I continued. “You smuggled goods into the city, were preparing for a harsh winter . . . so why did you block the harbor and interrupt trade, keep ships with supplies from entering, and force our own ships to stay here, unable to get more?”
Eryn shook her head. “I don’t know. Ever since that cursed Fire passed through the city, I’ve steadily lost control . . . of the throne, of my power, of my mind. I don’t understand much of anything I did in the last few years. It’s all mixed up, with large sections of it just . . . gone. As if I’d lost part of myself somehow. Just . . . gone.”
Avrell shifted uncomfortably at the desolation in her voice, caught my attention meaningfully, then stood. “We should attempt to find some of these hidden stores,” he said quietly. I pushed away from the balustrade I was leaning against. “Perhaps if you could tell us a place to begin searching?”
Eryn rose suddenly as well, suffused with new energy. The conversation had changed her. Instead of the morose woman I’d encountered on the tower or found wandering her garden moments before, she was now vibrant with purpose. “I can do better than that,” she said with a grin and a lifted eyebrow. “I can show you.”
* * *
Eryn burst out laughing at something Avrell said as we were escorted by the palace guardsmen through the market square in the lower city. We’d come from the outer ward, where Eryn had led us to an old building on Lirion Street stacked with barrels of salted fish. Avrell had been shocked, had sent one of the guardsmen back to the palace to retrieve paper, a quill and ink, and a small foldable table so that he could record what we’d found. Immediately after the guardsmen had left, he set the remaining escort to counting the stores.
Now we were heading down to some warehouses along the River, near the meat market and stockyards. Eryn and Avrell had been talking animatedly since we’d left the palace.
I watched them from behind as we moved through the crowds at the edge of the market and passed into the streets beyond. They were talking about the city, about things that had happened years ago, problems they had resolved together while Eryn was Mistress, people they had met. People I’d never heard of, and events that had only affected the upper city, the real Amenkor, that had never reached the slums beyond the Dredge.
I felt a pang of . . . jealousy? Loneliness? Something deep in my chest, vaguely familiar. Like the yearning I’d felt whenever the baker—the white-dusty man, I thought, and smiled tightly—had reached out to touch me.
I wanted to be part of the conversation, wanted to share in the laughter, in the memories. But I couldn’t. I’d been gutterscum back then, nothing more than a girl dressed in tattered rags hunched protectively over a half-rotted apple.
My mouth twisted into a scowl.
Ahead, Eryn gasped and said, “Do you remember when Alden came to the fete with that frilly lace thing around his throat?”
Avrell grinned. “He claimed it was the highest fashion in Venitte at the time.”
“That’s right! I’d forgotten!” Eryn’s hand gripped Avrell’s upper arm, a casual gesture. Avrell didn’t react. “It turned out he’d gotten the thing from some ‘captain’ at the wharf.” She snorted, shaking her head. “Just punishment, I say.”
We reached the edge of the River and Eryn’s hand fell away from Avrell’s arm.
“Here we are,” she said, turning back to look at me. A smile still touched her lips, but she’d straightened, back to the business at hand. “There should be cured meats in here.”
Avrell nodded, the guardsmen already at the wide doorway. When the leader of the escort motioned them forward, we stepped into the shadowed interior.
The place was smaller than the ones I’d visited in the warehouse district while acting as Borund’s bodyguard, support pillars reaching to the ceiling, the rafters dusty and filled with cobwebs. A dry mustiness assaulted my nose, and one of the guardsmen sneezed. Avrell raised one hand to cover his mouth, as he’d done at the stablehouse.
Other than the cobwebs and a few traces of straw, the warehouse was empty.
“I don’t understand,” Eryn said, her voice tight, her brow creased in confusion. “I remember having cured meats shipped here. Unless . . .”
She halted, all of the confidence she’d shown since we’d left the garden trickling away.
Avrell motioned to the guardsmen, who scattered through the warehouse, checking the far corners, a few ascending the stairs against the back wall to see if there was anything in the rooms above. The floor creaked as they moved around, dust sifting down through cracks between the boards.
Stepping forward as we waited, I circled the bottom floor of the warehouse. In the far corner, the dust had been disturbed, as if something had been stored in the warehouse recently, but had been moved.
I frowned, began wandering back to where Avrell and Eryn stood.
Both Avrell and I knew what the guardsmen had found before they returned. We shared a look, Avrell’s lips pressed thin with concern.
“I know I had cured meat stored here,” Eryn said, back stiff, voice adamant.
“But you said yourself you weren’t certain whether the memories were yours or not,” Avrell said soothingly. “It could have been someone else’s memory, one of the previous Mistresses.”
“No! I stored meat here. I remember!”
The guardsmen had all returned. The leader of the escort shifted uneasily as we turned. “There’s nothing here now, Mistress,” he said to Eryn. He winced as he realized his mistake, shot a horrified glance at me. “I mean, Eryn.”
