Blood and Betrayal (8 page)

“The machinations of the army are beyond me.”

Maldynado had a feeling he’d gotten as much information out of Lita as he would. As it was, she’d probably relay the details of the meeting to Mari, who might mention Maldynado’s appearance to Ravido. Maybe he should have kept walking and pretended not to see his cousin after all. Still, he might be able to find out more about these black artifacts from Mari. If he was brave enough to visit her. The last time they’d been alone in a room together, she’d tried to take his pants off, no matter that her husband had been in another part of the house.

“As long as she’s going to be in town, I’ll have to stop by and visit her,” Maldynado said.

“Do you know her well?”

“Not as well as she’d like,” Maldynado muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. Where’d you say she’d be staying?”

“Rabbit Island. The
Glacial Empress
stops there upon request, so that its warrior-caste clientele needn’t mingle with the commoners at the city docks.”

“Yes, of course.”

Maldynado exchanged a few parting words with Lita—and foisted a couple of the boutique’s business cards on her—before walking away, but he was already thinking of the ramifications of their meeting. With the luck he’d had lately, he might end up in more trouble than ever. Busy worrying over that possibility, he almost crashed into someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

Yara. After her dismissal, Maldynado had assumed she’d left town without him. He hoped she hadn’t been close enough to hear the conversation—he hadn’t been so oblivious to his surroundings that he wouldn’t have noticed her leaning against the wall behind Lita—but she might have caught a few words. And seen that black sphere.

“That was my cousin,” was all Maldynado said. “Ready to rejoin the others?”

Yara considered him through half-lidded eyes.

“Or—” Maldynado hefted the bags, “—did you want to try on your outfit first? It’s quite alluring. If you have curves under those bulky sweaters and unflattering enforcer uniforms, these garments will show them off.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes, yes, I am.” Maldynado smiled as they started walking, relieved that he seemed to have distracted her from whatever she’d been thinking about as she studied him. But they’d gone only a few dozen paces when she spoke again.

“Who’s Tia?”

Maldynado stumbled. If Yara had heard Lita mention Tia, then what else had she heard? He’d been planning to share some information with the emperor, but now he’d be forced to divulge every detail. Grandmother’s hairiest wart, his role as family snitch was assured. If they didn’t sculpt statues of men who walked behind others, he was even more certain tattletales didn’t earn them. He couldn’t keep himself from glowering at Yara.

“I didn’t know they taught eavesdropping tactics at the Enforcer Academy.” Maldynado straightened his bags and continued down the street toward the bridge.

“Corporal Lokdon has never eavesdropped on you?”

“She doesn’t need to. She always knows what I’m thinking whether I talk about it or not.”

“So she knows about this Tia and the details of the estrangement from your family?”

“No, she’s not as
nosey
as you.” Maldynado gave Yara a pointed look. In truth, Amaranthe was nosier than anyone he’d ever met, but she hadn’t dug into his history, at least not that he knew about.

“Perhaps, given your current predicament, you’d be wise to share everything you know with the emperor.”

“You think it’s within me to be wise?” Maldynado said it jokingly, but at the moment he had doubts himself.

“Less foolish might have been a better word choice.” For once, Yara’s face wasn’t hard or condemning. Maybe it was the soft light of the sunset, but she actually seemed… sympathetic.

Maldynado’s lady-wooing instincts kicked in, and he realized that he might win some sympathy from her if he shared his story. Almost as soon as she’d joined up with the team in Forkingrust, he’d been mulling over ways to get her into bed. Oh, she wasn’t the sweet, voluptuous sort he usually went for, but she was handsome enough in her own square-jawed, hard-eyed way, and challenges always enticed him, at least when it came to women. Much like taming a tiger, there was an exhilaration in winning over someone determined to ignore, or even loathe, him. He’d never used Tia’s story to win anyone over though, and he shied away from the idea. It would be disrespectful to her spirit. Besides, it wasn’t as if the story would guarantee him sympathy. His family had condemned him over it, and maybe Yara would too. He’d certainly never forgiven himself.

“I’ll keep your advice in mind,” Maldynado said.

“Was this Tia one of your lovers?” Yara asked as they continued to walk. “Was there some scandal that embarrassed the family?”

