The Cracked Throne E-Book

Joshua Palmatier

• Herausgeber: Zombies Need Brains, LLC
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Throne of Amenkor
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 654

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

When the White Fire passed through the city of Amenkor for the second time in a thousand years, it brought madness, drought, famine, and destruction. In order to stop it, Varis—a young girl from the slums of the city, trained to be an assassin—was forced to seize control of the Skewed Throne from the previous Mistress and become the new ruler of the city. But Varis knows nothing about politics or power. She only knows how to survive. But as she grapples with the reins of leadership and retaining control of the Skewed Throne—helped by the Seeker Erick, her advisor Arrend, the merchant Borund, and the previous Mistress Eryn—a new threat arises. Something dreadful is coming. Something from the sea. Something that will challenge Varis' understanding of the powers of the throne and her hold on the city. Because this force knows of the throne, knows that Amenkor is vulnerable, and it is driven by complete and utter desperation. There is no turning back. It must have the Skewed Throne. And it will destroy everything and everyone in Amenkor to get it.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Other Novels by Joshua Palmatier:

The Cracked Throne

Copyright © 2025 by Joshua Palmatier

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

The Throne Room

Epilogue

The Epic Saga Concludes

About the Author

THE CRACKED THRONE

Other Novels by Joshua Palmatier:

The “Ley” Series:

Shattering the Ley

Threading the Needle

Reaping the Aurora

The “Well” Series:

Well of Sorrows

Leaves of Flame

Breath of Heaven

The “Throne of Amenkor” Series:

The Skewed Throne

The Cracked Throne

The Vacant Throne

The “Crystal Cities” Series:

Crystal Lattice

Crystal Rebel

Crystal War

Anthologies from Zombies Need Brains/DAW Books:

After Hours: Tales from the Ur-bar

The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity

Temporally Out of Order * Alien Artifacts * Were-

All Hail Our Robot Conquerors! * Familiars..*..Last-Ditch

Second Round: A Return to the Ur-bar

The Modern Deity’s Guide to Surviving Humanity

Solar Flare * Submerged * Guilds & Glaives * Apocalyptic

When Worlds Collide * Brave New Worlds * Dragonesque

The Death of All Things * The Razor’s Edge * Portals

Temporally Deactivated * Galactic Stew

Derelict * Alternate Peace * Noir * Ampyrium

My Battery Is Low and It Is Getting Dark

Shattering the Glass Slipper * Artifice & Craft * Game On!

The Cracked Throne

A Throne of Amenkor Novel by

Joshua Palmatier

Zombies Need Brains LLC

www.zombiesneedbrains.com

Copyright © 2025 by Joshua Palmatier

All Rights Reserved

Interior Design (ebook): ZNB Design

Interior Design (print): ZNB Design

Cover Design by ZNB Design

Cover Art “The Cracked Throne”

by Ariel Guzman

ZNB Book Collectors #35

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions of this book, and do not participate or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted material.

First Printing, Zombies Need Brains Edition, September 2025

Print ISBN-13: 978-1940709826

Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1940709833

Printed in the U.S.A.

Chapter 1

I crouched down behind a pile of broken stone to catch my breath and gazed down the darkened narrow in the warren of buildings of the Dredge. In the moonlight, the alley was mainly shadow, with edges of dull light. Water gleamed in a thin stream in the alley’s center. No doorways, no windows here. At least none that I could see.

A sound came from behind, a rattle of stone against stone.

I spun, breath catching, heard my heart thudding in my ears, poised on the verge of bolting. My feet skidded in the wet dirt on the cobbles—

But there was nothing behind me. The alley was as dark as it was ahead. There were many places to hide, but nowhere to escape to. He could be waiting for me, hidden in any of the shadows, ready to pounce if I turned back.

A sob tightened my chest and I fought it back, closed my eyes against the sensation. I breathed in slowly, tried to calm myself.

Use the river.

The thought slid across the darkness behind my eyes and I frowned. But then there was the unmistakable tread of a foot, moving cautiously, and far, far too close.

My eyes flew open, my heart shuddered, and I lurched out from the shelter of the broken stone into the alley, moving almost blindly, eyes catching glimpses of heaped stone, piles of shattered crates, and rotting refuse. My bare feet pounded against the slick cobbles, splashed in the trickling stream. I heard a curse, and a hail of loose dirt and stone as someone pushed away from a crumbling wall, then heavy footfalls. A cold sliver of fear lanced down my side, sharp with pain. I slapped a hand against it, tried to force it away, and then the alley turned.

I swerved too late, felt my feet skid in the muck, slip, begin to pull out from under me, and then I slammed into the mud-brick wall in the corner. My breath whooshed from my lungs, but I didn’t pause. I used the wall to catch my balance, shoved away from it before I’d truly gained purchase, and stumbled down the left turn.

A door. I needed a door, a window, an escape.

Behind, the footfalls burst into a run. Someone shouted, cursed as he stumbled into a stack of garbage, tripped, and fell.

I darted along the new alley. Still nothing. No door, no window. I sobbed, breath hitching in my throat. The dagger of pain in my side dug deeper. I was no longer running smoothly, the pain too harsh, making me stumble. I’d been running too long.

A cloud moved across the moon. The alley plunged itself into total darkness. I stumbled to a halt, leaned heavily against one wall, one hand still clutching my side. My breath came in ragged gasps. Too loud, too filled with desolation. My eyes widened as I tried to catch even the faintest light, but there was nothing. Only the reek of shit and stone, rot and death.

The footsteps behind stopped.

I drew a deep breath, held it to listen.

Breathing. He was still there. But he’d learned caution. I’d hurt him when I’d first escaped, bitten into the fleshy part of his hand hard enough to break the skin, then shook it like a dog with a rat carcass while he screamed. I could still taste the blood in my mouth and smiled with grim satisfaction. He’d let his guard down, but that wouldn’t happen again.

Use the river!

I tried to slip into that other world, tried to force everything to blur and gray, tried to suppress all sound into a dull wind—something I’d been able to do without thought since I was six; something I’d relied on to survive on my own since then—but nothing happened.

The river was gone.

Choking down a sob, smile fading, I turned to the wall I could no longer see, pressed my shoulder against it a moment, then, with effort, forced my weight away and began edging down its length. With my shoulder scraping the stone for support, I ran with one hand ahead of me, felt for a corner, an edge, an opening. I’d only get one chance at escape.

