The Skewed Throne E-Book

Joshua Palmatier

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

Seitenzahl: 494

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

When the White Fire passed through the city of Amenkor a thousand years ago, it brought insanity and ruin…until the death of the Mistress, the ruler of Amenkor and the wielder of the Skewed Throne. Now, the ethereal Fire has come again, beginning the same spiral of destruction once more. And it has touched everyone. Including Varis, a young girl barely surviving in the slums of the city. Able to see the world in a wash of reds and grays, she can sense danger and evil in others, the only thing keeping her alive. When the White Fire comes again, it changes her as it changes everyone in the city. The slums become even more dangerous as the city and its Mistress begin to sink into madness. In response, Varis is forced to become an assassin, trained and guided by Erick, one of the Seekers, the elite guard of the Mistress and protectors of the Skewed Throne. But what can gutterscum like Varis do to stop the destruction of everything she has ever known? The only thing that worked the last time: The Mistress of Amenkor must die. ************ Praise for The Skewed Throne: "This novel grips the reader with a swift-moving tale of political intrigue and economic survival in a world where the most dangerous secrets are never forgotten." —Publishers Weekly "[The Skewed Throne is] A gritty, edgy, unsettling book. This tough young woman makes her choices in a world where good and evil often look like twins. I was riveted by her story!" — Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author of the Song of the Lioness series

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Other Novels by Joshua Palmatier:

The Skewed Throne

Copyright © 2025 by Joshua Palmatier

The Palace

Part I: The Dredge

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The Palace

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Part II: Amenkor

Chapter 7

The Palace

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

The Palace

Chapter 10

The Palace

Chapter 11

The Palace

The Throne Room

The Epic Saga Continues

About the Author

THE SKEWED 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 Skewed 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 Skewed Throne”

by Ariel Guzman

 

ZNB Book Collectors #34

 

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: 978-1940709802

Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1940709819

Printed in the U.S.A.

The Palace

 

 

Over one thousand years ago, a great fire swept through the city of Amenkor. Not a fire like those burning in the bowls of standing oil that lined the promenade to the palace, all red and orange and flapping in the wind that came from the sea. No. This fire was white, pure, and cold. And from the legends, this fire burned from horizon to horizon, reaching from the ground to the clouds. It came from the west, like the wind, and when it fell upon the city it passed through walls and left them untouched, passed through people and left them unburned. It covered the entire city—there was no escape, it touched everyone—and then it swept onward, inland, until it vanished, nothing more thana white glow, and then nothing at all.

It is said the White Fire cast the city into madness. It is said the Fire was an omen, a harbinger of the eleven-year drought and the famine and disease that followed.

It is said the Fire murdered the ruling Mistress of the time, even though her body was found unburned on the wide stone steps that led up to the palace at the end of the promenade. There were bruises around her throat in the shape ofhands,andbruisesintheshapeofbootsonhernakedbackandbared breasts. There were bruises elsewhere, beneath the white robes that lay about her waist in torn rags, the robe held in place only by the angle of her body and the gold sash of her office. There was blood as well. Not gushing blood, but spotted blood.

But the legends say the Fire killed her.

Fire, my ass.

Tucked into the niche set high in a narrow corridor of the palace, I snorted in contempt, then shifted with a grimace to ease a cramped muscle. No part of my body moved out into the light. The niche sat at the end of a long shaft that provided airflow into the depths of the palace.

Any blind-ass bastard could tell what had really happened to the Mistress. And the blind-ass bastard who killed her should have rotted in the deepest hellhole in Amenkor. There were quicker ways to kill someone than strangulation. I knew.

I drew in a slow breath and listened. Nothing but the guttering flames of the standing bowls of burning oil which lit the empty corridor below. The airflow in the palace was strong, gusting through the opening at my back. A storm was coming. But the wind took care of the smoke from the burning oil. And other smells.

After a long, considering moment, I slid forward to the edge of the niche and glanced down the corridor in both directions. Nothing.

With one smooth shift, I slipped over the lip of the opening, dangled by white-knuckled fingers for a moment until steady, then dropped to the floor.

“You, boy! Help me with this.”

I spun, hand falling to the knife hidden inside the palace clothing that had been provided the night before: page’s clothing that was a little too big for me, a little loose. But apparently it had worked. I was small for my age, and had no breasts to speak of, but I definitely wasn’t a boy.

The woman who’d spoken was dressed in the white robe of a personal servant of the Mistress and carried two woven baskets, one in each arm. One of the baskets was threatening to tip out of her grasp. She’d managed to catch it with the other basket before it fell, but both baskets were now balanced awkwardly against her chest, ready to tip at the slightest movement.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Her face creased in irritation and anger, but her eyes remained focused on the baskets.

I straightened from the instinctual crouch and moved forward to catch the basket before it fell. It was heavier than it looked.

My hand brushed the woman’s skin as I took the basket and a long thin slash of pain raced up my arm, as if someone had drawn a dagger’s blade across my skin from wrist to elbow. I glanced at the woman sharply, tensed.

The woman heaved a sigh of relief and wiped a trembling hand across her forehead. “Thank you.” After a moment to catch her breath, she motioned to the basket again. “Now give it back. Carefully!”

Relief swept through me. She hadn’t felt the contact, hadn’t felt the slash of pain or anything else out of the ordinary at all.

I set the basket back into the woman’s arms, careful not to touch her skin again, the woman grunting at its weight. Then I stepped aside and let her pass. She huffed out of the corridor, vanishing around a corner.

I watched her receding back, then my eyes narrowed. I wasn’t supposed to run into anyone, especially not one of the true Servants. No one was supposed toknowIwashere.

I’d have to be more careful.

I fingered the knife again, considering, then turned away, moving in the other direction, shrugging thoughts of the woman aside. She’d barely glanced up from her baskets, too intent on not dropping them. She wouldn’t remember meeting a page boy. Not inside the palace. And there wasn’t any time to spare, not if I was to get to the Mistress’ chambers before dawn. I was in the outermost portion of the palace, still needed to get to the linen closet with the archer’s nook, get past the guards at the inner sanctum. . . .

