Heart of Steel

by Meljean Brook

  Nasrin’s gaze held Yasmeen’s. “Hassan has also been telling me of your journey, and how you came to captain the airship. I offer apologies for my insult.”

  “Thank you, Lady Nasrin, but there was no insult taken.”

  “You are very kind, and a liar.”

  “And you are fully altered.”

  The women smiled at each other for a long moment. Nasrin looked to Archimedes again, whose bemusement must have been clear. She said, “It is true. When you are fully altered, you have not much need to use lies as protection—though they are still useful when protecting others. Your name is a lie like that, I suppose, though you hardly needed protection from us.”

  “No?”

  “Temür was angry after you destroyed the barge, it was true—but we also recognized that sending you out so quickly after you fell under the tower had been our mistake.”

  “He didn’t care about the money?” Yasmeen said doubtfully.

  “Of course that would have been of great use to us, but he did not lose money. He lost war machines—and as you must see, he already has more than most men could ever use. What are two or three more?”

  Like Yasmeen’s puddings. Like an extra five thousand livre. Archimedes couldn’t ever recall falling into hysterical laughter, but he was afraid it might be coming. His brain felt as if it would soon explode. “So there was no debt?”

  “Oh, there was a debt. But it was of obligation, an explanation.” She gave him a disapproving glance. “You ought to have come to us. Every assassin we sent had the same message: come to us.”

  Now he did laugh, on a memory of slashing knives, quickly drawn guns. “I never let them get round to it. And I have spent ten years trying to find something of value enough to replace the money.”

  “If there was no debt, why did you steal the sketch?” Yasmeen asked. “It wasn’t necessary.”

  “It was necessary to save his life,” Nasrin countered. “One of those assassins would have eventually killed him. His luck cannot last forever . . . though I suppose with you at his side now, he does not need luck to protect him. And I knew that he would come for the sketch, so Temür and I let others know that we had it.”

  “Why didn’t you just send him a letter, requesting him to come?”

  Nasrin smiled faintly. “A request from Temür Agha is an order—and an obligation fulfilled under order is not one truly fulfilled. So my seeing him in Port Fallow was a happy accident, an opportunity opened to give him reason to come. I took it.”

  “Then you weren’t there to kill him.”

  “Not at all.” She looked to Hassan, and her smile was sharp. “I was only there to see why our friend Hassan was selling his jewelry.”

  That announcement killed any further conversation. Though Yasmeen could clearly read the resignation on the older man’s face, there was not much to be done. Nasrin told them they would meet with Temür Agha after he’d spoken with Hassan and left for his audience with Temür. Yasmeen and Archimedes were escorted through the open, airy palace to a chamber that looked much like her cabin aboard Lady Corsair—though with many more pillows, a breeze that blew the silk curtains over the bed, and live birds singing in a small private garden.

  “Are they going to kill us?” Archimedes wondered.

  “I don’t know,” Yasmeen said. “It will all depend on Hassan, you realize.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think he was a true friend to Temür?”

  “From everything I’ve witnessed between them, yes.”

  Yasmeen smiled faintly. “Then that might make Temür more lenient, or make the betrayal seem that much worse. It is impossible to know.”

  A serving girl bustled in, pulled a chain over a large marble tub. A clanking echoed through the floor, and a tile opened, spilling steaming water.

  Yasmeen began unbuckling her jacket. “And it appears that if we are going to our executions, we are to be clean.”

  “Anything else would be rude. I hope we are also fed,” he said and joined her.

  Though she kissed him in the privacy of their bath, she dared not lose all awareness and make love. They were fed flaky pastries filled with beef and spices, a peppery stew over couscous, breads stuffed with honey and almonds. Yasmeen tasted each for poison, then for flavor, then his mouth after they drank the mint tea with rosewater.

  She dared not do more, so she lay against him on the pillows, thinking of how she might possibly kill Temür if the man did intend to execute them. She would have to be quicker than Nasrin, to take the woman by surprise. After Temür was dead, she didn’t know how quickly Nasrin would also fall. Hopefully it would be quick. Hopefully, if the woman had time to strike at all, she would only have time to strike at Yasmeen—and Archimedes would live.