Behind, the man heard my movements and edged forward. But he came too fast in the total darkness. His foot splashed in the stream, and then he stumbled over loose stone. I heard a bark of pain, followed by a bitten-off curse. But he got back up. I heard clothing rustling against stone, more cautious this time.

My fingers slid off the stone wall in front of me into open space. I halted, explored with my hand.

Another corner. The alley turned again.

I edged around the side. The sounds of pursuit quieted, but I pushed on. He wasn’t going to give up, even in the dark. I’d hurt him too much for that, dared to defy him in front of all the others, dared to run.

A sense of uselessness, of total despair, washed over me. I tasted it, like grit in the back of my throat, and forced it back with a hard swallow. For a moment, I leaned more weight against the wall, heard my tattered clothes scraping harshly against the mudbrick. But I kept moving. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? Why couldn’t he just let me go? He had other workers. He didn’t need me.

But I knew. It was because I’d bitten him. I could still hear his howl of shock and rage.

“I won’t go back,” I mumbled, too softly for anyone to hear, voice choked with tears and anger.

My fingers found another opening: a window, its edges ragged and broken with decayed stone.

With a surge of hope, I stepped back from the wall, placed both hands on the crumbling ledge, and pushed my small form upward. Stone ground into my stomach and the sharp pain in my side lanced down into my leg. I began to flail, tilting forward. I couldn’t see where the window led, but it didn’t matter. Anywhere was better than here.

I began to fall forward into the darkness, gasping with effort and triumph.

A hand latched onto my ankle.

“No!” I screamed, hope flailing desperately in my chest. “I won’t go back! I won’t!”

“You bloody well will,” the man grunted.

Another hand grabbed the waist of my breeches, gripped the cloth tight, and as the man heaved, I felt myself lifted up off the window’s ledge by the pants and ankle and thrown backward, out into the alley.

I hit the opposite wall hard. As I collapsed to the ground, no longer able to breathe, the moon reappeared from behind the clouds, startlingly bright. I tried to catch myself with my hands, but I had no strength left. My arms crumpled and the side of my face struck the mud-slicked cobbles. Pain jolted through my jaw, and I tasted fresh blood. My own blood. I moaned.

The man didn’t give me time to recuperate. My arms still useless, my hands grasping feebly at nothing, the man kicked me hard in the stomach, the force of the blow throwing me onto my back. I coughed as blood trickled down into my throat, tried to curl into a protective ball, but a hand latched onto the front of my shirt and hauled me upright. The man loomed over me, then jerked me in close, my feet no longer touching the ground.

“Thought you could run, eh?” Putrid breath blew across my face. “No one runs from Corum.”

My head rolled sideways, no longer under my own control. I had no more strength left. And for the first time I saw my attacker.

His face was screwed up into a snarl of hatred, eyes sharp and black in the moonlight, teeth yellowed and crooked. Brown hair lay in tangles on fatty, bulging skin, a few locks twisted and tied together with thin, colored string.

“No one,” he said again when he saw he’d caught my attention.

I spat into his face.

He hesitated a single moment, trembling in shock. Then he growled and threw me again.

I hit the mud-brick wall, bounced off it into something wooden resting in another corner, where the alley turned yet again. I caught myself on its edge, one hand holding, the other slipping off and splashing into collected water.

A rain barrel. Or what was left of one.

I steadied myself, pulled myself upright so that I was kneeling over the water.

And then I froze.

Confusion stabbed deep into my gut as I stared down into the reflection on the rippled surface of the water.

It wasn’t me. It was a boy, not yet ten. Round face with smooth skin encrusted with the Dredge, with dirt and blood and tears. Light brown eyes wide and desperate. Hair short and crawling with lice.

Then the reflection of the moon in the water was eclipsed by Corum’s shadow.

I jerked back, but Corum was too quick. His hand fell onto the back of my head, fingers curling tight in my hair. I screamed as Corum, nearly three times my height and weight, dropped to one knee beside me and in a rough voice spat, “No one!”

He placed his other hand over the one wrapped in my hair, then thrust my head downward. Stagnant water closed up and over my ears, drowning out my screams, drowning out Corum’s harsh breathing as he held me down with his full weight. I struggled, pushed back from the barrel, kicked my legs, writhed and squirmed and fought. Water splashed out of the barrel, soaked into my clothing. But there was no purchase, no strength left in me, and then water filled my mouth and I drew it in, pulled its coldness down into my lungs and I felt it filling me, seeping into every part of my body. And as it touched my arms, I felt my struggling relax, felt my arms go numb and slack. Strength ebbed from my legs. And then I felt myself sinking, down and down into the depths of the barrel, down and down forever.

As I sank, I suddenly realized why I couldn’t use the river.

Because this wasn’t me dying. It was someone else. Someone who lived in the slums beyond the Dredge.

And then I woke.

* * *

I lurched out of the dream with a sharp cry, choking on the slick coolness of rainwater even though my mouth was dry. Sick, I crawled to the edge of the immense bed, arms tangled in sweaty sheets, and coughed into the darkness of the room. Harsh, racking coughs, as if I were trying to purge my lungs of nonexistent water.

When the coughing faded, I fell back onto the bed, my entire body trembling with weakness. I swallowed, throat raw, then felt the strangeness of the room around me and sat up slowly.

The Mistress’ chambers.

Because I was the new Mistress.

I shuddered, drew my knees up to my chest and hugged them close, the unfamiliar cloth of the shift I wore rustling in the darkness.

As the last of the dream faded, reality returned. Except that the dream felt more real. I knew the Dredge, knew the warren of alleys and niches filled with filth and refuse. From the age of six until I’d fled to the upper city at fifteen, I’d spent my life living in its decaying buildings, surviving off of the streets any way I could, stealing my food, rooting through the garbage for that discarded chunk of moldy cheese, that weevil-ridden crust of bread. I was a thief, gutterscum, spat upon and kicked out of the way. The only reason I’d survived as long as I had was because of the Seeker assassin, Erick…and because of the river.

For a moment, I let the darkened room around me shift, let myself sink into the special sight that I called the river. The blackness shifted to a lighter gray, took on edges and forms as I picked up the faint moonlight seeping around the drawn curtains leading to the balcony. It was like sliding beneath the surface of water, and as I pushed myself deeper, the details of the room clarified. Still gray, but now they were visible when before there hadn’t been enough light.

