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.
His body hitched at the touch and I leaned in closer.
Erick.
Another hitch. The trembling halted a moment, then resumed.
Erick, it’s Varis.
Erick shuddered with a sob, his body pulling in tighter upon itself, his emotions twisting—regret, defeat, tenderness, and sorrow. Disappointment. But not with me. With himself.
He thought he’d failed me.
I felt my own heart clench, felt something hard and hot lodge in my throat. I stretched out, enfolded myself around him, pulled him in tight. And everywhere our essences touched I sent out comfort, sent out relief, sent out joy that he was alive. It pulsed through me, the same joy I’d felt when I’d first found him, only this time devoid of all the accompanying rage. I’d expelled that rage when I’d cracked the throne, when I’d released its power and destroyed the Ochean.
You haven’t failed me, I whispered, sending the sentiment through the contact, pushing it forward. You’ve never failed me . . . Father.
Erick sobbed, something inside him releasing. I held on, letting the emotions flood through him, letting them flow outward and away.
A pang of guilt bled through me, and I felt tears burn my own eyes. I should have come sooner, should have checked on him sooner. I should have tried to reach him here, through the Fire.
No.
I stilled, pulled away from his essence. He still curled in upon himself, but the trembling had stopped and the sobbing had quieted. The tenderness and sorrow remained, but the regret, the defeat and disappointment, had been replaced by weariness.
His eyes were open, focused on me.
No. You came soon enough.
I shuddered, swallowed against the hardness lodged in my throat. I couldn’t speak.
Varis. His voice caught, edged with pain. His eyes closed as he winced, then opened again, his essence hard and intense. A Seeker’s essence. An assassin’s essence. Make it stop, Varis. Do whatever you have to do, but make it stop.
Then his eyes closed and he retreated. Back into himself, back into the protective shell he’d hidden behind since the trading ship The Maiden had been captured and he’d fallen under the Ochean’s and Haqtl’s control.
But he no longer felt as tense.
I retreated back into the Fire, the sensation of the stinging needles fading, then pushed myself up and out, catching a flicker of my body slumped over into a chair hastily pushed up to Erick’s bed before I fell back into myself.
I gasped, felt tremors sinking into my arms even as I drew in a breath, tasted the salt of my tears on my lips. “Gods!”
“Mistress,” Keven said, stepping forward smartly, kneeling at my side. I tried to raise a hand to my face, to scrub away the last sensation of burning skin I’d pulled back with me from Erick, to wipe away the tears, but I couldn’t lift my arm. “Mistress, are you all right?”
“Give me a moment,” I said. Reaching for such a short distance, for such a short time, had never been this taxing.
I grimaced. Because of the throne. I’d used more of the throne’s power as support than I’d imagined in the last few months. I’d come to rely on it. I’d have to be careful. I could overextend myself without thinking, counting on the throne to supplement me when the throne no longer existed.
“Here.”
I glanced up, even the simple act of lifting my head difficult.
The servant held out a cup of tea, the scent from the steam intoxicating. I smiled, took a sip from the cup as she held it up to my lips, the tea sending warm tendrils of energy down through my limbs. The tremors in my arms quieted.
The servant nodded as I found the strength to take the cup from her. Behind her and Keven, Isaiah fidgeted, his thin features pinched with worry.
“What did you find out?” the healer asked, voice curt.
Keven glared at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“He’s in a lot of pain,” I said.
Isaiah frowned, brushed past Keven to lean over Erick’s body. “What kind of pain? Where’s it coming from? I couldn’t find anything broken internally, no shattered bones except the rib that I’ve already reset. Is it his liver? His spleen? Something bleeding internally? What about—”
“It’s none of those things,” I said weakly, and suddenly I remembered the Chorl ship, remembered finding Erick in excruciating pain, body crumpled on the floor of the Ochean’s shipboard chambers, the room rocking gently with the waves. I remembered prying open one of his eyes, taking in the folds of silken cloth hanging from the walls, the pillows that covered the floor, all shades of blues and greens and gold.
