Unraveled

  Kaika frowned, and he feared she would see his words as evidence of disobedience. Maybe he should have said yes and assumed he would find his lost sibling by then.

  It may be unwise to assume that, Azarwrath told him. Trip must have been letting his thoughts leak out. While you slept, I scoured the city for many hours, attempting to sense the stasis chamber. The devices do not emit a strong aura, but since I am familiar with them now, I should have been able to locate it.

  But you weren’t able to?

  Unfortunately not.

  Thank you for looking.

  “I won’t stop you from looking in the interim,” Kaika said. “The seven gods know I’m responsible for you losing the thing in the first place, and I’ll do my best to guard the others while you search, but we need to go home when the steamer leaves. Whether you’ve found the lost one or not.”

  “I understand, ma’am.” And he did. He just didn’t agree that he would go. But he kept that thought to himself. If he resolved his problems in the next two days, he wouldn’t need to disobey.

  “Before you leave to hunt, I need your help. I’m afraid I was followed back from the docks this morning. I’d left Eryndral in the room, so it wouldn’t attract notice, but it didn’t matter. I did my best to lose the boy, but there are eyes all over this city. I think we should move again, ideally to somewhere more defensible than these hostel rooms.” Her lips turned downward. “A man was also lurking outside the room when I returned—he was trying to see through the shutters. I shooed him off, but I am getting irritated with people knowing exactly how to find us, Trip.” Kaika gave him a scathing look, as if it were all his fault.

  Maybe it was. Maybe the stasis chambers were acting as beacons. The chapaharii swords didn’t give off much of a signature, so it was less likely that someone was sensing them from afar.

  The night before, Trip had tested his ability to detect the stasis chambers from a distance, and he’d been able to sense them from a mile away. But he’d thought… Maybe it was arrogant, but he hadn’t thought there would be mages in the city with his range.

  Of course, a mage with a lesser range could have gotten lucky. Or sensed his team entering the city and then followed them. Trip hadn’t been trying to hide his power when he’d first entered Lagresh, and Jaxi and Azarwrath also gave off magical auras.

  “I want you to use your magical whiskers to find us a safe place to hole up until we can board the freighter,” Kaika said.

  “Whiskers?” Trip rubbed his stubbled jaw. He hadn’t had a chance to shave yet today, but he’d been doing it every morning, even out in the desert, since that was dictated by the Iskandian uniform code.

  “Senses. Like a cat uses its whiskers to sense things. Keep up, Captain, or I’m not going to encourage Lieutenant Ravenwood to let you spot her.”

  Judging by her smirk, she wasn’t too irritated with him, but she was a tough woman to please. If the stories about her and Angulus being a couple were true, Trip felt a lot of respect for the king, respect that had nothing to do with dealing with diplomats and ruling a nation. Though, now that he’d seen firsthand how some other cities ran things, he had more respect for Angulus’s ability to rule too.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I also want you to figure out a way to camouflage those baby boxes, to keep other sorcerers from finding them. I assume that’s what’s happening, right? They’re oozing their magickness and others are spotting it?”

  “I suspect so, but I don’t know how to hide them long term. The soulblades and I can camouflage things temporarily, while we’re focusing on keeping them hidden, but—”

  “Figure it out, Whiskers. I have faith that you can do it.” Kaika slapped him on the shoulder.

  “I…” Trip had less faith. He knew sorcerers could make magical booby traps and create effects that endured after they stopped concentrating on them, but he never had.

  “Come on. You made a locomotive out of scissors and nail clippers. This can’t be that hard.”

  “Actually, I only used a ruler.”

  “Proof of your cunning and magnificence.”

  “I’m more comfortable when you insult me than praise me, ma’am.”

  “I would be happy to insult you. After you camo the baby boxes. Get to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Uh.” Remembering his original reason for coming in, Trip waved toward the hole. “Can I relieve myself, first?”

  “Keep it short.” Kaika headed for the curtain but added, “Or I’ll send Ravenwood in to spot you.”

