The Kraken King, Part 7 (4 page)

She suddenly stopped at the courtyard entrance. Head cocked, she looked up at him. “I just realized. No mask?”

“I received dispensation to remove it this morning.” Not that it mattered now. “And I received an invitation to meet with one of the empress's ministers two days hence.”

Dismay parted her soft lips. “In two days? What will you do?”

What would he do? Mara and Cooper hadn't returned. Blanchett hadn't returned. Damn it all. What else
could
he do?

Frustration ripped into him. Ariq fought the biting heat of it, but his reply still possessed a sharp edge. “The ambassador will have to speak for me.”

“Yes.” Stepping back, she wrapped her arms around her middle and walked on. “Of course.”

Dregs and hell. He caught her around the waist and pulled her rigid form close, her stiff back against his chest. From day to day, the scent of her hair was never the same. She'd smelled of dust and flowery perfume and the ocean—but today a warmer fragrance, like dried grass in the sun. He breathed deep and felt her soften against him.

“That wasn't how I intended to greet you.”

“I know. But ‘good afternoon' hardly fits, does it? It's a terrible afternoon.”

“Yes.” He tightened his arm around her waist. “But better now.”

“It is.” She threaded her fingers through his, their hands clasped at her side. Quietly she asked, “Are you angry with me?”

“For what?”

“I sent Mara and Cooper. If I hadn't, you could have gone two days ago. You would already know what was happening.”

“You sent them,” he said and turned her to face him. Uncertainty and guilt darkened her jade eyes. “And if I hadn't agreed, I'd have called them back. But it's always best to scout ahead. So it was my decision, too.”

With a sigh, she nodded.

He tugged her closer and she kept coming, sliding her arms around him and burying her face against his shoulder. Still uncertain. Probably terrified for her friends. “It was the right decision to make,” he said.

Her response was muffled against his tunic. “It doesn't feel like it now.”

After giving orders that left soldiers dead or missing, it never did. Cupping her cheek, Ariq tilted her face up. “It was. And there's no anger here. Not at you. Not at myself.” That kind of rage would lead nowhere and help nothing. His frustration and impatience now were enough—and even those he needed to contain or else risk accidentally hurting her with them. So he told her, “If I'm ever angry at you, you won't have to ask.”

She huffed out a quick laugh. “You'll be blunt then, too?”

“I will.”

Smiling, she pulled out of his arms but kept hold of his hand, continuing toward their chambers. “You returned earlier than I expected. How many arrangements still need to be made?”

“I've already made most.” And what hadn't been arranged would be taken care of in the smugglers' dens, where he'd cash in every favor he was owed and hire every soldier he could.

“Everything here is ready to go. What we don't need with us can be taken to the embassy later. Or left here. I don't care one way or another. Do you?”

“No.” The only thing in this tower that mattered was Zenobia.

“Then how much time do we have?”

Not enough. “A skyrunner will be at the embassy in three hours.”

It wouldn't be as fast as a lantern fish balloon, but was the fastest airship that could travel over land.

“Why from the embassy? Why not just board the skyrunner here?”

“I thought you'd prefer to stay with your friend. You'd be alone here.”

Abruptly she shot a look at him over her shoulder. Her emerald gaze searched his before she caught her lower lip between her teeth and averted her face again.

Ariq frowned. Hadn't she expected to stay? He couldn't take her with him.

But he said nothing, waiting until she entered their chambers and kicked off her wooden sandals. His wife would know when he was angry. She didn't make it as obvious. He had to read it in the
thunk
of her left sandal against the entry wall and the stiffness of her shoulders. Not just angry, though. Hurt, too. She still didn't look at him and didn't lead him to the bed, where he'd hoped to spend these remaining hours. She stalked across the chambers and out onto the balcony, instead.

Chest tight, he followed her. He was fighting two battles—and today, he had to abandon the war for her heart until he saw her again. Her walls had begun to crumble. But if he left while she was angry and hurt, no doubt she would rebuild those defenses stronger and higher while he was gone.

Arms crossed beneath her breasts, she stared out over the sea. “You told me that you wouldn't leave me behind.”

That wasn't the promise he'd made. “I wouldn't leave you behind in the hands of my enemies,” he said. “I will leave you behind if it means you'll be safe. I've hired more guards to watch over you at the embassy. You won't be taken from there again.”

Her eyes closed. Voice thick, she said, “You also told me that we would make important decisions together.”

“We will. But this time there is no decision to make.”

“And you just decided
that
? Without consulting me, you determined that there is no other option?”

He had. So they'd both gone about this badly. “And without consulting me, you decided that you
would
go.”

He saw her realize the truth of that. On a shuddering breath, she glanced at him.

“Should we take our clothes off and argue about it, then?”

Once, Ariq would have thought there was nothing he wanted more than Zenobia naked against him. “I'd rather sort this out first.”

She nodded and looked out over the water again. “I know why you don't want me to go. Tatsukawa and Ghazan Bator attempted to use me to force you into giving up the Skybreaker. Now you think the silence from Krakentown means that they've targeted either your brother or your town in a second attempt to force you. And you won't leave me behind in your enemies' hands . . . yet if I go, you might be throwing me into their hands, and this time they probably wouldn't just lock me away on an ironship. They'd threaten worse. Then what would you do?”

Give them the machine. And she'd outlined his reasons exactly. His sensible, practical wife. So why did she still want to go?

But Ariq knew that, too, because he loved her ferocity and her loyalty. “And you won't abandon the Coopers.”

Her eyes suddenly swam with glittering tears. “You're going to help your people. But Mara and Cooper are
mine
.”

“And you are mine. So trust that I won't abandon them, either.”