I shook my head and moved a little faster down the narrow corridor, running through the mental image of the map of the palace in my head, reviewing the timing. The incoming storm prickled through my skin, urging me on. I reached into an inner pocket and fingered the key hidden there.

I had to get to the Mistress’ chambers tonight. We’d waited too long already…had waited six years hoping that things would get better, looking for alternate solutions. Six long years since the Second Coming of the White Fire, and since that day things had only gotten worse. Legend said that the first Fire had cast the city into madness. The second Fire had done the same. A slow, subtle madness. And now winter bore down on us, the seas already getting rough, unsuitable for trade. With the mountain passes closed, resources low . . .

As I turned into a second corridor, I frowned, with a hard and determined expression. We’d tried everything to end it. Everything but what legend said had worked the first time the Fire came. Now there was no choice.

It was time for the Mistress to die.

PARTI:THEDREDGE

Chapter 1

I focused on the woman with dark eyes and a wide face, on the basket she carried on her hip, a cloth covering its contents. The woman wore a drab dress, had long, flat, black hair. A triangle of cloth covered most of her head, two corners tied beneath her chin, easy to pick out in the crowd of people on the street. She moved without rushing, head lowered as she walked.

Aneasymark.

My gaze shifted to the basket and my hand slid down to the dagger hidden inside my tattered shirt. My stomach growled.

I bit my upper lip, turned back to the woman’s downturned face, tried to catch her eyes from across the street. The eyes were the most revealing. But she’d moved farther away, paused now at the edge of an alley.

A moment later, she ducked into the narrow.

I hesitated on the edge of the street they called the Dredge, fingers kneading the handle of my dagger. People flowed past, not quite jostling me. I scanned the street, the people, noticed a guardsman, a cartman with brawny shoulders, a gutterscum thug. No one openly dangerous. No one overtly threatening to a fourteen-year-old girl pressed flat against a wall. A mud-streaked girl, clothes more tattered than whole, hair so dirty its color was indistinguishable. A small girl—far, far too small for fourteen; far, far too thin to be alive.

Eyes hardening, I turned back to the mouth of the narrow where the woman had disappeared, watched its darkness.

Then I cut across the Dredge, cut through the crowd so smoothly I touched no one. I slid against the wall of the narrow, crouched low, until my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I listened. The noise of the street faded to a background wind,theworldgrayed....

And in the new silence I heard the sound of footfalls on damp stone, steady and quick. I heard clothes rustling, heard the creak of wicker as a basket was shifted. The footsteps were receding.

In the cloaked darkness of the alley, I glanced back out toward the street, toward the movement, the sunlight. No one had seen me follow the woman. Noteventheguardsman.

I turned back, slid deeper into the darkness, into the stench of refuse and piss and mildew. I moved without sound, with a cold, hungry intent, my stomach clenched and empty, thinking only of the basket, of the food it might represent. The woman’s footsteps continued, shuffling ahead on the dirty stone, splashing in unseen puddles. I drew in the stench of the alley, could almost smell the woman’s sweat. My hand closed on the handle of my dagger—

Andthefootstepsaheadslowed,grewwary.

I halted, drew close to the wall, hand pressed against its damp mud-brick.

Ahead, feet shuffled in place. The cold of the alley grew deeper, a coldness

I felt echoed in my chest like the harsh burn of hoarfrost.

Then I heard another footstep, a heavier tread, a gasp as the woman cried out, the sound suddenly choked off.

Something heavy hit the cobbles, followed by rolling thuds, by the sound of a struggle: clothes rustling, harsh breaths, a horrifying gasping sound, choked and desperate. Like the gasping sounds of the man I’d killed three years before. Except these gasps were not wet and slick, choking on blood. These weredryandempty.

A sick, feverish shudder of horror rushed through my skin and I pressed against the mud-brick at my back, trying not to breathe. The coldness of hoarfrost prickling in my chest tightened, began to burn white, like the touch of the Fire that had passed through the city three years before. Fresh sweat prickled in my armpits, the center of my chest, making me shudder. My hand clenched onthehandleofmydagger.

The gasping quieted, slowed. A strained grunting filtered from the darkness. It escalated, tight and short, then released in a trembling sigh. Almost like sobbing. This faded into soft breathing. Then there was a weighted thud, heavier than the first, and even the breathing faded.

I fidgeted, breath held close, hand gripping the sweaty hilt of the dagger. I’d let the dagger slip completely free without thinking. Had brought it to bear.

Butnooneemergedfromthedarkness.Notaftertwentyshortenedbreaths.

Not after fifty.

And the icy Fire in my chest had died.

I relaxed, drew a steadying breath, then edged forward. A trickle of black water appeared, running through the alley’s center. I kept to the left wall, the bricks wet, left hand against the dampness, right hand holding the dagger.

Eleven paces farther on I found the basket turned on its side, potatoes littering the cobbles. The cloth that had covered them was already stained with filth.

Three steps farther, I found the woman’s body.

She lay crumpled to the ground, on her back, her feet bent beneath her thighs. One arm lay thrust out, the other close to her side. The kerchief covering her hair had been pushed askew and tangles of her hair lay matted to the stone. Her head lay in the trickle of scummy water, tilted slightly away.

I hunkered against the wall, scanned the darkness ahead, listening. But there was nothing but the sound of dripping water, the taste of damp growth.

I turned back to the woman, edged past her out-flung arm, and knelt.

A dark band of blood encircled her neck, cut into her flesh. Her eyes were open, staring up past me into the darkness of the alley. Her lips were parted.

She looked like she was asleep, except she wasn’t breathing and her eyes were open.

I looked at the line of blood across her neck again, leaned forward—

And saw a thin cord loop down in front of my face.

I brought the dagger up instantly, but not before the cord snapped tight across my neck, not before I heard a guttural, masculine grunt as a man crossed the cord behind my neck and jerked it tight. The cord caught the dagger on its flat side and yanked it flat against my neck.

