The Box
Author: Lindsay Buroker
Date: 2020-08-14 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Urban Fantasy; Paranormal; dragons; Fae; Magic; Novella; Shapeshifters; Humor; Short Stories
Description: This is a bonus scene with Val, Dimitri, and Sindari. Someone is getting in a box, but you’ll have to read on to see who it is. The scene takes place after Storm Forged (Death Before Dragons Book 6) but there are only a couple of mentions of things that happened in Book 6, so you can also read The Box before reading Storm Forged.

FORGOTTEN AGES

The Complete Series

by Lindsay Buroker

Copyright © 2015 Lindsay Buroker

FORGOTTEN AGES

The Complete Series

Encrypted

Enigma

Decrypted

Bonus Extras

ENCRYPTED

by Lindsay Buroker

PROLOGUE

Tikaya Komitopis slid one finger down the encrypted message while she translated the plain text letters onto a fresh page. She smiled. Her new key was working.

As she revealed more lines, giddiness stirred in her belly. She forced herself not to rush, not to get ahead of herself. Finish translating the message, then read it.

Tikaya tuned out the susurrus of voices in the war room. She ignored the sweat moistening her freckled hands and the mugginess of the salty air that failed to stir the leaves in the palm trees outside the window. A wisp of blonde hair escaped her long braid and dangled before her spectacles, but she ignored it too.

Only after she copied the Turgonian admiral’s signature did she grab the paper with both hands, devouring the message.

Tikaya shoved her bamboo chair back so quickly it toppled to the floor. She glanced about the desk-filled room. Everyone had stopped work to watch the door where her supervisor stood with the president. Their graying heads tilted toward each other, some discussion on their lips.

She blinked. When had the president arrived?

Then elation sent her racing across the room, sandals slapping the wood floor. Perfect. He should know first.

“Mr. President?” she called, though he was already looking her way. “I have—”

Her hip rammed the corner of a desk. She flailed for balance, tripped over her own feet, and pitched forward. The president caught her in an awkward embrace. Mortified, she lurched backward and found her feet as heat swarmed her cheeks.

“Professor Komitopis,” he said gently, amusement in his blue eyes. “Do you surf?”

Tikaya stared at him in bewilderment, then over his head and out the open door. In the bay, a steamer rumbled toward the docks while a few students straddled surfboards near the beach.

“No, sir,” she said, letting puzzlement into her tone.

“Don’t start,” the president said.

Her supervisor snickered. Oh. She was being teased for her clumsiness. The men’s eyes held no spite, but that did little to abate the heat plaguing her cheeks. It was bad enough she stood two inches taller than either man; she had to stumble around like a drunken sea lion in front of them too?

“You have a message?” the president asked.

The importance of the note flooded back to her. “Yes, yes. The war, sir. It’s over.”

The president’s eyes widened.

“Or it will be in a couple weeks,” Tikaya said. “Listen: ‘Admiral Dufakt, by his Ancestrally Ordained Imperial Highness Emperor Raumesys’s order’—I love it when they use that long title in their encrypted communications. You don’t even need frequency analysis when you’ve got such an obvious key phrase. Every time they—”

“Tikaya,” her supervisor whispered. “The message.”

“Oh, pardon, sirs. The Turgonian emperor says, ‘Warships are to stand ready to facilitate troop removal and diplomat transportation for treaty negotiations.’” She tapped the page. “That’s the official part that went out fleet wide, and this second paragraph came on another page. I believe it’s a personal message between admirals.

“‘That’s it Dufakt. With Fleet Admiral Starcrest’s death, we’ve gone from dominating the Nurian forces to scrambling to survive encounters with those ancestors-cursed wizard ships. Having the Kyattese cryptanalyst hand over so many of our decrypted missives to the Nurian government exacerbated our problems. How an island full of scientists managed to steal so many of our correspondences, I’ll never know, but I do wish Starcrest had lived to punish them, especially since taking over their piddling nation was his idea. We’ll recoup and get the Nurians next time. Send along your recommendations for promotions. Signed Acting Fleet Admiral Mourncrest.’”

“Good news, yes, indeed,” the president said.

His head tilted to the side, eyes far away for a moment, and Tikaya recalled he was a telepath. He must be getting a message from some aide back in his office. Or maybe his wife wanted him to stop for groceries on the way home. Tikaya had never studied the mental sciences and did not know how likely that was, but she smirked at the thought of the president popping into the market for sugar and bananas.

When his eyes focused on Tikaya again, concern hooded them, and her amusement evaporated. His tone turned grim when he spoke: “Step outside with me, please, Professor.”

Tikaya handed the note to her supervisor, and an uneasy flutter vexed her stomach as she trailed the president.

A breeze wafted in from the ocean, making it feel cooler outside despite the sun radiating off the sidewalk. Seagulls squawked in response to a steam horn blasting in the bay. The president stopped in the shade of a jackfruit tree.

“The work you’ve done for us these last two years has been phenomenal, Tikaya. I’m grateful, and if our nation knew about it, they would be too.”

She shrugged, embarrassed by the praise, and prodded a fallen jackfruit with her toe. “Thank you, sir, but I’ve just been hunkered in a room, playing with symbols. It was different from my regular work but similar. A fun challenge.” The president’s eyebrows twitched, and she winced. She should not call anything related to the war fun. Too many had died. “The men and women who risked their lives to obtain the missives are the heroes.”

“I’m grateful to them, too, but their names aren’t the ones starting to show up in Turgonian naval orders.”

“My name isn’t…” She froze. The Kyattese cryptanalyst. That had been in the message, not for the first time. The Turgonians seemed to believe a single person responsible. Her. The humid air did nothing to stifle the chill that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

“If they find out who you are,” the president said, “your life will be in danger.”

“They won’t figure it out,” she croaked, mouth dry. “They won’t. They’ll be looking for a cryptanalyst, not a philology professor buried in a back room at the Polytechnic, deciphering dead languages on dusty scrolls and tablets.” Why did she sound like she was trying to convince herself? “We don’t even study cryptography on the islands; surely they’ll think it was some Nurian who worked with us.”

“I hope that’s true, but…I hear you’re good with a bow.”

For a moment, the topic shift befuddled her. Then realization dawned and made her shake her head. “In the field in the back of my parents’ house, yes, sir. But I couldn’t shoot anyone.”

“I suggest you keep up your practice in the months ahead.”

Tikaya closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. She did not even like hunting. That had always been her brother and her father’s domain. She shot because she found the repetitive, mechanical task conducive to thinking, to problem solving. She had worked out many language puzzles while plunking arrows into the straw targets on her parents’ plantation.

“I hope you understand that I cannot regret bringing you into this,” the president said, “not when you’ve been so pivotal to our people retaining their freedom. But I do…owe you a great debt. I will do everything possible to deflect foreign questions about your involvement, and I will pray for your safety in the months and years ahead.”

“I understand, sir. If anything does happen, I don’t hold you responsible. I had to do this. I wouldn’t enjoy living under imperial rule.” She sensed his grimness and wanted to reassure him. “Those warmongers probably make their professors wear swords to class, and, given how easily I can trip over my own feet, that’d be a death sentence for sure.”

The president smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.

“Something else, sir?” she asked.

He sighed and gazed toward the sea. “Yes, the reason I called you out here… I just learned the bad news. It’s about your fiancé.”

Fear tightened Tikaya’s chest. “Parkonis?”

“I’m sorry. The Turgonians sank the Eagle’s Spirit off the coast of the northern island. There were no survivors.”

“They sank—” Her voice cracked. “No, they wouldn’t have… The Spirit is an archaeology vessel! It doesn’t even have a cannon.” She gripped the tree for support.

The president placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know.”

Tikaya sank to the grass and buried her face in her lap. She did not want to believe Parkonis was dead, but hot tears streaked down her cheeks and dampened her dress.

The war was over, but she had nothing to celebrate.

CHAPTER 1

Moisture slicked the handle of Tikaya’s machete, and sweat saturated her hemp dress. Her blade rang as she scraped leaves free from a stalk of sugar cane.

Sunset approached, and she had yet to cut a hand, leg, or other notable appendage. Maybe she was finally growing competent with the machete. The hilt slipped in her damp palm, and she nicked her thumb. Maybe not.

She lifted her spectacles to wipe moisture out of her eyes. A reflection in the glass made her jump.

Machete in hand, she whirled toward the cleared area behind her. A man towered a few paces away, a dagger and cutlass at his belt, and a muzzle-loading rifle crooked in his arms. His bronze skin and dark hair would have marked him a foreigner even if the black military uniform with its fine factory weave did not. It was a uniform she had not seen in a year, not since the war ended, but she had not forgotten its significance: Turgonian marine.

Several paces lay between her and the wagon where her bow rested on the driver’s seat. She had kept it within reach the first couple months after the treaty signing, but time had dulled her vigilance. Swallowing, she shifted her gaze left and right, hoping to spot a couple of the seasonal laborers her father hired to harvest the cane. But the day grew late, and she had worked herself into a private corner of the field. The house stood hundreds of meters away. No one would hear her yell.

The marine said nothing, though his dark eyes followed her darting gaze. Running would confirm she had a reason to hide; maybe she could trick him into thinking she was no one of consequence. Not that being an innocent would necessarily make her safe from a Turgonian.

“If you’re looking for rum,” she said, his language sliding off her tongue automatically, “my brother’s working in the distillery. He can sell you enough for your entire ship at a fair price.”

The marine’s eyes widened, and a satisfied—no, triumphant—smile stretched across his face.

Dread curled through her belly. They knew who she was, what her role had been in the war. Addressing him in his language had been a mistake, a confirmation that they had found the right person. She eyed the rifle, noticed it was loaded and cocked. A huge mistake.

“I’m not here for rum,” the marine said. “I seek the cryptomancer, and I believe you are she.”

Tikaya did not have to feign surprise. “The what?”

“The one who broke our codes during the war. The one who thwarted our best cryptographers. The one who—” his jaw tightened and a muscle in his cheek jumped, “—gave our decrypted messages to the Nurians. That meddling cost us a dozen ironclads and thousands of men.”

“Your people tried to take over our islands to serve as a strategic outpost.” Her hand flexed on the machete. “You sank more than a dozen of our ships, including a peaceful archaeology vessel with my—” She stopped herself. She might have every right to condemn this man, but it was stupid to do so when he stood across from her holding a rifle. “We wanted no part of your war. We did what we had to do to protect our freedom. I don’t know who your cryptomancer is, but I am certainly not that person. I am a simple plantation worker, helping my family grow sugar cane and make rum.”

“A simple plantation worker who speaks flawless Turgonian,” the marine said.

She stifled a grimace. If those thoughtless first moments were her undoing… “The Kyatt Islands are in the middle of many nations’ trade routes. Our children study several languages in school, and many of our people are polyglots. You’ll find the true experts working at the Polytechnic.” A place and job she had not returned to since losing Parkonis.

For the first time, a hint of uncertainty lurked in the marine’s dark eyes. She held her breath, willing him to believe her.

He eyed her up and down, and she shifted her weight, abruptly aware how the dampness of her dress pronounced her curves. There were more things to fear from a strange man than being shot. She tried to ease backward, but dense cane blocked her.

The marine reached for his belt, and she crouched, brandishing the machete in both hands.

“If you touch me, I’ll cut off your…” Tikaya knew the Turgonian word for penis, but some cursed ancestor with a sense of humor momentarily sucked it from her mind. “Man part,” she finished feebly.

The marine’s eyebrows lifted. His hand had unclasped not his belt buckle but an ammo pouch, and he pulled out a scrap of paper. “You’re not my type, and if that’s what you people call a fighting stance, it’s amazing you can even defeat the sugar cane.”

She should have felt nothing but relief, but embarrassment flushed her cheeks. The marine approached, the paper extended. Though he did not act as threatening as he might, her muscles tensed. The Turgonians had slain hundreds of her people, including the one who mattered most.

Tikaya wanted to tell him to take his note and leave, but curiosity kept her silent. What could he possibly have come all this way to show her?

He stopped a pace away from her, holding out the paper. Reluctant to close the final distance, she did not move for a long moment. He waited. Mosquitoes whined, reminding her that darkness approached. Tikaya lowered the machete and accepted the note. Even with her suntanned skin, his fingers were dark next to hers.

Though he did not try to touch her, she sidled away to study the paper. It was not a note at all but a page of symbols. Someone had painstakingly copied complex symmetrical markings interlinked in small groupings. Her teeth caught her lip. She had seen many languages, but she had never seen this one, if it even was a language. It could be anything.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, gaze stuck to the paper. After a moment, she realized she had asked in her own tongue instead of his and switched, repeating the question.

“My commanding officer.”

“No, I mean…”

“My commanding officer,” he said again.

Tikaya snorted. “Is it a language or…” She stopped herself from saying substitution cipher. If she hoped to plead ignorance of this cryptomancer, she had best not say anything related to cryptography.

“You tell me.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen—” She caught herself again, this time short of admitting she had studied dozens of languages, living and dead. “We see a number of languages here on the island.”

Tikaya tried to watch him, to gauge his reaction, but the symbols kept drawing her eyes back, demanding her attention. What if it was a previously undiscovered language? Something from ruins the Turgonians had dug up on their continent? They were not a people known for archaeology, nor sharing secrets. If she were to translate a new language and bring awareness of it to the global scientific community, it would assure her a place in the history books. A tempting thought, that.

“Does it mean anything to you?” the marine asked.

“No, I don’t even know if this is logographic or syllabic or alpha…” Great Grandmother’s eyeteeth, she was saying too much again.

Indeed, the soldier watched her through narrowed eyes. Time to end this conversation and get out of these fields before darkness fell and he changed his mind about her being his type.

Tikaya held the paper out for him. “I don’t recognize it. I can’t help you. You should try at the Polytechnic.”

He stared at her, face unreadable. Cicadas began droning, and a bead of sweat slithered down her spine. Then he took the paper, returned it to his pouch, and walked away.

• • • • •

A pair of whale-oil lamps burned on either side of double doors marking the front of a large grassy mound. The earthen-walled structure held her family’s distillery and processing equipment, and the clank-thunk of machinery echoed from within. Tikaya paused to prop her bow against the door frame as she entered the chamber. Cool, dry air offered a reprieve from the muggy evening heat, and her steaming body welcomed it after the run from the fields.

She almost tripped over a passel of laughing, sandy-haired toddlers throwing wads of bagasse at each other. Running into her nephews and nieces usually made her smile, but now she froze, mid-step, thinking of the marine. His presence represented a threat not only to her, but to her whole family, a family big enough that they joked how it was impossible to be lonely any place on the plantation. That was why she had returned this past year. The flat she shared with Parkonis near the Polytechnic had been too empty after his death, but now she feared she had endangered them all.

“Tikaya,” her brother, Kytaer, called. He stood before a press, feeding sugar cane into the rollers. The long stalks cracked and flattened, and juice flowed into a collection bin below. “Glad you stopped by so I could warn you.”

She tore her gaze from the tussling children. Warn her? Had the Turgonian already been here?

“Professor Meilika is in the house,” Ky said. “She’s joining us for dinner. She and Mother have been conspiring all afternoon. About you. How to get you back deciphering runes on broken tablets and potsherds and all that.”

Tikaya exhaled slowly. Nothing new. Good. That meant the marine had not been by. She still had time to warn everyone and figure out what to do. No, she knew what she had to do. She had to pack. She could not stay here. If any of her family came to harm because of the role she accepted during the war, the guilt would torment her forever.

One of her nephews bumped into her leg and fell on his bottom. She picked him up before he could decide if the tumble was a big enough calamity to cry over. She swiped bagasse off his dusty trousers and directed him back into the game with a playful swat on the backside. A lump sprang into her throat at the idea of leaving them indefinitely. But for fate, she might have had little ones of her own by now.

“Children, time to wash up for dinner!” That was Ky’s wife, calling from the path, somewhere between the house and the processing plant.

The youngsters trundled out, voicing mutters of “aw” and “do we have to?”

“You’re looking particularly glum and thoughtful,” Ky said when he and Tikaya were alone. “Did Mother and Father already talk to you?”

Tikaya had seen neither of her parents since early morning, so she arched her eyebrows and joined him at the press. Like their father, Ky shared her uncommon height. For him, though, it had always been an advantage, making him a boyhood star at swimming and running. For her… Well, at least she could reach the high book shelves in the library without a ladder.

“I heard them talking,” Ky explained. “You’re getting the wasting-the-talent-Akahe-gave-you lecture again soon. I know Father appreciates an extra hand during the harvest, but he’s worried you’ve been here moping too long. And Mother…wants you living in town again where you can find a ‘nice young man to make babies with.’”

Tikaya winced at the familiar words. Ky patted her on the shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said. “Are you all right? You look preoccupied. If you were puzzling over some ancient runes, I’d know why, but I can’t imagine the mysteries of the cane fields are putting those thoughtful creases between your eyebrows.”

“I ran into a Turgonian marine,” Tikaya said to hush her brother’s garrulousness. She usually found it endearing, but tonight his chatter grated.

Her words did the job. He gaped for a long moment before saying, “Where? When? You haven’t been to town for—”

“Here. Just now. In the north field.”

Still staring at her, Ky shoved the lever that turned off the press, and the clank-thunks faded.

“He was looking for the cryptanalyst from the war,” Tikaya went on, voice sounding loud in the new silence. She lowered it. “I think I persuaded him I wasn’t that person, but I’d be surprised if their research doesn’t lead them back to me again. Tomorrow morning—”

A clank sounded near the entrance, and a metallic canister rolled across the cement floor. Smoke billowed, and acrid fumes stung Tikaya’s eyes. Oh, Akahe, she did not have until tomorrow morning.

“What is—” Ky started.

She grabbed his arm and yanked him deeper into the distillery even as another canister clinked through the doorway. Smoke hazed the entrance, but she glimpsed men slipping inside. They did not know the layout of the distillery; that ought to be an advantage.

She led her brother past the press and around two massive molasses vats.

Ky gripped her shoulder and whispered, “Turgonians?”

“I assume so.” Tikaya tugged to keep him moving. The earthen back doors had grass growing on them; she hoped the soldiers had not recognized them as an entrance and posted guards.

They eased past copper pipes and the towering stills, and she crooked her toes to keep her sandals from slapping against the hard floor. Smoke curled into her nostrils and tickled her throat. She dared not cough.

She thought of her bow, still propped by the front door. Blighted banyan sprites, why had she even bothered carrying the thing around the last year?

In the back, rows of rum barrels lined the walls, and the double doors came into sight. She froze. They already stood open. Beyond them, in the fading light, grass swayed under a soft breeze.

“I didn’t leave the doors open,” Ky whispered.

If men waited outside, Tikaya could not see them, but that meant little. Perhaps they were crouched beside the doors, ready to pounce. Maybe they were already in the house, threatening her family. Or worse. If anything happened to her kin, it was her fault. She swallowed. She had to make sure the soldiers focused on her.

“I’ll run,” she whispered. “They should only want me.”

Even as she put a hand down to push herself to her feet, Ky grabbed her arm. “No.”

A shadow moved behind him. She opened her mouth to yell a warning, but she was too late. The butt of a rifle thudded against his head, and he slumped to the floor.

Tikaya turned to run and crashed into a broad chest. Hands clasped her arms. She twisted, trying to free herself, but the steel grip held her fast.

She screamed. A hand clapped across her mouth. She tried to bite it, but the grip smothered her with its power.

A damp rag pressed over her nose. Terror roiled in her belly. She sucked in a deep breath, thinking they meant to suffocate her, but a sweet insidious odor flooded her nostrils.

Fuzziness encroached on her mind, and her thoughts scattered. Blackness tunneled her vision, and a moment later, the world faded away.

CHAPTER 2

The ground was vibrating. No, Tikaya realized as awareness returned, not the ground, the floor. Cold, textured metal chilled her bare calves and seeped through the back of her dress. A rocking rise and fall accompanied the vibrations.

She opened her eyes to a dim, fuzzy cell. Her spectacles were missing. Unimaginative gray steel surrounded her. The monotone color marked the bulkheads and even the sturdy gate dividing her from a corridor. No portholes allowed a view of the outside, but the swells of the sea and the reverberations of a nearby engine told the story: she was locked in the bowels of a Turgonian warship.

And her brother—had the marines brought him too? She remembered the sickening thud of that rifle butt striking his head. She prayed they had left him alive, where her family could tend him, but a selfish part of her wished he was in the brig with her. The idea of being alone on a ship full of hostile marines…

She shuddered.

Tikaya rolled onto her belly. No pain lanced through her body, but stiff muscles suggested she had lain on the deck for hours.

Across the corridor, a second gate marked another cell, though darkness—and her poor vision—shrouded the interior. She stood and pressed her face between the bars. A blurry lantern burned at the base of a ship’s ladder leading up. No guards stood within sight.

She probed the small lock set in her gate. She could not even get a fingernail into the fine hole. Alas, picking locks was not a typical course in the Kyattese school system.

“Wonderful day.” Tikaya realized she had probably been on the floor throughout the night and amended the last word: “week.”

Chains clanked in the cell across the way, and Tikaya jumped.

“Hello?” she asked in her tongue.

Maybe her brother was there, or others of her people had been taken. Maybe she was not alone against the Turgonians after all. The clanks stilled, leaving only the rumbling of the engine.

“Hello?” she asked again, this time in Turgonian and this time with less hope.

Silence.

Tikaya peered into the cell. Was that a human form slumped in the back corner? She tried other languages from the islands and coastal nations on the Eerathu Sea. Nothing elicited a response.

A hatch thudded open, catching her trying yet another greeting. Boots rang on the ladder, and a pair of marines strode toward her.

“Don’t poke the grimbal, girl.” The tall man in the lead jerked a nose sharper than Herdoctan potsherds at the opposite cell.

“Grimbal?” Tikaya frowned.

“Giant shaggy predators up on our northern frontier. They’re probably the most irritable beasts in the empire, and they’ll sink their teeth into you if you get anywhere near their territory.”

Tikaya stopped herself from saying she had heard of the creature and the expression—if she hoped to deny she was their cryptomancer, she ought not appear too worldly. It was curiosity about the other prisoner that had prompted her query. Her shoulders, and her hope of denying anything, slumped when the second marine drew close enough for her to identify without her spectacles: the man from the cane fields. No doubt he had arranged her capture when she failed to convince him she was no one of consequence.

She squinted to read the name sewn on his jacket: Agarik. He stood, hands clasped behind his back, watching the other marine, his superior, she assumed, though she did not know what ranks the pins on their collars denoted.

“How’re the accommodations, Five?” The speaker—his jacket read Ottotark—rapped a baton against the mystery prisoner’s gate. “A lot better than what you’re used to of late, eh?”

There was no response, not even a tinkle of chains rattling. Despite the silence, Ottotark chuckled at his own wit. He turned his attention to Tikaya and when his gaze lingered on her breasts, she forced herself not to step back.

“Where is my brother?” she asked. “Is he…”

“We left him in the distillery,” Agarik said. “He’s alive.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, hoping she could trust his word.

“So, the source of so many of our troubles. A woman.” Ottotark shook his head. “Seems strange you’d be involved in military matters.”

Tikaya bit back a response about how it was hard to remain uninvolved when invaders were trying to take over one’s whole island chain.

“I reckon you just sat in an office on a beach,” Ottotark continued, “and someone brought our messages to you. Is that how it worked?” The lamplight glinting off Ottotark’s dark eyes did nothing to warm them, and a challenge hardened his voice. He resented her. Every Turgonian she encountered probably would.

She lifted her chin. “What are you going to do with me?”

“For the trouble you caused us? We’re going to kill you, of course.”

Tikaya swallowed, or tried to. Her throat constricted, and her mouth was too dry.

“Sergeant…” Agarik frowned at the other man.

Ottotark bent over, hands on his knees, and laughed. The raucous noise echoed from the metal bulkheads. “I jest—we’re not killing you. Not now anyway. We need you to translate something for us first.”

Tikaya barely kept from snorting. After what the Turgonians had done to her people—to her—she would not even help them tie their shoes.

Ottotark fished a keychain out of his pocket. “Time for you to visit the captain.”

While Ottotark unlocked the door, Agarik slipped Tikaya’s spectacles through the gate. She blinked in surprise and met his gaze as she accepted them. Nothing so friendly as a wink or a smile suggested she had a secret ally, but he seemed someone who treated people, even prisoners, with respect.

She had barely hooked the spectacles over her ears when Ottotark grabbed her upper arm and jerked her into the corridor so she fell against him. The amusement on his face, however crude, was gone now. He grabbed her breast, even as his other arm snaked around her waist to keep her jammed against him.

Tikaya shoved a hand against his chest and tried to thrust a knee into his groin, but his strong embrace left no space to maneuver.

His lips curled into a snarl. “We may need you, but you deserve a lot of pain for the deaths you caused.”

Ottotark’s fingers gouged her breast, and she gritted her teeth at the pain, determined not to gasp or cry out, though fear surged through her body. She craned her neck toward Agarik, hoping he might step in. Though his clenched jaw made tendons bulge on his neck, he made no move against his superior.

“What’s the matter with your sergeant, Corporal Agarik?” a deep voice spoke from the other cell. Though quiet, it cut through Ottotark’s angry lust, and he jumped, relaxing his grip. “Doesn’t he know the Kyattese are sorcerers as well as scholars? In another second, she’ll probably cast a spell to shrivel his testicles into wrinkled, rotten walnuts.”

Ottotark frowned into the cell. “Nobody wants to hear you speak, Five.” Still, he released Tikaya, shoving her toward the corporal.

Agarik was gaping at the dim cell, but he recovered enough to take her arm. Under his firm, professional grip, the heartbeats hammering in her ears slowed.

Tikaya watched over her shoulder as the guards led her away, but the unseen man did not speak again. The trek took her up to the main deck, where they marched past two long rows of cannons. The sharp tang of gun oil competed with the briny scent of the ocean roaring past beneath them. She peered through an open cannon port, hoping to glimpse her islands. If they had not sailed too far, maybe she could escape to a lifeboat—if the Turgonians had lifeboats. With that warmongering culture, one never knew. They had idiotic notions about glory in dying a warrior’s death, so they might condemn their men to go down with the vessel.

Dozens of marines occupied the deck, some sparring in a makeshift arena in the middle and some cleaning rifles, pistols, and cutlasses at tables folded down from the wall space between the massive guns. The men slanted her looks ranging from openmouthed bewilderment to sneering hostility, by which she assumed some knew who she was and some were not in the need-to-know camp. The empire did not employ women in their armed forces, which likely meant she was the only one on board. Not a comforting thought. More than one man arranged to bump or jostle her as paths crossed. Unlike at home, everyone she passed was as tall or taller than she, and their wayward elbows and shoulders battered her with the force of falling coconuts.

Past the galley, aft deck, the loitering marines thinned. Tikaya’s guards stopped her in front of a whitewashed door. A bronze sword-shaped name plaque read: Captain Bocrest.

Sergeant Ottotark thumped his baton against the wood planks, eliciting a barked, “Enter.”

Inside, a bare-chested man performed pushups on a polar bear rug stretched before a desk. Though his short hair ran the same color as the plethora of steel comprising the ship, the defined muscles of his broad torso promised him hale. Arms like pistons in a steam engine, he pumped through another fifty pushups, while Tikaya stood and waited. The space was large, as one would expect of the captain’s cabin, but spartan with nothing so frivolous as curtains for the portholes or cloth for the dining table.

The captain finished his pushups, jumped to his feet, and faced Tikaya. Her eyes were level with his nose, but he probably weighed sixty pounds more than she.

“Dismissed,” he told the guards without looking away from her.

Evidently, he was not worried about her walnut-ifying his balls. He was probably not worried about much. The collection of dented and scratched daggers, swords, pistols, crossbows, and rifles on the wall beside his desk did not appear decorative.

“Sit.” The captain jerked his thumb toward an uncomfortable-looking wood stool and strode around the desk to his own chair.

Tikaya wanted to cross her arms and stare defiantly, but suspected he would force her into complying. And, like Sergeant Pissed and Horny, he might like it. She perched on the edge of the seat.

“Tikaya Komitopis.” He gripped the sides of his desk, his eyes intent. “Daughter of Loilon and Mela. Three siblings. You grew up on your parents’ plantation and showed a gift for languages at a young age. You studied them at your university where you went on to teach for four years until the Western Sea Conflict, which involved your island. Your people chose to fight against—”

“Against becoming slaves to Turgonia, like everyone else you’ve conquered in the last seven hundred years.”

“—Turgonia,” he continued as if he had not heard her. “You were recruited by your government to break our ciphers, which, despite having no background in cryptography, you did. Repeatedly. And then your people handed our decrypted messages to our enemies.” His eyes narrowed, his knuckles whitened where he clenched the desk. Powerful arm and chest muscles twitched beneath his bare bronze skin. “You cost us our victory. Your dishonorable tactics forced us into a stalemate with those cursed Nurians, and we ended up losing tens of thousands of men for terms no better than we started with. Is there anything pertinent that I don’t know about you?”

“I like coconut shrimp and my favorite color is blue.” Antagonizing him was probably stupid, but she would rather burn her favorite books than ingratiate herself with these people.

His eyes narrowed further. “We were researching you in order to identify and kill you for your crimes against the empire, but there’s been…an incident. We need something translated and our languages experts are taking too much time.”

That probably meant they were stupefied and stumped. How desperate did the empire have to be to ask a foreigner for help?

“Time?” Tikaya asked.

“There isn’t much of it.” He unlocked a drawer and withdrew the paper she had already seen along with two rubbings.

He laid them on the desk, and she started to lean forward, despite her intent to remain aloof. She caught herself and forced herself to sit back. Yes, the symbols interested her, but what could she do without the reference texts in the Polytechnic? Even at home, she would likely be stymied if nothing like the Tekdar Tablet existed: a bilingual source that said the same thing in two languages, one already known.

“Why is time a factor?” she asked.

“You don’t need to know.”

“Where did the symbols come from?”

“You don’t need to know.”

She tamped down irritation. “Is it ciphertext? Or a language?” She lifted her hand. “And, yes, I do need to know that.”

“We believe it’s a language. An ancient language. We need you to decipher it and compile a dictionary. Our team can handle the rest.”

She snorted, both at the idea of being able to simply look at these rubbings and produce a dictionary and because she would not hand anything to their ‘team’ even if she could. “You mean your people can take my work, hide it from the rest of the world, and keep whatever knowledge it affords you to yourselves.”

“That’s none of your concern,” he bit out, fingers still rigid where they gripped the table.

“If you’re not going to tell me anything, then I’ll have to guess. I figure you’ve found some ancient ruins guarding some fabled treasure and you’ve gotten your people in trouble trying to extricate the goods without knowing who or what you’re dealing with. You need to know what the writing says so you can get at whatever it is you’re after, hoard it from the rest of the world, and no doubt shoot the foreign translator who helped you. You people are—”

The captain leapt around the desk so quickly she did not have time to brace herself. He grabbed her by the neck and thrust her against the wall. Swords and pistols clattered to the deck. Her feet dangled above them, and she grabbed his bare forearms, scrabbling to loosen his grip.

She gasped, tried to suck in air. His fingers dug deeper into her windpipe. Though a rational part of her mind said they needed her and would not seriously damage her, pain and terror pumped uncertainty through her heart.

“Everyone on this ship wants you dead,” the captain growled, breath hot against her cheek, chest heaving with rage, “and I’d like nothing more than to snap your neck right now.”

Tikaya barely heard him. She clawed at his wrists and wheezed for air.

Idiot, she cursed herself. Why had she goaded him? She knew what they were, what atrocities they had committed during the war. Blackness encroached on her vision.

“But my orders say to get that language translated, and you will do exactly that. We know where your family lives. If you don’t help, your parents and your siblings will be sacrificed. Your help or their lives. You choose.”

The captain dropped her abruptly, and she collapsed before she could get her feet under her. She bit her lip, and blood tainted her mouth. He hauled her to her feet, his hand digging bruises into her arm. He took the papers, smashed them into her palm, and shoved her so hard she crashed into the door, cracking her shoulder against the unyielding metal. Tears stung her eyes, and she dashed them away. She would never let these people see her cry.

He pushed her aside to open the door. “Get out of my office.”

Tikaya, rigid back to him, walked out. Corporal Agarik and Sergeant Ottotark waited outside. Agarik spotted the blood running down her chin and gave her a sympathetic frown. Perhaps it was her imagination, but it seemed that guilt lurked in his eyes.

“Pampered librarian,” the captain muttered before his door slammed shut.

Unsurprisingly, the sergeant eyed Tikaya with lasciviousness and went out of his way to rub against her on the way back. She clenched her jaw, determined not to react. When they locked her into her cell, she willed them to go away. Alone, she would not have to maintain the stalwart facade.

Before they left, the corporal pressed a kerchief into her hand. After the hatch clanged shut, she staunched the blood trickling from her lip.

She threw the notes on the floor and paced circles around the confining cell. That bastard wanted the impossible. And he was going to kill everyone she loved if he didn’t get it. How was she supposed to translate a dead language with nothing more than a couple rubbings of runes?

Tikaya slammed her hands against the hard metal wall. Her short, fast breaths rasped in her ears. She forced herself to take deeper ones. Panicking would not help. She needed to escape and get her family to safety. Yes, that was the best plan.

She eyed the cell across the way. An ally would make escape easier.

“Five?” she said. “Thanks for the help earlier.”

She waited several moments, but no answer came. Maybe he had been taken from his cell. Maybe he was sleeping. Or—she grimaced at the idea—maybe he would not talk to her because he hated her as much as everyone else on the ship. Just because he had not wanted to see a woman manhandled did not make him a devotee. Though it did suggest he was decent, maybe worth the effort of bringing around.

“I now know why I’m here,” Tikaya said. “Sort of. I’ll tell you about it if you tell me why you’re here. And why you have a number instead of a name.”

She stepped close to the gate, propping her elbows on the cold metal bars, and peered into his cell. Her eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and she made out his form in the deep shadows of the back corner. He sat, slumped against the walls, and, though she could only guess at his height, she had the impression of a big man.

“Are you a crew member being punished for something? Or are you a prisoner too?”

He had only voiced the single sentence, but that rich baritone had sounded native Turgonian. Of course, she spoke the language like a native and was not one. Maybe he was another linguist brought in to help. And they had chained him because… Why? He was more dangerous than she? She snorted. Who wasn’t?

Neither her questions nor mental musings stirred him to answer, and only silence came from his cell. For now, she would have to plot an escape on her own. She ticked the bars with a fingernail. As long as she remained in the cell, she would not have a chance. Reluctantly, she allowed that cooperating with the captain, or at least appearing to cooperate, might be the only way to get herself moved to less secure lodgings.

Tikaya slid the rubbings through the gate and laid them on the floor. The single lantern burning in the corridor provided wan illumination, and she had to squint to read.

“I wish I knew where these rubbings had been taken. I can’t even assume it’s the Turgonian continent, because the empire’s ships troll the world. This is a short sample, but some of the symbols do repeat.” She spoke out loud and in Turgonian for the benefit of her neighbor, just in case hearing her voice might bestir him to comment on something, but she soon lost herself in contemplation and forgot him, the poor lighting, and even that she was on a ship full of marines.

“If it’s alphabetic, it’s a large alphabet,” she murmured. “I’m more inclined to believe we’re dealing with a logographic or logophonetic script. In that case, there could be thousands of symbols in the lexicon.” She sighed, daunted at the prospect, but she tingled a bit too. It had been over a year since anything challenged her like this. “As far as I can tell, the symbols are abstract, not like Jutgu Hieroglyphs where so many are ideograms that represent ideas or physical things. That would have been useful.” She tapped a page. “That glyph reminds me of the Aracha vowels, but I suspect it’s just a coincidence. This is far more complex. The way the symbols are clustered and linked is unique. I’d guess the groupings represent words, or maybe sentences or concepts. Some are quite large. Seventeen in that series. Eleven, two, seven, seventeen again.”

“Prime numbers.”

Tikaya had forgotten her silent neighbor, so she cracked her forehead on the gate in surprise when he spoke. She grunted and rubbed the nascent bump. “What?”

“Are all the groupings prime?” It was the same deep, mellow voice he had used to speak to the guards, though a note of curiosity had entered it.

Tikaya recovered and bent over the rubbings again. She almost asked him to come forward and have a look, but remembered the clink of chains. He was probably shackled in the back specifically so he could not reach the gate and any passing guards.

“Huh,” she said after a moment. “They are. The highest grouping, which appears only once in these samples, is twenty-nine.”

She gazed thoughtfully into her neighbor’s dark cell. She would have noticed the prime number commonality eventually, especially if she had been scribbling notes, but that his mind went right to that gave her an inkling that she was sharing the brig with someone more than an average thug.

“You’re sure you’re working on a language?” His chains rattled, and his dark form changed position. She could make out little, but guessed he had shifted to face her.

“I’m not, no. That’s what the captain told me. An ancient language that he wants me to decipher. Though I don’t think he knows much or he’d understand there’s no hope of translating a text by looking at a sheet of symbols. I’m guessing he was just parroting what someone higher up told him.”

“Likely.” Was that an amused note in his voice?

“I’m not sure how much stock to put in his claim of ‘ancient’ either. The Turgonians don’t use the mental sciences and can only rely on the relative dating method for judging age. Even that’s questionable, since they’ve only been on their continent seven hundred years, and I’m not sure how much, if any, documentation they did of the existing cultures before they assimilated them. Or killed them off. Brutes.”

Her neighbor—Five, she reminded herself—said nothing at that, and she winced, recalling he might be Turgonian himself. She rubbed her lips, annoyed at her mouth’s proclivity for blurting things out without lacing in any tact.

“Erm, anyway,” she said, “all primes between two and twenty-nine are represented in these samples.” Casually, hoping she could draw him out, she added, “Supposing this is a language, do you have any thoughts as to what might be the significance of incorporating primes in the core structure?” The first thing her mind flashed to was that each number might signify a different part of speech, but using seventeen symbols to represent a verb seemed like overkill.

His chains rattled. A shrug? “I’m sure you already know prime numbers are the building blocks of natural numbers. They can only be divided evenly by one and themselves, and anything that’s not a prime number is made up of prime numbers.”

“Building blocks,” she mused. “Like letters are the building blocks of my language, perhaps. Though in this case the numbers are the wrappers, not the content.” She stood and stretched, wishing the cell afforded her more room to pace.

“You are Kyattese, is that correct?”

Tikaya stilled, realizing he did not know who she was to the marines. If he was a Turgonian, her chances of turning him into an ally might plummet if he found out she was their cryptomancer.

“Yes,” she said carefully.

“Did your president survive the war?”

Surprise and then suspicion flooded her, and she regarded him through narrowed eyes. “Yes, why wouldn’t he have?”

“Is he…a good man? Good for your people?”

Tikaya did not know what to make of this line of questioning and responded only with another clipped, “Yes.”

She folded her arms across her chest and decided not to answer anything further about her people or her nation, especially not anything the Turgonians might use against them. Fortunately, Five asked no more.

“Why don’t you answer a question for me since I’m answering yours?” she suggested.

He did not respond.

“I’ll settle for one,” she said. “Will you answer me one question?”

His soft snort hinted at amusement. Tikaya decided to take it for consideration.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

A sigh mingled with the hum of the engines. “Not that question. Ask another.”

“Why not that?”

“You’re replacing your one allotted question with that one?” A hint of dryness infused his tone.

“Yes.”

Another sigh. “They took my rank and my name as punishment. Five was my number on the penal boat going to Krychek Island, and, as far as the empire cares, it’s the only identification I have now.”

