“Brothers?” she went on. “One trained to rule the empire, one to defend it?”
Sicarius snorted.
“No,” Amaranthe said. “If that were true, you would have been the heir. You’re at least ten years older.” She studied his face. It was unlined and he had the speed and strength of youth, but he was too experienced at too many things to be mistaken for a young man. “Maybe fifteen or more,” she said slowly, her mind edging toward an idea that was nothing short of blasphemous. She tried to squash it and look for other-less seditious-possibilities, but once acknowledged, the thought grew like a plant steeped in sun and fertilizer.
Sicarius, watching her face even as she watched his, sighed and looked away. When did we get to know each other so well that he can see my thoughts?
“Sespian is your son,” Amaranthe said.
For the first time, his silence was readable. Yes.
Amaranthe stared at the floor, almost wishing she hadn’t asked. This meant Raumesys had left no true heir. Sespian’s claim to rule was only through his mother and therefore no better than a dozen others. If anyone found out, nothing short of civil war would follow. Bloody years of infighting in which the empire’s copious enemies could strike while the soldiers were distracted choosing sides and fighting each other. In the end, some jaded old general, some vague relation of Raumesys’s, would end up in power. Little chance of the next emperor having any of Sespian’s tolerance or progressive passion. She imagined some contemporary of Hollowcrest’s on the throne and felt sick. Though it might make her a traitor to the empire, she would take this secret to her funeral pyre.
She turned her attention to Sicarius, feeling a guilty twinge that her first thoughts had been political. “Hollowcrest obviously didn’t know. Sespian doesn’t either, does he?”
A minute shake of the head confirmed this.
“If you told him, he’d probably abdicate the throne,” Amaranthe said, sure the emperor’s conscience would trouble him into that route. “But perhaps you two would have a chance for…something, a relationship. From my brief meetings with him, I got the feeling Sespian has led a lonely life.”
“He has. Thrusting this knowledge into it would not improve matters. He has read my records. He knows everyone I tortured and killed for Raumesys and Hollowcrest. And since. He’s the one who put the bounty on my head. I am likely the only person in the world he truly wants dead.”
“You might…”
Might what, Amaranthe? What are you going to suggest he do? Change? Repent his cold-hearted assassin ways? Mourn for those he’s killed? Become someone Sespian might admire? Be a good person? Sicarius might not scoff out loud, but surely that would be his mental reaction. He was too pragmatic to give up his system, however callous, for something less effective. That he cared for his son did not mean he felt any concern for people in general. Asking him to change would accomplish nothing.
“You might find it easier to protect Sespian if you were at his side,” was all she said.
“That was my plan once. But I underestimated his…idealism. He would not employ a killer, even to his benefit. I should have foreseen that.”
Amaranthe smiled gently. “It is difficult to understand those who are least like ourselves.”
Sicarius twitched an eyebrow. “You understand me.”
“Hm.”
She laid out the medical supplies on the bench, filled a bucket with clean water, and sat behind him. The wounds must have stung, but Sicarius did not flinch when she washed them. She picked up the needle and considered the task before her. It would be better to find a surgeon to sew up the gashes, but she did not know where to look in this neighborhood at this time of night. Anyway, a part of her liked the idea of being the one to help him. He had saved her life a number of times over the last two weeks, and now she could do something for him.
She slid her hand across his back. Surprisingly, no other scars marred his flesh. Even relaxed, his muscles were like steel, each distinct and delineated beneath warm skin. Sicarius looked over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. She blushed and bent to thread the needle. Medics probably weren’t supposed to ogle their patients.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have some wicked scars,” Amaranthe said.
“I’ll survive,” he said.
“A little soon to say that. You haven’t felt the prod of my inexperienced needle yet.”
“Surely as an enforcer, you’ve had combat medic training.”
“Training, yes. Real-world experience, no. Unless you count the times I did this on dolls.”
“Dolls?”
“Memela, the woman who watched me while my father worked, gave me the dolls her children had played with growing up. They were a little battered from use, so I frequently had to put the stuffing back in and sew the rips.”
“It’s the same principle,” Sicarius said.
He looked over his shoulder again.
“What?” she asked.
“Dolls.” His eyes crinkled.
Amused, was he?
“What’s wrong with dolls? I am a girl, you know.”
Sicarius turned his head back forward. Amaranthe was about to start on the first wound when he spoke again.
“I’ll wager you lined them up and ordered them around like a general commanding his troops.”
She smiled. “Maybe.”
She had finished stitching Sicarius’s back when footsteps sounded on the stairs. Amaranthe expected one of her men, but it was a servant in the crimson house uniform. Sicarius stood. The servant approached them slowly, eyeing the bare-chested Sicarius. He looked even more intimating without a shirt on.
“I mean you no trouble. Please don’t hurt me.” The servant’s voice squeaked. He fingered a sealed envelope. “My mistress bade me deliver this message to you.” He crept toward Sicarius, the hand with the envelope trembling.
“Your mistress is Larocka?” Amaranthe asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is she in the house?”
“I really can’t say, ma’am.”
As soon as Sicarius took the envelope, the servant darted away. Amaranthe worried Sicarius would follow, perhaps torture the man for information, but the message arrested his attention. He broke the seal on the envelope, slid out a folded sheet of stationery, and read.
Only one line marked the paper. Nonetheless, Sicarius stared at the words for a long moment.
“What does it say?” she finally asked.
Stiffly, Sicarius handed the note to her.
You killed my love. Before dawn, I shall burn your son alive.
“Son,” Amaranthe croaked. “How could she know? How many people have you told?”
“Just you.”
“That means…she was listening.”
Sicarius’s head jerked up, and his eyes scanned the ceiling, walls, and shadows. But there was no one else in the basement. With Arbitan dead, Larocka could not have access to the mental sciences, could she?
Sicarius grabbed a fallen brick and ran to the wall nearest the bleachers where they had been talking. He tapped the stone as he moved along it. Clanks echoed through the basement.
A more mundane possibility, Amaranthe realized. She grabbed a brick too. Soon the clanks turned to hollow thuds.
“There,” she said.
She and Sicarius dropped the bricks and slid their hands along the cool stone. Rough and porous, it would conceal secret entrances well. Amaranthe almost missed the hairline crack running vertically up the wall.
“Over here,” she said.
Sicarius shifted to her side, and he was the one to find the button. With a click, a portion of the wall swung backward. Inside was a chair, shelves, a tall cabinet, and a writing desk. On the back wall, a ladder rose into the
