The Kraken King Part III: The Kraken King and the Fox's Den (A Novel of the Iron Seas)

by Meljean Brook

“The one farthest south.”

  The one that she had the most difficulty seeing from this perspective. Three were readily visible, but the southernmost den wasn’t.

  But that wasn’t right. There should be two more. “Where is the fifth den?”

  “In the water. It’s an island.”

  “And known as the Rat Den,” Mara said.

  Now didn’t that sound like a lovely place to live? “Do they all have names?”

  Mara nodded. “The Wolf Den in the north—that’s Lord Duval’s. Lord and Lady Yudaev control the Bear Den, unless their son has already killed them and taken their place. Who rules over the Tiger Den now?”

  “The Kwan clan,” the governor said.

  “And the twins’ den?” Zenobia asked, though it probably wouldn’t be hard to guess. “No, do not tell me. Is it the Lion’s Den?”

  His firm mouth curved with amusement too brief for her liking. “It’s the Fox Den.”

  Oh. Well, then. That sounded like the proper place for Zenobia to stay.

  With a smile, she started sketching again.

  ***

  By the time the walker approached the southern wall, Zenobia had changed her mind. None of the dens seemed like the proper place for anyone to stay.

  Guards in mechanical suits patrolled the tops of the walls. They’d lowered their guns after Tsetseg had landed her flyer at the Fox Den’s gate and told the sentries who was coming, but Zenobia still felt as if their weapons were pointed at her. The terror of being on the wrong end of a gun barrel never went away quickly.

  Her heart was still pounding when the gate opened. One of the governor’s men drove a crawler through ahead of their walker, and Lieutenant Blanchett followed close behind. Zenobia wished she’d insisted that Helene ride through the den in their vehicle. The lieutenant was a capable officer, but he was no Mara and he was no Cooper—even when Cooper was legless and blissed on opium.

  She looked back as they passed through the gate. Helene had scooted closer to Blanchett. Zenobia couldn’t see any fear in her, only a little wariness and curiosity. As if she trusted the man at her side to protect her, though she hardly knew him and hadn’t paid him anything to do it.

  Zenobia couldn’t imagine trusting anyone so easily. The Kraken King sat next to her—but no matter how strong or powerful he was, scooting closer would be more dangerous than staying in her seat. It would reveal far too much.

  She would be fine right here, with Mara and Cooper behind her.

  And they hadn’t even drawn their guns. Probably because there was no one who needed shooting. They passed through the gate onto a wide street laid with brick. To the left, four men in mechanical suits tramped their way down a wooden walk. Buildings rose around them—not the stacked buildings of the Bear Den, which looked as if they’d tacked rickety new rooms on top of old when they’d run out of space, but tiered structures eight and ten levels high, with stairs climbing the front and topped by sloping red roofs. Rope bridges connected some of the buildings’ upper levels. Children ran across their swooping lengths as the walkers picked their way along the streets below. They passed steamcoaches and carts that might have come from Zenobia’s home in Fladstrand, and spider rickshaws like those she’d seen in London. Two-seater balloons flew swiftly overhead, and it was all loud and busy, but as far as Zenobia could see, no one was being raped and murdered.

  That didn’t mean anything. Zenobia had grown up in a town as clean and as orderly as this, and her mother had still died screaming in pain and fear.

  They passed more men in mechanical suits. A continual heavy thrum sounded from above, growing louder as they moved deeper into the district—the twins’ hovering fortress. Zenobia could only see bits of the floating palace beyond the tall buildings and the web of bridges: its spinning heliosails, the clusters of balloons, the engines below. Its shadow darkened the heart of the den.

  She glanced at the governor. He didn’t return her look, but she didn’t expect him to. Not when he had so many other things to watch out for. “We’re not going to stay beneath that, I hope?”

  “It’s not over the inn now.”

  “But it might be?”

  “Not while we’re here.”

  Relief slipped through her. She couldn’t imagine living under that and not feeling as if it might crush her at any moment.

