“Why?” Marielle handed over a cup of tea, which I managed to sip from without spilling a drop.
“The effects of the Reaching are getting worse, even with your strength added to mine. If he travels too much farther south, we won’t be able to reach him.”
“We’ll just have to add Trielle to the link.”
Marielle seemed utterly confident this would work, but I was doubtful.
“There has to be a limit, Marielle. We can’t link all twenty-nine Servants together just for a Reaching.”
“Why not? We know it works for at least five Servants. Why not more?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Aside from the fact that it’s impractical, I’d think that after a point adding another Servant wouldn’t increase the strength that much.”
Marielle shrugged. “You might be right. We haven’t tried linking more than five Servants at one time. And besides, we know there’s a more efficient way to link, the one the Chorl use.”
I pushed up off of the throne, letting Marielle help steady me as I stretched my legs, the muscles and tendons popping.
“I hate this throne,” I said, casting a vicious glare at the static chunk of granite behind me. “I liked my own version of it better. It didn’t have a back to it, but it had armrests.”
Marielle didn’t respond, gathering up the cups and pitcher of tea, placing everything back onto the tray before accompanying me down the length of the cavernous throne room, heading back to my chambers.
“So . . . Brandan Vard seems . . . nice.”
I glanced toward Marielle with a frown, caught her smiling at me knowingly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he seems . . . nice. That light brown hair. And those eyes! All of the other Servants are talking about him. He’s been wandering around the palace lately, watching us all as we train, sparring with the guardsmen in the yard. He’s . . . well built.”
“Hmm.”
Marielle waited expectantly, eyes alight. “I heard there was an incident down at the docks,” she finally prompted.
I scowled, thinking back to the tour of Amenkor, to running into William and Borund and Tristan. “Who told you about that?”
“Keven. It required a little . . . encouragement on Trielle’s part to get him to talk.”
I gave Marielle a look and she burst into laughter.
“So what happened? On the wharf.”
We’d reached my chambers, passed through the antechamber into the inner rooms, and I slumped down into the settee, Marielle setting the tray aside. “Nothing. I’d run into Brandan in the hall outside the gardens and took him on a tour of Amenkor. We ran into William, Borund, and Tristan.” It had been good to see William and Borund working with each other again. I could still sense some tension between them, and I didn’t think their relationship would ever be the same as when I’d been Borund’s bodyguard, but they’d reconciled to some extent.
I caught Marielle’s expectant look, her eyebrows raised. “That was it.”
Marielle snorted. “That’s not what Keven said.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What did Keven say?”
“He said that you were having a grand old time flirting with Brandan until you ran into William. And when William saw you with Brandan . . .” Marielle let the thought trail off.
“I was not flirting with Brandan,” I said darkly. “I don’t know how to flirt.”
Marielle smirked. “I can help with that if you want. Keven also said that Tristan dragged Brandan off, and that he didn’t think that you simply ‘ran’ into Brandan in the hall. He thinks Brandan was waiting for you, to find out more about you. And Amenkor.”
I didn’t say anything, thinking instead of William. He hadn’t been to the palace as usual since the wharf, had avoided the palace altogether.
“I can understand why William would be flustered,” Marielle went on. “You know he’s interested in you. And then there was the festival, where you two danced with each other and then disappeared down to the end of the dock.” The knowing voice had returned, smug now. “All kinds of rumors are going around about that.”
“Nothing happened,” I said. “We talked, and then I—”
I cut off abruptly.
“You what?” Marielle leaned forward.
Disconcerted, I said, “I kissed him.”
Marielle’s mouth flew open. “Oh, gods, you didn’t?” When I didn’t answer, she leaped out of her seat and clapped her hands together, suddenly a bundle of energy, circling the settee. “No wonder William reacted like that on the wharf! He thinks you’re interested in Brandan! He’s jealous!”
I flushed. “It wasn’t that kind of kiss,” I protested, but even I heard the weak lie in my voice. Irritated, I spat, “And why can’t I be interested in more than one person?”
Marielle plopped herself down on the end of the settee, her excitement undiminished. “What kind of kiss was it?”
Suddenly extremely uncomfortable, I said uncertainly, “A . . . friendly kiss?” On the Dredge, there were only two kinds of kisses: rough and deadly. The rough ones usually ended up in rape, the deadly ones in blood, for either the man or woman. Rape and death were indiscriminate on the Dredge.
But this hadn’t been like that. This kiss—and even the light, quick kiss at the guildhall—had been different. Even thinking about it sent a warm shiver through my skin.
Marielle frowned in disappointment. “I don’t think William took it that way. And besides, you’ve been spending a lot of time with William since the attack. Here in the palace, out in the city, at the guildhall. Everyone in town is talking about it.”
“I still don’t see why I can’t be interested in more than one person, ” I growled, retreating toward anger. “What does William care if I talk to Brandan? I can speak to—and kiss—whoever I like.”
Marielle shook her head. “I have a lot to teach you about men.”
“I already know about men. I grew up in the slums.”
“Oh, there’s much more to it than that.”
Someone knocked on the door leading to the antechamber, a guardsman leaning in a moment later. “The First of the Mistress is here to see you,” he reported.