Then the man leaned upward and back, pressed his knee hard into my spine and pushed.

My body arched outward, the cord drawing tighter across my neck. My head fell back against the man’s shoulder so that his bearded cheek rested against mine, his breath hot against my chest. It stank of ale and fish and oil.

“A little young and thin for my tastes,” he gasped, drawing the cord tighter with a jerk, “but I’ll takes what gifts the Mistress gives me, eh?”

The icy pressure flared again in my chest, at the base of my throat, spreading like frost. I tasted the air from the night of the Fire three years before, felt the Fire itself burning cold deep inside me. I sucked in a hard, painful breath of air in shock.

And then my breath was cut off.

I threw myself forward, felt the cord dig deeper, felt a trickle of blood flow as the cord sawed into my skin. The man’s gasps ground in my ear and I jerked to the side, felt the cord cut deeper still. And then the grayness of the world focused even more, focused down and down until the only thing I could feel was the cord, the hot fire of not being able to breathe beginning to burn in my chest—

The cold metal of the dagger pressed tight against my neck. I still held its handle in my right hand, held it in a death grip.

As the fire in my chest seethed outward, sending tingling sensations of warmth into my arms, down deep into my gut, I twisted the dagger. Its edge bit into my skin, drew a vertical slice from the back of my jaw downward to my collarbone that stung like a sharp needle prick. I twisted, pushing the dagger outward as the man grunted in my ear, his breath a hissing stench, spit flying from his clamped teeth onto my neck. My focus on the world began to slip, the grayness seeping forward, narrowing to a hollow circle, to a point. Tingling hot fire filled my gut, seeped downward into my legs, into my thighs. A thousand needle pricks coursed toward my knees, through my shoulders and into my arms. The cord cinched tighter. My chest heaved, spasmed—

And then the dagger sliced through the cord.

The man grunted with surprise as his hands jerked wide. The knee pressed into my spine thrust me forward, sent me sprawling onto the dead woman. The man fell backward into the rank alley wall.

Mygaspforairwaslikeawarm,shudderingscream.

I lurched over the woman, stepped on her arm, felt it roll beneath me, but the motions felt soft and drawn out. As I fell to my side, I twisted, turned so thatIlandedfacingtheman.

He’d already thrust himself away from the wall, was already looming over me,descending,hisfaceagrimaceofhatred.Hishandsreachedforme,thecord still twined around his fingers, its cut ends dangling as he reached for my neck.

I brought the dagger up from my side without thinking. The world was still toogray,toonarrowforthought.

The dagger caught him in the chest. I felt it punch through skin, felt it grind against bone as it sank deeper, deeper, until it was brought up short by the handle. Then the man’s weight drove the handle into my chest.

I had a moment to see a startled look flash through the man’s eyes, a moment to feel his hands encircling my throat loosely, and then the pain of the dagger’s handle drove the breath from my lungs. I lurched forward, threw the man to the side, and rolled to my hands and knees, coughing like a diseased cat. Pain radiated from the center of my chest. Not the fiery pain of no air, nor the cold pain of the warning Fire, but the dull pain of being punched too hard, too fast.

I coughed a moment more, then vomited.

I was still hunched over, on hands and knees, bile like a sickness in my torn throat, when someone said, “Impressive.”

I jerked away from the voice, a tendril of spit and bile that dangled from my mouth plastering itself to my chin as I moved. I came up short against the alley wall with a thud, body tucked in so I was as small a target as possible. A bright flare of pain radiated from my bruised ribs. My hand went reflexively for my dagger, but it was still embedded in the man’s chest.

My heart lurched and I cowered lower, head bowed, arms wrapped around my knees. I was trembling too much to do anything more, too weak from the struggle with the man to run. So I cowered, eyes closed, hoping the voice would go away.

After a moment I realized I hadn’t heard retreating footsteps. I hadn’t heard anything at all.

I opened my eyes, aware of the wetness of tears on my face, and tilted my head, staring out into the alley through the matted tangles of my hair.

A guardsman leaned against the alley wall twenty paces away, the bodies of the man and the woman between us. It was the same guardsman I’d seen on the street before. His arms were crossed over his chest, his posture casual. He wore the standard uniform—breeches, leather boots, brown shirt, leather armor underneath—but no sword belted at his waist. A dagger lay tucked in his belt instead. The Skewed Throne symbol was stitched in red thread on the left side of the shirt.

Red. A Seeker. A guardsman sent to mete out the Mistress’ punishments, to pass judgment. Not one of the regular guardsmen; the stitching would have beengoldinstead.

Anewfearcrawledintomystomach.

He’d seen me kill a man, had witnessed it.

He watched me with a strange look in his eyes. A confused look that pinched the skin between his brows and tightened the corners of his mouth.

After a moment, his gaze shifted from me to the body of the man.

“Very impressive,” he said again, then pushed himself away from the wall.

I flinched back, my shoulders scraping against the moldy dampness of the alley’s mud-brick, my breath hitching in my throat. I tasted bile again, felt freshtears squeeze through pain-clenched eyes.

I heard the guardsman halt.

“Ididn’t come for you,” he said, his voice brusque but soothing. Reassuring.

I opened my eyes to narrow slits, just enough to see him, to watch.

He moved toward the dead man, knelt on his heels near the man’s head.

For a long moment, he simply stared at the man’s face, at the small trickle of blood that had leaked from the corner of the mouth. Then he spat to one side, his face twisted with contempt. “Vicious bastard. You deserved worse than this.”

He jerked my dagger free from the man’s chest and in a strangely fluid motion made three quick slashes across the man’s forehead. He stared at his handiwork a moment more, then turned on the balls of his feet until he was facing me, elbows on his knees, my dagger dangling loosely from one hand.

I watched the dagger carefully, aware of his intent look. I hadn’t realized how important the dagger had become to me over the last three years. I felt exposedwithoutit,helpless.

Iwantedmydaggerback.Neededit.

