The bearded man never had time to recover. He was still gasping, arms cradling his chest where I’d punched him with the river, when I slit his throat.
I stepped back, staggered under a sudden weight of weariness, but forced that back as well as I caught myself against a wall. The scent of stagnant water was fading, the lantern oil and straw now so strong it overwhelmed everything else, even blood. Using the wall for support, I stumbled down the street, turned, and saw the door.
I halted. The warehouse took up the entire block and had two floors. Lantern light glowed through the few windows surrounding the doorway. The entire building reeked of oil and straw.
I pushed away from the wall and moved across the street. I was no longer moving fluidly. My arm still tingled with the last traces of numbness and my chest throbbed with a dull, hideous pain that the Fire could not suppress. My face had begun to throb as well. But the writhing coil of anger urged me forward.
I didn’t hesitate at the door. Instead, I kicked it open.
At the far side of the little room beyond, Cristoph jerked around. He held a lantern and was just about to step through a second, open doorway into the warehouse itself. The room we were in held two desks and numerous ledgers on shelves.
When he saw me, Cristoph bolted through the door, taking the lantern with him.
I staggered past the desks to the door, stared out into the warehouse beyond. Crates filled the immense room, stacked high, so that the warehouse was nothing but a warren of narrow walkways and niches. But Cristoph’s scent was strong, and I could see the flicker of lantern light clearly.
I slid forward.
Cristoph turned and twisted through the passages, ducked and doubled back. But he couldn’t hide. Not with his scent so strong. As I got closer, I could hear his breathing. It was panicked, punctuated with gasps and moans.
I moved faster, my nostrils flaring. I was close. I could almost taste him.
Then the sounds of panic quieted. I paused, edged around a corner.
He stood in the short passage on the far side, and the moment he saw me he heaved the lantern at me.
I ducked under it, sped forward, heard it shatter as it struck the crates behind me. The scent of lantern oil was suddenly stronger, as intense as the blood earlier—
And then there was a faint whoosh of sound. A wave of heat washed forward and I paused.
Ahead of me, a look of horror passed over Cristoph’s face as the sheen of light intensified. He held still in the flicker of flames, then dropped his gaze to me and fled to the left, down another passage.
I turned back, smoke suddenly choking me. The entire passage behind me was consumed in flame. And it was spreading. Fast.
The entire warehouse would burn. And it wouldn’t end there.
I spun and rushed after Cristoph. He was too close to let go now. And he knew the quickest way out.
I caught up to him twenty steps farther on. He was trapped at a dead end, backed up against a wall of crates.
“Please,” he gasped.
The wall of heat from the fire pulsed behind us and now the river was saturated with the sounds of wood crackling, splintering.
Cristoph glanced toward the fire, then seemed to sag, the panic pulling back. “We’re trapped. The only way out was back through the fire.”
I frowned, then stepped forward. He only had time to tense, to draw in a sharp breath, before I struck.
I made it as painless and quick as possible. He was a mark, nothing more.
When his body slumped to the floor, I stood over it a moment. But I felt nothing. No satisfaction. No anger. No remorse.
Then I turned to look at the fire. I could see its light at the end of the passage, could see the light flickering on the wood of the ceiling high above. I could feel it pushing toward where I stood, a ripple of heat and smoke and light.
I glanced up to the top of the crates. They were stacked high, but not all the way to the ceiling.
I was small, thin. I could fit through narrow spaces.
I stepped over Cristoph’s body and began pulling myself up.
I stumbled out of the warehouse through a back entrance, where goods were loaded and unloaded. The smoke on the air was heavy and thick, cloying beneath the river, but I didn’t dare let it go. I still had to reach Erick, and the fire inside was raging, had already spread to the warehouse on one side.
The entire warehouse district might go up in flames.
I shoved the thought from my mind, gathered the Fire and the river about me as tightly as I could, and set out at a half run toward Erick. Halfway there, shouts began to rise in warning. Someone ran past with a bucket and I snorted, feeling a shiver of guilt. But there was nothing I could do. And the bucket wouldn’t help.
