“Uhm, not as young as you’d think for something like that.”
Akstyr smirked. “He was probably eighteen.”
Feeling the conversation had grown pointless again, Sicarius headed into the ductwork. The others would follow. And if they didn’t… he wasn’t positive he wanted people digging into Hollowcrest’s old files and snooping into his past. He doubted there was anything aristocratic in his heritage that would change the populace’s opinion of Sespian’s right, as an assassin’s son, to rule. Amaranthe was being idealistic. Or maybe she’d designed this side trip so that Sespian would have a glimpse into the harsh childhood Hollowcrest and Emperor Raumesys had inflicted on Sicarius. No doubt she thought it’d evoke sympathy in the boy. Sicarius did not blame her for trying-he’d come to appreciate that she cared enough to do so-but some things were best left forgotten.
He reached the vertical duct that led to the upper floors and paused, listening for the scuffs and exhalations that would tell him the others followed. Akstyr and Books bumped their elbows and knees against the tile walls numerous times. It pleased him that Sespian moved more quietly, as if he’d had training in the art of stealth. Weaponsmaster Orik’s lessons must have been more thorough than Sicarius realized-or Sespian less adept at evading them than he’d heard.
“Make no noise as we climb,” Sicarius said when the others, Books and Akstyr in particular, were close enough to hear. “As we continue, the ducts will travel between floors and room walls. People inside will be able to hear noises.”
Not surprisingly, the grunts of acquiescence held a sullen undertone. Sicarius found it interesting that Amaranthe always managed to command the men without evoking similar displays of disgruntlement.
Sicarius removed her from his thoughts. He would need his concentration for climbing and remaining silent. It would not do for him to make noise.
Hot air swirled about him as they climbed up the shaft. The main arterials of the hypocaust system were made from ceramic tile, and the grouted spots between them offered the only semblances of handholds. He ascended, his palms alternately pressing to either side, feet likewise braced. His mind flashed to a recent instance where he’d been in a similar position, wedged into that smokestack on the steamboat with Amaranthe, her body scant inches from his. It took more effort to push that memory out of his thoughts, but he did so ruthlessly, reminded of Hollowcrest’s oft-repeated words, “A distracted warrior is a dead warrior.”
When he reached the third floor, where the suites of the royal family, commander of the armies, and honored guests awaited, he slipped into the horizontal duct that led to Hollowcrest’s old office. He had to wait for the others to catch up and, to keep his mind from straying into distracted territory again, ran through a sensory check-touch, smell, sound, feel-of the dark area. He did such checks automatically, whether he thought of them or not, but the formality of raising it to a conscious level occupied his mind in an acceptable manner.
He turned his nose toward the darkness ahead, detecting… what? He sniffed. It was the Nurian smoke again.
“We’re all here,” Sespian whispered.
“I know.” Despite testing the environment, Sicarius had been aware of the others reaching the horizontal duct and crawling into it. “Come.”
He swirled through the maze of ducts he’d memorized long ago, bringing them into the wall between Hollowcrest’s rooms and the guest suite to their side. One of the vents opened to the bedchamber and another to the office. Sicarius veered toward the latter. As expected, darkness filled the room beyond the grate. The air smelled stale-nobody had opened a window and freshened the suite in some time. Good. Sicarius had begun to wonder if they would encounter the other intruder, going to the same place as they were, but the ducts had branched a few times since he’d last smelled the smoke odor.
Using one of his more versatile picks-and painstaking patience-he once again unfastened the vent screws from within. Soundlessly, he set the metal grate to the side and slipped out. While the others exited, he prowled about, ensuring his first instinct had been correct and that the rooms were indeed empty. He checked the main door leading into the hall and found it locked, no doubt to discourage casual snooping. He wondered who had the key.
“I pulled the curtain so nobody will see any light,” Books was saying when Sicarius returned to the office. “Any thoughts on where we should start searching?”
“Yes.”
