The Vacant Throne

by Joshua Palmatier

  “Do it before we reach Venitte, though. We need to be certain of her before we present her to the Council of Eight and Lord March.” At my nod, Avrell sighed. “At least she might be willing to help with the conduits you and Eryn are trying to construct now.”

  “She’s already been helpful. She used one to help bolster Gwenn during the fighting, used it again to steady Marielle and protect the Defiant from further attack while the Chorl were retreating. Even if she refuses to help after this, I learned enough from those two examples that I can probably figure out how to form the conduits on my own.”

  “Then something good has come of this.”

  I slumped down into a folding chair, the long night recovering from the attack and readying to bury the dead catching up to me. But the heated grief that I had locked so tightly away during the funeral still seethed inside my gut.

  “There is one other thing,” Avrell said.

  I sighed heavily. “What, Avrell?”

  “Ottul said that all of those that are not returned to the sea are Lost.”

  “Yes. They won’t be able to find the Fires of Heaven.”

  He nodded, his face grim. “It seemed to be . . . significant. To her, and I assume to the Chorl in general. Look at how intent she was that we’d given the bodies on deck to the ocean, even our own. Look at her reaction when you told her we had.”

  “So?”

  He took a careful step forward. “Before this is over, we will more than likely have to deal with the Chorl, come to some kind of truce, agree to the terms of a treaty of some kind. As you said, they have no home to return to. We can’t drive them back into the sea as the Seven did before. We can’t expect them to live off of their own ships. They’d turn to piracy. The safety of the coast would be in constant jeopardy. In the end, we’ll have to work with them.”

  I frowned. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, hadn’t considered what might have to be done if we managed to keep the Chorl out of Venitte . . . and away from the second throne.

  But Avrell was right. The only other option would be to kill them all.

  And that, even after the attack on Amenkor, even after the attack on the ships, wasn’t an option I was willing to accept.

  I turned my attention back to Avrell. “And?” I said, already not liking where Avrell was leading me.

  He hesitated, in full First mode, his hands tucked inside the sleeves of his shirt. “Think about what we did with the bodies of the Chorl after the attack in Amenkor, what we did with the thirteen Chorl warriors who killed themselves after their capture.”

  My frown deepened. “We burned them—”

  I broke off, shot a horrified glance toward Keven.

  “Exactly,” Avrell said softly. “How would you react if you found out the people that you were dealing with, the people that you were trying to form a treaty with, had desecrated your dead, had in effect kept them from attaining the Fires of Heaven?”

  “Is she ready?”

  “I think so,” Avrell said, turning toward the closed door of Ottul’s chambers. “Gwenn explained everything. As far as she can tell, Ottul understands what we’re asking her to do.” He turned back, frowning. “Are you certain you want to go in alone?”

  “You should at least take Gwenn with you,” Keven interjected.

  I shook my head. “No. This needs to be between just us.”

  Keven looked troubled, but both he and Avrell stepped aside.

  “We’ll wait out here,” the First said.

  I stepped forward, then opened the door.

  Inside, Ottul and Gwenn looked up, the Chorl Servant seated, Gwenn standing before her. When Gwenn saw me, she turned to Ottul, hugged her, and murmured something to her in the Chorl language. Ottul smiled uncertainly.

  And then Gwenn left, closing the door behind her.

  As soon as the door slid shut, Ottul stood, stepped forward, and knelt before me. Bowing her head, she murmured, “Ochean.”

  I frowned, felt a shiver course through me. “I’m not the Ochean.”

  Ottul looked up. “You use Sight. You use Queotl . . . Fire. You rule ship, city, warriors. You Ochean.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. The thought that the Chorl would think of me as the Ochean, that they would associate me with the woman I’d killed in the throne room of Amenkor . . .

  I shoved the thought aside. “I am the Mistress, not the Ochean. Are you certain you want to do this? You’ll be betraying the Chorl, betraying your own people.”

  Ottul bowed her head again, her hair falling before her face, obscuring her. But I heard her voice, a low murmur, barely a whisper. But steady, not broken. Riddled with a pain I didn’t understand, but certain. “I am Forgotten.”

