Blood and Betrayal ee-5

by Lindsay Buroker

“No, but you’re a more amenable sort, and I knew you’d play along without entertaining thoughts of killing me later.”

  “How about more ideas and less pointless banter?” Yara snapped. She stood in a crouch by the fountain, her knife clenched in her hand, as if she hoped people would come in and attack her.

  “You’re welcome to share your ideas,” Maldynado said, refraining from snapping back. He figured she hadn’t faced death as often as he had-not that he’d learned to relish the notion-and fear spurred her short temper.

  The knife in Yara’s hand drooped. “I’m sorry. I’m just… concerned.”

  “Me too.” Maldynado knocked on the door again. “Hello, we’re not finding the Relaxation Grotto very relaxing. Mind if we try another room in the spa?”

  Basilard signed, Are you actually expecting an answer?

  “A maniacal cackle, perhaps.”

  Maldynado noticed himself drawing in longer breaths, as if he were tramping about on top of a mountain. Yara stalked to the window and tried smashing the tip of her knife into one of the panes. Whatever that clear stuff was, it wasn’t glass, for her blade didn’t leave so much as a scratch. All that happened was that her knife flew out of her hand.

  She picked it up, the movement not as smooth as usual, thanks to the confines of her garment. “I can’t believe this idiotic dress is going to be what I die in.”

  “You could always take it off.” Despite the thin air, Maldynado managed a convincing leer. “I’ll strip, too, and we can die entangled in each other’s arms, thrashing about on the floor like deer in the rutting season.”

  “You make sex sound so appealing.”

  “I’m open to gentle, unhurried methods as well.”

  “Does he ever think about anything else?” Yara asked Basilard.

  Rarely.

  Maldynado sank down onto the cold stone bench. In truth, he’d have a hard time working up the energy for good rut. Already his limbs had grown weak. His lungs inflated deeply, but couldn’t find sustenance in the air.

  Basilard placed a dagger between his teeth and scaled the vines to one of the vents. He tried to pry the grate open.

  “In case I don’t get another chance to say this,” Maldynado said, pausing to inhale between words, “I apologize for dragging you two up here. I should have known my family wouldn’t truly be interested in exonerating me. If I hadn’t been thinking to fool them myself, I would have realized this was a trap.” He slumped. “Cursed ancestors, I hope we didn’t set the others up to get caught too. Or worse.”

  The scrapes on the wall ceased. Basilard hadn’t managed to pry the grate open, not that it would have done any good anyway. That duct was too small to crawl through. Basilard hung now from one hand, his eyes half-closed, his chest rising and falling in deep, strained breaths.

  “You better come down before you fall down,” Maldynado said.

  Without any of his usual agility, Basilard climbed down the wall, his grip slipping several times. He landed hard and sank straight to the floor. He leaned his head and shoulder against the bench and stared at Maldynado with defeat in his bleary eyes.

  Sorry, Maldynado signed.

  I forgive you.

  Thank you.

  Maldynado wished he could get something similar from Yara, but she appeared too irked to consider tender parting words. He lifted a hand, inviting her to come sit on the bench beside him. Jaw set, she remained standing, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Maldynado sighed and closed his eyes.

  In the dark confines of the crate, after a long, gruesome day of torture, Amaranthe allowed tears to roll down her cheeks. She wouldn’t show those tears to Pike, but there, in utter solitude, she saw little reason to maintain a facade. In the beginning, she’d thought she could somehow rescue herself by talking someone over to her side, but she’d made little progress on that front. Perhaps if she had a month, she might find a way to chisel through Retta’s barriers, but her body told her she didn’t have that month. Healing salves or not, she couldn’t imagine surviving three more days of Pike’s torture, much less thirty. A hundred times, she’d fantasized about Sicarius appearing behind Pike, slashing his throat, freeing her from that terrible table, and carrying her off to safety. But, in her heart, she knew he’d gone with Sespian. Even if he hadn’t, if Retta was to be believed, the Behemoth had landed days ago. If Sicarius had been able to follow the craft somehow, he would have found a way on board by now. And he hadn’t.

