Encrypted

  “Not sure how fortunate I feel about going back to the Turgonians.” Tikaya swiped water out of her eyes and grimaced at the cold drops tunneling into her ears. “I guess it’s better being wanted than being wanted dead.”

  “Prevailing opinions agree with that sentiment.”

  Oars lifted and dipped as the craft neared. Lanterns at either end provided light, and Tikaya spotted Agarik leading the rowers. She smiled a bit, glad he had survived the chaos. He gazed at Rias with a wide-eyed, openmouthed stare of adulation and helped him out of the water first. She tried not to feel a twinge of envy. She had helped after all. At least Agarik managed to notice her second and gave her a hand into the boat. She collapsed on an empty bench between rows of burly, young oarsmen.

  “Turn this dinghy around,” Agarik yelled, and the men set to work.

  Tikaya wrapped her arms around herself. The breeze needled her soaking dress, cold water dripped from her hair, and she had lost her sandals in the fall so the puddles on the bottom chilled her feet.

  Rias settled on a bench next to her, and she pressed closer than she normally would have. Shivers coursed through her body. He put his arm around her, though he must have been just as cold and miserable. Their proximity caused raised eyebrows and significant looks between the marines. Agarik’s jaw tensed.

  “Here, sir.” A marine handed Rias a blanket.

  The use of the honorific made Agarik give the man a sharp look, though Tikaya was not sure if it was quelling or curious. Rias draped the blanket over his and her shoulders.

  On the short ride back, the marines peppered him with questions. How had he gotten out of his cell? How had he and Tikaya gotten aboard the Nurian craft? Had they seen the Nurians on board their ship? Did they know what they wanted? Apparently, the Turgonian chain of command meant nobody not commanding had a clue was happening.

  Tikaya thought Rias might share the story, but, back in the presence of the marines, he grew reserved and quiet. Was this the real man or had she glimpsed that person on the Nurian ship? Or neither? She liked the amiable fellow she had chatted with while target shooting best, though she suspected she could grow accustomed to the soldier she had seen tonight too. Not that it mattered. Certainly, she appreciated his help, but it was not as if she was going to develop feelings for some ex-officer from the military that had tried to take over her islands.

  Still, when their knuckles bumped beneath the blanket, she gripped his hand.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, wanting to say more, but their hulking male onlookers stilled her tongue.

  Rias smiled and squeezed her hand.

  Back on the warship, Captain Bocrest waited, arms folded across his chest, a scowl accompanying his usual glare. Tikaya had not expected gratitude from the man, but the anger radiating from him surprised her.

  As soon as Rias came over the railing behind her, that anger found an outlet.

  “How could you make such an idiotic decision?” Bocrest snapped.

  “He didn’t do anything wrong,” Tikaya said. “The Nurians teleported us to their ship. What was he supposed to do?”

  The captain did not spare her a glance. His glare stayed pinned to Rias.

  “What are you talking about, Bocrest?” Rias asked.

  “You know what I’m talking about.” The captain jerked his hand at a squad of marines standing by with pistols. “Take him back to his cell.”

  “Wait.” Rias lifted a hand. “Did you find the assassins?”

  “The dead men in the brig? Yes.”

  “No.” Rias gave Tikaya a concerned frown. “There are two others, at least, who can skulk about invisible.”

  “They killed the man guarding my cabin,” she said.

  “We’ll find them,” Bocrest said.

  “I can help,” Rias said.

  Bocrest scowled again. “You can go to your slagging cell and stay there this time.”

  “Captain.” Rias stepped forward, staring down at Bocrest. “The Nurians want Tikaya dead and are making great sacrifices to ensure that happens.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Bocrest did not back off, nor shrink away from Rias’s glare. “I have orders to keep her alive until she decodes the runes, and I’ll do that.”

  “She’d be dead now if she hadn’t escaped on her own. You already botched your orders.”

  Afraid he would land himself in irrevocable trouble for her sake, Tikaya grabbed Rias’s arm and tried to pull him away.

