The Vacant Throne

by Joshua Palmatier

  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 The tenderness and sorrow remained, but the regret, the defeat and disappointment, had been replaced by weariness.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 there. 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.

  And it wasn’t getting any better.

  We gave Eryn a moment to collect herself as the hacking coughs ended, the silence awkward. She waved us forward again, her face twisted into an impatient grimace, as though she hated the fact that the coughing couldn’t be controlled.

  “The engineers say,” she began again, her voice rough, “that the wharf is in better shape than it looks. The Chorl rammed the docks, but for the most part the damage was confined to the planking, not the pilings and supports. Catrell should be able to clear away the splintered planking and have it replaced within a few weeks. The wharf will be as good as new.”

  “And what about the ships?” We’d descended another level, the texture of the corridors changing. Above, in the palace proper, the walls were mostly white or an eggshell brown, like sand, except for the inner sanctum where the Mistress’ chambers and the throne room were. There the walls were the gray stone used to build the original palace thousands of years before. It had grown as Amenkor grew, the original outer walls subsumed in the expansion.

  Here, the eggshell walls had given way to gray stone again. We were within the confines of the original palace, but deeper. Much deeper than I’d ever been before, even deeper than when Westen, the captain of the Seekers, had led me down here to test me, and later train me.

  “Regin says—”

  “Regin?”

  Eryn’s eyes grew grim. “Yes, Regin.”

  “What about Borund?”

  She sighed. “Borund hasn’t come out of his manse since the Chorl’s attack.”

  My eyes narrowed. I knew why. I’d watched as Borund fled the wharf, the Chorl overrunning the docks. But we needed every able-bodied man if we were going to recover fast enough to face the Chorl again with any chance of winning. “I’ll deal with Borund. What did Regin say?”

  “That the crews of the ships are working as fast as they can to repair the damage, and to upgrade the ships’ defenses. They’re also checking out the Chorl ships left behind, looking for weaknesses, for ways to defend against them if they attack again. He has three trading ships that are seaworthy already. He expects two more can be made seaworthy in the next week. The rest are going to require longer to repair.”

  We drew to a halt in front of an unobtrusive door. Unobtrusive except for the two guards that stood outside, both Seekers I knew. They nodded as we approached, stepped to either side of the door. They radiated a constant tension, their stances deceptively relaxed. I felt myself slipping into the same posture, my hand brushing against the handle of my dagger without thought. All of the guardsmen in Keven’s escort had tensed; word of what the prisoner had done when she first woke had passed through the guards like wildfire.

  They’d been caught off guard before; they didn’t intend to have it happen again.

  “What about the other prisoners? The thirteen Chorl warriors we captured as they retreated?” Eryn said abruptly. “Would you like to check on them?”

  “No,” I said. “Not now.”

  Eryn stiffened at the curtness of my tone, at the rage even I could hear at its edges.

  “Should I remove the warding?” she asked. Her voice had dropped, become guarded, and as I slipped beneath the river, the world graying around me, I breathed in the sweat of fear, sensed her wariness and knew she had already raised a protective shield around herself, had readied it to extend to the guardsmen if necessary.

  “I’m ready.”

  I saw the currents of the river roil as she reached forward toward where the protective warding that shielded the room had been tied off earlier and twisted the eddies, releasing the warding.

  The reaction from inside the room was instantaneous, the door crashing inward on its hinges, wood cracking into stone, a blade-eddy—swift and deadly—slicing out from the interior darkness—

  But it met the barrier I’d placed across the door, the blade-eddy shunted harmlessly to one side.

  Someone inside the room shrieked in frustration, tried to slam the door shut, but I held it open with minimal effort and moved into the opening, Eryn a step behind.

  Using the river, I could see the room, could see the corners, the rough stone of the walls, the straw pallet and chamber pot to one side. A wooden platter that had contained food—bread and cheese and water—sat beside the pallet, barely any crumbs remaining. The Chorl had been starving as well; no food had been wasted this past winter. And standing against the far wall, body tensed, one hand thrust forward, palm flat, chin lifted in arrogant rage—

  A Chorl Servant.