But it was more than that now, different than what it had been even on the Dredge. Because now I had the power of the Skewed Throne augmenting the river. I could feel the throne pulsing around me, heightening my awareness, taking it beyond what I was used to. The new power felt raw, almost unwieldy, barely under control.

I shifted my focus, turned back to the bedroom.

It was large, the largest room I’d ever slept in, even after I’d escaped the Dredge and taken up residence in the merchant Borund’s manse as his bodyguard. The bed stood against one wall, four posts rising from its corners, the canopy tied high above bowing down toward me. Tables stood at various points about the room, mixed in with potted trees and plants, a settee, chairs. Large wardrobes stood off to my left, and chests with linens and clothes, none of the contents mine. One of the tables held a large pitcher filled with water set in a basin so that I could wash my face in the morning; another held the dagger I’d taken from an ex-guardsman after he’d tried to rape me and I’d killed him. I’d only been eleven then.

Across the room, opposite the bed, were a set of double doors leading to the antechamber and the rest of the palace. In the grayness of the river, I could sense the two guardsmen who waited on the other side of the doors, in the antechamber itself. They were arguing, their voices too low for me to catch. But their emotions coursed through the river like a current. Fear and uncertainty; mostly uncertainty. They must have heard me thrashing around in my sleep, couldn’t decide whether to enter the room.

Before I’d taken control of the throne, I wouldn’t have been able to sense their emotions in such detail. I wouldn’t have been able to sense them at all, since they were behind a closed door. On the Dredge and then later in the upper city as a bodyguard for Borund, I needed to be able to see my targets before I could use the river against them. But now, with the power of the throne behind me . . .

The guardsmen didn’t know what to think of their new Mistress, of the seventeen-year-old girl who had somehow entered the palace two nights ago dressed as a page boy, had slipped through all of the patrols, had bypassed every guardsman, and somehow made it to the throne room and taken control of the Skewed Throne.

I pushed the river away, let the darkness of the room return, the emotions of the two guardsmen fade. I’d done more than taken control of the throne, though. Because whoever controlled the throne controlled the entire city of Amenkor.

I pulled my knees in tighter, tried to suppress a sudden flare of anger but failed.

I’d never intended to seize the throne. I’d been sent by the administrator Avrell, the First of the Mistress, and Borund after I’d escaped the Dredge. Sent to kill the previous Mistress so that someone else could take her place. They’d claimed it was the only way to get the insane Mistress off the throne, that they’d tried everything else and failed; that if it wasn’t done soon, the city would never survive the winter. In her insanity, the previous Mistress had blockaded the harbor and cut off trade when food was desperately needed, had allowed a quarter of the city and a significant portion of the stored food to burn, had ordered the city and palace guardsmen not to help in putting out the fire. She had to be removed, and I was the only one who could do it. Because I’d been trained by the Seeker Erick to be an assassin . . . and because of the river. I was the only one who could get close enough to kill her.

So I’d agreed. Because I’d believed the Mistress had gone insane, and because Erick, my mentor, convinced me that I was the only one who could succeed.

But it had been a trap. The Mistress had been waiting for me, had manipulated the guardsmen and servants of the palace so that I would make it to the throne room unimpeded.

Instead of killing her, I’d been forced to touch the Skewed Throne.

My anger flared higher—at Avrell, at Borund, and especially at Erick’s betrayal—but it paled at the sudden surge of horror at the memory of the throne. I shuddered, stifled a moan, laid my head down on my knees and closed my eyes, felt the exhaustion that had plagued me since that night washing over me.

I let myself sink back into the river, dove deep, heading straight for the edge of the spherical White Fire that burned continuously now at my core. A power separate from the river, the Fire had saved me more than once on the Dredge, flaring up to forewarn me of danger, of threats that I had not yet seen. And now it protected me from the voices within the throne and their immense force. I would never have survived the Skewed Throne without it. The voices would have crushed me, smothered me beneath their weight.

I winced as I grew closer to the boundary, drew a slow steadying breath as I felt the throbbing pulse of the throne’s power, and halted just outside the seething barrier of white flame.

On the far side, a maelstrom of voices roared, almost deafening. Hundreds upon hundreds of voices clamoring for my attention, screaming defiance and hatred, pleading for release, for pity, all of them trying to take over at once. They were the voices of all of the previous Mistresses, all who had sat upon the throne and ruled Amenkor since the throne was created, as well as the voices of any who had dared to touch it since then. Hundreds of Mistresses; even more of those who had touched the throne and not had the power to survive. I felt the pressure of their personalities, of their emotions, against my face like heat, white-hot and hissing. Anger and hatred and raw desperation—all trapped by the throne.

And now trapped by the Fire as well. After being thrust onto the throne, forced to face its power, I’d used the White Fire to capture those voices. I’d surrounded them in its protective flame and now held them deep inside myself with the power of the river.

The voices had driven the previous Mistress to the edge of madness. But she’d managed to lure me to the throne room by distracting the guards, had managed to use the throne to overpower me and shove me forcibly onto its seat. And then she’d given me a choice: die and let the city of Amenkor die with me during the coming winter, or claim the power of the throne myself andrelease her, giving the city a chance to survive.

My anger returned, hot and fluid and bitter. It hadn’t been much of a choice at all.

I let the river go again with a hard thrust, sat up straight in the Mistress’ bed—my bed now—legs folded so I could rest my elbows on my knees. If they wanted a new Mistress, then I’d be Mistress. But I was tired of being manipulated, of being given choices that were not choices at all.

One of the guards knocked on the door to the antechamber, followed by a muffled argument, pitched high with concern.

I scowled. When the knocking resumed, more urgent, I slid off the bed and moved to the door, walking carefully through the unfamiliar room in the darkness.

I jerked the door open, the two guards outside stepping back sharply. They regained their composure quickly, standing stiffly at attention, but still a little uncertain. One of them was one of the previous Mistress’ palace guardsmen, the other was one of the assassin Seekers.

“What?” I spat.

The regular guardsman, the one who had knocked on the door, licked his lips, glanced toward the Seeker for reassurance, then answered. “We heard a cry—”

“If there’d been an assassin,” I said, “I’d have been dead by the time you decided to open the door.”

The guardsman stood, mouth open, with no idea what to say.