I stumbled into the alley where I’d left Erick, half expecting him to be gone, but he wasn’t. He was sitting up instead, back against the alley wall. I knelt beside him and he chuckled when he saw me.
“You look like hell,” he said, and I grinned. But it was weak. I was barely holding on, the nausea and pain steadily overtaking the Fire.
“Come on,” I said, pulling him upright. He groaned, rolled to his knees, and then with help managed to climb to his feet.
“What in the Mistress’ name did you do?” he wheezed as we staggered out onto the street. He was supporting me more than I was supporting him. The fire could be seen clearly beneath the lowering clouds.
“Cristoph started a small fire.”
He laughed, winced, then shook his head.
We made it to the edge of the warehouse district before I lost the river completely. It slid away without a sound, even as I reached for it, and the sudden pain and nausea was instantaneous. I vomited in a corner, Erick leaning over me, while people on the street panicked. The fire lit up the clouds behind us, thick smoke roiling skyward, reflecting the flames.
“What did you do?” Erick said again in awe as he watched.
From where I knelt, hunched over my own puke, I glanced up at him. I wasn’t going to hold out much longer. “Get me to Merchant Borund’s manse,” I croaked.
He nodded.
I felt the first fat drops of rain strike my face and then I let the nausea and pain overtake me.
I never felt myself hit the ground.
I woke when the first tremors hit.
Erick was carrying me. He clutched me tight at the beginning, but then the spasms became too violent, my arms twitching, my back arching, and he was forced to set me on the ground.
“Gods,” he muttered. His voice was muted, as if coming from a distance. In the background, I could dimly hear screams, running feet, the roaring crackle of fire. Rain poured down, sluicing my face, dripped from Erick’s hair as he knelt over me, his hands pressing me down, trying to hold me still. Fear was stamped across his face, stark and surreal.
Eventually, the tremors passed. The last thing I saw before weariness claimed me again was Erick, staring down into my half-lidded eyes, his face grim.
The second time, the tremors were worse. I never opened my eyes, couldn’t open my eyes. My body was so taut I could feel the cords of muscle in my neck. My teeth were clenched so tight my jaw ached and tears squeezed from between my eyelids. Erick didn’t set me down this time, and there was shouting.
“Open the damn gate!” Erick bellowed, but again everything was distant, removed.
A clatter of metal, a screech as I was jostled in Erick’s grip, his balance shifting. He must have kicked the gate the moment it was unlocked. And the next instant he was running.
“What is this?” someone demanded, a voice I recognized, but it took a moment. Gerrold.
“Varis,” Erick barked. “Are you Borund?”
“No.”
“Get me Borund!” The training voice.
“What’s this?” Lizbeth now, her voice harsh but shrill.
I felt the tension in my neck relaxing. The sensation of rain had stopped. We were inside.
Someone else approache
d. “What is the meaning of this?” Borund demanded.
“Varis is hurt.”
“What?” Borund’s voice moved closer. I felt a hand press against my face. “By the Mistress . . . Gerrold, go fetch Isaiah.”
“But the fire—”
“Now!” I couldn’t be certain, but I thought I heard true agony in his voice.
Perhaps I was something more to him than a tool, a weapon.
Receding footsteps. My neck muscles had almost completely relaxed.
“Lizbeth—” Worry now.
“Towels, hot water, I know.” Not as shrill as before. Determined and grim. Even with my eyes closed I could see her hitching up skirts, darting off toward the kitchen.
“Right. Now. You, Guardsman—”
“Erick.”
“Whatever. Follow me. We’ll take her up to her room.”
More jostling. We’d almost reached my room when I began to thrash.
“Gods!” Borund gasped.
Erick shoved someone out of the way and tossed me onto the bed. “Hold her, damn it! She’ll hurt herself!”
Hands clamped down onto my shoulders, a body pressed down over my chest. More hands gripped my legs.
