Deadly Games

  For once, she wore her hair down, though a braid on either side of her temples pulled the locks away from her eyes. Pleasant evening at the Imperial Gardens or not, one had to be prepared should one need to defend oneself. She could kick off the sandals if she needed to run away—or drive a heel into someone’s crabapples.

  Amaranthe chuckled sadly at herself. “Turn down the boiler, girl. Relax.”

  As she crunched along the park’s main gravel pathway, she vowed to enjoy the summer evening. She inhaled the floral scents that wafted from flower baskets hanging from lampposts alongside the path. She passed a group of teenage boys competing at draftball in a sandy arena while younger children played hide-and-seek amongst the tall, dense shrubs of the Emperor’s Maze.

  Deret had suggested they meet at Lookout Vista at the center of the park, but she spotted him before reaching the base of the hill. He leaned against the waist-high lip of a fountain. Above him, Vlem the Valiant held a sword aloft, and a curtain of water streamed from the granite blade. Amaranthe smirked, thinking of Maldynado’s concern about a statue being made of him swimming up a squid’s hind-end. That wouldn’t likely make center stage in an imperial park.

  “Good evening, Ms. Lokdon.” Despite having the sword stick in one hand, and a bulging canvas tote in the other, Deret performed a graceful bow. He wore a sleeveless tunic that accentuated muscular arms, which he managed to display nicely during the greeting. “You are looking lovely this evening.”

  The suave greeting was somewhat diminished when the head-sized draftball from the boys’ game sailed into the fountain, sending a splash of water into Deret’s face. He stepped away and awkwardly rearranged his belongings so he could wipe his spectacles with his shirt. A nervous boy trotted up to retrieve the ball amongst numerous utterances of, “Sorry, my lord.”

  “Good evening, Lord Mancrest,” Amaranthe said to rescue the boy from any backlash, though Deret did no more than give the lad a faintly peeved glance.

  “Please, call me Deret. Now that you’ve had me at your mercy a couple of times, I feel you’ve earned the right to call me by my first name.” He winced. “That sounded arrogant, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I’m used to that from warrior-caste types. I’ve been working with Maldynado for several months now.”

  “He’s...not exactly someone to whom I’d wish to be compared.”

  “Because he’s disowned?”

  “Because he’s Maldynado.”

  “Ah.” Good answer.

  “May I call you Amaranthe?” Deret looped the tote over his opposite wrist, eliciting a clinking of glassware within. He gripped his sword stick with the same hand and offered Amaranthe his free arm.

  “Yes, though you’ve been particularly troublesome, and I’m not sure you’ve fully earned the right yet.” She smiled to let him know she was joking and accepted his arm. Sadly, she could not remember the last time a man had offered her his arm. Though she appreciated the gesture, a twinge of guilt ran through her, as if she were betraying Sicarius. But this was just a dinner related to work. A chance to further their cause. Besides, it was not as if Sicarius had given her reason to hope anything might happen between them.

  “You’re most kind.” Deret guided her toward the path leading up the hill to Lookout Vista. “I’m glad you came. I wasn’t certain you would after you read the article in The Gazette. I’m sorry it said so little about you and so much about the bravery of those on the Saberfist. I could only report what I witnessed with my eyes. I know you and your team were down there and may have been the ones responsible for destroying that strange ship, and the kraken as well, but...”

  “It’s fine,” Amaranthe said. “You mentioned us, and you didn’t imply we were behind everything.” It was nothing short of their most visible triumph yet.

  “Still,” Deret said, “I’d like to hear your story and about everything that happened. Maybe we could do an interview for the paper.”

  “I’d be happy to tell you about it, but perhaps it’d be better for us—and your health—if you didn’t come out too openly in favor of my team.”

  “My health?” He frowned.

  “You’ve heard of a group called Forge?”