In the darkness, Sicarius walked to a coal stove in the corner and pushed one of the rear legs with his toe. He didn’t hear the secret door open, but its draft stirred his hair. In the narrow, windowless room inside, he had pulled several files out of cabinets by the time Books lit his lantern and found him.
“This is disappointing,” Akstyr said when he stepped inside. He ticked a nail against one of the featureless wooden cabinets that lined one wall. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases occupied the others. There was barely room inside to squeeze past the desk and sit in the chair. “You’d expect a secret inner chamber to be more interesting than a little office.”
“By interesting, do you mean full of decapitated heads and various other grisly trophies of defeated enemies?” Books asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“My fath- the emperor’s tastes were more along those lines.” Sespian squeezed into the room behind Akstyr.
“Can we visit his offices?”
“No,” Books said.
Aware of the confined space and the number of people blocking the exit, Sicarius twitched a finger toward Books, then left the files on the desk and returned to the main suite where there’d be room to maneuver in a fight. He would have liked to remove himself further from the conversation, which devolved into further speculation from Akstyr on what the old emperor’s vices might have been, but was reluctant to leave Sespian unguarded. Sicarius should check on the imperial suite though. It wasn’t much farther down the hall, and Amaranthe would want to know what Ravido planned next. He might have left documents secured in his new quarters.
Of course, if Sicarius simply killed Ravido, the general’s plans would be moot, and Forge would have to pause to develop a new strategy. Nebulous and elusive, the organization itself would be difficult to decapitate, especially if its members continued to hide behind their technology, but Ravido was a single man, a single target, one who might be on this floor of the Barracks at this very moment.
A throat cleared. “Hear something?”
It was Sespian. He had returned to the larger office and was probably wondering why Sicarius stood motionless, staring at the door.
“No,” Sicarius said. In truth, three people had walked by in the hallway while he’d been contemplating assassinations, but none of their footfalls had slowed down, so he judged them inconsequential.
“Do you think…?” Sespian started, then faltered. He plucked at the seam of his trousers.
Sicarius faced him and attempted to look approachable, though facial expressions were not his strength, especially when he was trying. Between his weapons, his black attire, and the shadows, he’d probably fail utterly at “approachable” anyway. “Yes?” he asked, settling on an oral prompt.
“If Ravido is in the Barracks,” Sespian said, “maybe we should do something about him while we’re here.”
By now, Sicarius knew that “do something about him,” didn’t mean kill him, at least not when Sespian or Amaranthe said it. “Such as?”
“I don’t know. Kidnap him?”
“To what end?” Sicarius imagined Amaranthe trying to talk Ravido over to their side. He doubted it’d be possible, but watching her attempt to do so might elicit sensations of levity.
“If we could keep him away from Forge and the army while we enact our plan…”
Killing him would be much easier. Sicarius resisted the urge to say it, though the dozens of difficulties inherent in a kidnapping stampeded into his mind. Even if they found Ravido alone, how could they force him to navigate the ducts-or drag his uncon
scious body through them-without making noise? Sicarius ought to squash the notion, but if nothing came of his backup plan, and Sespian ended up back on the throne, he’d have to take orders from the boy eventually. That had been what he wished once, he recalled, what he’d had in mind when he poisoned Raumesys.
“I will check to see if Ravido is here,” Sicarius said. “It’s moot otherwise.”
“Agreed. And don’t… I know what you must be thinking. Please don’t take it into your hands to kill him. While I have no reason to love the man and admit there’s a certain practicality to the idea, I can’t win the throne back that way. I don’t deserve it if I have to become the very monsters I wish to displace. Besides, in the people’s eyes, if I had him assassinated, I’d be no better than…” Sespian had been looking Sicarius in the eyes as he spoke, but he broke contact now, studying the floor instead. “It wouldn’t be a popular choice with the people or the rest of the warrior caste. Given that I’m no longer the automatic blood choice, I’ll need a majority vote from the Company of Lords to be reappointed. They’d only approve of me eliminating Ravido if I bested him in a duel or some blood-flinging, eye-gouging, one-on-one grappling competition. Those aren’t exactly my fortes.”