  “I botched my orders?” Bocrest yelled, fists clenched. “If you hadn’t screwed up two years ago, you could—” He cut himself off with an audible snapping shut of his jaw, and Tikaya sensed the ‘idiotic decision’ he accused Rias of had less to do with this night and more to do with whatever had landed Rias on Krychek Island. Bocrest glared around at the watching marines. “You men have duties,” he roared. “Get this ship repaired. Now!”

  Men sprinted from his wrath, leaving only Rias, Tikaya, Agarik, and the guards waiting to escort their prisoner below.

  “Let me stay with her until the assassins are found,” Rias said, as if he had not heard the captain’s outburst. “Or stand guard outside her door. I’ve tangled with enough wizards to survive them.”

  “You’re not her bodyguard, you’re our guide. I thought I explained that to you when you were taking swings at me.”

  “A job for which you don’t need me until we arrive at the tunnels,” Rias said.

  Tikaya’s ears perked. Tunnels? Was that where the rubbings had come from? She still needed Rias to explain his history with the runes.

  “No,” Bocrest said. “You’re a prisoner. You don’t get your way.”

  Tikaya still gripped Rias’s arm, and she could feel the tension in the knotted muscles beneath the damp sleeve. Though she hated seeing him angry, especially on her behalf, she had to wonder how much more might be revealed if she simply stood quiet and listened.

  “Bocrest...” Rias tried again.

  “Go. To. Your. Cell.” The captain jerked his arm to wave the guards forward.

  Rias tensed and dropped into a fighting crouch. He had not noticed when she grabbed his arm, so Tikaya stepped in front of him and planted two hands on his chest.

  “Don’t.” She gazed into his eyes and made herself smile, though, she would have preferred Rias stay by her side too. “I’ll be fine. You won’t accomplish anything by getting beaten up.”

  He closed his eyes, seemed to struggle for his calm, and finally sighed, a deep long exhalation. “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Tikaya watched glumly as the guards surrounded him.

  “This way, sir,” one said.

  Bocrest’s head jerked up. “Don’t you ‘sir’ him. He’s Prisoner Five, and that’s it.”

  The guard gulped. “Yes, captain.”

  Head lowered, Rias offered no reaction to the terse conversation. Surrounded, he trooped belowdecks. Bocrest stalked in the opposite direction, grinding his teeth.

  “Ready to go back to your cabin, ma’am?” Agarik asked.

  She shook her head but followed him. “Who is he, Corporal?” She had asked the question before, and Agarik had not known, but that was the second time someone sir’d him that night. Maybe it was out respect for what they had done aboard the Nurian ship, but somehow she doubted it. She wagered that shave and haircut had made him recognizable, at least to some.

  “I wish I knew.” Agarik led her down a ship’s ladder. “It seems like he must be an officer at least, someone who fought during the war. But I fought as well, and I don’t remember hearing about anyone court-martialed and exiled to Krychek.” They threaded through the wardroom, where furniture had toppled and slid against the wall, and stopped at her cabin. “He hasn’t told you?”

  “Just to call him Rias. Does that mean anything to you?”

  The corporal’s expression grew thoughtful, but eventually he shook his head. “No.”

  Tikaya stepped into her cabin. Thankfully, the bodies had been cleare
d, though a few bloodstains smudged the deck.

  Before Agarik could close the door, she leaned back out, remembering something. “He did say...”

  Agarik paused, eyes questioning.

  “If I was ever at the war library in your capital I should look up a book called Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat, because he wrote it.”

  Agarik froze. Utterly and completely. His mouth hung open, and he stared at her for a long moment before recovering. “I see. Thank you.”

  “Wait.” Tikaya raised a hand as he started away. “You know, don’t you? Is he somebody I would have heard of?”

  “I don’t—I can’t. I’m not sure. I—”

  A lieutenant passed through the wardroom on the way to his cabin, and he frowned at Agarik.

  “I have to go.” Agarik chopped a wave.