  “Ma’am,” came the aggrieved protest from the other room.

  Despite the threats, Trip finished his business without any feminine interruptions. This was not, however, how he had imagined special missions for General Zirkander going. Admittedly, since he’d deviated from the main mission, he had nobody to blame but himself for how things were turning out.

  When he stepped out, Rysha rose from a cross-legged seat by the wall, journals open on either side of her. She snatched one up and trotted over to him.

  “I found a clue,” she said.

  “Oh?” Trip leaned over to look at the open page. This couldn’t be about the baby or Dreyak, not if it was in one of those old journals.

  “I actually found it yesterday, but it didn’t have any meaning until we sailed out to those barges.”

  “Sailed? A flattering term for our damp-seated venture.”

  “Look.” She pointed at a line two-thirds of the way down a page.

  It was the more modern journal, the one from the dead man’s pack in the dragon lair, so Trip had no trouble reading it. “…went to the Tax Street to pick up the purse for our supplies from our benefactor for this expedition. Eight lanterns, whale oil, two grappling hooks, two hundred yards of rope—”

  “Not that part.” Rysha thumped him on the chest. “Tax Street. I read this page the other day and thought that name was a clue even then. I was on the verge of running out to look for a map because it sounds like a road, right? But then when we sailed out last night, it was the name on the palace barge. Did you see it?”

  Trip frowned, trying to remember if he had. The palace barge had been well lit, including the exterior hull, but he hadn’t bothered to read the ship’s name. He’d been more focused on the warehouse.

  “Our benefactor for this expedition,” Trip reread slowly.

  “It doesn’t say whether it’s a man or a woman, but I have a hunch it’s that Bhodian. It sounded like he owned the palace barge, right? Maybe he owned it twenty-five years ago too. Trip, we could have been looking at the person who financed the expedition that your mother went on. If so, he could have known about the stasis babies years—decades—ago. At the least, he would have known about your sire and had an interest in finding his lair.”

  “He could be the one who was chasing my mother too.” Trip thought of the memory he’d seen in his grandmother’s mind, of his mother being afraid that people were after her and wanted to take him away from her. “Who apparently wanted to take me away for…” He shivered. “Who knows what purpose?”

  “He knows.” Rysha closed the book. She bounced on her toes, beaming a smile at him. “We need to talk to him.”

  Her excitement sparked some similar feelings in Trip. He was intrigued by the prospect of learning more about his past and how his mother had found him, but even more, this seemed close to proof that Bhodian had an interest in the stasis babies. If he’d funded the expedition years ago and possibly tried to steal Trip away from his mother, wouldn’t Bhodian have been delighted when a second chance to get his hands on the half-dragon babies came along? Even if he hadn’t been the one to arrange the theft from the hostel, Trip wagered Bhodian knew where the stasis chamber had been taken. Maybe he even had it on his barge by now.

  His thought of going out for a frank talk with the man returned. But what would be the result of confronting him? Trip already knew he couldn’t read the man’s thoughts. Further, Bhodian might be inclined to think of Trip as
an enemy for sneaking aboard his girlfriend’s ship and, however inadvertently, causing the deaths of many of her animals. And what if they weren’t just romantic partners? What if they were also business partners? If so, those animals might have belonged to him, at least in part.

  “Terribly exciting,” Kaika drawled from behind them, “but let’s not forget that someone needs to first help us find a new place to hide for two days.” She waved toward the stasis chambers. “And don’t forget the cunning and magnificent magical camouflage you’re going to create for your little siblings, Trip.”

  “I thought I was cunning and magnificent, not the camouflage.”

  “Nah, I was just flattering you to boost your ego.” Kaika was pointedly keeping her hand extended toward the stacked devices.

  Trip exchanged wry smiles with Rysha.

  “I’ll do some more research,” she whispered.

  “Thank you.”

  Trip headed over to the stasis chambers, hoping Jaxi and Azarwrath could guide him in this. He would do everything Major Kaika asked, to the best of his abilities, but that night, he intended to return to the barges. He couldn’t guarantee it would go well, but he intended to talk to Bhodian.