I moved to close the door, but the Seeker stepped forward.

“Is everything all right, Mistress?”

My stomach clenched, a sudden wave of loneliness, of desolation and instability and doubt washing over me.

Two days ago, I’d been a bodyguard for a somewhat powerful merchant. Today, I ruled the entire city—a city on the verge of winter starvation.

A chill shivered through my skin, tingling, raising the hairs on my arms.

I swallowed, met the Seeker’s eyes. Dark eyes, with a dangerous glint that I recognized. I’d seen it in Erick’s eyes when I was fourteen and he’d found me in an alley off the Dredge, vomiting over the corpse of the second man I’d killed. Erick, the man who had trained me, had given me the chance to escape the Dredge when I was fifteen and become a bodyguard for Borund.

This man had the same stance as Erick, totally relaxed, fluid, with an edge of death. But unlike Erick, this man had few scars lining his face, had less gray in his dark hair, his nose more pointed and straight because it had never been broken.

Unlike the regular guardsman, the Seeker carried a dagger instead of a sword, wore leathers instead of armor. Of the two, he was the more dangerous, and yet I felt more comfortable speaking to him than to the palace guardsman.

“I’m fine,” I said, then hesitated.

I could feel myself trembling, alternately hot with rage and cold with terror at the thought of what I would be expected to do as Mistress.

The room behind me suddenly felt both too large and too confining.

I drew in a ragged breath and let it out slowly. “No,” I said. “No, I think I need some air. Take me to the roof of the palace.”

The Seeker nodded, then said in a carefully neutral voice, “You should probably change.”

I glanced down at my sweat-matted shift, rumpled and wrinkled, then glared at both of the guards before closing the door without a word.

* * *

The Seeker guarding the door to my chambers led me to the roof of the palace, halting at the opening to the stairwell with a nod. Dressed in Eryn’s white robes, the predawn air felt chill and close, still damp with the autumn rains and with a bite of winter. As I moved to the low wall at the edge of the roof overlooking the port of Amenkor, I repressed a shudder at the robe’s unfamiliar weight and movement. I was used to close-fitting clothes, shirts and breeches, nothing loose that would interfere with my dagger, with my movements. But the previous Mistress did not have breeches, did not carry a dagger. And someone had removed the page boy’s clothes I’d worn to infiltrate the palace. Her white robes, with bands of gold embroidery around the neck and hem, were the only clothes I could find.

I glared out over the city of Amenkor in irritation, trying not to scratch myself. Things would have to change, starting with the clothes.

On the harbor, ships rocked in the waves, silhouetted against the water by the reflected moonlight. All but those guarding the harbor’s entrance were at the docks, where they’d been since the previous Mistress had blockaded the harbor. A few were loading cargo, by the light of torches lining the wharf, but I couldn’t see which ships in the darkness, could only see vague forms moving in the glow of the lanterns along the docks. Closer in, there was a patch of darkness where the warehouses had burned, the buildings nothing but charred husks.

I felt a weight of guilt settle onto my shoulders, a clench of nausea tug at my stomach. I may not have started the fire that destroyed the warehouse district, but the lantern that had started it had been thrown at me by a boy attempting to save himself from my blade.

I turned away from the black scar, toward the barely discernible streets, the River, and the outer walls of the city.

At the same time, I heard footsteps behind me.

I slid beneath the river, felt the world shift to gray, the sounds of the night muting to a soft wind, and targeted the woman who approached.

Eryn, the previous Mistress.

I tensed, back rigid, comforted by the presence of my dagger at my side, tucked into a makeshift belt. I’d seen little of the previous Mistress since I’d released her from the throne and assumed power. There’d been little time. I’d spent a full day seated on the throne, afraid to let my guard down, afraid the voices would overtake me the moment I turned my back. Eventually, I’d isolated them behind the Fire, stabilized it so that it burned without conscious thought. Only then had I stepped away from the throne.

But the effort had drained me. I’d collapsed in exhaustion almost immediately, been taken to the Mistress’ chambers to rest. When I’d woken, after only a few hours of sleep, the palace had been in turmoil, the guardsmen seething with anger, the servants confused. Nothing had been accomplished, all of Avrell’s time spent calming everyone down.

There’d been nothing I could do at the time, so I’d retired early, still exhausted . . . and dreamed.

Eryn moved up beside me, placed her hands on the stone parapet of the tower, and gazed out over the city. In the moonlight, her hair was blue-black, her skin washed a pale white, as white as the simple dress she wore. She held herself formally, head high, chin lifted. Not arrogant, but assured. The stance of a ruler.

I felt small beside her. And not only because I was two hands shorter and probably less than half her age.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked a moment later, after a heavy sigh.

I shifted, slipped into a stance the Seeker watching us would have recognized, and answered, “No.” It came out harsher than I’d intended. I suddenly wondered where she had slept last night, what she had done while the palace was in chaos.

She turned toward me, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. She looked exhausted as well, dark smudges beneath her eyes, her skin tight, as if she’d been sobbing for hours. It had aged her. Instead of the nearly forty-year-old woman who’d so confidently bested me a few nights before, she appeared fifty . . . and totally defeated.

I found my anger and wariness faltering, forced myself to remember that this was the woman who had almost killed me days before.

“It’s hard,” she said, tight and controlled. “I’ve lived so long with the voices of the throne that now that they’re gone . . .” She grimaced, shrugged, then laughed bitterly, no humor touching her eyes. “I know I’d be dead by now, if you hadn’t come to kill me. I could never have withstood the throne. It was too powerful, and the voices . . . they were wearing me down. They would have driven me insane eventually. But still . . .”

I said nothing. I’d seen the insanity in her eyes in the throne room, seen how much she’d fought to hold herself together at the end.

Eryn straightened. “I think…” Her voice had changed, some of the bitterness seeping away. “I think, if you hadn’t come, I would have thrown myself from this very wall.”

I stilled, startled, then shifted forward so I could see down the height of the wall, down past the gaps of the inset windows, past the banners, to the stairs at the wall’s base.

The stone of the steps gleamed white in the moonlight.

Something tightened in my chest, and I pulled back from the edge with a sharp gasp. For a brief moment, the world tilted around me, and I felt off balance, dizzy with the height. I placed my hands carefully on the stone wall to steady myself and felt the last of my wariness vanish, lost in the thudding of my heart.