  “Could you at least have someone bring me a towel?” Tikaya called to his receding back.

  * * * * *

  After dripping a puddle of water onto the cabin floor, Tikaya wondered if she should take off her dress and dry in the blanket on her bunk. What were the odds the Turgonians would supply her with a change of clothing at some point? She plucked at the damp dress. At least the sea had washed out most of the blood.

  When she reached for the blanket, her gaze fell across the desk. It was empty.

  The rubbings, her notes, and the reference books Bocrest had provided were missing. She searched the tiny cabin, thinking they might have been knocked off during the scramble, but no. They were gone.

  A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the wet dress. The assassins must have returned and taken them.

  Tikaya eyed the corners of the cabin, all too aware that they could be right in front of her and she would not know it.

  She opened the door, wondering if a new guard had been posted or if she could leave and find the captain. Sergeant Ottotark leaned against the wall outside, and she did not manage to hide her groan.

  Briefly, he met her eyes, offering a hostile glare, but his gaze inevitably drifted downward. She shifted to the side to stand in the shadow of the door.

  “The rubbings are missing,” Tikaya said. “I think they stole them—the Nurians who attacked me in my cabin and killed the young man standing guard.”

  Ottotark’s face frosted at the mention of the dead marine.

  “Can you tell Bocrest?” she asked.

  “The captain is busy directing repairs, cleanup, and funeral services, thanks to the flotilla of Nurian ships that showed up tonight looking for you.”

  “While I’m sympathetic to your lost men—”

  He snorted.

  “—you people kidnapped me,” she continued. “I never wanted to be here, so don’t blame that attack on me. If you could just tell the captain I’m not able to continue my studies unless he finds—”

  The sergeant stepped forward, shoving the door further open. “I’m not your messenger boy.”

  She stumbled back, glancing around for something to use as a weapon if she needed to fend him off. The sparse cabin offered nothing.

  “You’d do best to remember you’re a prisoner here. Prisoners have no right to the captain’s time, nor to an officer’s cabin with a busy sergeant as your guard, a busy sergeant who’s stuck on this duty because your presence here got one of his men killed.” His low voice was gravelly, and tendons strained against the skin of his thick neck. “You haven’t done anything useful since you got here.”

  Tikaya wanted to defend herself—she had helped Rias crash the ship that had allowed the Turgonians to sail away, hadn’t she?—but Ottotark seemed to want her to argue, to incite his anger. He stepped closer, and she eased back until her calves bumped the bunk.

  Rage boiled in the sergeant’s dark eyes, but lust too. He had not looked at her face since she first opened the door. “The captain ought to chain you to that bunk and let you be of some use to the crew.”

  A throat cleared in the corridor.

  The glare Ottotark snapped over his shoulder could have frozen lava, but Corporal Agarik merely lifted his arms, displaying boots, a parka, a stack of black uniforms, and a towel. Tikaya held her breath, aware the sergeant outranked Agarik, but hoping the corporal’s presence would keep Ottotark in line.

  “The captain said to bring her these and relieve you as guard,” Agarik said.

  Ottotark eyed the stack. “Now we’re pampering the bitch with extra clothes? Why don’t we invite her to dine in the officer’s mess next?”

  “Gonna be cold up there, sergeant.” Agarik walked in, set the clothing on the bunk, and then stood outside the cabin, in full view of the door, which he left open.

  Ottotark issued a low growl and a backward glance that promised “later” before striding out.

  Even after the door banged shut, Tikaya could not relax. Her luck would not hold with that one. She would have to figure out how to abscond with a dagger from the exercise area and keep it on her at all times. And hope it was enough against the powerful marine. And that she could use it on him. But then that should not be a problem now. Her lip twisted bitterly. She had killed. When she thought of how easy it had been, how accurate she was with that cursed bow, she had to steady herself with a hand on the wall.

  React later, Rias had said. Well, it was later.