  Deret’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

  “We’ve irked them a couple of times, and it sounds like they had an interest in this venue, too.” They had reached the crown of the hill, offering a view of the lake beyond the trees and warehouses, and she nodded toward the sunset-streaked water to indicate the laboratory vessel. It had sunken back to the bottom as soon as the athletes were pulled out. She had thought the Saberfist might want to salvage it, but the marines had seemed happy to have it disappear. It would be hard to continue denying the existence of magic with a ship full of evidence to the contrary. She wondered what Sespian thought of the whole event.

  “I’m not one to run from a threat.” Deret thumped his sword stick into the gravel path and grimaced at it. “Or hobble from a threat either.”

  “But if you have a facade of neutrality, or even come out in favor of business in the capital, then you won’t likely be targeted, and you’ll have an easier time getting information from various enemy sources. Perhaps you could even share some of that information.” She gave him her best winsome smile.

  “Ah, so you want your own personal spy at The Gazette?”

  “Are you offering to work for me?” Her smile broadened.

  “Er, no. I mean...” He poked at the gravel with his sword stick. “You’re good, you know that, right? Since the day I met you, it’s been hard for me to think of you as an enemy to the empire.”

  “That’s because I’m not an enemy to the empire.”

  They reached the top of the hill where stone benches waited for those wishing to watch the sunset. A meditation pit and a pair of wrestling rings occupied the area too.

  “No, it’s because you don’t seem like... You know those sexy, dangerous women who you can tell just want to manipulate you to their own ends? You don’t seem like that at all.”

  Amaranthe raised an eyebrow at him.

  Deret stopped. “What?”

  “You said I wasn’t sexy. I hope you weren’t expecting a kiss tonight.”

  “Oh! I didn’t mean, uhm...” His bronze skin took on a suffused hue that matched the crimson warblooms in the planters framing the benches. “I just meant you seem nice. And wholesome.”

  “Wholesome?” This time both of her eyebrows flew up. “That’s what my father used to say about broccoli.”

  “Wholesome isn’t bad,” Deret said. “I like wholesome.”

  “Hm.”

  He set the tote on a bench, withdrew a blanket, and spread it on the sand of the meditation pit. Deret was avoiding her eyes, and his cheeks were redder than ever. He removed a bottle of apple wine, glasses, a covered dish, and slices of flatbread for dipping in oil.

  He cleared his throat. “This kiss, was that on your mind for tonight?”

  “Uhm.” Amaranthe had only blurted it out as a joke. She could easily see liking Deret, but more? Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Being with someone who would take her on picnics to parks and share laughs with her.... It was not as if she could see Sicarius ever doing those things. Dear ancestors, she had never even gotten a true smile out of him. “Let’s just see if we can make it through the evening without you trying to turn me over to some marines.”

  “That sounds like a good start.”

  Deret maneuvered himself onto the blanket with a faint wince, and she sensed irritation in the stiff way he set the sword stick aside. Though war wounds were common in the battle-seeking empire, he was young to have to deal with a permanent disability. He converted the wince into a smile and lifted a hand, inviting her to join him.

  She sat cross-legged beside him.

  “So,” Deret said as he dug out a corkscrew, “are you going to give me the full story of what happened down there, or am I going to have to go into aggressive interviewer mode?”

  “Does
an aggressive interview involve threats and punches?”

  “Usually only with prospects that are male and criminal.” He poured two glasses of wine and handed her one.

  “And female criminals?”

  “I have to bludgeon them into talking using my wit.” He grinned, and she found herself responding in kind. “But,” he went on, “I’m told it’s not—emperor’s warts!” He gaped at something on the other side of Amaranthe.

  Sicarius stood there, hands clasped behind his back. Her first thought was that he had been running and stopped by to check and make sure Deret wasn’t up to no good, but he was freshly shaven and had also combed his hair, though tufts still stuck out in spots, a result of him choosing to cut it on his own...with a knife. He wore his typical fitted black with his shirt neatly tucked in. No red dust from the lakeside running trail smeared his soft boots. He was as tidy and presentable as ever, if one ignored the throwing knives adorning his arm.

  “Problem?” Amaranthe asked.

  Deret had sloshed wine on his arm, and he wiped it while he glowered at their intruder.