“You used to come here often,” I said. “Avrell said that on the night the warehouses burned, you came up here to watch the fire. He said that you smiled.”

Eryn didn’t answer at first. She simply stood, staring down at the stone steps below, her eyes distant. Almost contemplative.

“That wasn’t me standing here that night,” she said, her eyes haunted and lost. “It was the throne.”

For a horrible moment, I thought she was on the verge of jumping as she’d planned earlier. I could see it in her eyes, almost like the madness I’d seen in the throne room before, but somehow more terrifying because she was so calm.

But then the moment passed. Her eyes narrowed and she turned away from the wall, from the steps far below, and looked at me.

“You dreamed,” she said. There was no doubt in her voice. The assured woman who’d first stood beside me had returned.

I thought about lying, but saw no point. She’d been the Mistress for longer than I’d been alive. “Yes.”

She frowned. “That’s unusual. It took at least three months after I assumed the throne before I dreamed. Tell me, what happened in this dream?”

“I drowned,” I said curtly. “A man shoved my head into a rain barrel and I drowned. Except it wasn’t me, it was a boy I didn’t know.”

Eryn nodded, turning back toward the city. “And do you know where this happened?”

“The slums beyond the Dredge.”

“And did you see the man who killed you—or rather, did this boy you don’t know see him?”

“Yes. His name was Corum.”

“Then you must send the Seekers after this Corum. He is a mark. He deserves to die.”

I felt a warm surge of satisfaction course through my blood at the thought. My hand closed into a fist about the hilt of my dagger. Corum’s face rose sharp and clear in my mind and my jaw clenched with hatred. “I can look for him myself. I can kill him.”

Eryn turned sharply at the harshness in my voice, her eyes going wide in alarm. “Varis,” she said, taking a tentative step forward.

Beneath the river, her movement was slow, almost languid. I’d sunk deeper than I’d intended, had let the world gray almost to black, the city spread out below me—once half lost in the darkness before dawn—now sharp with edges and clearly defined. And there was a tug on the currents, a pull. Nothing focused or clear, but a scent. I doubt I would have sensed it without the added power of the throne behind me. I faced it, reached out for it, and found myself focusing across the buildings of the merchants’ quarter, across the wharf and the harbor, across the real River that emptied into the bay, to where the cobbled street called the Dredge ran into the slums of the city. The scent grew clearer, more intense. As sharp and fresh as new-fallen rain—

And suddenly I knew I could find him, could find Corum wherever he hid on the Dredge, using the river, using the throne. I could already smell his putrid breath, could feel my dagger sliding up beneath his ribs. I could taste his death.

“Varis, no!”

Eryn’s voice was hollow, distant. But then she slapped me, hard, the stinging sensation piercing through the eddies of the river like a blade. I pulled back from the edge of the city with a jerk, snapped back into myself at the edge of the palace wall hard enough I stumbled back. Eryn was already there, holding me up, steadying me. Her face was a steel mask of terrified anger, cold and stark in the moonlight.

“Never do that again!” she spat. “Never reach out like that using the Sight or the throne!”

“But I can find him,” I gasped, still disoriented. I felt an urge to vomit, but fought the sensation down, swallowed hard as I caught my balance. “I can scent him—”

“No!” she growled. “It’s too dangerous. Reaching like that, extending yourself out so far…” She shook her head. “You could lose yourself, never find your way back. Previous Mistresses have been lost in such attempts before. No. It’s better to send the Seekers. That’s what they’ve been trained for.” She squeezed my shoulder, locked gazes with me, her voice brittle. “Tell me you will not try that again. Tell me!”

I nodded, still feeling sick. “I won’t.”

“You’ll send the Seekers?”

I nodded again.

The terror began to fade from Eryn’s eyes. “Good.” She loosened her grip and stepped back, eyeing me carefully. Then she sighed. “Good. Now you should get some rest. Avrell and the others will want to talk to you tomorrow. There are things you must decide on, and decide on quickly, if Amenkor is to survive.”

“If it’s to survive what?”

Eryn hesitated, her eyes searching. But I was still shaking from the…the Reaching into the Dredge.

Eryn’s mouth turned in a sudden frown. “Winter,” she said. “If we’re to survive winter, of course.”

Then she turned and walked steadily to the stairs, without looking back.

* * *

I stayed on the tower to watch the dawn. To the east, over the hazy shadow of mountains, the sky lightened. I’d never seen what lay beyond the city of Amenkor, had always been hidden inside the streets, unable to see what was outside of the walls and buildings. From the tower of the palace, though, as the sun rose, I could see how the city crowded around the enclosed bay and the River. To the north, the Dredge ran up into the decaying buildings of the slums, which clung to the rocky cliffs of the northern portion of the harbor before reaching the top of a ridge and spilling over beyond view. To the south, the land fell away steeply from the edge of the outer wall of the palace toward a coastline dotted with windswept trees. A road cut through the landscape in both directions—north and south—intersecting another road heading from Amenkor to the east, toward the mountains.

I stared at the road and the River snaking out into the foothills of the mountains, eyes wide. The entire landscape was covered with trees, more trees than I’d ever seen, could ever have imagined. I followed the dense forest as it faded into the haze at the base of the mountains, noted a cleft in the peaks in the far distance: the pass that led to the lands beyond.

As the sun rose higher, dawn slipping away, I turned back to the city below. Amenkor. The real Amenkor.

My Amenkor.

I leaned forward, stone gritty beneath my palms, and stared out over the streets, over the water of the river and the harbor, over the two juts of land that reached out to enclose the bay, protecting it. Barely discernible in the distance, at the ends of each jut of land, I could see two towers, like sentinels at the harbor’s entrance. And before that entrance I could see the Mistress’ ships blocking the water-course, preventing all ships from entering.

And leaving.

I frowned. But I shrugged aside the sudden uneasiness and turned back to the city. Lights had been doused and people had begun to emerge into the streets. As the cries of the dockworkers and hawkers on the wharf began to filter up to the tower, I turned to where the Seeker waited patiently. With a nod, we descended.

Erick was waiting outside the Mistress’ chambers. He was alone, aside from the palace guardsman I’d left outside the door earlier, and he smiled when he saw me, the skin crinkling around his eyes.