The guardsman began swinging the blade back and forth, taunting me, and my gaze shifted back to his eyes. This close, I could see they were a muddy brown, like mine, like most of the people who lived in Amenkor, on the Dredge. There were scars on his face, lots of scars. Scars that ran up into his thinning, gray-brown hair. They made him seem hard, like worn mud-brick bleached by the sun.

“And you,” he murmured, the confused look returning. “You don’t seem dangerous at all. You’re what? Ten?” He leaned slightly forward, eyes narrowing, then shook his head. “Older than that, although you could fool almost anyone. Thirteen at least, maybe more. And you don’t talk much.”

Hepaused,waiting.Thedaggerstilled.

“Maybe you don’t talk at all,” he said finally, dagger back in motion, the actioncareless,asifhedidn’tcare.

I narrowed my eyes. “I talk.”

The words came out harsh and gravelly, like brick grating against brick, and they hurt—in my chest, in my throat. I wiped the thread of spit and bile from my chin and coughed against the burning sensation. Even the coughs hurt. Hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt before.

The guardsman hesitated, then nodded, the barest hint of a smile playing attheedgesofhismouth.

“So I see. You just don’t talk much, do you?”

I didn’t answer, and his smile grew.

He turned his attention to my dagger, still swinging between the fingers of one hand. With a smooth gesture, he swung it upright in his grip, then stared at me over its tip. All traces of the smile were gone, his eyes flatly serious, expression hard.

“This is your dagger, isn’t it?” All hints of the reassuring, casual voice had disappeared. This voice was hurtful, threatening.

I cringed back. “Yes.”

He didn’t react, eyes still hard, intent. “It’s a guardsman’s dagger.”

My eyes flicked to the dagger tucked in his belt, then back. I felt my stomach clench and tensed, even though it hurt. In my head, I saw the first man I’d killed leaning against the second story of the rooftop, hand outstretched, grasping for me, saw the blood coating his neck, heard the wet rasp of his last short breaths. And I saw the ripped-out gold stitching of the Skewed Throne on the leftbreastofhisshirt.

For the first time since the night of the Fire, the thought of the first man I’d killed didn’t frighten me. Instead, defiant anger seethed just beneath the pain.

I glared at the Seeker. “Yes. But now it’s mine.”

He frowned. He wanted to ask how I’d gotten it, where it came from. I could see it in his eyes.

Buthesimplyshrugged.“What’syoursisyours.”

He tossed the dagger low across the ground, metal clanging on stone as it struck the wet cobbles and slid to a halt just in front of me.

Ireachedoutslowlyandpickeditup,unbelieving,thebloodonthehandle still tacky, my eyes on the guardsman the entire time. He didn’t move, just watched. But something had changed. There was a new, considering look in his eyes, as if he were judging me, coming to a decision.

I pulled the dagger in close to my body, kept it ready.

After a long, drawn-out moment, he stood. “I bet you know the warren beyondtheDredgelikeIknowthescarsonmyownskin,”hemurmuredto himself.Andthenhetiltedhishead.

I shifted under his gaze, suddenly aware of the darkness of the alley, of the seclusion and the smooth fluidity of his movements.

“Go away,” I said, pulling in tight, ready to flee.

He smiled, a slow, careful smile, as if my wary stance had convinced him of something.

Instead of turning to leave, he crossed his arms again and said, “I could use yourhelp.”

“Go away,” I repeated with more force, even though the suggestion piqued interestdeepinsideme.

“Youcanleaveifyouwant,”hesaid,buthedidn’tmovehimself,simply stood, waiting. It was like the dagger again. He was dangling escape in front of me, letting it swing back and forth, taunting me.

I glanced toward the potatoes scattered across the cobbles, barely visible in the light. Hunger twisted in my gut.

The guardsman shifted and I tore my gaze back to where he stood. He hadn’t moved forward, only shifted his weight, his eyes on me. “Everyone runsto the slums of the Dredge, you know. Almost everyone. Murderers, thieves, brawlers. Merchants who’ve lost their businesses, gamblers who’ve gambled away their lives. A few run to the sea, to the ships in the harbor and the cities they can take them to elsewhere on the coast, but not many. They come here. They think they can hide here. That among all this crowded filth, these warrens of alleys and houses and narrow courtyards, they can somehow disappear.”

He paused, still staring at me. Then he frowned, and his voice darkened. “And they’re right. Five years ago, before the Fire, they wouldn’t have had a chance. The Seekers would have found them, if we were sent after them by the Mistress. The Skewed Throne would have found them. But now…”

His gaze dropped to the dead man in the middle of the alley, his eyes flickering with a black hatred, and I shrank back until my shoulders pressed against thecollapsingwall.

“Now the Dredge is more crowded. All the merchants hit hard by the panic after the Fire are drifting here. All of their families. They’re desperate. And they have nowhere else to go. You must have noticed how crowded the Dredge has become, little varis.” He paused, glanced up, then nodded his head. “Yes. You’ve noticed. You live off of it, don’t you?”

The question struck like a physical blow, harsh enough to make me wince.

I narrowed my eyes at him, jaw set, and said, “Yes.” It came out bitter and hopeless.

Henoddedagain.“YouknowtheDredgeanditsunderbelly.Youlivehere. You can help me find these men that run.”

He paused, still watching me, letting the offer sink in. After a moment he pushed away from the wall and walked toward me, knelt a few steps away, so close I could see his scars clearly, could see his eyes.

I cringed back from him, from the heated danger that bled from him, that set all the warning senses I’d honed on the Dredge on edge except for one, the one I trusted the most: the cold Fire in my chest. That Fire remained dormant, and because of that I stayed instead of fleeing to the street, or in the other direction, deeper into the warren of dark paths beyond the Dredge.

“Do you know where Cobbler’s Fountain is?” he asked.

I nodded. I hadn’t been to Cobbler’s Fountain in years. It was too far up the Dredge, too close to the River and the city, to the real Amenkor. I’d be noticed there, my rags and dirty hair. It wasn’t good hunting ground.

“Good,” he said, sitting back slightly. “I can help you, and you can help me. Think about it. If you want to help find these men for the Mistress, come to Cobbler’s Fountain tomorrow, at dusk. I’ll be there.”

