palaver, and-”
“No.”
She lifted her hands. “What are the odds of another team having blasting sticks to hurl at you?”
“Wait by the water,” Sicarius said, apparently uninterested in estimating odds. “I’ll bring her to you.”
“No violence,” she said.
He snorted.
“No permanent, scar-producing violence that will leave her disinclined to listen to me,” Amaranthe amended.
Sicarius stalked away, ignoring Basilard who was signing to ask if he could help. Basilard lifted his eyebrows in her direction.
“Do I ask for too much?” she asked.
He pointed the direction Sicarius had gone and rocked his hand back and forth. Just too much for Sicarius then. Well, everyone thought that.
“We better do as he says and wait by the water.” Amaranthe took a few steps that direction before noticing Basilard was not following. “Coming?”
He signed: I stay. Help if he needs it.
For a few heartbeats, Amaranthe watched him, noticing how he avoided her eyes. He didn’t want to be alone with her. Did he fear she would question him, and he would reveal things he did not want to share?
“Basilard, if there’s something you know that might help us,” she said, “I hope you’ll consider telling me. If one of your people is working for whomever is behind all this…he’s already abandoned your tenets, right? By killing or creating devices that do the killing for him?”
Basilard studied a particularly interesting fern at his feet.
Amaranthe left him and made her way around the spur to the marshy zone that stretched along the lake. The sun had dropped behind the mountains, casting shade across the valley.
She propped a foot on a bird-poop-stained rock at the water’s edge. Ducks stared at her as they paddled past, eyes glowing. Amaranthe had to admit, she could think of places she would rather spend time alone. She wondered if not drinking the water would be enough to keep them safe, or if the artifact’s powers permeated the land and the air about the lake too. The thought of waking up for watch and stumbling upon an aggressive Sicarius, eyes glowing, was the stuff of nightmares.
She shook the idea from her mind and windmilled her arms to loosen tense muscles. She redid her bun, smoothed her fatigues, and brushed mud from her boots. The sergeant’s opinion should not matter, but Amaranthe did not want to appear like some vagrant booted from the force due to sloth and dishevelment.
Reeds rustled behind her.
Amaranthe whirled and pulled her short sword free.
A three-foot-long lizard hurtled toward her. Green eyes burned brightly in its dark, scaled face. Its maw gaped open as it ran, rows of needle sharp fangs glistening.
Amaranthe lunged to the side and thrust her blade downward. Steel pierced leathery hide and pinned the lizard at the neck. It thrashed with surprising power. Leaving her sword, she skittered back to avoid its whipping razor-edged tail.
She evaded it, but her heel sunk into mud. Thick muck snared her boot, and she lost her balance. She went down with an ungraceful splash. Muddy water washed over her clothing and splattered her cheeks.
The lizard flailed one last time and lay still. Amaranthe glared at it.
Three figures walked out of the trees. Basilard, Sicarius, and the enforcer woman. Though Sicarius’s knives were sheathed, a long thin cut at the woman’s throat dripped blood. Her cold dark eyes could have been carved from obsidian. Sicarius gripped her arm, and she remained quiet, but the tendons standing out along her neck suggested she would be happy to lunge at Amaranthe and complete the task the lizard had failed at.
Struggling to maintain dignity, Amaranthe shambled out of the mud and onto solid ground. Caked in grime, with clumps of wet hair hanging in her eyes, she doubted her appearance impressed the woman. For once, she was relieved Sicarius let nothing of his thoughts show on his face. Oh, well. Carry on.
“Good afternoon,” Amaranthe said, her tone light and-she hoped-non-threatening. “How are you, Sergeant? Good? Good.” She pried her sword free from the dead lizard. “I was just catching a spot of dinner. Say, Basilard, are these lizards good eating? Wait, scratch that. It’s probably not healthy to ingest magically altered animals.”
The enforcer woman’s nostrils flared at the mention of magic. Or maybe they were flaring at the entire situation.
“What do you want?” she demanded. The name tag sewn on her uniform jacket read: YARA.
“To help,” Amaranthe said.
“I know who you are.”
“And does that preclude a belief that we could be helpful?”
“Yes!” the woman roared.
“Ah. That’ll make this conversation difficult then.”
“You’re criminals,” Yara growled, shoulders hunched. “You tried to assassinate the emperor, and this-” she whipped her head toward Sicarius, “-beast has killed dozens- hundreds! -of soldiers and enforcers. How can you stand here with him? What payment could he give you to betray the empire and your co-workers?”
The words surprised Amaranthe to silence, not because the woman loathed Sicarius-that was expected-but because Yara knew her by sight, knew about the emperor’s kidnapping, and apparently knew Amaranthe’s history as an enforcer. The kidnapping had been in the newspapers, but Amaranthe’s previous employment had not been mentioned. No doubt, it would besmirch the reputation of the force.
“I may work in the farmlands,” Yara said, “but we hear what happens in the city. I know what you did to Corporal Wholt and his men.”
Amaranthe winced. The weeks that had passed since that incident had done little to dull her guilt. Even if Yara believed Amaranthe and the others were up here to help, which was doubtful given the fury emanating from her, she would not forgive Amaranthe for that night. Not with Sicarius standing behind her.
“Why don’t you tell me about the beasts you’re dealing with?” Amaranthe asked. Best to change the subject and get the woman’s mind on work. “Are they what killed your men? Are they the makarovi?”
Yara’s nostrils flared again. “They’re in the dam. Go see for yourself.”
“Is that what you came to investigate? The dam? Or are you here about that artifact in the lake?”
Yara’s lips flattened. Sicarius drew his black dagger with a slow, deliberate rasp.
“I’m not intimidated by your master,” Yara said, “and I won’t answer questions that will help you destroy the city. Kill me if you wish.”
Master? Not likely. “As I said before,” Amaranthe said, “we wish to help.”
“You’re probably responsible for all this,” Yara said. “How could you go rogue? I used to look up to you. People always said good things about you. We all thought you’d plant the tree for the rest of the women on the force to climb.”
Amaranthe rocked back on her heels. “You’d heard of me? Before, er, when I was still an enforcer?”
“Of course! There was only a handful of women across all the precincts. Your record was flawless. We all figured you would be the first to make sergeant, maybe more.”
For a moment, Amaranthe forgot her questions and her reasons for pulling Yara out. Why hadn’t any of those women talked to her? Sent her a message? But then, she had never sought them out either, since they worked in other districts in the city.
“It looks like you made sergeant first,” Amaranthe said.
“Last month,” Yara said. “Me and another woman. They were special promotions from the emperor.” An awed tone crept into her voice. “I didn’t know he knew I existed.”
Amaranthe closed her eyes. It seemed Sespian had found another enforcer to admire. Or perhaps his disappointment in what he believed Amaranthe had become had led him to reward others. Either way, it stung. If she had never attracted Hollowcrest’s attention, maybe she would have had her promotion by now. Maybe-
“How could you betray him?” The fury snapped back into Yara’s voice. She shifted her weight, as if to pull away from Sicarius, but he did not let her move an inch. “How could you join forces with a dung-kissing assassin to kidnap the emperor?”