  The slit on the crate door slid open. Amaranthe hurried to wipe away her tears, though it couldn’t be Pike. He always had the machine yank her out of her prison; he didn’t crouch down to chat through the door.

  “Amaranthe?” Retta asked hesitantly, as if fearing she might have passed on.

  “I’m still here,” Amaranthe croaked, wondering if she dared hope her last words to Retta had somehow meant something.

  “I have a question for you.”

  “Unless it’s a new one, I decline to answer.”

  Retta knelt beside the crate and leaned close, tilting her head as if to hear better. Amaranthe knew her voice was weak but couldn’t manage a stronger one.

  “Why did you leave school to become an enforcer?” Retta asked.

  A new question after all. One that surprised Amaranthe because it didn’t have anything to do with… anything. At least it didn’t seem to. It must though. Random curiosity wouldn’t have brought Retta here to voice questions.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I just need to know.”

  “My father-”

  “I know that’s what you tell everyone,” Retta interrupted, “but Ms. Worgavic was right. If you’d wanted to finish school and continue on in the world of business, you could have found a way. Why didn’t you? Why choose the enforcers over a chance to craft your own destiny?”

  Hm. For whatever reason, Amaranthe had been in Retta’s thoughts. That last talk had seemed scripted, as if Retta were only there because Ms. Worgavic told her to question Amaranthe. Now, though, perhaps Ms. Worgavic was gone, off to that meeting, and Retta could ask her own questions.

  Amaranthe considered her answer carefully. The truth, the one she had once told Hollowcrest when he’d asked a similar question, probably wouldn’t win her Retta’s favor. Had she known what exactly the girl wanted to hear, she would have been tempted to provide the appropriate answer, even if it were a lie. Unfortunately, she didn’t know what Retta wanted to hear.

  “I’m not… against the notion of capitalism,” Amaranthe said, “and I believe it’s possible to do good, both by providing a useful product or service and by putting the money one acquires along the way toward a noble purpose, but as we entered our latter years of study, I came to realize business wasn’t for me. I’d always competed at the races, and I preferred a more physical lifestyle. More than that, I wanted to help people. I wanted the satisfaction that comes from helping people. I like knowing that I matter, that the work I’m doing matters. I also wanted… to be someone history remembers. I thought I could earn that by becoming the first female enforcer chief in the empire. I didn’t want money, or business success, just immortality of a sort.”

  Amaranthe waited for Retta to laugh or belittle her-no immortality for you now, girl, just a slow death at the end of Pike’s knife. Instead, she said, “It’s interesting that you didn’t start to gain any fame until you broke away from the enforcers and became an outlaw.”

  “That is true,” Amaranthe said, still wondering what Retta wanted.

  “My parents forced me to go to that school, to follow in my sister’s path, even though I had no interest in business myself. I wanted to study history and archaeology and explore the world, to see what the past could teach us.”

  Amaranthe grunted encouragingly.

  “When Ms. Worgavic offered me the chance to do all I wished to do, if only I worked on her behalf, I saw my opportunity. I could study as I wished and see the world, and the apprenticeship would please my parents as w
ell. It seemed ideal.” Retta settled onto the floor, only her shoulder in view as she leaned against the crate door, her gaze toward a distant wall. “But when you tie your dreams to someone else’s wagon, and you agree to be bound by their rules, you’re never truly free. All the success you achieve is ultimately the result of someone else doing you a favor. And if that wagon starts down a course you wouldn’t choose, it may be too late to untie yourself. I wish… I’d been more patient and found a way to do it all on my own.”

  “There’s still time,” Amaranthe said. “You’re young. Start now.”

  Retta turned sad eyes in her direction. “I know too many of their secrets. They wouldn’t let me walk away.”

  Amaranthe remembered worrying the same thing about Sicarius once, that he’d never let her walk away because she knew his secrets. How fortunate she was that she hadn’t wanted to leave him.

  “If you let me walk away,” Amaranthe said, knowing full well that it was too early in this newfound kinship to make requests, but knowing too that she didn’t have the luxury of time, “perhaps my team and I can rock the wagon enough that the drovers wouldn’t notice someone slipping away.”

