designed to hook to the jugular to deliver its poison if tampered with, so that must be where it had gone.
Akstyr imagined his senses were blood cells, able to navigate through the body with ease. Slowly, his consciousness drew closer to that main artery. Something alien brushed against his awareness. The device. Yes, it was there, attached to the jugular.
As he had started to do before, Akstyr coiled his mental energy, preparing to hurl an attack. He dared not loiter, because that thing must have already sensed a threat. One chance. That was all he had.
“It’s on his jugular,” Akstyr whispered without opening his eyes. “Right here.” He pointed at the emperor’s neck, directly over the artifact, and was careful not to touch the skin. “You’ll have to slice deep to get it out, but not too deep.”
“Understood,” Sicarius said.
Sespian heard, and he had to be terrified, but he kept his breathing calm. He continued to lie still, though his knuckles tightened where his hands gripped each other across his belly. A detached part of Akstyr observed that it was interesting that he could sense all of that with his eyes closed, but he forced the thought away, turning his concentration again toward the artifact.
He summoned all of his mental might into a tiny ball, targeted the artifact, and unleashed the coiled energy in a single blow.
At that moment, the dirigible shuddered, as if they’d hit something-or something had hit them. The disturbance affected Akstyr’s aim, and his mental blow glanced off the artifact instead of hitting it squarely. He kept his concentration and eased in closer, prepared to hurl another attack, if he had time. The artifact was frozen though. His blow must have been enough to stun it.
“Now,” Akstyr said, his eyes flying open. “Get it out.”
Sicarius gave him a hard, appraising look-it only lasted a half a second-but his hesitation filled Akstyr with alarm.
“I swear,” he blurted. “It’s stunned, but only for a…”
Sicarius’s hands blurred into motion.
Sespian stiffened, and tried to pull away, but Sicarius held him down with one hand while the other…
Akstyr started. It had happened so quickly, he had missed Sicarius switching tools. He already held the artifact aloft, captured in a pair of tweezers. Sicarius dropped the small sphere to the floor and smashed it beneath his boot.
The emperor sat up, a hand clasped to his throat, his eyes wider than gold coins. Blood spilled between his fingers, but not a lot. Sicarius hadn’t nicked the artery.
“He got it.” Akstyr handed the emperor a thick cloth from the table. “You’re not bleeding a lot, but you can use that to stop it.”
A resounding thud sounded, and another quake coursed through the dirigible. What was Maldynado doing? Mowing down trees?
Sespian took the cloth with his free hand and pressed it to his throat. Blood dripped from the palm of his other hand, joining spatters on his shirt. “What do you people consider a lot?” he asked, though there was relief in his eyes.
“Depends on who you ask,” Akstyr said. “Basilard and Sicarius probably wouldn’t blink unless they had a leg fall off. Maldynado’s been known to complain about splinters.”
“I will suture your wound.” Sicarius picked up the needle and spindle of thread Amaranthe had laid on the table earlier.
The relief faded from the emperor’s face. He watched Sicarius thread the needle with concern. Akstyr wouldn’t be thrilled about Sicarius being his surgeon either.
“I can fix him up with the Science,” Akstyr said. “The way I did with Am’ranthe that time. It’ll probably leave less of a scar than the needle and thread.”
Sicarius looked Akstyr in the eyes, and Akstyr forced himself to hold the stare. He had a feeling there was some measuring going on in there, measuring that went beyond whether or not he was qualified to mend a cut.
When Sicarius gave one firm nod, Akstyr knew it applied to more than the doctoring. Akstyr had passed the test, and Sicarius was giving him another chance to do right by the group. Akstyr nodded back, the same single nod.
“You do not mind?” Sicarius asked the emperor.
“Oh, no.” Sespian blew out a slow thankful breath. “That’s fine by me.”
“Lie back down, Sire,” Akstyr said, remembering to add the honorific this time. “Here, I’ll hold the cloth there while I work.”
He thought of telling Sicarius that he could leave to help the others-at the least, someone needed driving assistance-but the way Sicarius folded his arms over his chest said he wasn’t going to leave the emperor alone. He might be willing to forget Akstyr’s past transgressions, as he called them, but that didn’t mean he trusted Akstyr. Oh, well. It was a start.
“It’s getting closer,” Books said. “They’re bound to figure out how to aim that beam sooner or later.”
He was stating the obvious, and Amaranthe bit her lip to keep from snapping at him. She pointed toward the horizontal bank of windows-at least they looked like windows-near the top of the dome. The feature was the only thing on the craft that wasn’t made from the black material. “Aim for that, Basilard. Maybe it’s something like glass and isn’t as-”
A fit of coughing overtook her. Smoke filled the air outside and had invaded the cargo bay. Half of the wetlands were burning below. As Amaranthe struggled to still her coughs, a lake came into view. She recognized it from maps and knew it was only a few miles outside of Sunders City. If her team could avoid that beam for another fifteen or twenty minutes, they’d be flying over farmhouses and orchards on the outskirts of town. Surely that craft would leave them alone then.
Basilard must have gotten the gist of her request for he sank low in an attempt to angle the next blasting stick higher. He’d timed a couple of the previous ones to explode right as they struck the hull, but they hadn’t damaged the craft at all. Not a single scratch marred that impervious black alloy.
Books lit the blasting stick, and it sailed away.
Amaranthe crept as close to the open door as she dared. She craned her neck, watching the spitting fuse twirl end over end as the stick sailed toward the glass-like material. The explosive burst with a bang and a spewing of black smoke. She was so focused on it that she didn’t see the white beam leave the ground right away. Its angle changed, switching from vertical to diagonal. It slashed through empty sky, then pierced the hull of the dirigible.
Light exploded to Amaranthe’s right. The ship bucked like a mule, its back end jerking up so quickly that the men flew across the cargo hold and were smashed against an interior wall. She caught the slingshot and kept from flying through the air after them. Something clunked against the wall near the men. The box of blasting sticks.
Amaranthe cursed, but there was nothing she could do. She dangled by her hands, legs scrabbling to find a hold on a floor tilted forty-five degrees.
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe yelled, “you need to land us now!”
“We’re above the lake!” came his shout from the navigation cabin.
White light flashed outside the doorway. Before Amaranthe could groan a, “Now what?” another explosion rocked the dirigible.
Thick, black smoke roiled past the cargo door. The floor started to level, and she tried to get her feet under her.
An ear-splitting snap echoed from outside. The floor fell away again, this time in the opposite direction. Amaranthe’s legs swung about, a hundred-and-eighty degrees, and she scarcely managed to maintain her hold on the slingshot. Before the flexible band had swung inward, but now gravity sent it-and Amaranthe with it-toward the cargo door.
She flung a leg out, trying to hook it on the jamb, but there was too much momentum carrying her downward. The floor was still tilted at an impossible angle, and she only managed to bump the edge of the door as she swung outside.
