A Throne for Sisters

She walked up to the bar of the inn, waiting for the attention of the innkeeper and taking out a couple of coins.

“I’d like a room for the night,” she said. It was hard to say even that much without breaking down into sobs.

The innkeeper shook his head firmly. “We don’t have any rooms left.”

“But – ”

“We don’t have any rooms left,” the man repeated, and this time, Sophia caught a hint of the thoughts behind it.

Coming in off the street with no baggage and sounding as though she’s from the slums. Does she think I don’t know a whore when I see one? If I have to throw her out face first, though, it won’t look good.

The thoughts of everyone else there told her that they were thinking more or less the same thing. To them there was no way she could be anything other than some rich man’s castoff.

Maybe that was even what she was, in a way.

“I’ll have to find somewhere else then,” Sophia said, trying to turn around with what she hoped was some shred of dignity. She made it to the door before the tears came back, and she stepped back out into the street, hoping that the growing darkness would hide from the world just how upset she was.

Every step hurt now, a sense of pointlessness and worthlessness cutting through everything Sophia did. She hadn’t been able to find a place in the palace. She hadn’t had the sense to go with her sister. She couldn’t even find an inn that would take her. She didn’t know what she was going to do next.

Sophia started to walk down toward the river, into the poorer parts of the city. She wasn’t sure then why she was doing it, whether it was to find a cheaper inn where they might not care what she seemed to be, to simply keep walking, or to throw herself into the river’s cold embrace. Right then, all three seemed equally likely, and Sophia wasn’t sure that she cared about the difference.

She kept going, down into the narrower streets where the houses crowded together and there wasn’t the same sense of the buildings being kept in good repair. She walked past figures in alleys without looking at them, and ignored a bawdy offer shouted at her from a doorway.

She was so hurt right then that she was numb to it all, the city turning into background noise to the crushing weight around her heart. Sophia took step after shuffling step, not caring about the sounds of Ashton as its nighttime denizens woke and came onto the streets.

Perhaps that numbness was why she didn’t hear the footsteps following behind her at first. It was certainly why she didn’t stretch out her talent to pick up the thoughts of those around her. She had enough problems with her own thoughts right then, without adding more men wondering if they could buy her for the evening, or thugs wondering whether they should fight someone.

It was only as she kept going that the truth came to her: someone was following her.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Kate rode away from the only happiness she’d ever been able to find, forcing herself not to cry. She rode faster than she had all day, ignoring the part where it was getting dark now and letting her horse simply run.

She had to run, because she was an outlaw now. She’d killed someone. She’d stolen this horse. Anyone hunting her would be trying to cut her throat or drag her to a gallows now, not bring her back to the House of the Unclaimed.

There had been the shouts of pursuit somewhere behind Kate when she first left. Those had faded into silence now, and Kate just had to hope that it wasn’t because they were taking their anger out on Will and his family. By leaving, she hoped that she’d made it look as though she was betraying them along with everyone else, and that trouble would follow her, not them.

She rode until it was too dark to keep going, and the road was just a difference in the reflection of the moonlight. Even her horse was shying away from continuing, pulling toward the side of the road as it slowed. Kate took the hint, pulling fifty paces from the road before tying her horse to the branches of a low shrub and pulling the saddle from its back.

She slept on the rough ground, cold because she couldn’t risk a fire, with the sword Thomas had given her set beside her on the ground in case someone came. She didn’t know what she would do with it if they did. Would she kill them, the way that she’d killed the boy who’d tried to take her back? Would she be able to drive them off if she didn’t?

Kate slept fitfully, unable to keep her eyes closed for long. Fears drifted together with nightmares, until she could barely tell which was which. Was she running from shadows in a house on fire, or were there actually people out there coming for her? Kate snapped awake a dozen times, sitting up with her breath coming fast, only to realize that the attackers coming at her were fragments of dreams.

It wasn’t until the sun came up that she saw her horse had pulled free of the bush where she’d tied it. It was gone, tracks leading away into the distance. Kate walked in a wide circle, trying to find it, but it was gone. Maybe it had run off to live wild. Maybe it had gone back to the owner she had stolen it from.

Either way, it meant that she had to walk. Kate took the saddle bags, her sword, and the few other possessions that she had and then set off on foot. She didn’t know if hunters would be coming after her now, but she went a different way from the hoof prints at first, keeping to stony ground where she wouldn’t leave footprints, simply to make sure that anyone trying to track her would go in the wrong direction. Only once she was well clear of the spot where she’d camped did Kate set off back in the direction of the forest.

