Forged in Blood II

  “Are you in much pain?” she asked instead, her voice gentler, serious now. “I’m sure I could claw my way up there and find a rope and a first-aid kit.”

  He hadn’t taken a thorough inventory of his body, but found he could move his arm. Nothing corporeal seemed damaged from the fall; it was only his brain that ached. Given their positions, with his upper body in her lap, wrapping that arm around Amaranthe was awkward, but he did it anyway. “Stay.”

  “Not exactly an answer to my question, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt me to obey your orders once in a while.”

  He might have found another teasing response, but she bent, touching her forehead to his. Some of her hair had come free in the… he couldn’t bring himself to think of it as anything other than a harrowing trial. It had been for both of them, though certainly more so for her. The locks of hair brushing his cheeks made him forget the role he’d played in it, at least for a moment as he inhaled the smell of her shampoo. The delicate cherry and almond scent was far more pleasant than the smells of cold sweat and fear that lingered about both of them. He thought of teasing her again, this time about the new blonde coloring of her locks, but her lips brushed his, gentle and sweet, and he forgot all about hair.

  I do not deserve kisses, he thought—bless her ancestors, didn’t she know he’d been trying to catch her to torture her, to please that sadistic prick ruling his mind? He should have turned away, told her exactly why her compassion was misplaced, but his lips betrayed him. They parted and invited her to explore. For days, he’d thought her dead, that he’d never again stand at her side and feel the warmth of a smile directed at him alone. To have her back only to push her away? He couldn’t.

  Later, if she decided she couldn’t stomach the level of… monster he’d reverted to, he’d understand. For now, he accepted her tender kisses, finding them far more of a balm than anything in a first-aid kit.

  Sometime later, a door banged open in the factory above. Voices sounded, too muffled to identify, but there were a number of them.

  Amaranthe sighed and her lips left his, though with a palpable reluctance, and she kissed his eyes, careful to avoid the wound at his temple, before drawing away fully. He wanted to capture the back of her head with his other hand and pull her back down. It might be their last kiss—why let it end because of a few people roaming about upstairs?

  “I suppose those are the reinforcements,” she murmured, “here belatedly to save me from you.” She chuckled as she said it, as if the thought—the memories—weren’t horrific, but the reminder quenched his passion as surely as a hot iron being thrust into a bucket of water. “Maybe we can get them to supply our rope,” she went on, unaware of his thoughts.

  Frantic bangs and shouts came from above. They were calling her name, not his. Understandable. He’d been the villain of the night. Who, except Amaranthe, cared if he’d survived?

  “Down here,” she called when someone came close enough to their corner to hear.

  The yellow glow of lights preceded the appearance of two familiar faces, Books and Akstyr.

  “Amaranthe!” Books leaned over the open pit, his lantern extended. “Are you all right? Is that… uhm?” He squinted, probably trying to pick out Sicarius’s black-clad form in the gloom.

  “Yes,” Amaranthe said, “and yes. We could use a rope and some bandages.”

  “Of course, I understand.” Books scurried away.

  Akstyr remained. He wore a self-satisfied grin as he thrust out a familiar rope belt adorned with several pouches. “Look what I got.”

  Amaranthe regarded the item without comprehension. “If you’ve been out shopping with Maldynado, I would have expected something more stylish. Or at least grandiose and flamboyant.”

  “Nah,” Akstyr said, “this belonged to the practitioner who was controlling Sicarius.”

  “You killed him?” Sicarius asked, not having to modulate his voice to make it come out cold and flat.

  If Akstyr had killed Kor Nas when Sicarius hadn’t been able to so much as give the man a hangnail… He ground his teeth. He hadn’t thought he could feel like more of a failure than he already did.

  “I did.” If Akstyr had lifted his chin any higher, he would have fallen over backward. “And I was the one who found him, on account of the Science he was working. Sort of. At first I couldn’t do more than get the general vicinity down. He was able to mask himself somehow. Starcrest had his team and our people searching building by building. But then we heard this yell of pain.”

  Yes, it didn’t surprise Sicarius that Kor Nas, too, had felt a mental backlash to the breaking of that bond.