  But perhaps that was the point. “I don’t suppose everyone in this den can ask them to move.”

  “No.”

  She nodded, then confessed, “It’s not what I thought it would be.”

  His dark gaze left the street and met hers. “Poverty? Squalor?”

  Exactly that. Did he already know her so well? Or had he once expected it, too?

  Afraid of the answer, Zenobia looked away. “In Port Fallow, the mercenary families own everything, and except for a favored few, everyone else has almost nothing. They don’t even have enough to leave—so it only worsens.”

  “The twins brand and toss out anyone who can’t pay their tribute.”

  “Brand? Burn a mark onto them?” In shock, she looked to him for confirmation.

  A nod was his only reply, but for the first time that day, she saw more in his expression—as if the stone face of a mountain had shifted and exposed a volcano. Just a little quake before quieting again.

  Not much. But it told her how much he hated the twins.

  Zenobia liked him all the more for it.

  “They used to execute anyone who couldn’t pay,” Mara said.

  “No longer?”

  “They were told to stop,” the governor said grimly.

  Told to stop. “By you?”

  He looked at her briefly and didn’t reply. Her heart was pounding. She didn’t know why. Her gaze rose to the spinning heliosails. “I suppose it wouldn’t be so terrible if the Nipponese empress decided to destroy them.”

  “Except for the people she would destroy with them,” he said. “Better that the people rise up and destroy the twins themselves.”

  She had to laugh. “And that was spoken like a true rebel. They should ask you to lead them.”

  “They need better than me.” The governor wasn’t laughing. A muscle worked in his jaw. “The rebellion gave the den lords their money and power. And I will soon give them more, because I need information.”

  “So you helped create this. You can’t change it now?”

  Another tremor in his expression revealed frustration, anger. Then he was solid rock again. He didn’t answer.

  Maybe it had been unfair to ask. She was here and had no plans to start a rebellion. And he’d obviously already forced the twins to change a little. Maybe he’d used his influence in the other dens, too.

  That was the difference between them, though. He had power here. She didn’t.

  The sound of the walker’s legs clicking against the bricks, the thrum of the palace, and the rattle of a passing rickshaw filled the silence between them. She turned her face away from a steamcoach’s belch of smoke and held her breath.

  When she opened her eyes the governor was staring at her, and nameless emotion burned beneath the hard stone again. It suddenly cooled and he looked away, but his voice was rough, as if the tremors hadn’t quite stilled. “They’ll rise up. Until then, they are all welcome in my town—and they know it.”

  Something in her chest pulled tight. He hadn’t told her that to excuse himself, she realized. He’d told her because he didn’t want her to believe that he wasn’t doing anything. As if her opinion of him mattered.

  Yet he’d looked through her that morning and convinced her it didn’t matter. She’d spent all day telling herself that none of this mattered. But if it did, why had he been so dismissive of her?

  Maybe that was what didn’t matter.

  Before Zenobia could think better of it, she scooted closer. Not touching. Just closer, with only a hand’s span between them.

  His body went rigid. Tension hardened every muscle that she’d admired when he’d walked naked out
of the sea.

  She prayed the closeness was as torturous for him as it was for her. It would be easy to keep going, to slide onto his lap, and kiss him as she’d imagined. To press her lips to the firmness of his, to taste the heat of his mouth. To make him dismiss her again or admit that he didn’t want to. But they were in the middle of the street, with Mara and Cooper sitting behind them, and Zenobia wasn’t yet that adventurous.

  Still, overwhelming temptation prevented her from speaking for a long second. Finally she managed to ask, “If they can’t pay their taxes, how can they pay for passage to your town?”

  His dark brows shot together. Whatever he’d expected her to say, that apparently wasn’t it. He stole a look at her face as if to determine her intention.

  She’d moved closer; maybe he’d thought she would flirt.

  Zenobia would have if she wasn’t terrible at it. Making her characters spout charming lines was easy, but similar words in her mouth always sounded false. So she had to make real conversation instead.