“Krychek Island,” Tikaya breathed. “Isn’t that where they send criminals so vile they’re afraid to execute them outright? Out of fear their spirits will linger in the area and afflict the living? So they send you to the island with no food, no weapons, no resources, the assumption being you’ll kill each other off far from anyone worth haunting? They say those few who do survive turn into animals, bestial and deranged and cannibalistic and…” She caught her lip between her teeth. There she went again, probably offending the only person on this ship who had stood up for her.

“Glad our penal island is renowned even amongst foreigners.” Five’s dryness held a bitter edge this time.

She sighed. She had offended him. And she had a new concern. If he was that much of a criminal, dare she side with him? What could he have done to merit such a harsh punishment? Brutality seemed bred into the Turgonian culture, so she struggled to imagine someone who fit their definition of vile. Five sounded normal—pleasant—but perhaps it was a facade. He had to be shackled for a reason, though Captain Bocrest’s current problems must trump that reason, or why else would Five be here?

“But the captain came to pick you up? Isn’t Krychek Island usually a permanent residence?” she asked, wanting to be sure. “Its location is even secret, isn’t it? So families can’t make rescue attempts?”

“Correct.” Tension riddled that one clipped word, and she hesitated before asking the next question, but she had to know if he was likely to be a threat to her.

“What was your crime?”

Clothing rustled and the chains rattled. “No more questions.” His voice was muffled, as if he had covered his face. “Please,” he added so softly she thought she might have imagined it.

“Of course. Sorry.” She meant it. If the place was half as bad as the stories said, she could understand not wanting to discuss it. He was probably lost in his painful memories, and only the puzzle of the language had distracted him. “Uhm, I’ll be over here, enjoying the lovely ambiance and pondering these slanted circles, dots, and sideways trees. If you want to talk later, let me know.”

She did not expect anything else from him, but he surprised her by asking, “Sideways trees?”

“Well, if trees were symmetrical maybe. Want to see?”

“I can’t reach the corridor.”

She grabbed one of the rubbings, folded it into a compact stack, and tossed it through his gate. His dark form shifted, so she assumed it fell within his reach, but he said nothing.

“Can you see it?” she asked after a moment. “Is there enough light?”

“Yes. I should have known.” He sounded grimmer than a funeral pyre. “I’ve seen them before.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere I never want to go again.”

“Where?” she repeated, leaning forward.

He did not answer.

“Five?”

Silence.

CHAPTER 3

Tikaya dozed until the hatch creaked open hours later. The perennial darkness of the cell stole her sense of time, but she guessed it was evening. Her hollow stomach whined for a meal.

Footfalls rang on the metal deck. She eyed the gate warily and let out a sigh of relief when Corporal Agarik came into view—alone. He carried two metal canteens and wooden trenchers narrow enough to slide between the bars. Dried fish, dried fruit, and a couple of hard biscuits soon rested on the floor before Tikaya. Though the meal did not exactly fill the brig with scintillating scents, her mouth watered anyway.

She grabbed a biscuit and gnawed. It had the consistency of sawdust and less flavor. Agarik placed another tray, this one with a larger portion of food, on the floor in Five’s cell. He drew his cutlass and used it to push the tray deeper, presumably so the chained prisoner could reach it. Tension marked the corporal’s movements—he seemed to fear an attack at any moment—and Tikaya wondered if people had been hurt, or worse, when the marines originally locked Five up. Either that or his reputation was simply enough to instill fear. Even Sergeant Ottotark’s bravado had seemed forced. And she wanted to ally with Five? Was she insane? Just desperate, she decided.

Agarik delivered the meal without incident; the chains did not even clank to suggest movement. He sheathed his sword and turned to face her.

“Captain Bocrest wishes to know if you’ve decided whether to cooperate voluntarily or if more…” he shrugged apologetically, “pressure is required.”

What? Threatening families—and windpipes—was not enough to sway most prisoners?

“I’m willing to attempt the translations,” she said, “but I have terms. I can’t work in these conditions.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Corporal?” Tikaya asked before he could leave.

He turned back, face guarded. He probably feared she would ask some favor he would be duty-bound to refuse.

“Thank you for your kindnesses,” was all she said.

He nodded but said nothing. A bevy of footsteps hammered the deck, the hatch clanked open, and six burly marines clomped into view. Sergeant Ottotark followed, tapping his baton against his thigh as he walked, and Tikaya shrank into the shadows. Now what?

The six marines staggered themselves along the corridor and pointed pistols, not into her cell but into the opposite one. Tikaya stepped forward, afraid they meant to execute her neighbor, but Ottotark rattled the keys.

“Time to visit the captain, Five.”

He unlocked the door and waved two of his men inside. They exchanged nervous glances but slid into the cell and stood on either side of the door, pistols never wavering. Ottotark took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself, then walked inside. As yet, the chains had not rattled, and Tikaya half thought Five asleep. Maybe he was just being still, hoping for a chance to escape. Though how he could do so with so many firearms pointed his way, she could not guess.

While all eyes focused on that cell, Tikaya eased forward. She eyed the belts of the men within her reach, hoping to spot a set of keys. Such luck did not favor her.

Corporal Agarik had stepped back when the others marched in, and she caught his knowing gaze on her. She sniffed and stared back. They had kidnapped her; she refused to feel guilty for thinking of escaping.

“Up.” Sergeant Ottotark must have unlocked the chains securing the prisoner to the wall. A long still moment passed with no sign of movement in Five’s cell. “I said, get up!”

Ottotark lunged into the shadows. Tikaya flinched, expecting the meaty thud of that baton striking flesh. A scuffle and grunt sounded. Someone threw the baton and it clattered against the gate before dropping to the floor. The sergeant growled and drew his arm back, but he halted mid-blow and skittered backward.

Five was on his feet.

“Don’t move!” one of the marines inside the cell barked, pistol arm straight and rigid. “We will shoot you.”

“Doubtful.” But Five stopped short of grabbing Ottotark and turned toward the guards, his features still in shadow.

“Cursed bastard, you presume much,” Ottotark growled. “We can shoot you without killing you.” A speculative note entered his voice, as if he were truly considering it.

Tikaya gripped the bars of her gate, trying to think of something to say to help him. After all, Five had come to her defense.

“Or we can just beat you into oblivion for the rest of the trip.” Ottotark hooked a punch into Five’s face.

With pistols pointed at his chest, Five could only accept it. Ottotark grabbed his baton and lifted it to deliver more damage.

“I thought Turgonians were supposed to be brave warriors,” Tikaya blurted. “Abusing someone who can’t fight back is cowardly.”

“Sew that yap shut, woman. Nobody wants your opinion.” Despite his words, Ottotark lowered the baton and prowled out of the cell. “Let’s go, ugly.”

Five shambled into the corridor. Thick, tangled black hair hung around his cheeks and half way down his back. A matted beard and mustache engulfed the lower half of his face. Torn, faded trousers with ragged hems reached his calves, and a crudely sewn hide vest covered his torso, leaving muscular but lean—too lean—bare arms visible beneath a layer of grime. Shackles bound his wrists before him, and blood trickled from his nose, adding menace to his already savage appearance. Even slumped, head hanging, he stood a half foot taller than Tikaya.

He glanced at her, almost wincing, and she had the impression his state embarrassed him. She met his eyes with a respectful nod. Criminal or not, he was the most obvious person to turn into an ally.

“Let’s go.” Ottotark sent two men ahead, then shoved Five after them.

After the group had gone, Agarik nodded to Tikaya’s food and water. “Do you need anything else?”

Everything else, she thought, and a trip back home. “Can you tell me who that is I’m sharing the brig with?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Somebody must know.”

“The captain,” Agarik said. “He doesn’t confide in anyone. I don’t think Sergeant Ottotark even knows, and he’s the captain’s adjutant.”

“What happens if the captain gets shot and no one else knows the mission?” Tikaya supposed it was uncharitable to enjoy the thought.

“The orders are locked up somewhere. The officers know where to find them.”

“Ah.” Tikaya pointed to the vacated cell. “Why are your people so careful with him? Is he that dangerous?”

Agarik worked his tongue against his cheek and gazed toward the ladder, perhaps considering whether it would be a breach of duty to answer. “He’s a prisoner from Krychek Island, and we lost four men getting him off the beach.”

“He killed them?”

“No, the lunatics on the island attacked our party with spears and clubs. Men gone savage. They wanted to escape, and if they couldn’t escape they’d kill those who originally brought them there months and years before. Ancestors’ wrath, we had to shoot a bunch of them. Seemed they’d rather die than stay there.”

“And Five attacked you too?” Tikaya rested her arms on the gate and watched the corporal’s face in the flickering light of the single lantern. His gaze had grown thoughtful and distant.

“No, he stood back and watched. You got the sense he didn’t want anything to do with us, but he didn’t hide either. At first it seemed he’d come along peacefully—he got in the longboat once the captain spotted him and called him over. He didn’t give us any trouble rowing back to the ship, but he attacked a guard the first night, got out of his cell, stole a pile of food from the galley, and slipped by everyone on duty.” Agarik frowned. “Including myself. Without anyone seeing him, he swiped a sextant, compass, chronometer, nautical almanac, and spare sail, and he was about to drop a lifeboat. He would have been long gone by morning, but Captain Bocrest got an itch, and he was waiting with a loaded rifle.”

“So he—Five—surrendered?”

“Not exactly.” Agarik rubbed his jaw as if recalling a blow. “Captain threatened to shoot him but didn’t, and it took a full squad to wrestle him belowdecks and get him locked up again.”

“Where he’s been chained ever since.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

So, whatever the imperials wanted their prisoner for, it seemed he was also too valuable to kill. His first escape might not have worked, but he had that goal in mind too. Good. Two people rowing a longboat would be more efficient than one, and it heartened her that Five had known exactly what to grab. She knew how to sail and navigate in theory but had never been out of sight of her islands.

“One thing’s a mite peculiar,” Agarik mused.

“Just one?” Everything thus far struck Tikaya as peculiar.

“He didn’t take a pen or paper.”

“What do you mean?”

“You need to do some figuring to account for the errors and adjustments that come with using a sextant. Not many could do ‘em in their head and keep them straight from day to day without a log.”

“Maybe he forgot,” Tikaya said, though she already had a hunch Five had a background in mathematics. Maybe he could do the calculations in his head and remember the results.

The corporal grunted noncommittally. He seemed as curious about the mystery prisoner as her.

More footfalls rang on the deck. Now who?

“Your duty, Corporal,” the captain said, eyes cool as he descended the steps. “It is not here.”

“Yes, sir.” Agarik ducked his head and trotted away.

This time, Bocrest wore his black uniform jacket with a handful of badges and medals adorning the breast. A fresh bruise swelled on his temple, and dried blood crusted on his chin beneath a swollen split lip. Had someone whaled on him as part of a training session? Or maybe he had already started questioning Five, and it wasn’t going well. Either way, the bumps would probably not improve his personality.

Nonetheless, she lifted her chin and met the captain’s eyes. Bravado would likely get her further than meekness on this ship.

“Well?” Bocrest asked. “You working with us or are my men taking target practice on your family members?”

It was a moment before she could unclench her jaw. The man had the diplomacy of a stinging jellyfish. “I will help you, captain,” she said, forcing a civil tone, “but I can’t work in this dark pit, and, surely, if you expected me to translate this language, you brought some basic references and primers. Hodtolk’s? Fisher and Grist? Merk’s Hieroglyphics Compendium? More samples of this writing would help as well. And I’ll certainly need better lighting, paper, pencils, a table. I’ll also need the freedom to walk around. That’s when I do my best thinking.”

Tikaya expected denial, especially over her last request, but after glaring at her for a moment—it seemed his normal way of looking at people—he said, “I’ll get you paper and better lighting. You may have one daily exercise period. Beyond that, pace your cell if you need to ‘think.’”

He started for the hatch.

“One more question, captain,” Tikaya said, wondering if he would answer it honestly or not.

“What?”

“Suppose I succeed in translating this language, in helping you with whatever your problem is. What happens to me then?”

Bocrest eyed her over his shoulder. “If you succeed, your family will not be harmed. You? As far as the emperor and thousands of dead Turgonians are concerned, your deeds during the war condemned you. I suggest you enjoy your last project.”

Tikaya leaned against the cold metal wall for support. She wished he had lied.

• • • • •

When Tikaya stepped out of the hatch, the sun made her blink. She stumbled and almost crashed into the guards escorting her outside for her exercise session. Nobody offered a steadying hand.

Wind gusted across the deck, tugging at her braid, and slapping her dress against her legs. When her vision recovered, the sun told her they traveled northeast. Endless sea stretched in all directions, so she could only guess at their position and goal. Though the briny breeze stole the stink of burning coal, the black plumes streaming from two smokestacks suggested the furnaces burned at maximum capacity. Full sails made use of the wind as well, and Tikaya wondered how fast they traveled under the combined power. Perhaps she imagined it, but the sun warming her cheeks felt less intense than back home. Where were the Turgonians taking her?

A pair of marines in gray togs jostled her as they jogged past.

“Stay out of the running lane,” one barked without glancing back.

Tikaya sighed and shuffled in the direction the guards indicated. She should have relished the excursion, the chance to stretch and walk, but the lack of company dulled her spirits. She hadn’t even been able to speak with Five again. The captain had granted her request for a desk and better illumination by moving her to one of the officers’ cabins in the wardroom, which put her on the other side of the ship from the man she wanted to conspire with. And the young private stationed outside her door showed no inclination of allowing her to wander.

The guards led her past masts, smokestacks, and two thirty-foot launches mounted in the center of the deck. She kept her gaze from lingering too long on the big boats. It would take more than two people to get one of those in the water anyway. She stepped past a cannon to glance over the railing. Ah, yes. Smaller cutters were mounted alongside the ship below the gun ports. She and Five could handle one of those. Unfortunately, she needed time with him to make plans.

“Stop gawking.” One the guards shoved her.

“I didn’t know there was a minimum walking speed up here,” Tikaya muttered.

“Exercise is for sweating, not sightseeing.”

“You’re a pithy people, aren’t you?”

That earned another shove.

Tikaya picked up her speed. A heavy gun on brass rails dominated the forecastle, but the area behind it lay open, and a few bare-chested men boxed in a makeshift arena. Racks contained practice weapons, dumbbells, and other exercise equipment. Captain Bocrest and a lieutenant stood on the far side where a temporary archery lane was set up with person-shaped paper targets attached to bales of hay. They practiced with repeating crossbows, though traditional bows also leaned in a rack.

“You going to do anything, woman?” a guard asked.

Feeling self-conscious beneath all the eyes that swiveled to watch her, Tikaya walked over to a pile of sand-filled balls with handles. After a few tries, she found a small one she could lift. She maneuvered through a few exercises, though no one had suggested baths were available, so she was not sure how much of a sweat she wanted to encourage.

“Awkward turtle, isn’t she?” one of the guards said.

“Fine by me,” the second said. “Makes her melons bounce.”

“Hah, and her ass. Bookly thing but I’d mount that in a heartbeat.”

Jaw clenched and cheeks flaming, Tikaya turned her back to them.

“Nothing else to mount around here,” the conversation continued, “unless you want to crawl into Lieutenant Amn or Corporal Agarik’s bunks.”

“I reckon they’d be the ones wanting to do the mounting then.”

She supposed that explained why she was not Agarik’s “type.” The marines went back to analyzing her, and, when others joined in, the commentary grew cruder and more explicit. Though the captain stood within earshot, he did nothing to stop the lewd harassment. She wondered if the men would have treated a Turgonian woman this way or if her status as hated-enemy-of-the-empire made it acceptable.

Tikaya gave up the exercises in favor of walking around the training area. She eyed the officers plunking quarrels into the targets, surprised they bothered practicing archery given the power of their rifles.

“How’s the thinking going, librarian?” Bocrest asked. “You figure anything out yet?”

“I’m working on it. I doubt you have any idea as to the magnitude of the task. People spend years working to translate a newly discovered language, and that’s when they’re surrounded by libraries full of reference materials.”

“Uh huh. Take a few more laps around the ring to inspire my men’s fantasies and then go back to work.”

“Double or nothing, sir?” The lieutenant hefted his crossbow.

“It’s your rum.” The captain turned his back on her and loaded a fistful of bolts into his own crossbow.

An idea tickled her mind. “You a betting man, Captain?” she asked before she could talk herself out of it.

Since he had already dismissed Tikaya, he had to turn back to frown at her. “What?”

“Care to make a wager?”

“Like what?”

“I’ll bet you there’s a weapon here I can best you with.”

The snorts and outright laughs around her were no surprise.

“Why would I make a wager with my prisoner?” the captain asked. “What could you have to lose that I would want?”

What indeed?

“Before you offer to warm my toes tonight, know I’m a married man.”

The fact that he had a wife—and was faithful to her—left her speechless for a moment.

Bocrest tapped his foot. Tikaya considered the bruises on his face. If she was right and Five had delivered those, maybe she could use that.

“I see Prisoner Five has given you some trouble,” she said. “You must need him for something, presumably related to what you need me for. If I lose, I’ll persuade him to help you with your mission.”

Bocrest laughed. “Why would he listen to the cryptomancer?”

Because Five did not yet know she was the cryptomancer. “Because we’ve established a rapport.” If one could call a single shared conversation a rapport.

The laughter ceased, and Bocrest studied her through narrowed eyes. Perhaps that had not been a wise claim to make.

“Fine. What if I lose?” The captain’s mouth twisted, showing how unlikely he thought that. “I’m not releasing you or promising anything that would involve breaking orders.”

“I want Five to share my exercise periods, an hour each day.” The captain was shaking his head before she made it halfway through the sentence, but she pressed on. “I also want you to give him a bath, haircut, shave, and fresh clothing to wear.” Tikaya smiled. “Actually, I’ll take a bath and fresh clothing too.”

“A bath!” the lieutenant roared. “This is a steamer! Water is for pouring into the boiler.”

“Surely you could manage a damp washcloth,” she said.

“No,” the captain said. “No to it all. That’s too much extra work for my men. He’s too dangerous to have out.”

“Why can’t these men watch him?” She pointed to the onlookers. “I can’t imagine the emperor pays them to stand around and gawk at me. Besides—” the captain’s face had grown red, so she patted the air soothingly, “—you don’t honestly believe you’ll lose our wager, do you?”

He snapped his mouth shut. “No.”

The captain stuck his palm out, edge toward her, and she banged her hand against it in the Turgonian gesture for a deal sealed.

“Choose your weapon,” he said.

She went straight to the bows. They were designed for tall, burly men, so it took some experimentation to find one she could string and draw. For once her long arms were useful, and her months laboring on the plantation gave her strength she had not possessed during her academic tenure.

“Think she’ll even be able to load that?” one man asked.

“Probably shoot her toe off.”

“There’s no way she’ll hit a target.”

“Better tell the boys in the rigging to watch out.”

“Don’t know why my languages instructor bothered teaching me the Turgonian word for encouragement,” Tikaya muttered. “Not like they ever use it.”

Bow strung, she joined Bocrest.

“Challenger shoots first,” he said.

“No practice?”

“No.”

“Best of three shots?”

“One shot. Deal’s been made. Shoot.”

The lieutenant handed her a single arrow.

“I see you’re a sporting people.” She should have negotiated the rules of the game instead of trying to finagle baths.

Tikaya nocked the arrow and turned sideways, bow held loosely in her left hand as the fingertips of her right curled about the string. Just like on the plantation back home, she told herself.

Except it wasn’t. Even on the calm day, the ship rose and fell with the swells, and activity on deck offered distractions. The misty breeze licked her cheeks, and she closed her eyes for a moment, considering the affect it would have on the arrow’s flight. She locked her eyes on the red dot in the center of the target and drew the bow, anchoring her fingers in her usual spot against her cheek. The men’s ongoing comments disappeared and focus came. She breathed in the tangy air, blew it out, and waited for the quiet moment when her body and the deck were still.

She released the arrow.

It cut through the air and thudded into the red dot. The surrounding men fell silent, mouths hanging open. Tikaya resisted the urge to smile or make any triumphant gesture.

“Your turn,” was all she said to the captain.

His expression was less stunned and more dyspeptic. Too late, Tikaya wished she had found a way to make the challenge private. If he did not make as fine a shot, he might lose face in front of his men. And take it out on her.

Bocrest lowered his bow. “A shot that good is worth the prize, for what little reward having that dour bear around will be.”

The men grunted in agreement. Good. She recognized the face-saving gesture, but in this case was relieved he had found a solution. After eliciting a promise that Five would join her the next day, she walked a few more laps.

The captain caught up as her guards were about to lead her belowdecks. He clenched her elbow and put his mouth near her ear. “I trust you and Five aren’t plotting to escape. If you attempt something that foolish, you will be caught, and I’ll let Sergeant Ottotark deliver your punishment. He enjoys that sort of work immensely.”

CHAPTER 4

Clouds blanketed the sky the next day when Tikaya came out for her exercise session, but the darker weather didn’t dampen the curiosity humming through her. Her ally—even if he did not yet know she had dubbed him ally—would join her soon. What would he look like without all that hair and dirt? Would the guards give them enough space to talk privately?

She walked around the outside edge of the exercise area, struggling for patience. The captain was out again, this time trading sword blows with his navigator. Tikaya wondered who ran the ship when these Turgonians spent so much time exercising. Some prisoners of war were probably chained down in the boiler rooms, shoveling coal into the furnaces day and night.

The clamor of crashing steel halted, and Tikaya stopped walking to search for the reason.

If not for the guards surrounding him, she would not have recognized Five. Now clean-shaven with military-short hair, he wore the same boots and black uniform as the marines, though no rank or insignia marked the collars. Taller than the men accompanying him, he strode across the deck, hands clasped behind his back, head up, alert eyes taking in every aspect of the ship.

Tikaya’s stomach did an anxious flip. Her putative ally had turned into someone who looked every bit like one of the officers who had tried to take over her islands during the war. Even with no rank on that collar, he seemed more the captain than the sweaty bare-chested Bocrest, who was also staring. A chilling thought gripped her. What if Five had been a captain during the war? Someone who fired on her people? Took prisoners? Tortured them.

Five’s gaze stopped on the sails nearest the smokestack. A faint sooty black dulled the canvas, and he raised an eyebrow at Captain Bocrest.

For a moment, Bocrest’s cheeks flushed, and an excuse seemed on his lips, but he halted it with a scowl. He stalked across the deck, bare chest puffed out, muscles flexed. He barked at anyone foolish enough to cross his path and stopped in front of Five. Bocrest gestured sharply while spitting words out in a low voice.

Tikaya resumed walking, more briskly than earlier, so she could steer close enough to eavesdrop. Before she neared them, the captain thrust his arm out, pointing his index finger at her. She stopped, feeling self-conscious when both men, and everyone else in the area, turned to stare at her.

Only Five’s gaze was friendly. The right side of his mouth quirked up in a bemused half smile, and she felt the need to brace herself on a nearby weapons rack.

Bocrest growled, “Convince her,” just loud enough for her to hear.

Though Five did not acknowledge the order, those words drove wariness into Tikaya’s heart. Presuming Bocrest’s relationship with Five was entirely antagonistic may have been a mistake.

He left the captain’s side and strolled toward her, his smile widening as he approached. A few strands of silver threaded his black hair, laugh lines crinkled the corners of his brown eyes, and a narrow scar bisected one eyebrow, but Tikaya had no doubt women of all ages swooned at his feet. Experience made her stifle her own urge to swoon. Handsome men did not look at her and smile; they looked through her, usually not noticing when they bumped her out of the way to close in on some buxom damsel with cleavage like the Inarraska Canyon. Most likely, he had an ulterior reason for that smile.

Tikaya folded her arms across her chest and kept her face neutral as he closed the distance.

Five’s first words destroyed her attempt at equanimity. “You’re the cryptomancer?”

“What? I, uhm, no. I mean—”

Tikaya winced. Even if he had no ulterior motives, her almost-ally would surely turn against her if he knew. Like the rest of the marines, he would resent her, hate her, glare at her and…

He was staring, not glaring, at her, and not with hatred. Was that—her eyebrows arched—awe?

“It’s your people’s term,” she said, “not what the name plaque on my desk says.”

Hoping for nonchalance, Tikaya stuck out a hand to lean casually on the weapons rack, but her focus was on him, and those gold flecks in his brown eyes, and she missed the target. Her fingers clipped the corner and slid off, giving her no support. She pitched sideways with a startled, “Errkt,” and would have landed on the deck, but Five lunged and caught her.

Chortles burst from the surrounding marines, and flames torched her cheeks. Five straightened and released her with a pat on the shoulder. She groaned and avoided his eyes. If there had been awe there before, that was surely gone now. In avoiding his gaze, she had a clear view of the marines pointing at her and nudging each other. Even Bocrest’s rock-eating jaw flapped with guffaws.

“Walk?” Five suggested gently.

“Dear Akahe, yes.”

She departed the scene at a vigorous pace, and Five, with his long legs, easily matched her. His guards fell in behind. At least they proved stolid and silent save for the clatter of gear and synchronized thump of boots on the deck.

“I must thank you for this.” Five gestured at himself, encompassing the clean uniform and haircut. “I got the story from Corporal Agarik. It was kind of you to include me in the reward for your wager.”

“You’re welcome,” she muttered, knowing her thinking had not been purely altruistic. “Though I’m surprised the captain let you out, lost bet or not.”

“He made me promise not to make trouble during the exercise periods.”

“Ah.” Interesting that Five’s word was enough for the captain to trust him. She glanced at the guards. To some extent anyway.

“It was worth it.” He stretched his arms overhead, then windmilled them, something the confines of his cell would make impossible. “I almost feel like a human being again.”

It had certainly improved his mood. She thought of the silent, brooding man she had spoken to the first day and could not help but feel pleased her request had lightened his spirit. She gave him a smile and missed a step when he smiled back. Oh, that was nice.

Stop it, Tikaya, she chastised herself. Prisoner or not, he was one of them. That uniform fit him like he had been born into it. Best get some answers from him while he was in an affable mood.

“Given the reception I’ve gotten here, I’m surprised you aren’t…” She watched him sidelong. “Does my wartime hobby not bother you?”

“Actually…” He met her sideways gaze. “It impresses me. A lot.”

“Oh,” she breathed, then looked away, not sure she wanted him to see her reaction. She had wanted an ally; she had not expected an admirer. She was not sure how to deal with that. Parkonis, though he had loved her personally, had been a little jealous of her professionally. They had worked in the same field, with her discoveries often eclipsing his, and his praise had always sounded grudging.

They passed under men in the rigging, adjusting sails to take advantage of the wind. Only a faint smudge of black wafted from the smokestack today.

“As far as we’ve heard,” Five said, “cryptography isn’t taught on Kyatt, so I just assumed what we called the cryptomancer was a team of mathematicians learning as they went. But your specialty is linguistics, right?”

The question sounded casual, but a trickle of wariness returned to her thoughts. Just because he pretended to be an admirer did not make him one. Maybe the Turgonians had simply decided to substitute honey for vinegar, and had talked him into delivering it.

“Yes,” she said. “Philology, really. I work with the anthropology and archaeology departments in the Polytechnic.”

“Interesting. How many languages do you know?”

“Sixteen modern, and I can read a few dozen dead languages.”

“Few dozen?” Five halted and gaped at her. “You must be a genius.”

The proclamation startled her, and she lurched to a stop beside him, conscious of the guards’ gazes on her back. “No, no, trust me I’m not. It’s just something I’ve a knack for.”

He lifted a single skeptical eyebrow.

Tikaya shook her head. “A world-exploring uncle gave me a copy of the Tekdar Tablet when I was a child, and I fell in love with solving language puzzles. My parents encouraged it, so I had a head start when I started formally studying in school. That’s all.”

Five was still standing, gazing at her, and when she met his eyes, she found that admiration there again. It was disarming. Maybe he meant it to be. What had the captain told Five to convince her of?

“Hm.” He resumed walking. “My family gave me swords and toy soldiers when I was a boy.” Bemusement laced his tone.

“You would have preferred something else?”

“Oh, yes. I kept asking for drawing pads and building materials. I wanted to design a treehouse with a drawbridge to my room and a steam-powered potato launcher for defense.”

“Sounds like every boy’s dream.” Despite her determination to remain chary with him, the change of topic set her at ease. She could not reveal something she shouldn’t if he was talking about himself.

“Alas, this was not a paternally approved childhood activity, so I had to find my own building materials.” Five scratched his jaw. “I took it upon myself to chop down some of the apple trees in my family’s orchard, trees that my great grandfather had grafted from cuttings painstakingly acquired when he was a marine sailing around the world. I, being about eight at the time, was unaware of this bit of history.”

“Oh, dear,” she murmured.

“Yes. There was a lot of yelling that summer.”

She chuckled.

“What is engraved on your name plaque?” Five asked as they started on their second lap of the deck.

For a moment, the context of the question eluded her, until she remembered her earlier comment. “You don’t know my name?”

He spread his arms apologetically. “Nobody’s told me much.”

The salty breeze gusted, and water sprayed the deck ahead of them. A lieutenant bellowed at the men aloft.

“Your name for mine,” Tikaya offered with a smile. “I can’t keep calling you Five forever.”

He glanced at the guards trailing them. Maybe, as part of his punishment, he was forbidden from using his old name.

He lowered his voice. “My friends and family, back when I had them…” He grimaced. “They called me Rias.”

“Rias?”

Tikaya had a feeling that was a nickname or a truncation. Regardless, it gave her no hints as to his identity. Since she had decrypted all the communications her people had intercepted, she knew most, if not all, of the Turgonian officers with enough rank to command a vessel, and she could not think of any name with those syllables.

“My name is Tikaya,” she said. “And, now that we’re on a first-name basis, maybe you can tell me what you’re supposed to convince me of, Rias.”

Their route had taken them to the archery lane. Rias paused by the rack of staves, and the guards tensed, their fingers finding the triggers of their pistols.

“No weapons,” the lead man said.

“Captain,” Rias called. “May we shoot?”

In the center of the exercise area, Bocrest knelt on a young officer’s back, with the man’s arm twisted in a lock. The captain scowled over at them.

“May you shoot? What is this, the Officers’ Club? Perhaps I can get you some brandywine and lobster too?”

“Captain, are you inviting me to dinner?” Rias rested his hand on his chest. “I’m touched.”

Red flushed Bocrest’s face, and Tikaya wondered at the wisdom of teasing the man. If the captain had a sense of humor, she had not detected it. But he waved a disgusted hand at the guards.

“Let them shoot.”

“Sir?” The lead guard’s mouth gaped open.

“You heard me,” Bocrest barked.

“Yes, sir.”

Tikaya eyed Rias. “It seems your word means something to the captain.”

“He knows it’s all I have left.”

Bleakness stripped away his humor, reminding her that pain lurked beneath the facade he was showing her today. He caught her watching and reaffixed his smile.

“Tikaya,” he said slowly, trying her name out, then nodding to himself as if he approved. “To answer your question, despite his threats—” Rias scowled, “—the captain has doubts about your intentions. He believes I should convince you to help him wholeheartedly with his mission.”

She selected the bow she had used the day before. “Why, when he’s keeping you chained in the brig, does he think you’d be inclined to speak on his behalf?”

“He believes that my indoctrinated loyalty to the empire will overrule whatever revulsion I feel for him and those who took everything from me.”

“They must do a lot of indoctrinating in Turgonian schools.”

Rias sighed. “Oh, they do.”

“And do you think I should help? You recognized something about those symbols when I showed you the rubbing. What was it?”

He did not answer, though she did not think him recalcitrant. His gaze grew far away, his face grim, as if some painful memories had swallowed him and he had forgotten her.

Maybe archery would loosen his mind and unlock his thoughts for sharing. She shot a few times, leaving arrows quivering around the red dot in the target. A stiffer breeze scraped across the deck today.

Rias stirred and selected his own arrows.

“Want to make a wager?” Tikaya asked, thinking she might be able to get him to talk more freely about the symbols if he owed her from a lost bet.

His grimness faded and he slanted her a knowing gaze. “I suspect that would be unwise.”

“Captain Bocrest did it.”

“Then I’m certain it’s unwise.”

Tikaya grinned. “Maybe I just got a lucky shot.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?” All the marines had been stunned when she hit the target.

He shrugged. “The Kyattese are bow hunters.”

“Well…” She smiled and twirled an arrow in the air. “If you’re afraid…”

Rias splayed a hand across his chest. “When you were learning our language, did you not also learn that we are a fearless people? I simply don’t want to take advantage of you. I studied ballistics in school, and I can’t imagine such a martial course being taught at your Polytechnic.”

“And did you also study arrogance in school?” Tikaya nocked her arrow, aimed, and plunked it into the bull’s-eye.

“Of course.” He winked. “I’m Turgonian.”

She snorted. Arrogance probably was part of their curriculum.

“I even wrote a paper on the ballistics of archery for merit points,” he said.

“Less talking, more shooting.”

Eyebrows arched, Rias nocked the first arrow, but he paused as a pair of marines strolled past, one munching the remains of an apple. The man lifted his arm to throw the core overboard, but Rias stopped him.

“I’ll take that.”

The marine shrugged and tossed it to him. Tikaya had an inkling of Rias’s intent and did not question him as he readied the bow again. He nocked the arrow and held it against the stave with one hand. With the other, he lobbed the apple core so it arced toward the target. In one swift motion, he drew the bow and fired. The arrow pierced the apple and hammered it to the target right next to Tikaya’s bull’s-eye.

“Hah.” Rias lowered the bow. “After my cocky speech, I feared I’d embarrass myself.”

“I hope you got a good grade for that paper,” Tikaya said, staring at the impaled apple.

“Me too.” He grinned at her raised eyebrows. “It was twenty years ago. I don’t remember.”

“What was it on?”

“Oh, the usual. Explaining the equations for general ballistic trajectory, horizontal launch, launch velocity, and the like. The fun part was the modeling I did on the different types of bows used throughout imperial history. I analyzed them to show how the design and materials used would define their accuracy, trajectories, distance capabilities, and…” He must have noticed her gaping because he stopped, a sheepish expression on his face. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

“No!” Tikaya blurted. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be so…” Dear ancestors, he sounded just like her when she started talking about languages, and it struck her as hilarious that he could not remember the grade but recalled all the details of the topic. “Uhm, garrulous,” she finished.

A blush colored his olive skin. “Sorry. I haven’t talked to a woman in two years.” He nocked an arrow. “Shall we shoot a few more?”

“Sure, tell me more about your paper.”

Rias’s fingers fumbled, and the arrow clattered to the deck. “Really?”

“Really.” She hid a smile, tickled by his surprise. “The only ballistics experiments I ever partook in involved a wager on who could use a spoon to launch a macadamia nut across the lunch room and into Professor Lehanae’s wig.”

“Hm, I recall taking part in a similar experiment. Must be a universal education requirement.”

They shot while he explained his paper, and Tikaya relaxed for the first time in days. She almost laughed at her earlier guess that he might have been a captain in the war. With that passion for mathematics and those childhood fancies, he had to be an engineer. Probably the chief engineer on one of the big warships. He would have been accustomed to going toe-to-toe with captains to keep his steamer in pristine operating order.

Only after the exercise period ended, and she was again confined in her cabin, did she realize she still did not know what his history was with those symbols and why they stirred dark memories.

• • • • •

The first earsplitting boom yanked Tikaya from sleep. The second made her scramble out of her bunk so quickly she slammed into the foldout desk. Groaning, she rubbed her hip, took another step, and cracked her toe on the stool.

“No one should wake up this way,” she muttered.

More booms drowned her words, this time a whole round that lasted half a minute. The ship trembled with concussions that vibrated her body like a bell. Cannons, she realized, as she groped about to find her spectacles and sandals. She had heard them from afar, but never standing in a cabin under the gun deck. Shouts sounded through the aftermath of the round, though the bulkhead muffled the words. She peered out her tiny porthole. Clouds obscured the stars, and night’s darkness smothered the ocean.

Was someone attacking them? Who would be audacious enough to waylay a Turgonian warship? Especially during peacetime? Maybe it was a training exercise. She would not put it past Captain Bocrest to schedule drills in the middle of the night.

A massive jolt rocked the ship, throwing her into the bulkhead. That was no cannon firing. Psi blast. She had a cousin who studied telekinetics and could knock the fronds off a palm tree. Anyone who could damage an ironclad warship was no one she wanted to meet. Still, if this was an attack, maybe she could use the confusion to steal a longboat. She would need to get Rias out of the brig to help. Since he had planned an escape once, he would know where to find the logs and navigation tools they would need.

Shouts rang out and boots pounded, but all the activity seemed to be on the deck above. Tikaya opened the door. Her hopes of escape sank when she spotted her guard standing outside.

The baby-face private noticed her immediately. “Stay inside, ma’am.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure yet, but don’t worry. It’s my duty to protect you.”

Yes, but she did not want him to protect her. She wanted him to go away. Still, his earnest eyes said he took his duty seriously, and she managed a “thank you.” Though they had rarely spoken, she had placed him in Corporal Agarik’s tiny category of People Who Treated Her Like a Human Being.

“Can we go see what’s happening?” she asked, though she suspected she knew the answer.

“No, ma’am. Please close the hatch and wait inside.” A cabin door slammed open, and a sub-lieutenant struggling to buckle his belt scrambled out, a drunken lurch to his step. He stumbled off, presumably to join the others, and her guard watched wistfully. He did look back at her and add, “I’ll let you know what the commotion is about when I find out.”

Tikaya shut the door and paced her tiny cabin. Her guard wanted to join the action. Maybe she could nudge him that direction. He was young after all. Maybe—

A scream of agony erupted nearby. Tikaya froze. Though muffled, it sounded like it had come from her deck.

She pressed her ear to the door.

Somewhere down the corridor, a pistol fired, and steel rang. Shrill voices cried out, and her eyes widened. They spoke Nurian, not Turgonian.

“We should go to the brig!”

“I read that marine’s thoughts; the woman is up here.”

Her insides knotted. They were looking for her.

The Nurians must have found out about whatever the Turgonians had unearthed. Did they want her help too? To beat the imperials to the loot?

A shot cracked right outside her door.

Tikaya could help them find her or she could hide. Though her people had only superficially sided with the Nurians during the war, sharing the messages Tikaya decrypted, it ought to be enough to ensure they would treat her better than the Turgonians.

She eased the door open. The air shimmered as a wave of heat rolled in from the corridor. The invisible force slammed into the private’s chest.

She stumbled back and wrapped her arm over her eyes—not quickly enough to miss the agony contorting the guard’s face. He screamed and dropped to the deck, writhing. His sword and pistol clattered down beside him. The stench of charred flesh seared the air. In a heartbeat, the marine lay still, skin laid bare to muscle and bone, and bulging eyes frozen open.

Tikaya stared, stunned into immobility. She had never seen death, not like this. She had spent the war in an office, not on battlefields or warships.

“She down there?” someone asked in Nurian.

Tikaya tore her gaze from the downed man and leaned out the door.

Two Nurians crept in her direction. They were shorter than she and darker of skin, like the Turgonians, but they had slanted eyes and wore their long black hair in topknots. One bore twin scimitars in his hands and looked lean and sinewy beneath colorful clothing decorated with bone and beads. The other, wrapped in a flowing black robe, carried nothing. A practitioner and his bodyguard.

The bodyguard pointed a scimitar her direction. “There!”

“Greetings,” Tikaya called in their tongue. “My name is Tikaya. Any chance you’re here to take me somewhere more pleasant than a Turgonian warship?”