  7

  Rysha stepped through a rectangular entrance in the canal bank, entering a tunnel that fed water into the main channel. So far, her team had filled their canteens from public fountains and wells, so she didn’t know where this water went. Maybe it was siphoned to some wealthier part of the city where indoor plumbing existed.

  She did her best to balance on one of the narrow ledges to either side instead of stepping into the water. At the entrance behind her, the grate scraped back into place without anyone touching it. A rusty padlock refastened itself with a click.

  “Seeing stuff like that hasn’t stopped being creepy yet,” Kaika said.

  She and Trip were ahead of Rysha, the reassembled wagon full of stasis chambers between them, the wheels high enough to keep the water from reaching to the sides.

  “Not cunning and magnificent?” Trip asked, the joke sounding a touch sad.

  Rysha found Trip’s arm in the shadows and patted it.

  “No,” Kaika said, “but if your camouflage works, I’ll lend it those adjectives.”

  “It’s working,” Trip said firmly.

  Rysha hoped so. He’d spent two hours that morning staring at the stack of stasis chambers in their hostel room while she and Kaika had taken turns watching the street outside, worried more trouble would find them. When Trip had finished, he’d said it was done and also that he had found a place that might work for hiding. At the least, he’d promised it would be easily defensible.

  As Rysha eyed their dim surroundings, graffiti blackening the tunnel walls, she hoped it wouldn’t be a sewer. If Lagresh even claimed a sewer system. Thus far, she’d only seen waste being left in alleys or going into pits. She was surprised people here weren’t all diseased and dying. Maybe the sick were captured and sold to the same person who paid for dead bodies.

  “Lead the way, fearless Captain,” Kaika said, extending her hand into the dark passage.

  Trip drew Jaxi, and she emitted a pleasant blue glow, illuminating the way as he strode into the tunnel. The wagon rolled after him without anyone touching it.

  “Creepy,” Kaika whispered to Rysha with a wink.

  They fell in behind the wagon, since it took most of the space in the tunnel.

  “I think you should let Trip know how much you appreciate him and his powers, ma’am,” Rysha said, not wanting poor Trip to feel like an outcast. He didn’t deserve that.

  “You do? There are rules against senior officers being openly appreciative of lower-ranking officers, you know. We’re supposed to haze them to make them stronger.”

  “A couple of weeks ago, you two were the same rank.”

  “Yes, but pilot ranks don’t really count. They barely have to do anything to gain rank except sit in their chairs in the sky and shoot things.”

  Rysha scowled, not agreeing with that. She focused on the route ahead, on balancing on the narrow walkway while Kaika walked on the adjacent one.

  “I’m not good at appreciation,” Kaika said, glancing over at her.

  The comment startled Rysha. “What?”

  “Showing it, I mean.” Kaika kept her voice low, the words for Rysha instead of Trip. “It’s kind of backwards, if you think about it, because I’ve been on a lot of dangerous missions and lost colleagues. Friends. Some that I’d known for years and years and liked a lot as soldiers and people. You should show people like that appreciation, because you never know when you’ll lose them. Or when you’ll get killed yourself. In the past, after friends have died, I’ve found myself often regretting that I never told them I thought they were good people. And that I appreciated them.” Kaika spread her arms in a shrug.

  Rysha nodded, then realized Kaika wouldn’t see it in the dim light behind the wagon. She offered an encouraging noise instead, hoping to hear more. She was surprised Kaika was opening up and wondered if she’d had a harder time than she’d let on escaping the brutes who’d been after her and the sword the day before. Or maybe Kaika was thinking of their frantic battle with those constructs in the dragon’s lair. She had been in the thick of the fighting for longer than Rysha and had seen Blazer struck with that axe. Death and losing comrades might be on her mind for a reason.