“Gods, she’s strong,” Borund muttered. One leg tore free. My knee connected with something soft and fleshy and I heard Borund bark, “Shit!” before he recaptured the leg.
I heard Lizbeth gasp as she returned, and then there was a flutter of quick movements and a moment later, still thrashing madly, someone pressed a hot cloth against my forehead, water drenching down into my hair.
“She’s sweating up a storm,” Lizbeth said.
Erick only grunted.
I felt the tremors easing again, felt the strength draining away, leaving me empty.
“I think it’s stopping for now,” Erick muttered, and he drew his body weight off me, carefully.
I began to sob, the tears hot and salty, my chest hitching painfully. I tried to speak, but the strength was draining away too fast.
“Shh,” Lizbeth murmured, her voice close, her breath tickling my ear. “Hush, you’re safe now.”
Exhaustion dragged her away. Just before it claimed me again, I heard Erick say faintly, “That’s not the end of it.”
And it wasn’t. I rode the waves of tremors and exhaustion as I’d done before on the Dredge, waking enough that I could hear things faintly. But the pain was too intense. I never opened my eyes, only listened.
“. . . in bloody hells happened!” Borund, voice vehement.
“It was an ambush,” Erick spat back. “They were waiting for her!”
“Who?”
“She called the one Cristoph.”
“Cristoph? But she was supposed to be following Alendor!”
Erick grunted. “He knew. He must have led her to the alley where Cristoph was waiting.”
Silence. Then Borund said, “Cristoph is Alendor’s youngest son. Perhaps Alendor is more daring than I thought. Or more desperate.”
Another silence. “She’d be dead if I hadn’t intervened.”
Someone else entered the room. “Master Borund. The fire has spread through the warehouse district and entered the wharf. All ships have taken to the harbor, but, of course, with the blockade none can leave.”
Borund swore. “Damn Avrell! Why can’t he get the harbor opened? All our ships are safe?”
“Yes.”
Borund sighed, began pacing. “What about the rain? Is it helping? Are we safe here?”
“The wind is blowing the fire toward the wharf. There’s a chance it will jump the river to the other side of the harbor, but the rain seems to be keeping the fire damped. It’s hard to tell. . . .”
I felt Borund approach, stand over me. But I could feel myself fading. “We’ll stay here as long as possible. I don’t want to move her.”
A breath against my face as someone leaned close. Then I heard Borund whisper, “You damn well better come back, Varis. I can’t lose you. Not after almost losing William.”
His voice was choked.
Darkness. Soft darkness, like cloth.
Then a patch of light.
“How long will she be like this?” Borund asked.
Someone’s hand pulled away from my chest. The trembling fit had abated and I could already feel the exhaustion pulling me down, the cloth moving back over my head.
“Hard to say.” Isaiah, the healer. “But the seizures aren’t as strong now as before. She’s recovering. . . .”
More darkness. I pulled its cloth close, smothered myself in it. But another patch of light intervened.
“And what about Alendor?” A new voice, smooth and careful. I struggled with the cloth of darkness, pushed it back. It was Avrell, the First of the Mistress.
“No one’s seen him since the fire,” Borund answered.
Avrell sighed. “Parts of the warehouse district are still smoldering.”
“Thank the Mistress for the rain. All of Amenkor might have burned.” Borund had moved closer. “But it doesn’t matter,” he added. “With the warehouse district gone, we’ve lost most of our food stocks. The consortium is dead whether Alendor survived the fire or not. There’s nothing left in Amenkor for the consortium to control.”
“He’s still a danger.”
“I won’t kill him,” I tried to say, but the darkness was returning. I couldn’t tell whether anyone had heard me, whether I’d even spoken out loud.
Borund leaned in closer. “Not anymore.”
I fought the darkness, screamed at its resilience. “I won’t kill him!”
Avrell moved closer as well. “In any case, we still have the problem of the Mistress. Nathem and I have tried to replace her, to seat someone else on the throne, but it isn’t working. And the current Mistress still refuses to release the blockade.”