But they were not in the conversation mood. As soon as they spotted her, the practitioner stopped. A glazed trance slackened his face—the sign of someone concentrating on his science. The bodyguard watched her, but also glanced up and down the hall, ensuring no one approached to interrupt his comrade.

Despite the heat lingering in the wardroom, a shiver ran down Tikaya’s spine. She ducked into her cabin just as the Nurian lifted his arm. Another wave of energy flared, and the air crackled and wavered against the metal door where her head had been. Heat scorched her face. The hem of her dress burst into flames.

Tikaya cursed, flapping the cloth to put out fire.

Footfalls thundered toward her cabin. She glanced around. Nowhere to hide. The fallen private’s sword lay in the doorway. She bent and grabbed it.

The Nurians appeared in the hatchway, shoulder to shoulder. The practitioner’s eyes narrowed again. Still crouched on the floor, sword in hand, Tikaya lunged, hoping to surprise them.

She bowled between them, ramming them with her shoulders. Where she might have bounced off burly Turgonians, her size was an advantage here, and she startled the shorter men. Both Nurians pitched opposite ways and fought for their balance.

Tikaya raced through the wardroom and into the corridor.

“Flay her!” the bodyguard called. “She must be killed at all—”

Her instincts prickled again, and Tikaya threw herself into a clumsy roll. Heat crackled overhead.

She jumped to her feet. The bodyguard charged after her. She skidded around the corner at a T intersection. A nook right to the side offered access to a ladder running up and down. She banged a rung with her sword, trusting her pursuers to hear it, then jumped through an open hatch a few cabins down. She dared not stick her head out to look, but their footsteps told her when they charged around the corner. The clatter of swords and shoes clanking in the ladder well said they had fallen for the ruse.

Tikaya could not relax. If there were two Nurians on the ship, there could be more. Cannons continued to blast on the decks above. Perhaps the whole attack was a cover to let practitioners sneak on board to get rid of her. But why? If the Turgonians had unearthed some treasure they wanted to get at, wouldn’t the Nurians find her skills of equal use? Wouldn’t they want to use her themselves?

“The captain said there was no treasure,” she muttered, rubbing sweat from her eyes. She had not believed him, but maybe that had been a mistake. Something about those symbols alarmed Rias, and it hardly seemed that some cheery treasure hunt from his youth would account for it.

More footfalls sounded in the corridor, and Tikaya ducked behind the hatch. Two marines pounded past.

She could not stay there. But where to go? If she headed to the upper deck, she could find the captain. He would protect her from Nurians. He may not like her, but he obviously had orders to keep her alive, at least until she translated the language. Still, going to him and hiding behind his back would eliminate any chance she might have to escape. Better to find Rias and steal a longboat in the commotion.

Her heart lurched. Rias. Locked down in the brig. If the Nurians were after her, might they be after him too? He would have a hard time dodging psi attacks while chained to the deck in a cell.

More marines raced through, and she made her decision. Tikaya glanced both ways, then slipped out. Hoping to avoid the Nurians, she traveled past two more ladders before climbing down to a dark hold on the bottom deck. She groped her way past sea trunks and cargo. Somewhere nearby, engines hummed. The deck trembled with the strokes of massive pistons, while above the cannons continued to roar.

She escaped the hold and found the narrow corridor leading to the brig. As she entered, another wave rocked the ship, and the great ironclad pitched sideways. The ship creaked ominously as she stumbled down the passage.

Nobody guarded the hatch at the end. The Nurians had mentioned the brig, so she advanced with care. She did not think they would expect her to flee this direction, but sweat still pasted her dress to her back, dribbled down her temples, and slicked the sword grip.

The single lantern that usually burned on the wall near the cells had moved. It was hanging—no, being held—a foot above the deck near Rias’s door.

She moved closer and, when she spotted him kneeling by the gate, exhaled a breath she did not remember holding. He was still shackled, but the chains that had secured him to the back of the cell lay in a tangled heap next to the broken lantern cover. He held the flame directly beneath the bottom hinge.

Rias smiled when he spotted her, but kept his hands steady. Flames bathed the hinge.

“What are you doing?” Tikaya asked.

His lips shifted into a bemused half smile. “Hoping whoever designed these hinges did not factor in the relatively high coefficient of thermal expansion steel possesses.”

“You’re going to break out…with the lamp?”

“It worked on the chain bolts.” Rias shrugged. “I was fortunate the first attack knocked the lantern off the wall and within reach.”

“Yes, those foolish marines should never have left such an obvious tool down here for prisoners to exploit.” Tikaya knelt by the door and slid the sword between the hinge and the pin, which surprised her by popping free with minimal effort.

“Indeed.” He stood and moved the flame to the upper hinge. “By the way, what are you doing down here with a sword?”

“There are Nurians on board, at least two. They killed my guard. I thought they might want me as a translator as well and I was ready to jump into their arms when they flung a psi wave at me.”

Rias’s brow furrowed. “Why would the Nurians want to hurt you? They ought to be worshipping your people after the help you gave them in the war.”

She watched his face, trying to decide if his tone was accusatory, but only puzzlement furrowed his brows. “I don’t know. I figured they might be after you, too, though I haven’t deduced exactly what your part is in all this yet.” Tikaya wriggled her eyebrows to suggest he might share any time. “I decided to come break you out.”

Another jolt rocked the ship. Tikaya was not sure how long the flame had to be applied to loosen the bond between hinge and pin but wedged her sword into the crack anyway. It was tighter this time.

“I’m not sure whether to be offended that you’d think Nurian hospitality preferable to Turgonian or tickled that you came down to help me.” Rias gave her that lopsided smile again and, despite the cannons thundering above and the threat of Nurians lurking below, she bit her lip to hide a pleased grin.

“I’d think even you would prefer Nurian hospitality to Turgonian at this point.” She wriggled the sword, and the pin inched upward.

“Not really. I’ve been in one of their prison camps and—”

Something bowled into her.

Tikaya was rammed into the gate and dragged to the ground. The sword flew from her grip. She launched a clumsy fist at her attacker, but encountered no one.

“Invisibility illusion,” she barked.

Metal screeched.

She started to roll to her feet, but her unseen assailant grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. With one hand, she groped for the sword, and with the other clawed for the Nurian. She jerked her head down to protect her neck.

The cell door flew outward, and metal thudded against flesh. Tikaya’s invisible attacker grunted. Rias tore the Nurian off her.

She scrambled out of the way. A snap echoed through the brig, and an orange-clad man appeared. He collapsed on the deck. Dead.

Color flashed behind Rias.

“Look out!” Tikaya cried.

He whirled as a woman with scimitar and dagger leaped at him, blades leading. He ducked low and barreled toward her legs. The woman jumped and spun in the air to land facing him.

Knowing Rias was still shackled and had no weapons, Tikaya lunged for the dropped sword. She jumped to her feet, hilt clasped in both hands. Even with her inexperience, she figured she could stab someone in the back, but Rias had closed with the Nurian woman. They grappled briefly, then he released her with a shove. She went down, her own dagger protruding from her chest.

Wordlessly, Tikaya handed him her sword. He would know how to use it whereas she would probably just trip over it.

“You all right?” Rias looked her up and down, brow wrinkled. “Are these the same ones who attacked you above?”

“I’m fine and…no.”

He knelt and pulled a pin from the dead woman’s hair. “If they can turn invisible, there’s no telling how many are on board.”

“Comforting.” Tikaya watched him probe the lock on his shackles. “How about we use this chaos to escape or find a good hiding place until the ship gets to port?”

His wrist accessories snapped open and dropped to the ground. He pocketed the hairpin. “Let’s head above decks and find out what’s going on.”

Tikaya raised her eyebrows. That was not exactly her plan—her plan had a lot more focus on the word escape.

CHAPTER 5

On the upper deck, Tikaya and Rias crouched behind a funnel venting hot air from the boiler room. Streaks of lightning branched from the cloudy night sky and lanced around the warship, some sizzling harmlessly against the dark waves and others tearing into mast and sail. Agile as monkeys, marines raced through the rigging, beating out conflagrations. Others perched in the fighting tops, rifles firing intermittently. Tikaya hoped they were too busy to look down and notice her and Rias.

Two wooden Nurian ships, decks lit by glowing orbs, trailed slightly behind on either side of the ironclad. Every time they edged too close, an officer on the gun deck barked orders to fire the cannons. The same weather phenomenon setting off the lightning filled the enemy sails with unnatural wind, and, despite the steam-powered propeller adding knots to the warship’s speed, the Nurian vessels kept pace. In fact, they could have overtaken the warship, and Tikaya had a feeling they were waiting for something. The assassins to kill her? She grimaced.

“We outman them and outgun them,” Rias said. “But wizards always have tricks that make them dangerous. Bocrest has already slagged this, letting them surround us.”

At the moment, the invisible assassins were more of a concern for Tikaya. “Let’s go to the training area.”

Rias tore his gaze from the Nurian ships. “The blades are dulled; real weapons are kept in the armory.”

“What I need is over there.”

She expected him to question her further, but he simply led her through the shadows. Two marines in the forecastle manned the chaser gun, which was rotated toward one of the Nurian ships and pounded rounds into the night. Open deck lay between the men and the weapons racks, and the intermittent lightning illuminated much.

Tikaya crouched low to approach the backside of the racks, and she sensed rather than heard Rias behind her. The booms of the great gun would have drowned out the approach of howler monkeys.

Much of the exercise gear had been stowed when the ship was cleared for action, and she worried she would not find what she wanted. But, no, there they were. The heavy sand-filled balls sat in the bottom row of a rack.

She slung one to the deck and found Rias’s ear. “Sword, please.”

He handed her the cutlass, and she sliced open the ball. She stuffed sand into the two hip pockets in her dress until they bulged, then returned the blade.

A fiery projectile the size of her cabin slammed into the side of the ironclad. Ineffective against the metal hull, it bounced into the water, but the energy that had hurled it coursed through the air. Tikaya’s skin hummed. She had never been so close to so much power.

Rias tapped her shoulder and they moved away from the forecastle. With an uncanny knack for avoiding the marines running up and down the deck, he led her past masts, funnels, and vents. They rounded the smokestacks, and he headed toward the after bridge. The captain and senior officers relayed orders to the gun deck and barked commands to the men controlling the wheel.

Tikaya grabbed Rias’s arm. “Where are you going? We’re hiding, remember? And escaping if possible, right?”

Lightning flashed, revealing him gazing toward the Nurian vessels. “If this ship sinks, we’re in trouble too.”

“And what would we do to stop that?”

A long moment passed before he said, “All right. We can hide between the launches and still see what’s—”

The aft chaser gun blasted, stealing the rest of his words, but she nodded, and Rias led her through the shadows.

Lightning flashed again. Rias ducked between the boats mounted a couple feet above the deck in the center of the ship. The space between them offered a shadowy place to hunker down. The smokestack rose behind them, belching coal plumes and further hemming them in. A determined search would reveal them, but the darkness and chaos offered camouflage—from the marines, anyway. The Nurians had other means of searching for her, but at least lanterns were mounted across the deck from them and would silhouette someone approaching. Assuming that someone wasn’t invisible. She touched her bulging dress pocket.

Rias put his back against one of the launches and stood where he could see the movement of the other ships.

“I can hide here alone if you want to find the captain.” She hated the idea but could tell Rias felt he could do something.

“No, he wouldn’t appreciate my input, and he’d chuck me back in the brig. Besides, the Nurians are looking for you.”

“Yes, and I should mention they have ways to find me. They went straight to the wardroom earlier, and I’m sure it wasn’t a coincidence they showed up in the brig when I was there.” Tikaya looked up at Rias, though darkness hid his face. “It’d probably be a bad idea to be standing next to me if a psi wave is launched in my direction.”

“I’ll risk it.” Rias rested a hand on her shoulder. “Keep your back to me in case they’re invisible again.”

She sandwiched between him and the other launch, with the smokestack guarding their right side and his sword ready on the left.

“The sand,” Rias said, “is for throwing at the invisible attackers? Will it disrupt the spell?”

“Possibly, if I catch them by surprise, and their concentration lapses, but if nothing else it’ll outline them for a few seconds until they compensate.”

His rumbled, “Ah,” sounded pleased.

On the rear horizon, a third Nurian ship floated into view.

“Rust,” Rias spit. “He needs to take down one of those ships before the reinforcements arrive. Come on, Bocrest. Think. Don’t be so stodgy and predictable.”

A fiery projectile the size of a cannon ball arced toward them. Tikaya tensed. It clipped the yard closest to their smokestack, and shards of wood rained upon them.

She gulped.

“You all right?” Rias dusted splinters off the top of her head.

“Yes, but it’s inconsiderate of these Nurians to muss my hair. I’d at least like to look good when your people toss me on a funeral pyre.” Her attempt at nonchalance might have worked if her voice had not cracked on the last word. When she had been fleeing the Nurians, she had been too busy to worry about her mortality. Standing here gave her too much time to think, to wonder if she might very well dodge the assassins only to fall to a random cannonball.

“Don’t worry,” Rias said. “No funeral pyres at sea. We just wrap your body in your hammock and toss you overboard. Only the fish will judge your hair.”

“I’m vastly reassured, thank you.”

Rias chuckled.

Oddly, his blasé attitude did reassure her. If he was not worried, maybe she did not need to be. She leaned back against him. If not for the guns roaring and the lightning streaking the night, she might have noticed the heat of his chest against her shoulders, the lean hard muscles beneath his clothing, and the gentle breaths stirring her hair. Actually, she noticed them anyway.

“Rias?”

“Yes?”

His murmur was soft, close to her ear, and a thrum warmed her body. Focus, she told herself.

“Do you want to escape or not?” she asked. “If you don’t… Well, that’s your prerogative, but it’d help me to know. I’ve mentioned it a couple times tonight, and, even though I chanced upon you breaking out of your cell, you seem to be more interested in what’s going on with the battle than getting out of here. I can’t help but think that it’s handy how we’re standing next to a couple boats, and the marines are all preoccupied.”

“It’d be suicidal to launch a boat into the middle of the Nurians,” he said. “Besides, based on the knots-per-hour average of this ship, the days it’s been since you were brought on board at the Kyatt Islands, and our northeasterly direction, I estimate us more than a thousand miles from the mainland. There aren’t many archipelagos in this part of the ocean. It’s likely we’d die of thirst before making land. Also…”

“What?”

His long exhale tickled the back of her ear. “The fact that the Nurians are trying to kill you makes me believe we really need you.”

“We?”

“The empire. Bocrest’s family has been personally loyal to the throne for a long time. That Emperor Raumesys picked him over brighter men suggests this is a very sensitive mission. My people may have unearthed something that’s put them in danger. If the Nurians have found out, well, they’d be the first to help us on our way to the black eternity.”

Tikaya pressed her hand against the cool wooden siding of the launch, dread curling through her gut for a new reason. If the Turgonian emperor had walked onto her plantation and asked for her help, she would have told him to shove sugar cane into his anal orifice. But Rias asking her to stay and help…

She shook her head. She hardly knew him. And he was one of them. Surely, she owed him nothing.

“How can the empire’s fate even matter to you?” she asked. “After they condemned you and left you to die?”

“Strange, isn’t it? By the emperor’s decree, I’m dead to my family, my friends, everyone I ever knew, but it was the emperor who cast me out, not them. I still care that they are well, and I’m not sure the orchards where I grew up will ever stop being the place my mind conjures when someone says home.”

Tikaya cleared her throat and tried to sound offhand when she asked, “Family?”

“Parents, brothers.”

“No children?” No wife?

“My wife didn’t want them.”

So, there was a wife. The intensity of her disappointment surprised her.

“Ex-wife,” Rias said, as if reading her thoughts. “I know you owe nothing to me, Tikaya—in fact, I owe you a couple favors. But if you would stay and decipher the language and help—I can’t believe I’m saying this—help Bocrest solve whatever problem my people have gotten themselves into, I’d…”

The request she had dreaded. She swallowed and waited.

“I have nothing I can offer you.” He sighed. “Not even my protection since I’m even more a prisoner than you. All I can promise is that I’ll do everything possible to ensure you escape and can return to your island afterwards. I imagine you have family you miss, people who are worried about you.”

“Yes.” If she died out here, would anyone even tell her parents what happened?

“Children?” he asked in the same offhand tone she had used.

“No.” Then, feeling the need to lay everything out, she added, “My fiancé was killed on a science vessel that went down near the end of the war.”

“Oh.” A long beat passed, probably because he did not want to know the answer to the next question, but he asked anyway: “How did it—who sank it?”

“Your people.”

She felt his shoulders slump behind her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

A twinge of guilt wound through her; it was not as if he had done it. If he had been on that penal island for two years, he would have missed the last year of the war, the year when things unraveled for the Turgonians and their people stopped paying attention to Kantioch Treaty dictates. Yet she could not bring herself to say it was all right. It wasn’t. It never would be.

The attack had slowed, and Tikaya felt a stirring of hope, but then another set of lights appeared on the inky horizon. Another ship, bringing the total to four. The captains had probably just paused to confer—deciding on a final strategy—through communications practitioners. The attack would resume with all four ships joining in, and even the sturdy ironclad would sink under that assault.

“How come none of your people know about this shindig going on in the middle of the ocean?” Tikaya asked.

“I don’t know.”

A great swirling gust of wind tugged at her dress and whipped loose strands of hair into her mouth. She looked up at the stack. The smoke was not affected, meaning the disturbance was localized.

“Nurian magic!” Rias wrapped his arm around her.

A flash of yellow burned Tikaya’s eyes, and vertigo washed over her. A final burst of wind railed at her, her stomach dropped, then silence engulfed her.

She blinked and tried to wipe away the yellow dots swimming before her eyes. Bile churned in her throat, and she forced a swallow. The world came back into focus.

She was belowdecks, not in the ironclad but in a wooden vessel. She stood in a storage space full of Nurians pointing short bows at her, arrows nocked and drawn back. Crates, barrels, and a number of confusing machines, or perhaps practitioners’ contraptions, fenced the large hold. Rias still had his arm around her, and he held the sword out before them, but it did not matter with so many weapons pointed their way. A smug woman in black robes smiled in triumph.

“There, that’s easier,” she said in Nurian.

She lifted a finger toward the bowmen and opened her mouth.

Tikaya scrabbled for something to say, something to sway the woman from giving the kill order.

“Don’t tell them,” Rias blurted in Turgonian.

Barely, just barely, Tikaya managed to keep the bewildered expression off her face. The practitioner halted, finger still lifted, and frowned at Rias.

“I won’t,” Tikaya whispered back, also in Turgonian.

“They’ll torture us if they know what we know,” he stage whispered.

Did the Nurian understand? None of the expressions on the bowmen’s faces had changed, but an assessing mien narrowed the woman’s eyes. Yes, she understood, and Rias must be counting on that, trying to pique her interest long enough to have a chance to do something.

Tikaya lifted one placating hand and stepped toward the woman. “I understand you have orders to kill me,” she said in Nurian as she slipped her other hand into her pocket, “but I’m sure I can be of more use to you alive.” She caught the other woman eyeing Rias and added, “As can he. We’ve just escaped our cells on the Turgonian ship; we’ve no allegiance to them—they kidnapped us against our will.”

The practitioner seemed to be only half-listening. She stepped closer, peering up at Rias, whose head brushed the ceiling of the hold.

“You look familiar,” she said in heavily accented Turgonian. “Who—”

Tikaya hurled a handful of sand, and the woman gasped, swiping at her eyes. Rias lunged past Tikaya, pushing her to the deck. His body coiled, then he sprang, whipping the sword through the practitioner’s neck with a grunt.

He landed and charged, taking advantage of the startled silence gripping the hold.

For a stunned moment, Tikaya lay on her belly, staring at the decapitated head, the still-twitching body, and the blood. So much blood.

The Nurians recovered, and bows twanged. An arrow grazed Tikaya’s arm and pinned her sleeve to the deck.

“Move,” Rias barked. “Find cover.” He was already attacking a third man.

Yes, cover, of course.

Tikaya tore her sleeve free and rolled toward the closest set of legs. An arrow thudded into the deck an inch from her ear. She kicked as hard as she could, and her heel smashed the inside of a man’s knee. He yelped and collapsed on her.

Her first instinct was to shove him away, but another arrow slammed into the deck near her head. She tried to stay under him, to use him as a human shield. He drew back to punch her. An arrow lodged in his shoulder.

“Not me, idiot!” he screamed.

He thrashed, still on top of Tikaya as he clawed at the shaft. A wayward elbow nearly tore her spectacles from her face. His frustrated cries of pain reverberated in her ears. His face, eyes squeezed shut, mouth contorted with agony, loomed inches from her own. Fearful of more bows aimed at her, she wrapped her fingers into his shirt and kept him from pulling away.

Rias towered over the Nurians, head brushing the ceiling beams as he lunged about the space. He slashed bowstrings and pounded through the startled archers, who—after catching their own comrades in the crossfire—were dropping their bows in favor of short swords and cutlasses. Howls of pain and rage bounced from the wooden walls.

The Nurians stopped shooting at Tikaya and focused their attacks on Rias, obviously finding him the greater threat. She spotted a bow within reach and grabbed it. The wounded man writhed, still trying to pull out the arrow, and she rolled away from him. She pried a quiver off a fallen archer and ducked behind a chest-high wooden contraption bolted to the deck.

Her hands shook, and it took three tries to nock the first arrow. She willed her fingers to still. She could do this. Human beings or not, they were trying to kill her.

Her first arrow went a foot wide of its mark, thunking into the frame by the hold’s only exit. She wiped hands wet with blood and sweat on her dress and sucked in a deep breath.

A man with a raised hatchet drew up behind Rias as he squared off with two cutlass wielders.

Tikaya’s nerves disappeared and she let an arrow fly. It struck the attacker between the shoulder blades, and he pitched forward, crashing to the deck at Rias’s heels. The man lay still. She had found his heart.

She swallowed, mortified by the results of her reflexive act. Rias slashed his cutlass through the throat of the last man standing before him, glanced behind at the dead Nurian, and saluted her with the sword.

The rest of their attackers were down as well. Dead. A tremor coursed through Tikaya’s body. She could not rip her gaze from the one she killed.

Muffled shouts echoed from deeper in the ship. Reinforcements who had heard the skirmish. Her mind processed what it meant, that more would soon burst in, that she would have to fight, but the tremor returned to her hands, and she shied away from the idea of shooting anyone else.

She was not a killer. If her family knew what she had done…

Rias stepped before her, blocking the view of the body and breaking her thoughts. He gripped her shoulder with a bloodstained hand. She swallowed and met his eyes.

“More work to do before we’re safe,” he said, voice calm and steady, commanding her attention. “You can react later. Right now, I need you to watch my back so we can live through this. Concentrate on that, nothing else, understood?”

Before she could nod, four men burst into the hold, swords leading. A flash of silver streaked toward Rias’s head. He jerked back, and it split the air between them to land with a thunk in the wood wall. A throwing knife.

Rias leaped away from Tikaya and charged the Nurians.

“Curse me.” She tore an arrow from her quiver. He had almost been killed because he was trying to keep her from falling apart. She nocked the arrow, forced her hands to still. React later. Yes. She could do that.

Rias led the Nurians about the hold, dodging behind crates and apparatuses, slashing to keep the men at bay, and evading their attempts to surround him. With agility surprising in someone so large, he kept them in each other’s way and remained on the outskirts so he only had to face one at a time. More, he kept them from paying attention to her.

Good.

Tikaya lifted the drawn bow and selected the man farthest from Rias. She was not going to be the idiot who shot someone on her own side. The arrow took the Nurian in his chest, and he lurched backward, hands clutching the shaft. Horror and pain wrenched his face. Her own heart twisted in sympathy, but she smashed down the emotion. React later.

Her next arrow felled a second man even as Rias sliced the throat of the third. The fourth skidded to a stop, realizing he fought alone.

He backpedaled for the exit, and Tikaya had him targeted, but she hesitated. Even if he meant to run straight to his captain, how could she shoot someone fleeing?

Rias lunged after him, and the man jumped back. His heel caught on a downed comrade, and he pitched to the deck, cracking his head on a crate.

Rias dropped beside the man, gripping his throat, and Tikaya winced and looked away.

“Live or die?” Rias asked in accented Nurian.

Surprised, Tikaya looked back.

“Live?” the Nurian croaked, eyes darting with fear, as if he did not expect to be that lucky.

Rias glanced toward the door, then laid his sword on the ground while he tore pieces from the man’s colorful clothing. With quick efficiency, he gagged the Nurian and started on ankle and wrist bonds.

“Who would answer with die?” Tikaya asked.

“Most of my people,” Rias said. “To live when the rest of your team died would be an unacceptable disgrace to many.”

With some vague sense that someone should be standing guard, she stepped over the bodies to watch the exit. Another hold stretched before her, lit by glowing orbs hanging from the beamed ceiling. No one else waited to charge.

Rias finished the bonds, leaving the Nurian wide-eyed on the deck, and snatched arrows from partially spent quivers. When he had a fistful, he joined Tikaya.

“I want to take control of the ship,” he said.

“Take control?” She gaped at the audacity. Surely, the best they could manage would be to run for the upper deck and leap over the side. But, no, who would find them in the cold, dark waters? Even if the Turgonians spotted them, and that was unlikely, they had their own troubles.

“We’ll have another fight when they realize what’s going on.” He held out the arrows, enough to stuff her quiver, and watched her face. “You’ve got my back?”

She guessed at what he was really asking: can you, a philologist from an island full of peace-loving academics, keep from collapsing in a weepy heap when I need your help?

Tikaya grabbed the arrows and jammed them into the quiver, angry with herself for that weak moment that made him question her. “I’ve had it so far, haven’t I?”

“Yes.” Rias gripped her forearm. “You’ve been magnificent.”

She snorted. Right. He didn’t know how lucky he was her trembling fingers hadn’t loosed an arrow that turned him into a eunuch. “Will you still think that if I insist on taking a side trip?”

“What?”

“I want to search the captain’s cabin for orders and find out why these people are trying to kill me.” And maybe she could finally get answers about what this secret Turgonian mission was all about.

“We may not have time,” Rias said.

Tikaya lifted her chin. “We’ll make time.”

His eyebrows flicked upward, but the surprise lasted only a second. He nodded once and gave her a Turgonian salute, a fist thumped over his heart. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Jeela, is it done?” a tinny voice asked from the center of the room.

As one they stared at the dead practitioner. The voice emanated from within her black robe.

Rias pointed his cutlass. “Can you answer that?”

“Uhm.” Tikaya knelt by the dead woman, trying not to look at the bloody stump where the head should have been, and patted the blood-sodden robe. She found a glowing opal pendant, the chain broken, just as the voice spoke again.

“Is the Kyattese girl dead? Jeela, do you need help?”

Though her education in the mental sciences was not ecumenical, she could sense the soft hum of a practitioner-made device. She held it up to her mouth, then waved at Rias and mouthed, “Make some noise.”

She partially covered the device with her hand, hoping to disguise the fact that her voice would not match the practitioner’s, and spoke in Nurian: “Yes, mission complete. She’s dead.” Then, fearing further conversation would only hurt her chances at pulling off the ruse, she dropped the device on the deck, so it clanked against the wood.

“I doubt that fooled anyone,” she apologized to Rias as they exited.

The grim cast to his eyes suggested he agreed, but all he said was, “We’d best hurry.”

CHAPTER 6

The Nurian captain’s cabin offered a distinct contrast to Bocrest’s quarters. Behind a desk painted with flowers and vines, lace curtains decorated a bank of windows. Velvet furniture and lush rugs covering the deck might have invited one to lounge, but the cannons booming in the distance suppressed the cozy parlor ambiance.

Tikaya and Rias slid inside, shutting the door behind them. For the moment, the Nurians were busy attacking—and defending against—Bocrest’s warship, but sooner or later someone would figure out “Jeela” had failed her mission.

“Check those trunks.” Rias jogged around the desk to the windows. “Let me know if you can tell if the captain is a wizard or not. If he is, he’ll likely have wards protecting his orders.”

Tikaya threw open the trunks and lifted a sword and a lacy brassiere. “I believe she’s a warrior.”

“Should be safe to search then.” Rias tore his gaze from the windows and cocked an eyebrow at the lingerie. “Unless you want to model that for me first?”

Startled, she dropped the sword. The hilt banged onto her sandaled foot.

Rias winced and lifted an apologetic hand. “Sorry, I, er, two years, you know.”

“It’s fine.” Cheeks warming, she threw the sword back in the trunk, relieved she had not cut off any toes. “I’ll just, uhm, find those orders now.”

Tikaya yanked open a desk drawer and rummaged through letters and supply receipts. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Rias shaking his head, fingers splayed across his face, before he turned back to the window. A grin tugged at her lips.

A moment later, he found his fearless-soldier-in-charge tone and reported: “All four Nurian ships are even with the Emperor’s Fist now, two on each side. Bocrest is doing damage, but…if we’re going to help, it’ll have to be soon.”

Tikaya tried another drawer. She wanted those orders, and she wanted them to say something significant to justify detouring here. Rias helped her search, checking cupboards under the bunk, but she sensed restless energy emanating from him. He wanted to assist his people, though she could not imagine how he planned to take over the ship.

Under a pile of log books in the bottom drawer, she found a parchment displaying lines of gibberish. “Got it. Encrypted though.” She tapped the nonsensical Nurian letters. “Given enough time, I can work it out, but it’d be helpful to have the key. The captain ought to have it, right?”

“Yes.” Rias joined her at the desk and opened and closed all the drawers.

“I already looked in there.”

He paused at the lower one, yanked it clear, dumped the contents on the deck, and ripped out the bottom. His vandalism revealed a secret compartment from which he plucked another sheet of parchment.

“Guess my looking skills need improvement,” Tikaya murmured.

“I get suspicious when inside dimensions don’t match outside ones.”

“Ah.” She laid both sheets on the desk and quickly memorized the key.

The clanging of a bell echoed through the ship. More footsteps pounded, this time on their deck instead of above.

“Alarm,” Rias said. “They know we escaped. Take that with us. We’re out of time.”

“Wait, I’ve got it.”

“Already? How could you…”

She skipped the introduction and translated the meat of the orders: “’Search and destroy the Emperor’s Fist before it reaches the Northern Frontier. If any artifacts with strange symbols are found, sink them in the ocean. Use extreme caution in handling them. Do not bring them home and do not try to destroy them.’”

“Honored ancestors,” Rias murmured. “What have my people uncovered?”

“’In addition,’” Tikaya finished grimly, “’the Kyattese linguist allied with the Turgonians must be killed at all costs.’” Allied? She was no cursed Turgonian ally.

The windows exploded.

Rias tore Tikaya off her feet before she knew what was happening. Wood cracked louder than thunder. Rias came down on top of her, protecting her with his body. Glass and splinters rained about them, tinkling as they hit the deck.

“What was that?” Tikaya asked when her heart left her throat. Wind whistled into the cabin.

Rias pulled her up. He nodded to a cannonball lodged in the bulkhead perpendicular to the broken window. “Friendly fire.”

She gulped and plucked a shard of glass out of the side of his neck. “Glad your reflexes are faster than mine. Thank you.”

“Welcome.” He shook more glass from his jacket, then headed for the door. “Still got my back?”

“Of course.” Tikaya grabbed her bow.

They had reached the captain’s cabin without trouble, but, with the alarm clanging, search parties clogged their deck. Fortunately, Rias seemed to know the layout of the Nurian vessel as well as the Turgonian ironclad. They hid in cabins and shadowy nooks to avoid men before slipping down a ladder to the deck below.

“How’re we taking over the ship from down here?” Tikaya whispered, neck bent to keep from clunking her head on the ceiling.

Rias’s shoulders brushed the walls as they crept single-file down a dim passageway. “This is a Nurian striker. Not a big vessel. I think I can handle the tiller by myself. It should be located…there.”

He pointed at a door marking the end of the corridor. He jogged past a ladder well and charged inside, cutlass leading.

As Tikaya passed the ladder, movement stirred the shadows. A woman dropped from above, legs swinging out to wrap around Tikaya.

“Rias!” she called.

Steel rang out in the tiller room. He was busy.

The Nurian tried to pull Tikaya into the ladder well with powerful legs. For a woman, she had surprising bulk and muscle. Tikaya spread her stance and braced herself against the wall. She tried to maneuver her bow to prod the woman loose from the rungs, but it proved too unwieldy for the tight passage.

The Nurian woman released the ladder and threw her arms around Tikaya. The momentum slammed Tikaya back into the wall. A second form dropped into view in the ladder well—a black-robed man.

“Who’s got my back?” Tikaya cried as the woman plucked a dagger from between her teeth.

She released the bow and tried to knock the blade away. Sharp steel bit into her arm.

The practitioner hanging on the ladder narrowed his eyes in concentration. The female fighter clung to Tikaya with one hand and raised the dagger again with the other.

Tikaya bit the arm wrapped around her shoulders. The woman hissed and her grip softened. Tikaya pushed off the wall and tried to shove her foe into the ladder well. The move jostled the practitioner. He cursed, his concentration disturbed, but the woman stuck to Tikaya like a tick. She raised her knife again.

A hand caught the Nurian’s wrist, and Rias yanked her away. Tikaya stumbled and went down. Arrows spilled from her quiver.

The practitioner leapt on top of her, a dagger held aloft. Tikaya grabbed an arrow and rammed it into his gut. Luckily, it was the pointy end.

Eyes bulging, the practitioner reeled back. He dropped the dagger and clutched the arrow in his belly.

Before Tikaya could decide if she was safe, Rias loomed behind the practitioner. He wound up and swept the cutlass through flesh, muscle, and bone. The Nurian’s head fell onto Tikaya.

“Errkt!” She shoved it off and scrambled away. Panting, she pressed a hand against the wall for support.

“I’ve got your back.” Rias raked her with his gaze. “Are you injured?”

“Not…severely,” she said numbly, staring at the decapitated practitioner. “How—why do you do that?” It came out more accusatory than she meant. Or maybe not. He had just saved her life—again—and she did not want to sound ungrateful, but, damn, it was chilling when the man on her side was more fearsome than those trying to murder her.

Rias turned her away from the decapitated practitioner and nodded toward the tiller room. “I’ve seen too many wizards I thought dead heal themselves and later come back after my men. As to how…” He ducked low to enter. “If you’re ever in the imperial capital’s war library, look up Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat. I wrote it for Lord General Micacrest during my final year of studies, and parts are now used by the military training academies. Not scintillating reading, I’ll admit, but it covers everything from breaking boards with a punch to—”

“Beheading people?” She trailed him inside, also ducking for the hatch.

“That’s not listed in the table of contents, but, essentially, yes.”

A pair of glowing orbs in sconces by the door illuminated the interior, though even without them Tikaya would have noticed the matching ragged holes adorning the exterior walls of the wedge-shaped compartment. A cannonball had gone straight through, leaving uneven gaps more than two feet in diameter. Wind shrieked, and water splattered the deck, pooling and running with the rocking of the ship.

“That doesn’t look good,” she muttered, before noticing a dead warrior on the deck, short sword still clutched in his grip.

“Actually…” Rias shut the door and peered out both gaps. He lingered on one side and kicked out a few broken boards to enlarge it. “It’s fortuitous since there aren’t portholes in here. There’s the other Nurian vessel on this flank, and I see the Fist’s smokestacks beyond it.”

He strode to one of the block and tackles stretched from either side of the long metal tiller. They allowed manual access, though control ropes disappeared through the ceiling to connect to the wheel on the upper deck.

Rias grabbed one of the ropes and readied his cutlass. “They’ll know right away they’ve lost wheel control, and half the crew will probably charge down here.”

“I see, and how will we stop them from killing us?”

“Let me know when you figure it out.” At odds with the seriousness of the situation, a mischievous glint warmed his eyes. “It’s going to take all my strength to man the tiller.”

He sliced through the control ropes even as she blurted, “You’re crazy!”

Rias unhooked the end of the rope on the starboard block and tackle, glanced at measurements on the wall above the tiller, and sank into a low stance to pull. Inch by inch the great lever shifted, and the ship leaned, cutting across the waves in a new direction.

Tikaya hunted for something to block the door that she would surely be defending in a moment. Alas, there was no convenient beam for barring it shut—probably so people could not do what they were attempting.

She pushed a trunk full of spare rope to the door. Forcing queasiness aside in favor of practicality, she muscled the dead Nurian’s body on top of it to add weight.

“Where exactly are you steering us?” she panted.

Rias was a statue, leaning back, arms extended, fingers wrapped around the rope, tendons taut with the strain, but he grinned at her nonetheless. “The closest Nurian ship.”

“Oh, dear.”

A fist hammered at the door.

“The Turgonians cut the ropes,” Tikaya yelled in Nurian. “We’re taking care of it. They ran to the hold!”

A long pause answered her, and, for a moment, she thought they might believe her. Then synchronized thuds struck the door.

“A nice try,” Rias said, and she wondered how much Nurian he understood.

The chest skidded with each strike. She shoved it back in between blows.

“Get a ram,” someone yelled.

“Better ready that bow,” Rias said.

“If we’re successful in crashing this ship, how are we getting out of here?” Tikaya asked.

Rias nodded toward the cannonball holes. “Hope you can swim.”

She groaned.

For a moment, the thumps at the door stopped. Tikaya abandoned the chest and looked out the hole. They had halved the distance between themselves and the other Nurian ship, where a fire burned on the deck. People were scurrying to put it out.

“Are they tacking?” Rias asked. “Do I need to make adjustments?”

“Not yet. You’re dead on, and they’re busy. Not sure they’ve figured things out yet.”

“Let’s hope.”

The hairs rose on the back of Tikaya’s neck. Before she could shout a warning, a wave of power surged at the door. The trunk and body were flung into the room.

While nocking an arrow, Tikaya tried to shut the door with her shoulder. Warped hinges kept it from closing fully, and someone thrust it wide.

She jumped around and fired the bow, point blank, into the lead man’s chest. Shocked eyes launched an accusation at her. She forced aside guilt and kicked him into others trying to surge forward. While they struggled to get around their dying comrade, she targeted a practitioner in the corridor behind them. Her arrow sailed over the heads of men shorter than she, but bounced harmlessly off an invisible shield. The practitioner never flinched.

The Nurians cleared the fallen man away, and their renewed push demanded Tikaya’s attention. The corridor and door were too narrow for more than one to attack at once, but the seconds it took to nock and aim arrows let them push her back.

“Rias! I can’t—”

Then he was there at her side, the slashing cutlass a wall of steel guarding the doorway. He had tied the rope to the other block and tackle. The lever wavered with the rocking of the ship, but hopefully they were close enough now that their course was inevitable.

“Get in there, you fools!” the practitioner shouted. “We’re on a crash course!”

An arrow clipped the doorjamb and whizzed past Tikaya’s head. Every time she found the opportunity, she shot around Rias, peppering their attackers. Her supply of arrows dwindled.

“This is madness,” she yelled over the clamor.

“Yes!” Rias grinned at her, as if he loved every second.

A gifted swordsman made it to the front. Blade a blur, he forced Rias back.

Metal screeched in Tikaya’s ears. She drew the bow, hoping for a clear shot. Two men slipped in behind the swordsman. Tikaya shot one, but more piled inside.

A thunderous crash buried the din, and the ship lurched and tilted on its side. Men scrambled and fell over each other, sliding toward the lower wall. Tikaya tumbled into Rias, but he grabbed the jamb and kept them from falling. Even in the stern of the ship, the cracks of wood breaking against wood were audible. Water gushed in from one of the cannonball holes, which was now submerged. Men flailed and floundered, struggling to get back to the door.

“I can’t swim!” someone yelled.

“Time to go,” Rias said.