Though Sespian grimaced as he spoke those last sentences, Sicarius wondered if the thoughts represented an opportunity. “If you feel you’re deficient in martial endeavors, I could instruct you.”
“Uhhhh,” Sespian said, drawing out the syllable in a way that ensured a rejection would follow.
“I have trained the others. They are better fighters for it.”
“I don’t-”
“I know you prefer cerebral solutions to problems, but, as you said, the people will want a strong warrior to rally behind.” Sicarius knew he was “trying too hard,” as Amaranthe would say it, and he lifted a hand to signify he was backing away from the argument.
“I’ll think about it,” Sespian said.
Not an outright objection. Good.
“I’ll see if Ravido is here.” Sicarius paused, thinking Sespian might volunteer to come along. He’d be more efficient on his own, but found himself hoping for his company nonetheless.
“Thank you,” was all Sespian said and headed back into the secret room.
Sicarius bowed his head. So be it.
Chapter 3
Amaranthe tried to pierce the basement darkness with her eyes, but there wasn’t enough light filtering down the stairwell to reveal anything. For all she knew, she might be standing on the edge of a secret bottomless abyss that opened up beneath the newspaper building. However, the amount of dust hanging in the air, tickling her nostrils, suggested a clutter-filled room of manmade origins.
With the grinding and thumping of machinery filtering down from above, she could almost believe she’d imagined the voice, but Maldynado had heard it too.
“That sounded like Deret Mancrest,” he said, “but I can’t believe a warrior-caste lord would get himself locked in a grimy cell more than once in the same year.”
“No, you wouldn’t think so.” Amaranthe waited for the voice in the darkness to speak again, but all she heard was a soft thump. Such as that of a forehead thudding against a wall? “Watch our friends, will you?”
While Maldynado hauled their prisoners out of the stairwell, Amaranthe shrugged off her knapsack and dug out a lantern. She shut the door before striking a match. The small flame did little more than highlight the scowls of the two captives and Maldynado’s perennially amused features. Yara never had a chance. The man even managed to look stop-and-gape handsome with dust blanketing his brown curls, mud on his boots, and a dubious green smudge smeared across one of his well-defined cheekbones.
Leaving him with the soldiers, Amaranthe walked into the widest of several aisles branching out from the entrance. Old hand-powered printing presses and stacks upon stacks of dusty, faded newspapers filled the basement from faded brick floor to worn wooden ceiling. The box- and press-framed route took her to an open area hemmed in by giant bottles of ink and crates full of machine parts. A six-foot-tall iron cage rested in the center, a single occupant hunched inside. Deret Mancrest.
If his oily hair, limp clothing, and beard stubble were apt indicators, he’d been locked inside for a few days. An empty plate sat outside the door, and a water jug and chamberpot rested inside the cage, so no one had intended him to starve and die, but he certainly didn’t look his best. A heavy padlock secured the cell gate. The swordstick he used for a cane, the support necessary due to a war wound that had left him with a limp, leaned against a crate out of his reach. He stared at Amaranthe warily, probably wondering if, in these tumultuous times, she was friend or foe. Or maybe he was simply wondering if she’d mock him for his predicament. After all, she’d once left him in a similar position when he tried to lure her into a trap, intending to turn her over to the army.
Fortunately for him, she was too professional to mock a potential ally.
“Good evening, Lord Mancrest.” Amaranthe waved at the cage. “You haven’t been pestering me of late, so I’ll assume there’s some other woman you’ve irked so greatly that she felt compelled to lock you up.” Maybe that wasn’t that professional after all.
“I greatly irked my father,” Deret said.
“Ah.” Amaranthe wanted the details, but they could wait until later, when they were somewhere without armed soldiers roaming about on the floor above. “Are you agreeably serving out your paternally-induced prison sentence?” she asked, thinking Mancrest might be grateful enough to share all of the goings on in the city if she freed him from his cell. “Or would you like to be let out?”