  Retta shook her head slowly. The sadness in her eyes deepened, and that disturbed Amaranthe more than a snort or a “nice try” would have.

  “Even if I didn’t fear reprisal, I can’t betray Ms. Worgavic. She’s done everything for me that she said she would, and, wishes for the future aside, I’ve benefited handsomely from the association.” Retta placed her hand on the crate door. “The only way I can release you is if you tell me what everyone wants to know. Ms. Worgavic said she’d let you go if you did, so I wouldn’t be betraying anyone. I could do it now, in the middle of the night, when nobody would be around who might… override Ms. Worgavic’s wishes for your continued existence.”

  Amaranthe laid her head on her knees, the tears threatening to swallow her eyes again. She was tired of the fight and of the pain, and was more tempted than she would admit by the offer. “I can’t,” she whispered and was glad when Retta left without pressing further.

  Chapter 8

  They don’t make statues of people who walk behind others. You have to walk out in front.

  The words floated through Maldynado’s head, though he wasn’t sure where they came from. An indignant snort came to mind-he’d tried to lead the way, to walk out front, and what had happened? He’d gotten himself and his comrades captured. Maybe killed. Nothing but darkness surrounded him. Was this death?

  Something prodded Maldynado in the ribs. Hard.

  In the distance, a woman said, “Now, now, no need for that. Don’t leave him with any more scars. He already looks battered for my tastes.”

  Mari? Maldynado couldn’t tell. His ears seemed to have water in them.

  “Not mine,” said a second woman, practically purring as she spoke. “Kill the others if you wish, but let’s bring him along. We’ll be on the river for several days, and I wouldn’t mind a cabin boy to entertain me.”

  Maldynado managed to get his eyelids working. Not that the view was exciting. The corner of something stone filled his vision. The bench, he realized. He lay flat on his stomach, apparently where he’d fallen. He tried to roll over, to get a look at the speakers, but ropes bound his hands behind his back. When he attempted to move a leg, he found his lower limbs also immobilized with his ankles crossed, pulled up into the air, and tied to the ropes constraining his wrists. Thick moist cotton filled his mouth. A gag. How fun. A quick glance down his body assured him that they’d taken his rapier and knife.

  “That is tempting. Ravido needn’t know whether he died here or at the end of our trip downriver. The boy’s not very bright, so I doubt if we’d have to worry about him masterminding any escapes.” The woman cackled.

  Yes, it was definitely a cackle, a high-pitched one that ended with a snort. Maldynado remembered it well. Mari. The other voice didn’t nudge his memory with a sense of familiarity.

  “We can keep him tied up to make sure,” the second woman said. “Though I’ve heard he’s skilled in the bedroom, so it’d be a shame not to give him free use of his hands.”

  Yes, it would, Maldynado thought. He remained still while the women spoke, since they seemed to be working themselves up to the idea of taking him with them on the Glacial Empress. He’d be happy to play along as lover-slave until an opportunity to escape arose. Yes, escape. He dearly wanted to tell them to slag off and that he was bright enough to plan such a thing, though it was hard to boast of one’s intelligence when one was trussed up like a hog on a spit.

  Mari’s high-pitched laugh sounded again. “I’ll let you try the hands-free option, Brynia. You’re young and sexy, so you’ll have no trouble seducing him. He’s alas not been quick to acquiesce to my advances in the past.”

  “You wish him stowed in your cabin, my lady?” a man asked. It sounded like that butler. He was tending to Maldynado’s accommodations after all. How thoughtful.

  “Yes, but I want to question him first,” Mari said.

  “Do you need assistance?” another man, this one with a deep, rumbly voice, asked.

  “I doubt it. The boy has never been one to put a clamp on his lips.”

  “Yes, my lady. What do you want us to do with the other two?”

  “They’re nothing to me. Feed them to the alligators, so there’s no evidence that they were here.”

  At that statement, Maldynado made a more vigorous attempt to turn over. The lover-slave ruse would only be acceptable if Yara and Basilard were safe, or at least not dead.

  “Ah, he’s awake,” the second lady, Brynia, said. “Roll him over, will you, Dorff?”