Tikaya grabbed one of the glowing orbs from a sconce before he pushed her toward the upper wall. They had to pull their way along the block and tackle to reach the escape hole. Though the orb hampered her, she refused to release it.

Finally, with Rias’s help, she clawed her way through the hole. The ragged wood tore a new gash in her beleaguered dress, but she wriggled free and slid down the hull into frigid black water.

The icy shock stole her breath. Salt stung her wounds, and she almost dropped the orb.

Rias plunged in beside her, spraying water.

The Nurian striker had rammed into the side of its sister ship, and water gushed into a great hole in the hull. Fire still burned on the deck, lighting up the night. Timber, from splinters to broken beams, littered the water.

“This way.” Rias swam away from the ships, pushing the large pieces of wood out of the way.

“You sure you don’t want to stay?” She was already swimming, side-stroking with the orb clutched against her hip. “You seemed to enjoy having people trying to kill you.”

“You seemed to enjoy it less.”

“Probably—” she spit icy salt water out of her mouth, “—an acquired taste.”

They paddled away from the ships, rising and falling with the waves. Both vessels burned now and flames crawled up the sails of one. Neither would trouble the Turgonians again that night. As they swam out of the shadow of the Nurian vessels, the ironclad came into view. Only one of the two ships on its opposite flank remained, and both masts had been toppled, so it was falling behind. Tikaya and Rias, too, were falling behind. Her chest tightened at the idea of being left in the middle of the sea.

“Hope they see this.” Tikaya lifted the glowing orb overhead, waving it in the air.

“Me too,” Rias said.

The lookout in the crow’s nest shouted something down to the deck. Tikaya’s teeth chattered, and it felt as if hours, not minutes, passed before the warship dropped a boat.

“It’s fortunate you’re here,” Rias said, bumping her arm as they treaded water. “I doubt they would have bothered coming for me.”

“Not sure how fortunate I feel about going back to the Turgonians.” Tikaya swiped water out of her eyes and grimaced at the cold drops tunneling into her ears. “I guess it’s better being wanted than being wanted dead.”

“Prevailing opinions agree with that sentiment.”

Oars lifted and dipped as the craft neared. Lanterns at either end provided light, and Tikaya spotted Agarik leading the rowers. She smiled a bit, glad he had survived the chaos. He gazed at Rias with a wide-eyed, openmouthed stare of adulation and helped him out of the water first. She tried not to feel a twinge of envy. She had helped after all. At least Agarik managed to notice her second and gave her a hand into the boat. She collapsed on an empty bench between rows of burly, young oarsmen.

“Turn this dinghy around,” Agarik yelled, and the men set to work.

Tikaya wrapped her arms around herself. The breeze needled her soaking dress, cold water dripped from her hair, and she had lost her sandals in the fall so the puddles on the bottom chilled her feet.

Rias settled on a bench next to her, and she pressed closer than she normally would have. Shivers coursed through her body. He put his arm around her, though he must have been just as cold and miserable. Their proximity caused raised eyebrows and significant looks between the marines. Agarik’s jaw tensed.

“Here, sir.” A marine handed Rias a blanket.

The use of the honorific made Agarik give the man a sharp look, though Tikaya was not sure if it was quelling or curious. Rias draped the blanket over his and her shoulders.

On the short ride back, the marines peppered him with questions. How had he gotten out of his cell? How had he and Tikaya gotten aboard the Nurian craft? Had they seen the Nurians on board their ship? Did they know what they wanted? Apparently, the Turgonian chain of command meant nobody not commanding had a clue was happening.

Tikaya thought Rias might share the story, but, back in the presence of the marines, he grew reserved and quiet. Was this the real man or had she glimpsed that person on the Nurian ship? Or neither? She liked the amiable fellow she had chatted with while target shooting best, though she suspected she could grow accustomed to the soldier she had seen tonight too. Not that it mattered. Certainly, she appreciated his help, but it was not as if she was going to develop feelings for some ex-officer from the military that had tried to take over her islands.

Still, when their knuckles bumped beneath the blanket, she gripped his hand.

“Thank you,” she whispered, wanting to say more, but their hulking male onlookers stilled her tongue.

Rias smiled and squeezed her hand.

Back on the warship, Captain Bocrest waited, arms folded across his chest, a scowl accompanying his usual glare. Tikaya had not expected gratitude from the man, but the anger radiating from him surprised her.

As soon as Rias came over the railing behind her, that anger found an outlet.

“How could you make such an idiotic decision?” Bocrest snapped.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Tikaya said. “The Nurians teleported us to their ship. What was he supposed to do?”

The captain did not spare her a glance. His glare stayed pinned to Rias.

“What are you talking about, Bocrest?” Rias asked.

“You know what I’m talking about.” The captain jerked his hand at a squad of marines standing by with pistols. “Take him back to his cell.”

“Wait.” Rias lifted a hand. “Did you find the assassins?”

“The dead men in the brig? Yes.”

“No.” Rias gave Tikaya a concerned frown. “There are two others, at least, who can skulk about invisible.”

“They killed the man guarding my cabin,” she said.

“We’ll find them,” Bocrest said.

“I can help,” Rias said.

Bocrest scowled again. “You can go to your slagging cell and stay there this time.”

“Captain.” Rias stepped forward, staring down at Bocrest. “The Nurians want Tikaya dead and are making great sacrifices to ensure that happens.”

“I’m aware of that.” Bocrest did not back off, nor shrink away from Rias’s glare. “I have orders to keep her alive until she decodes the runes, and I’ll do that.”

“She’d be dead now if she hadn’t escaped on her own. You already botched your orders.”

Afraid he would land himself in irrevocable trouble for her sake, Tikaya grabbed Rias’s arm and tried to pull him away.

“I botched my orders?” Bocrest yelled, fists clenched. “If you hadn’t screwed up two years ago, you could—” He cut himself off with an audible snapping shut of his jaw, and Tikaya sensed the ‘idiotic decision’ he accused Rias of had less to do with this night and more to do with whatever had landed Rias on Krychek Island. Bocrest glared around at the watching marines. “You men have duties,” he roared. “Get this ship repaired. Now!”

Men sprinted from his wrath, leaving only Rias, Tikaya, Agarik, and the guards waiting to escort their prisoner below.

“Let me stay with her until the assassins are found,” Rias said, as if he had not heard the captain’s outburst. “Or stand guard outside her door. I’ve tangled with enough wizards to survive them.”

“You’re not her bodyguard, you’re our guide. I thought I explained that to you when you were taking swings at me.”

“A job for which you don’t need me until we arrive at the tunnels,” Rias said.

Tikaya’s ears perked. Tunnels? Was that where the rubbings had come from? She still needed Rias to explain his history with the runes.

“No,” Bocrest said. “You’re a prisoner. You don’t get your way.”

Tikaya still gripped Rias’s arm, and she could feel the tension in the knotted muscles beneath the damp sleeve. Though she hated seeing him angry, especially on her behalf, she had to wonder how much more might be revealed if she simply stood quiet and listened.

“Bocrest…” Rias tried again.

“Go. To. Your. Cell.” The captain jerked his arm to wave the guards forward.

Rias tensed and dropped into a fighting crouch. He had not noticed when she grabbed his arm, so Tikaya stepped in front of him and planted two hands on his chest.

“Don’t.” She gazed into his eyes and made herself smile, though, she would have preferred Rias stay by her side too. “I’ll be fine. You won’t accomplish anything by getting beaten up.”

He closed his eyes, seemed to struggle for his calm, and finally sighed, a deep long exhalation. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

Tikaya watched glumly as the guards surrounded him.

“This way, sir,” one said.

Bocrest’s head jerked up. “Don’t you ‘sir’ him. He’s Prisoner Five, and that’s it.”

The guard gulped. “Yes, captain.”

Head lowered, Rias offered no reaction to the terse conversation. Surrounded, he trooped belowdecks. Bocrest stalked in the opposite direction, grinding his teeth.

“Ready to go back to your cabin, ma’am?” Agarik asked.

She shook her head but followed him. “Who is he, Corporal?” She had asked the question before, and Agarik had not known, but that was the second time someone sir’d him that night. Maybe it was out of respect for what they had done aboard the Nurian ship, but somehow she doubted it. She wagered that shave and haircut had made him recognizable, at least to some.

“I wish I knew.” Agarik led her down a ship’s ladder. “It seems like he must be an officer at least, someone who fought during the war. But I fought as well, and I don’t remember hearing about anyone court-martialed and exiled to Krychek.” They threaded through the wardroom, where furniture had toppled and slid against the wall, and stopped at her cabin. “He hasn’t told you?”

“Just to call him Rias. Does that mean anything to you?”

The corporal’s expression grew thoughtful, but eventually he shook his head. “No.”

Tikaya stepped into her cabin. Thankfully, the bodies had been cleared, though a few bloodstains smudged the deck.

Before Agarik could close the door, she leaned back out, remembering something. “He did say…”

Agarik paused, eyes questioning.

“If I was ever at the war library in your capital I should look up a book called Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat, because he wrote it.”

Agarik froze. Utterly and completely. His mouth hung open, and he stared at her for a long moment before recovering. “I see. Thank you.”

“Wait.” Tikaya raised a hand as he started away. “You know, don’t you? Is he somebody I would have heard of?”

“I don’t—I can’t. I’m not sure. I—”

A lieutenant passed through the wardroom on the way to his cabin, and he frowned at Agarik.

“I have to go.” Agarik chopped a wave.

“Could you at least have someone bring me a towel?” Tikaya called to his receding back.

• • • • •

After dripping a puddle of water onto the cabin floor, Tikaya wondered if she should take off her dress and dry in the blanket on her bunk. What were the odds the Turgonians would supply her with a change of clothing at some point? She plucked at the damp dress. At least the sea had washed out most of the blood.

When she reached for the blanket, her gaze fell across the desk. It was empty.

The rubbings, her notes, and the reference books Bocrest had provided were missing. She searched the tiny cabin, thinking they might have been knocked off during the scramble, but no. They were gone.

A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the wet dress. The assassins must have returned and taken them.

Tikaya eyed the corners of the cabin, all too aware that they could be right in front of her and she would not know it.

She opened the door, wondering if a new guard had been posted or if she could leave and find the captain. Sergeant Ottotark leaned against the wall outside, and she did not manage to hide her groan.

Briefly, he met her eyes, offering a hostile glare, but his gaze inevitably drifted downward. She shifted to the side to stand in the shadow of the door.

“The rubbings are missing,” Tikaya said. “I think they stole them—the Nurians who attacked me in my cabin and killed the young man standing guard.”

Ottotark’s face frosted at the mention of the dead marine.

“Can you tell Bocrest?” she asked.

“The captain is busy directing repairs, cleanup, and funeral services, thanks to the flotilla of Nurian ships that showed up tonight looking for you.”

“While I’m sympathetic to your lost men—”

He snorted.

“—you people kidnapped me,” she continued. “I never wanted to be here, so don’t blame that attack on me. If you could just tell the captain I’m not able to continue my studies unless he finds—”

The sergeant stepped forward, shoving the door further open. “I’m not your messenger boy.”

She stumbled back, glancing around for something to use as a weapon if she needed to fend him off. The sparse cabin offered nothing.

“You’d do best to remember you’re a prisoner here. Prisoners have no right to the captain’s time, nor to an officer’s cabin with a busy sergeant as your guard, a busy sergeant who’s stuck on this duty because your presence here got one of his men killed.” His low voice was gravelly, and tendons strained against the skin of his thick neck. “You haven’t done anything useful since you got here.”

Tikaya wanted to defend herself—she had helped Rias crash the ship that had allowed the Turgonians to sail away, hadn’t she?—but Ottotark seemed to want her to argue, to incite his anger. He stepped closer, and she eased back until her calves bumped the bunk.

Rage boiled in the sergeant’s dark eyes, but lust too. He had not looked at her face since she first opened the door. “The captain ought to chain you to that bunk and let you be of some use to the crew.”

A throat cleared in the corridor.

The glare Ottotark snapped over his shoulder could have frozen lava, but Corporal Agarik merely lifted his arms, displaying boots, a parka, a stack of black uniforms, and a towel. Tikaya held her breath, aware the sergeant outranked Agarik, but hoping the corporal’s presence would keep Ottotark in line.

“The captain said to bring her these and relieve you as guard,” Agarik said.

Ottotark eyed the stack. “Now we’re pampering the bitch with extra clothes? Why don’t we invite her to dine in the officer’s mess next?”

“Gonna be cold up there, sergeant.” Agarik walked in, set the clothing on the bunk, and then stood outside the cabin, in full view of the door, which he left open.

Ottotark issued a low growl and a backward glance that promised “later” before striding out.

Even after the door banged shut, Tikaya could not relax. Her luck would not hold with that one. She would have to figure out how to abscond with a dagger from the exercise area and keep it on her at all times. And hope it was enough against the powerful marine. And that she could use it on him. But then that should not be a problem now. Her lip twisted bitterly. She had killed. When she thought of how easy it had been, how accurate she was with that cursed bow, she had to steady herself with a hand on the wall.

React later, Rias had said. Well, it was later.

Tikaya curled on her side on the bunk, her head in her hands, her eyes shut. Images of her deeds flashed in her mind, the terrified and pained faces of the people she shot. She let them flood over her again and again, feeling the need to punish herself. What would Parkonis think if he were alive? Would he be shocked—disgusted—that she could release an arrow into someone’s chest? He never would have killed a human being, probably not even in self-defense. He would have been horrified to see Rias beheading those practitioners.

She opened her eyes and stared at the polished wood floorboards. If she had been transported to that ship with Parkonis, she would have been dead in the first minute. She was no longer in his world, no longer in hers. She could adapt to this world—she had proved that to herself that night—but at what cost?

Tikaya wondered if she would ever see her family and her island again. More, she wondered if she would be someone her parents could still love if she did return.

CHAPTER 7

Ice stretched in all directions, an endless white blanket, unbroken save for a black trail of water stretching behind the ship. Tikaya gripped the frost-slick railing near the bow with gloved hands and peered over the fur trim of her parka, amazed by the heavy iron hull smashing through the inches-thick frozen crust. The pace was slow and the deck vibrated with the efforts of the engine, but their progress continued. Her people’s wooden vessels could never do this and she admitted reluctant admiration for the Turgonian engineers and metallurgists who could build such a craft without help from practitioners.

For the first time during the trip, land stretched along the horizon, white, flat, and stark. To the south, a range of jagged snow-smothered mountains stretched inland. A settlement hunkered a few miles ahead, low buildings and ice-locked docks just becoming visible. On the ship, marines were hauling food and supplies out of the hold, preparing for a land excursion.

“Good morning,” came a familiar voice from behind.

Tikaya whirled, smiling. “Rias.”

Thanks to the captain’s claim that his men were too busy with repairs to perform extra guard duty, she had not seen Rias for more than a week, not since the night of the attack. Her smile faded at the sight of shackles binding his wrists and guards trailing behind him. She clenched her jaw. How could Bocrest still treat Rias like a prisoner when he had risked his life—their lives—to save the warship?

He joined her at the railing. “I’ve missed you.”

That simple statement warmed her far more than the parka. The captain had allowed Rias a shave, at least, and she had a nice view of the smile softening his face.

“Me too. I mean you. Er, I’ve missed you too.” Tikaya stifled a groan, avoided his eyes, and reflected on the mortification her linguistics professors would feel at hearing her mangle language so. To cover her fumbling tongue, she nodded at the ice cracking beneath the bow. “That’s impressive.”

“Hm, the Emperor’s Fist has a strengthened hull, but that won’t be enough to get us all the way to shore. If you want to see impressive, you should see our dedicated ice-breaking ships. They have a double hull and a special steel alloy designed for peak performance at low temperatures. The bows are rounded instead of pointed, so the ship rides up over the ice, smashing it with its weight. And the engines! They…” He blushed. “Sorry, you probably don’t want all that information.”

Tikaya grinned. “I did ask.”

He smiled sadly. “No. No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I expressed interest in the subject.”

That seemed to mollify him. “I should have asked already: are the men treating you decently? Any sign of those assassins? Any nightmares after our adventure?”

“As well as can be expected for a loathed enemy of the empire, no assassination attempts, and nightmares…” Tikaya had slept poorly, reliving the killings on the Nurian ship, but she did not want to talk about it here, with guards looking on, so she pretended to misunderstand. “Why do you ask? Are women usually traumatized after an evening out with you?”

He blinked a few times. “No, but I don’t usually take women into battle on first dates.”

“Ah, I see. You save that until the relationship is more established.”

“Exactly.” He slid her a sidelong look, and she suspected he understood what she was not saying.

Tikaya propped her elbow on the railing and faced Rias squarely. Though she enjoyed chitchatting with him, she had been waiting all week to ask about the tunnels he mentioned to Bocrest. And how they tied in with the symbols.

“Will you tell me about these tunnels you’re supposed to guide us through?” she asked. “You’ve asked me to help Bocrest, but you haven’t explained what that will entail.”

His face grew somber as soon as she mentioned the tunnels. This time, though, he nodded instead of retreating into himself. “The place we’re going…the source of the runes… I’ve been there before. It was my first assignment as a raw sub-lieutenant, what we call a ‘testing mission.’”

“What’s being tested? You?”

“Yes. Every officer gets something early in his career, a deliberately challenging task that’s meant to show whether or not he has the courage, intelligence, and command ability to go on to become a leader of men. I imagine this was…more than my superiors had in mind. I was attached to an army unit for the month because of studies I’d done on excavation engineering. Forty of us walked into those tunnels. A week later, three of us crawled out—through a ventilation shaft high in the mountains, in the middle of a blizzard. We barely made it back to Fort Deadend, and the major I’d been assigned to wrote a heartfelt report that stated we should never send men into the tunnels again.”

“They were ancient ruins?” she asked. “With traps?”

“Ancient, perhaps. Not ruins.”

Rias’s shoulders hunched in an uncharacteristic slouch, his gaze toward the snapping ice. Tikaya thought of the man she followed through the Nurian ship, head up, alert, leading the way with confidence that should not have been there against such lopsided odds, and she regretted drawing him back to what was obviously a dark place for him. Still, she had to know.

“What happened inside?”

“The tunnels were in good condition. Too good. No dust, cobwebs, no signs of age other than damage from tectonic shifts. The men with me declared the place possessed by some powerful ancient magic. I thought…not. The ‘traps’ we kept stumbling into—I got the feeling they weren’t traps at all but simply the workings of a place we were too ignorant to understand. We were like clueless rats drowned in the city waterworks when the level rises.”

“But there was writing? These symbols?”

For the first time a spark of interest entered his eyes. “Not a lot, but things were labeled. If you could translate, perhaps that could keep us safe.”

Tikaya feared the smile she offered was bleak. The rubbings were gone, and she had made zero progress with the language.

“Well, not safe.” Rias’s shoulders slumped again, independent of her thoughts. “There were strange and deadly creatures roaming those tunnels too. Nothing we recognized, nothing the archaeologists with us knew from the fossil record.”

“You had archaeologists with you before?”

“A team of scientists, yes, and a linguist.”

“Did any of them make it out?” The bleakness infused her tone now.

“No, and they weren’t particularly helpful while they were alive.”

Great grandmother’s gray locks, what was she supposed to accomplish that a team of archaeologists had failed to do?

A worried expression creased Rias’s forehead. He seemed to realize he had blundered. “But you’re better than them.”

She snorted. “That’d be more reassuring if you’d ever actually seen me do anything and could qualify that statement.”

He bumped her shoulder and smiled. “I’ve seen enough.”

Tikaya blushed.

“You two relax.” Sergeant Ottotark glared at Tikaya and Rias as he stalked past carrying a massive bag labeled ‘tent: medium.’ “Enjoy the view. Have some rum. Those of us who aren’t prisoners will handle all the unloading and loading.”

“I hope he’s not coming with us,” Tikaya muttered after he moved out of earshot. Somehow, she did not think she would be that lucky.

“Despite his bite, I’m told he’s intensely loyal to the emperor and the captain,” Rias said.

“If he kept his bite out of my cabin, I wouldn’t care one way or another.”

Rias looked at her sharply. “What?”

“Nothing.” Tikaya lifted a hand, realizing she had insinuated more than Ottotark was guilty of at that point. “He’s just an ass. He hasn’t done anything yet.”

Rias’s gaze did not waver. “Yet?”

What did he expect her to say? “I’m trying to stay out of his path.”

“You shouldn’t have to. Not on a Turgonian warship.” Rias offered a jerky wave, hampered by the shackles. “I have to go.” He stalked away, his guards hustling to catch up.

“Rias?” she called after him.

He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

“Did you pass the test?”

His lips twisted into a sour expression. “They gave me a medal.”

He resumed his determined walk. Before she could consider his words or abrupt departure further, Agarik strode toward her, a full rucksack in his arms. He plunked it on the deck at her feet. He already wore a rucksack of his own with a rifle strapped to the back. His utility belt was loaded with a knife and pistol, ammo pouches, and powder tins.

“Are you ready to go, ma’am?”

“Go?” Tikaya glanced over the railing. The ship had ground to a halt against ice too thick to break, but marines still hustled about, piling gear next to a hoist. A gangly grinning private surged through a hatch leading—being led by—eight thickly furred gray and white dogs. “Now?”

“Yes, ma’am. You’re part of the scouting party. We’re expecting trouble, so you’re going in first with me and a dozen others under Lieutenant Commander Okars’s lead.”

“You’re expecting trouble?” Why would they include her if that was the case? Weren’t they supposed to be keeping her from being killed?

Agarik pointed at the distant buildings. “No smoke. Fire is crucial for warmth up here. No smoke means the town’s been deserted. Or worse. Might be the Nurians again, and if any are around, we’ll need a translator to interrogate them.”

Dread curled in the pit of her stomach. Not only did she not want to see any more Nurians, but she surely did not want to help with a brutal Turgonian interrogation.

“You’ve got to come at some point anyway, so the captain says now.” Agarik gave her an apologetic shrug. “We’ll protect you. We scouts are well trained.”

“No doubt. You found me and dragged me off my parents’ plantation without trouble.”

He winced.

“Sorry,” she said. Agarik was the closest thing she had to an ally amongst the marines, and if he had not found her, another would have, so she could hardly blame him.

He pointed to the rucksack. “Want to check that? I grabbed your clothes and some pencils and blank journals. Then there’s standard issue gear for this climate: medical kit, snow goggles, crampons, canteens, blanket, and a hygiene and shaving kit.”

“Shaving kit? As cold as it is up here, I’m not sure I want to remove any of the little body hair I have.”

He did not smile at the joke. Instead he watched her with curious intensity, as if willing her to understand something. Then she got it. Shaving kit. Razor.

Agarik’s gaze shifted toward Ottotark, who stood by the hoist, directing the lowering of a dog sled.

“I see,” Tikaya breathed. “You won’t get in trouble, will you?”

Agarik hesitated a second, then said, “Standard issue gear,” which she took to mean he probably would get in trouble for doing something as stupid as arming a prisoner, but it would likely be seen as negligence rather than treason. A lesser crime with a lesser punishment, she hoped.

“Thank you, Corporal.”

He saluted her, fist to chest. “Ma’am.”

“I think you can call me Tikaya at this point.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

• • • • •

Powdery snow skidded sideways as wind scoured the ice field. The icy crystals needled Tikaya’s neck as she crunched along behind the squad of marines. For the seventy-third time, she adjusted her wool scarf and cap, wondering why the secret to the gear’s effectiveness eluded her. A wan sun burned in the sky, but its arc remained low on the southern horizon, and it provided no warmth. At least the bulky goggles smashing her spectacles against the bridge of her nose warmed her cheeks somewhat, though the main purpose of the darkened lenses was to protect from the sunlight glinting off ice and snow.

Despite her discomfort, determination kept her feet moving as quickly as those of the scouts. Even before Rias’s story, she had daydreamed of translating the language and bringing awareness of it to the greater archaeological community. Now, she had a more compelling reason to learn as much about the runes as she could. Quickly. Since the Nurians had deprived her of the original clues, she would have to find new ones inland. It struck her as odd that she resented the assassins more for stealing the rubbings than for trying to kill her.

Tikaya peered over her shoulder. She still did not know if the Nurians had returned to their ships or had holed up on the Emperor’s Fist somewhere.

Agarik, bringing up the rear, asked, “Problem, ma’am?”

“Just wondering how far back Rias and the others will be.”

The ironclad, its black hull a dour blot against the stark white world, rose a couple miles behind, and she could no longer pick out the men and dog sled teams assembling in its shadow.

“An hour back or so for the main party. As for Five…” Agarik might know who Rias was now, but he was careful to use the number instead of a name. “I heard him and the captain arguing just before we left, and, uhm, Bocrest told him he could shove—er, he had to carry the blasting sticks, so he’ll be in the rear.”

Tikaya groaned, knowing that argument had been her fault. She should not have complained about Ottotark. “Blasting sticks? Are those practitioner-made or the unstable alchemical kind?”

“We don’t use anything magical.”

She groaned again. One thoughtless comment, and now Rias had to traverse the slick ice while carrying a heavy box of volatile explosives. While wearing shackles.

The image distracted her, and she crashed into the marine in front of her. An unstrung bow strapped to his rucksack clipped her jaw.

He glared over his shoulder but said nothing. At some signal or command she had missed, the queue of marines had halted. Two dogs the scouts had brought sniffed and romped, unconcerned by whatever caused the leaders to stop.

“Bones!” someone called.

Tikaya glanced at Agarik. Was that a name? Or a discovery?

Agarik said nothing. Every man in the squad stood still, apparently drilled to do so until a command came. Well, she was not a marine. She sidled out of line. Ten meters in front of the formation, two men stood around something pale half-covered in snow.

Would she get yelled at if she went up to investigate? Did she care?

Tikaya shrugged and walked to the front of the line. Men glanced at her as she passed, but no one stopped her.

She slowed as she approached, regretting her decision to leave the squad as soon as she identified the object on the ground.

It was a naked man. A dead naked man.

Snow mounded against one side of the body, and ice crystals gathered on limbs blackened by frostbite. He had died face down, an arm stretched out, fingers splayed.

“Nothing to translate here, woman.” Lieutenant Commander Okars, a stocky man with eyebrows thicker than the fur trimming his parka hood, leaned against his rifle. He removed a plug of tobacco from a pocket and gnawed off a corner with stained teeth before handing it to the other man. “What d’you think?”

The second marine looked so similar to the commander that Tikaya thought them twins for a moment. The name tabs on both their parkas read Okars, but this fellow wore lieutenant’s pins and had fewer lines on his face. He spat a brown stream into the snow by the body. “Looks like he was running from something.”

“I called you up here for a more professional assessment than that, Sawbones.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want me to inquire about his health and see what ails him? Perhaps if he’ll give me a list of his symptoms, hm.”

At that point, Tikaya realized ‘sawbones’ was slang for doctor. The connotations in that name disturbed her—she had never visited a healer who did not work as much with the power of his mind as with his hands—and she hoped she did not require this man’s services any time soon, especially if he kept serrated metal tools in his kit.

“Bones,” the commander snapped. Strange that he used the term instead of his brother’s name. Maybe the staid Turgonians had regulations against familial familiarity.

“What?” Bones asked. “He froze to death. What do you want me to do?”

“Figure out what drove him to run out here naked and suicidal.”

Bones levered the barrel of his rifle under the corpse and leaned onto the stock. Ice snapped, and the rigid body rolled over. Tikaya jumped, surprised at the irreverent treatment of the dead. That did not keep her from staring. The front half was no more illuminating than the back, but the face, eternally contorted in terror, made her shiver. The man had died afraid, very afraid.

Bones shook his head at the commander. “Nope, no clues.”

Okars ground his jaw. “Curse the Headquarters desk-rider who thought it’d be amusing to put my little brother on the same ship as me.”

“Exquisite torture, isn’t it?” Bones grinned.

Tikaya stared at the brothers. They were joking. A corpse lay before them, a corpse probably belonging to one of their own citizens, and they were joking. Uncharacteristically intense irritation stirred within her.

“Animals,” she blurted before she could still her tongue. “Where’s your respect for the dead?”

The commander’s bushy brows lowered, and a cold, almost predatory expression darkened his face.

Bones placed a hand on Okars’s sleeve. “You’d best get back to your place, ma’am. Stay out of the way and let us do our jobs.”

She nodded and backed away.

“Mouth shut, Tikaya,” she muttered. “Keep your mouth shut around these warmongering fools.”

Strange, she thought she had learned that lesson already.

CHAPTER 8

When Tikaya and the marines reached the shoreline, it differed little from the ice they had been marching across. The ground rose subtly, and she supposed a beach lay somewhere under all the snow. Two docks, embraced by ice, stretched away from a couple of wooden warehouses with drifts piled to the eaves along their northern walls. One of the dogs lifted a leg and yellowed a sign post promising the availability of alcohol at the Rat Wrangler.

The town itself, with a single snowy road running parallel to the waterfront, seemed more outpost than community. Unpainted wood dwellings hunkered against the elements. Three long rectangular buildings overlooked the town from the crown of a hill. No life stirred anywhere. A stiff northeasterly wind rattled shutters, and somewhere a door banged against a wall.

“Welcome to Wolfhump, ma’am,” Agarik said, speaking for the first time since the discovery of the body.

“That’s the name of the town?” Tikaya asked.

“It’s a trade outpost for the miners working the mountains. I don’t think there’s a lot to do up here except drink and watch the wildlife, uhm, frolic.”

At the head of the formation, Commander Okars made a few hand gestures, dividing men into parties for scouting. Marines checked rifles and a couple strung bows. Tikaya wondered if she might talk the commander into letting her borrow one. She thought of letting an arrow fly into Sergeant Ottotark’s chest and his scream of pain as he pitched backward, sprawling on the ice. Tikaya jerked with surprise, startled her mind had conjured the grizzly image. Too much time spent with these Turgonians.

“As far as you know Wolfhump should be occupied?” Tikaya asked.

“Of course, it should be occupied,” Agarik snapped. He twitched, seemingly as surprised by his tone as her. “Sorry, ma’am.”

A growl rumbled up ahead. One dog dove at the other dog’s neck. Fangs sank into flesh and the victim squealed, a heart-wrenching cry that halted conversations.

Tikaya gawked at the brutal attack. Marines jumped into the fray, grabbing the dogs by the ruffs of their necks and trying to pull them apart, but the attacking canine had gone berserk. Muscles surged, fangs flashed, and soon blood spattered the white snow.

“Get those dogs under control, private!”

“Trying, sir!”

“Idiots,” Agarik muttered and strode forward to help.

Tikaya stayed back. The exchange had a bizarreness to it that left her uneasy. She glanced toward the icy sea again, wishing Rias was there to consult. Her gut lurched. The ship was gone.

Nothing to worry about, she told herself. It had probably just retreated to open waters to keep from being ensconced when the ice reformed. But that meant the group had nowhere to retreat to if they ran into trouble they could not handle. She squinted, trying to spot the main party, but the sun shone brilliantly on the ice. Even through her goggles, she could not make them out yet.

“Don’t touch—”

“Get off me!”

She turned back in time to see two marines crash to the snow. They wrestled and thrashed, and men previously trying to keep the dogs apart now turned their attention to separating the human combatants.

“Satters, Choyka, stand down!” Okars raced toward them, his voice strained and angry. Where was the calm confidence one expected from a senior officer?

Tikaya pulled her goggles up as if a clearer view might enlighten, but the scene only stunned. The smaller dog lay still, its neck torn open, blood drenching the snow beneath it. The other raced across the ice field, yowling like a wolf. Three marines grappled on the ground, clawing and punching at each other. The commander tried to drag one of them away and took a fist to the jaw. He slipped and went down.

The sawbones stood back, a bewildered expression on his face. At least he was not brawling with anyone.

Tikaya jogged over to his side. “What’s going on? Have you ever seen anything like this?”

He worked over the wad of tobacco in his mouth. “Nope.”

“Could it be the Nurians again? Trying to keep us from resolving whatever is going on in those tunnels?”

He froze, mid-chew. “How do you know—how much do you know?”

“I know they tried to kill me so I couldn’t help your people translate that unknown language.”

“I suppose it’s possible the Nurians have done…something. I can’t think of anything natural that would explain this sudden aggressiveness.”

The scuffles were dying down. Men’s ragged breaths frosted the air. A couple marines still struggled against those restraining them, while others seemed embarrassed. Blood flowed from broken noses and split lips.

“Bones, come patch people up.” Commander Okars did not appear wounded, but his eyes had a wild cast to them. “And tell me what’s going on.”

“No idea.”

“No idea? Grandmother Hakstor was a better sawbones than you. For spit’s sake, get your ass over here and figure this mess out.”

Amusement flickered in Bones’s dark eyes, and he gave Tikaya an irreverent salute, saying, “Nice talking with you, ma’am,” before he trundled off.

She was not sure what to make of the man’s odd humor or this situation. The fact that she was dependent on the marines out here rankled. She gazed down the flat coastline toward the mountains, wondering how many hundreds of miles lay between her and a town where she could find passage out of the empire. A lot, she feared, and she knew nothing about surviving in this climate.

“Corporal Dansk,” Okars said. “Head back and warn the others. Corporal Agarik?”

Tikaya shook away her musings and turned her attention back to the marines.

“Yes, sir?”

“We’re heading in. Stay here and guard the woman.”

Irritation flattened Agarik’s lips, and for a moment Tikaya thought he would question the officer. He kept himself to a glum, “Yes, sir.”

One man trotted back the way they had come, while the others marched away in pairs, leaving Tikaya and Agarik alone with the dead dog.

“You want to go with them, don’t you?” She lifted her eyebrows at Agarik, whose gaze remained fastened on the backs of the men. “To explore?”

He huffed a sigh. “No.”

“You must not lie very often, because you’re not good at it.”

A slight smile quirked his lips.

Tikaya’s gaze returned to the buildings overlooking the town. A giant cannon and a flag pole flying Turgonian colors stood before one. Military structures, she guessed. If there were any clues to this mystery, she wagered they would be in an office up there. Exploring the town might be hazardous, but, then, standing out here where anyone with a bow or a rifle could target them felt hazardous too. And if this strange aggression affected the main party… She thought of Rias holding a box of blasting sticks and shuddered.

“Why don’t we ramble up that hill and see if we can figure out what’s going on?” Tikaya suggested.

“We’ve orders to stay here.”

“Actually, I believe your orders were to ‘guard the woman.’”

“’Stay here and guard the woman.’”

A breeze gusted down the coast, icy fingers poking through Tikaya’s scarf. “They don’t encourage initiative in Turgonia, do they?”

“Not in the marines, no.”

She curled her fingers in her gloves. Even if she did not want to explore, she would have appreciated getting inside out of the wind. “Suppose the woman runs off and you’re forced to chase after her in order to guard her?”

“With respect, ma’am, I could catch you before you ran five steps.”

“Rias would run off with me.” It was a stupid argument, and she knew it. She felt like a stubborn five-year-old trying to wrangle an extra hour of play before bedtime. Unfortunately, manipulating men to get her way was not her specialty. No doubt her teenage years should have involved less time studying ancient tablets and more time flirting with boys at the beach.

“I’d rather he run off with me,” Agarik said.

The comment surprised a laugh from her and reminded her flirting would probably not work on him anyway.

A gun fired in the town, stealing her mirth. Someone shouted. It sounded like Turgonian, one of the marines, but distance muddled the words. Agarik’s grip tightened on his rifle and he took a step before he stopped himself. A scream of pain echoed from the dwellings, and it made Tikaya shiver.

“Something creepy is happening here,” she said. “We should check the buildings on the hill. They’re military, aren’t they? That’d be the place to start looking for answers, you’d think.”

“Tikaya…”

“Why are you being so frustratingly obtuse about this?” she growled. “You’d think I was asking you to—” She noticed Agarik’s startled expression and caught herself.

“Something creepy is happening here,” Agarik said softly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I understand that you want to be the good soldier and follow orders, and I don’t want to get you in trouble. But…” Rias’s words flashed through her mind: to live when the rest of your team died would be an unacceptable disgrace to many. “Do you want to be the only one of your team left alive when the others catch up?”

His gaze jerked up, latched onto her. He closed his eyes for a long moment before sighing and asking, “When I get court-martialed and kicked out of the empire for following your suggestions, can I come live on your island?”

“Absolutely. Free lodging in my parents’ guest bungalow overlooking the sea. I’ll even introduce you to my cousin’s handsome friend who surfs nude every afternoon. He was in one of my linguistics classes; he has a gifted tongue.”

Agarik’s eyes widened, and he clapped her on the shoulder, leading the way toward the hill. “If you’d promised me all that the first time we met, we’d still be on your island.”

Tikaya peered down the main strip as they passed it, but she did not spot any marines. They must be exploring inside the buildings.

When she and Agarik rounded the back corner of a saloon, they jerked to a halt at the sight of skulls and bones half-buried in fresh snow. Human skulls and bones.

“Cursed ancestors,” Agarik grunted.

The snow had obscured footprints but did not quite hide the tooth marks scoring the broken bones, the marrow prodded out by tongues.

“How long has it been since your people had contact with this town?” Tikaya asked.

“How should I know?” Agarik barked.

She peered at him, at the irritable frown creasing his brows.

“Sorry.” He nudged a skull with the toe of his boot. Myriad fractures spun out from a ragged hole smashed into the back. No wolf had done that. “The fits of rage surprise you, don’t they? You think you’re fine, and then…”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s a concern, especially since the second group is bringing explosives.”

“I’ve never heard of a Nurian plot like this,” Agarik said.

She gazed thoughtfully at the mountains, the tundra, and the ice-coated sea. “Since I grew up around practitioners, I’m sensitive to when they’re performing their science. I haven’t felt any of the telltale signs of one at work.”

“So, this isn’t magic?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then what?”

She could only shrug.

Tikaya and Agarik did not speak as they climbed the hill. Several minutes had passed since the last yell, scream, or shot that would have indicated the scouting party was still around. It was as if they had simply disappeared.

They reached the first of the buildings perched on the crown. The back two, one-story wood structures with narrow windows, were probably barracks and offices. The closest, a taller building with corrugated metal walls, lacked windows, though massive sliding doors marked entrances. Tikaya and Agarik stopped there first, heading for the leeward side, which was free of drifts, though shoveled snow piled high near a walkway. It could not have been too long since the living occupied the outpost.

Ice shattered and metal groaned as Agarik shoved a door open a few feet. Weak sunlight probed the interior, revealing an empty building with an earthen floor splotched with dark stains. The smell of engine oil wafted out.

“All the caterpillars are gone,” Agarik said. “Guess we’re stuck with dog sleds.”

“Caterpillars?” she asked.

“Steam vehicles designed to handle the ice and snow.”

“Ah. How many are there supposed to be?”

“There’s room for five or six in there.”

They crunched across the crown of the hill, sinking calf-deep into snow. Wind gusted, blowing powder off the roofs.

A three-foot long icicle sheared off an overhang and plunged into the snow a foot from Agarik’s shoulder. Tikaya jumped to the side, tangling her feet, and toppled into the snow. Agarik raised his eyebrows, and she felt sheepish.

She clambered to her feet. It was chance that the deadly icicle had dropped then, nothing more. Regardless, Agarik took a couple steps to the side before continuing along his route.

Heavy shadows lay in the alleys between the buildings, and Tikaya glanced skyward in surprise. The sun had dropped well past its zenith.

“It’s already afternoon.” Feeling silly for blurting the obvious, she added, “I didn’t realize how short days are up here.”

“I was here once near the winter solstice. Day is about an hour then.”