“Let him in,” I said, a little too quickly.
Avrell stepped into the room, “Did you reach Westen? Where is he? What’s happening?”
As he took a seat, Marielle reached for the used tray, casting me one last decidedly meaningful look before departing.
Knowing that Marielle and the rest of the palace were talking about me and William was one thing. But learning that the whole city had noticed, that they were probably talking about me right now . . .
I sighed. “I reached Westen. He’s set the Prize’s crew ashore north of Temall. It doesn’t look like the Chorl have attacked Temall yet. He’s going to begin moving south tomorrow.”
“Good. Right now, Temall is our buffer zone to the south. The Chorl will have to take it before they can make an effective attack on Amenkor by land from that direction.” He paused. “It took Westen a few more days to get down there than expected.”
“He was being careful not to run into any of the Chorl ships,” I said.
“True. But we need to know where the Chorl are and where they’re headed. The sooner we know, the better.”
I leaned back heavily into the settee and closed my eyes, feeling every ache and muscle in my body. “Was there something else, Avrell? It’s late, and I’m exhausted.”
Avrell hesitated. “You asked me to do some research in the archives . . . about the thrones.”
I sat forward suddenly. “Do you know where the second throne is? What did you find?”
He grimaced. “Not much. Records were kept from far earlier than the introduction of the Skewed Throne to the city, but they aren’t complete. Some have been lost due to fire or flood. Some have just disintegrated with age, even though we attempt to transcribe older documents when they begin to decay.” He stood, began pacing before the settee, hands
clasped behind his back. “The records that have survived from that time are, understandably, focused on the Skewed Throne itself, not its counterpart. But they do mention a second throne.”
“Where?”
He paused, glanced toward me, brow furrowed. “It seems that the two thrones were created in Venitte by the Council of Seven.”
I nodded. “Yes, the Seven Adepts. I was there when they forged the two thrones, in a manner of speaking. I was there when they died.”
“And that’s the problem,” Avrell said. “They all died when they created the thrones, and they didn’t leave very specific instructions on what to do with the thrones after they’d been created, or even how to use them.”
“Because they didn’t expect to be killed while creating them,” I said sardonically.
“In any case, that left the decision about what to do with the thrones to those that found the Seven dead on the Council chamber floors. The intent of the Seven was clear: they’d created the thrones as a means to protect the coast from possible attacks by the Chorl, who’d been repelled at this point and had vanished into the western ocean, but who were expected to return. Here, I brought the journal of Patris Armanic, the Lord of Amenkor at that time.”
“Lord of Amenkor?” I asked, as Avrell drew a heavy scroll from his pocket. He pulled the small table Marielle had set the tray of tea on earlier over to the settee. “Amenkor had a Lord?”
Avrell smiled. “This was before the Skewed Throne existed, remember. Amenkor had many Lords—and Ladies—before the throne arrived. In fact, we had a Council much like Venitte does now. But the arrival of the Skewed Throne changed all that. Not overnight, of course, but over the years the Mistress of the Skewed Throne came to be the single most revered power in Amenkor. The Lords and Ladies diminished, until there was only the First, and the leaders of the guilds, the most powerful being the merchants’ guild. And all of that happened because one of the Mistresses—Torlette, I believe—managed to get the guard to back her and Lord Rathe when the other Lords and Ladies were weakened, effectively severing the last links of the council system.”
He spread the scroll out on the table, handling the dry, yellowed parchment with the utmost care. Even so, flakes fell from the edges, the scent of dust drifting up.
Leaning over the sheet, Avrell squinted at the extremely fine print, then said, “Here.”
I shifted forward. The scrawl of black lines on the page at first seemed illegible, nothing but curled scratches. But then I picked out a few letters, realized that they were elongated, as if they’d been stretched and thinned, and tilted to the right. Also a significant number of the words themselves had different spellings.
Struggling with the strange script, but becoming more excited the further I got, I read, “Returned from Venitte. After forty-seven days of heated argument, the August Representatives of the Frigean coast—including Lord Wence of Venitte, Lord Barton of Sedine, Lady Corring of Merrell, and Lord Iain of Langdon, among others—have concluded that the Council of Seven intended the Two Thrones for Amenkor and Venitte, being central to the Coast and the Heart of the Chorl Attack. Per this Agreement, Mistress Susquill and the Granite Throne have accompanied me upon my Return, the Stone Throne remaining in Venitte under Master Tyrrone’s control. Mistress Susquill has been ensconced within the palace walls along with the Throne, and already her Presence, and the Throne’s, is felt.”
Avrell cleared his throat, cutting me off. “It goes on to describe how the Council here in Amenkor reacted to Susquill’s arrival. They did not welcome her. From Patris’ account, she was a strong but bitter woman, with a tongue to match. In essence, Susquill was the first Mistress of Amenkor.”
“What about Tyrrone and the Stone Throne?”
“Apparently, a huge political war broke out in Venitte, the lords and ladies vying for power in the vacuum created by the loss of the Council of Seven, all fighting for position, for control of the Stone Throne. Tyrrone was not a political man—few of the Servants were at the time, because the Council of Seven, the Adepts, effectively ruled the coast—and he was overwhelmed. In the midst of the upheaval, he and the Stone Throne . . . vanished.”