  She arched her eyebrows, waiting for his answer.

  “If they come to the inn, we provide their passage.” Some of his rigidity eased, yet his voice was low and still rough. “But few come.”

  “Why?” Krakentown had to be preferable to this.

  “Because some think I’ll be the same as the den lords. Others think I’m worse.”

  “Are you?”

  “No.”

  Zenobia frowned at him. They were in the smugglers’ dens. Soon they would part forever. And he would give her more than a dismissive one-word answer.

  He responded with his own frown. His was probably more frightening than hers, because her brows weren’t so heavy nor her eyes so dark, and she wasn’t clenching her teeth, so the muscles in her jaw didn’t knot like his did. If she kissed him now, it would likely feel as if she were smashing her lips against a brick.

  She considered it, anyway.

  His gaze fell to her mouth as if he considered it, too. Abruptly his stiffness returned, locking his frown in place. Glowering, he looked ahead.

  “I have rules,” he said.

  Three words had never pleased her so much. They hadn’t been dismissive. His tone said that more would follow. “Horribly unfair rules?”

  “Some here think so.” He indicated the buildings around them—and the people within, Zenobia assumed. “Many believe in Arslang’s Order. The twins do, too.”

  She didn’t know what that meant. “Arslang?”

  “A den lord, about a hundred years ago. He kept a beast sanctuary in the Lion Den—mostly animals taken from Africa before the zombies destroyed them.”

  “A naturalist,” Zenobia realized. There were similar conservatories scattered across the Americas.

  “That’s what he called himself.” The look the governor gave her said Arslang didn’t meet his definition of a proper scientist. “He believed that humans were only beasts with larger brains. And, as with animals, there is no wrong in killing another to survive—and that it was a natural right for the strong to lead. It is a natural advantage—so it is the right of the clever to cheat and the quick to steal.”

  “Without consequence?”

  “Yes.”

  So that was why there were no laws here—except the laws of nature. She’d heard of similar beliefs discussed before, but never had she heard of them implemented. Uneasy, Zenobia studied the people they passed. She had to be weaker than many of them but no one was leaping onto the walker to kill her.

  “Why is it not utter chaos?”

  A tight smile pulled at his mouth. “Arslang’s followers would point to a herd. They spend most of the day grazing peacefully. And when an attack comes, the frail and the sick are weeded out, which strengthens the herd as a whole. The believers can find any example to justify whatever they choose to do.”

  So society only functioned because most people were like herd animals? Everything in Zenobia revolted at the thought. “Why do you think it isn’t chaos?”

  “Because most people are better than that. Most choose not to kill or steal, even if they believe they have the right to do it. And for those who would choose to, fear holds most of them back.” He directed her attention to a pair of men in mechanical suits. The guards had been on every street so far. Not doing anything that Zenobia could see. Just watching. “Killing is no crime—but even the weak have family or friends, and there is the danger of angering someone stronger. Or if someone murders a person the twins favor, he risks their wrath. The guards won’t help anyone. But they will report what happened.”

  Zenobia’s gaze shot up the cluster of balloons tethered to the side of the hovering fortress. They’d taken the long way around, she suspected, just to avoid passing beneath it.

  She didn’t understand why everyone here wasn’t running to Krakentown. “And yet you are worse?”

  “Because I have rules,” he said again. “Rape, theft, murder—none are welcome in my town. But even those people who don’t kill believe I’m taking away their right to do it. They fear the twins’ strength, but that is the natural order, and they’d rather live under the twins’ feet than sacrifice their natural rights.”

  Oh. Zenobia understood that too well, then. Not believing that she had a right to murder, but choosing what to give up—or not to give up—just to feel a little safer.

  She’d already sacrificed her privacy. Mara had overheard every part of her life for almost a year now. Even this conversation. She and the governor sat close together and spoke in low voices, but they might as well have been shouting. The mercenary was discreet and Zenobia trusted her. Still, she felt the loss of privacy keenly.