By the entrance to the next building, shoveled snow piled nearly to the roof. They followed a wide walkway with a couple of inches of fresh powder blanketing it. Paw prints marred the surface. Large paw prints.

A gnawed skeleton, not quite hidden by the snow, sprawled a couple feet from the door. A hammer protruded from the skull, its head caught where it had smashed a hole through the bone. Shreds of a black uniform were tangled amongst the ribs.

“I hope our scouting doesn’t require us spending the night here,” Tikaya said. “I doubt this town gets any less disturbing after dark.”

Agarik nodded at the hammer. “Scavengers might have cleaned these corpses, but it looks like humans were responsible for the deaths.”

“Of course. Killing people is what you Turgonians are good at.” She regretted the words as soon as they came out.

Agarik slid a knife free of his belt and whirled, glowering at her. “We need answers, not sarcastic comments.”

Tikaya skittered back, hands raised. He turned the knife so the afternoon sun glinted against the frosty steel. His breath steamed the air before his intense dark eyes.

“Agarik?” She shifted her weight, thinking of the razor in her rucksack. It would take a lot of rummaging to find it. She should have done that as soon as the other marines let her out of sight. “Put the knife away, please.”

His cheek twitched and the blade trembled.

“Something here is affecting you, remember? They let it affect them…” Hands still raised, she nodded toward the bones. “And now they’re dead.”

Agarik forced his fingers open, and the knife tunneled into a snow drift. “Of course. I know.” Eyes closed, he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Do you think… Are we making a mistake being here? Will whatever happened to these people happen to us?” For the first time that Turgonian fearlessness faltered.

Tikaya decided she preferred the fearlessness. “You know as much as I do, probably more.” She picked up the knife and dusted it off. “Mind if I keep this for now?”

He flinched but nodded. “Go ahead. I have my rifle and pistol.” He waved at the town. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we can always leave if the situation escalates into something dangerous.”

She bit back a comment about the townspeople apparently not being able to leave to save their lives.

Agarik pushed open the door, and Tikaya peered around him. A single corridor stretched to the opposite end of the long building. The far door stood ajar, and daylight slashed inside. Shadows in the middle stirred. Two dark furry shapes turned their direction.

Wolves.

They did not exist back home, but she had seen pictures. Tall and winter lean, the creatures growled, lips rippling, saliva gleaming on fangs.

The pair charged. Agarik raised his rifle and shot one, the boom thunderous as it echoed in the hallway. The ball struck the lead wolf in the shoulder, and it yipped in pain, but it kept running. Agarik fired his pistol, striking the second canine in the eye. This one faltered and flopped over, but the other kept racing toward them.

Tikaya backed outside and Agarik, needing time to reload, almost fell out beside her.

“Stay back,” he barked.

She ignored him and lunged forward to slam the door shut. A heartbeat later, the wolf crashed against the wood. It shuddered but held.

Agarik already had his ammo pouches open. With admirable calm, he poured powder down the muzzle of the rifle, rammed a cloth-wrapped ball home, and slipped a percussion cap on the nipple. The wolf slammed against the door two more times, then claws scrabbled at wood. Tikaya gripped the knife and wished she had a bow. On a whim, she yanked the hammer out of the skull.

The clawing at the door stopped.

“I bet it’s going around,” she said.

“Stay back,” Agarik repeated. “Stand against the wall.”

Rifle loaded, he stepped away from the building, ready to fire in either direction. Tikaya put her back into the corner between the door and the pile of shoveled snow.

Even expecting the wolf, she was startled by how soon it ripped around a corner. Agarik did not flinch as it hurtled toward him. He lined up the shot and fired.

The ball struck the wolf in the chest, and it missed a step, but amazingly it did not stop. A craziness lit its yellow eyes as the beast launched itself at Agarik.

He had not had time to reload the pistol, so he could only swing the rifle like a club. The wolf twisted in the air, and Agarik merely clipped it. The beast’s fangs snapped inches from his neck. The snow hindered him, and he stumbled back against the wall.

Tikaya slashed at the wolf when it landed nearby, but it sprang again too quickly, and her blade sliced air. Agarik hammered it with the butt of the rifle, but the creature seemed not to feel pain. It readied itself to spring again.

Tikaya lifted the hammer, thinking she might get lucky if she threw it, but a new thought halted her. She turned her back to the fray and scrambled up the snow pile.

“Good idea,” Agarik called. “Stay up there until…” He grunted as he swung at the wolf again. “Until I finish this.”

Retreating was not Tikaya’s idea. She crawled through the snow near the edge of the roof until she could peer down upon the skirmish. The eaves sheltered Agarik, but the wolf, needing room to run and leap, kept moving in and out of the overhang’s shadow.

“Stay against the wall, and suck in your belly,” Tikaya called.

She leaned over and grabbed an icicle as thick as her upper arm. Even with the hammer it took several cracks to free it from the edge. The wolf leaped. She timed it, then released the ice spear.

Tikaya did not expect to hit the creature on the first try, but her aim proved true. The icicle bludgeoned the top of its gray-furred head.

Agarik sidestepped, and the wolf smashed against the wall and fell, unconscious. “Throw me the knife.”

She dropped it into the snow before climbing off the roof. Apparently taking no chances, Agarik sliced the beast’s throat.

“Ma’am?” He fished in his pouches to reload his weapons.

“Yes?”

“Marines are very fit. We do not have bellies.”

“My apologies.”

“Thank you for your help.” He lifted his fur cap and swiped away sweat as he looked back and forth from the roof to the wolf to her. “I wasn’t expecting you to, ah, to be able to…”

“You’re welcome.” Tikaya felt insulted that he was so shocked she had done something useful. She supposed she should appreciate his protectiveness, but she found herself missing Rias and the way he had assumed her competent enough to help. She snorted. Actually, he had assumed her a little too competent, but they had both survived, so she could not fault his decisions. “Are wolves always that difficult to kill?” was all she said.

“No.”

“I suspected not.”

“Let’s see what they were after.” Agarik led the way inside.

This time, no creatures attacked when they opened the door. The second wolf lay dead where Agarik had shot it. The drab green paint covering the wood walls and the gray tiles lining the floor could not camouflage the dark blood spatters staining the hallway.

They passed doors, some closed, some open to utilitarian offices. Each contained identical military-issue desks, chairs, and bookcases. Some offices appeared untouched, as if the men had simply stepped away to make a cup of tea. In others, toppled chairs and scattered papers suggested struggles had taken place.

Agarik stepped into a messy room to investigate, and Tikaya chose a tidy one across the hall. She peeked in cabinets and drawers, not sure what she sought. The cause of this madness, but what would that look like?

She paused before returning to the hallway. She tugged her glove off and ran a finger along a bookcase by the door.

“No dust,” she murmured.

That and the mostly cleared walkways outside implied things had been normal within the last week or two.

Tikaya returned to the hallway, passed an office where Agarik poked and clanked, and stopped before a closed door. Wood shavings dusting the floor drew her eye. Above them, claw marks ravaged the door and jamb.

Dread settled in the pit of Tikaya’s stomach. “Agarik? I think we want to check this one.”

Maybe it was cowardly, but she stepped aside when he walked out, gesturing for him to turn the knob. He took in the claw marks with a grim set to his jaw, then handed her the rifle.

“Uhm?” she asked, startled.

“Just in case,” Agarik said. “It’s loaded. Just point and pull the trigger if you have to.”

“I’ve never shot a—”

“If you can make a bull’s-eye with a bow and an icicle, you can shoot a firearm.” He withdrew his pistol, turned the knob, and pushed. The door bumped against something and only opened a couple inches. Pistol leading, he leaned against the door, shoving to open it further. Furniture inside scraped, and something tipped over with a crack. He peered inside. “Cursed ancestors.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Too gruesome for a woman. Wait here.”

He disappeared into the dim room, and she waffled, torn between wanting to know what was inside and not wanting to see it. Considering they had tramped past human skeletons and a frozen dead man together, she did not want to know what qualified as too gruesome.

A few bumps drew her curiosity, and she decided to force aside her squeamishness and go in. Before she could, Agarik opened the door again.

“Sorry, ma’am, but I need you to look at something.”

“It’s fine.”

Agarik lifted a hand first. “I want you to know… I know it won’t help anything and won’t make up for…” His gaze slipped off her eyes and settled on the wall past her shoulder. “I’m sorry I was the one to find you and let them know where to get you.” The words came out in a blurted jumble, as if he had been trying to work up the gumption to voice them for some time. “This isn’t your battle. It never was, and I hope…I hope you’re able to live through it and get home. Somehow.”

“Thank you, but don’t feel guilty on my behalf, please.” Tikaya rested the rifle butt on the floor and touched his arm. “If it hadn’t been you, I’m sure it would have been someone else. I knew when I helped my people decrypt those messages that there might be consequences someday. Nothing remotely like this entered my thoughts, but…” She steeled herself. “Show me your something.”

Agarik led her into an office with a broken barricade of chairs, bookcases, cabinets, and a desk cramping the area near the door. At first, she did not see the bodies, but they were there, in the middle, around an odd black object, that appeared half box, half table with an utterly foreign set of symbols glowing red in the air above it. A pipe rose from one side, and six slender legs attached the construct to the floor. The dead were strewn about it. Blood stained everything, even the ceiling. For the first time since they arrived, she was thankful for the freezing temperatures. In her climate, the decomposition, the smell, would have been overpowering.

Following Agarik, Tikaya shuffled through the clutter. He obviously wanted her to examine the box, but she could not get there without stepping over bodies. Cuts and punctures desecrated them, far more than would have been needed to kill. A dagger protruded from one man’s burst eyeball. The whole macabre scene seemed too messy for the neat and efficient marines.

“I didn’t touch it,” Agarik said as she came even with the object. “I don’t have any idea what it is.”

Symbols formed neat rows on one side of the black box, and giddiness replaced the nausea in her stomach. They were familiar in style, probably from the same language as the glyphs on the rubbings, but arranged individually instead of in groupings. Each symbol marked an indention. In the center of the box top, a red light smaller than her pinkie nail glowed, projecting a set of symbols above.

Tikaya eased around for a better look, but her boot bumped a wood stick. Not a stick, the shaft of a shovel. It and a pickaxe lay on the floor near smashed tiles. The subfloor was torn up, with exposed dirt beneath. With a jolt, she realized the contraption’s ‘legs’ stuck through the floor and into the earth.

“How the…”

“Looks like these men were trying to dig it out,” Agarik said. “Probably wanted to get rid of it.”

“Yes, but how would its legs have plunged through the floor and anchored down there to start with?”

His parka rustled as he removed his cap and rubbed a hand through his short hair. “I don’t know. Magic?”

Tikaya turned her attention to the symbols again. She poked one, indenting it; it glowed red and a larger version appeared in the air with a ball spinning around it. The originally displayed image disappeared in favor of the new one. “Er.” She had best be careful; this had probably all started with some idiot pressing buttons.

She glanced at Agarik, afraid he would chastise her for touching things, but he nodded encouragingly. Dear Akahe, he thought she could figure it out and fix things.

Underneath the box, she found a couple groupings of the more traditional symbols engraved in the cool black surface. She recognized a few from the rubbings. So, this might be writing. Directions? For operating the device?

In the air above, the symbol she had pressed faded and the original diagram returned. She poked the button again, then stabbed a couple others. They all appeared in the air. Something reminiscent of an equals sign formed between two while others dangled individually. Waiting. When she did not touch anything for a moment, the symbols faded, replaced again by the original.

“Numbers?” Tikaya wondered, though some two hundred symbols were there. She knew of one ancient language that had used a base forty math system instead of the nearly ubiquitous base ten most of the modern world preferred, but nobody had two hundred different numbers. “Numbers and mathematical symbols?”

“Eh?” Agarik asked.

“If that’s what these are, then maybe operating the device involves punching in different combinations to create… I don’t know. Equations for something?” Tikaya rubbed her jaw. “But how would that relate to whatever this device is doing to negatively affect the town? I don’t know. Maybe I’m all wrong here. What do you think?”

“Uhm.” Agarik’s eyes were so blank he appeared hypnotized.

“Agarik, I don’t mean to insult you, but can you see if Rias is here yet and bring him?”

Relief flashed across his face, but he hesitated. “I shouldn’t leave you alone.”

“I’ve got your rifle. I’ll be fine.”

“My orders are—”

“I know, Agarik, but I need to stay here, and figure this out, and if it’s math-related, Rias could help. Please find him.”

After another long hesitation, he sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”

Though she had told him to go, she felt uneasy once she was alone. At least her irritability had disappeared. Agarik’s had, too, she realized. Despite his lack of understanding, he had been calm and patient while she mulled over the strange artifact. Maybe the device was the thing responsible for people acting oddly, and maybe, in her random symbol touching, she had cut off whatever it was doing or emitting. She snorted self-deprecatingly. If it had been that simple the dead men on the floor would have figured it out before the end. Besides, thinking back, she had felt that return to normalcy before she started touching things, perhaps even out in the hallway.

She stretched and walked to the window, intending to open it and let some air in. Maybe she should have asked Agarik to drag the bodies out before leaving. Someone had nailed a couple boards across the window. So much for fresh air. Maybe she could still open it a bit.

A scream echoed from the building next door. Tikaya froze, her hand on the window lock. She drew back. Maybe she would leave it shut after all.

She dug a chalkboard out from behind a toppled filing cabinet. It was hard not to look at the bodies, but she could not remove the device to study elsewhere. The men had apparently tried to do that and failed.

Tikaya copied the writing from the bottom of the device and circled spots where the lone symbols on the side of the box appeared in the groupings. If they were numbers… No, she better not assume that yet. Just because something reminded her of an equals sign in her language did not mean anything.

Time bled past, the chalk clacking on the board the only sound in the building. Infrequently, gunshots in the distance interrupted. She found herself squinting at the chalkboard and realized twilight had come. The glowing symbols gave off some light, and she worried it would be visible through the windows.

A crunch sounded in the snow outside. She halted her work, chalk poised in the air. More crunches. Footsteps on her side of the building.

Tikaya eased past the bodies and grabbed Agarik’s rifle. She wished he had left powder and balls too. One shot was all she had if someone attacked her, one shot with a weapon she had never used before.

She cracked the door. Deep shadows lurked in the hall, and she barely made out the dead wolf. At one end, the door thumped and banged in the breeze.

Shots fired beyond that door, and she jumped. “Stop—what—” someone cried. Then screams of pain and aggressive yells followed. A lot of them. Her mind conjured the imagine of a wolf pack chasing after its wounded prey. Not Agarik, she prayed.

“Where’s the woman?” someone yelled.

Tikaya swallowed and closed the door. The voices still penetrated the walls.

“Find the woman!”

Someone cackled, and graphic descriptions of what could be done with ‘the woman’ followed.

Tikaya forced herself to return to the device. The same set of symbols glowed crimson in the air, taunting her.

There was an answer here; she just had to figure it out before time ran out.

CHAPTER 9

A boom rattled windows, shook the earth, and knocked Tikaya’s chalkboard on the floor. Rias’s group must have arrived, though she could not imagine him flinging blasting sticks wantonly.

Chalk still in hand, she ran to the window to peer between the sloppily nailed boards and through the frosted panes. Darkness had fallen, but flames burned in a building down the hill. Two figures with rifles ran through the light before turning down an alley.

She shivered, wishing for warmth in the office. The already frigid temperature had dropped noticeably after the sun had set.

Footsteps sounded at the end of the hallway.

Tikaya lunged for the rifle, but caught her heel on the downed chalkboard and skidded to her backside with a noisy thud. Great. If they hadn’t known where she was before, they knew now.

She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the rifle. She hopped over the bodies and slid into the shadows thickening the corner across from the door.

Finger on the trigger, butt pressed into her shoulder, cheek against the stock, Tikaya waited. In the stillness, she could feel her heart pounding in her ears. The footsteps thudded closer, the steady pace of someone jogging.

The door bumped against the furniture barricade, eliciting a surprised grunt that sounded familiar.

“Rias?” Tikaya hazarded before she could think better. What if he was as crazy as everyone else out there seemed to be?

“Tikaya!”

Rias burst into the room, bringing lantern light with him. He did not seem to notice the artifact or bodies; he searched until he spotted her in the corner, started forward, but stopped, gaze dropping to her weapon. He was missing his cap, his hair stuck up in places, and blood trickled from a gash on his temple. A cutlass was strapped across his back, two bulges in his parka suggested pistols, and he carried a rifle as well as the lantern.

“Are you…you?” Tikaya asked.

“I’m not murdering people and trying to kick the ore out of everyone’s cart if that’s what you’re asking. Just a little—” Rias cocked his head, almost like a dog listening. “Actually, it’s strange but I feel normal in here.”

Tikaya lowered her rifle. “Yes, I think the device creates some kind of normalcy field around it, probably so the operator isn’t affected by whatever it’s emitting that’s causing everyone to be on edge.”

“On edge, that’s an understatement.”

Rias closed the door and hopped over the upturned furniture. Tikaya joined him in the middle, intending to show him the device, but he dropped his rifle on a desk and wrapped her in a hug. Surprised, she found herself crushed against his chest. There was a desperate fierceness to the grip, but she managed to get one arm around to his back to return the embrace.

“I’m relieved you’re not hurt or…” Emotion thickened his voice.

“I’m guessing you’ve had a worse afternoon than me,” she said, relaxing against him. The fear that had tensed her shoulders since Agarik left disappeared, and she felt warm for the first time in hours.

Rias released her and stepped back. “Sorry, I just… I wasn’t sure if you…” He cleared his throat. “It’s dangerous out there. Half the people are mildly affected by whatever’s in the air, and the other half are crazier than the bloodthirsty maniacs I left on Krychek.” His gaze skimmed the bodies in the room, and he frowned thoughtfully as he took in the furniture barricade and the half-boarded windows.

“I’m glad you were able to get to me,” Tikaya said. “I need your help. Maybe Agarik can stand guard while—wait, where is Agarik?”

“I don’t know.”

“I asked him to go find you.”

Rias spread his arms, palms up. “I haven’t seen him. When I realized what was going on, I worried that one of these lunatics would shoot you, so I escaped at the first opportunity. I’ve been hunting around, dodging packs of the more aggressive people, and just now found you.”

Despite the situation, she smiled. Escaped at the first opportunity. By what creative means had he eluded his shackles this time? She almost felt sorry for Captain Bocrest.

“I hope he’ll be able to stay safe.” Tikaya tapped the box and nodded at the collection of symbols hovering in the air. “I need your help. I think this device is responsible for what’s happening out there.”

Rias walked around it, shaking his head and massaging the back of his neck before he even saw the side with the runes and indentations.

“If you press those, the representations appear in the air.” She demonstrated as she explained.

“Oh, Tikaya,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong person. We Turgonians may be good engineers, but students go to different nations if they want to seriously study alchemy.”

Her breath caught. “Alchemy?”

He stabbed one of the indentions and a symbol flared to life. “That’s iron, isn’t it?” Another stab. “And copper.” He shrugged apologetically. “I only remember the ones that we use in alloys. Since the Turgonians deny magic exists, we won’t publish anything in our textbooks that was only discovered through the use of magic. Aren’t your people the ones who first talked about atoms and electrons and such? We don’t have a microscope that can see anything that fine. We’ve only got fifty things on our table of elements.”

Scarcely breathing, Tikaya dropped an incredulous stare to the symbols. Was he right? Were they looking at the alchemical table of elements? If so, then this could be her Tekdar Tablet. She had to be sure before she based translations on it. “There are almost two hundred symbols. Are you certain? Our table has seventy-five, I think, and it’s the most complete of any in the world.”

“But your people are still finding new ones, right?” Rias ticked his fingernail on the top of the device. “You’ll believe me when you see the tunnels, but for now just trust me when I say these people were more advanced than us.”

“More advanced?”

He had hinted of that in his tale of the tunnels, but she had not truly thought it possible. Though, advanced technology might explain how this device had dug its legs into the earth, piercing tile, wood, and permafrost to do so. She clasped her hand over her mouth and stared at the runes. There was no existing evidence that a people more advanced than modern man had ever lived. This was rewrite-the-history-books kind of stuff. Incredible. If it was true.

“I just want to be certain. I don’t see what you’re seeing to make these identifications. Nor does the layout of the symbols look like the table I’m familiar with, but I’ve only had a cursory introduction to alchemy. It wasn’t anything I thought I’d come across studying ancient languages.” She realized she was making excuses and decided to still her lips before it grew more obvious. Rias had thought so highly of her intelligence; she hated to give him reason to think less of her.

“I’ve spent my life looking for patterns and trying to find the predictable in situations others see as unpredictable. If this odd skill can be of use to you now, I’m delighted.” Rias slid next to her in front of the interface and poked one of the simplest runes and brought it to life before their eyes. “The atomic structure is incorporated into the symbol itself.”

“Oh!” As soon as he said it, she saw it. “Hydrogen.” She slapped herself on the forehead. “I thought these might be numbers. It never occurred to me that an ancient people might have this kind of scientific knowledge, with specialized symbols for…”

Rias tapped hydrogen again and another rune. The symbols appeared in the air. “How do you—” he started, but bonds formed on their own.

“Water.” Tikaya grinned. The symbols were not nearly as simple as the diagrams her people used to represent the various elements—indeed, these reminded her of the bizarre perception puzzles a professor had distributed during a lesson on optics—but if one knew what to look for, the structures were there.

The water molecule flashed twice, then disappeared to be replaced by the far more complex image she had been seeing all afternoon.

“I guess that isn’t the answer.” Rias gave her a sad smile. “I’m afraid that’s about the extent of my knowledge in this area. I haven’t an idea what that could be.” He swiped his finger through the dozens of linked symbols hovering in the air. The image did not waver. “Something we haven’t invented yet, probably. I can look through the shelves in the offices. It’s a long shot, but there might be a book that has our mediocre table of elements in it. Maybe that’ll help you with translating. Sorry I don’t have the answer.”

“Sorry!” Tikaya grabbed his arms. “You have no idea how much this helps. I mean, this could be the key to translating this whole language. You’re amazing!” She kissed him on the cheek, then danced back to her chalkboards. Now that he had pointed out the structures so cunningly crafted into the symbols, she could pick out ten or twelve she remembered from school. That was enough to get her started. Although…

“Actually, yes, I could use a book with your table in it.” She turned back and was about to ask him to look, but he was staring at her, his fingers touching the cheek she had kissed.

“Yes, of course.” He lowered his hand.

She bit her lip, tickled at his reaction. “Do you not get praised often?”

“It’s been a while,” he admitted. “And before Krychek, uhm, more often by men than women.”

“Not even your wife?”

He snorted. “Especially not by her.”

They shared a chuckle, and she admitted herself curious about the woman, though it should not matter. Rias’s past relationships were none of her business, and they had more important things to worry about. Besides, he had left her anyway. Tikaya blinked. Or had he? Maybe she was something, like his land and his name, that the empire had taken from him as punishment. Still, he did not sound disappointed.

“Horrible woman?” she asked, fishing.

“No, but we weren’t a good match from the start. It never would have lasted as long as it did if I hadn’t been away at sea so much of the time. She had my home, my money, and the freedom to spend time wherever—” he winced, “—with whomever, she pleased.”

Tikaya grimaced in sympathy. Like her, Parkonis had not been perfect, but he had always been faithful. “How’d you end up together to start with?”

“I was twenty, she was pretty, and our parents thought it would be a good idea.” Rias laughed ruefully. “But mostly I was twenty and she was pretty.” He waved away further discussion. “I’ll get that book.”

“Be careful.”

He waved an acknowledgment on his way out, and Tikaya shifted uneasily, as worried for him as for herself. Agarik had walked out, and she had not seen him since. Rias was only going to search this building, she told herself, and settled into work.

A few moments later, Tikaya had three chalkboards lined up, all full. She listed the translations for the atoms she recognized. Also, she listed runes she remembered from the rubbings, those displaying what she now recognized as molecular structures. The elements came up surprisingly often in what she had assumed was normal writing. Perhaps the subject was always science. Or maybe these people—this race?—had a language specifically for scientific matters. The Herdoctans had a different written language for religion, so why not?

A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped, dropping her chalk.

“Sorry.” Rias held a book with his finger marking a page.

“No, don’t apologize. My fault for not paying attention.” Tikaya picked up the chalk and accepted the book. She glanced at the cover. “Torture and Interrogation Methods Technical Manual?”

Rias cleared his throat. “Yes, ah, just stick to the chapter on chemical applications.”

“Oh, I will. I don’t want to chance upon any Turgonian brutality secrets.” Or pictures more gruesome than the bodies on the floor.

He surveyed the chalkboards with bemusement and scraped at dried blood on the corner of one. “You know, some women wouldn’t be willing to work in a room full of corpses.”

She had already started writing and almost missed the comment. “What?”

Rias chuckled. “Nothing. Continue your work. I’ll stand guard.”

• • • • •

Tikaya straightened, wincing at the ache in her lower back. She stretched her arms toward the ceiling and shook out a cramp in her hand. Midnight had to be near, maybe past. Her stomach growled. Fatigue numbed her brain, and her mouth battled unsuccessfully against yawns. Even if the lighting had been better, her notes and the symbols on the device would have blurred and swam before her bleary eyes.

Rias stood guard by the door, checking the hallway from time to time, but mostly staying silent and letting her work.

A scream raced down the street below the hill. What if she translated the writing too late? After the entire team killed each other? She eyed the bodies in the corner. Rias had dragged them out of the way, muttering something about funeral pyres in the morning, but she worried about getting to morning. If enough people attacked at once, she and Rias could end up like that before dawn.

No, she decided, watching him standing with his ear cocked. Despite the hour, he was alert, rifle across his arms, hand on the stock, finger near the trigger. Not tense but relaxed and ready. She imagined he could fight off superior odds for a long time, but he would not want to do so. He’d be shooting his own people, the very men they were supposed to help later on.

Rias saw her watching him and lifted his eyebrows.

Tikaya felt silly to have been caught gazing at him. “I was wondering if you could get my mind off this for a moment.”

Rias joined her. He set the rifle butt on the floor and rested his forearms across the muzzle. He surveyed her, and she felt a self-conscious twinge. No doubt she had strands of hair sticking out in all directions and dark smudges assailing her eyes. And her baggy Turgonian uniform and parka did not flatter her form under any circumstances.

“A question.” Rias’s gaze rested on a chalkboard, though he did not seem to focus on anything. “If someone from Kyatt were to decide to marry a Turgonian, would they be allowed to live on your island?”

Tikaya was not sure what she had expected him to ask, but that was not it. “That wasn’t a marriage proposal, was it?”

He coughed. “No, no, just hypothetical. If it were a proposal…” He offered his half smile. “There’d be soft music, excellent food, romantic ambiance…” He tilted his head toward the corner. “Fewer corpses.”

“Ah, I wasn’t sure how they did it in the empire. Given your people’s reputation, I thought bloodshed and mangled bodies might be standard at social gatherings.”

“Bloodshed perhaps.”

Rias watched her, waiting for an answer to his question, she realized.

“The Kyatt Islands are major trade ports and learning centers, and we have numerous foreigners living there, either temporarily or permanently,” Tikaya said. “I can think of numerous Turgonians who studied at the Polytechnic over the years. And there have been cases of foreigners marrying natives and staying on the islands.”

“Turgonian foreigners?”

“Well, you would have been more welcome before your people tried to take over the islands.” She smiled, but no humor lightened his expression. “The president might ask you to leave if he found out you were among those sinking our ships and slinging cannon balls at our harbor, but if you said you didn’t take part in the war, I’m sure you’d be allowed to stay.”

“So.” Rias laid the rifle across his shoulders and draped his forearms over the ends, reminiscent of a man in a pillory. “Refuge, if one was willing to lie for the rest of one’s life.”

“Or just dodge questions about one’s name and one’s past. You’re good at that.”

She had not meant the statement to sound accusatory, but he flinched.

“Listen,” Tikaya said, “I don’t mean to insult you, but whatever you did, or whoever you are to those marines, you’re probably less important than you think to the rest of the world. Chances are my people have never heard of you.”

“Oh?” Leave it to the Turgonians: he looked faintly offended.

“You could tell me your name—” Tikaya wriggled her eyebrows suggestively, “—and then I could let you know whether or not you’d be welcome on my island.”

She thought he might remind her that his original question had been hypothetical and that he was not asking about his own future, just some imaginary person’s. He did not. He took a deep breath. “You’re right. I don’t know if we’re going to survive the next couple weeks and, even if we do, I’m guessing Bocrest has orders to make me disappear afterward, but either way it’s not honorable of me to keep truths from you. I—”

Glass shattered.

Tikaya whirled, grabbing the heavy book as if she could use it as a shield. A shadow moved at the window. Something long and small slid between the boards and rolled onto the floor. Flame spit and hissed on the end of a string. Not a string, a fuse.

Rias yanked her off her feet. The furniture blurred past as Rias leaped over it, arm clenched around her waist. He landed in the dark hallway, and shadows swallowed them.

He sprinted but only made it three steps before the explosion tore away the darkness. A great boom roared, and a concussion pounded Tikaya’s back, ripping her away from Rias.

The wall filled her vision. She tried to bring her arms up to protect her head, but she crashed first. Something popped in her shoulder and agony seared her body. The book dropped from her hands. She landed on the floor, which sent a second jolt of pain rocking through her. She gasped, trying to stifle cries, not sure who might be nearby.

A door at the end of the hall opened, and lights swam in the darkness. Tears blurred Tikaya’s vision. She gritted her teeth and blinked them away. Half a dozen men raced into the hall, lanterns swinging, swords and pistols waving.

The door at the opposite end flung open. They were surrounded.

Tikaya staggered to her feet. Her shoulder flamed with pain. She gasped and braced herself against the wall. Next to her, a shot cracked with a flash of orange flaring from Rias’s rifle.

“There she is!” someone shouted, voice ragged and rough, almost inhuman. “Give us the woman!”

“This way,” Rias whispered.

She grabbed the book and ran into a room after him. A return shot echoed through the hall behind them.

“Don’t shoot us, you idgeets!” came a cry from the opposite end.

Rias shut the door. A hint of starlight came through the window, but darkness reigned inside.

“They sound drunk,” Tikaya said, words broken as she gritted her teeth through the pain.

“Where are you hurt?” Rias snapped the lock, and furniture scraped as he shoved something in front of the door.

An image of the dead men in the other office invaded Tikaya’s mind. They had been trapped in a room, and this was exactly what they had done. It had not worked.

“Dislocated shoulder,” she said.

“Let me see—feel—it.”

“Don’t worry…about me. I’ll—”

But he was already sliding her parka off. She clenched her teeth, trying not to whimper.

Footsteps thundered down the hall, and light slipped under the crack in the door.

“Which room?” someone barked.

Rias unbuttoned her uniform jacket and probed her shoulder. “Bite down,” he whispered, putting something wooden in her mouth. Knife handle, she guessed. It was smooth and hard. He gripped her arm and shoulder, then jerked with one powerful motion.

Agony erupted. Tikaya clenched her teeth on the handle, panting to keep from crying out. Blackness encroached on her vision, and her legs gave way. Rias caught her and held her gently.

“You hear something?” someone asked.

“That room.”

“No, that one!”

“It’s whichever one’s locked, you halfwits.”

“Sorry,” Rias whispered, cupping the back of her head. He leaned his forehead against hers, and even in the darkness she sensed his distress over hurting her.

“Not your fault,” she said.

Someone rattled the doorknob.

Tikaya found the strength to stand again. Already the pain was fading to a manageable ache.

“I’m ready,” she whispered.

“Strong lady.” Rias squeezed her good arm before pressing a pistol into her hand. “Back corner. Find something to crouch behind, but stay where you can aim at the door. If they get past me, shoot them. Here, take this too.” He loaded her up with the second pistol, a powder flask, and an ammo pouch.

“Shoot to kill?”

He hesitated. “Do what you have to do to stay alive.”

She nodded, then, realizing he would not see it, added, “I understand.”

Someone pounded on their door. “They’re in here!”

Tikaya set the book on a chair and slid behind a cabinet where she could see the window and the entrance. She gripped the pistol. At least the wall had been considerate enough to mangle her left shoulder instead of her right. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, the blasting stick will have destroyed the device, and everyone will return to normal any second.”

“Maybe.” Rias’s tone made the possibility sound unlikely, and Tikaya wondered if he had seen explosives used on the strange technology before.

More pounding—louder pounding—hammered the wood, and something snapped. A crack of light appeared, but the desk kept the door from opening wide. Rias waited in the wall’s shadows.

She glanced toward the window, wondering if they could escape that way. Lantern light danced past—men were out there, too, perhaps counting rooms to figure out which office she and Rias occupied.

The door opened wider, and the slash of light broadened, illuminating the corner of the desk and a coatrack.

A rifle barrel slid through the gap.

Tikaya tensed, expecting Rias to shoot first. Despite the chill, sweat dampened her hands.

The rifle slid in farther, and Rias burst into motion. He grabbed the barrel, yanked it into the room, and slashed upward with his cutlass. The attacker yelped in surprise and pain, releasing the weapon. Rias planted a foot, thrust the other man back, and slammed the door shut.

“One man disarmed, seven to go.” He shoved the desk against the frame again.

Muffled voices came through the door—the sound of people plotting. The next attack would not be so easy to thwart.

“There are men milling around outside too,” Tikaya said.

“You think I don’t know that?” Rias snapped.

She stared at him, startled. He had never so much as looked crossly at her. Then she remembered: “I guess the protection from whatever the artifact is putting out was limited to that room.”

After a silent beat, Rias said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s like before; something’s making it hard to keep my equanimity.”

“Your breakdown is a lot less disturbing than that of most of your countrymen.”

He grunted.

“I feel it too,” Tikaya said. “It’s nothing you can see, nothing you smell or feel. Maybe I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Like a, well, like a philologist. But maybe I don’t need to translate the writing on the bottom in order to cut the device off. If we can guess what its purpose is, maybe we can switch it to another purpose, something less troublesome. It has all those options you can put in—doesn’t that imply you ought to be able to get more than one thing out?”

“What could it be putting out that would affect us mentally? It’s nothing we’ve seen or heard or smelled.”

“An odorless gas?” Tikaya guessed.

“Ah, being disseminated through that pipe, perhaps?”

“It’d have to be something invisible but heavy enough to float down and blanket the town. Something designed to irritate people, to outright anger them, even make—”

A shot fired.

Tikaya jerked her head up in time to see Rias slam the door shut again. The scent of black powder tainted the air.

“Only two in the hallway now,” Rias said. “They’ve either lost interest or they’re going to try another way in.”

“We have to get back to the device,” Tikaya said. “If we punch in another gas, maybe it’ll change the output. Something innocuous that won’t hurt anyone.”

Thumps continued at the door, probably more for the purpose of distracting Tikaya and Rias than getting in. The lanterns previously visible through the window had disappeared, which made her think the marines had stopped planning and were now engaged in that plan. She shifted her stance, readying herself to fire toward the window if necessary. The last thing she wanted was to dodge another blasting stick.

“Innocuous gases,” Rias said. “Oxygen? Hydrogen?”

“We tried those, albeit on accident. And you pressed in water, which should be deliverable as a vapor. Except the device didn’t like any of those.” Tikaya groaned. “Maybe my guess is completely wrong.”

“Or maybe the machine is only designed to create synthetic or organic compounds,” Rias said. “Though I don’t know any molecular structures that might qualify. Do you?”

“No, but maybe there’s something in your book.” She tapped it with the pistol butt.

“There aren’t many innocuous somethings in that book.”

“I know it’s a long shot, but—wait, no. When your people captured me, they knocked me out with something sweet-smelling in a rag. When I breathed in, I passed out. Do you know what that was? Would it be in there?”

Rias shifted away from the door. “Chloroform. Yes.”

The thuds stopped.

“Let’s try it.” Tikaya had a feeling it would be better to find a light and check the book in a different room. “Can we get down the hall?”

Rias cracked the door. A rifle fired, and the ball smashed into the frame, hurling wood splinters. He closed the door.

“Not at this time.”

Tikaya snorted. She pressed her nose to the icy glass window panes. At the edge of her view, shadows and lanterns moved.

“Not this way either,” she said. “Unless we can—oh!”

“What?”

“Maybe nothing, but Agarik and I had to shove our way into the room with the artifact. The window was boarded, the door barricaded, so whoever killed all those men must have come in through—”

“Attic,” Rias said. “There must be space to move around up there. Watch the door.” He hopped onto the desk and thumped the ceiling. Wood scraped against wood. “Here.”

Outside, the lanterns headed toward their window.

“I need help up.” Annoyed to be a burden, Tikaya stuffed the pistol in her pants and joined him, book clutched against her chest. “I don’t think I can lift my arm over—”

Still standing on the desk, Rias caught her by the waist and lifted her over his head as if she weighed nothing. Blackness waited above, though an icy draft touched her cheek. That meant a way out. She hoped.

“Hurry,” Rias said, giving her a final boost.

Tikaya scrambled into the dark attic. Even with his help, she came down on her shoulder and had to stifle a curse. When she tried to stand, she bumped her head on a beam.

Below, glass shattered.

“Rias?” She started to lean over to check on him.

He jumped through and a thud sounded—his head hitting the ceiling—but he did not pause to acknowledge it.

“Go, go!” he barked, pushing her ahead of him.

Half running, half bear-crawling, Tikaya maneuvered past beams and supports.

Light flashed and an explosion rippled through the floorboards beneath her. The force sent her crashing into Rias, and they went down in a tumble.

“Ooph,” he grunted, voice sounding odd.

Then her mind caught up to the situation. Rias had been behind her, not in front of her.

Tikaya tried to jump back, but the man grabbed her. She dropped the book. His grip kept her from reaching for the pistol. He unshuttered a lantern, illuminating beams, trusses, and his snarling face. One of the marines.

“Got her!” he yelled.

Rias charged past Tikaya and tackled the man. The lantern flew free. In a lucky lunge, she caught it before it hit the floor and went out. Though her shoulder protested, she held it with her left hand and yanked the pistol free with her right.

Rias needed no help though. He knelt over the marine, arms locked around his neck. The man’s face turned purple, and he passed out.

A shadow moved behind Rias.

Tikaya reacted. She fired the pistol without thinking, and the ball hammered into someone’s chest. Rias spun to look.

Only after the man collapsed did her brain scream that these people were her captors and aiming to kill one might get her into a mess of trouble.

“It’s Lieutenant Commander Okars.” Rias checked the officer’s pulse. “It was Lieutenant Commander Okars.”

“Oh, no,” Tikaya breathed.

Rias picked up a knife. “Yes, but he was going for my back, so I must thank you for my life.”

Tikaya closed her eyes for a moment. “Let’s just get that horrible device cut off.”

By the lantern’s light, they found the source of the draft. The first explosion had left a ragged hole in the ceiling of the room with the artifact.

“Walk softly,” Rias said as they neared it. “The structural integrity has doubtlessly been compromised.”

“Thank you for that brilliant engineering assessment. Maybe when I fall through the floor, I can take out my other shoulder.” Her grumbling made her wince and long for the sphere of protection around the artifact. It would be easier to problem solve if she did not feel so cranky. She hoped. It could be worse; she could have become an unthinking aggressive lout who thought it was a good idea to throw blasting sticks at innocent—

Her boot went through the floor, and she pitched sideways. When her body struck, the footing deteriorating further. Rias grabbed her and tried to pull her free, but the floor had enough of them: it dropped away completely.

She smashed to the level below and landed on something cloth covered. Not cloth, she realized as she looked under her. Clothing. Clothing on dead bodies.