I halted, the Seeker who accompanied me stepping to one side behind me. My eyes narrowed in anger, my hands tightening in the folds of my white robes. I hadn’t seen him since he, Borund, and Avrell had convinced me to kill the Mistress. Like Eryn, he appeared haggard, older than he was.

“Varis,” he began.

“Don’t,” I said, cutting him off, moving forward and past him to the door. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Varis, wait.”

I stormed through the antechamber into the Mistress’ rooms, paused when I saw the neatly folded page boy’s clothes stacked on the chest at the bed’s base, then turned and strode to where the curtains were drawn across the glass doorway that led to the balcony. I halted before them, but did not pull them back.

I heard Erick enter behind me, heard the door close.

“Varis.” His voice was hard, commanding. The same voice he’d used to train me to be an assassin in the slums of Amenkor. But things had changed in the last few weeks. He was no longer my mentor, had not been my mentor for two years, since I’d left the Dredge. Neither he, nor Borund, nor Avrell, could command me now.

I spun. “What?”

Erick stood just inside the door, back straight, eyes dark, jaw tight, clearly angry. He crossed his hands over his chest, spaced his feet a shoulder’s width apart, and said nothing. The scars that lined his face, that marked him as dangerous even when he was relaxed, stood out in the light.

For a moment, I saw him as he had appeared on the Dredge almost four years before, when he’d found me: cold, arrogant, and unreadable. A guardsman. A Seeker. I was nothing then. A wisp of a girl barely surviving off the dregs of Amenkor. Gutterscum. I’d looked no further than the next rotted apple or scabbed potato.

But he’d changed all that. I’d discovered he wasn’t as cold and arrogant and distant as he had seemed.

The anger I felt began to ebb, to drain away as the silence between us deepened. But it didn’t vanish completely.

“Did you know?”

His forehead creased in confusion. “Know about what?”

“Did you know it was a trap! That they sent me to kill the Mistress simply to get me into the palace, to get me to the throne room?”

He shook his head. “No.” A flat denial. No hesitation.

I looked hard into his eyes, wanting to believe him, and found them completely open, nothing hidden. The tension in my shoulders released and I turned away. “Good,” I said, my voice still sharp, even though I felt a wave of relief. I hadn’t realized how betrayed I’d felt, how horribly deep it had cut me, until I’d seen him.

Behind, I heard Erick move a few steps farther into the room.

“I don’t think Borund knew either,” he said. “He and Avrell only wanted me to convince you to kill the Mistress. They thought I’d have a better chance at it than they would by themselves. They thought you trusted me. Neither one of them mentioned anything about you becoming the Mistress.”

I grunted without comment.

Erick was quiet for a long moment, then added, “It took them a long time to convince me that killing her was necessary. And in the end they didn’t convince me that she was insane. You did.”

Startled, I turned to see his face. “What do you mean?”

He moved forward, until he stood only a few paces away. “You knew that something was wrong with the Mistress when she sent me to kill Mari. You knew Mari wasn’t a mark just by looking at her. After that I began to question every mark the Mistress sent me after. By the time Avrell and Borund approached me, I already knew that the Mistress was insane and that something needed to be done. But I didn’t know what. All they had to do was convince me that killing her was the only option.”

“But you don’t think Borund intended for me to become the Mistress? Or Avrell?”

“Borund, no. I don’t know about Avrell.”

I thought back to that meeting only four days before. I’d thought then that Avrell was hiding something, that there was something he wasn’t telling me, something he’d kept back. I hadn’t gotten the same sense from Borund or Erick. Was it possible Avrell hadn’t known the Mistress’ plans? Had he been manipulated by her as well?

I shook my head in annoyance and moved to the chest where the page boy’s clothes rested. On top of the neatly folded linen shirt lay a key.

I reached down and picked it up. It was the key to the room that held the archer’s niche I’d used to bypass Baill’s guards during their watch. Avrell had given it to me, along with the page boy’s clothes.

“I don’t think Borund knew either,” I said, distracted. Then I sighed and set the key back onto the clothes, turning away. “I don’t want to be the Mistress, Erick.”

Erick snorted. “But you are. Nothing can change that now.”

I felt a surge of rebellion. Erick must have seen me tense.

“Where would you go, Varis? You can’t go back to the Dredge. You spent too much time as Borund’s bodyguard to return to living off the slums. And could you be a bodyguard now? After what’s happened here?”

I thought about the Dredge. But Erick was right. There was nothing for me there. I’d left that long ago, had abandoned it after killing Bloodmark. But I could become a bodyguard again. Not with Borund, no. Not now. But still . . . I ran my hand over the page boy’s clothes and felt for the voices of the throne in the recesses of my mind, still kept at bay by the Fire. If I let the Fire relax just a little, let it dampen . . .

I felt a flush of heat flow through me, tingling in my skin, coursing along my arms, across my shoulders, down my legs. And then the heat flowed outward, suffused and surrounded me completely, extending out through the room, through the palace, and then out farther . . . until it reached the edges of the city itself, pulsing in sync with my blood.

I could feel the city, from the palace to the Dredge, from the River to the two towers that guarded the harbor. Its heartbeat matched mine. Its life flowed through my veins.

I drew in a deep steadying breath, then pushed back the sensation of the city, forced the power behind the protective curtain of Fire again. My hand slid from the page boy’s clothing to my side. Erick was right about being a bodyguard as well. How could I return to that now? I was bound to the throne, and through it to the city. Bound by my own choice. Eryn may have lured me into the throne room and forced me to touch the throne, but in the end she hadn’t forced me to assume its powers, hadn’t forced me to take control. It had been my decision. I could have said no.

“These aren’t even my clothes,” I said and turned away from the page boy’s clothing toward Erick. “I want my own clothes.”

Erick grinned. “Let’s see what we can find. Then we need to find Avrell. He has a meeting set up with the rest of the people in control of the palace staff. They’re all anxious to meet the new Mistress of Amenkor.”

I shot him a hard glare but his grin only widened.

* * *

“. . . no idea what she’s going to want, Matron Ireen. You’ll have to ask her when she arrives.”

I heard Avrell’s voice the moment Erick opened the door to the meeting room, his tone calm and casual but tinged with irritation. He drew breath to continue, but someone else coughed discreetly and there was a loud rustle of cloth and the scraping of chairs.