Silence. “And what do you expect me to do about it?” Borund sounded tired and distracted.
I felt Avrell leaning over me, felt his presence like a weight. “Remember our discussion when I came to your manse a few weeks back? You told me that Varis once said she sees people as ‘red,’ and that is how she knows who to protect you from.”
Borund grunted.
“I questioned that Seeker who brought her to you. He told me a similar story, that Varis claimed one of the Mistress’ marks that she helped him to hunt down was ‘gray,’ that Varis told him that meant the mark was innocent. I’d heard of this before, so when you and Varis came to the palace, I had one of the Servants check to confirm my suspicions.”
I stilled, felt the darkness drawing in close and tight and struggled against it. But I was still too weak.
Avrell leaned back, his clothes rustling. “I know what needs to be done now.”
Before Borund could respond, or Avrell could continue, the darkness claimed me. One last time.
When I woke again, it was from true sleep. No feeling of cloth darkness shoved aside for a brief moment. No patch of light. No uncontrollable trembling. Instead, there was weariness, sunk so deep into my bones I could barely move. But I opened my eyes.
Sunlight. It flooded the room . . . my room.
I blinked up at the ceiling, let the throbbing of my face, my chest, my entire body flood through me. The pain in my chest was edged and concentrated. The pain in the vicinity of my lip was dull and spread out. The rest of my body was simply bruised, muscles and flesh worn and tired and completely drained of strength.
I lay a long moment and simply breathed. The air was tainted with smoke.
“Welcome back.”
I turned my head, ignored the warning pangs from my neck.
William sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room, watching me. He smiled, and I felt something inside the empty hollowness of my gut warm. “Aren’t we the pair,” he added, then laughed.
I smiled, or tried to. There was more wrong with my face than the split lip. I remembered the bearded man punching me and lifted one arm tentatively to my cheek. It felt swollen and hot to the
touch.
I let my hand drop back, more for lack of strength than anything else.
“How long?” I asked.
William leaned forward. “Five days. The first two days we were afraid we’d have to move you because of the fire, but the rain halted that, or at least held it at bay. By then we realized that the seizures weren’t as bad each time and were spaced farther apart. We figured it was only a matter of time.” He hesitated, then asked, “What happened to you?”
I turned away, stared up at the ceiling again. A surge of fear rippled through me, but not as strong as I expected. I’d never told anyone about the river, about what I saw. Not directly.
But Avrell knew now, and I assumed Borund. I found it strange that they had not told William.
“I don’t see things the same way you do,” I said. I paused, but the ripple of fear was smothered by the warmth. “When I want to, I can make everything a blur, as if I’m staring through water. Only the things of importance are clear. But it isn’t easy. Sometimes, when I push things too hard, or when I do something unexpected, something I didn’t realize I could do before, I get sick.”
I waited, not certain what to expect.
After a long moment of silence, I turned back to see William still sitting forward watching me. He smiled again, then stood.
Moving carefully, one hand holding his side, he came up to the edge of the bed.
“I’d better go tell Borund you’re awake. He and Avrell want to talk to you.”
My stomach clenched and I thought, I won’t kill him, but then William reached forward and gently brushed my hair away from my face, distracting me. A light touch that sent shivers down my neck and shoulders and into my back.
I held myself perfectly still and watched as he left the room.
I stood at a window in the palace and stared down at the city and harbor below. It had taken three days to recover enough so that I could get out of bed, and another two days before I felt well enough to come to the palace with Borund in order to see Avrell.
Borund had tried to push me. But I didn’t listen to Borund anymore. I made my own decisions.
On the harbor below, patrols still blockaded the inlet, the sleek ships flying the Mistress’ colors weaving back and forth beneath the sun. On land, a large chunk of the city close to the water was blackened, a few charred walls and half buildings still standing. Some warehouses had survived, and most of the docks, but close to a quarter of the city had burned.
The Skewed Throne Page 27