She lurched away, igniting pain in her shoulder. Rigid fingers tangled in her braid, and she pulled, trying to free herself without using her injured arm or touching the corpse again. A disheartened cry escaped her lips when the dead man’s hand lifted with her, fingers fully snagged in her hair. Tormenting ancestors, this was too morbid, and too damned much. Why couldn’t the idiotic Turgonians run a decent Polytechnic so they’d have their own philologists to kidnap for secret missions?

“Sorry,” Rias murmured, crouching beside her. “As soon as we get this taken care of, we’ll find the sawbones to check your shoulder.”

“The problem is less the shoulder—though that is irritating me every three or four seconds too—and more the bodies. And the being attacked. And the part where I’m shooting people to death, and—” She brought her fist to her mouth and squinted her eyes shut, struggling to keep from breaking into sobs. Slow breaths, she told herself. This was not the time for wheezing and gasping and flirting with an emotional breakdown. React later. “I’m all right. I’m just… I’m better in a classroom, I swear.”

Rias wrapped his arm around her back, and she leaned on him.

“I suppose you’ll think I’m odd—odder—if I admit this is the most exciting my days have been in ages,” he said.

She rubbed her eyes. “I’ll forgive you for being a crazy odd Turgonian who probably has had a horrible life for the last couple of years, if you’ll kindly disentangle that dead man’s fingers from my hair.”

“Oh.” Rias released her to undertake the task, then stood. “We’re back in the artifact room, but they’ll figure it out soon. That new window doesn’t hide much.”

The blasting stick had blackened the floor, turned furniture to shrapnel, and torn holes not only in the ceiling and a side wall but in the building’s exterior as well. In the center of the room, the device remained, unharmed, symbols still glowing.

Tikaya picked up the book, set her jaw, and strode over to it. There was not much time. Shouts on the other side of the building promised the men were still looking for her.

She flipped through the chapter on chemicals. “There.”

“Find something?” Rias stood nearby, weapons loaded and ready.

Reluctant to speak too soon, Tikaya pressed the appropriate runes. The regular image blanked out to be replaced by the new symbols. They hovered until she finished. Then, by some alien consciousness, the artifact understood what she wanted, and it arranged them in a way eerily similar to the layout in the book. Even though it was what she hoped for, it sent a shiver down her spine.

A soft click sounded in the core of the device.

Tikaya arched her eyebrows at Rias who gave her an encouraging hand gesture. She gripped the edge of the device and waited. Nobody stirred nearby. She tried to decide if the distant shouts were diminishing. Minutes passed, and a deathly quiet fell over the town.

Rias walked to the door. He cocked his head, listening.

“What is it?” she asked.

Rias lifted a finger, cracked the door, and peered into the hallway. He leaned back in with a smile, and Tikaya heard the noise now too.

“Snoring?” she asked.

“The two men out there are sleeping, and the air has that sweet smell of chloroform.”

Tikaya exhaled slowly. “Good. That should mean we’re safe from being shot or knife-stabbed for the moment. Of course, now we have a lesser problem.”

“How to wake everyone up, leave town, or even leave this room without succumbing to unconsciousness ourselves?”

“That’s the one.”

She dropped to her back on the floor to gaze up at the writing beneath the machine. Before, she had been trying to translate it. Now, she just thought about cutting the artifact off. Only one of the groupings did not have alchemical elements in it. The first one. Nothing so obvious as a switch stood out anywhere on the machine, so she poked and prodded that grouping. They sat flush and she did not expect them to move, so she nearly cracked her head on the bottom of the box when they did. By pushing and twisting, she could rotate them.

“What’d you do?” Rias asked. “The symbols are flashing.”

She could rotate them further, but she paused and peered up at him. “You sure you want those people awake again?”

He smiled gently. “I’ll possibly regret it later, but yes. We’ll need help to tackle the tunnels.”

“Or you and I could devise some kind of masks, gather as many supplies as we need, take a couple of those dog sleds down the coast until we reach a port, and then sail somewhere far away, leaving the empire to deal with its own problems.”

Rias sighed and gazed into the night. “I cannot.”

“Even though these people left you to die? Even though they probably got themselves into this situation?”

“Even though,” he said. “But…” He took a breath and, with palpable reluctance, said, “If you want to go, I’ll keep them busy long enough for you to do so. It’s about three hundred miles south to Tangukmoo. If you grabbed a dog team and supplies, I’m sure you could make it in a couple of weeks. It’s technically an imperial town, but it’s eighty percent natives, and I suspect they’d hide you just to irk us. After the thaw, trade vessels come in to barter for whale oil and bone. With your skills, I’m sure you could bargain for passage and find a way home.”

“Sounds like a lonely journey without any company,” Tikaya said.

“Probably.”

“Last week, you told me your people really needed my help. What’s changed?”

He looked back and forth from her to the dead bodies. “This is only the beginning, Tikaya. It’s going to get worse. I suspect this is also the only opportunity you’ll have to leave.”

That Rias offered meant a lot, but the journey he described would not be a speedy one. It was likely Bocrest would make it back to civilization first and send the order to have her family assassinated long before she reached home.

She rotated the grouping of runes as far as they would go. The crimson symbols in the air winked out. “When I’m complaining later about how horrible it is out here with your marines, remind me I had my chance and was an idiot who gave it up.”

The glum expression on his face waned, and one side of his mouth curved up. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in a hug, mindful of her injured shoulder. His stubbled jaw brushed her cheek, and a pleasant shiver ran through her.

“Only if you remind me I was an idiot first,” he murmured.

“Deal.” Tikaya wondered if that talk of marriage had been inspired only by the moment, by the uncertainty that they would live to see dawn, or if it meant something more. She lifted her good hand to brush strands of hair away from the cut on his temple.

Rias drew back slightly, eyes flickering, watching her face. Soft breaths frosted the air between them, and some distant part of her mind announced that this was a ridiculous place and situation for a first kiss, but what if they didn’t survive the coming weeks? What if there were no other opportunities to be alone together? What if…

Rias bent his head and kissed her gently, warm lips as welcome as the sun in this frozen wasteland. Forgetting about her injury, she started to wrap her arms around him, to pull him closer. Pain blasted her shoulder, and she gasped at the cruel reminder.

Rias drew back, wincing, eyes guilty. “Sorry, my fault. I’ll go find the sawbones.”

“No, it’s all right. I was just…”

But he had already grabbed his rifle. He hopped through the broken wall with a quick wave before disappearing into the snow.

Tikaya wrapped her arms around herself. She already missed his warmth. And his last words sent a thrum of worry through her. The man who would come to deliver her medical attention was the brother of the man she had just killed.

CHAPTER 10

Something bumped Tikaya’s foot, jerking her awake. She sat up and cracked her head on the bottom of the device. Her shoulder offered its own jab of pain as her journal and pencil clattered to the floor.

Bocrest and Bones loomed over her. The captain’s presence surprised her. Surely the ship’s commander usually stayed with his vessel, but then this was no ordinary inland excursion.

Thuds from the ceiling announced someone walking around in the crawl space. Probably retrieving bodies.

Beleaguered red eyes haunted the sawbones’s stubbled face, and an invisible weight slumped his shoulders. He must already know his brother was dead, but he could not know she had fired the fatal shot. She hoped. He carried a black leather bag, and she swallowed, wondering if he truly kept a saw in there.

“Get up, librarian.” Bocrest eyed the device. “Bones has a lot of men to tend.”

After the battering she had taken, Tikaya expected more pains as she crawled to her feet, but she had not slept long enough for her body to stiffen. Only the shoulder throbbed. Darkness still smothered the snow outside. Given the icy temperature and the hard tile floor, she was surprised she had slept at all. She had painstakingly copied the two hundred alchemical elements into the journal and had been sketching the runes on the bottom of the device when she nodded off.

“Did Agarik make it?” Tikaya asked.

Bocrest prowled around the device, started to touch an indentation, but decided against it. “He got jumped by—it doesn’t matter who by now—but he was cut up pretty bad and left to bleed in the snow. Bones stitched him up earlier.”

Relief and regret mingled in her mind. If she had not asked Agarik to fetch Rias, he might not have been hurt at all. Would he resent her for it?

“Where’s Rias?” she asked.

Bocrest scowled. “Prisoner Five is making some concoction in the vehicle house. Said we’ll need it in the tunnels. After that, he’ll be shackled again.”

“Let’s see your shoulder,” Bones told Tikaya.

She eased her parka off under the cool gazes of the two officers. She was surely too old to want someone to hold her hand while a doctor worked on her, but she wished Rias had come back. Strange that he had disappeared so abruptly. Had he felt guilty about more than her shoulder?

Bones huffed and tossed her parka aside. Apparently impatient with her undressing speed, he unfastened the buttons of the black uniform jacket for her. Uneasy, she wondered how much disrobing she would have to endure for this medical treatment. Fortunately, Bones left her undershirt on. Icy but professional hands probed her shoulder. She tried not to wince.

Bocrest nodded at the device. “You figure out what this stuff says?”

“Some of it,” Tikaya said. “I can only guess at the writing on the bottom, but the context gives me clues. If I get more samples, also in context, I’ll be able to make some good guesses.”

Bocrest’s grunt did not sound impressed. Curse him, she and Rias had saved the marines—again. Why couldn’t the captain acknowledge her usefulness?

Footsteps sounded above, and shards of wood rained from the biggest hole in the roof. Sergeant Ottotark slithered over the edge and dropped down behind Bones.

Tikaya groaned, but he did not look at her.

“Sorry, Bones. Your brother and Private Choyka are dead.” Ottotark gripped the man’s shoulder.

Bones’s jaw clenched, but he did not otherwise react.

“I’ll get a team to lower them down for the funeral pyre.” Ottotark nodded to the captain and left.

Tikaya relaxed a smidgeon. Bones made a sling from a large square of cloth and secured her arm.

“You’ll be fine in a few days,” he said. “Sir, I’ll attend the others if you don’t need anything else here. I’d prefer to keep busy.”

“Yes, go,” Bocrest said.

Bones left, head down, shoulders slumped further.

“What’s the purpose of this device?” Bocrest asked.

Tikaya rubbed her shoulder. “My best guess? Scientific experiments. They probably wanted to observe the somatic and neurological effects certain gases had on their specimens outside of a controlled environment.”

“What kind of specimens?” Bocrest asked.

“Look in a mirror.”

“Turgonians?”

Tikaya hesitated, almost tempted to play upon his paranoia. She had not yet figured out how she could ensure her family’s safety while escaping with her life, but she would probably have more opportunities later if she convinced Bocrest her words were trustworthy now.

“Humans, animals.” A cold gust blew snow through the broken wall, and Tikaya grabbed her parka. “I suppose Turgonian enemies could have brought it here and turned it on.” She thought of the Nurian captain’s orders; the Nurians were smart enough to not want anything to do with the artifacts. “Or your own people might have done it out of stupidity.”

Bocrest’s gaze grew frosty.

“Stupidity isn’t a trait unique to Turgonians,” Tikaya said by way of apology.

“Apparently not.” Bocrest continued to glare. “Prisoner Five says Lieutenant Commander Okars attacked him, and he was forced to kill my officer in self-defense.”

Unease trickled down her spine. Uh oh. Why had Rias said anything? Maybe the marines never would have thought to look for bodies in the attic, and, even if they did, in the craziness anyone could have fired at anyone. Rias could have feigned ignorance and no one would have known. But, no, he had felt guilty—or honor-bound—to explain the dead officer. She could not fault him for being an honest man, but his loyalty to these marines, to the empire, might prove disastrous for her. Or maybe not. He had covered for her, though she was not sure whether to be relieved or not. Surely his position here was as precarious as hers.

“I know who he is,” Bocrest said, “who he was, and now that he’s…himself again, I doubt he’d intentionally kill an imperial marine, nor do I believe he’s inept enough to accidentally dispatch someone in self-defense.”

“We were all under the influence of that device,” Tikaya said. “Rias—”

Bocrest drew his arm back, and she turned her cheek, expecting a blow. He curled his fingers into a fist, but jerked it to his side. A vein at his temple pulsed. “I don’t know what he’s told you, but you will not refer to him as anything other than Prisoner Five. He lost his right to a name, and I don’t want my men conflicted on who to follow out here.”

“What did he do?” Tikaya whispered. And who is he, she almost added. But for the ill timing of that blasting stick, she might know by now. Someone who was Bocrest’s equal, or maybe even a superior? Was Rias old enough to be an admiral?

Bocrest stepped back, and his eyes widened. “You don’t know?”

She shook her head.

“Cruel ancestors, what a waste. He gave up everything, and your people don’t even know.”

“What?” She reached for his arm. “Please, tell me.”

Bocrest scoffed and turned away. He grabbed the rifle and knife, making sure not to leave her any weapons. “Self-absorbed scientists,” he muttered on his way out.

Tikaya dropped her arm. She thought back to the first conversation she had with Rias, when he asked if her president was still alive. Was that what Bocrest referred to? Had Rias done something for her people during the war, something that had turned the Turgonians against him? If that was the case, why hadn’t he told her right away? If he had done a good deed for Kyatt, he might be allowed to come live on her island, and maybe he’d be someone her family could like, and…

She groaned and rubbed her face. When had he stopped being the enemy soldier and turned into someone she wanted to bring home to meet her parents?

• • • • •

Weariness plagued Tikaya’s limbs as she marched after the squad of marines, her arm in the sling, her crampons replaced with snowshoes. The new footwear was almost as awkward to walk in as swim fins, and she struggled to keep up—and upright. There had been no rest after the funeral pyre. They traveled east, in the shadows of jagged white mountains that dominated the southern horizon. To the north, the flat icy tundra stretched until it blended into the pale blue sky.

Forty men remained, with fifteen dead back in Wolfhump, and many carried double loads. Dogs, too, had been lost and the teams pulling the sleds slouched along, as tired as she. A sergeant marched alongside the squad, singing a cadence that condoned plundering farm goods and stealing daughters from conquered nations. Or maybe it was stealing farm goods and plundering daughters. Tikaya tried to ignore the words, though she found her steps matching the encouraging refrains of left, right, left.

For the fortieth or fiftieth time, she glanced behind. Wrists shackled again, Rias walked with a small team tasked with carrying the boxes of blasting sticks. A precautionary couple dozen meter gap lay between them and the main group, though, oddly, the captain walked at his side. She did not know what they spoke of, though his presence served as a deterrent to keep her from strolling back to walk with Rias. She had not seen Agarik since the day before, but his injuries must not be too severe, for he was ahead with the scouting team. Separate from the marines, separate from her two allies, she felt the loneliness and oppressive cold of the tundra. She was tempted to go back to walk with Rias even if it meant enduring the captain’s sarcasm.

A dead arctic jaeger alongside the trail diverted her thoughts. The large bird’s white-tipped wings were broken, its head smashed in, but no predators had sampled its flesh. Had it simply fallen from the sky? Two sets of snowshoe prints around it meant the scouts had stopped to look.

Long years had passed since her biology classes, so she left it without further examination, but she turned her attention to her surroundings as she continued on. Over the next few miles, she spotted other downed birds, all undisturbed by predators. An uneasy feeling shrouded her, and she wondered what would await them at the fort. More dead men? Another device?

“Prisoner Five, come back here!” Bocrest shouted.

Rias had set down his box of blasting sticks, and he churned across the tundra. Bocrest plowed after him, rifle in hand.

“Sir?” one of the marines in front of Tikaya called. “Do you need help?”

Bocrest waved, and the back two men stamped out of formation, flinging snow as they raced into the drifts with high-kneed steps. Tikaya veered after them, afraid they would think Rias was trying to escape and take violent measures—as if Rias would be dumb enough to run away with everyone watching. Unfortunately, her slog through the unbroken snow was less effective than theirs. Even with the snowshoes, she sank deep with each step, and she tripped twice before reaching the gathering.

Rias stopped, knelt, and picked up something. Bocrest and the others scrambled over, and Tikaya floundered up in time to hear the red-faced, scowling Bocrest speak.

“What are you doing, Five? Are you trying to get yourself shot? Prisoners don’t get to take unannounced side trips.”

Rias lifted his goggles to peer at his find.

“What is it?” Tikaya asked.

She attempted to slip past the other marines to join him, but one of them took a step at the same time and landed on the edge of her snowshoe. She sprawled, face heading toward the powder. Rias lunged, caught her, and even managed to keep from jarring her shoulder.

“Slagging librarians,” Bocrest grumbled.

Face red from more than the cold, Tikaya got her snowshoes beneath her. “Thank you. It seems I’m always tumbling into your arms.” She sighed, appreciative but a little envious too. Neither shackles nor snowshoes made him ungainly.

“I don’t mind,” Rias said. “Makes me feel useful.”

Bocrest snorted. “Any excuse to grab a tit.”

The two marines sniggered, and Tikaya stepped out of Rias’s arms, her cheeks warm. Rias merely shook his head at Bocrest, like a father disappointed in a wayward child.

Bocrest scowled. “What did you find, Five?”

Rias held an empty, one-inch cube of glass, or what appeared to be glass, on the palm of his gloved hand. One corner was broken, though the evenness of the cut suggested the hole planned rather than accidental. He flexed his fingers upon the cube. Though the thin sides appeared fragile, they did not bend or crack under pressure.

“It glinted in the sun and caught my eye,” Rias said.

“It looks like someone’s trash,” Bocrest said.

A dark shape loped across the tundra, and the two marines lifted rifles. A black wolf, so gaunt its ribs showed even at a distance. After her encounter with the berserk animals in town, Tikaya hoped the men shot it quickly, before it could attack.

“Hold,” Bocrest said. “Why’s it so scrawny when there are dead birds everywhere?”

She glanced at him, surprised by the perspicacious comment. He was right, though. It was odd. And this wolf, unlike the ones in town, gave no indication of aggressive behavior. Indeed, it did not seem concerned about the humans at all.

“It is the end of winter, sir,” a marine said. “Maybe it was a rough one for the animals.”

“That wouldn’t explain why it’s not eating those free meals,” Bocrest said.

The wolf loped parallel to the squad, then paused at the corpse of a jaeger. It sniffed and pawed at the bird, and Tikaya expect it to take a chomp. Instead it lifted its muzzle and howled. The oscillating mournful sound made her shiver. Another wolf answered from the foothills, its howl just as forlorn.

“He seems to find the fowl unpalatable,” Rias mused.

He turned his attention back to the cube, lifting it so the sun shone through the glass. Tikaya sucked in a startled breath. A familiar symbol etched one side.

She took it from Rias. “I recognize that. “It’s one of the symbols repeated often in the rubbings the captain gave me.” She nodded toward Bocrest. “Know anything?”

“Shit,” he said.

“Very elucidating, thank you,” Tikaya said.

“Where’d those runes come from, Bocrest?” Rias asked in a tone of command.

“That’s top secret.”

“If you want Tikaya to translate this for you, she needs to know everything about the symbols.”

Bocrest ground his jaw. Tikaya had made that argument before, and the captain had ignored it, but he waved the marines to go back to the squad. When he, Rias, and Tikaya were alone, he spoke.

“Last month, a black box covered with those runes was delivered to the research department of the biggest university in the capital. No name, no identification. They should have buried it somewhere and forgotten about it, but scientists being scientists…they fiddled with it, let out some kind of airborne poison. It killed everybody on campus. It was late in the evening, so not as bad as it could have been, but hundreds still died.”

Tikaya dropped the cube and stepped back. In her haste, she almost tripped over her snowshoes again. Rias’s lips flattened, and he rubbed the fingers of his glove together, as if he could wipe off any taint from the cube.

“It’s not the same thing, though,” Bocrest said. “The bodies on campus were horribly mutilated, and these birds barely look dead. Maybe our people at the fort are fine.”

“Those are carrion birds,” Rias said.

Tikaya swallowed with grim understanding. “Not as bright as the wolves then, eh?”

“It seems not.”

“What are you talking about?” Bocrest asked.

“We’re just guessing at this point,” Rias said, “but it’s possible our people are dead by the means you’re familiar with, and the poison was toxic enough that even the carrion beasts that tried to feed off them died.”

Bocrest scowled at the dead bird. “Oh.”

“Will it still be toxic if we get close?” Tikaya asked. “That cube wasn’t covered by snow, so this couldn’t have happened that many days ago.”

“I don’t know,” Rias said. “It depends on whether we’re looking at an area denial weapon or something short-lived, designed simply to kill.” He faced Bocrest. “The scouting party. How far ahead are they?”

Bocrest’s face froze, and a long moment passed before he said, “They’ll be there by now.”

Tikaya’s gut twisted. Agarik. She had not even had a chance to apologize to him. She prayed it wasn’t too late.

CHAPTER 11

The walled army fort squatted in the foothills, small and insignificant compared to the towering white mountains plunging it into shadow. Tikaya stamped her feet to keep warm and wondered if she was crazy for wanting to travel the last half mile to the gate. No soldiers manned the massive guns perched atop the ramparts, nor did any smoke waft from the chimneys inside. Rias’s guess that everyone was dead seemed likely, but perhaps whatever weapon had done it waited within those walls. And such a weapon might be inscribed with language clues like those on the Wolfhump artifact. Now that she had made a little progress, the prospect of more tantalized her.

Rias meandered across the foothills, pausing to pick up something here and there. More of those cubes, she feared, not sure whether they were safe to touch or not. He carried a small notepad and scribbled something in it whenever he found one. He still wore his shackles, and two guards trailed dutifully behind him. Did Bocrest not know they were superfluous at this point? Rias had shown no interest in escaping since he learned what was at stake.

She hoped that loyalty to the empire would not result in his death. Or hers. She would much prefer to see him strolling on one of her island’s beaches, picking up agates and sand dollars instead of vials that might have housed lethal poison. And in this vision, she saw him with less clothing on. She grinned. Or none. She thought of the scar that bisected his eyebrow and wondered what other battle wounds stamped his olive skin. He had filled out since she first saw him in rags in his cell, and she imagined broad shoulders and powerful muscles beneath that parka.

A guilty pang ended her thoughts. She believed Parkonis would have wanted her to go on and find love again—though not with a Turgonian, no matter how academically inclined—so it was not that. It was that she had never daydreamed about him with his shirt off. Parkonis had been boyishly cute with freckles and a mop of red-blond curls, but not the type to inspire women’s fantasies. Of course, she was hardly the type to inspire men’s fantasies. She hated to dwell on it, but feared she would not be able to compete with others if she and Rias survived to return to a world where she was no longer the only woman for hundreds of miles.

Snow crunched behind her.

A pair of privates approached, and she braced herself for insults or crude comments. Acne scarred one’s face, and neither appeared older than twenty, though like most of the men here they were taller than she and no doubt dangerous.

“Ma’am, we’re, ah…” The speaker glanced at his comrade, who gave an encouraging nod. “We’re having rations.”

Er, what did that have to do with her? “Yes?”

Behind them, marines sat in groups of four or five and shared lunch while the officers conferred in a cluster. More than one man snoozed against his rucksack, oblivious to the frosty environs.

“You could join our mess if you wanted.” The speaker nodded to a knot of young men busy chatting, laughing, and stuffing crackers into their mouths. One waved. “We’ve got extra tooth dullers and—”

“Tooth, what?” Tikaya asked.

“Tooth dullers. You know, hardtack. It’s right awful stuff, but Private Ankars has some taffy his mum gave him—his mum always posts him the best sweets—and anyway if you wanted you could come share with us.”

“Oh, I…” After so much hostility from the marines, this kindness stunned her. The privates must know some of what had happened with the device, that she and Rias had been the ones to render it innocuous. “Thank you. It’s considerate of you to invite me.”

Rias strode their direction, brow wrinkled. The privates blanched when they spotted him.

“You’re welcome any time, ma’am.” The speaker waved to Tikaya, and he and his comrade scurried away.

“They bothering you?” Rias asked.

“No. They invited me to lunch.”

“Ah?” His brow smoothed and a smile plucked at his lips. “That’s an improvement.”

“Yes.” She nodded toward the pockets of men. “It’s amazing they can sleep and laugh in the face of death and inexplicable alien horrors.” As soon as she said it, she blushed. What about her? Fantasizing about Rias on a beach a few minutes earlier?

“That’s a trait shared by soldiers everywhere. The officers handle the worrying.” The grimness returned to his expression, and he held out his hand. A glass cube identical to the first rested on the palm. “I’ve found several now. The radial pattern and the distance from Fort Deadend implies…” He sighed. “I better see what’s inside before jumping to conclusions.”

“Are we going in?”

“Yes, good news there. The scouts are alive. The lookout has a spyglass and spotted them moving around inside.”

Tikaya exhaled with relief. “Good.”

Rias nodded. “Though you might want to wait until later for lunch.”

“Why? Are there better rations inside?” Even as she finished the question, the meaning of his comment washed over her. They anticipated more dead bodies, right. She waved a glove to let him know she understood.

“Fort Deadend isn’t known for its cuisine, no, but if I can escape Bocrest’s guards, maybe we can share a meal?” He arched his eyebrows.

And another, less abbreviated, kiss? She smiled at the thought but couldn’t resist the urge to tease him. “I don’t know… Those privates over there have taffy. Can you top that?”

“Ah, perhaps not.” His expression grew wistful. “I fear I am a man with few resources these days.”

She patted his arm. “You’ll have to regale me with stories then. Such as why this place is called Fort Deadend. Are there more reasons than the obvious?”

“Not really. You’ve generally pissed in some general’s tea cup if you get stationed out here. There’s a pass through the mountains south of here, and the theoretical purpose of the installation is to guard against invasion from the north. But the route is as hospitable as an avalanche, so the likelihood of someone marching an army through it is close to nil. There’s a lot of gold in the hills, though, and foreigners trespass to set up mining operations. Patrols watch for that, and I imagine the fort commander has orders to keep an eye on the canyon where the tunnels were discovered as well.”

Tikaya thought of the invisible Nurian assassins. She was beginning to think they had transported back to their own ship the night of the attack, but that did not mean others with their skills were not out here. “Practitioners wouldn’t have much trouble sneaking by this fort to get inside.”

“They would have had to know about the place first, though I suppose after twenty years secrets are bound to get out. The Nurians obviously know.”

Voices sounded ahead—the scouting group returning. Agarik came at the end, head bowed, shoulders drooped, though he kept his rifle crooked in his arms, ready to use. The leader headed straight for Bocrest and his officers, but she caught Agarik’s eye and he tramped up the hill toward her and Rias.

A livid red gash dotted with black stitches ran from the side of his cheek to his nose, and the stiffness of his movement hinted at injuries beneath his clothing.

Tears pricked her eyes. She never should have sent him off alone.

Before he could speak, she stepped forward and hugged him. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault you were hurt.”

He seemed startled by the embrace, but rearranged his rifle to return it. “No, don’t think that. I’m the idiot who let himself get ambushed.”

His words did nothing to assuage her guilt. When she stepped back, she could not look away from that cut. It would be a permanent scar.

“Is there anything I can do?” Tikaya asked.

“Hugs are good.” Agarik gave Rias a hesitant smile. “From anyone who wants to share them.”

Tikaya glanced at Rias in time to spot a neutral expression shift to bewilderment.

“What?”

The word sounded harsh, and, though Tikaya suspected the tone more a result of surprise than anything else, Agarik’s smile fell.

“Sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn’t mean, uhm.”

“What’d you find at the fort, corporal?” Rias asked.

Agarik straightened, face composed. “Everyone’s dead, sir. Ugly dead. Their skin and muscles were melted off like wax on a candle. You couldn’t even tell who was who if they weren’t wearing uniforms with name patches.”

Tikaya shared that’s-what-we-were-afraid-of glances with Rias.

“And there’s something you’ll want to see,” Agarik said. “Both of you.”

Before she could ask for details, an officer yelled, “Corporal Agarik, get over here!”

He saluted Rias before hustling off.

“You should hug him next time,” Tikaya said.

That bewilderment returned. “Marines don’t hug.”

“Have you talked to him at all?”

“Not as much as you, apparently.” He tilted his head and arched an eyebrow.

It took her a moment to match his concerned expression to the hug she had given Agarik. She almost laughed. As confident as Rias was about military and mathematical matters, she was surprised he did not share that confidence when it came to women. As if anyone here could offer notable competition.

“Pack it up!” Bocrest’s voice floated across the hill. “We’re moving out!”

Tikaya laid her hand on Rias’s sleeve before he could turn away. “Agarik wants your attention, not mine.”

Rias stared at her. “Oh.”

“You two prisoners want to join the group or you going to stay out here and work on your sun tans?” Bocrest shoved a rucksack into Rias’s arms as he stomped past.

“I can’t imagine that man having a wife,” Tikaya muttered as she headed off to retrieve her own pack.

“I’ve not met the woman,” Rias said, “but I’ve heard she’s as obnoxious as him and the undisputed master of the household.”

Tikaya would have been content to march at the end of the squad—the going was a lot easier when numerous snowshoes had tamped down a trail—but Rias strode through the drifts with his long legs and overtook the men. Determined to keep up, she forced her own strides to unnatural lengths. Sweat soon plastered her clothing to her body and soaked the fur lining of her gloves. She removed her wool cap and stuffed it in a pocket.

Rias made it to the gates ahead of the marines, and Tikaya trailed close behind. The twenty-foot-tall wooden doors stood open, offering no sign that the fort had been attacked, but two men lay dead at their guard post. At least, Tikaya assumed they were men.

She thought the night spent with the corpses in Wolfhump would have inured her to death, but these were worse. Blisters and burns had seared flesh and muscle to the bone, mutilating the marines beyond recognition. Pustules even coated the bloated, protruding tongues. The eyes had popped like blisters themselves.

She was glad she had not had lunch.

Agarik caught up and walked between them. Sweat dampened his face too. “This way, sir, ma’am. Captain said it’s all right to let you go first.”

Tikaya snorted. As far as she could tell, the shackles meant little to Rias and it seemed he had already determined that he was going in first, captain’s wishes notwithstanding.

Inside the fort, snow had been plowed into piles, so they unstrapped their snowshoes. Sand coated the icy cement. Agarik led Rias and Tikaya past wooden barracks, office buildings, and a couple of cavernous vehicle structures that housed plows, trucks, and other steam-powered transports. If not for the silence and the dead men, she would have guessed it a normal work day at the fort. People had been caught on errands, while practicing combat in an arena, and, in one spot, driving a snow plow that had subsequently crashed into a barracks building. No smoke wafted from the stack, but Tikaya paused to open the furnace door. The fire had gone out, but when she removed a glove and stuck her hand inside, a hint of heat remained in the ashes.

“People were alive here, no more than a day or two ago,” she said.

But Rias, following on Agarik’s heels, had gone on and did not seem to hear her. His head was tilted back, and she followed his gaze. A two-story office building rose ahead, a large corner of its roof sheered off. Splintered wood and sheet metal roofing shingles scattered the cement around a sleek black cylindrical object embedded in the walkway. Tikaya’s step slowed. It was made from the same material as the artifact in Wolfhump.

She joined the men around the rubble. The landing had not dented or even scraped the cylinder, though it had gouged a hole in the cement, and jagged cracks radiated in several directions. Strips opened like flower petals on one end of the device, and dozens of square indentations lined the insides.

Rias produced one of the cubes and slid it into a slot. It clicked. Perfect fit.

“The delivery mechanism,” he said.

Bocrest and a couple others approached, though the captain had the sense to keep most of his men from trampling around the artifact. He sent them off to secure the fort with a few terse orders, then stepped closer.

“What is that thing?” Glass crunched under his foot.

“Careful.” Rias flung a hand up. “If some of the cubes didn’t release their contents in the air, stepping on a full one could be deadly. For us all.”

For once, Bocrest had nothing sarcastic to say. He gulped, lifted his boot, looked around, like he might set it somewhere else, then decided it was safer back where it had started.

“In the air?” Tikaya asked. “You don’t think this is like the device in Wolfhump? Something that distributes its deadly load from the ground?”

“No,” Rias said. “I think it’s a rocket.”

The only rockets Tikaya was familiar with involved fireworks, though she supposed Turgonians might have experimented with more sophisticated fuel-powered projectiles. Rias had studied ballistics in school, after all.

It took a moment for the ramifications to sink in. Tikaya’s eyes widened when they did. “If this is a rocket, that means someone fired it, someone with the knowledge to do so.”

“Yes,” Rias said grimly.

Tikaya stared at the artifact. Was it possible the original builders were still around? Or—she eyed runes running down one side—had someone already been in the tunnels and translated the ancient language? Such strong disappointment flooded her that she sank to her knees. Surely she had not asked for this gruesome mission, but all along there had been the promise of being the first to translate a previously unknown language and share it with the world. A feat that would earn her a place in the history books.

Rias knelt beside her and put a hand on her good shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Aware of the others, she said, “Yes, just tired.”

“Nurians,” Bocrest growled. “Those cussed Nurians are responsible, have to be.”

Rias arched inquiring eyebrows at Tikaya. She guessed his question and nodded permission.

“I don’t think it’s them, at least nothing sanctioned by their government.” Rias explained the orders he and Tikaya had found on board the Nurian ship.

“Then who?” Bocrest demanded.

“The Turgonians have many enemies,” Rias said.

Bocrest tugged off his cap and scrubbed his short steely hair. “This whole slag pile is giving me a headache.”

“There’s something else to consider,” Rias said, tone grim. “We haven’t hidden our approach to this fort, so it’s very possible whoever did this knows we’re here.”

CHAPTER 12

Tikaya sat cross-legged next to the rocket and finished copying the runes into her journal. Coldness seeped through her trousers to numb her backside, and shivers made her pencil hand shake. As if writing with gloves on was not bad enough. She ought to move somewhere warmer. But, oh, there was another symbol she recognized from the table of elements. And interesting how each grouping on the rocket held thirteen runes. Could the different prime clusters alter the meaning of—

Light splashed across her pages, and Tikaya dropped her pencil.

Agarik stood beside her, holding a lantern. Only then did she realize twilight had descended on the fort.

“Thank you,” she said. “When did you leave to get that? And where’d everyone else go?”

He stared. “You didn’t notice people coming and going, ma’am? Talking? Arguing?”

“Er.” She vaguely remembered Rias saying something about finding surveying tools. “Not really.”

“Half the men are retrieving corpses for a funeral pyre while half are off on a mission Five concocted. Looking for people who might have died outside the fort and searching for more cubes and recording where they landed. Seeing how it’s night, that sounds about as fun as hunting for a wrench in a scrapyard. He says he can figure out where the rocket was launched from, though, and Bocrest wants it done tonight, so he can take a team up there at first light.”

In case someone was up there preparing another weapon to launch at the fort. Yes, that seemed wise.

Tikaya rose, an awkward movement with her shoulder in a sling, and her injury twinged despite her care. A noisy yawn escaped her lips. She thought of her bed back home, though right now she would be tickled with a blanket in front of a fireplace.

Agarik’s jaw dropped in a noisy yawn of his own.

“Sorry,” Tikaya said. “Are you tasked with watching me again?”

“I don’t mind, ma’am. Of the jobs I could be assigned, it’s not a bad one.”

Men crossed a nearby courtyard, lantern light bobbing at their feet. They worked in grim silence, bringing wood for a fire. She looked away as others dragged a body from a building and laid it at the end of a grisly queue.

Though tempted to ask Agarik about sleeping arrangements, Tikaya wanted to search the fort for other language clues first. If the marines feared an attack imminent, they might march out at dawn. Somewhere, she hoped to find an artifact she could slip into her rucksack to take home for study—and to prove to her people this nightmare had been real.

“Mind if we find the fort commander’s office?” she asked.

“I don’t think the captain wants you wandering around.”

Tikaya started to object, but Agarik smirked and spoke first.

“But since you’ll doubtlessly make arguments until you get me to change my mind, we may as well go now.”

“Good man.”

Thousands of stars glittering like ice crystals blanketed the black sky above the fort. Tikaya almost felt she could reach up and stir them with her fingers. Here and there lanterns sputtered on lampposts or in sconces. Agarik hugged shadows barely dented by the flickering light as he led her beneath the ramparts and through an alley suffocated with piles of snow. They stopped at the back door of a two-story building. She had the feeling he was avoiding the other men and hoped he would not get in trouble for escorting her around. Her desire to poke through the commander’s office kept her from asking.

They slipped into an unlit kitchen where copper pots and steel counters gleamed, reflecting the lantern’s flame. Agarik led her around an island to avoid a body clad in bloodstained cook’s whites. Tikaya ripped her gaze from the melted flesh, glad the lighting did not illuminate too many details.

They passed through a mess hall lined with tables. Plates of bread, carrots, and now-frozen meat waited for someone to finish them. Bodies, some fallen across tables, some sprawled on the floor, matched the place settings. One man had died tending the coal stove in the corner, and the door stood open, ashes spilled onto the wood floor.

“Surprise attack,” Agarik said, disgust hardening his voice. “There’s no honor in killing like this.”

“I can’t believe how quickly the poison acts,” Tikaya said, chilled by the idea of something that could kill a man before he could even get out of his seat and wonder if something was wrong.

There were not any bodies at the tables nearest the far door, and wet footprints suggested the marines had started carting them out. Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor above. Tikaya doubted she would make it to the commander’s office without being spotted. She hoped no one would question her for snooping about.

They entered a corridor, and Agarik led her to a stairwell. Broad steps rose toward a second floor, while narrow ones turned a corner and dropped into darkness. That made her pause. A basement in a land where permafrost hardened the earth inches below the surface?

Agarik headed upstairs, but voices came from the lower level.

“Wait,” Tikaya whispered, cocking her head to listen.

“I think…a Nurian,” someone said.

“…doing out here?”

They had found a Nurian? Had someone been caught nosing around in the carnage of the fort? Her breath hitched. What if it was the person who had fired the rocket? The person who knew enough of the language to know how to fire the rocket?

She edged closer to the stairs. The men were not whispering, so the discussion was probably not secret, and nobody had forbidden her from exploring.

Agarik gripped her forearm. “Tikaya…”

She frowned at him. “What do you know?”

“The cells and interrogation chamber will be down there. It’s not…a fitting place for a lady to visit.”

Tikaya almost laughed. Was he worried she would see something more macabre than the legions of bodies around the fort? She patted his hand before drawing her arm away. “I just want to see if they found someone who knows more about what’s going on than we do.”

If Agarik’s frown grew any deeper, he would pop the stitches out on that gash. Still, he followed with the lantern when she eased down the stairs.

She anticipated a pitted rusty iron door streaked with blood at the bottom, but the bland wood was no different from any other door they had passed. Beyond it, gray stone lined a narrow hallway. At the end, light seeped through the cracks of a partially open door. The voices had dropped to murmurs.

On the way down the hall, Tikaya checked a door to the side, expecting racks filled with torture implements. Instead, it was a supply closet loaded with brooms, lye soap, lanterns, kerosene tins, and painting supplies. So far, this dungeon was not living up to expectations.

Chains rattled in the room ahead.

“Where’s the slagging key?” a familiar voice growled.

Tikaya froze. Ottotark.

She started to turn, not wanting anything to do with him, interesting prisoners or not, but someone thrust the door open. Two marines tramped out, a body between them, but if it was Nurian she could not tell. It was as melted and featureless as the rest in the fort.

The marines halted.

“What’s she doing down here, Corporal?” one asked.

Agarik shrugged. “Looking for language clues.”

Ottotark leaned through the doorway, his eyes narrowing to slits when he spotted her. For a long speculative moment, he stared, and she fought the urge to race up the steps in retreat. He would not do anything with so many witnesses, and surely this was not the time regardless.

“Go on,” Ottotark told the marines, “take the body out. Agarik, come help me get the other one. I expect the captain will want to see the Nurian, so we’ll leave him here for now.”