“Vanished?” I said, incredulous. I thought about the Skewed Throne sitting in the throne room even now. “How could it possibly vanish?” I asked darkly. “It’s made of stone, it would require ten men to lift it. And not everyone can touch it, only those with the Sight. How could it have been moved?”
Avrell began gingerly rolling the parchment back up. “I don’t know, but they managed to get the Skewed Throne onto a ship and all the way to Amenkor, so . . .” He shrugged. “During the height of the political struggle in Venitte, the streets were no longer safe to travel at night due to the sudden rise in assassination attempts. The Stone Throne vanished from its place at the center of the Council of Seven’s main chamber. And Tyrrone vanished with it. No one saw it being moved, and no one saw Tyrrone after that. The chamber itself was sealed by the Servants that remained.”
“No one searched for it?”
Avrell snorted. “Everyone searched for it. It was the key to their safety from the Chorl! Or so they thought at the time. But remember, they’d just managed to repulse the Chorl attack, were in the midst of political upheaval unlike anything they’d experienced in decades, and winter was hard on their heels. They couldn’t afford to spend too much energy searching for the throne when each lord and lady had their own estate—and people and power—to protect. The deaths of the Seven created a huge power vacuum, and Venitte fell into total chaos for a period of years before it finally stabilized with the introduction of the Council of Eight to replace the Adepts. Other cities, such as Amenkor, didn’t suffer as much from the sudden absence of the Seven. We already had our own Councils, who reported to the Seven when anything of significance occurred that could affect the entire coast.”
I slumped back into the settee. “So the other throne is lost. We can’t use it to defend against the Chorl Servants. We can’t use it to replace the Skewed Throne.” The little flare of hope I’d held inside since Eryn had brought the possibility of the second throne up in the throne room guttered and died.
Avrell tucked the scroll back into his pocket, his motions thoughtful. “I didn’t say that.”
I glared at him. “You just said—”
“I said that the throne vanished. But I don’t think it’s lost. There are too many hints in the archives, too many vague suggestions and allusions to what might have happened to the throne for me to believe that it’s completely gone.”
Feeling the long day creeping up on me, I said impatiently, “Then where is it?”
Avrell drew in a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. “I have no real evidence to support this, but I think it’s still in Venitte.”
“That would make sense,” Eryn said.
We stood in the middle of the throne room, both looking down the open walkway to the dais and the unnaturally static throne. I’d related what Avrell had told me a few days before of his search in the archives for the second throne.
"Why?”
“Because of what you said: the throne is heavy. It would require a massive effort and extreme planning in order to move it. Which means that more than likely it wasn’t moved far. And a huge risk was taken to move it anywhere at all, because anyone who touched the throne—even then, when there would have been at most a dozen personalities stored within it, perhaps as few as eight—could have been overwhelmed by its power. The effort to move the Skewed Throne safely to Amenkor must have been immense. Keep in mind that the Seven were Adepts, the most powerful men and women of the time. No one could control and manipulate the Sight as well as they could. But there were others that could use the Sight, others like us. The non-Adepts, those that were even then called the Servants. They were the ones who inherited the thrones. Perhaps—”
But here something caught in Eryn’s throat, and she began coughing. She reached out and clutched my shoulder, bending forward and ha
cking into her other hand, the sound torturous. I gripped her upper arm and shoulder, steadying her as it continued, until she heaved one final shallow breath and seemed to catch hold of herself.
She smiled as she straightened, her expression grim. “I thought it was getting better,” she said, voice weak and hoarse. “I haven’t had a fit like that in over a week.”
“Maybe it is getting better, then.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Look.”
She held out her hand, the one she’d used to cover her mouth. It was speckled with blood.
A strange numbing panic raced through me, tingling in my arms, my fingers, squeezing my heart hard.
“You have to go see Isaiah,” I said. The words sounded distant, lost, as if the numbness had crept into my ears.
“No,” Eryn said, that grim smile still on her lips. “There’s nothing he can do. You know that, Varis. We’ve already tried.”
She pushed away. I didn’t want to let her go, my hand refusing to release her.
She held my gaze, her eyes calm, accepting. Accepting of what the blood on her hand meant.
I forced my hand to let go of her upper arm, stepped back. I suddenly felt cold.
“Now,” Eryn said, voice cracking. “Let’s check in on Westen.”
I didn’t move until Eryn made it halfway to the dais and the throne, my legs refusing to budge. And once I was in motion, it was slow, uncertain. The numbness remained, the sense of distance.
I sank onto the cracked throne. “Should you—”
“I’m fine, Varis.” Stern, strong, commanding. The voice of the Mistress.
I should have been comforted. I wasn’t.
“There’s another reason to suspect that the throne is still in Venitte,” she said.
It was said to distract me, to turn me away from the speckled blood on her hands.
Our eyes met. She knew I recognized the distraction, and written in the lines of her face I saw the plea to accept it and move on.
I drew in a short breath, not quite ready to give in . . . but then I sighed. “What?”
The Vacant Throne Page 14