  We stood in silence for a long moment.

  Then I stepped forward, reached for the river, dove deep as I gathered it together, creating a hollow conduit that stretched out from the White Fire at my core toward Ottul. She remained kneeling, head bowed. She had not touched the river, hadn’t raised a shield to protect herself. She was completely exposed.

  The river smelled of fear, of tension, of sweat and the ocean. It tasted of anxiety, bitter and sharp on the tongue. But there was no deceit, no threat. Ottul was gray.

  When the vortex I’d created touched her, Ottul gasped, but did not move. I forced the Fire down through the conduit. When a small portion had touched her, I severed the link with a blade-eddy.

  Ottul gasped again, her head rising. She stared at me, tears at the corners of her wide, deep eyes. A profoundly reverential look, tinged with what she had lost. And I suddenly realized I had touched her with the Fire, with the Fires of Heaven. With Queotl.

  “Mistress,” she whispered.

  I’d intended to reach for the Fire at her core, to feel what she felt, to learn the truth about whether we could trust her, but looking into her eyes, hearing that one single word, I realized that wasn’t necessary.

  The next few days on board the ship were somber and tense. Bullick had turned the group toward Venitte, expected to be at the port within the week, assuming the weather held. Everyone on deck kept a vigilant eye on the horizon, in a constant search for more Chorl ships. Even Tristan on the Reliant had turned his focus outward, no longer casting his spyglass toward the Defiant as often.

  Bullick kept the crew occupied by having them build new railings, the ship’s carpenter concentrating on the structural damage to the ship’s hull below deck. We’d taken more damage than it had seemed when first the Spoils of War had scraped past and then the Chorl ship had tethered itself to the same side. Nothing that the carpenter couldn’t fix. Some of the guardsmen helped out, while members of the crew had the guardsmen show them a few moves with the swords and axes. Where before the battle the crew and guardsmen had kept themselves apart, they were now mixing, talking, cooperating.

  Three days out from Venitte, on the aft deck, leaning on the rail and only half watching the churning wake of the ship, I asked, “What do you believe in, Keven?”

  My ever-present guardsmen shifted awkwardly. Behind us, on the deck, one of the sailors had brought forth a fiddle, had begun to play a few strains of music, lonely and forlorn. A couple of guardsmen paused to listen.

  “I believe in what everyone in Amenkor believes in,” Keven said, after a long moment of thought. “I believe in the Mistress.”

  I turned, expecting to find a mocking expression on Keven’s face, a teasing glint in his eye.

  But his eyes were steady, the lines around his mouth set and serious.

  It brought me up short, made me shift stance, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “You don’t believe in the Skewed Throne?”

  He shrugged. “The Mistress and the Skewed Throne are one and the same. The throne is simply a symbol of the Mistress’ power.”

  “But the throne is dead.”

  “You aren’t. And the general population of Amenkor never sees the throne. To them, it truly is a symbol, a gesture they make over their heart, a sign they se
e on a dead man’s forehead after you’ve passed judgment and the Seekers have carried that judgment out. What is real to them, what they see practically every day, is you. You walk their streets, even going down to the Dredge, to the slums beyond. You stand on the wharf or in the market square and speak softly, yet allow everyone to hear, as you did on the ships here during the funeral. They see your power, have witnessed it with their own eyes. Don’t think that word did not spread of the fight in the throne room between you and the Ochean. Guardsmen witnessed it. There are stories being told in the streets. To them, you are the power, and it’s you that they—and I—believe in. Not a chunk of stone sitting in an empty room.”

  I turned back to the white foam of the wake of the ship, contemplated what Keven had said, the truth I heard in the simple statements, the conviction. And I thought about what I’d seen in Ottul’s eyes as she stared up at me, the Fire now burning at her core.

  It took a long moment before I could speak again, and even then my voice was raw and quiet. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Keven’s face, continued to stare down at the churning ocean, at the gentle swells.