  The hatred I tasted was instantaneous and bitter, tightening inside my chest like bands of iron, making it hard to breathe.

  Behind, I heard Keven order torches brought forward, the room flickering in the new light, revealing the Chorl Servant’s long black hair, her stained green dress. Her posture didn’t change, her nostrils flaring as her glance darted around the room, following the guardsmen as they positioned themselves behind Eryn and me. But she didn’t attempt to use the river, or what Eryn called the Sight.

  Her fear filled the room, reeking of piss and rotten fish. She’d been confined to this room for two weeks. The palace Servants brought her food, cleaned the chamber pot, changed the straw in her pallet. No one had attempted to speak to her after that first day.

  We’d had other things to attend to.

  Now, I glared at her across the expanse of the small room, thinking of the destruction in the city below, thinking of all of the men and women who had died, thinking of Erick. I clenched my jaw at the defiant look in her eyes, at the cold tension in her blue-tinged skin, and the iron bands around my chest tightened. The rings in her ears, four on each side, glinted in the torchlight.

  “What have you done to Erick?” I asked, voice hard.

  Confused shock radiated from Eryn, tightly controlled, an emotion I only sensed on the river. The other guardsmen shifted, edged forward as their own shock slid into anger.

  The Chorl Servant sensed the change, her eyes darting once toward the guardsmen, then back to me. She didn’t understand what I’d said, didn’t understand the coastal language. But she could sense the rage.

  Uncertain, the scent of her fear spiking, she lashed out with the river. I slapped the eddy aside, moved forward with two sharp steps, and wrapped my hand around her throat, shoving her back against the stone wall, my hand squeezing. Her skin felt smooth beneath my grip and I could feel her blood pulsing beneath my thumb, beneath my fingers. She cried out, swallowed against the pressure I’d put against her windpipe, gasped. Her hands clawed at my grip, and she choked something in her own tongue that sounded like a curse. Her black eyes blazed with hatred, but, aside from the hands clawing at my arm, she didn’t struggle.

  I could squeeze, cut off the flow of blood in her jugular until she passed out. Or I could shove my palm forward, crush her windpipe and ki
ll her.

  “What did you do to Erick?” I repeated.

  “Varis,” Eryn said behind me, her voice calm, reasonable, yet filled with disapproval. “Varis, she can’t answer you. She doesn’t know what you’re saying.”

  I ignored her, focused completely on the Servant, on her blue-tinged skin. Skin that stoked the rage, fed it as images of the attack on the city flashed before my eyes, images of fire, of the watchtowers exploding, of ships and buildings burning, walls collapsing. Because of these people. Because of her.

  My jaw clenched and I squeezed, cutting off her breath.

  Her eyes flew wide. And for the first time I saw true fear beneath the arrogance, beneath the hatred.

  And I saw something else as well.

  She was younger than me. Fourteen perhaps, maybe younger.

  The age I’d been when Erick had first found me on the Dredge.

  My intense hatred stumbled, faltered. The muscles in my forearm relaxed imperceptibly. The urge to wring an answer from her surged forward, almost overwhelming—

  But it halted at her fear. A familiar fear. An instinctual fear.

  I relaxed my grip and she heaved in a strained breath, the hands that had tightened on my wrist loosening. Then I pulled back, let her go.

  She slumped against the wall as I turned, gave me a hate-filled glare that I chose to ignore.

  “You won’t get anything from her by threatening her,” Eryn said quietly but harshly as I approached the door.

  “I agree,” Keven said, motioning the rest of the guardsmen out into the corridor. “What do you want us to do with her?”

  I halted, frowned as I turned to watch the Seekers close the door behind us, catching a glimpse of the Chorl Servant through the opening. She still huddled against the far wall, her shoulders now slumped, her hand massaging her throat. The arrogance lay over her like a cloak, like a shield, but the defiance . . .

  I recognized the defiance.

  I drew in a short breath, reset the warding over the door, then said, “Move her somewhere close to my chambers.”