The fact that she was asking questions surprised Maldynado. So far, all she’d done was throw insults at him. Why change now? He searched her face, wishing he was as good at reading people’s thoughts as Amaranthe was. Yara seemed to be… looking for confirmation that he’d messed up his life because of some stupid affair. Maybe she’d have an easier time continuing to dismiss him that way. Why not? Most others did. He’d come to accept that, but the idea of someone thinking Tia had been some throwaway female roused his hackles.

“She was my little sister,” Maldynado said.

The base of the bridge had come into view, and he quickened his step, leaving Yara to trail behind. He’d shared as much as he cared to that day.

•  •  •

Amaranthe had expected a spacious cell, given the monstrous size of the aircraft—in her head, she had started calling it the
Behemoth
. Something stark, bleak, and black certainly, but roomy. Instead, Pike and his guards had taken her to an empty room with nothing but a surgeon’s operating table in the center and a bronze-and-iron crate on the floor, the sort of thing one might stick a dog in for traveling. A small dog.

Without anything so friendly as a, “Welcome to your new home” or “Step in please, ma’am,” the guards had forced Amaranthe into the crate, their strength and numbers defeating her attempts to fight the entombing. The inside lacked windows, grates, or even pinholes for light. What if she ran out of air? Her body tensed at the thought. In the cramped blackness, with her knees to her chest and her back, shoulders, and feet smashed against the walls, she couldn’t do anything to release that tension, that fear. Relax, she ordered herself, and inhaled deep breaths, trying to find calm. It worked—sort of—but she found a new emotion too: disgust. The scent of lye soap clinging to the interior failed to hide the underlying odor of urine and feces. Pike must not be the sort to let his captives out for latrine breaks.

With no room to turn around or switch positions, Amaranthe almost dislocated a few joints when she probed the door and seams to search for weaknesses. A few minutes convinced her that there were none. There wasn’t any noise either. If anyone remained in the room outside her crate, she couldn’t hear signs of it.

After exploring her prison, there was little to do but sit and think. Especially about what would happen on that operating table. To distract herself, Amaranthe made a list of things she wanted to ask Pike. Perhaps it was overly optimistic, but she figured as long as she was in the enemy stronghold, she ought to gather what intelligence she could. And keep the conversation away from Sicarius.

The idea of betraying him worried her as much as thoughts of Pike and that table. It had happened before, when that shaman, Tarok, had used the Science to delve into her mind. She’d been powerless to stop him. Sicarius had killed Tarok before he could spread any secrets, but Sicarius wasn’t here. If the information escaped through her lips, there’d be no one to silence Pike.

She dropped her chin onto her chest. In the first few months she’d known Sicarius, before they’d developed a… friendship—yes, she felt confident in calling it that—Amaranthe had wondered if he might ponder the benefits of her death. With his dearest secret in her head, she represented a threat to him. Anyone who learned that Sespian was his son could use Sespian to strike at him. After a lifetime as an assassin, Sicarius had a long list of enemies who’d like to do just that. Amaranthe also represented a threat to the stability of the empire, or at least Sespian’s right to rule. Sicarius had to have thought of that from time to time, that if he got rid of her, this very scenario could never play out. But he hadn’t, and here she was. She could
not
betray him.

When hours passed and nobody came to question her, Amaranthe drifted back to less useful thoughts, like what would happen on that table. Logically, she knew she had to keep her mind busy lest self-pity, defeat, and fear start to gnaw at her, and she knew also that being stuffed in that tiny crate was meant as some marinade to tenderize the meat before roasting it. But the discomfort of growing thirst, hunger, and muscle cramps from being unable to shift positions intruded upon her thoughts, making it difficult to send her mind elsewhere. Most of all, she noticed the silence, the utter lack of anyone with whom to talk. Sicarius would probably find the solitude restful, but Amaranthe
liked
being around people. A few days with no one to talk to and she’d be in the right state of mind to babble every secret to Pike.

“Easy, girl,” Amaranthe whispered. “Don’t let him break you before he’s so much as plucked an arm hair out.”

A soft clank sounded, the first noise to penetrate the metal walls of her crate. Someone had entered the room. Amaranthe wished she could maneuver her feet beneath her, to prepare to spring out and attack—or flee—if she saw the opportunity, but the tight space denied that much movement. Several moments passed, and nobody opened her door. Ear pressed to the wall of her prison, she listened for voices or footfalls. Maybe there were people out there, but the crate possessed a sound-dampening quality that kept her from hearing them.