Tikaya stood aside for the men to pass. Agarik headed for the chamber, and she almost bumped into his back when he stopped in the doorway.

“What is it?” she asked.

But Agarik had already moved to the side so she could see. She wished he had not. The amount of human carnage from the last couple days should have numbed her to it, but this dead man was different. The naked Nurian hung from shackles on the wall. His fingernails and toenails were ripped out, flesh mutilated with blades and brands. Someone had cut his genitals off and dug both eyeballs out. The removed organs lay in a tidy pile next to the dangling body, and Tikaya had to gulp several deep breaths to keep from vomiting. Thank Akahe the temperature kept everything frozen, and no odor accompanied the visual horror.

“By the book,” Agarik commented.

Ottotark nodded. “Professional job. I’ll bet two weeks pay one of our people ran the torture session, but who? This is recent work, done by somebody—to somebody—who showed up after everyone else got their faces slagged like ore in a smelter.”

“Unless…” Tikaya took one more deep breath to steady her gorge. “Unless the basement protected people here from the poison.”

“Look around, idiot woman.” Ottotark pointed past racks containing wicked metal instruments whose purpose she could only guess.

Steel bars in the shadows formed a pair of cells. A corpse in one had suffered from the same affliction as all those in the fort above. And, of course, she had seen the body those two marines had taken out.

“Sorry, yes, I’m not thinking.” Odd that this deliberate cruelty affected her more than the mysterious otherworldly deaths. The marines, even Agarik, seemed to find this torture commonplace. Just when she was thinking some Turgonians might be normal people. “You must be right. So, one or more of your people got here ahead of us. And this fellow, I wonder if he’s the one who launched the rocket. Or…” She looked past the damage to what remained of the man’s features, and her stomach did a little flip. “I recognize him.”

Ottotark stared at her. “What?”

“He’s the bodyguard of the practitioner who attacked me on the ship.”

“You sure?” Ottotark’s forehead scrunched. “He’s not looking too recognizable at the moment.” He threw back his head and laughed.

Agarik rolled his eyes.

“Come, Corporal,” Ottotark said. “Help me drag that other body up to the pyre. We’ll leave the librarian to clue hunt, though I don’t reckon this bloke was worrying overmuch about languages in the end.”

He laughed again, and the inappropriateness ground on Tikaya’s nerves.

“I’m supposed to stay with her,” Agarik said.

Ottotark’s humor evaporated. “That wasn’t a request, Corporal. I’m sure the captain didn’t mean for you to get out of all the physical labor with your special assignment. You can come back when we’re done hauling bodies.”

Agarik looked at Tikaya, and she gave him a quick nod. He had risked enough trouble for her, and she would give him up for a while if it would get Ottotark out of the room as well.

Though a troubled expression wrinkled his brow, Agarik helped Ottotark heft the other corpse, and they left. Tikaya did not wish to spend a lot of time alone down here, especially since the presence of the dead bodyguard implied the practitioner was around somewhere, probably alive, but she wanted a moment to think things through.

“So,” she said in Nurian, as if the man’s spirit might hear and help, “you’ve been following us all along, biding your time, is that it?” She thought of the hour or two she had spent alone in Wolfhump and shivered, for that could well have been an opportunity for the assassins, but perhaps they, too, had been affected by the gas. “You ran ahead here to lay an ambush for me? Or someone transported you here?” That was a hard skill to master, but not an impossible one. Someone familiar with the arrival area could have done it. “Either way, it seems you got here after the weapon struck, or you’d have been killed the same way as the others. Unless you launched the weapon yourself and came to check the effectiveness of your work. But, no, your people wanted nothing to do with these artifacts.” She took off her spectacles and rubbed her face. “But when you got here, someone was waiting. Was it a Turgonian, or the person or persons who figured this rocket out? Or both?”

Not surprisingly, the dead man was not talking. Likely he had given up all his secrets to his interrogator. Tikaya glanced around, noting that the pliers, knives, and other implements she could not name had been meticulously cleaned after use and returned to the storage rack. Little else caught her eye, though, and she decided it would be wise to finish up and find a spot with people around.

She headed back to the stairs. Someone had shut the door at the bottom. She tried the knob, but it did not turn.

A kernel of dread formed in her gut.

She tried the door again. It could just be a flaky knob, but no. It was locked. She pounded on the door. Maybe someone working upstairs would hear her and let her out.

“Is anybody out there? Hello?”

No one came.

Tikaya leaned her forehead against the cold wood. Ottotark must have locked the door on the way out without Agarik noticing. Maybe he had even ordered the men clearing bodies to work in a different building. She swallowed. Odds were Ottotark could make sure Agarik stayed busy for a while too.

The rack of torture implements flashed into her mind. “Dolt,” she cursed herself. Of all the places she could be trapped with that man, this had to be the worst.

She slipped the razor Agarik had given her out of her boot and unfolded the blade from the wooden handle. It seemed a puny tool compared to those in the other room. If Ottotark worried about her having weapons, he would not have chosen this spot. He obviously did not see her as a threat in close combat, and rightly so. This was no archery competition where she could stand back and plunk arrows into a target.

She needed to catch him by surprise. She hoped she had time to set one up.

Tikaya checked the supply closet. An idea came as soon as she saw the kerosene tins. Unlike the whale oil her people used, the vapors ought to be flammable. She grabbed a paint pan, a full tin of kerosene, and a box of friction matches. She would only have one chance. It had better work.

In the torture chamber, she closed the door part way. Footsteps thudded in the corridor on the floor above. She swallowed. If that was Ottotark, she did not have much time.

The safety lid of the unopened kerosene tin thwarted her fingernails, and her shoulder sent stabs of pain through her when she tried to brace the can with that hand. She huffed in frustration. Then she remembered the razor. Agarik’s tool would help after all.

She gouged a hole in the top of the tin and, careful not to spill any on herself, poured kerosene into the paint pan. The fumes stung her eyes, but she dared not slow down. Footsteps thudded on the stairs. For once, she had reason to thank her height. Though the doors had been made to accommodate the tall Turgonians, she reached the top without trouble and balanced the pan. The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs, and the lock clicked. The door creaked open.

Tikaya hopped into the shadows beside the door.

“I know you’re down here, bitch,” Ottotark said. “No point in hiding.”

Tikaya’s breathing sounded loud in her ears, and she tried to quiet it. She yanked her left arm out of the sling, ignoring the pain, and dug out a fistful of matches. In her right hand, she held a single one. The tremble to her fingers annoyed her. She eyed the pan atop the door, and doubts flooded her. It was too stupid, too obvious. Children did this as a prank; it was not a way to attack an enemy, a bigger stronger enemy who would probably only be angered by the attempt.

“I’m going to wipe that arrogant defiance off your face,” Ottotark growled. A door creaked. He was checking the closet.

She swallowed. Would he notice the missing kerosene? Or would he smell it before he entered her room?

“You don’t act like a prisoner, not like you should, and the captain’s too lenient. You screwed us during the war. You gave our secret orders to the Nurians. They knew just how to ambush the Crusher. All those men—my brother—didn’t have a chance.” The heavy footsteps thudded closer. “I’ve been waiting to avenge him since you came on board.”

Ottotark shoved the door so hard it cracked against the stone wall. Tikaya jumped back and almost didn’t see the trap spring. Kerosene drenched him, and the pan clattered to the floor.

“What the—” He stumbled into the room.

She slammed a boot into his backside with all her strength. He pitched forward, though he turned the fall into a graceful roll and came up facing her. She kicked the door shut and scraped a match against the stone wall. The scent of sulfur stung the air.

Ottotark snarled and started to lunge. She almost threw the flame then and there, but she kept herself to holding it out and shouting.

“That’s kerosene you’re covered in!”

Ottotark paused, just short of springing.

“Ever wanted to be a human torch?” Tikaya asked. “You could look just like all the dead soldiers here in about three seconds.”

He snorted. “You’ve not steel enough to kill anyone.” But his gaze stayed on that match, and he did not advance.

“I’ve killed more people than I can count since this nightmare started. First on the Nurian ship and then in Wolfhump.”

Ottotark’s eyes widened. “The captain was right. You killed Commander Okars!”

Admitting that might be stupid, but it might convince him she was a threat. She needed to resolve this before Ottotark realized she would run out of matches eventually. She had to gamble. “Yes, and I liked him a lot more than I like you.” She tried to put a manic expression on her face as she looked him up and down. “I can’t imagine anyone would even miss you. Maybe I should just—”

“Wait!” He licked his lips. “What do you want?”

“Your word that you won’t touch me ever again.” It was another gamble. Just because Rias’s word meant a lot to him did not mean every Turgonian shared that viewpoint. Still, there were several words for honor and promises in their language. Maybe it was not that big of a gamble.

And Ottotark winced. If his word meant nothing, he would have agreed quickly. He would not be thinking it over.

The first match was burning low. She lit a second from it, then tossed the discard into a puddle of kerosene at Ottotark’s feet. The vapors ignited and flames roared, hurling shadows from every corner of the chamber.

Ottotark leapt away, slamming his back against the dangling corpse. “Shit, woman!”

“Your word or you’re next.” The confident steely tone of her voice surprised her.

“Fine, fine. I won’t even touch you if you’re dangling on the edge of a cliff, begging me to pull you to safety.”

“Excellent.” Tikaya stepped to the side of the door. “You first. We’re going up to the others before I let you out of match range.”

Teeth bared, he edged past her and sprinted up the steps. Tikaya would not have kept up, but he crashed into someone in the hall upstairs.

“Sergeant Ottotark, what are you doing?” It was Bocrest.

Tikaya stepped out of the stairwell, and both men turned. Ottotark thrust an accusing finger.

“That crazy bitch doused me in kerosene and threatened to light me on fire!”

“Because you locked me in the dungeon so you could rape me, you sadistic prick.” The burning match had gone out, but she clutched the box in her hand, prepared to light another if need be. She eyed Bocrest, who lifted a lantern and eyed her back.

“Ms. Komitopis,” he said, “we call it an Interrogation Station, not a dungeon.”

Curse him, he sounded amused. At least he had used her name. That was a first.

“Ottotark, go get cleaned up and find a rack,” Bocrest said.

The sergeant slunk away, muttering under his breath.

“What were you doing in here?” Bocrest asked with no preamble, no apology for his loutish man.

Tikaya thought about lying, but reminded herself she wanted the captain to trust her. For now. And she did not think her true purpose that condemning. “Looking for the fort commander’s office. If anyone has more relics or rubbings, I figured it’d be him.”

“I just came from there. It’s been searched, probably by whomever tortured the Nurian. There’s nothing, not even Colonel Lancecrest’s orders.”

“Colonel…Lancecrest?” Tikaya asked.

“Yes, usually we’d have a general commanding a fort, but this is a small outpost.”

“It’s the name, not the rank, that surprised me,” she said. “There was a Turgonian named Lancecrest studying at the Polytechnic when I was a student.”

Bocrest shrugged. “Probably one of the younger ones. There are nine or ten kids, and they’ve had to make their own ways. The family’s poor as pond scum. Their lands were salted during the Border Wars, and you couldn’t grow a weed there now.”

“So, just a coincidence, you think?” As she recalled, that Lancecrest had been studying archaeology; he had shared a couple classes with Parkonis.

“The colonel’s body is up there in his office. If he was plotting with some relative, don’t you think he’d have figured himself up a better deal?” Bocrest headed for the stairs. “Get some sleep. I’ve got to look at this Nurian body. One cursed mystery after another up here.”

“Captain?” she called, halting him on the steps. “Why is your team here, with me and Rias, instead of hunting for whoever sent that box to your capital? It might have originated in the tunnels, but surely the people who found it didn’t stick around and post it from there.”

The flickering lantern played shadows across Bocrest’s face. Answering was probably a violation of orders, but he had already doled out some information when they discovered the cube. Maybe he would divulge more.

“Someone was sent to hunt down and kill the person who delivered the box,” he said. “We are here to seal the tunnels.”

“Oh?” Tikaya sensed a cover story. “Why would you need Rias or me if that’s all you’re planning to do?”

“We need to make sure we find all the possible entrances and exits. You two will ensure we don’t stumble into the kinds of traps that devastated the last group.”

The blasting sticks they were carrying were the only things that led credence to his story. Tikaya believed him about the attack on the university—something had started this wave crashing toward the beach—but, now that she’d glimpsed the potential for genocide these artifacts offered, she wagered sealing the tunnels was at the end of a list Bocrest received. Wouldn’t the Turgonian emperor love to have some of these weapons for his own use? With which to utterly destroy anyone who defied the empire? She swallowed. Like her people?

She should talk to Rias, see what he thought about this. She blinked. Or should she? Whatever had happened, he seemed loyal to the empire through and through. What if he merely shrugged and went along with the mission?

Bocrest was watching her through narrowed eyes, and she feared too many of her thoughts traipsed across her face.

“I understand.” She smiled innocently. Nothing to worry about from her. “You mentioned something about sleep? Where would that be done here?”

“Officer billets are the single-story building across the courtyard, flag out front.” Expression unreadable, he turned and descended the stairs.

• • • • •

As Tikaya approached the billets, she yawned so widely tears sprang to her eyes. They froze in her lashes. The air smelled of burning coal, and light brightened the windows on an end room. A marine stood outside the door, rifle crooked in his arms.

She paused. Only Rias would be under guard. What would he think if she strolled into his room at night? Would he assume she wanted… No, surely not. Neither of them had slept the night before, and her shoulder nagged like a cranky child.

“Help you, ma’am?” the marine asked, no doubt wondering why she lurked in the shadows.

“Can I, uhm, er…” Tikaya pointed to the door before her linguistic skills could fail her further.

Lanterns burned so it was not likely Rias would be in bed naked, though that thought made her blush.

The marine sniggered. “Captain just said to keep him in. Didn’t say nothing about keeping anyone out.”

“Thank you.”

She slipped inside. A coal stove glowed cherry, spilling warmth into the room, and a narrow bunk piled with blankets awaited. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—Rias was not naked. He sat at a desk, still wearing those shackles, though a pencil tucked above his ear destroyed the felon look. She grinned at the papers scattered across the desk and on the floor all about his chair.

Weariness darkened the skin under his eyes, but he stood and smiled. “Tikaya.”

She strode to the desk, hardly noticing that her hip caught the corner, and wrapped him in a one-armed hug. Between her sling and his chains, it was an awkward embrace, but she did not care. After dealing with Ottotark and Bocrest, it felt wonderful to lean on someone pleasant.

Rias laid his forehead on her shoulder. “I’ve been tasked with pinpointing the origins of the rocket and estimating the area that was affected by the cubes. I figured you’d be too busy puzzling over those runes and I wouldn’t see you for the rest of the night.”

“Actually, I was busy almost turning Ottotark into a human torch.”

His muscles tensed beneath her arm. He drew back to meet her eyes. “What happened?”

Tikaya shared the story, deliberately putting more emphasis on the mystery of the tortured Nurian than the sergeant’s actions. She probably should not have mentioned Ottotark at all—no doubt Rias would worry about her—but she admitted to a little pride that she had handled the odious man herself instead of falling apart. Maybe Rias would be proud of her too. Dumping kerosene on someone was no feat of brilliance, but a month ago, she probably would not have had the wherewithal to think of anything while locked in a dungeon with a rapist on his way. A month ago, she had been hiding from the world because she was too much the coward to go back to work—to her passion—because she associated it so much with Parkonis and lost dreams.

“Ahh,” Rias rumbled when she finished the story, and his muscles relaxed. “I feel remiss that I wasn’t there to demonstrate the use of those torture implements on Ottotark. But you’re clever and capable, and, alas for my ego, I don’t think you need my help in these matters.”

She absorbed his praise; it warmed her more than the heat radiating from the stove. “Don’t worry. I need your help in other matters.”

“Oh?”

“Someone has to catch me when I trip.”

His eyes crinkled. “That has been a daily occurrence.”

He held her gaze, and Tikaya was suddenly aware of the heat of his body. If not for the chains keeping his wrists close and his arms between them, she could have leaned against his chest and…

Rias cleared his throat and stepped back. “I need to finish those calculations. If there’s someone out there with another rocket—”

“Of course,” Tikaya said. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. I can—”

“No!” Rias seemed to realize his objection too loud, for he shrugged sheepishly. “I’d like you to stay. I promised you dinner, remember? And…” He dragged a second chair to the opposite side of the desk and cleared a space. “You can work with me, or you can sleep of course too.” He waved toward the bunk. “You must be tired.”

Tikaya dug into the big pocket on the side of her trousers and pulled out the journal. “I wouldn’t dream of sleeping before sampling a Turgonian dinner.”

“Excellent. I’ve got a treat.” Rias sauntered to a credenza. He slid a parcel wrapped in brown paper off the top, plopped it on the desk, then knelt before a cabinet. “I found the colonel’s personal stash.”

She unwrapped the parcel and crinkled her nose. “Salty fish? I don’t wish to sound ungrateful, but isn’t this from the same provisions we’ve been eating all week?”

“Yes. That’s not the treat.” He laughed and pulled out two small glasses and a bottle filled with amber liquid. “This is.”

Reverently, he carried the bottle over and set it before her. Applejack.

“That’s a thirty-year-old label.” He uncorked the bottle and poured two glasses. “Since you’re from the land of rum, I thought you’d like to sample a good Turgonian alternative.”

Tikaya sniffed the subtle apple aroma and found it pleasant. She expected the applejack to burn her throat, but the liquid slid down smoothly, like her father’s finest barrel-aged rum. “Nice.”

Rias beamed, took a conservative sip from his own glass, and returned to his work. Though her eyes were gritty, and her muscles ached, Tikaya opened the journal to study the runes. More than once, she paused to watch him zip through calculations without the benefit of a slide rule. Despite the horrors all around them, she enjoyed the companionable moment, sitting there with Rias, him with his work, she with hers.

It occurred to her that this was an opportunity to ask him his real name, to find out who he had been during the war and what he had done. Except the very fact that he had not told her made her hesitate. Would the truth create an insurmountable obstacle between them? Maybe she should wait. It seemed a shame to ruin this first peaceful time together.

Maybe she was still a coward, after all. She sipped her drink. No, she would ask. Just not tonight. Tomorrow night. She would find a time tomorrow night and ask then. No matter what.

Comfortable with the decision, she leaned back in her chair. The applejack left her with a warm muzzy feeling. Her gaze drifted to the sleeping area where the furry blankets and pillows appeared far more comfortable than anything on the ship. It was not a big bed, but she supposed a couple of creative types would have no trouble…

No, that she would certainly not do without knowing who Rias was. “It’s too bad. I’ve finally got you in a private room with a bed and—”

The pencil in his hand snapped, and he gawked at her.

Erp, had she said that out loud? Tikaya stared at the amber liquid, feeling betrayed.

“I didn’t realize that was a goal of yours.” Rias smoothed his face and slid out of his seat to pick up the pencil ends. One had flown all the way to the door. Impressive velocity. “If I had, I would have taken it upon myself to escape my cell and call upon you. In a gentlemanly manner, of course.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to get in trouble.” Dear, Akahe, how was she supposed to explain the context of her comment?

“Oh, but I’m willing to make great personal sacrifices to help people achieve their goals.”

Rias squeezed her shoulder, and a delightful shiver ran through her when his fingers brushed her neck. She sighed in disappointment when he returned to his seat without presuming to do more.

Tikaya set her glass down and pushed it to the side.

Rias chuckled and slid the backup pencil out from behind his ear. “It’s a potent drink.”

“You wouldn’t think apples could get you caned.”

“Apples are the Turgonian fruit. We make them into everything. I think I mentioned my family’s orchard.” Rias continued to work as he spoke. “I loved the trees as a kid. I was scrawny, so I’d climb them to hide from my older brothers. They loved to beat on me almost as much as I loved getting them in trouble.”

Tikaya eyed him skeptically. “I can imagine you as young, but…scrawny? You’re, what, six and a half feet? And broad.”

“Oh, I was always scrawny because I was always the youngest. I was the youngest child in my family, and then I went to the university four years early, so I was the youngest there. I got smashed whenever I tried to join the sports teams, and I couldn’t attract girls, because I was fourteen and they were at least eighteen and only interested in older men. Though I did finally bribe one gal to kiss me by volunteering to do her homework.”

Tikaya smiled. So, he had also been the youth who did not fit in. Maybe more so than she, since it sounded as if there was less educational infrastructure for precocious children in the empire.

“Surely, you’ve long since outgrown those troubles.” She yawned, folded her arms over her journal, and pillowed her chin. “I’m sure you could entice women of any age now.”

The pencil paused, and he bent down to peer into her eyes. “Hm, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. How old are you?”

“Thirty. Does it matter?”

Humor glinted in his brown eyes. “Just wondering if my fantasies have been downright scandalous or merely lacking in propriety.”

If Tikaya had been less tired, she would have laughed at the idea of being someone’s fantasy, but she smiled blearily, her eyelids half shut. The thought, like the applejack, left her with a warm contentedness.

“How old are you?” she murmured.

“Forty-three.”

“As far as my people are concerned, it’d be more scandalous that you were a Turgonian military officer than that you’re older than I am.”

He had never told her he was an officer, but he did not deny it now. Glum acknowledgment replaced the humor on his face, and Tikaya wished she could retract the comment.

A knock sounded at the door, and the guard walked in. He blinked in surprise at Tikaya, probably expecting her to be naked, then focused on Rias.

“Skeldar’s team checked that mining camp like you asked,” the marine said. “It’s ten miles out. The men there were dead, same as everyone here. Same time ago. And the lookout tower at the bottom of the pass seems the same. The scouts saw no fire, no one moving.”

Rias scribbled a note. “Distance to the tower?”

“Fifteen miles.”

“Thank you, private. Dismissed.”

Grimness hooded his eyes, and he did not watch as the marine walked out. Tikaya shifted in her seat, waiting for him to finish, or waiting for an opportunity to ask him his thoughts. But she already sensed the problem. If people fifteen miles away had been killed by the same rocket…

“Ancestors help us.” Rias sat back, eyes closed.

“What?”

“The rocket detonated in the air over the fort, sending those cubes in all directions where they opened of their own volition to release their contents. I can only guess at the exact nature of the substance, but based on all the data points I’ve received, we’re looking at a weapon that can kill everyone within twenty miles of the detonation point. That’s more than twelve hundred and fifty square miles.” He stared at her. “Can you imagine what would happen if a weapon like this was launched in a populated area? Our capital city has more than a million people.”

“Ninety percent of the Kyattese population lives on our main island, and it’s smaller than that.” Tikaya thought of such a weapon in the Turgonian emperor’s hands. Why worry about subjugating her people when one could just kill them all and claim the deserted island for colonization?

CHAPTER 13

The door opened with a bang, and cold air flooded the room. Tikaya sat up. Wan morning light silhouetted Bocrest.

Confusion disoriented her for a moment. She remembered falling asleep at the desk with her cheek pressed against the pages of her journal, but now she sat in the bunk, a blanket pooled about her waist. Rias lay on the floor before the stove. He rolled his head toward the door, eyes slitted.

Bocrest looked from the nearly full applejack bottle on the desk, to Tikaya, and finally to Rias. “This is pathetic. You’ve got a private room, a bed, booze, and a woman, and you spent the night on the floor like a hound.”

“Ass,” Tikaya grumbled, wondering if she was too old to hurl pillows at people.

Rias yawned, stretched, and rolled to his feet. “Careful, Bocrest. You’re starting to sound like your brutish sergeant. Officers are supposed to be an influence on their troops, not the other way around.”

Bocrest snorted and walked to the desk. He picked up the top sheet of paper and scrutinized it, appearing as enlightened as a rock. “Did your big genius brain figure out where that rocket was launched from?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I’ll lead a team to the location, but I have conditions. I want ten men who have taken the mountaineering course. Give me a tracker too. I need a rifle, a pistol, a knife, and I want these chains off.” Rias rattled them for emphasis. “Permanently.”

Bocrest gaped at this list of demands. “Is there anything else this humble captain could lay at your feet, Master Prisoner? Perhaps I could grovel while I fulfill your wishes?”

“He wants me to come too,” Tikaya said.

“Absolutely not,” Bocrest said.

Rias arched his eyebrows at her. “Are you sure? It’d be difficult even without an injury.”

Tikaya hesitated. She did not want to make more work for him, but what if they found a cache of weapons and needed help disarming a rocket poised to launch? “You may need me up there.”

“As you wish,” Rias said.

“Emperor’s spit,” Bocrest said. “She’s got you leashed, and you’re not even screwing her.”

The manacles ensured Rias’s punch was not pretty, but he got a fist on the captain’s nose all the same. Bocrest saw it coming and partially blocked it, but the force still sent him staggering backward. His own fingers curled into a fist, but he snorted and released them.

“You’ll have your team.” Bocrest unclipped keys from his belt and tossed them to Rias. “But she should go with the main force to set up the base camp. What’s she going to do up there besides be a liability?”

“She’s found more ways to be useful than any of your men thus far.” Rias beamed her a proud smile.

Tikaya smiled back, ignoring the captain’s disgusted huff.

“What’s she actually translated?” Bocrest asked. “Did that rocket say anything?”

“I’m still working on what appear to be instructions,” she said. “I believe the simple phrases on the side say ‘caution’ and ‘this side up.’”

Bocrest snorted. “That’s as useful as goat spit. Great.”

“Captain…” Rias warned.

“Whatever. I don’t care. If she needs to be carried, none of my men are doing it. She’s your responsibility.” He stalked out the door, not bothering to shut it. “Team leaves in fifteen minutes!”

Tikaya slid her legs off the bed and grabbed her boots. It was the only thing Rias had presumed to remove before tucking her into bed. Her heart ached. Even if he had not leapt to her defense, she could have loved him just for being a gentleman up here in this savage land so far from the mores of civilization. She almost confided her suspicions to him, her fear that Bocrest’s mission would prove less about saving the Turgonians and more about getting the emperor a stockpile of terrifyingly powerful weapons.

“Something wrong?” Rias sat beside her to put on his own boots.

How could she tell him? A man whose every choice proved he still felt loyal to the empire, even after they had taken everything and exiled him. “I’m worried I made a mistake,” she said instead of bringing up the weapons. “I spoke hastily. I don’t want to be a burden on you. Maybe you could just copy any runes you find for me.”

“Do you want to go?”

“Yes.” A self-deprecating laugh spilled from her lips. She had never craved field work; she’d always preferred to stay in the lab, letting agile adventurous sorts bring their finds to her. When had that changed? “I don’t want to miss anything.”

“I wouldn’t want that either.” He smiled, but it soon faded. “Besides, I’m concerned about your assassins. The bodyguard may be tortured and dead, but if the wizard is still around, he’ll feel he’s running out of time. It’ll be dangerous on the mountain, yes, but I’d prefer you with me rather than with a bunch of men who don’t care.”

By now his admission that he cared was no surprise, but hearing him say it almost brought tears to her eyes. If only he weren’t a Turgonian.

She leaned against his shoulder. “I care too.”

“Good.” He leaned back. “About me, right?”

She grinned and swatted him. She thought about doing more, but a pair of marines tramped past the door, pausing to peer inside. Then Bocrest hollered for his guide. Sighing, she finished tying her boots.

• • • • •

Tikaya eased along the narrow ledge, her metal crampons scraping and clinking against the ice. Sheer granite towered to her left while equally sheer rock plummeted on her right. A snowy canyon stretched hundreds of feet below. Though the white drifts appeared soft, she had no illusions of a landing being anything but deadly. Wind buffeted the face of the cliff, tugging at her thick braid and whipping stray strands of hair against her spectacles. Frost crystals glittered on the scarf snugged over her nose.

“We’re close,” Rias called, voice muffled by his own scarf.

He led the single-file squad of marines inching along the cliff face. Tikaya came second with Bocrest third. At first, the captain’s presence had surprised her, but a few curt words here and there had given her the impression he was there to remind everyone ‘Prisoner Five’ was most definitely not in charge of the team, even if he led.

A shadow fell across the group as a black raptor as large as a man sailed overhead. This was its third appearance. The way it coasted past made Tikaya think it was scouting the group. Her imagination, no doubt.

The sun glinted off sharp ebony talons as it flexed its legs to land on a perch a couple dozen feet above the ledge ahead of them. It cocked its head to stare at her through a calculating black eye.

“I’m getting tired of that bird,” a marine grumbled.

“We could make a meal out of it,” another said, voice loud and threatening, as if the creature would understand and leave.

Tikaya caught Bocrest glancing at the bird, but he otherwise paid it little attention. He did, however, carry his loaded rifle in one hand, barrel leaning against his shoulder. Earlier, he had worn it strapped to his rucksack.

The hair on the back of Tikaya’s neck rose as they walked under the creature’s perch. She had not felt the tingle of the mental sciences being used since the night the Nurians attacked. She paused to study the bird.

“Quit gawking,” Bocrest said.

“What species is that?” she asked. “Are they common?”

“How would I know? Do I look like I keep a summer estate here?”

“Ice condor.” Rias turned and held up a hand to halt the squad. “They’re predators but scavengers too. It’s unlikely it’ll attack a group of armed men. It’s probably just waiting to see if one of us falls.”

Lovely thought. “They’re usually natural creatures, then?”

“Of course, it’s a natural creature,” Bocrest said. “What else would it be?”

Tikaya pointed at it. “This one’s a—”

The condor dropped from its perch, plunging straight at her, beak agape, talons extended.

With nowhere else to go, Tikaya smashed herself against the cliff. The giant bird filled her vision, wings pressed against its body for speed. She raised her good arm to guard her face.

A rifle cracked. Someone pulled her up the path.

The condor squawked, clipped the edge of the ledge, and bounced away. Rock crumbled and fell into the canyon. The bird flapped its wings and recovered before tumbling far, but blood spattered the ice on the ledge. The condor sailed on a draft and disappeared from sight before Tikaya recovered.

“Thanks,” she rasped.

It was Rias who held her, Bocrest’s rifle that smoked.

“That was peculiar,” the captain said.

“More than that.” Rias checked Tikaya for injuries and released her. “A familiar?”

“That’s…” She mulled over the Turgonian word options. “Close enough. I’m guessing it’s a regular creature that someone is manipulating with thought control.” She remembered the snatch of conversation she had overheard the night the Nurians attacked her; the practitioner had read someone’s thoughts to find her. If he had studied telepathy on humans, controlling animals was not a stretch.

“How would you know?” Bocrest asked. “I thought you weren’t a wizard.”

“I’m not, but I’ve grown up around practitioners. I can sense when the mental sciences are being used nearby.”

Bocrest scowled at Rias. “Get moving. I want to finish up and get off this mountain quick.”

When they reached the top of the cliff, long shadows darkened the snowy plateau despite the early afternoon hour. They had climbed less than halfway up the mountain, and another granite wall rose to the rear, blocking the sun. Nothing on the plateau caught Tikaya’s eye, but the fantastic view to the north made for a memorable perch. Miles of unbroken tundra stretched to the horizon with ridges and swirls roaming like striations in stone.

Though nothing but drifts adorned the plateau, Rias strode across it as if he expected to find something. He stopped at a protruding edge and pointed.

“Perfect view of the fort from here,” he called.

“But there’s nothing here.” Bocrest gestured for his troops to fan out and investigate.

Tikaya floundered through deep snow to join Rias. He held a thermometer and a round bronze device she had seen him consult a few times. She had thought it a compass, but the numbers on its circular face did not represent degrees.

“Barometer?” she guessed.

Rias nodded once, though his eyes rolled upward as if he were busy with some calculation. Bocrest shuffled up behind them.

“Worried about a storm coming in?” she asked when Rias’s attention shifted to her.

He chuckled. “No, calculating our elevation. As long as you know the temperature, the air pressure at sea level, and the air pressure where you are, you can—”

Bocrest jerked his hand up. “Nobody cares, Five. Is this the spot or not?”

Rias’s sigh had a long-suffering quality, and, as he turned to face the captain, Tikaya wondered how many times in his career he had been cut off by officers with Bocrest’s temperament.

“We’re either here or we’re very close,” Rias said. “I was expecting a launching platform, but I suppose it’s possible the rocket was self-propelling.”

“You brought us up here to find nothing?” Bocrest demanded.

While the men debated, Tikaya removed her spectacles to clean them. She tilted them toward the sky to check for specks and almost dropped them when she spotted a sliver of familiar black metal on the cliff top above.

“Gentlemen.” She pointed, ending their argument.

“Ah.” Rias put away his tools. “Another fifty feet.”

“Thought your math was better than that.” Bocrest smirked.

Rias’s eyebrows disappeared under his wool cap. “My math is impeccable. The tools are imprecise.”

Tikaya grinned, always amused when his Turgonian arrogance peeped out.

Bocrest only snorted and called to his men: “Get some grappling hooks out. We’re climbing.”

“We’ll go first.” Rias pointed to his chest then at Tikaya. “I don’t want overeager young men thundering around up there before we’ve ascertained the danger.”

“I’ll go first,” Bocrest said. “You can come after and pull your wounded librarian up.”

Tikaya grimaced. She held her own on the walkable terrain, but even without a shoulder injury, she would have needed help up the cliffs. Already, Rias had pulled her up two, while she scraped and pushed with her crampons, trying to use her legs and burden him as little as possible.

“Doing all right?” Rias patted her on the back as Bocrest stomped away.

“I’m fine. Do you always volunteer women to lead the way with you into potentially dangerous situations?”

He winked. “Only if I know they can handle it.”

Not for the first time, she wondered if he thought too highly of her.

• • • • •

When Rias pulled Tikaya over the edge, she knelt to catch her breath. Even with his help, the climb had been taxing.

The first thing she noticed was the dead man. The second thing she noticed was that he had not died the same way the marines in the fort had. An enormous amount of blood spattered the snow around him, and methodical cuts marked the body. Bocrest already stood over it, arms crossed, lips dragged down in a scowl.

“Tortured,” he said. “Same as the one in the fort.”

“Nurian?” Tikaya asked.

Bocrest was too busy cursing under his breath to answer.

The ledge, similar to the one below, offered another ideal view of the tundra—and the fort. A second cliff to the rear shadowed a tent and a fire pit. The source of the black metal Tikaya had spotted rested near the edge: a flat circle mounted on tripod legs. A shaft tilted upward from the disk and appeared the right size for cradling the rocket. The launching apparatus was not large, but it would have taken more than one man to carry it up there. Or a telekinetics practitioner.

Tikaya walked over to look at the body. “Uh.”

“Uh?” Rias asked.

“I recognize this one too.”

“Can’t be a practitioner,” Rias said. “He looks Turgonian.”

“He is Turgonian. That’s Lancecrest.”

“The fort commander?” Bocrest asked. “He’s too young.”

“No, the Lancecrest I told you about. And actually I think he did study the mental sciences at the Polytechnic. Along with archaeology.” She filled Rias in with the information she had given Bocrest the night before.

“Huh,” Rias said. “That he’s here is not wholly mystifying—Colonel Lancecrest could have taken command, found out about the tunnels, seen an opportunity for the family to improve its fortunes, and told his little brother to prepare for a relic hunt. But why would the younger Lancecrest have launched a rocket at his older brother’s fort? And why is he now up here tortured and dead? This is…unexpected.”

Bocrest spat. “If something expected happens at any point in this mission, I’ll shit myself in shock.”

Tikaya shook her head at the lurid speech. “Is he truly married?” she asked Rias.

“Last I heard.” Rias knelt to examine the body more closely. “The empire has failed to keep me apprised of the latest gossip surrounding its officers.”

“It’s hard to imagine that tongue wooing a woman.” Tikaya headed for the launch pad.

Bocrest dropped his arms. “Was that an insult? Did she just insult me?”

“I believe she did,” Rias said.

“I never know with her. She gives insults in the same tone as a scientist analyzing an experiment.”

Tikaya dug out her journal. “You do remind me of the lab rats they keep in the science wing of the Polytechnic.”

“That was definitely an insult,” Rias said.

“I know,” Bocrest said. “It’s hard to be offended, though. She’s so civilized when she delivers them. Tidy job on Lancecrest. Whoever ran the torture session was experienced.”

Tikaya scratched her head at the abrupt topic shift. Only Turgonians could go from casual chit chat to analyzing dead people in the same breath.

“Body’s stiff but this doesn’t look like it happened long ago,” Rias said. “Yesterday maybe.”

“There’s a mess in the tent,” Bocrest said. “Like someone searched it, same as the colonel’s office in the fort.”

Rias leaned over the ledge. “Koffert, come up. We need your tracking skills.”

Bocrest frowned at this presumptive order giving. Tikaya wondered when Rias had found the opportunity to learn people’s names and skill sets.

Long before the tracker reached the top, the launch device swallowed her attention. Runes ran down the tripod legs, giving her plenty to study. She sat in the snow with her journal, gloves off. Not knowing how much time Bocrest would give her, she risked the cold to make copying the symbols easier. The men’s conversations faded from her awareness as she worked. She brushed her fingers along a complex grouping of seventeen symbols, and a faint hum teased the edge of her mind. It startled her, and she dropped her journal. Surely the sensation did not come from the launch pad. The artifacts had not yet made her suspect the mental sciences were involved in their creation. Yet something here teased her sixth sense, reminding her of the communications pendant on the Nurian ship. The residual tingle of a practitioner-made device.

“Tikaya?” Rias touched her shoulder. “The tracker is done. Are you ready to leave?”

She blinked and stood, surprised by the stiffness in her limbs. How long had she sat? Rias removed his gloves and held her hand in his warm ones, and she noticed white tipping her fingers.

“Frost nip.” He rubbed her hands and raised an eyebrow. “Keep your gloves on. You’d have a hard time taking notes if you lost your fingers.”

“Sorry, that was dumb. I needed to use the pencil, and, uhm.” She blushed. Of all people, he could probably understand an absent-minded streak, but she still avoided his eyes.

“What I don’t understand is how someone else found this ledge,” Bocrest said, apparently resuming a conversation she had missed. The tracker stood before him, a sergeant with a lined face and beaky nose. “How many math geniuses are roaming around up here?” Bocrest added.

“Perhaps our mystery man saw the rocket being launched,” Rias said.

Despite his suggestion that she keep her gloves on, Rias had not released Tikaya’s hands. Calluses hardened his palms, but his touch was gentle as he rubbed her skin. She made no move to pull away.

“Wouldn’t he have died from the gas, too, then?” she asked. “And how do you know our torture-loving person is a man? The Nurians have female warriors.”

“Walks like a man, pisses like a man,” the tracker said.

“Uhm. All right.” Tikaya knew nothing about tracking, but supposed squatting and standing would indeed leave different yellow-snow signatures. “But what about the gas?”

Rias gazed east. “The pass is that way and at a higher elevation. The rocket released its load in the air above the fort, so perhaps that means the gas—or whatever it is exactly—was heavier than air and wouldn’t have affected someone above the detonation point. This camp, after all, is well within the twenty mile radius.”

“Perhaps?” Bocrest asked. “You’re just guessing?”

“Yes,” Rias said.

“Good steel used for the torture,” the tracker said.

Rias and the captain nodded, though it took Tikaya a minute to follow. Right. The good steel and the possible entrance through the pass implied a Turgonian. And hadn’t the men in the dungeon suggested the same thing? That the torture was done by the book? The Turgonian book?

“So, you’ve got an ally up here?” Tikaya asked. “Maybe he’ll show himself, and we can share your applejack with him.”

She smiled. The others did not. Rias and Bocrest appeared more grim than anything.

“Ally,” Rias murmured, then found Bocrest’s gaze. “Did the emperor say anything about sending help?”

“He made it clear he wanted the mission accomplished.”