An awkward silence fell. Then Avrell stirred. “Were there any other places where you thought you’d stored supplies?”
Still troubled, Eryn shook herself and frowned in thought. “Yes, a few other places. The closest would be on the other side of the River, on the Dredge.”
A sharp pain lanced down into my stomach and I stilled, my mouth suddenly dry.
I hadn’t been to the Dredge since I’d killed Bloodmark and fled the slums. I hadn’t even been to the far side of the River since then.
All eyes were turned on me, Avrell’s filled with an unspoken question.
I shrugged aside the queasy terror in my gut, met Avrell’s gaze, and said, “Let’s go.”
We left the empty warehouse behind, Avrell and I falling into step behind Eryn, the guardsmen fanning out around us. Curt orders were passed as we neared the Dredge and the stone bridge
that arched across the River and the guardsmen closed in tighter around us, but no one else spoke. Eryn was intent, focused on where we were headed; Avrell seemed on the verge of speaking, but I shot him a glare and he subsided.
As we crossed over the bridge, my stomach knotted and my hand fell to my dagger. Without thought, I slid beneath the river, slid into old, familiar patterns with an ease that was sickening.
The Dredge had changed in the two years since I’d last been here.
We moved through streets filled with people—more people than when I’d last been here—their clothes worn, spattered with dirt and grime, some with tattered shoes or bundled rags covering their feet, but most barefoot. They moved slowly, shoulders hunched, heads down, arms held listlessly at their sides or clutched tight to their chests. A few carried bundles. A significant portion of them were foreigners—dark-skinned Zorelli from the south, Kandish with scraggly feathers entwined in their hair, Taniecians from the north with the blue marking of the Tear of Taniece smudged on their right cheek.
But it wasn’t their clothes or their postures that tightened the knot in my stomach, that pressed something hard into the base of my throat. It was their eyes. They were empty, without hope, desolate and beaten. A few were harsh with anger, or hard with desperation, but mostly they were like walking dead, already lost and forgotten. And everywhere there was a sense of darkness, of decay, of buildings crumbling and streets narrowing—a crushing sense of oppression, as if the very sky were closing in.
I felt the pressure creeping in on me, closing off my throat so that I couldn’t breathe, settling over me like a smothering blanket. My pulse quickened, throbbing in my temple, thudding in my chest. I tasted the Dredge, the grit and refuse harsh against my tongue, the scents of dampness—of rot and shit and malignant growth—cloying, stronger than it should be. All of the memories of my life beyond the Dredge crashed down on me at once, heightening the sensations, making them more real, more vivid, and infinitely worse.
I turned toward Avrell in horror. His eyes widened, and he reached toward Eryn to stop her, to turn us back, but before he could say anything, Eryn halted and said, “Here.”
I choked back the overwhelming sense of the Dredge, forced myself to focus on where Eryn had pointed, to ignore the prickling sensation crawling across my shoulders and up my neck.
It was a building like all the rest on the Dredge, edges worn, windows bricked shut, so that the only entrance was through a doorway half filled with shattered stone and debris.
“Are you certain?” Avrell said, doubt clear in his voice.
“Yes,” Eryn said, more confidently. “I can see the ward I placed on the door. There’s something here.”
And as she spoke, I saw the ward as well, saw the subtle currents of the river where they twisted into a pattern I didn’t recognize near the heap of stone around the door and around the base of the building and windows.
But the pattern’s intent was obvious. As I moved closer to the building, I felt the river pushing me away. I resisted it, came to a stop before the door beside Eryn.
“Let’s see what’s here,” I said.
Eryn reached forward with one hand and the ward fell away.
I scrambled up over the debris, stone and dirt shifting beneath my weight, and heard Avrell and the guardsmen protest behind me. Three guardsmen followed me instantly, but I knew there was nothing dangerous inside the building. I’d already checked using the river.
“Is it empty?” Avrell asked, coming up to the opening.
“No,” I said, and heard Eryn sigh with relief. “It’s filled with crates. I can’t tell what’s in them.”
Avrell climbed through the entrance, balancing carefully, grimacing in distaste. He brushed off his hands and eyed me carefully. “Are you all right?”
I nodded sharply. “I’m fine.”
He shook his head at the obvious lie, then motioned toward the guardsmen, who began assessing the crates, one of them setting up the foldable table in the diffuse light coming through the doorway. “We don’t need to stay here long.”
I didn’t respond, watched the guardsmen at work for a moment instead, then turned and crawled back out into the sunlight.
Eryn stood at the edge of the Dredge, a few of the guardsmen to either side. As I moved up beside her, she said, “We’re attracting attention,” and nodded toward the people on the street who were eyeing Eryn and the guardsmen warily. Most dropped their gazes and moved on quickly; others glared openly. One man with a clouded white eye hawked a ball of phlegm to the cracked stone cobbles before skirting those around us and disappearing down a darkened narrow.