  “He was on the rooftop,” Akstyr went on. “Starcrest wanted to storm up there with all of his forces, but I didn’t wait for him to finish explaining. I thought the practitioner might sense them coming, even when he was in pain, and that he’d run away. So I crept up there first while they were still deciding things. He sensed me coming, and I thought he’d kill me, but I told him I’d been looking for him all over the city, that I wanted to be his apprentice. That little lie let me get close. I thought maybe I could stick a dagger in his chest. But he was a telepath and rifled through my mind. He flattened me—” Akstyr’s face grew sheepish at this, “—and I figured my plan hadn’t been so bright after all. But by then Starcrest and Maldynado and Basilard and the others were all climbing up to get him, blocking all the escapes, and he panicked. I got my chance and stuck my dagger in his back. Then the others were swarming all over him, finishing him off before he could hurt anyone else. It was great.” Akstyr grinned again and waved his belt. “I haven’t gotten a chance to see what all he had yet, but I hope I can learn from it.”

  Something to his left drew his gaze—Books returning with the requested items.

  Sicarius hadn’t removed the arm he had wrapped around Amaranthe, and he took this last moment alone with her to rub her back. “You made that happen,” he said, trying to let his approval seep into his voice. “If you hadn’t cut that thing out of my head, he wouldn’t have cried out. They never would have found him.”

  Though it remained dark at the bottom of the pit, he heard the grin in her voice. “Can we pretend it was some premeditated brilliance then and not utter desperation? Much like me shutting myself down here and crawling out the sewage hole?”

  “Yes.” Sicarius levered himself into a sitting position and would have kissed her, Akstyr’s observing eyes be cursed, but several more figures stepped up to the ledge above them.

  “Amaranthe!” Maldynado called.

  Basilard raised a triumphant fist.

  “Are you all right?” Yara asked. “We were afraid… it took so long, everyone was afraid we were too late.”

  Sicarius heard and saw them, as well as Books, Deret Mancrest, and a handful of soldiers with ropes and grappling hooks, but it was the silver-haired man in insignia-less black fatigues onto whom his eyes locked. Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest. The man he’d asked to come to the empire, and the man he’d come to the factory to kill that night. Aside from the hair color and deeper lines around the mouth and eyes, Starcrest hadn’t changed much. He’d gained a few pounds, but he’d been on the edge of gaunt at their last meeting, fresh off that time on Krychek Island. He appeared hale and fit, as befitting a warrior.

  “Corporal Lokdon,” Starcrest said, his voice quiet but carrying to the bottom of the pit regardless. “I am relieved to see that your plan worked.” His gaze shifted, and he nodded once. “Sicarius.”

  This wasn’t how Sicarius had envisioned them meeting again after twenty years. He’d wanted… what? To be able to march with pride at the head of an army he’d built? Perhaps not, but at least to be able to hold his head up and know he hadn’t spent the last few days as some wizard’s lickspittle.

  At a wave from Starcrest, one of the soldiers dropped a rope down. Sicarius touched Amaranthe, indicating that she could go first. After she scrambled out of the pit, he marshaled his strength, crouched low, and leaped u
p, catching the lip. He pulled himself over the side. Who he meant to impress by ignoring the rope—Amaranthe? Starcrest?—he didn’t know, but he hadn’t wanted to appear weak. He already knew his appearance, with dried blood streaking his face and gore smashed beneath his fingernails, did not match the tidy one he preferred.

  Of course, Amaranthe was equally blood- and gore-covered, but that did not keep her from greeting her comrades with hugs and offering Starcrest a firm handshake. He accepted it and added a comradely, or maybe fatherly, pat of approval to her shoulder.

  Sicarius kept his face composed in his stoney mask, showing nothing of the chaos and pain that remained in his mind, nor the childish feeling that he’d like a pat of approval from the great admiral.

  He noticed another man standing back from the gathering, and it took a great deal of effort to maintain the mask he’d so carefully reapplied. Sespian. Amaranthe had said he was alive, and he’d believed her, but it wasn’t the same as seeing his son with his own eyes.

