A Throne for Sisters. Морган Райс

what she intended to do, but as the figure who’d grabbed her spun Kate back toward him, she recognized the truth: it was one of the boys from the orphanage.

      She squirmed to get away, and he hit her, hard, catching her in the stomach. Kate fell down to her knees, and she saw two other boys coming up fast.

      “They sent us out after you when you got away,” the oldest of them said. “Said that girls went for more than boys, and that they could send hunters for all of us if necessary.”

      He sounded bitter about that, and Kate didn’t blame him. The House of the Unclaimed was an evil place, but it was also the only home the orphans there had.

      She did blame him for the next punch, which rocked her head back.

      “That’s for the beating you gave us with that poker of yours,” he said. “And this is for the beating the priests gave us after.”

      He punctuated it with slaps that rocked Kate where she knelt.

      “We’ve been out here more than a day now,” the oldest said. “I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I want to go back. I’m due to go into the army soon, and you’ll not ruin that for me. So I’m going to drag you back there, but not before you tell me where your bitch of a sister is.”

      Kate shook her head while he hit her again. She silently vowed vengeance for this moment, even though right then she couldn’t even stand, let alone do anything about it all. She rolled up her hatred, tucking it deep inside with her anger at the sisters who’d brought her up so cruelly, and at the world that had stolen her parents in the first place.

      Her hatred didn’t do anything to keep the blows away, though, or deflect the questions that punctuated them like arrows.

      “Where is your sister?” he demanded. “Where? She’s the one they’ll indenture for better coin.”

      “I don’t know,” Kate insisted. “I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

      She could see people walking past now. Some did it with fixed expressions, others glancing across then looking away as they decided that they didn’t want to get involved. Kate saw a young man wearing the apron of a carpenter’s apprentice walking past, and his thoughts flickered through her mind.

      I wish I could help, but they’re bigger than me, and maybe she deserves it, and what if —

      “If you want to help, help!” Kate yelled across to him.

      He turned in surprise, and actually started to step toward them out of sheer embarrassment.

      “Stay out of this,” the eldest of the boys snapped at him, but Kate didn’t need more than just that single moment of distraction.

      She kicked away from him like a swimmer pushing off from the shore, then scrambled to her feet and ran. Behind her, Kate heard the shouts of the boys following, but she ignored them and kept going, not even caring about the direction she took. She headed for the thickest parts of the crowd, thinking she could slip through while the others would be slowed, then took off down an alley at random, hoping to lose them.

      It didn’t work. Kate didn’t have to look around to know that. She could feel their thoughts on her, honed to a sharp edge the way a hunting dog’s might have been. The only promising sign was that one of Ashton’s evening mists was coming down, making it harder to see anything, let alone one fleeing girl.

      Kate ran down toward the river, on the basis that the mist was always thickest there when it came. Sure enough, it thickened into fog, so that Kate could barely see the length of the streets she ran down.

      She reached a crumbling set of docks, against which plenty of small boats were mooring up for the night. Others were risking the fog, rowing through it or putting up small sails while guided by the light of oil-burning lamps.

      Kate started to look around for somewhere to hide. She couldn’t run from the boys chasing from her forever, but maybe she could wait until they’d passed by. Already, she couldn’t see them in the fog; she could only hear them approaching. She headed out onto one of the crumbling piers used to moor the boats.

      She’ll hide on a boat. We need to search them.

      That thought sent fear running through Kate. She’d been so certain that this would work, but now… she couldn’t hide, she couldn’t turn back. What could she do?

      This way, a voice said in her mind, and this wasn’t like reading the thoughts of the boys. It was more like the moments when her sister contacted her. Jump to me.

      Kate turned and saw a barge going past, filled with the detritus of the city, lit by red and green lamps to show those approaching which way it was heading. A girl her age stood on the back, using a long wooden pole to guide it. As Kate watched, she lifted the pole from the water, holding it out.

      Kate stood there in shock for a moment or two. She’d always thought that she and Sophia were unique; that they were alone in the world in that sense as well as all the others. The thought that there might be someone who could send her thoughts across to Kate was enough to make her freeze, trying to make sense of it.

      What are you waiting for? Jump!

      Kate flung herself forward, and even in springtime, the water was enough to knock the breath from her. They hadn’t bothered teaching the girls to swim in the orphanage, so Kate spent a moment flailing before her hand closed around the pole the other girl was holding out.

      She was stronger than she looked, reeling Kate in with the pole the way someone else might have hauled in a fish. Kate gasped as she pulled her way onto the barge.

      “Here,” the girl said, holding out a blanket. “You look like you need it.”

      Kate took it, gratefully. While she wrapped it around herself, she looked at the other girl, who was small, blonde, and streaked with the dirt of the things she shepherded down the river. She wore a leather apron over a dress that had probably been blue once, although now it was closer to brown.

      “I’m Kate,” she managed.

      The other girl smiled. “Emeline. Quiet now. Whoever’s after you, they won’t see us in the mist.”

      Kate huddled down in the stern of the boat, watching the docks, or at least what she could see of them. They were quickly fading away behind a wall of fog as the barge kept moving.

      As they disappeared from view completely, Kate dared to breathe a sigh of relief. She’d done it.

      She’d escaped them.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      Sophia could hardly believe that she was inside the palace. Back at the House of the Unclaimed, it had seemed like a magical place; another world that the likes of her could only hope to set foot in if they found themselves indentured to the right nobles through some special skill.