  “Yes,” Sicarius said.

  “Back at camp?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Amaranthe waited for him to explain his presence. He simply stood there, watching them. He hadn’t decided she needed a bodyguard, or, emperor forbid, a chaperone, had he?

  “What is the problem?” she asked.

  “Besides his presence?” Deret muttered.

  “I wish to speak with you,” Sicarius said, ignoring Deret. Wish? Not “will” or “must?” That was...polite for him. Yet, if it wasn’t an emergency, surely it could wait.

  “Now?” she asked, pointedly tilting her head toward Deret.

  Sicarius flicked a dismissive glance toward him, but said, “I can wait until you finish here.”

  He made no move to leave. Did he intend to wait right there?

  “I didn’t bring enough food for three,” Deret told him.

  “I am not hungry.”

  Amaranthe never would have considered Sicarius the type to be deliberately obtuse, but he certainly seemed to fall into that category tonight. She sighed and told Deret, “I better see what he wants.”

  “Aren’t you in charge of the group? Can’t you tell him to run along and sharpen his knives?”

  For the first time, Sicarius turned his gaze on Deret, and it was an icy one. Amaranthe did not think he would attack someone simply for annoying him—surely, Maldynado would be dead thirty or forty times by now if that were the case—but Sicarius might decide Deret represented a threat, and do away with him the callous way he did away with other threats.

  “My wholesome charms don’t work that well on him,” Amaranthe said, climbing to her feet as she spoke. Best to separate the two men before Deret sent any more jabs at Sicarius.

  “You’re coming back, right?” Deret asked.

  “Yes,” Amaranthe said at the same time as Sicarius said, “No.”

  “I’ll be back,” Amaranthe said with a cool look of her own for Sicarius, then she followed as he led the way down the hill.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon, and twilight darkened the park. Gas lamps glowed, but Sicarius avoided the paths they lit, striding across the grass toward the towering hedges of the Emperor’s Maze. Amaranthe’s heart sped up, and an uncertain flutter of anticipation danced through her gut. If this were any other man, she’d assume he was leading her into the hedge maze for a private tryst, but this was Sicarius. He’d be more likely to lead her off for a private evening of weapons practice.

  Though her sandals and dress made her gait slower than usual, he was careful not to outpace her. He wound his way into the maze. Giggles and low conversations drifted from the alcoves. On such a lovely summer evening, it might be hard to find a private spot anywhere in the park.

  They padded down a long aisle of lush grass surrounded by the smell of freshly watered hedges and flowers, and he seemed to find a spot he liked. He turned into an alcove with a bench and a small fountain tinkling softly.

  “Romantic spot,” Amaranthe said. “Are you bringing me here to seduce me?” She kept her tone light, so he would know she was joking, but that nervous flutter teased her insides again. What if she wasn’t? Or he wasn’t? Or—erg, she had to stop thinking.

  “You’re dressed for it,” Sicarius said, surprising her.

  Her first thought was that he was implying disapproval at her bare-armed attire—he certainly had been insulting about the last dress Maldynado picked out for her—but his tone lacked any sort of edge, and he looked back and nudged her when she drew even with him.

  Ah, that was teasing, if one could call it that. He was quoting her line from the lake.

  “You’re not,” she said, quoting his line.

  “No?” Sicarius stopped before the bench and examined his clothing. He smoothed a non-existent wrinkle and brushed an imaginary fleck of dust from the hilt of one of his daggers.

  Actually, the black, however unimaginative, did accentuate everything nicely, and he’d have little trouble stirring a woman’s fantasies in that outfit...or anything else. But that was far too honest to admit aloud. “In my experience,” she said, “seductions usually involve fewer knives.”

  “Huh.” Something in that single syllable made her believe that hadn’t been his experience. She supposed anyone with the guts to proposition him...liked that it took guts to proposition him and found the blade collection an appealing part of the package.

  Sicarius sat on the bench and held a hand out, offering her the seat beside him.