Trust, though it was the hardest thing for her to do. He watched the uncertainty and indecision string her emotions as taut as a bow, tears slipping over her cheeks before she hid her face in her hands.

Heart aching, he gently gathered her close, but his voice was rough as he said, “If you choose to go, I won't stop you. I'd rather you don't come until I know my town is safe, but I won't make this decision for you. But if you do come, know that I will put you above everything. I will take risks for you that I wouldn't take for anyone else. So if you go into this battle knowing how you might be used as a weapon against me, also know you are endangering us both.”

She stilled against him. Her chest filled on a ragged breath. Then she lifted her head, nodding and wiping her cheeks. “You're right. There is no decision to make.”

No. But there was one he hadn't considered before. “Would you prefer to stay here? I can arrange for guards at either location.”

He hadn't thought it would be so hard for her to decide. But she stared out over the balcony for another long moment before she asked, “At which location would you worry about me less?”

It didn't matter. The worry wouldn't stop until he held her again. But at least he could know that she was among friends. “The embassy.”

“The embassy, then,” she said, then gave a hollow little laugh before shaking her head.

Still unhappy about staying, Ariq guessed—though there must be relief, too. Her loyalty wasn't only to Mara and Cooper, and she'd told him before that she needed to be near Helene. “You won't have to abandon your obligation to your friend.”

Her back stiffened slightly. “That's all settled,” she said, and her voice had the same hollow edge that her laugh had. “Her predicament was resolved rather painlessly.”

Perhaps it had been. But the brittleness in Zenobia's posture said that whatever the obligation had been, it was far from settled, and though it might have been painless for her friend, it hadn't been for her. He'd seen his wife irritated by and exasperated with Helene, but not this. “Did you argue?”

She shook her head and forced a smile, then tugged at the belt of his tunic. “We don't have long before you have to go.”

“So you should tell me quickly.”

“It's not important. Not compared to—”

He stopped her. “I won't send you into the hands of your enemies, either. Even if they call themselves friends.”

She closed her eyes. “It's nothing so dramatic. Something she said upset me. But you're leaving, it's not important, and it won't be the first time I've locked myself in a room with my typesetter so that I can avoid her.”

Hiding herself away. And she said it wasn't important?

“I'm here now,” he said. “And you told me that we should share our troubles.”

Her smile was sad and soft. Her fingers curled around his belt again—not tugging this time, but simply hanging on. “I would share them. But it's not for me to say.”

And his wife could keep a secret. Better than her friend did.

“Her pregnancy?” he guessed.

Her gaze shot to his. Mouth dropping open, she simply stared at him before asking, “Did the ambassador tell you?”

So that was what they'd been waiting for—to see how Basile Auger would accept the news. “My mountain walker did. I've commanded hundreds of female soldiers. I know what it means when they began spitting their breakfast over the side.”

“Then you knew from the start!”

“Yes.”

“But you didn't say anything.”

What would he have said? Her pregnancy had nothing to do with him. “It wasn't my place to speak of it. She was away from her husband and obviously with child, but I didn't know the story of how that child had come about.”

“The story,” she echoed. “If you
had
asked her, that's exactly what you'd get.”

“A story is all you get from anyone.”

She responded with a bitter laugh, then a moment passed and her eyes lit as she considered that further. “That's true, isn't it? That's all we know of someone—what they have said or what someone else has told us about them. And what someone doesn't say, we infer. Perhaps not very well. But whatever we know of someone, it's not what they truly are, but the story we've built from what we've heard and seen of them.”

Dryly he said, “Such as believing someone is a spy.”

Her grin was quick and bright. “Yes. Or your mother. I've built a picture of her in my head. I even imagine what her voice sounds like. It must be completely wrong. It's all just a story I've made from what you've told me about her—yet I feel as if I know her better than I know some of the people I've met in Fladstrand. I suppose that sort of story isn't accurate or full. But that doesn't mean it's false. Unlike some of the stories I heard from men who came to court me after everyone learned I was Archimedes Fox's sister.”

And the same distrust and defenses that Ariq had to fight past had probably kept her alone until she'd met him. He'd never thought he'd be grateful for them. “So your friend's story is false—and the lie upsets you?”

“The lie? No. Of course not. I know why she did. I lie to protect myself all the time. I understand that.”

But it must have hurt her. He could see that pain in her as she spoke of it, in the darkness of her eyes and the way she bowed her head before letting go of his belt. “Then you're angry on Auger's behalf?”

“No. He seems a decent man and I like him well enough. But my loyalty is to Helene. It was just . . . she said her situation was like my mother's. And I—” She broke off, her hand fisting over her chest as if to demonstrate the tight clench of her heart. “I don't want to forgive her for it.”

Torn between loyalty to her friend and to her dead mother. Ariq knew that pain and resentment too well. For years, he'd been torn between loyalty to his brother and to his mother. Ariq would never avenge her death so that he wouldn't lose Taka. He suspected that Zenobia would never say what she felt to Helene, so that she wouldn't lose a friend.

But she could say it to him. “So what was your mother's story?”

“Not a happy one,” she said, and Ariq realized that he, too, had already formed a picture of her mother, based on everything she'd told him before.

He'd imagined a quiet version of Zenobia, with the same green eyes and brown hair—but also paler and frail. A woman who was trapped in every way possible, and who hadn't known any freedom from her husband before she'd died. Zenobia had said that she hoped never to be in the same circumstances that her mother had been. Now her friend had claimed that
she
was.

With a heavy sigh, she moved to the balcony rail. The breeze sifted through dark curls that had escaped her pins. Soon he would take all of her hair down. But he didn't want to make love to her and he didn't want to leave while this still festered inside her. She would be alone when he was gone. Mara and Cooper wouldn't be here and a rift had formed between her and Helene. But his wife didn't have to
feel
alone.