And I remembered the Chorl priest who had guarded him. The man had goaded Erick, thinking it was Erick looking out through those eyes, not me. And when the priest had seen my rage over what they’d done, seen that rage reflected in Erick’s eyes, he’d reached forward and done something on the river, something I couldn’t see, something I could only sense.
The blanket of burning needles had covered Erick then, and with a touch by this priest, that blanket had erupted into molten agony—agony that had almost killed Erick. The priest had brought Erick to the edge of death . . . and then had backed off, had released whatever pressure he’d applied to the river, and the pain had subsided.
My eyes darkened, and I caught Isaiah’s gaze. “It’s the river,” I said, and Isaiah’s brow creased in confusion. “The Chorl did something on the river. That’s what’s keeping Erick from healing. They’ve cast some kind of spell over him.”
“Can you break it?” From Keven and Isaiah both, short and sharp.
I stood, felt the others step back. All except Keven, who shifted forward to my side, in case I needed the support. But the weakness had passed. I set the cup of tea aside and moved toward the bed, sinking beneath the river as I went.
Carefully, I searched the river around Erick from head to toe, feeling his essence in the eddies and flows as I looked, breathing in the pungent scent of oranges that I associated with him, with safety. . . .
Then I shook my head.
“I can’t even sense it, whatever it is.”
“Which means what?” Isaiah this time.
I frowned. “I don’t know.” And then I thought of the guests currently residing in the palace’s prison, of one guest in particular. “But I know someone who might.”
* * *
As we left Erick’s chambers, I told Keven where I intended to go. His brow creased with disapproval, but without a word he motioned one of the escorting guardsmen to gather a few extra guards to accompany us.
“You should also summon another Servant,” he said, catching my eye briefly as we moved. “Just in case.”
I shot him a dark look. “I can handle it.”
He grunted. “She almost escaped the first time she woke. She laid out three guards before we even knew she’d regained consciousness. If Marielle hadn’t been there . . .”
“I know,” I said, thankful that Marielle had been t
here. I bit my lip, was about to concede to Keven’s advice when Eryn, the previous Mistress, rounded a corner twenty steps away. She wore a simple white dress, embroidered at the cuffs and neck in blue and gold. Soot stains marred it from the knees down and the edges of the sleeves. One black handprint was clearly visible on the front, as if she’d clutched her left side. She halted when she saw us approaching and smiled.
“Good,” she said, matching our stride and falling into step beside me. She smelled of ash and sea salt. “Exactly who I was looking for. I went down to the wharf with Catrell and his group and have news from the engineers looking at the damage.” She paused and frowned when Keven and I turned right at the next corner and began descending to the lower levels of the palace. “Where are we going?”
“To visit our prisoner,” Keven grumbled, although he’d relaxed somewhat now that Eryn had joined us.
“Which one?” When no one answered, Keven’s expression only tightening, her lips compressed into a tight line. “Alone?”
“Not anymore,” I said, suppressing an irritated sigh. “What about the wharf?”
Before she could answer, she broke into a violent fit of coughing, enough that she was forced to halt, one hand pressed up against the wall for support, the other clutched over her stomach. Keven and I traded a glance, but knew that Eryn would only wave us away if we tried to help her. Since the collapse of the innermost wall—the wall Eryn had held for a short while against the Ochean and her Servants with the help of myself and the throne—Eryn had felt shooting pains in her stomach, had had coughing fits like this one. The healers could find nothing wrong, but I’d been lurking inside Eryn during the battle, inside the Fire I’d placed inside her just like the one I’d placed inside Erick. I’d felt the damage when the Ochean had thrown her power against the invisible shield Eryn had erected to protect the wall. I’d felt the tearing pain, the taste of bile and blood at the back of my throat. And I’d choked on the dust as her shield failed and the wall began to crumble.
Something inside Eryn had been damaged in the process, something that didn’t seem to be healing. But unlike Erick, this damage was internal, as if something inside had been bruised.
The Throne of Amenkor Page 74