A small group of men and women rose from their seats as the door opened fully, Erick stepping into the room in front of me and then to one side. The moment I caught their collective gaze, I reached for my dagger and slid beneath the river, but managed to keep from drawing the blade. Instead, I gripped its hilt, hard enough that my knuckles turned white. Then I scanned the room.

A simple table with seven chairs sat in the middle of the room. A few potted trees rested in two of the corners, the other two taken up by small tables with trays of cheeses and fruit and a pitcher with glasses for drinks. The wall behind the tall chair at the head of the table was covered with a white banner with the gold insignia of the Mistress: the stylized marking of the Skewed Throne— three slashes; one horizontal, the two others angled down and out from that, one shorter than the other. All of the remaining walls were bare.

There were six people waiting at the table. Avrell and Nathem I already knew, both administrators of the Mistress, the First and Second respectively. Next to Nathem stood a woman I had never met before, broad shouldered and older, dressed in the Mistress’ whites, her face squinched up into a penetrating frown. With one quick glance, she took in my brown breeches, soft-skin shoes, and the loose linen shirt Erick had borrowed from one of the guardsmen. Then she harrumphed and shook her head in disapproval. The shirt was too large and the breeches itched, but the shoes were well worn and comfortable. I shifted beneath her hostile glare, even though beneath the river she was completely gray and so not a real threat. Both Avrell and Nathem, dressed in the blue-and-gold robes of the Mistress’ order, appeared gray as well.

But the three men on the other side of the table were not gray. Baill, captain of the palace guard, stood rigid, face set, hands folded comfortably over his sword belt. His eyes held mine with a reserved look, but they noticed everything: my clothes, my dagger, my hair hanging loose and uncombed about my face. His reaction was impossible to read. Beside him, also dressed in the burgundy silk shirts and brown breeches of guardsmen, were two men I did not know. The first was tall and thin, with the same cold, casual, dangerous look that surrounded Erick. A Seeker. He wore no visible weapons and nodded to Erick before turning his attention to me. When he saw my clothes, a small smile lit in his eyes and his lips twitched. The second man was shorter than the Seeker and wore a sword. He barely glanced in my direction. All three appeared red.

After a long, uncomfortable moment, Avrell cleared his throat and said to the room in general, “May I present Varis, the Mistress of Amenkor.”

Another awkward pause, and then everyone gave a short bow, Avrell and Nathem first, with Baill giving a belated brief nod at the end.

Erick moved to the far side of the room and stood behind a high-backed chair, resting his hand on one corner of its back.

“If the Mistress would care to sit,” Avrell said, motioning to the chair.

I shot him a glare, but he was too much the diplomat to react. Nothing touched his dark brown eyes as he gave me a casual smile. He was too practiced, had spent too much time around Mistresses and the throne. To all appearances, my seizing of the throne had come as a pleasant surprise.

But I didn’t trust him. If he’d helped Eryn to lure me to the throne room, then he’d manipulated me without remorse. And if not, then he’d hired me to kill her, betraying the woman he was supposed to protect. I couldn’t afford to trust him.

Captain Baill was no better. Numerous merchants within the city had been murdered during the last year by a consortium of men led by the merchant Alendor in an attempt to take over all of the city’s trade. Baill had been suspected of helping the consortium, although he’d done nothing but what the previous Mistress had commanded, so nothing could be proved.

Uneasy, I glanced around the room once more, then stepped around Avrell’s side of the room to the chair. As I moved, the guards posted outside the room closed the door behind me and all but Avrell and Erick took seats.

“Let’s begin by introducing everyone,” Avrell said. “Avrell Tremain, the First of the Mistress.” He bowed his head again, then motioned to his left. “This is Nathem Ordaven, the Second of the Mistress—”

“I know.”

Nathem seemed startled and somewhat nervous, his brow creasing in thought as he tried to figure out how I knew him. But we’d never met officially. I only knew him because I’d overheard Avrell speaking with him about the Mistress while I was inside the palace, on my way to the throne room.

“I see,” Avrell said smoothly. But he shared a troubled glance with Erick that made me smile with satisfaction. He moved on, motioning to the woman. “Matron Ireen is the head of the Mistress’ servants. She’ll handle all of your needs— clothing, food, whatever you want. She’ll want to speak with you at length after the meeting.”

Ireen had shifted forward, ready to speak, but under Avrell’s glare she sank back in her seat and crossed her arms on her ample chest with a grunt.

Avrell turned toward Baill. “And this is Captain Baill Gorret of the palace guard. I’ll leave it to you to introduce the others, Captain Baill.”

Baill gave Avrell a dark look, then stood and motioned to his right. “Karl Westen, Captain of the Seekers, and Arthur Catrell, Captain of the city guard.”

He sat as the other two guardsmen nodded.

An unsettled silence followed, as if everyone were waiting for something. Captain Catrell sighed and shifted with nervous agitation, his gaze darting around the spare room as if distracted. Nathem still seemed deep in thought. Baill simply stared at me, his expression unreadable, neither curious like most of the others, nor contemptuous.

For a long moment, I stared back, but then I shifted my gaze to Avrell. “What have you done with the previous Mistress, Eryn?”

Caught off guard, Avrell sat forward and in an uncertain voice said, “I didn’t know what to do with her. We’ve never had an…ex-Mistress, so to speak. So I assigned her rooms in the palace and allowed her to keep her usual servants.” He recovered his poise as he spoke. “She’s been part of the palace since she was eight, and she doesn’t really have any other place to go. Were there…other arrangements you wished to make?”

I frowned. With a simple inflection, he’d made it sound as if any other arrangements would be unreasonable.

“No,” I said grudgingly. I didn’t know if keeping her in the palace was a mistake or not, but for now I was willing to wait.

But I felt as if I’d been manipulated again, the decision taken away from me.

With irritation I didn’t bother to suppress, I asked, “What did you want to talk about?”

“There are many things to discuss,” Avrell said, nodding as if the meeting were back on track. “The blockade of the harbor, the work to be done in the warehouse district after the recent fire, the food shortage and the advent of winter, the sudden cessation of communication with the Boreaite Isles, but I think the first thing that needs to be discussed is the—”

“I think,” Baill interrupted, voice loud to override Avrell. Avrell’s gaze narrowed as he looked across the table at Baill; Baill’s gaze never shifted away from me. “I think the first thing that needs to be discussed is how Varis managed to get into the throne room of the palace without being discovered by the guard.”