  “I ought not have come here with you,” she told him.

  He frowned. “What?”

  She sat up. “We could have left Hassan somewhere safe. We didn’t have to bring him back to the city. You know why we did: Kareem al-Amazigh might be here, and I need to kill him.”

  “I know,” he said, and her chest squeezed almost to nothing.

  Of course, he understood. Like her, he did not live in civilization, not truly. He did not live under the safety of rules and laws. No, the only rules and laws they lived by were their own.

  But that also meant that when the seas ate up someone she loved, whether it was in lawless Port Fallow or the Ivory Market, whether it was aboard a ship on the ocean, that there was no one to seek justice. Murder was not illegal in a land without law, and so the only possible recourse for Yasmeen, the only loyalty she could show to her crew was to seek her own justice, to apply her own laws.

  That didn’t mean they had to be his.

  “I could have come later,” she said. “I didn’t have to risk you. I should have been patient. I understand the gan tsetseg now, Archimedes. If the man I need to protect is hurt, a part of me will also die. I don’t know if it is beautiful or barbaric, but I know it now.”

  “Yasmeen.” Roughly, he took his face between her hands and kissed her—and kissed her again. “I will stand behind you. I will always stand behind you.”

  But he wouldn’t, she knew. If anything ever threatened her, he would jump in front and take the first blow. Just as she would for him.

  Hours passed. By the afternoon, they heard a growing commotion, of many voices shouting together. They had no view from their chamber, and so Yasmeen climbed quietly to the roof to look over, and saw the courtyard filled with men and women. Together, like this, the effects of the Horde occupation were still shouting as they did: almost every man and woman had been modified by the tools of the occupation. Legs had been altered into lifts or rollers, arms augmented with steel and iron or replaced altogether. But although they shouted, they did not seem angry. Determined, rather—and all of them seemed to be waiting, expectant.

  Nasrin was waiting in their chambers when she climbed back down, her amusement plain. “We are sorry to have kept you here, but the talks were long, and the councilors have only just left.”

  The talks with the French? But Nasrin didn’t say. She led them to a great columned hall that might have once held a throne, but now was only laid with a thick rug. Temür sat at the head, his legs folded beneath him. Hassan sat at his right side.

  Temür gestured for them to sit on his left. Smaller than she’d always imagined, with shrewd eyes and iron gray hair gathered at the top of his head in a narrow tail, he was quiet, and still—much like Nasrin now, standing slightly behind him. He did not appear the clenched-teethed madman she had always pictured, ordering a city razed to the ground; nor did he appear the generous, impassioned man that had built another city up. He simply looked like a man, seated in front of a game of strategy—and she could not determine whether he was winning or losing.

  “Our friend Hassan has told us of your journey, and all that you suspect of Kareem al-Amazigh.”

  Archimedes nodded, obviously relieved by the “our friend
.” “Yes.”

  “He is aboard one of the French ships laying siege to us now. They demand entry for their soldiers, and to allow al-Amazigh to destroy the tower.”

  He ought to have listened to Hassan, Yasmeen thought. Such an action might make him a hero, but he would lose the city to a foreign power.

  Either way, he would not be a hero for long. Yasmeen pictured the line of ships. She would have to discover which he was on, and then fly Ceres close enough that she could infiltrate . . .

  No. That wouldn’t do, not unless she flew her alone. She could not risk the crew with this. She would not risk Archimedes—though she didn’t know how she would stop him from risking himself.

  “She is already determining how she will kill Kareem al-Amazigh,” Nasrin said. “You had best talk more quickly, my love.”

  Yasmeen’s eyes locked on the man’s face. “You don’t want me to?”

  “An assassination aboard the French ships would be akin to shooting a first bullet. My war machines will destroy the fleet, but that would also destroy many of the trade agreements we have set in place with their allies in the New World. I do not wish to embroil my city in a war.”