  “I don’t know why it’s like that,” Kaika said as they turned right at an intersection, Trip seeming to have a map in mind. “It’s just hard. It makes you feel vulnerable, I guess. And being vulnerable around enemies lets them know you’ve got a weakness, and then you’re more likely to get attacked, more likely to get killed. Sometimes, the unit feels like a battlefield, too, when you’re always trying to prove that you belong. You can’t show that you have vulnerabilities—weaknesses—or someone will use them against you, try to prove you don’t belong. After a while, it becomes a habit to hide them all the time. You forget how to turn that off, to be different around friends.”

  Rysha felt she should say something, but she didn’t know what. She lacked the experiences that had shaped Kaika and suspected any advice she tried to offer would sound naive if not inane.

  Kaika looked at Rysha. “The work turns you into something you weren’t when you got started.”

  “Are you telling me I shouldn’t stick with the elite troops training, ma’am?” Rysha thought about pointing out that she’d already seen death and lost comrades in the dragon attack on the city, but she hadn’t yet lost anyone she’d been truly close to. Her grandmother was the only one, and that would have happened whether she’d been a soldier or not. By being a soldier, she might keep more instances like that from occurring in the future.

  “Nope. It’s just a warning so you’re prepared for the day when you find it hard to show appreciation for a lower-ranking officer.” Her voice grew so soft that Rysha barely heard the next comment. “Or a lover that treats you better than you deserve.”

  Rysha slipped on a patch of mildew and almost bathed her leg in the channel.

  “Watch where you step, Lieutenant,” Kaika said dryly.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Again, Rysha thought about saying more, but again felt her lack of experience keenly.

  “And make sure you’re on that steamer in two days,” Kaika added. “The Eternal Horizon. They won’t wait for us. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to go home.”

  Rysha hesitated to supply one of her prompt yes, ma’ams. The stasis babies weren’t her responsibility, as her superiors would be quick to point out, and it wasn’t as if she had the tie to them that Trip had. But if he hadn’t located the little girl in two days, he probably wouldn’t board that steamer. Would he want Rysha to stay and help with the search? He had the soulblades and magical power, but she believed she was better at research and ferreting out clues.

  Kaika gave her a narrow-eyed look.

  “I’m ready to go home, too, ma’am,” Rysha said.


  Kaika’s eyes stayed narrow. She knew that hadn’t been assent.

  “Don’t make me write you up when I get back, Rysha,” Kaika said, frowning not at her but at Trip’s back. “This early in your career, you’ll get away with less than you might when you have a proven record and your superiors recognize you as a valuable soldier. Insubordination alone would be a reason for them to revoke your commission, but going AWOL?” Kaika’s gaze shifted back to Rysha. “Don’t give it up before you even know what you’re giving up. It’s worth it. Sometimes, it makes you harder than you want to be.” A vague hand wave seemed to acknowledge her earlier words. “But you get to use your talents to help your country, not just for your own gain.”

  “I understand, ma’am.”

  Kaika looked expectantly at her. Waiting for a confirmation that Rysha would be on that steamer in two mornings?

  “Thank you,” Rysha said, since she couldn’t give Kaika what she wanted, not yet.

  Trip turned again, the wagon scraping on a wall as they entered a narrow passage. This one was dry, and he followed it around a bend and down a ramp. By the water channel, the tunnel had seemed newer and well maintained. Here, bricks that had crumbled from the walls dotted the ground, along with all manner of human trash. Rysha’s nose wrinkled as the scent of urine and other waste grew noticeable.

  “Taking us someplace classy to stay tonight, Captain?” Kaika called ahead.

  “It’ll be at least as appealing as the last two places,” Trip said over his shoulder.

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “Major Kaika said she would be disappointed if there wasn’t a pull-up bar,” Rysha said, though she wouldn’t share that disappointment.

  “I didn’t say that. But it is true.”

  Rysha heard voices in the darkness ahead, and she fell silent. As they went down the ramp, the tunnel widened into an underground chamber full of half-crumbled walls, old and rusty machinery—was that the wheel to a mill of some kind?—and storage bins tipped on their sides. Stone columns ten feet in diameter rose to a high ceiling, supporting arches that stretched across it.