Nathem drew in a sharp breath, and Captain Catrell’s attention suddenly focused as he shifted forward in his chair.

With a casual movement, Baill turned to Avrell. “She couldn’t have done it without help,” Baill continued. His voice was as calm and collected as Avrell’s, but there was a deadlier undercurrent to it, a threat of violent death.

Avrell did not flinch. “I helped her. I let her in through the tunnels beneath the outer walls, gave her maps of the palace, and told her the movements of the guards.”

The captain of the city guard grunted as if punched. “You compromised the Mistress’ security? What for?”

Avrell glanced toward Captain Catrell, but only briefly, his eyes dropping to the table before turning back to Baill with a challenge. “I wanted Varis to kill the Mistress.”

There was a brief moment of silence. Then Captain Catrell stood and in a surprisingly smooth movement brought his sword to bear, the blade reaching across the table toward Avrell’s throat without wavering.

“Then you are a traitor,” he said simply.

No one in the room moved. Avrell held the gaze of the captain of the city guard, not even glancing down at the sword.

“I made a vow to protect the throne and the city of Amenkor,” Avrell said with a tinge of disdain. “Not the Mistress herself.”

To one side, I saw Baill frown and shift in his seat as if uncomfortable. He no longer seemed as certain as he had a moment before.

“Besides,” Avrell continued, turning his attention to me, still refusing to acknowledge the presence of the sword, “I could only get Varis into the palace. There was nothing I could do about the guardsmen after that. It was the Mistress’ own luck that Varis made it to the throne room without being seen.”

Avrell’s gaze locked onto mine, but it was completely unreadable. I thought about the key he’d given me to get into the inner sanctum of the palace, the key to the archer’s niche. But then I realized that Avrell was right. The key could only get me so far. It was the Mistress herself who had distracted the guards beyond that point.

Grudgingly, feeling as if I’d been cornered again, forced into speaking against my will, I said, “It wasn’t luck.”

With a glare at Avrell, I turned to Baill. “The Mistress—the previous Mistress—lured me to the throne room herself. She wanted me to ascend to the throne. She’s the one that diverted the guardsmen from the outer corridor so that I could enter the inner sanctum.”

Baill considered for a long moment, his gaze never wavering from mine. Something flickered behind his eyes, there and then gone, too quickly for me to read. Then he nodded. “Lower your sword, Arthur. I believe her.”

Captain Catrell hesitated, then resheathed his sword and sat down.

“Now,” Avrell said. “About the food shortage—”

“No.”

A look of annoyance passed over Avrell’s face and he turned toward me with a frown. “No?”

I drew in a deep breath and leaned forward, letting my anger touch my voice. I was tired of being manipulated. “If we’re going to discuss the food shortage, I want all the remaining merchants here. Borund in particular.”

“But if we’re going to be able to find more resources to replace those lost in the fire in the warehouse district, we need to act quickly. Winter is approaching fast. We have only a few more days left to send out ships. After that, there won’t be enough time for the ships to travel to the other cities, trade and load cargo, and return before the seas become too rough for safe passage. We can’t wait for the merchants. We need to act now!”

I glared at Avrell, and then felt something shift. A strange warmth enfoldedme, and suddenly the room grew distant, as if somehow I’d taken a step back from the table, even though I was still seated.

In a cold voice, I said, “The ships belong to the merchants, or are owned outright by their captains. I will not order them to sea without the merchant’s or the captain’s consent.”

Without waiting for a response, I shifted my attention to Captain Catrell. “Can you send guardsmen to Merchant Borund’s manse?”

“Of course.”

“Then send them. Tell him the blockade on the harbor is lifted, that he may send ships out at once if he wishes, and that they are to find and buy whatever food they can and return. They will be compensated by the palace. Also tell him to gather together the resources he has left in the city, those that weren’t destroyed by the fire in the warehouse district. He is to bring a report to the palace tomorrow morning, early. Get from him the names of all of the remaining merchants in Amenkor and give the same message to them. I want the entire merchants’ guild to be represented at this meeting.”

Captain Catrell stared, stunned, then nodded and said, “Very well.” He sat a little straighter in his seat and no longer seemed as distracted as before.

Baill leaned forward. “So the blockade is to be lifted?”

“Yes.”

Baill nodded with approval and leaned back in his seat. Avrell had told Borund and me that Baill refused to lift the blockade, had made it seem as if Baill was at fault, that Baill’s claim that the Mistress had ordered the blockade kept even after the merchants protested was a lie. Now I began to wonder.

What if Captain Baill had simply been following the Mistress’ orders? We had no evidence he’d been working for the consortium at all.

“Was there anything else?” I asked, in a tone that suggested there shouldn’t be.

Everyone in the room stilled, as if they’d all drawn a sharp breath and were holding it. No one said anything.

I suddenly wanted to leave, the urge like a prickling sensation across my back. The room felt too hot, too closed in and dense. And still distant.

I stood. “Good.”

“But what of the guard patrols in the city?” Avrell said abruptly, standing as well. “And the arrangements for your servants?” He motioned toward Ireen.

The prickling sensation across my back increased. “Keep the patrols. As for the servants….” My gaze fell on Ireen, who sat forward expectantly, face set into a stern frown. “Do whatever you want.”

The frown vanished, replaced by confused shock, followed by stern elation.

I suddenly pitied the servants of the palace. Ireen seemed a harsh mistress.

I stalked from the room, Erick following with a slight frown. I ignored Avrell’s attempt to catch my attention, but he raised his voice to shout after me, “We need to discuss the political situation with the rest of the coast! We’ll have to discuss it at some point!” The others stood awkwardly, nodding as I passed. Once out into the hall, I turned toward the Mistress’ chambers, four palace guardsmen falling into step behind Erick. As we moved through the corridors, passing servants in the hallways and rooms who paused in their work to gaze after the new Mistress with blatant curiosity, the sense of distance dissipated and the tension in my shoulders loosened. But I still felt agitated. The river roiled around me, but I didn’t want to let it go. All I could think about was Avrell. And Baill.

Back in the Mistress’ chambers, I began pacing the room, Erick closing the doors behind us, the four guardsmen remaining outside, two in the corridor and two in the antechamber.

“You will have to speak to Avrell at length,” Erick said. “He can tell you everything you need to know about being the Mistress. At least regarding the everyday workings of the palace.”