  And a request from Temür Agha was an order. Yasmeen was not foolish enough to defy it. “And after he is not aboard the ship?”

  The corners of his eyes lifted slightly. “Do as you like.”

  “How long will the siege last, do you think?”

  “Not long. They will have no reason to stay, and their demands will shortly mean nothing. I am bringing down the tower tonight. Or rather—” He glanced to Hassan. “My friend will, after he steps into my place.”

  Shock silenced them both. Tears glistened in Hassan’s eyes, sadness—the weight of responsibility.

  He was a good man to bear it, Yasmeen thought.

  Archimedes shook his head. “Truly?”

  “Yes,” Hassan said. “We are going out into the courtyard shortly, where we will make the announcement. I wanted to extend an invitation for you to see.”

  Yasmeen nodded, then glanced to Nasrin. “And you? What will you do afterward?”

  “We will go somewhere. We have not decided yet.”

  “But for safety, and because it would not be expected, we would like to be aboard your ship,” Temür said.

  Yasmeen laughed. A rich, powerful man, planning to relocate using only Ceres? “She’s a small ship. She can’t carry much. She could probably not even fit your collection of robes.”

  “We will not take anything but what we wear.”

  “And perhaps we will read the wooden blocks in Goryeo,” Nasrin said. “We will walk the flowered temples of Khmer, and bathe in the sacred river.”

  Yasmeen’s throat tightened. Her eyes filled. She could not hear a word of Lady Khojen’s tale without being overwhelmed—and it was more than a request. The iron in Temür’s hair said that he would have more years, but they could not number many.

  “All right.” She nodded, then realized, “And your man is already putting the provisions aboard the ship. The one you sent as a guide for my steward.”

  “Yes. Your steward was very glad not to pay for anything.”

  So was Yasmeen. But that didn’t mean she would take this job for free. “The price of passage—to wherever you like—will be Archimedes’ sketch.”

  “Of course.”

  She glanced at him, saw his grin, and whispered, “Fifty percent.”

  “You will have it,” he promised.

  As the sun set, Yasmeen sat with Archimedes at her side, watching from the palace roof as the tower fell—not with an explosion, but pushed over by a squat war machine, under Hassan’s first order.

  Inside the courtyard, outside—the cheers rose over the rumble of the war machine and the crash of stone, just as Hassan had hoped. Then the people themselves rose up, sparked by the tower’s fall—which Hassan had predicted, too.

  But perhaps he hadn’t anticipated the speed with which they would come for Temür Agha.

  Yasmeen and Archimedes had cheered with the rest, but as the tenor of the cheers and the chants began to change, she rose uneasily to her feet. A crowd had started toward the palace, where the former governor stood at the entrance with Hassan’s council.

  She turned to Archimedes. “We need to get to Ceres. Quickly. Nasrin and Temür will have to catch up.”

  They returned to their chamber, where the sketch still lay in Archimedes’ converted glider. He scooped it up and strapped it onto his back, and by the lady, Yasmeen was glad that he was a fast man, a strong man. He did not need to stop and rest as they raced through the palace. Behind them came shouts, the sound of stone shattering. They reached the palace wall, and he did not hesitate—not climbing the laurel tree as quickly as she, but just as surefooted.

  The gardens behind the palace were quiet. They were on the eastern side of the kasbah, and the mob at the west courtyard. Still, it would not be long before they would spill all through this area, searching for Temür.

  A crash made her look around. The war machine loomed over the palace, giant arms swinging, breaking it open for looters. Also under Hassan’s order? Probably not. But perhaps it would fulfill the same need as destroying Temür Agha. Cannons fired, crushing sandstone walls. People shouted over the rumbling, huffing machine. Steam spewed into the air as it squatted, lifted, and came down to crush the palace roof like a child stomping a grape.

  “Good God,” Archimedes breathed, looking back.

  Yasmeen didn’t dare look back again. Ceres hovered just outside the kasbah. Her eyes searched the dark for a gate, a tree, anything that would allow them over. The kasbah wall was too high, too smooth. Without a rope, Archimedes wouldn’t make it to the top. Yasmeen wasn’t certain she would make it.