  At first, that sounded like a good idea-Maldynado wanted to see more than the bench-but as soon as meaty hands flipped him onto his side, he regretted it. With his arms and legs locked behind him, the new position threatened to rip the bottom shoulder out of its socket.

  A woman’s face lowered to regard him, and Maldynado stopped squirming. He’d expected Mari, but this was a stranger, a sexy stranger. Clear blue eyes framed by long dark lashes gazed down at him. Shoulder-length blonde hair fell in a curtain about a striking face with a small mole placed artfully on the chin.

  “Hello, darling,” she said. “Care to answer a few questions?”

  The only thing that came to mind was, “Uhm.” The gag muffled it, but Maldynado feared they got the gist.

  “I told you he’s not the swiftest,” Mari said.

  She had changed little since Maldynado had last seen her. She sat on a nearby bench, legs crossed, hands braced behind her in a way that thrust her chest outward. A pair of onyx clips kept her brown hair pulled away from her face, but couldn’t hide its unruly frizziness. Her face itself wasn’t entirely unpleasant to look upon, but her dark eyes never failed to have a calculating, predatory gleam that would make any sane man uneasy. Maldynado had been a boy when she and Ravido had married, but he’d always suspected that family connections, and perhaps some manipulation on her part, had been behind the pairing.

  “That’s all right.” Brynia offered Maldynado a sympathetic smile, though he knew it couldn’t be sincere. “Not everybody’s ancestors favor them in all matters.”

  Maldynado craned his neck until he located Yara and Basilard. They were also tied and lay where they’d fallen, Yara by a fountain in the middle of the room, and Basilard by the wall on the other side of the bench. Neither had their eyes open, and Maldynado worried that they’d already been killed. No, they wouldn’t be tied if they were dead. He just had to figure out a way to keep them from a trip to the moat. As skilled a fighter as Basilard was, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself with his arms and legs bound behind his back.

  Several burly men loomed about the room, sabers and pistols hanging at their waists. The firearms had revolving chambers to hold multiple bullets. Some carried rifles as well.

  Brynia knelt beside Maldynado and untied his gag, her crimson fingernails flashing. As she remo
ved it, she stroked those fingernails along his jaw.

  “Where is the assassin, Maldynado?” Mari asked.

  “The who?” Maldynado asked.

  “Sicarius. My comrades very much want his life to end. The family knows you’ve been working with him. For the longest time, your father hoped he’d grow weary of your wit and kill you so that your criminal exploits-and the embarrassment to the family-would end, but my business colleagues say that the woman leads the group. We know she’s no longer an issue-”

  Maldynado’s heart almost stopped. Amaranthe was no longer an issue?

  “-but he’s still on the loose,” Mari said. “We thought a trap set for you might ensnare him at the same time.” She waved around the room. “We wouldn’t have gone to such elaborate lengths if we’d known it’d just be you, a thug, and a girl.”

  Worried about Amaranthe, Maldynado barely heard the part about a trap.

  “Who is she, anyway?” Mari sniffed in Yara’s direction. “A woman with muscles and knives isn’t quite to your tastes. You prefer those vapid, buxom girls who haven’t a thought in their heads beyond rubbing against you and rousing your interest.”

  “Now, now, Mari,” Maldynado said, having a notion that he should stand up for himself so they wouldn’t know how deflated his foolish choices had left him, “there’s no need to be bitter just because I’ve rejected you. Often.”

  Mari clenched her jaw.

  “Ah, the pretty man has teeth.” Brynia, still kneeling beside Maldynado, patted him on the arm and smiled. “Good.”

  “But,” Maldynado said, keeping his eyes toward Mari, “the past needn’t set the pattern of the future. If you let my friends walk away from here, I’ll go along with you on your trip and perform for you in whatever capacity you desire.”

  “You’ll do that anyway,” Mari said. “If you perform well, your death at the end can be painless. If not… ” Her gaze shifted toward the burly thugs.

  Please. After what Maldynado had been through in the last year, threats of pummeling weren’t that terrifying. And she was probably bluffing about the death part anyway. Or maybe not. They’d been discussing that before they knew he was conscious, hadn’t they? When they’d had no idea he was listening? Or maybe they’d known he was listening and had been playing a part.