Then he stood, turned, and strode from the alley, pausing at its edge to adjust to the sunlight before entering the crowd. He didn’t look back.

I waited for ten heartbeats, wary, then rose from my crouch, wincing as I drew in a deep breath. I approached the two bodies slowly, every movement sending dull pain across my chest and into my arms, still watching the far entrance to the alley, still uncertain the guardsman had left. A stinging fire burned in a circle around my neck where the dead man’s cord had cut into flesh, and a thinner line of fire ran from the back of my jaw down my throat from where I’d pressedmyowndaggerintomynecktocutthecord,butthepaininmychest . . . I coughed again, hissed through clenched teeth as I knelt beside the man.

His face was strangely slack, his eyes open. Blood had filled his mouth, had leaked from one corner and matted in his beard. The guardsman had carved the Skewed Throne into his forehead, the cuts raw, with only a trace of blood. A single horizontal slash across the top, two slanted vertical slashes beneath, one shorter than the other. The man had been dead too long for them to bleed much.

I leaned over his face, breathed in his sour smell—piss and blood and sweat and something deeper, something rancid, like rotten butter. I stared into his vacant eyes, frowned as I brought one hand up to the scored line encircling my neck. There was no frigid flare of Fire in my chest now. No reaction at all. The dangerhadpassed.

But as I stared into his eyes I felt again the coarseness of his beard on my cheek, heard his ragged, desperate gasps. I smelled his breath.

Anger grew, deep in my chest, a hard lump beneath the dull pain. An angerI recognized. I’d felt it many times during my life on the Dredge—for the wagon master who’d kicked me, for the nameless gutterscum who’d slid into my niche and stolen my bread. A hatred that was there and then gone. Fleeting.

But this time the anger, the hatred, wasn’t fleeting. It was solid. And the longer I looked at the dead man’s face, the harder it became. It began to take form,shiftingandslithering.

I leaned closer, breathed in the rancid musk of the dead man even deeper.

AndthenIspatintohisface.

I leaned back, startled, my spittle running down the man’s skin beneath one dead eye. I was strangely . . . thrilled, arms tingling as if with numbness, with cold. But I wasn’t cold. A hot flush covered me instead, lay against my skin like sweat.

I turned to the woman, a pang of regret coursing beneath the heated, sickening exhilaration. Then I crawled to the spilled potatoes, the dropped basket, andcollected it all together, as quickly as possible.

I fled toward the back of the alley, away from the Dredge, trying not to think about the dead man, the woman, or the guard.

I focused on the pain in my chest instead. And beneath that, the still lingering anger, coiled now, like a snake.

Chapter 2

I woke in my niche deep in the slums beyond the Dredge to vivid sunlight outside, my chest bruised a livid purple-black. I moaned as I rolled into a sitting position, lifted up my ragged shirt, and examined the bruising. Every breath drew a wince, every motion a twinge, yet I prodded the edges of the bruiseanyway.

I sat and stared at the basket of potatoes and thought about the round face of the woman the man had killed. The pang of regret returned, but I shoved it aside in annoyance and focused on the guardsman, on the offer to help him.

I frowned and pulled out my dagger, stared at the band of sunlight caught ontheflatofitsblade.

I didn’t need the guardsman. I’d survived without him since I was nine. I’d survived without anyone since Dove and his gutterscum thugs went after that woman and I refused to follow.

Ifrowned.Ihadn’tthoughtofDovesincethatnight,triednottofeelthe ghost of the throbbing bruise on my cheek where he’d punched me after I’d told him I wouldn’t help him catch the woman. I’d known he wasn’t going to simply rob her. He meant to kill her. I’d seen it in his eyes.

I scowled. I’d decided then that Dove had served his purpose. He’d taught me enough so that I could survive on my own.

I hadn’t needed anyone else then and I didn’t need anyone else now.

I hesitated. Except, of course, the white-dusty man. I needed him, relied on him occasionally. But that was different.

So I rose with a grimace of pain and crawled out into the sunlight through my niche’s narrow opening, the guardsman and his offer pushed aside. The potatoes wouldn’t last forever. I needed to hunt.

The Dredge is the only real street in the slums of Amenkor, running straight from its depths, across the River, and into the real city on the other side of the harbor. The Dredge is where those from the city proper mingled with those that lived beyond the Dredge, those that lived deeper, like me—the gutterscum. At fourteen, the Dredge was the edge of my world. I’d never stepped beyond it, never walked down its broken cobbles, past its taverns and shops, across the bridge over the River and into the city of Amenkor itself. The Dredge on this side of the River was Amenkor for me. I preyed upon its people, on the crowds of men and women who had somehow fallen on hard times and had been forced to abandon the real city and retreat across the harbor.

And the Seeker had been right. Since the passage of the Fire three years before, the number of people in the slums had increased. Not just people from the city proper either, but others as well, people not from Amenkor at all. People who wore strange clothing, who had different-colored hair or eyes, who carried strange weapons and spoke in accentsor didn’t speak the commonlanguage at all.

But those people were rare.

I peered out from the darkness of the slums now, huddled low, mud-brick pressed into my back. On the street, men and women moved back and forth. I watched each of them as they arrived, caught their faces, scanned their clothing. That man wore tattered rags but carried a dagger at his belt. Yet there was no danger in his eyes. Hard, but not cruel. He carried nothing else, and so he faded from my mind, nothing but a darker blur against the dull gray of the world. Unconsciously, I kept track of him—of all the people—but he’d ceased to be interesting. Not a target; not a threat. Gray.

A flash of fine clothing and my eyes shifted. Not truly fine clothing—frayed edging, a tear down one side of the gray shirt, breeches stained, oily—but better than most. He wore boots, one sole loose at the heel, the nails visible when he walked. He also carried a dagger, hidden, his hand resting over the bulge of its sheath at his side. He walked quickly, tense, and his eyes . . .

But he turned before I could catch his eyes, his torn shirt and loose sole vanishing through a doorway.

Hefaded.

Gray.