  “I didn’t believe in the Mistress,” I said. “Before. On the Dredge. I feared her. Or rather, I feared her guardsmen, her Seekers, because they were a danger to me, a threat. I had only contempt for her. She was . . . distant. She couldn’t help me survive, couldn’t provide me with food, with clothing, with warmth, so I despised her. But others on the Dredge did believe in her. They thought she watched over them, that she protected them. I’d find them in the alleys, whispering prayers to her, some even as they lay dying. But I had no time for her. I didn’t understand the faith they put in her. I still don’t understand it, even after becoming the Mistress myself, even after learning that in some strange way they were right. The Mistress does watch over them, just not as . . . personally as perhaps they thought. That’s what the Seekers are for—to protect, to carry out justice.”

  I pulled out my dagger, stared down at its edge, hilt lying flat in one hand, the point resting against the tip of one finger of the other hand. A simple blade, no etching, no leather-wrapped grip. Just cold steel. I’d cleaned it thoroughly after the fight with the Chorl, as Erick had taught me, had washed the blood off as the sailors washed it off the deck.

  “But even that small understanding didn’t come until later. On the Dredge I didn’t believe in anything. Not until I killed the man who tried to rape me. Not until Erick came. Then, I think I believed in this.” I held up the dagger, grimly. A cloud scudded across the sun, casting the ship into shadow. Otherwise, the blade might have glinted in the light. Even in the shade it appeared deadly, smooth and sharp and full of strength. And strength had been what I needed back then.

  “But?” Keven said.

  I could hear understanding in Keven’s voice, as if he knew my answer already, as if he’d found the answer himself at some point.

  And perhaps he had. He carried a sword after all.

  “But then I killed Bloodmark.” I glanced toward Keven, then away. Because I wasn’t being honest, and I could sense Keven’s frown, even though his expression was blank. I grimaced, sighed. “No. It wasn’t Bloodmark’s death that changed me.

  “It was Charls’.”

  I thought Keven would condemn me, but he said nothing, merely nodded once.

  An acceptance, almost an approval.

  “After that, I don’t know what I believed in,” I continued. “I relied on the dagger, to protect Borund, to survive, but I didn’t believe in it anymore. I didn’t feel the need to believe in anything, but I felt there should be something more, something . . . better.” I struggled a moment more to express it, then let my shoulders sag.

  “But now we’ve met the Chorl, have been attacked by the Chorl, because of belief. From what Ottul has said over the last few days, and from what I found out from the Ochean before I killed her, the Chorl believe in the White Fire, truly believe that the Fire is what they seek after they die.”

  “And I can understand why,” Keven said softly. And now he was the one staring out over the water, his hands gripping the rail tightly. “It . . . had a presence. When it passed through Amenkor six years ago, I was on the palace walls, on patrol. But when it burned across the water, when it descended and touched me, I felt it . . . inside. Deep inside. I felt it burning there, felt it . . . judge me.”

  I shuddered, remembering the first man I’d killed, remembered his hand pressing hard into my chest as he fumbled with his breeches, as he readied to rape me. But the Fire had intervened, had burned down inside of me, exposed me, judged me . . . and somehow it had given me the strength to kill the man who I’d known would kill me in the end.

  Then the Fire had left a part of itself behind, inside me.

  And I suddenly realized that no one spoke of the Fire, of what it had done to them. Not to each other, as Keven had just done. It was too personal, too private, something that could only be shared with yourself.

  Or the person you worshiped. Like a confession.

  “The Fire is what brought the Chorl to Amenkor,” I said. “The priests believed they would find the Fire there, because they could feel it burning inside of Erick. They tortured him to find out where it had come from.”

  I shuddered at the memory, at the white-hot pain of it, the blood and sweat and sand.

  And at the look on Haqtl’s face, the intense hatred in his eyes as he drove the spine into Erick’s chest.

  Keven shifted. “They came east, to the coast, in search of Heaven,” he said.

  We thought about that in silence, the strains of the fiddle behind us shifting, the pace picking up, slipping from sadness to something a little more lighthearted, the music a strange juxtaposition to our conversation.