  Sicarius strode around the others and toward Sespian. For a moment, he had a notion of hugging him, but his approach evoked a look of hesitant wariness. Sespian glanced at his temple, as if he worried Sicarius might still be under someone’s control. Or maybe he was more aware than Amaranthe of what Sicarius had done in the last few days.

  Instead of extending his arms for a hug, one he realized with lament he’d been far closer to receiving on that water tower, Sicarius stopped a pace away and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am pleased to see that you are alive and undamaged.”

  “Uhm,” Sespian said, and Sicarius sensed his simple statement hadn’t been the correct one, or at least not the one Sespian expected. “Thanks.”

  “I thought you’d died at Fort Urgot.”

  Sespian winced. “I should have. I was lucky. Thousands of others weren’t.”

  “So I understand.” The stiltedness of the conversation pained Sicarius, but he did not know how to smooth it out.

  “Heroncrest’s army had tunneled under the walls. Maldynado, Basilard, and General Ridgecrest, and I were fighting the troops trying to enter that way.”

  The tunnel borer, of course. Sicarius hadn’t thought to hope that it could have somehow come into play in saving Sespian. He was relieved the soul construct had interrupted their spy mission, for, given enough time, he might have thought to sabotage that equipment.

  Sespian’s gaze shifted over his shoulder. Sicarius glanced back in time to catch Amaranthe mouthing something and making a gesture toward Sicarius. She caught him looking, shrugged, and returned to a conversation with Books and Deret.

  Sespian cleared his throat. “I am… pleased to see that you are alive as well. And only… somewhat damaged.”

  It wasn’t the hug Sicarius would have preferred, and Amaranthe had goaded the statement out, but it was better than stiff coldness.

  Sicarius nodded once. “Good.”

  “You’re supposed to say thank you to something like that.”

  “An artificial social construct that is no more of an acknowledgment of your statement than my ‘good.’” It was an automatic response, not a well-thought out one, and, as soon as Sespian shook his head, Sicarius knew he should have simply voiced gratitude. This was why he didn’t get hugs…

  Sicarius sighed to himself, wondering when he’d ever figure out how to interact with his son.

  • • •

  After washing and changing clothes, Amaranthe was on her way to join Starcrest and the others in a midnight planning meeting, but Deret Mancrest blocked her path. He stood at the base of the catwalk stairs, his swordstick in one hand and the other on the railing as he spoke with a blonde-haired woman in spectacles. Though Amaranthe had never seen her in person, she knew exactly who this was. The nose, in particular, was quite familiar, though the woman was a little stouter than she had been in her ten-year-old tintype. She was smiling as she spoke to Deret, a pleasant smile with dimples, but it disappeared when she spotted Amaranthe approaching.

  The wry smile Deret issued suggested he’d intentionally put himself—and Suan Curlev—into Amaranthe’s path. Yes, he knew she’d been avoiding this chat for days. Suan was neither bound nor gagged, though enough soldiers guarded the factory perimeter that one might be deterred from escape attempts. Or perhaps she’d been given her parole in exchange for… what? Some promise from Deret? She was standing closer to him than one would expect from a pair of enemies, or rather, kidnapper and kidnap victim.

  “Ms. Curlev,” Amaranthe said, and that’s as far as she got. How did one say, “I’m sorry I had you kidnapped and, oh, did I mention that I’m responsible for your sister’s death? No? Sorry about that too.”?

  “Corporal Lokdon,” Suan said. “Lord Mancrest assures me that your assassin will not be knocking on my door tonight, but I would like to hear these assurances from your mouth. Does being imprisoned by you indeed grant protection?”

  Er, what?

  “You won’t be assassinated while you’re here,” Amaranthe said, “but Sicarius is his own man, not my assassin.” After what he’d been through, the last thing she wanted to do was claim ownership of him. That was sure to make him bristle, no matter who tried it.

  “Then you can’t promise he won’t kill me the way he’s single-handedly annihilated most of my sisters?” Suan frowned at Deret.

  Sisters. She meant the Forge women, not Retta, but the link made Amaranthe wince nonetheless. Did Suan know about Retta yet? Or did her knowledge only extend to what had been in the latest newspapers?

