anything about it until a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it’s not such a stretch.”
Sicarius grunted noncommittally.
“You don’t think it’ll be that obvious?”
“No.”
“We might as well check,” Amaranthe said. “How do you feel about taking a morning row out to Marblecrest Island?”
The second grunt was even less enthused than the first.
Chapter 18
Dawn wasn’t a good time to knock on someone’s door, especially not when that someone was the Turgonian emperor and not overly fond of the person doing the knocking. Yet Maldynado stood outside the captain’s cabin, with his fist raised. The steamboat had turned off the Goldar River earlier that night and would reach Lake Seventy- three before long. This might be Maldynado’s last chance to leave the emperor with a good, or at least amenable, impression of him. He’d also, after doing some mental wrestling with himself, had decided that Sespian would be better for Amaranthe than Sicarius.
Maldynado knocked.
Not many seconds passed before the door opened. Darkness bathed the interior, and Maldynado, standing next to a lantern on the exterior of the cabin, didn’t see anyone at first. After a moment, his eyes adjusted and he picked out a dim shape.
“Sire?” Maldynado said. “I came to see if… uhm, Yara said I should talk to you.” Not exactly, but that might get him an invitation in.
“I see,” Sespian said.
That didn’t sound inviting. Maldynado was trying to think of something else to say when a match flared to life inside.
Sespian set a dagger down on a table and lit a lamp. It wasn’t Sicarius’s black dagger, but a more mundane blade.
“Sit,” Sespian offered and took a seat of his own, one where he could reach the weapon.
Maldynado sat on the opposite side of the table, leaning against the far armrest, so Sespian wouldn’t think he wanted anything to do with the dagger. So few people had ever thought of him as dangerous that it seemed odd that Sespian considered him a threat. Though maybe he’d simply answered the door holding a dagger to be on the safe side. For all they knew, stowaways remained on board.
“What is it?” Sespian wasn’t yawning or rubbing his eyes like a man who’d been sleeping. More likely, he’d been lying awake worrying.
“I heard… Ah, Yara mentioned… Sire, if you’d like any advice on pursuing ladies, and getting them to pursue you back, I’m an expert on-” Maldynado stopped. Sespian wouldn’t be impressed by bragging. This might be a time for modesty. “I’ve won the hearts of a few ladies over the years and could answer questions on the opposite sex if there’s anything you want to know. Not that you need advice. I mean, I really don’t know how much, er, experience you have.” Maldynado decided he better stop talking. A red hue colored Sespian’s cheeks, but he had no idea if anger or embarrassment caused it. “I thought I’d see if you had any questions. That’s all.”
“Are you… suggesting I seduce Brynia for information on the meeting?”
“What? No. Yara said you liked the boss.”
Sespian stared.
“Amaranthe,” Maldynado clarified.
The clarification didn’t cause Sespian’s gaze to blossom with enlightenment. Yara, he recalled, had been guessing that Sespian had an interest in Amaranthe. Some feminine hunch. Perhaps such a hunch shouldn’t have driven Maldynado to knock on the emperor’s door at dawn.
“I see I’m mistaken.” Maldynado stood. Bad idea. This had been a bad idea. “I’ll just leave you alone.”
He crossed the cabin, and his hand was on the doorknob, when Sespian said, “Wait.”
“Sire?”
“Perhaps… ” Sespian’s hard gaze had faded, replaced with a hint of youthful uncertainty. “Sergeant Yara loathed you a week ago. Now she watches as you leave a room.”
“She does? Er, of course she does.” Curiosity intruded upon Maldynado’s ability to leave the last sentence alone. “In what way does she watch? Like she’s regretting my absence, or…?”
“Like she’s trying to figure you out.”
“Oh.” Maldynado didn’t know how much of a victory that was. He often watched Sicarius the same way. Some people were just cursed strange.
“Like she wants to figure you out,” Sespian said, “because she might find something there worth discovering. She doesn’t strike me as a woman to care overmuch about a pretty face. That you’re swaying her opinion of you leads me to believe you might truly have some expertise with women. That is something that eludes me.”
“Having a pretty face always helps,” Maldynado said, heading for the chair again, “but if you’re an idiot who says all the wrong things, it won’t save you.”
Sespian winced.
“Not that you’re an id-that thing, Sire. I mean, I haven’t heard you speak to the boss much.” Now Maldynado winced. Speaking of saying the wrong things… He leaned back and took a deep breath. “That’s not important. Let’s establish a starting point. Has she suggested she might be interested in you?” It was, after all, entirely possible that Books was wrong about Amaranthe and Sicarius sharing some sort of attachment. Books certainly didn’t have a noteworthy personal record when it came to romance. And if Amaranthe had shown interest in Sespian, Maldynado could understand the kid mooning over her. Blood-spattered military fatigues or not, Amaranthe did, when she wanted to, have a way of gazing into one’s soul, seemingly without artifice or evasion, and convincing a man that her interests were his interests as well.
Sespian slumped against the backrest of his chair. “No. She said I was too young.”
“Ah. That means she’s not interested. A few years wouldn’t matter if she was attracted to you.”
Sespian sank deeper into the chair. “I was afraid of that.”
“That doesn’t mean there’s no hope. You might simply need to make her see a different ore in your vein.”
A spark kindled in Sespian’s eyes. “How?”
“Well, for one thing, you look young. Younger than Akstyr even. Can you get any of those chin hairs to grow out?”
“Not… densely.”
“I’ve heard of apothecary potions that might help. We’ll come back to that. Let’s talk about the rest of your look. We all thought you were the bookish and artsy type.”
Something in the way Sespian lifted his eyebrows told Maldynado that Sespian thought he was the bookish and artsy type too.
“In my experience, women say they like men like that, as friends. You do not want her thinking of you as a friend. You want her daydreaming about you when the sun is out and fantasizing about you when she’s alone in bed at night, eh?”
A flush crept into Sespian’s cheeks. “I suppose.”
“It’s all right to have a sensitive side-they love finding warm, gooey stuff hidden beneath the crusty outside of an apple tart-but you need to be manly too.” Maldynado sat straighter, puffed his chest out, and flexed a biceps to demonstrate. “Virile and powerful. Not powerful in the I-was-born-an-emperor-so-of-course-I’m-powerful way, but in how you strut about the room and make things happen. If you take your shirt off, there should be muscles there. You may want to start throwing sand balls around. No matter how independent the woman is, she’ll have times when the world sends a grimbal after her. When that happens, she needs to lean against someone with strong arms, someone who makes her feel safe and secure.”
“I’m not sure-”
“Don’t tell me that’s not you.” Maldynado pointed a finger at his nose. “You sneaked up behind me and put a