  Turning away from the water, Keven asked, “And what do you believe in now, Mistress?”

  I didn’t know.

  Before I admitted this, Gwenn emerged from below in a rush. Eyes locking on me, she ran toward me, gasped, “Mistress! Isaiah says to come down now. Something’s wrong with Erick!”

  I found myself at the door to Erick’s cabin without remembering how I got there. Inside, Isaiah and two sailors were struggling to hold Erick’s convulsing body down onto the cot, Isaiah barking orders, both men crying out as Erick kicked and flailed, his arms and legs moving without real purpose.

  The sight sent a cold hard weakness into my legs.

  “Gods,” I murmured, “what’s happening?”

  Isaiah shot a black look toward the door.

  “Help us!” he spat, and I surged forward, felt Keven at the door behind me.

  Then we were both pushing between the other two desperate sailors, a bruise already swelling up on one man’s cheek. Both were panicked, one trying to hold down Erick’s arms, the other his legs, Isaiah in the middle over his chest. As Keven and I slid into place, Isaiah retreated.

  “Hold him so that he doesn’t hurt himself!” he barked. “I need to find something for his mouth!”

  Gasping, I snatched one of Erick’s arms, but not before it struck the side of the cabin wall with a hideous, meaty smack. He’d been bedridden, had weakened recovering from his weeks of torture even though his muscles had been exercised by servants, his legs and arms bent and stretched on a regular basis, but still his spasms almost ripped the captured arm free from my grip. I spat a curse that made the nearest sailor’s eyes widen, heard Keven cursing under his breath at the other end of the cot, and then I shoved Erick’s unruly arm down to his chest, leaned over it to keep it down, the sailor doing the same.

  This close, I could smell oranges, could feel Erick’s sweat-soaked shirt beneath my arms and chest, could hear his heaving, rasping breath, could feel it against my neck.

  And then his back arched.

  “Keven!” I cried as my grip began to loosen, to slide. Erick’s legs were still free and he was using them to push upward.

  “I’m trying,” Keven growled. I shot a glance toward Erick’s legs, sa
w Gwenn cowering in the door to the cabin over the sailor’s back, hands covering her face, eyes wide and filled with terrified tears—

  And then Isaiah returned and I spun back, his sharp face locked in a grim expression. “Hold him!” he barked, and Keven grunted, the sailor beside him at his feet doing the same. “I said hold him!”

  “Put in the gods-damned stick!” Keven spat back.

  Isaiah ignored him. Kneeling down beside Erick’s head, he began to pry open Erick’s mouth, Erick’s jaw locked shut, the muscles in Erick’s neck standing out in strained cords as he convulsed, arching back farther.

  He began to tilt, rocking off the cot.

  Everyone cried out, and then Gwenn shoved in beside me, arms extended, pushing Erick back, holding him in place.

  “I can’t—” Isaiah began.

  And then all of the tension snapped out of Erick’s body.

  He collapsed back to the cot, everyone falling on top of him, but the seizure hadn’t ended. His arm still continued to spasm beneath my grip. His breath still hissed in and out, far too fast. I could feel his heart shuddering, the beats irregular, and his body felt hot to the touch.

  “Got it,” Isaiah said, and I turned to see the stick he’d held slip between Erick’s teeth.

  A moment before another spasm hit. Erick bit down, hard, teeth sinking half an inch into the soft wood, almost snapping it in two.

  Isaiah caught my eye. “More than one doctor’s lost a finger that way,” he said in a bland voice. Then his focus shifted, his frown deepening. “We have to get the seizures to stop. He’ll kill himself.”

  “What can you do?”

  His brows drew together in thought. Then: “Hold on.”

  I rolled my eyes, but tightened my grip on Erick’s arm.

  He turned to his small desk, rooted through a satchel, vials clinking together.

  A moment later, he withdrew a thin glass tube filled with a clear liquid that looked like water.

  Kneeling again, he pulled the cork free from the tube with his teeth, spat it aside, and said, “Hold him still.”