  Yet Zenobia had considered sacrificing even more. She’d been Wolfram Gunther-Baptiste’s sister before he’d run afoul of Temür Agha. She’d changed her name and started a new life as Zenobia Fox. Now she was Archimedes Fox’s sister, and she could do the same thing again—just leave Zenobia Fox behind. Give up writing her famous adventures and move somewhere no one knew her face.

  And no longer be someone’s sister.

  She could take a new name. Start writing again—maybe even become successful again. But it wouldn’t be enough this time. She would have to leave her brother behind, because for all of Archimedes’ talents, he was never good at hiding. If she didn’t sever ties with him, she would be discovered again.

  But she wouldn’t sacrifice her brother. And she wasn’t willing to sacrifice Zenobia Fox. She loved her life, everything she’d built and created. She wasn’t willing to give it up—and she would fight anyone who tried to take it from her.

  Even if it meant never having privacy and always living with fear.

  “So they choose what they believe is more important.” She couldn’t agree with their beliefs, but she could respect that. “Even though it means giving up something else they want.”

  The governor nodded. His dark gaze lingered on her face before he turned his attention to the road ahead.

  “As we all do,” he said.

  ***

  Walls were never sufficient defense. Every commander in the Golden Empire knew that. Centuries ago, continents had fallen before their hordes. Cities and nations protected by walls lasted longer than others, but a weak spot would be discovered in the stone or the besieged citizens would surrender, and the wall would be breached.

  Zenobia had torn Ariq’s down in less than a day.

  He tried to re-create his defenses as they continued through the city, and knew anything he constructed would be useless. Her every word, every look, every breath were like battering rams. No siege engine could equal the destructive power of Zenobia sitting so close.

  Ariq couldn’t recall steering the last mile to the inn. There was only Zenobia beside him. Only her clever mind and her sharp smile, and the haunted pain in her jade eyes that said she knew exactly what it meant to give up something she wanted.

  Whatever she’d sacrificed, Ariq wanted to give it back to her.

  And he wante
d more than that. He wanted his hands in her hair and her mouth open beneath his kiss. He wanted her bare skin against his and secrets tumbling from her lips. He wanted her to trust him.

  But that was only what he wanted. What he needed was distance. Not emotional walls that crumbled in hours. Not a few inches across a bench. Real distance. Then he could focus on what was important: discovering whether the marauders had been rebels, and whether the rebellion had been trying to stop her—and discovering whether he would have to stop her, too.

  Both distance and answers waited for him when he reached the inn. A balloon with the twins’ seal painted on the cruiser’s wooden side hovered over the street. Guards in mechanical suits flanked the inn’s entrance.

  Dayir Sunid came through the gate. Rotund and gray, Dayir’s years of fighting had long passed, but Ariq recognized the irritation burning behind the innkeeper’s warm greetings with Tsetseg and Meeng. Given the choice, Dayir would have shot the balloon out of the sky and crushed the guards. But the innkeeper had already made a different choice. He didn’t fight now. He only protected those who came to him—and for the next few days, Ariq trusted him to protect Zenobia and her companions during their stay in the dens.

  He stopped the walker’s engine. Before he could speak, Zenobia sat forward on the bench, her back rigid and her eyes narrowed.

  “Those are the twins’ mechanical men,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze swung toward his like a green blade. “Do they summon you?”

  She spoke as if she wanted to march up to the guards and send them to hell. As if she would fight rather than allow them to drag Ariq away.

  How could anyone build defenses against such a woman? She’d jumped fearlessly from a falling balloon flyer and lured a boilerworm with fire, and now she was willing to stand up to men in mechanical suits.

  But she’d misread this situation. The twins were arrogant, but they knew better than to summon him.

  “It’s an invitation,” he said. “And authorized transportation to their fortress.”

  Ferocity turned to worry. “Then they know you’re coming to see them.”

  They would have been told of Ariq’s arrival within minutes of his entering the den. He nodded, then rose from the bench and started for the ladder.