I settled into position next to the wall, wincing once over the bruise on my chest, and let the flow of the street wash around me. When the pain had receded, I focused on the street, squinted in concentration, and felt a familiar sensationdeepinside.

With a subtle, internal movement, like relaxing a muscle, the sensation rushedforward.

The world collapsed, slowed, blurred. Buildings and people faded, grayed. Those men and women I’d determined to be possible threats slid into washes of red against the background gray, like smears of blood, moving through the flow of the street. Occasionally, I’d concentrate on one person and they’d emerge from the gray, sharp and clear, so I could watch them, consider them. Casual glances would draw others out of the gray, their actions entering the field momentarily, and then I’d lose interest, determine they carried nothing I could eat, nothing I wanted, and the people would return to gray.

The sound of the street blurred as well, voices and footfalls and rustling clothes all merging into a single sound like a gentle wind rustling in my ears. Threatening noises slid out of the sound, catching my attention, until I’d made certain there was no danger. Then they faded back into the wind.

I submerged myself in the world of gray and red and wind with a sigh, a world that had helped me survive all these years alone, and searched for my next mark.

An hour before dusk, I leaned back against the alley wall, an apple in one hand. The woman hadn’t even noticed the apple was missing. She’d set it down on the edge of the cart to pick up the sack she’d dropped. All I had to do was reach out and take it. It wasn’t much, not after an entire day’s work. But the pain in my chest had kept me from trying for anything more difficult, and I still had thepotatoesbackatmyniche.

I’d just turned away, ready to return to my niche, when I thought I saw the guardsman.

It was a subtle movement, thirty paces farther down the Dredge. As if he had pushed himself away from where he was leaning against the corner of a building, turned, and rounded the corner. All I saw for certain was the vague shape of a man’s back vanishing behind the mud-brick, into the darkness of the narrow.

A casual movement, but one that sent a prickle down the backs of my arms. Ihesitated,watchedthenarrowfartherdowntheDredge.Whennoone reappeared aroundthecorner,Ifinallyturnedandmovedbackintothewarren beyond the street, letting the world of gray and red and wind slip away, shrugging thoughts of the guardsman aside.

But something had changed.

As I made my way back toward my niche, I stared down at the apple and frowned. It was a good apple. Hardly any scabs, mostly ripe, a small gouge in one side that had browned and begun to spoil, but still a good apple. I should be running back to my niche in triumph, should be huddled against its back wall, body crouched protectively around the apple as I devoured it.

But I didn’t feel any triumph. I didn’t feel anything at all. My stomach was strangely hollow. Not with hunger either. With just…nothing.

I slowed to a halt in the middle of a dark narrow. It was still light out—sun glowed bright ahead—but here there was only a dense darkness, like a smothering cloth. I halted in the darkness and simply stared at the apple. An entire day’swork.

The hollowness had started after I’d killed the man, after I’d spoken to the guardsman.

No. The hollowness had always been there. I’d always just ignored it.

But now . . .

I was still staring at the apple when someone said, “Give it to me.”

The voice was harsh with violence, a dry, rumbling croak, but I didn’t jump. I squinted into the darkness and picked out a figure sagging against one wall. It took me a moment to realize it was a woman, sitting back on her haunches, body piled high with rags. Her hair hung in matted chunks about her face, her skin so wrinkled and ground with dirt it appeared as cracked and dry as mud. Her eyes were tainted a sickly yellow, but were alive and fixed on me.

Ontheapple.

“Give methe apple,bitch.”

I’d seen her before, always huddled in a niche, an alcove, always in darkness. A heaving mound of rags that shuffled from one location to the next. I knew her.

But now, as I looked into the yellowish taint of her eyes, into the blackness at their center, I actually saw her. And the hollowness in my stomach took suddenandvividform.

I recognized those eyes.

Theyweremine.

I ran, bolted from the narrow into the sunlight with the woman I would become screeching, “Give it to me! Give it to me, you bitch!” behind me. I ran back to my niche and huddled against its back wall and cried. Harsh, bitter tears that only made the hollowness inside me swell larger. I cried until my arms and legs ached and grew numb, until the sobs faded into hitching coughs. I watched the sunlight through the niche’s narrow opening and tried to think of nothing at all, ended up thinking of Dove, of the five years since I’d been on my own, of the woman with the potatoes lying dead in the alley, strangled by the man I’d killed. Tremors ran through my arms, shuddered through my shoulders. Every now and then tears burned in my eyes for no reason and I’d squeeze them tight, the dark, hollow, twisted sensation burning in my chest. I’d pull in on myself, hold myself hard, until the burning receded, until my chest loosened.

Until finally the light outside began to fade and I realized what I needed to do.

I avoided the dark alley where the rag woman had been, skirted it by four narrows. The depths beyond the Dredge seemed somehow darker, dirtier. A boy no more than seven pawed his way through a heap of refuse outside a recessed doorway, buried so deep I wouldn’t have noticed him if the heap hadn’t suddenly heaved upward. He stumbled from it, sludge streaking his face, his legs, his arms. He held a twisted spoon in one hand like a knife, sank to one knee with a snarl like a dog when he saw me, then bolted for the shadows.

The carcass of a rat dangled from one of the boy’s hands. It swung wildly as he ran.

Thatwasme,diggingthroughthegarbage,snarling.

My chest tightened again, but I shoved the sensation back, began moving faster. The light was beginning to gray into dusk. There wasn’t much time.

I slid up the Dredge, keeping to the walls, to the alleys. I watched the people as I moved, suddenly conscious of my clothes . . . no, not clothes. The farther I moved, the more it became obvious I wore nothing but dirt and slime, the Dredge draped over my bones like lichen. I felt myself shrinking and I drew in upon myself, twice halted to turn back—once when a woman stared at me with blatant shock and disgust, and once when a boy spat at my feet, laughing loudly whenIjerkedbackinacower.

He might not have laughed so loudly if he’d known my hand was on a daggerbeneathmyrags.

