reputedly never missing an answer on a test. The last Amaranthe had heard, the older sister had gone on to be some world-traveling entrepreneur. The younger sister had become… well, Amaranthe was about to find out.
A slight sneer twisted Retta’s lips as she gazed down at the table. Amaranthe didn’t think she’d ever participated in teasing the girl, but she doubted she’d offered her any kindnesses either. Their paths hadn’t crossed often. Unfortunately, Retta had the look of an angry young woman out to take revenge on the world for the collective wrongs received as a youth. Still, talking to her and Ms. Worgavic had to be better than dealing with Pike.
“Afternoon, ladies,” Amaranthe said. “It’s nice of you to come visit. I’ve been lonely in my crate. Is this your flying vehicle? It’s quite the technological marvel. Find it at an archaeological dig, did you?”
Retta’s eyebrows flew up. Had she been wearing the monocle, it would have dropped away. She turned toward Ms. Worgavic, a question on her lips, but the older woman lifted a hand to silence her. One correct guess, anyway.
“Amaranthe Lokdon.” Ms. Worgavic clasped her hands behind her back and shook her head slowly. “You were a promising student until you dropped out of school to become an enforcer… What a waste.”
Amaranthe should have offered a witty comeback, or at least a good sneer, but she found herself blurting an excuse. “My father was dying. I had to take care of him, and, after he was gone, I couldn’t afford to finish school.”
Ms. Worgavic kept shaking her head. Given how often her team had thwarted Forge schemes of late, Amaranthe found it strange that her enforcer background seemed to disappoint Worgavic more than anything else.
“Your… ingenuity over the last year shows that you can find a way when you want something badly enough,” Worgavic said. “You could have stayed in school, if you’d truly wished it. If nothing else, you had friends and were well-liked by your teachers.”
Retta frowned at the last statement, perhaps remembering lonelier school years.
“Why didn’t you simply ask someone for help?” Ms. Worgavic asked.
“I… ” Erg, her old teacher had Amaranthe more on the defensive than Pike had. She had to figure out a way to cast old feelings aside; she was no longer a student yearning for the praise of a respected mentor. This woman was plotting against the throne and, for all Amaranthe knew, may have hurt or killed the men on her team.
“You used your father’s death as an excuse to walk away from your education and the future he worked very hard to ensure you had. Why? Did you fear failure?” Worgavic shook her head again, a hint of disgust underlying her disappointment.
Amaranthe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Worgavic was stirring up old doubts that Amaranthe didn’t want to deal with, certainly not then and there. Nobody had a knife to her throat-yet. It was time to ask questions of her own. “What I chose to do was stay loyal to the empire and the emperor. My father would not fault me for that.” Even if he might fault her for spending time with assassins and taking the law into her own hands. “Why are you plotting against the throne? Why did you align with Forge?”
“Align with it, dear? I’m one of the founders.”
If not for the mechanical arms holding her down, Amaranthe would have fallen off the table. As it was, the blatant admission knocked her other questions off the tip of her tongue.
Somewhere behind Amaranthe, a soft rasping started up. The sound of a blade being sharpened.
Worgavic spread her fingers, laid her hands on the table, and leaned as close as she could without bumping into the metal arms pinning Amaranthe. “You do remember your history? Yes? Good. Name a powerful imperial woman for me, will you? One who was powerful in her own right, not because she married or birthed someone important.”
“Uhm, Lady Taloncrest supposedly ran twenty miles while eight months pregnant to warn Fort Darkling Spire of a Nurian invasion in 433.” A fact Amaranthe only knew because she’d competed in running events as a youth, and one of the distance races was named after the woman. “She was given an advisory position on the emperor’s staff.”
“An honorary seat with no real power. And, as you said, she was given the position. Power is taken or created from within. Try again. Someone important, someone of whom Major Pike over there would have heard.”
The rasp of the sharpening stone continued without pause.
“I’m unaware of the depths of his education. Was history a part of his Advanced Torture Techniques class?” As Amaranthe expected, that didn’t draw a laugh from anyone in the room. Given time, and less ominous background noise, she might have come up with more examples of relevant women from the past, but she doubted Worgavic truly wanted them. She wanted Amaranthe to admit that women had had little influence throughout the empire’s history. “Why don’t you let me go, and I’ll work on becoming someone important? I have plans, you know.”
Amaranthe wriggled her eyebrows and offered a conspiratorial wink, not at Worgavic-if she truly was one of the Forge founders, there was no way Amaranthe would be able to sway her-but at Retta. Despite the sneer, she seemed the most likely person in the room to be won over. Retta blinked in surprise, but the surprise turned into a scowl, one that deepened when Worgavic looked her way.
“Don’t include me in your plans,” Retta rushed to say, probably worried Worgavic would find that wink suspicious. “I don’t even like you.”
“Why not?” Amaranthe asked, wondering if she’d offended the girl irreparably at some point.
Retta only scowled.
Worgavic tapped a nail on the table. “Whatever your plans were, they’ve failed, child. Emperor Sespian is dead. We incinerated your dirigible and everyone on it. Whatever it is you hoped to gain from opposing us matters little now.”
Amaranthe’s stomach clenched, but she kept her face neutral. She had no reason to trust Worgavic’s words. “You wouldn’t be asking me about Sicarius if you thought everyone had died on that dirigible.”
Worgavic lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “It’s true. We’re not certain we got him. He’s tougher to exterminate than termites, and he’s ten times as annoying. Especially now that he has some vendetta against us.” She lifted her eyebrows, as if inviting Amaranthe to explain.
“Huh,” Amaranthe said, imitating one of Sicarius’s unhelpful grunts.
“I will retrieve the information from her,” Pike said.
“Yes, I imagine you’ll be most efficient.” For the first time, Worgavic’s gaze softened as she regarded Amaranthe. “You needn’t suffer through this. Just tell me why Sicarius has been protecting the emperor and if he’ll continue to be a pebble in our shoes once Sespian has been replaced.”
A pebble, right. A pebble that had killed thirty of her colleagues in a twenty-four-hour span. The rest of Forge had to be terrified that he’d come after them next. No matter how much security they’d set up, they must fear they couldn’t hide from him forever.
“And then what? I tell you what you want to know, and you’ll let me go?” After all the grief Amaranthe had given Forge, she couldn’t believe anybody in the coalition would do anything except kill her.
Worgavic nodded. “You may have your freedom.”
Amaranthe decided it might not be in her best interest to scoff openly, but Worgavic must have guessed at her skepticism. She leaned forward again, lowering her voice. “We aren’t evil, Amaranthe. We’re simply assuring our futures and the futures of our children. If Sespian had been amenable to working with us, he could have lived a long, healthy, and wealthy life. But since he was not, we’ve chosen another who’s willing to grant our modest requests.”
Maldynado’s brother. How much had he agreed to give away in exchange for the throne?
“What are your modest requests?” Amaranthe asked.
“You see,” Worgavic went on without acknowledging the question, “it matters little what man is in charge of the empire, so long as he works with us. Giving Sespian, or any other warrior-caste snob, your loyalty is pointless. And if it puts you on the wrong side, it’s worse than pointless. It’s to your detriment.” Worgavic waved to encompass the operating table. “You must put your emotions aside and weigh, with dispassionate calculation, each opportunity that comes your way. Everyone in Forge understands that you can either make the future or be subject to its whims. What I do today ensures a legacy for my children and their children, and for the descendants of all who ally with us.” Some vision only she could see filled her eyes. She and her Forge colleagues. “We have become a