  You’d know, Amaranthe told herself, if you hadn’t been avoiding her.

  “He will not,” came Sicarius’s voice from behind her, “kill any of Corporal Lokdon’s prisoners.”

  Though his words were for Suan, he stopped beside Amaranthe, standing shoulder to shoulder with her. She’d missed that this last week, and she drew strength from his presence. Retta’s death had been regrettable, but she had to accept it, and accept whatever this woman’s reaction would be.

  Suan had taken a step back at Sicarius’s approach, her fingers tightening on the railing like vise clamps. Despite Sicarius’s words, Deret shifted to stand protectively in front of her. Surprise flickered in her eyes, but, after a moment, she shifted her hand from the railing to Deret’s arm.

  It occurred to Amaranthe that, however last-minute and desperate her order to have the woman kidnapped had been, she had one of the Forge founders in her hideout. Maybe she could use that—and this friendship she’d apparently developed with Deret—to put an end to the bloodshed. The Forge bloodshed, anyway. Amaranthe was happy to leave the ending of the military bloodshed to Starcrest and Sespian.

  “Ms. Curlev,” Amaranthe said, “Sicarius was under a wizard’s control when he killed those people—” his lips flattened; he doubtlessly did not wish to be reminded of the fact, and she resolved to move the conversation away from it quickly, “—but that has ended. You’re safe as long as you’re here, with us. Should you choose to escape and conspire with what’s left of your comrades…”

  “Was he also under a wizard’s control last month when he killed Ambree, Sia, Tabthra, and so many others?” Suan asked.

  The image of Books’s notebook, the one he’d used to research Forge members, popped into Amaranthe’s mind, along with the neat checkmarks Sicarius had made beside the names of each person he’d assassinated. She didn’t know how to explain that his actions that night had been a retribution for the threat to Sespian—it wasn’t as if that fact could legitimize assassinations anyway.

  “No,” Amaranthe said. “If you’re aware of his relationship to Sespian, which most of the world seems to be now, then you’ll understand why he took those actions. He doesn’t kill… whimsically.” She glanced at Sicarius, wondering if that would draw an eyebrow twitch. No, he was wearing his facade of granite, with neither his face nor body hinting at his thoughts. He’d washed and changed into a fresh set of his black clothing, but that didn’t make him appear any le
ss dangerous. He either hadn’t been offered, or more likely hadn’t accepted, a bandage for his temple, and the fresh puckered wound only gave his visage a new degree of deadliness.

  “I’ve lost so many old comrades.” The edge in Suan’s voice softened. “And… Retta? Do you know… I can only imagine she died in that explosion. But maybe…?” She lifted hopeful eyes.

  “She died in the crash,” Amaranthe said. “Ms. Worgavic’s shaman friend tried to stop some deadly alien devices with fire and Retta was caught by the blast.” Leaving out the fact that Retta had only been in the line of fire because of her didn’t sit well with Amaranthe, but if Suan could be convinced that her “old comrades” were in the wrong, and she could become some conduit through which a new law-abiding business class could be created, might not the omission be acceptable? For the greater good?

  “I see,” Suan said. “I feared this plot of theirs would not end well. Though I never thought…” She closed her eyes for a long moment. “I never thought Retta would end up in the middle of the fire. All she ever wanted to do was study in her field.”

  Amaranthe latched onto the word “theirs,” noticing Suan hadn’t said “our plot.” Might she have disapproved all along?

  “Do you think Forge will be finished with… their plot now?” Amaranthe asked. “If you’re no longer a threat to Sicarius, or those he cares about, he’ll have no reason to pursue you.”

  “From what I understand…” Suan watched Sicarius, not meeting his eyes, but making sure he didn’t come closer to her. “There’s not much left of Forge anyway. What is left will have little reason to target Sespian now. As you pointed out, his heritage has been made public and will disqualify him from the throne.”

  “Possibly disqualify him,” Amaranthe said. “None of the other potential candidates is doing anything to ingratiate himself with the public by marching through the city, imposing martial law, and killing members of the Company of Lords. Dead ancestors know what else they’re doing by now. You might be best served by ingratiating yourself with… someone else.”