She kept off the road while she walked, moving instead between the edges of fields and the small tracks that meandered alongside the real roads. It meant that there was less chance of her being seen by someone who might know what she’d done, but it also meant that the sun was high before Kate saw the trees growing closer. She was tired by then, and hungry; she’d only slaked her thirst by drinking rainwater collected in the hollow of a low stone.

Kate was glad that things were going better for her sister than for her. Maybe they were two sides of a scale, so that as things went downhill for Kate, Sophia’s life got better. Briefly, Kate thought of what might happen if she headed for the palace, asking Sophia for help. If she was that close to a prince, maybe she could secure some kind of pardon for Kate for all she’d done.

Kate laughed at that thought, continuing to head into the trees. If she showed up at the palace, they would turn her away at best, hang her at worst. There was only one direction she could go in now, and she was already going that way.

Kate headed into the trees, looking for the start of the stone staircase that led up to the fountain. Kate had considered every other possibility, but the truth was that there weren’t any real options. She’d destroyed all of that the moment her eating knife had slid under Zachariah’s ribs. Maybe she’d been heading for this from the moment she and Sophia had fled from the orphanage, caught by fate as surely as she would have been by any indenture.

Kate didn’t want to believe that, but she was still walking toward the spot where the fountain waited for her, and Siobhan with it.

At least, she assumed that she was. Here in the forest, it was hard to tell which way she was going. The trees crowded in around her, pushing Kate back and forcing her further off the path with every step. This wasn’t the way she’d come the first time she was here, and now the mud stuck to her boots, bogging her down while the branches scratched at her almost as if they were guarding the place.

Kate felt a flicker of amusement from up ahead. She straightened and listened. There came no sound, but that feeling had been unmistakable. The witch. She was here. Watching her. Taking pleasure in her suffering.

She was getting close.

Rain started to fall, hammering down through the trees and plastering Kate’s clothes to her skin.

“I know what you’re doing,” Kate called out. “Let me through, damn you!”

There came no answer.

Yet even so, her way seemed to ease.

Thorns still pricked at Kate, but they didn’t tangle and stop her. Mud still sucked at her feet, but it didn’t threaten to pull her boots away. The trees didn’t block the way now, but seemed to funnel her instead.

Finally, she found a small path that looked familiar. She’d been here yesterday; she was sure of it. She could see the crumbling stone of the first steps.

She looked up and braced herself.

And then, one step at a time, she started to climb.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Sophia glanced back over her shoulder, trying to catch sight of the people following her. Still, she saw nothing.

Inside, her fear built, forcing her onward. She turned down a side street and the footsteps still kept in time with hers, and she paid them more attention. They followed the rhythm of her own steps, speeding up as she did, falling more softly as she looked around for threats. There were too many thoughts around in the city to be certain about who was following her or why, but she felt certain that there were at least three sets of thoughts close behind her.

She walked faster, and the footsteps sped up with her.

She broke into a run. She chose directions at random, heading through the gathering dark without caring about where she was going. She pulled into a courtyard, ducking through a half-open door and trying to calm her breathing enough that it wouldn’t give her away. Carefully, so slowly that it was barely perceptible, Sophia closed the door the rest of the way. She wanted to leave no trace of her presence.

She stood there in the shadows, hoping that whoever was following would move on by, leaving her alone the moment she became too much trouble. That was the way predators worked in the city. They only hunted for what was easy, and left anything more difficult well alone. If she could stay quiet and out of sight, then they would move past her and look for another target somewhere else.

Then she caught a flicker of their thoughts and knew that wouldn’t work. She backed away from the entrance, looking around for a weapon, but there wasn’t anything, and in any case, Sophia wasn’t her sister. She didn’t have the ability to fight off attackers. She could talk to them, persuade them, run from them, but not fight them.

Sophia found herself looking for a way out, saw a stack of boxes on the far side of the courtyard, and started to climb. They didn’t reach all the way to the sloping tiles of the roof, but they got close enough. She’d clambered over the roofs of the city before; she could do it again. She felt the roughness of the wooden boxes under her hands as she forced herself up from box to box, trying to work out a route to the tiled roof above. When she heard the door to the courtyard open, Sophia tried to move faster.

She felt the boxes shift beneath her, and then, in an instant, Sophia was falling.

She felt the impact of the cobbles below slam through her as she struck the floor, and Sophia couldn’t even scream with the pain as the force of it knocked all the breath out of her. There were hands on her then, and Sophia thrashed around, trying to get free. It didn’t make any difference.