  Amaranthe ought to tell him to hurry up and say what he had to say because Deret was waiting on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to mention him. She didn’t want to go back to Deret, not when she actually had Sicarius in a romantic spot, and he wasn’t discussing work. Well, he wasn’t discussing anything yet. She didn’t know what to expect. It was bizarre of him even to sit on a bench; usually, he’d nod for her to sit while he remained standing and alert, surveying their surroundings as they spoke.

  It was not a large bench, and when Amaranthe slid onto it, her leg touched his. The tall shrubs must have protected the stone seat from the afternoon sun, for its coolness seeped through her dress. It made her hyperaware of the heat from Sicarius’s thigh.

  “You mentioned a problem?” she asked, cringing when her voice cracked. She cleared her throat.

  “Yes.”

  Someone giggled in another alcove. A small creature rustled through the undergrowth beside them.

  “And that problem would be...?” Amaranthe prompted.

  “Your plans to kiss Mancrest.”

  Amaranthe bolted up from the bench. Her tongue tangled under the assault of words that flooded into her mouth. Part of her wanted to deny any such thing, and part of her wanted to berate him for eavesdropping. All of her felt like a child caught reaching for a forbidden bag of candies. She had nothing to be guilty over though. She hadn’t betrayed Sicarius. They had no agreement of fidelity. And besides, she hadn’t said she was going to kiss Deret. She’d only been in the earliest stages of thinking maybe he might be someone with whom she could see having a relationship.

  She settled for crossing her arms over her chest and saying, “How long were you skulking about the gardens, spying on us?”

  He gazed up at her. The deepening twilight hid the nuances of his features, and she couldn’t tell if anything other than his usual mask occupied his face. “What do you consider ‘long’?”

  “A period of time during which a normal, considerate person would feel ashamed for listening in on someone else’s conversation.”

  Sicarius did not answer.

  Amaranthe sighed and dropped her hands. “What are you doing out here? Checking up? Do you still believe Deret is a threat to me?”

  “No.”

  Crickets sang to each other in the shrubs while Amaranthe waited for him to explain further.

  “I do not like you seeing him,” he f
inally said.

  “Because...?”

  “You know why.”

  She spread her arms. “With any other man in the world, I’d be positive, but this is you. Lord General Unreadable.” Besides if it was what she thought, she wanted to hear him say it.

  His sigh was so soft she might have imagined it. “It makes me jealous.”

  Dear ancestors, she might have wanted him to say it, but she had not truly expected him to admit it. “But I’ve told you how I feel about you, and you chose not to do anything about it.”

  “I told you why.”

  Amaranthe was torn between rolling her eyes in frustration at him and being tickled it bothered him to see her having dinner with another man. She took a few steps to the fountain and leaned her hands against the damp stone rim. “Let me see if I’ve got this. You’re not willing to have a relationship with me, but you don’t want me to have a relationship with anyone else either.”

  “Yes,” Sicarius said. “Is that acceptable?”

  She snorted. “No, it’s not.”

  Sicarius joined her by the fountain. “I thought not, but you raised my hopes.”

  Amaranthe rubbed her face to hide a smile creeping onto her lips. She ought to be furious, but this was progress for him. Incredible to think it from a man over thirty-five years old, but he had probably never been jealous of anyone in his life, nor told a woman he cared. “I wouldn’t have thought you were the type to do something so frivolous as hope.”

  “A recent development.” Sicarius extended his arm, a hand out to her.

  She stared at it, not sure what he was offering. She tried to read his face, but the darkness hid what few cues he gave. A warm breeze whispered through, ruffling his short hair.

  Amaranthe stepped toward him, and he drew her into a hug. At first, she could only stand there, shocked. Despite the chiseled muscles beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, his embrace was gentle. She grew aware of his scent, of shaving soap and weapons cleaning oil, and inhaled deeply. Closing her eyes, she leaned into him and slipped her arms around his waist. Her knuckles bumped against the hilts of knives, and she smiled in bemusement. Only Sicarius would bring all his weapons to the smooching corner of the Imperial Gardens.