  “Can we signal them?” he asked.

  She did not know with what. She and the crew of her lady had many signals, but she’d never established them with this crew.

  “We might have to run through the crowd,” she whispered. “We need to find robes.”

  Anything, anything to hide, anything to be safe—to make certain he made it to the airship.

  “Find robes in there?” He looked to the palace again, eyes widening as the ground suddenly shook under an enormous impact. “Not in there. We’ll knock someone out, take their clothes.”

  A dark figure in a robe swept past them, easily carrying a hooded man. “Come,” Nasrin said. “We knew that they might storm the palace, but now they have taken over the war machine. So come quickly.”

  Hope lifted through Yasmeen again as they raced after her, until a shout from behind them gave away their presence. Nasrin reached the wall and leapt, flying halfway up. Her foot struck the smooth side and propelled her the remaining way to the top.

  If anyone had doubts about who had been fleeing, they would not now.

  “Nasrin!” Yasmeen shouted.

  She turned, flicked her hand down to them. Yasmeen grasped the smooth mechanical flesh, held on to Archimedes. Nasrin wound them up with dizzying speed, and Yasmeen might have laughed if the mob were not closing in.

  Atop they wall, they looked to Ceres. “She is too far away for me,” Nasrin said.

  People were in the streets below, but not rioting. Still cheering, many of them, others confused by the commotion inside the kasbah . She and Archimedes would be safe, for now, if they escaped here.

  A rock whizzed past Yasmeen’s head—thrown by a mechanical arm, altered and strengthened by the Horde.

  Nasrin jumped from the wall, landed easily, then looked up at them.

  “Jesus,” Archimedes said. “I think she intends to catch—”

  A rock slammed into the wall just below their feet, breaking apart in a shower of shards.

  “You go first,” he said.

  Yasmeen laughed, turned to jump. The whizzing sound warned her, and she ducked. Pain shot through her brain, and everything went dark as she fell, instead.

  “Yasmeen!”

  Archimed
es leapt for her, missed. Overbalanced, he toppled over, barely gripped the edge of the wall. He hung over the side, desperately watching as Nasrin caught her.

  But, God—how badly had she been struck?

  He flung himself away from the wall the moment Nasrin put her down. He crashed into her, and he felt her mechanical body warp beneath her robe, cushioning the impact. Still, it slammed the breath from him, and his chest was a molten hole as he scrambled for Yasmeen. Blood flowed heavily from her scalp, over her ear.

  “She’s alive,” Nasrin said. “Pick her up. Let us go, go!”

  He gathered her up, trying to let her breath and her heartbeat ease his fear. Behind them came shouts, the crash and huffing of the war machine. He ran, carrying his life, as he’d never run before.

  They reached Ceres. Nasrin’s hand shot upward, her arm wrapped around his waist. They were carried up, onto the deck, where the crew waited, eyes wide as they looked over the kasbah. The war machine had begun rolling toward them.

  The crew looked to Yasmeen, then to him. And holding her, God please let her forgive him, Archimedes took command of her ship.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Yasmeen awoke, the morning sun was shining through the portholes. Bandages wrapped her head—so that was why it pounded so badly. She couldn’t remember drinking that much.

  Archimedes sat in a chair next to the bed, eyes closed, jaw rough, head in his hands. He looked exhausted.

  “Idiot,” she said. Her mouth felt parched, her tongue huge. She hadn’t drunk too much; she needed a drink that much. “You should have slept.”

  He looked up. His eyes suddenly glistened—oh, beautiful man. She felt the smile curve her mouth, the one she could not help every time she saw him.

  “Yasmeen,” he said, and his voice was as rough as hers felt. He started for her, as if to pull her into his arms, before stopping himself. “How do you feel?”

  She pushed up to sitting. Her knees cracked. She froze, then let the tension out on a sigh. “I feel like I need to loosen up—and I have to piss.”