I pushed on, until I crouched in the darkness of a narrow that looked out on the fountain, at the crumbling stone of a woman, one arm raised to hold an urn on her shoulder. Her other arm had once been poised on her hip, but it had been broken off years before so that only a jagged piece jutted out from her shoulder, and only the tips of her fingers remained at her waist. Water had spilled from the urn into the surrounding pool, but now the pool was empty except for dark patches of mold, the mouth of the urn stained with water residue.

I settled back against the narrow’s wall. I’d been here before, when I was younger, many times. But the memories were vague, blurred with sunlight. The light glinted off the water in the basin, sparkled with childish laughter. Closing my eyes, I could feel the water from the urn spilling down into my hair, could taste its coolness as it washed down into my mouth. But everything was too bright,tooblurred.

I felt a woman’s hands touch my shoulders, reach beneath my arms to bring meupoutofthewater—

“I never expected to see you here.”

I opened my eyes and stared up into the Seeker’s face, half seen in the dusk. He’d spoken gently, and now frowned as he looked down at me.

“Isanythingwrong?”

I wiped at the tears. “No.”

His frown deepened, as if he didn’t believe me. His stance shifted and the cold, hard danger that edged his eyes softened.

For a moment, I thought he’d reach out and touch me, touch my face. I felt myself cringe back, hand on my dagger, even as something deep inside tried to leanforward.Andhedidreachout....

A small sack dangled from his outstretched hand.

“Take it,” he said when I hesitated.

My dagger clutched hidden against my side, I reached out and took the sack, stifling a surge of disappointment. The sack was heavy, bulged with strange shapes.

I opened it. There were oranges inside. Good oranges—skins firm, unblemished. And a chunk of bread. And cheese.

My eyes teared up, burned so fiercely I had to squeeze them tight. And my stomach seized.

I thought of the rag woman, of the boy with the sharpened spoon and dead rat,andaskedhoarsely,“Whatdoyouwantmetodo?”

The guardsman sank down into a crouch before me, the sky dark behind him. “I’m looking for a man, black hair cut down to here, about this tall. His faceisthinand sharp,like…like ahawk.Andhis eyesaredarkand sharp,too. Hecarries a knife with a hilt shaped like a bow, sort of bent backward so it curves slightly around the wielder’s hand. Just watch for him. If you see him, follow him. See where he goes, where he hides out. Then come find me. I’ll be here at dusk every day.”

“Everyday?”Ireachedintothesack,grabbedachunkofbreadand crammeditintomymouth.

The guardsman hesitated, as if still uncertain about what he proposed. His eyes were squinted, even in the moonlight. Then he shook himself. “If I’m not here, one of the other Seekers will be here…another guardsman like me. Tellhim to give a message to Erick. They’ll know who I am.”

I nodded, mostly focused on the food. The bread was gone, and not much remained of the cheese. I was saving the oranges. They were rare. I’d only seen them once or twice on the Dredge, and even then they’d been half spoiled.

“What’s your name?”

I froze, eyes wide, mouth clamped shut. I breathed in raggedly through my nose, and my heart thudded in my chest. The taste of cheese burned against my tongue.

After a moment, I swallowed, the cheese going down like a large stone. I coughed against the pain, then coughed harder against the pain the coughing awokeinmychest.

Erick watched me carefully. “Do you even have a name?”

I had a name, but no one had used it in over eight years, not since my mother had died. No one had cared. Not the woman who’d taken me in at age six; not the street gang led by Dove that I’d eventually fled to after that. No one. I dropped my head, stared down into the open mouth of the sack, into the darkness where the oranges rested. A stinging sense of shame and something else coursed through me, burned against my skin. The same something that had leaned forward when Erick reached out with the sack of oranges, that had withdrawn in disappointment. Erick couldn’t see it. Not in the darkness. Notbehind the fall of my hair.

He sat back on his heels. “It doesn’t matter, little varis.” He paused, and when he spoke again I could hear humor in his voice. “Varis. Do you know whatthatmeans?”

I shook my head, still not looking up.

“It means hunter.” He chuckled softly to himself. “I think that’s fitting, don’t you, Varis?”

I lifted my head, just enough so that I could see him, then nodded.

Hesmiled.“Good.”

Then he rose and walked down the narrow. Not fast, but steady.

I watched until he slipped into the shadows, then gripped the mouth of the sackoforangestight.

Varis. Hunter.

Ibegantosob.

I had a name. Again.

* * *

The flow of the street had changed the following day. Not because it was different, but because I was different. I wasn’t looking for a loose bundle, a momentarily forgotten basket, a stray piece of bread. Now I watched the people’s faces. Leaning against a narrow’s wall, half in shade, moving as the sun rose so that I stayed in the shadows, I scanned everyone, looking at the eyes, at the hair, at the nose. Scars and blemishes, jowls and scabs—they all took on newmeanings.

By midday—the sun so high there were no longer shadows—my stomach growled and I realized I’d spent the entire morning looking for the man Erick had asked me to find, the hawk-faced man. The initial excitement had ebbed, and with a strange sense of disappointment, I began to focus on bundles.

I slid into old patterns as smoothly as the sunlight slid into dusk.

The next day was the same. And the next.

By the end of the fourth day, I no longer searched for the hawk-faced man. The oranges were gone, and the potatoes. I hadn’t seen the guardsman on the Dredge at all, didn’t dare return to the fountain to ask for more food.

I saw the hawk-faced man ten days later.

Clouds drifted across the sky, casting the Dredge into gray shade every now andthen as they passed over the sun. I stood at the mouth of an alley, eyes narrowed at the woman across the street. She was haggling with a man pulling a handcart. The cart was loaded with cabbages.

The woman had set her bag on the ground.

I glanced around the Dredge. It was crowded, the weather mild for midsummer. People were moving swiftly. Most were smiling.

I had just pushed away from the wall toward the woman and the cart handler when a strange movement made me pause. It was subtle, like the change in light when a cloud passed, but it didn’t fit the rhythm of the street.

I frowned and let the world slip into gray and wind. A moment later, I caught the movement again, closer, and then I saw the wash of red among the gray.

