“ Don’t.” She gazed into his eyes and made herself smile, though, she would have preferred Rias stay by her side too. “I’ll be fine. You won’t accomplish anything by getting beaten up.”
He closed his eyes, seemed to struggle for his calm, and finally sighed, a deep long exhalation. “Be careful.”
“ I will.”
Tikaya watched glumly as the guards surrounded him.
“ This way, sir,” one said.
Bocrest’s head jerked up. “Don’t you ‘sir’ him. He’s Prisoner Five, and that’s it.”
The guard gulped. “Yes, captain.”
Head lowered, Rias offered no reaction to the terse conversation. Surrounded, he trooped belowdecks. Bocrest stalked in the opposite direction, grinding his teeth.
“ Ready to go back to your cabin, ma’am?” Agarik asked.
She shook her head but followed him. “Who is he, Corporal?” She had asked the question before, and Agarik had not known, but that was the second time someone sir’d him that night. Maybe it was out respect for what they had done aboard the Nurian ship, but somehow she doubted it. She wagered that shave and haircut had made him recognizable, at least to some.
“ I wish I knew.” Agarik led her down a ship’s ladder. “It seems like he must be an officer at least, someone who fought during the war. But I fought as well, and I don’t remember hearing about anyone court-martialed and exiled to Krychek.” They threaded through the wardroom, where furniture had toppled and slid against the wall, and stopped at her cabin. “He hasn’t told you?”
“ Just to call him Rias. Does that mean anything to you?”
The corporal’s expression grew thoughtful, but eventually he shook his head. “No.”
Tikaya stepped into her cabin. Thankfully, the bodies had been cleared, though a few bloodstains smudged the deck.
Before Agarik could close the door, she leaned back out, remembering something. “He did say…”
Agarik paused, eyes questioning.
“ If I was ever at the war library in your capital I should look up a book called Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat, because he wrote it.”
Agarik froze. Utterly and completely. His mouth hung open, and he stared at her for a long moment before recovering. “I see. Thank you.”
“ Wait.” Tikaya raised a hand as he started away. “You know, don’t you? Is he somebody I would have heard of?”
“ I don’t-I can’t. I’m not sure. I-”
A lieutenant passed through the wardroom on the way to his cabin, and he frowned at Agarik.
“ I have to go.” Agarik chopped a wave.
“ Could you at least have someone bring me a towel?” Tikaya called to his receding back.
After dripping a puddle of water onto the cabin floor, Tikaya wondered if she should take off her dress and dry in the blanket on her bunk. What were the odds the Turgonians would supply her with a change of clothing at some point? She plucked at the damp dress. At least the sea had washed out most of the blood.
When she reached for the blanket, her gaze fell across the desk. It was empty.
The rubbings, her notes, and the reference books Bocrest had provided were missing. She searched the tiny cabin, thinking they might have been knocked off during the scramble, but no. They were gone.
A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the wet dress. The assassins must have returned and taken them.
Tikaya eyed the corners of the cabin, all too aware that they could be right in front of her and she would not know it.
She opened the door, wondering if a new guard had been posted or if she could leave and find the captain. Sergeant Ottotark leaned against the wall outside, and she did not manage to hide her groan.
Briefly, he met her eyes, offering a hostile glare, but his gaze inevitably drifted downward. She shifted to the side to stand in the shadow of the door.
“ The rubbings are missing,” Tikaya said. “I think they stole them-the Nurians who attacked me in my cabin and killed the young man standing guard.”
Ottotark’s face frosted at the mention of the dead marine.
“ Can you tell Bocrest?” she asked.
“ The captain is busy directing repairs, cleanup, and funeral services, thanks to the flotilla of Nurian ships that showed up tonight looking for you.”
“ While I’m sympathetic to your lost men-”
He snorted.
“- you people kidnapped me,” she continued. “I never wanted to be here, so don’t blame that attack on me. If you could just tell the captain I’m not able to continue my studies unless he finds-”
The sergeant stepped forward, shoving the door further open. “I’m not your messenger boy.”
She stumbled back, glancing around for something to use as a weapon if she needed to fend him off. The sparse cabin offered nothing.
“ You’d do best to remember you’re a prisoner here. Prisoners have no right to the captain’s time, nor to an officer’s cabin with a busy sergeant as your guard, a busy sergeant who’s stuck on this duty because your presence here got one of his men killed.” His low voice was gravelly, and tendons strained against the skin of his thick neck. “You haven’t done anything useful since you got here.”
Tikaya wanted to defend herself-she had helped Rias crash the ship that had allowed the Turgonians to sail away, hadn’t she? — but Ottotark seemed to want her to argue, to incite his anger. He stepped closer, and she eased back until her calves bumped the bunk.
Rage boiled in the sergeant’s dark eyes, but lust too. He had not looked at her face since she first opened the door. “The captain ought to chain you to that bunk and let you be of some use to the crew.”
A throat cleared in the corridor.
The glare Ottotark snapped over his shoulder could have frozen lava, but Corporal Agarik merely lifted his arms, displaying boots, a parka, a stack of black uniforms, and a towel. Tikaya held her breath, aware the sergeant outranked Agarik, but hoping the corporal’s presence would keep Ottotark in line.
“ The captain said to bring her these and relieve you as guard,” Agarik said.
Ottotark eyed the stack. “Now we’re pampering the bitch with extra clothes? Why don’t we invite her to dine in the officer’s mess next?”
“ Gonna be cold up there, sergeant.” Agarik walked in, set the clothing on the bunk, and then stood outside the cabin, in full view of the door, which he left open.
Ottotark issued a low growl and a backward glance that promised “later” before striding out.
Even after the door banged shut, Tikaya could not relax. Her luck would not hold with that one. She would have to figure out how to abscond with a dagger from the exercise area and keep it on her at all times. And hope it was enough against the powerful marine. And that she could use it on him. But then that should not be a problem now. Her lip twisted bitterly. She had killed. When she thought of how easy it had been, how accurate she was with that cursed bow, she had to steady herself with a hand on the wall.
React later, Rias had said. Well, it was later.
Tikaya curled on her side on the bunk, her head in her hands, her eyes shut. Images of her deeds flashed in her mind, the terrified and pained faces of the people she shot. She let them flood over her again and again, feeling the need to punish herself. What would Parkonis think if he were alive? Would he be shocked-disgusted-that she could release an arrow into someone’s chest? He never would have killed a human being, probably not even in self- defense. He would have been horrified to see Rias beheading those practitioners.
She opened her eyes and stared at the polished wood floorboards. If she had been transported to that ship with Parkonis, she would have been dead in the first minute. She was no longer in his world, no longer in hers. She could adapt to this world-she had proved that to herself that night-but at what cost?
Tikaya wondered if she would ever see her family and her island again. More, she wondered if she would be
