Sicarius lifted the man by the hair and pulled his throwing knife free. Amaranthe winced. She wondered if he ever felt any remorse for those he killed. Perhaps not.
“Shall we leave him here or…?” Amaranthe waved to the forest. Tossing the body overboard sounded callous, even if they’d given the living soldiers the same treatment.
“Leave it.”
Amaranthe closed her eyes and sent a silent apology to the man’s spirit and to any family he might have. Small solace.
“Sespian will find out that some of his men died regardless,” Sicarius said.
“I know. I wasn’t planning to lie to him, but statistics tend to be easier to stomach than corpses.” Especially when the knife-in-the-eye wound would tell Sespian exactly who had been responsible. The last thing Amaranthe wanted was for Sicarius to get the blame for her failures out here. “We better head in and talk to him, find out what he wants us to do now that he’s free of Forge’s influence. Am I right in assuming his female chaperone is dead?”
“Yes,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe stepped toward the locomotive, but Sicarius rested a hand on her uninjured arm.
“We need to arrange time to speak with him alone.”
She nodded. That was part of the plan, although… “When you say we do you mean you and he or you, he, and me?”
Sicarius hesitated. “I do not believe he would listen to anything I had to say.”
“So, Books is translating for Basilard, and I’m translating for you?”
“He will listen to you.”
Maybe not after she told Sespian about the dead soldiers, Amaranthe thought, but what she said was, “And, should we find this time alone, do you want me to tell him everything?”
“You don’t know everything.”
Not surprising. “Do you want me to tell him everything I do know?”
Sicarius gazed toward the forest. He was still holding Amaranthe’s arm, and she rested her hand on his, trying to offer reassurance, if he needed it. One never knew with him.
“What do you think would be an appropriate course of action to ensure an optimal result?” he finally asked.
Amaranthe didn’t know if he had ever asked for her opinion on anything before. Given the occasion, she wished she had a better answer for him. “I don’t think you can ensure anything when it comes to people. I’m sure you find it odd, but most of us react based on feelings, not pragmatism. Rational hypothesizing can’t necessarily predict the outcome.”
His gaze shifted from the trees to her eyes. “People are impractical.”
“Of that I have no doubt. I’ll give you the same recommendation I offered Basilard. Spend some time with him. Let him get to know you as a person, not as the scary assassin who stalked the Imperial Barracks all through his childhood.”
“That is the person I am.”
“You’re more than that. Be yourself, but try to be… friendly. Talk about small, unimportant things. Ask him how he’s doing. Make a joke.”
“A joke.”
“You’ve done it before,” Amaranthe said. “Your sense of humor is dryer than the desert city-states, but it does exist.”
He stared at her as if she’d told him he had fur and horns.
“Also, smile after you make your joke. To let him know that’s what it was.” Amaranthe gave him a zealous smile to demonstrate. “As for what you should tell him… if he believes you, he might abdicate. He seems to be an honorable man, and he might feel he doesn’t have a right to the throne given that particular piece of information.”
“He would be safer that way,” Sicarius said. “I should have told him long ago.”
A lump of emotion tightened Amaranthe’s throat. A lot of people in Turgonia, when given the chance to have a son rule over the entire empire, would lust for the position it would earn the family without worrying about whether or not it was good for the child.
“Do you want me to tell him then?” she asked.
“No. I will do that. You tell him… that he has nothing to fear from me.” Sicarius released her arm.
Amaranthe squeezed his hand before letting go of it. “I will.”
Chapter 16
Akstyr shivered and stuffed his hands under his armpits. The snow had abated, but dark clouds lingered in the sky. Icy wind gusted across the mountaintops. Akstyr would have stamped about the snow-covered precipice to generate warmth, but his calf hurt, and the deep drifts made moving about difficult under any circumstances. He’d ventured close enough to the edge to verify that he could see the landslide-smothered railway below and then scooted back. Icicles the length of swords hung from a nearby outcropping, and he didn’t need to see if more ice lay underfoot.
The rounded top of the dirigible hovered behind him, with most of it floating below the level of his ledge. Anyone approaching the pass from the direction of Forkingrust wouldn’t see it. Akstyr had a red flag-technically it was a shirt one of the stowaways had been wearing-to toss over the side to let Books know when the train showed up. If Akstyr didn’t freeze to death before then.
“Shoulda kidnapped the emperor when he was near some army fort on the Gulf,” he groused. “By a beach. With palm trees. And sun. And girls not wearing any…”
A faint rrr-ring noise drifted to Akstyr’s ears, and he closed his mouth to listen. The train, that was his first thought-what else would be cruising through the mountains at night? — but the sound wasn’t right. Nor did it seem to be coming from the correct direction. The emperor’s train would be chugging in from the southwest, but this noise came from…
Akstyr tilted his head and spun slowly, trying to pinpoint the location. Mountain peaks surrounded him on all sides, and noise bounced about unpredictably, but he thought the noise originated in the north. He inched toward the edge of the precipice and peered into the darkness in that direction. Nothing but snow, rocks, and cliffs lay to the north. Akstyr didn’t think there was a road over there, or even a trail. The rrr-ring grew louder though, and he became more and more certain it was coming from that direction.
“Something in the ground?” he wondered. “In the mountain?” He thought of mining equipment, but didn’t think they were near any mines.
Then lights came into view, a lot of lights. And they weren’t on the ground. They outlined a sleek black dome-shaped craft gliding into view above a pair of peaks to the north. The noise grew louder as it cleared the ridge.
Akstyr had no idea what it was-some kind of flying contraption, but it didn’t have a balloon for lift, nor could he see any propellers or wings. All he knew was that it was huge. Anything should have appeared small next to the substantial mountain peaks, but it did not. He looked down at the dirigible for comparison. This new machine had to be at least four times the size. More like four hundred times the size, if one didn’t count the balloon on the dirigible, but only the occupiable space.
The lights illuminated hints of an inky black hull, but Akstyr would need a spyglass to see details. Or he’d need to be a lot closer, but that didn’t sound like a good idea. Somehow he doubted the thing was friendly.
After the craft cleared the ridge, it turned toward Akstyr, showing a narrower but still substantial profile and confirming that there weren’t wings. He let his eyelids drop and stretched out with his senses, seeking the telltale tingle of a construct that had been crafted using the mental sciences. He sensed… nothing.
“Mundane technology?” Akstyr muttered, shaking his head. How could that be? There wasn’t anything in the empire like that. Was there? Maybe he was just too far away to sense the Science being used.
He squinted at a horizontal bank of light near the top half of the dome’s front end. The illumination seemed