  Tikaya curled on her side on the bunk, her head in her hands, her eyes shut. Images of her deeds flashed in her mind, the terrified and pained faces of the people she shot. She let them flood over her again and again, feeling the need to punish herself. What would Parkonis think if he were alive? Would he be shocked—disgusted—that she could release an arrow into someone’s chest? He never would have killed a human being, probably not even in self-defense. He would have been horrified to see Rias beheading those practitioners.

  She opened her eyes and stared at the polished wood floorboards. If she had been transported to that ship with Parkonis, she would have been dead in the first minute. She was no longer in his world, no longer in hers. She could adapt to this world—she had proved that to herself that night—but at what cost?

  Tikaya wondered if she would ever see her family and her island again. More, she wondered if she would be someone her parents could still love if she did return.

  CHAPTER 7

  Ice stretched in all directions, an endless white blanket, unbroken save for a black trail of water stretching behind the ship. Tikaya gripped the frost-slick railing near the bow with gloved hands and peered over the fur trim of her parka, amazed by the heavy iron hull smashing through the inches-thick frozen crust. The pace was slow and the deck vibrated with the efforts of the engine, but their progress continued. Her people’s wooden vessels could never do this and she admitted reluctant admiration for the Turgonian engineers and metallurgists who could build such a craft without help from practitioners.

  For the first time during the trip, land stretched along the horizon, white, flat, and stark. To the south, a range of jagged snow-smothered mountains stretched inland. A settlement hunkered a few miles ahead, low buildings and ice-locked docks just becoming visible. On the ship, marines were hauling food and supplies out of the hold, preparing for a land excursion.

  “Good morning,” came a familiar voice from behind.

  Tikaya whirled, smiling. “Rias.”

  Thanks to the captain’s claim that his men were too busy with repairs to perform extra guard duty, she had not seen Rias for more than a week, not since the night of the attack. Her smile faded at the sight of shackles binding his wrists and guards trailing behind him. She clenched her jaw. How could Bocrest still treat Rias like a prisoner when he had risked his life—their lives—to save the warship?

  He joined her at the railing. “I’ve missed you.”

  That simple statement warmed her far more than the parka. The captain had allowed Rias a shave, at least, and she had a nice view of the smile softening his face.

  “Me too. I mean you. Er, I’ve missed you too.” Tikay
a stifled a groan, avoided his eyes, and reflected on the mortification her linguistics professors would feel at hearing her mangle language so. To cover her fumbling tongue, she nodded at the ice cracking beneath the bow. “That’s impressive.”

  “Hm, the Emperor’s Fist has a strengthened hull, but that won’t be enough to get us all the way to shore. If you want to see impressive, you should see our dedicated ice-breaking ships. They have a double hull and a special steel alloy designed for peak performance at low temperatures. The bows are rounded instead of pointed, so the ship rides up over the ice, smashing it with its weight. And the engines! They...” He blushed. “Sorry, you probably don’t want all that information.”

  Tikaya grinned. “I did ask.”

  He smiled sadly. “No. No, you didn’t.”

  “Well, I expressed interest in the subject.”

  That seemed to mollify him. “I should have asked already: are the men treating you decently? Any sign of those assassins? Any nightmares after our adventure?”

  “As well as can be expected for a loathed enemy of the empire, no assassination attempts, and nightmares...” Tikaya had slept poorly, reliving the killings on the Nurian ship, but she did not want to talk about it here, with guards looking on, so she pretended to misunderstand. “Why do you ask? Are women usually traumatized after an evening out with you?”

  He blinked a few times. “No, but I don’t usually take women into battle on first dates.”

  “Ah, I see. You save that until the relationship is more established.”

  “Exactly.” He slid her a sidelong look, and she suspected he understood what she was not saying.

  Tikaya propped her elbow on the railing and faced Rias squarely. Though she enjoyed chitchatting with him, she had been waiting all week to ask about the tunnels he mentioned to Bocrest. And how they tied in with the symbols.

  “Will you tell me about these tunnels you’re supposed to guide us through?” she asked. “You’ve asked me to help Bocrest, but you haven’t explained what that will entail.”