“Trust me, nothing about this is agreeable.”
“I don’t suppose there are keys nearby?” Amaranthe glanced around, though her fingers were already dipping into her knapsack for the lock-picking kit.
“My father has them.”
“Too bad. I believe your father just left with Ms. Worgavic.” She said it casually, but watched his face through her lashes to see if he knew anything about the affair.
Mancrest straightened, clunking his head on the cage’s overhead bars. “You know that woman?” He squinted at her, his listless apathy fading.
“Yes.” Amaranthe reserved further explanation for later. If she had information he desired, maybe she could offer a trade. She couldn’t count on Mancrest simply telling her all she wanted to know. They hadn’t parted enemies last summer, but the last time she’d spoken to him had involved an awkward apology for abandoning him in the middle of their date in the Imperial Gardens. She’d left out the fact that she’d run off to smooch with Sicarius in the hedge maze, but he was bright enough to piece together the puzzle. “Do you know her?” she asked.
“Her name, but little else.”
“She’s one of Ravido’s allies, among other things.” Amaranthe slipped her picking tools into the padlock.
“Hm,” Mancrest said, not giving away much.
“Are you down here because you’re not a supporter of Ravido’s?” Amaranthe asked, fishing for information, not unlike she was fishing for the tumblers. The padlock, she noticed, was identical to the one that had secured the storm grate. Had the senior Mancrest been responsible for increasing security around the newspaper office? To keep people from learning about the extra publications being printed?
“I’m down here because I refused to be strong-armed into printing lies in the Gazette.” Mancrest gripped the bars. “Amaranthe, the emperor… is he truly dead?”
“Nah,” came Maldynado’s voice from behind her. “He’s probably out carousing with Akstyr by now, learning about magic, about growing up in the streets, and about how not to attract women.”
“Aren’t you guarding our prisoners?” Amaranthe asked without glancing at him. She kept her focus on the lock.
“I had to come see if you were chatting with who I thought you were chatting with, so I tied them to each other.” Maldynado leaned against the cage bars. “So, Deret, how’d yo
u manage to get yourself locked up in your own building?”
“It’s my father’s building,” Mancrest grumbled. “How is it you’re not locked up somewhere yet? You’re the outlaw here, after all.”
“Yes, but a dashing outlaw with perfectly proportioned features. One doesn’t incarcerate perfect proportions.”
“One does if one’s earned a decent bounty. I suppose yours doesn’t qualify. Your scruffy Akstyr has an impressive one these days though. Were you aware that the gangs want him?” Mancrest had shifted his attention to Amaranthe. Was he making an offering she might find useful in hopes of opening up an exchange of information? If so, they wanted the same things. Good.
“We’re aware of it,” she said. “He should be safe for the moment. And, yes, Sespian is alive and safe too. He’s with-” She caught herself, realizing Mancrest’s interest in helping might shrivel up at the mention of Sicarius.
“Your assassin,” he guessed, his tone flat.
“Yes.” She waited, wondering if he’d heard about the father-son relationship yet. Perhaps not, since he’d referred to Sespian as the emperor. Had Forge not spilled that information yet? If not, why not? If Ms. Worgavic had made her way back to the capital, others in the organization would have too.
Mancrest didn’t say anything else. Amaranthe snapped the lock open and let the gate swing wide.
Thumps sounded near the door. At first, she thought they’d been made by the men Maldynado was supposed to be watching, but Mancrest blurted, “The stairs. Someone’s coming.”
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe said, “lock the door, please.”
He was already moving. “No lock,” he called back, but a heavy scraping sound nearly drowned out the words as he moved a crate in front of the door.
“They’ll know something is going on in here as soon as they can’t get in.” Mancrest hopped out of the cage, winced when his weight came down on his bad leg, and growled as he reached for his swordstick.
Amaranthe didn’t point out that they already knew something was going on, due to the two missing men.
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