When the door swung open, Amaranthe spilled out. Light blinded her, and she squinted her eyes shut. Her legs were numb after being locked in one position for so long, and she couldn’t feel her feet, much less get them beneath her. Several hands grabbed her and hoisted her from the floor. No, not hands. Something harder, colder.

Amaranthe forced her eyes open and urged them to adjust to light as harsh and as brilliant as the sun. It emanated from all directions, the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor, though there were no lanterns or obvious sources.

Whatever held her was moving her through the air. It halted with a jolt.

“No, not that one,
that
one. Yes.” Odd. It was a woman’s voice.

Amaranthe’s eyes finally adjusted to the light. She hung horizontally in the air, face toward the ceiling. The first things she made out were six black bars, or maybe arms, around her. They articulated and had six-pronged pincers at the ends, pincers that gripped her as effectively as human hands. She tried to squirm out of their grasp and decided they were
more
effective than human hands. The arms were attached to a vertical bar that attached to a blocky device—some machine, she supposed—mounted on the ceiling. The claw-like device carried her away from the crate and swung her toward the operating table. It appeared depressingly secure with a sturdy metal body and legs somehow sunken into the floor.

The gripping machine slid her onto the table, almost. She wasn’t high enough, and her head clunked against the edge.

“Oops,” came the woman’s voice again, followed by a few words in another language. Curses, Amaranthe would guess. She tried to see the speaker, but the claw blocked her view. It bumped her against the table again before rising a couple of inches and laying her flat on her back.

“So this is how it’s to go?” Amaranthe asked. “I’m to be beaten against things with strange alien technology until I talk?”

“It’s generally not a good sign when the prisoners are mocking you,” came Pike’s voice from somewhere behind Amaranthe’s head. The dry amusement in his tone surprised her. He hadn’t struck her as someone human enough to have a sense of humor.

“I’m sure you’ll put an end to that shortly,” came a new female voice. “The girl needs practice with the equipment. It took too long to shoot down that dirigible.”

Amaranthe’s mouth sagged open. The voice was familiar. Her thoughts flashed back to her school days. One of… her teachers? Yes, that sounded like—

“I translated everything in the navigation chamber, Ms. Worgavic,” the owner of the first voice said, “but even a year of study couldn’t prepare me to understand and operate the
Ortarh Ortak
fully.”

“Ms.
Worgavic
?” Amaranthe twisted her neck, trying again to see the speakers.

Ms. Worgavic had taught economics at the private business school Amaranthe had attended as a girl. It shouldn’t be a shock that one of her old teachers had been drawn in by Forge—Larocka Myll had been providing scholarships for the school, after all—but Ms. Worgavic? She’d
liked
Ms. Worgavic. She still quoted the woman on occasion.

The claw pincers held Amaranthe fast, keeping her from seeing much, but the two female speakers walked over to stand beside the table. Yes, that was definitely Ms. Worgavic, a short, buxom woman with a few strands of gray in wavy black hair pulled back from her face with a clip. Dressed in a long wool skirt and short jacket that accentuated but didn’t flaunt her curves, she was the epitome of professionalism, or so Amaranthe had always thought. Her teacher had changed little in the last ten years, though the spectacles perched on her nose were a new addition.

It took Amaranthe longer to identify the younger woman. She was even shorter than Ms. Worgavic and more chubby than curvy beneath her wrinkled clothing. A pencil perched above one ear, and, beneath it, a gold chain clipped to her collar held a monocle with a thick magnifying lens. She clutched a couple of books and had a finger stuck in one, acting as a bookmark. She was about Amaranthe’s age, no, a year younger. That was right. She’d been in the class behind Amaranthe. Retta Curlev. That was it. A frumpy girl, who’d avoided eye contact with everyone, read constantly in class, and been teased often. Amaranthe might not have remembered her at all, except that Retta had an older sister who’d been a legend at school, holding all of the academic records, and reputedly never missing an answer on a test. The last Amaranthe had heard, the older sister had gone on to be some world-traveling entrepreneur. The younger sister had become… well, Amaranthe was about to find out.