“Guardsmen always attract attention on the Dredge,” I said.
Eryn pressed her lips together tightly, and I felt the guardsmen to either side tense. Their hands fell to the pommels of their swords.
“Is this what it’s like all the time?” Eryn asked.
I shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s worse now than it was. It never used to be so . . . crowded. Or dirty this close to the River. The slums—the true slums—hadn’t crept so far in this direction. I would never have come this far up the Dredge back then. There wouldn’t have been any reason to.” Glancing down the street, I realized that we were close to Cobbler’s Fountain, where I’d meet with Erick when I’d found one of his marks, where my mother had brought me to play when I was six, before the Dredge had taken her.
I frowned, focusing on the people before us again.
We were drawing a crowd. A restless crowd.
The back of my neck prickled with unease and my hand gripped my dagger.
Murmurs began to run through the group, low at first, people muttering under their breath, but nothing more. I suddenly recalled the man with the milky eye, saw the derision on his face as he spat, saw his hatred.
I shifted my weight, settled into a defensive stance. “Get the others.”
“But the First is not done,” one of the guardsmen protested.
Before us, the crowd seemed to ripple, the murmur rising.
Far down the Dredge, something on the river shuddered. Someone shouted. The tension in the air spiked.
“Get them now!” I spat, and stepped forward, in front of Eryn, two guardsmen following my lead, shoving Eryn behind them, the other scrambling up over the debris and vanishing into the building.
“What is it?” Eryn asked.
I didn’t answer.
Down the street, the shouting intensified and the river recoiled, fear and anger and retribution mingling sharply with the scent of sweat. The crowd—no, it wasn’t a crowd anymore—the mob before us shuddered again, the angry faces at the forefront surging forward as if pushed from behind, then receding like a tide.
And then Avrell was there, the rest of the guardsmen closing in protectively on either side. At the same time the tidal surge of the mob pushed forward again, threatened to overcome the guardsmen at its edge, before pulling back and parting.
Into the opening left by the crowd strode a group of armed men.
The palace guardsmen stiffened. The leader barked out an order, and swords snicked from sheaths.
On the river I could taste the advent of blood, like copper. I breathed it in through my nostrils, my hand kneading the hilt of my dagger, and thought, This is the Dredge. This is where I come from.
But not where I belonged.
The group of men advanced, their makeshift weapons—half-rotted boards, a few knives, stones—at the ready. Only the leader of the mob carried a sword, his face twisted into a scowl of hatred, but the blade wasn’t drawn. Not yet. His hair hung in lanky brown chunks below the shoulders, and his breeches and tunic were stained but not crusted with dirt like the others. A scar marred the sharp line of his jaw and his brown eyes blazed.
“What are you doing here?” he spat as he approached, halting a few paces away. His voice was low
and rough with rage. The crowd’s grumbling increased, a few men openly cursing. The old man with the milky eyes spat on the ground again a few paces behind him. “Get out! You don’t belong here!”
The guards bristled, stepped forward with swords raised, but Avrell halted them with a barked order.
I drew in the copper taste of blood with flared nostrils, then shifted forward, stepped clear of the guardsmen to face the leader, my hand still on my dagger, the river tight around me.
“We’re here,” I said slowly, “to figure out how to feed you.”
The man hesitated, the tension on the river wavering—
Then he burst into laughter. “Here to feed us!” he roared. He turned to the crowd. “Did you hear that! They’re here to feed us!” The crowd responded with a roar of its own, half laughter, half angry derision. A roar that sent shudders through my spine.
Then the man with the lanky hair spun back. “And how do you intend to do that?” he hissed. All humor had left his eyes. There was nothing left but a deadly glint, cold and heated at the same time.
When I didn’t respond, he snorted with contempt. “That’s what I thought.”
He’d already started to turn away when I asked, “What’s your name?”
He halted. “Why?”
“Because I want to know.”
He sneered, then hesitated, his eyes catching mine. The sneer faltered, became a frown.
Then he gave a mock bow and growled, “Lord Darryn, at your service,” twisting the title with contempt.
My lips twitched and a few of those in the crowd chuckled, but when Darryn had straightened, I became deadly serious. I saw him jerk back as he caught my gaze again and I stepped into the opening, moving close enough to keep him off-balance.
“I am the Mistress of Amenkor,” I said, loud enough so everyone could hear, and felt a surge of satisfaction as some of those gathered gasped, as Darryn himself blinked in surprise, “originally from the Dredge. And I will find a way to feed you.”
Then I stepped back, turned to catch Eryn’s eye, saw Avrell motion quickly to the guards, who began to force a way out through the crowd. The people of the Dredge refused to part at first, hesitant, their eyes on Darryn, but when he said nothing, did nothing, they grudgingly gave way.
The Throne of Amenkor Page 40