It slid into focus almost immediately. A boy-not-yet-man.

I scowled, growled like a dog sensing another dog on his own territory as I shifted into a better position. My hand touched my dagger briefly. I’d seen this boy-not-yet-man for the first time right after the Fire, had seen him many times since; too many times. Lanky brown hair, wicked eyes, thin mouth. A birthmark shaped like a smear of blood at the corner of one eye marred his smooth, sun-darkened face. Clothes like mine—matted, torn, and stained with the Dredge.

Gutterscum, just like me. Competition.

And he’d targeted the woman yelling at the cart handler. My mark.

I felt a surge of resentment, bitter, like ash, felt the hairs at the nape of my neck stiffen.

Without thought, I pushed forward through the crowd, focused on the woman and the cart handler. As I moved, I felt the anger tighten in my chest, tingling in my arms, and I narrowed the focus even further. The woman raised one arm, pointing toward the sky as she yelled. Her other arm clutched the ends of the shawl draped around her head. The cart handler shook his head, both hands still firmly gripping the handles of his cart.

He’d just drawn in a deep breath when my focus suddenly…altered.

It was like standing neck-deep in the River that ran through Amenkor to the south, near the palace—sunlight harsh on the water, noise from the shops and streets along the banks strangely heightened as they hit the waves, somehow sharper, clearer. It was like standing there, neck-deep—

And then ducking beneath the surface, into darkness.

I felt myself slide from the world of gray and red and wind I was used to into something else, something deeper. The gray darkened. Eddies of movement I’d barely noticed before smoothed out into nothing but shadowed blackness. The background wind died out completely, only the sounds of the woman and the cart handler and the boy intruding. And these sounds were crisper. Movementsgrewtaut,andslowedsubtly.

I glanced toward the boy, toward the woman, toward the bag at her feet, and with the new sense of awareness knew what would happen.

I didn’t hesitate. I swam through the crush of people on the street, brushing an unseen arm, a shoulder—both sensations transitory, like brushing against unseen weeds beneath the river’s surface—and then I was at the back of the wagonfullofcabbages.

The cart handler glanced toward me as I mimicked a lurch forward, as if I’d been jostled from behind. My hand slapped onto the edge of his cart to steady myself. He glanced toward it with a suspicious frown. The woman never looked inmydirectionatall.

Then I was past the cart, the woman’s sack clutched loosely in my other hand.

I slid into the nearest narrow, crouched down near its opening, sack resting at my feet, and turned to watch with a half suppressed grin. The anger had passed.

The boy was only ten steps from the woman and the cart when he finally noticed the sack was missing. He froze in the middle of the Dredge, so sharply someone stumbled into him from behind. His gaze jerked from side to side. His eyes narrowed viciously. His mouth tightened to a frown.

Then his eyes latched onto mine.

Igrinned.Icouldn’thelpit.

Somehow, his eyes narrowed more, became blacker, and I felt the elation inside me curdle and sour, the strange new focus shuddering away at the same moment,makingthesournessworse.Therealworldrushedforward,the sounds of the street loud. My grin faltered.

I gripped the sack and stood, turning to head deeper into the alley. I didn’t know what was in the sack, but I no longer wanted to wait on the Dredge to find out either.

I’d reached the deepness of the alley, the sourness twisting into nausea, when someone grabbed my arm and spun me around.

I reacted on instinct, my dagger out and ready before I realized it was the boy-not-yet-man.Exceptthisclose,withhisowndaggerdrawn,heseemed much less boy and more man. We’d never been this close, never spoken except through scowls and heated looks.

He reminded me of Dove.

He stepped back, his breathing hard, anger harsh in his eyes. The red birthmark at his eye appeared black in the light from the mouth of the alley. He said nothing, only glared. After a long moment I drew in a deep breath to steady my shuddering heart and said shortly, “What do you want?”

“I want my sack.”

I snorted, felt the strange nausea deepen. I tasted bile at the back of my throat, felt a cramp shudder through my stomach. I grimaced. “It isn’t yours,” Isaidthroughthepain.

“But it will be,” he said harshly. He didn’t get to continue. I gasped at another cramp, dropped the sack as I hunched over my stomach and sagged convulsively to my knees. The boy jerked back, wary and confused, then lurched forward to retrieve the sack as I collapsed to my side, my knees pulled in tight. The bile was like fire, scorching my throat, and the pain in my stomach radiated through my chest, alternately hot and cold. I sensed the boy leaning over me, felthisbreathagainstmyfaceashespatinawhisper,“Don’tmesswithme, bitch,” and then he was gone.

I saw a retreating shadow and forced myself to concentrate. “My name is Varis,” I murmured to myself as the sunlight at the end of the alley came into view, a white blur interrupted briefly by the boy’s form.

I was still focusing hard on the light, the strange pain just beginning to fade, when I saw the hawk-faced man. He walked across the mouth of the alley without glancing inside, there and then gone. I might never have noticed, except I was concentrating so hard on remaining conscious. In case the boy decided to come back. Or in case something worse came along.

I lay stunned for a moment. Long enough for the sunlight at the mouth of the alley to fade as a cloud began to pass.

Then I rolled onto my knees. A wave of reawakened nausea poured through me and I dry-vomited, nothing but a sour taste flooding my mouth. When it passed, I staggered to my feet, using the wall for support, and made my way to themouthofthealley.

I didn’t expect to see him. I’d taken too long getting to the street. But he’d halted about twenty paces away, back toward me. I watched as he scanned the Dredge, as if searching for someone. Then he turned and I saw his face clearly.

He fit the guardsman’s description of the hawk-faced man. Black hair, dark eyes, thin face, sharp nose. I couldn’t see a knife, but I knew it was him.

He scanned the Dredge one more time, eyes narrowed, then moved into the alley farther up.

I shoved away from the wall to follow, but another spasm of pain hunched me over on the edge of the Dredge, heaving again. The people on the street flowed around me, leaving a wide space, as if I were diseased. I leaned against the near wall until the spasm passed, then stood.