Tikaya wondered if Rias derived more from that answer than she did.

“You find anything useful on that rocket, Komitopis?” Bocrest asked.

“I’m getting some fantastic data. If we find more samples in this scientific vein, I believe the shared contexts will allow me to—”

Bocrest hissed in frustration and jerked his hand up, much as he had to halt Rias’s explanation of the altitude calculations. “When I ask you a question, I want a yes or no response.”

“Then, yes,” Tikaya said.

Rias chuckled and squeezed her hands.

“Although if you’d listen to all I had to say, you’d learn that there’s some science about the device.”

“Science?” Bocrest’s expression blanked.

“Magic,” Rias said.

“Oh,” Bocrest said. “How?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Tikaya said. “Give me a moment.”

She started to bend down again, but Rias stepped in front of the launch pad. He picked up her gloves and handed them to her. Not until she stuffed her numb fingers back into the fur-lined interiors did he move aside.

“Thank you,” she said.

Rias saluted her with a wink. Bocrest heaved a sigh.

She touched the launch pad again, checking several spots. It was weak, but she did sense something, especially close to the ground. On a whim, she tried to lift one of the legs. She expected the black metal to weigh too much, but she raised it with relative ease, revealing a leather-bound book flattened into the snow. Her heart sped up in anticipation. Rias grabbed the leg, so she could retrieve her find.

A pen was stuck in the spine, and it felt warm beneath her fingers. That was it: the practitioner-imbued item, probably crafted to never run out of ink or some simple thing. As far as she could tell, the book—no, journal—was mundane. She flipped it open, but had scarcely read the first couple words when someone tore it from her grip.

“Our people will vet this and decide if it’s suitable for a foreigner to read,” Bocrest said.

“Bocrest…” Rias started, but Tikaya lifted her chin and spoke.

“Then I hope you brought someone who reads Kyattese, because the writing isn’t in your tongue.”

Bocrest flipped through a few pages and his lip curled into a snarl. “Kyattese?” His eyes narrowed. “Why would there be a notebook up here in your language?”

“He spoke Kyattese.” Tikaya nodded at Lancecrest’s body.

“Is it possible that journal is what our ‘ally’ was searching for?” Rias asked.

Bocrest jerked his head down, eyes scouring the pages as if he could translate them through will. With a disgusted grunt, he thrust the book at Tikaya.

“You tell us,” he said.

She skimmed the opening pages and practically bounced at the massive number of the language samples within. Notes, mostly speculation, surrounded drawings of symbols she had not yet seen. No firm translations yet. “I’ll need time to read over everything, but it’s definitely Lancecrest’s journal, and it looks like he’s been in your tunnels a while. There are hundreds of pages here and dates go back almost a year.”

She turned to a dog-eared page, and her hand froze. Launch instructions for the rocket. It appeared Lancecrest had discovered how to operate the weapon through trial and error rather than true understanding of the language. Nonetheless, the instructions were there. And suddenly she knew: this book was exactly what their mysterious stranger was searching for, here in the tent and perhaps in the colonel’s office as well. It could explain the torture sessions too. He had been trying to locate these very instructions, but the Nurian had not known and Lancecrest must have held out to the end.

“Find something?” Rias asked.

She flinched, knowing she had been silent too long to brush it off. “Just an interesting take on what the prime groupings imply.” She hated lying to Rias, but she was not going to hand Bocrest directions for launching the rockets. She could only assume there were more of the devices in the tunnels.

“Find something useful?” Bocrest asked.

Since shadow covered the ledge already, Tikaya received little warning when the ice condor approached for the second time. Movement teased the corner of her eye, and Rias yelled, “Get down!” just as she was turning to check.

The condor swooped toward her head, talons outstretched. She flung her arms out.

Rias smashed into her, taking her to the ground. Her shoulder flared with pain, but the talons meant for her eyes grazed her forearm. They cut through her parka and stung flesh.

Bocrest and the tracker fired, but the condor banked before the balls hit. It swooped out of sight over the cliff above the tent.

“Are you injured?” Rias asked, eyes locked on her as he shifted to let her up.

Tikaya pushed up her parka sleeve. “Just a couple scratches.”

Rias removed a glove and brushed his finger across one of the wounds, which had started to well blood. A green pasty substance mingled with the crimson drops.

“What is it?” Dread hollowed her stomach.

“Poison.” Rias jumped to his feet. “We have to get to the sawbones.”

Tikaya stared at her arm. She knew nothing about poison. “Is this a lethal dose? How much time do I have?”

He started to respond, but the condor swooped toward them again.

“Someone shoot that slagging bird!” Bocrest shouted to the men below. He and the tracker were still reloading.

Rias had dropped his rifle to shield Tikaya. The bird landed on the launch pad as he grabbed the weapon. Unconcerned, the condor cocked its head, black eye studying Tikaya.

“Yes, you got me.” Bitterness choked her words.

“Sh.” Rias aimed the rifle, but hesitated. A calculating flash crossed his face, and he raised his voice. “Don’t worry, Tikaya. You’re not going to die. We’ve got the antidote in camp, and you’ve got plenty of time.”

Bocrest, the first to finish reloading, lifted his rifle. The bird flapped away. Several shots fired, but it weaved and banked with preternatural speed, and disappeared unscathed.

Rias lowered his weapon. He had not fired.

“I’d like to be reassured by your words,” Tikaya murmured, “but I suspect that was for the benefit of the bird.”

“Will whoever is controlling it understand our speech through its ears?” Rias asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe.” She might have stopped to consider what he hoped to accomplish with his words, but other thoughts stampeded to the front of her mind. “How much time do I really have?”

“Plenty,” Rias said.

She had come to know him too well; she could tell he was lying.

CHAPTER 14

Tikaya woke to the sound of pained wheezing. Her own. Air. She couldn’t get enough air.

She opened her eyes to a green canvas tent ceiling supported by slender steel bars. Confusion muddled her mind. The last thing she remembered was Rias and another marine carrying her down the mountain on a litter. Now she lay on a cot, blankets pulled to her chin. Somewhere behind her head, a lantern provided illumination that failed to reach the shadowy corners.

They must have reached the base camp, but if the sawbones had applied some antidote, she could not feel it. Her breath rattled in her ears, and she could not pull in enough air to satisfy her lungs. She tried to wriggle her toes. If they moved she could not tell.

Still alive, she thought, but still poisoned. And alone. Rows of empty cots stretched into the darkness. Where was Rias? Why hadn’t he stayed with her? And what about the sawbones?

“Akahe, please don’t let me die alone,” she mouthed.

She blinked away tears, but it was hard to keep the wheezing breaths from turning into sobs. With no one to witness her torment, why bother being stoic? And why hadn’t she written a letter to her parents? Rias might be slated for a return to exile, but Agarik would have found a way to post it. But now her family would forever wonder what happened.

The tent flap swayed, and icy air gusted inside.

She could not lift her head to peer into the shadows at the entrance. “Is someone there?” she tried to ask. It came out weak and garbled.

She saw no one, but soft footfalls trod across floor mats. A man coalesced before her—a familiar man. The Nurian practitioner from the ship. She tried to move, to roll away, but her body did not respond. When she had begged the Divine One to keep her from dying alone, this was not the company she had meant.

“The Turgonian lied,” he murmured in his native tongue, his gaze flicking over her supine form. “I see no evidence that an antidote has been applied. They probably don’t even know Irkla Root when they see it.” He withdrew a knife and met her eyes for the first time. “I’m sorry, Ms. Komitopis.”

She groped for something to say that would save her, but only a wheezy gurgle came out when she tried to speak.

“I regret the need for this task,” the Nurian continued. “After the help the Kyattese—you—gave my people during the war, it’s unfair to kill you, but I cannot let the Turgonian military get their hands on that kind of weaponry. Nor am I going to let those archaeologists sell it to the highest bidder. I can’t let your talents be used against my people, but I’ll show mercy and end your suffering now.”

He leaned forward and lifted the blade. Tikaya tried to thrash, to fight him off, but her limbs were already dead.

A shadow moved behind the Nurian, and a dagger appeared at his throat. His weapon was wrenched from his hand.

“You move, you die,” Rias growled in his accented Nurian.

The assassin’s eyes widened. He reached for his throat, but Rias’s blade bit into flesh, drawing blood.

“Most of your people who work with poisons carry the antidote in case they infect themselves,” Rias said. “You’ve five seconds to produce it, or you’ll suffer the same fate as your bodyguard.”

Rias’s head was right next to the Nurian’s, and rage burned in his eyes. Tikaya wanted to yell, to warn him that a practitioner did not need a weapon to kill. Only a strangled wheeze came out.

Surprisingly amenable, the Nurian reached into his parka and withdrew a handful of fingernail-sized clay vials. “The gray one.”

“Sample it,” Rias said.

The Nurian blanched.

Rias shoved him to his knees and smashed his face into the mats. The two men dropped below Tikaya’s line of sight.

“You’re justifying killing the one person who saved your asses in the war over paranoia,” Rias snarled.

“You saw your fort. Your people would destroy the world with weapons like that. I can’t—”

“Quiet.” Rias slammed the man into the ground again. “Which vial is the correct antidote?”

“The clear one,” the Nurian rasped, his airway restricted.

Did Rias have a hand around his throat? She struggled to turn her head, but could only move it an inch.

Rias sat back, kneeling on the man’s chest, and pulled the cork out with his teeth. He forced a drop down the Nurian’s throat. The man made no attempt to elude it, and Rias seemed satisfied.

As he started to reach for Tikaya, the hairs on her neck stood.

“Spell,” she blurted, praying the word would come out intelligible.

Rias growled and drove his dagger into the Nurian’s chest with a crunch of bone. The pained grunt sounded final.

He leaned close to Tikaya and rested a hand on her forehead. The rage was gone, and an uncertain desperation haunted his eyes. He held up the vial.

“I don’t know for sure, but I have to try it, all right?”

She tried to nod vigorously, though she was not sure her head moved. He propped her up to slide the liquid down her throat. It burned like cheap rum, and tasted like resin, but she was not about to reject it.

Rias never shifted his gaze from her face. He stroked her hair gently. When his hand brushed her cheek, it felt cool against her fevered skin. The lantern light reflected in the moisture pooling in his eyes. Tears blurred her own vision again, though this time they came from knowing someone was there with her, someone who cared.

Utter weariness overcame her, and she closed her eyes.

Rias was still with her when she woke. He had removed the body and knelt on the ground with his head next to hers on the cot, his hair touching her cheek. Her breathing seemed smoother, less labored. Somewhere beyond the tent, voices rose in argument. She listened, but could not make out words. That she even noticed the goings on outside seemed a good sign.

She wiggled her fingers experimentally. They responded. Her toes did too. Yes.

She eased her arm from beneath the blanket before she could think to favor her shoulder, but no blast of pain accompanied the movement. Perhaps the antidote had healed the injured joint as well. She would test it later. For now, she gave in to the urge to slide her fingers through Rias’s hair. It was thick and black, save for those silver strands at his temple, and surprisingly soft.

He lifted his head, and she let her hand drop. The shaman’s concoction might have healed her, but weakness weighted her limbs. He winced as he adjusted his position—falling asleep on one’s knees could not be comfortable—but the pained expression turned to a pleased smile when he saw her watching him.

“It worked,” he said.

“I think so,” she rasped, voice rougher than Sergeant Ottotark’s manners.

Rias held up a finger, moved away, and returned with a canteen. He slid his arm behind her shoulders and propped her up to drink.

“Not so bad being sick,” she said, “when someone’s willing to carry you around and take care of you.”

“Well, don’t make getting poisoned your new hobby. It’s hard on—” He cleared his throat. “It’s hard.”

Tikaya leaned against him and tried to recall the events of the day. What had brought the Nurian into the tent? Then she realized: “When you spoke so the bird could hear, talked about an antidote, that was a trick? To make the Nurian think he needed to come personally to finish the job?”

“A trick, yes, also known as a hopeless stab at making something happen. I feared the sawbones didn’t have antidotes in his kit, and, as it turns out, I was right.”

“Ah.” She shuddered to think how close she had come to dying. “Rias, if someone does succeed in killing me up here, and you make it out, will you do me a favor? Please find a way to let my parents know what happened.”

He placed his palm alongside her face, traced her cheek with his thumb. “I’m planning on making sure you live, but, yes, of course.”

“Thank you.” Weariness dragged her lids down again. “I love you,” she murmured before falling asleep.

• • • • •

The next time she woke, darkness still wrapped the tent, and Rias was gone. Agarik sat on a nearby cot, whittling a piece of wood.

“Is it still the same night?” she asked.

“Yes.” Agarik lifted his head. “Near midnight, I think.” His fresh scar appeared garish by the lantern light, but he smiled and said, “I’m glad you made it.”

“Thanks. Me too. Is Rias around?”

His lips flattened, and he looked down, fingers gripping the carving too tightly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to imply—I appreciate your company too.”

He snorted. Agarik’s annoyance surprised her since she had only seen him irritated in Wolfhump and everyone had been irritated there.

“Is this about…” She thought about the number of marines who knew she and Rias had shared a room in the fort. If Bocrest had said nothing of their sleeping arrangements—and why would he gossip with his subordinates?—everyone likely assumed they had slept together. “Agarik, I’m sorry, but he was married so…even if it wasn’t me…”

Agarik waved a hand and met her eyes. “It’s not that. I mean, of course a fellow dreams, but…it’s just unfair that you don’t even know who he is and you get to be his friend.” As soon as the words came out, he winced. “Rust, that was pitiful. I sound like a child. And I should be sorry, not you.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “You almost died today, and I’m sulking because the only time my boyhood hero speaks to me is to inquire about you.”

“Your…boyhood hero?” Tikaya caught herself gaping and closed her mouth. “How old are you, Agarik?”

“Twenty-three.”

He was younger than she had thought, but that still meant Rias had to have been someone of note for at least ten or fifteen years. Not just an officer, someone distinguished enough to have been known and discussed all over the empire. The night before she had resolved to ask Rias his name. She was tired of being in the dark. She had to know.

“To answer your original question,” Agarik said, “last I saw him, he was heading off to a meeting with Bocrest. The captain’s finally given up trying to keep him at prisoner status. He told the men to treat Rias like an officer for the duration of the mission.”

Tikaya found herself gaping again. “Er, how long was I asleep?”

“While the captain was up on the mountain, the marines setting up camp down here had some time to chat. Things came out.” The mischievous glint in his eyes suggested the source of those ‘things.’ “Not that many men were surprised. Most of us had pieced together who he is and started deferring to him anyway. Ottotark about shi—had an accident, though.”

She flexed her fingers and eyed her nails. “And he’s who, again?”

She hoped Agarik would let it slip, but he shook his head. “He should be the one to tell you.”

“Of that I have no doubt, but he hasn’t.” He almost had, the night in Wolfhump, probably because he had not been sure they would live to dawn.

“Have you asked him?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Agarik scratched at his scab, caught himself, and scratched around it instead. A breeze buffeted the side of the tent. She would get the answer from Rias as soon as she saw him. No more waiting. In the meantime, there was little point to dwelling on it. She should rest, or study Lancecrest’s journal. The notes would help her along on her translations. She would love to be the one who—

Love! Her memory triggered. She had told Rias she loved him before falling asleep. She bit her lip. Had he responded? She could not remember. Had he felt awkward? Alarmed? Dare she hope—pleased?

Tikaya swung her legs off the cot. “I need to talk to him.”

Agarik lifted a hand. “You can’t go anywhere. You were almost dead a few hours ago. You need to rest.”

“I did rest. I’m done now.” She stood and promptly fell back onto the cot, betrayed by straw legs.

“Really,” Agarik said dryly.

“I just need to get my muscles moving.” She stuck her legs out. Maybe a few ankle rotations and toe wiggles would improve the blood flow.

“Rias will be back by morning, I’m sure. You should rest.”

“I need to talk to him now. It’s, uhm…” Tomorrow they would be surrounded by squads of men again. She needed to talk to him tonight. Alone. And she was not about to explain that to Agarik. “I need to see if he has the journal I recovered,” she said instead. “I want to study it further before we go into the tunnels.”

“It’s the middle of the night, Tikaya.”

“Night is eighteen hours long here. It’s always the middle of the night.”

“You’ve a point there.” Agarik stood, head brushing the rafter of the tent. “I’ll get the journal for you if you stay here and rest, all right?”

She smiled at him but did not answer. Whatever got her nanny out of the tent so she could leave.

Agarik unfastened the flap and slipped out. An icy draft reminded her to dress fully before venturing outside. Fortunately, someone had piled her gear at the end of her cot where a portable stove burned. She checked for the journal in case Rias had tucked it in there, but he probably placed it elsewhere to make sure the Nurian would not find it.

Outside, stars and a half moon brightened a wedge of sky framed by steep canyon walls. They must have arrived at the canyon where the tunnels began.

A bonfire blazing in the center of camp snapped and launched sparks into the air. Five tents, large enough to hold cots for all, stood back from it. The sleds lay between her tent and the next, and the dogs had burrowed into the snow and slept with their noses tucked under their thick, fluffy tails. A surprising number of men were still awake and chatting fireside. Or perhaps they were awake again. Rias must have kept the camp quiet and had the men feign sleep to draw in the Nurian. A ceramic jug passed from hand to hand, and laughter gave the atmosphere a jovial feel, though some of the chortles sounded strained. No doubt rumors abounded concerning the tunnels, and, after the deaths they had seen, the men must suspect not all of them would make it out again.

Tikaya stood, breath fogging the air before her eyes, wondering where to find Rias. She considered the other tents. Three stood dark, but light seeped from beneath the flaps of hers and one other—might that be a command tent?

She padded to the entrance and debated whether to peek inside or wait for him to come out. If Bocrest led the meeting, he would not appreciate her interruption. She lifted her hand but let it hang as she considered how one knocked on a tent.

The flap peeled back, and one of the sergeants almost crashed into her.

“What’re you doing?” He lowered his brows and glared at her. “Spying?”

“Huh? I mean, no, I—” She looked at her still raised hand as if that would explain her intent.

“Who is it?” Captain Bocrest asked from within.

“The woman,” the sergeant said over his shoulder. “Standing outside, spying.”

“I’m not spying!”

“I got to piss.” The sergeant shoved past her. “Out of my way, girl.”

“It’s Tikaya,” she informed his back.

He threw a rude gesture over his shoulder. No one called to invite her into the tent, but she walked in anyway. Six marines, Bocrest and his senior ranking men including a scowling Ottotark and the sawbones whose brother she had killed. No Rias. She swallowed.

“Sorry, for interrupting,” she said, “but I’m looking for…that journal. I thought it’d be useful to finish translating it before we head in.”

The glowers facing her seemed more suspicious than her presence called for after what she had been through with these men.

“For our benefit?” Ottotark growled. “Or so you can deliver it to the archaeologists inside?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking… Oh.” She recalled the Nurian’s speech before he had tried to kill her. Those moments when she had been so close to death were fuzzy, but she did remember archaeologists being mentioned. Rias must have relayed the information. “I don’t know who’s in there. There are a lot of archaeologists in the world.” Though she had to admit that at least half of the renowned ones came from the Kyatt Islands and most of the other half had studied there at one point or another. “Chances are I don’t know any of them, if that’s what you’re worried about—the folks I know aren’t the types to go hunting for ancient weapons caches. And, anyway, I wouldn’t betray Rias.”

“You, the cryptomancer who slagged us all in the war, wouldn’t betray ‘Rias?’” one of the sergeants asked.

“Quiet, Karsus,” Bocrest said. “He hasn’t told her.”

“No? Oh, yes, that relationship’s going to work.”

The ire in the room evaporated and was replaced by sniggers. Tikaya set her jaw. She preferred the hostility. This was one more reason for her to talk to Rias tonight. She was damned if she was going to be the only one in camp who did not know.

Bocrest reached into the rucksack beside his cot and pulled out the leather journal. He tossed it to her. “Go. Figure out what’s in there that’s worth torturing people over.”

Naturally, she bumped into the returning sergeant on her way out. He growled at her, and she skittered away with an apology. She stopped a few paces beyond, bent over, hands on her knees, fatigue making her limbs heavy.

What further cane fields would she have to harvest for these Turgonians to prove she was sold on working with them? Then again, was she? She cared what happened to Rias and Agarik, but she would not cry over the rest if an avalanche swallowed them. What if she did encounter scholars she knew and respected inside? Men and women—how she missed having female colleagues to talk to!—with a ship anchored somewhere, a way back home. What if she did have a chance to switch sides?

“Tikaya?”

She straightened and turned toward Rias’s concerned voice. She hoped the darkness hid the guilty flush that heated her cheeks.

“Is something wrong?” He wore parka, cap, scarf, and he even carried snowshoes and a rifle. Where had he been? Scouting the tunnel entrance? “I thought you’d sleep until morning.”

“I, uhm, wanted to talk to you.” She had been looking all over for him, but had not given much thought to what she would say.

“Of course.”

Rias leaned the rifle and snowshoes against the side of a tent, and she joined him in the shadows, wanting to be out of eyesight if anyone else from the meeting came out to relieve himself. He wrapped her in a hug, and she slid into his arms, though the amused eyes of the men in the tent nagged her mind. She had to know. Tonight. She waited for Rias to release her, but he held her in silence for a long moment, arms tight. She breathed in the tang of weapons cleaning oil and black powder mingling with his warm male scent. Men laughed around the fire, trading jokes, boasting of brave feats.

“I’m sorry,” he finally whispered.

Sorry? Was that in response to her proclamation of love? He was sorry he didn’t love her back?

Then he added, “I used to be faster. You shouldn’t have been—I should have seen the condor sooner.” He sounded so distraught. It brought a lump to her throat.

“Oh, Rias.” Tikaya wriggled her glove off and laid her hand on the side of his face. “That’s not your fault.”

“I should have sent you with the main party.” His own glove came off and he laid his hand on hers.

“I’m sure that condor could have found me down there as well as on the mountain.”

His sigh came out as more of a grumble. “I’m tired of people trying to kill you.”

“I’m not an enthusiast of the trend either.”

Rias’s other hand slid under her scarf to rub the back of her neck. She closed her eyes, letting those strong fingers knead her flesh, even as she lamented the layers of parkas and wool uniforms between them. The voices of the marines faded from her awareness. Soft breaths tickled her cheek, and she opened her eyes to find his face close. Shadows cloaked his eyes, but she sensed his intent and leaned into him, head tilted back.

His lips brushed hers, questioning at first. Tikaya parted her lips, invited more. His kiss grew firm, confident, and she thought of the experienced warrior she had followed through the Nurian ship. Heat flared through her body, and she forgot about her questions, the camp, and the freezing air. She might have forgotten a lot more if someone had not crunched around the tent and stopped to stare.

“Well, well, well.” Ottotark.

She winced and drew back. Of all the people to stumble upon them.

“Ignore him,” Rias breathed, nuzzling her ear.

A small grin stretched her lips as it dawned on her that she could. If Bocrest had told the men to treat Rias like an officer, that would mean he outranked the sergeant. As much of an ass as Ottotark was, he seemed loyal to his uniform and the chain of command. Surely, he would leave them alone if Rias ordered it.

Tikaya probably should not have looked so smug as she cast a dismissive glance Ottotark’s way, but she could not resist, not after all the torment he had thrust upon her. She slid her hands under Rias’s parka and kissed him deeply. Let the bastard watch.

Ottotark guffawed.

Startled, she broke away. That was the last reaction she expected. She looked at Rias, eyes questioning, but Ottotark spoke first.

“The captain really needs to let you live.” He was pointing at her, laughter punctuating his words, but his tone seemed designed to carry to the whole camp. “I’d love to accompany you back to your island so I can tell your mom and pop that you were out here fucking Fleet Admiral Saskha Federias Starcrest, the man who personally recommended taking over your islands to the emperor.” Now it was Ottotark’s turn to be smug. Very smug. “But don’t let that stop your plans for the evening. I can see you’re enjoying yourself. Carry on.” There was far too much pleasure in the cruel sneer he launched at them before walking away.

Tikaya felt lightheaded. She had to remind herself to breathe. All she could do was stare at Rias’s shoulder.

“I’m going to kill that man,” he said.

No denial. No explanation about how Ottotark was wrong. No claim that it was a lie.

“You were right,” Tikaya choked. “My people have heard of you, and you’d never be welcome on my island.”

She stepped back.

Rias grasped her arm. “Tikaya, please. Let me—”

Shaking her head, she pulled her arm free. She had to get away. She had to think. She had to—she didn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” Rias called after her.

She stumbled, not sure where to go. Not back to the fire and the marines. If she returned to her tent, Agarik would be waiting to yell at her for leaving. She definitely did not want to go anywhere she would have to look at Ottotark. But neither could she go out where yetis and wolves and grimbals waited to devour silly girls thousands of miles from their homes.

Tikaya finally sat down behind the sleeping tent. She drew up her knees and buried her face in them. She ought not be so stunned. There had been clues all along. She just hadn’t wanted to see them. Had she really thought someone who so readily took command and led the way into battles was an engineer? That love of mathematics made him the best cursed strategist of his generation. Starcrest. How often had his name come up in the documents she decrypted? The youngest fleet admiral in the history of the empire. The man who, as a captain, had been responsible for the sinking of a hundred Nurian ships. And the man who, as an admiral, had guided every battle, every skirmish that allowed the Turgonians to again and again best the preeminent mental scientists in the world, with only mundane technology on their side. It was not until after his death that the tides had turned, ending in a stalemate. Yes, his death. She vividly remembered decoding a note that said a Nurian assassin had killed the admiral. He was supposed to be dead, not exiled. That was why she had never considered her Rias might be the legendary admiral.

Still, who could she blame but herself? She should have known. She certainly should not have fallen in love with him. If he was nobody important, nobody who would matter to her, he would have told her his name. This was exactly why he had kept it from her. He had known she wouldn’t want anything to do with him. How could she? If what Ottotark said was true, and Rias had been the one to suggest taking over her homeland, then every death was indeed on his hands.

Her stomach writhed, and she choked on a sob. Every death, including Parkonis’s.

CHAPTER 15

Tikaya did not know how long she sat in the shadow of the tent, but shivers and a frozen nose finally convinced her she had to find a warmer berth. She put a hand down and started to rise. The crunch of boots stopped her. A tall figure with a rifle strode between the tents and into the darkness before her. She could not make out features but had an inkling. She remained still, cloaked by shadows.

A long moment passed with the figure scanning the dark canyon beyond the camp.

“Tikaya?” he called.

She closed her eyes. Rias. No, Fleet Admiral Starcrest.

She did not want to—could not—talk to him. Not then.

He called twice more.

“The bitch is gone.” Ottotark strode into view from another direction. He passed within a couple feet of her and stopped a few paces from Rias.

“Ottotark,” Rias growled. “I ought to twist your head off your slagging neck and shove it up your ass.”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t tell your girlfriend your name. Admiral.”

Rias had no answer for that, and even the darkness did not hide the slump to his shoulders. “Where is she?”

“Off to the tunnels to join her friends and leave us hanged.”

Tikaya clenched her jaw. Damn these men. She did not want to deal with either one, but she could not let Rias believe she had run off. She opened her mouth to say something, but Ottotark spoke first.

“You should thank me,” he said. “It’s pathetic the way you were hanging all over the bitch. And why? She slagged us in the war. If you want her, tie her down and screw her, but don’t—”

Rias threw down his rifle and charged. Between one eye blink and the next he covered the distance and crashed into Ottotark, taking him down so hard they flew backward.

Tikaya drew her knees in tight, too startled to speak. The attack may have surprised Ottotark, but he recovered and fought back like a cornered badger. Grunts and snarls accompanied the smack of fists striking flesh.

In the darkness, she lost track of who was who as the men thrashed and writhed on the ground. Clumps of snow flew, spattering her cheeks. Something cracked, and one of them—Rias?—yelped in pain.

Tikaya held her breath. Ottotark was younger, bigger, and without any morals as far as she could tell. She tried to tell herself that Rias—Starcrest—was no longer her concern, but her fingers clenched into a fist, and she silently rooted for him.

One man maneuvered on top and straddled the other. He punched down, and a head hammered the snow. The bottom man bucked and twisted, and a moment later the positions reversed.

“Traitor,” Ottotark snarled.

Both men panted, breaths rasping. They switched positions again, legs tangling as each tried to pin the other.

Metal rang, a knife being pulled.

As furious as he was, Rias would not pull a blade. Tikaya knew he wouldn’t. She almost yelled a warning, but stopped herself. A distraction could prove fatal.

One man found the top again and raised an arm, the knife silhouetted against the night sky. The blade plunged down at the head of the other.

Movement halted. Ragged breaths assaulted the still air, and Tikaya could not tell whether they belonged to one man or two. The top person lurched to his feet and staggered back, a hand to his belly.

Her heart hammered in her ears, and she could not bring herself to call out. If it was Ottotark, who knew what he might do to her? If it was Rias, and he had just made good on his promise to kill the sergeant…

But, no, the supine man groaned. Weakly.

Tikaya could not identify him by the sound. She forced her limbs to unlock and she rolled to her knees. She crept to the fallen man’s side and hesitantly reached toward the face. Her glove bumped something hard.

The knife.

It wasn’t lodged in an eye after all. The attacker had sunk it to the hilt in the snow a hair from the other’s ear. That told her what the shadows did not: of the two, only Rias would have shown mercy.

She jerked her hand back as the man—Ottotark—groaned again. She lunged away from him and looked for Rias. He might be injured and need help. She spun slowly, searching the shadows, but he was gone.

Maybe he had gone to find a cot. She trotted into camp. The number of people awake had dwindled, and the fire burned low. She tore open the flap to the sleeping tent and crashed into someone coming out.

“Tikaya,” Agarik blurted. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

She grabbed his parka. “Is Rias with you? Have you seen him?”

“Not since he went to check the perimeter.” He must have read her distress. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Ottotark told him I’d gone to the tunnels. I’m afraid he might have gone after me.” She explained the fight, all the while cursing herself for staying silent during the men’s confrontation. Why hadn’t she answered when he first called out? If he got in trouble because of her stung feelings…

“He shouldn’t go in there alone,” Agarik said, tone terse, worried. “Come, we’ve got to tell the captain.”

Glad to have him leading the charge, Tikaya followed him into the command tent. Heat and faint light emanated from the portable stove in the center, and she could pick out shapes amongst the shadows. The meeting had dispersed, and only Bocrest and a couple lieutenants remained inside, all flat on cots. Tikaya stopped near the stove. Certain the captain would blame this on her, she did not want to be close enough for him to grab easily.

“Sir?” Agarik asked.

Bocrest jerked awake, hand finding a pistol.

“It’s Agarik, sir. The admiral’s missing.”

Bocrest growled and lurched to his feet. “Explain.” He must have had a suspicion, for his eyes skimmed the darkness and found Tikaya. He cursed. “No, you explain.”

While Agarik had listened to the story patiently, she had to suffer curses and hurled gear while reciting it for Bocrest. He managed to get dressed despite his preoccupation with throwing things and was stuffing his feet into his boots by the time she finished.

“This is why women aren’t allowed in the military.” He cursed again, but shifted to efficiency after that.

By now, the lieutenants were awake and dressing, and he snarled orders at them. Less than five minutes later, the entire camp stood in formation outside. The last to show up, Ottotark limped to the head of one of the lines. Several men held lanterns, and the flickering light revealed bloody and swelling contusions on the sergeant’s face. A dark part of her wished he was dead, though Rias probably would hate himself if he killed someone out of sheer rage.

Bocrest stalked over to face Ottotark. “Did you draw the knife or did he?”

“Sir?” Ottotark asked in a tone that sounded like he was trying to play dumb, or maybe buying himself time to think.

“You heard me!”

Ottotark licked his lips. The marines in formation apparently knew better than to turn their heads and watch, but their eyes flicked toward the confrontation.

“I did, sir,” Ottotark finally said.

“I told you—I told everyone—to treat him like an officer. The punishment for drawing a weapon against an officer is death.”

“Sir! He’s not an officer any more. He’s a traitor, you said so. The emperor—”

“Isn’t here,” Bocrest said. “We’ll discuss punishment when the mission is over. For now, do your job and don’t talk to our guide or our translator. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Ottotark said so softly Tikaya almost missed it. If only the captain had issued that order a few hours earlier.

The tracker strode out of the darkness, and Bocrest shifted his attention.

“There are footprints at the tunnel entrance and it looks like someone walked in, at least a few steps. The floor is that hard black material, and there’s no way to track further.”

“Slagging women,” Bocrest said before raising his voice. “Gather your gear, men. We’re going after him.”

• • • • •

The marines marched in step, and the echoes reverberated through the wide black tunnel. No dead skeletons had marked the entrance, no piles of rubble scattered the floor, nor did water drip eerily in the distance, but the place made Tikaya uneasy nonetheless.

It was too clean, too perfect. No cobwebs obscured the distance, no chips or scratches marred the dust-free floors, and no decoration adorned the walls. The cool dry air reminded her of the lava tubes meandering beneath her father’s plantation, but no familiar earthy smells accompanied it. No smells at all. The lanterns the marines carried went unused. A soft glow emanated from all around, illuminating the tunnel as clearly as the midday sun. She had visited several ancient catacombs, qanats, and subterranean cities, and she had studied dozens more. This sterile tunnel was like nothing in the archaeology books. Nothing in the world.

“Who made this place?” someone muttered.

She walked behind Bocrest, second in a queue of thirty men. A handful of marines had stayed in the base camp while Agarik and a couple others scouted ahead.

“Ancient people,” someone answered.

“How?”

“Magic.”

No telling tingle stirred the hairs on Tikaya’s neck. “I don’t think so.”

“Magic,” another said, his tone brooking no argument. Others murmured assent. “Evil magic made this place, just like the rocket and the thing in Wolfhump.”

“No talking,” Bocrest snapped over his shoulder, saving Tikaya from launching into a lecture that would doubtlessly not be well received.

Rias must have a lot more patience than she to have commanded such men all his life. It must have been lonely for him with so few peers. She shook the thoughts from her head. It was none of her concern. Even if she could forgive him for his lie of omission, Admiral Starcrest was nobody she could have a life with, not without betraying her people, her family, and everyone she loved. Especially those fallen during the war. She could want him found and safe, but she could not want him. Not any more.

She swallowed a lump and fished the journal out of her pocket. A challenge. Her mind needed a challenge, and she needed to learn as much as she could before her services were needed. If ever there was a place she could walk and study at the same time, it ought to be these flat, terrain-free tunnels. The worst thing that could happen is she would trip. An animal screeched in the distance.

Well, maybe not the worst thing.

Rias had mentioned strange predators in the tunnels. Predators that would probably find a single man an appealing target. Best not to dwell on that. Tikaya turned her attention back to the journal.

A mile or two passed with no side rooms or cross corridors forcing decisions. With her mind and her eyes locked on the pages, she failed to notice Bocrest stopping, and she crashed into his back. The journal slipped from her fingers as he spun and scowled.

“Didn’t you see the sign?”

“Sign?” Tikaya blinked and glanced about. They had come to a six-way intersection, where the scouts had stopped to wait. Large symbols in groupings of threes glowed a soft red above eye level at each corner. “Oh, yes, signs. I just read about those.”

Bocrest sighed noisily, while she picked up the journal.

“Not those signs, the hand signal.” He demonstrated by raising his hand, fingers spread. “That means ‘squad halt,’ not ‘librarian run into the captain’s back.’ You need to pay attention in here.”

“Do you want me to pay attention or do you want me to be able to translate the writing on the walls?” she asked.

Bocrest folded his arms. “Yes.”

She snorted but pointed to each sign as she relayed them: “Biology labs, alchemy labs, physics, animal experiments, labs for something Lancecrest didn’t recognize, and living quarters.”

“What is that?” A marine pointed to a calf-high scat pile in the middle of one of the corridors.

“Sorry,” Tikaya said, “I don’t translate poo.”

“Koffert.” Bocrest gestured for the tracker.

The man knelt to examine the pile. He rubbed some between his fingers and sniffed it. “Predator, unknown. Large. Passed this way less than an hour back.” He stood, wiping his hand on his trousers, and Tikaya made a note not to share meals with the man.

Bocrest faced the scouts. “Any sign of Starcrest?”

“No, sir,” Agarik said. He met Tikaya’s eyes, and they shared a grimace.

Bocrest grunted and waved toward the symbols. “Komitopis, which way?”

“Which way do I think Rias would go if he was wondering which way I would go?”

Agarik smiled faintly. Bocrest did not.

“Alchemy?” she guessed.

“Fine. Someone mark the wall.” Bocrest waved the scouts forward. “Go. You boys in the back, stay alert. Watch for monsters creeping up on our asses.”

As the squad headed the new direction, Tikaya cast a longing gaze at the corridor that led to the living quarters. If any personal affects remained after all this time, she could learn much about the people from studying them. After they found Rias, perhaps they could go back.

Soon, doors marked the passage, taller and wider than normal, and without knobs or latches. Symbols denoting laboratories adorned some while others remained plain.

Someone walking closer to the wall than the center of the tunnel triggered a door to slide upward of its own accord. The man cursed and lurched back into line. Tikaya glimpsed a landing overlooking what she guessed to be lab stations—all the furnishings were oversized by human standards. A hand on her back encouraged her to hustle forward and catch up with Bocrest.

“Should we check some of these?” she asked.

“I’m not exploring anything until we catch up with our lovelorn guide,” Bocrest said.

Up ahead, the scouts stopped before a closed door. Agarik and another knelt to check something on the floor while the third man stood guard. After a moment, Agarik jogged back to the group.

“What is it?” Bocrest asked.

“Blood.” Agarik glanced at Tikaya. “A lot of blood.”

Her hands tightened around the journal. If Rias was hurt—or worse—because he had charged in here to look for her, it would be her fault.

When they reached the spot, the size of the dark puddle only increased her dread.

“Human blood,” the tracker said after a taste. “Plantigrade print over there, but definitely not human.”

He pointed to a second puddle halfway under the door. A bloody print more than twice the size of Tikaya’s foot lay beside it. Dots at the end of the toes suggested claws.

“Bear?” Bocrest asked.

Tikaya, remembering Rias’s tale of the tunnels, said, “I doubt it.”

A man screamed somewhere beyond the door. Rias? She lunged for the door, triggering the opening mechanism, but Bocrest caught her before she crossed the threshold.

“We’ll get him,” he said. “You wait here.”

He waved two fingers, and the scouts slipped in first, fanning out on a landing with their rifles raised, ready to fire. Tikaya shifted her weight from foot to foot and eyed a bow stave and quiver attached to a rucksack. The man carried a rifle and pistol too; surely, he could spare the weapon so she could—

“Clear on the landing,” Agarik said.

“Sergeant Karsus.” Bocrest nodded for the man to take over the lead.

Without words, and faster than Tikaya expected, the marines shucked their rucksacks and split into two teams. They filed down stairs on opposite ends of the landing and disappeared from her sight. Only Bocrest remained with Tikaya.

Ignoring his hiss of annoyance, she twisted free of his grip and stepped inside. The landing overlooked a cavernous room that stretched a hundred meters or more. Thick thirty-foot-high columns supported the unadorned black ceiling. Empty floor dominated the front third of the room, and she could only guess at the furnishings beyond. She decided to think of them as lab stations and storage cabinets, though even the lowest counter rose taller than the approaching marines. The height and arrangement blocked much of the floor view as the stations created a maze of sinuous yet symmetrical aisles, some wide, some surprisingly narrow. As with the tunnel, light from an indiscernible source illuminated everything.

A cry of agony echoed from the center, and she glimpsed a blur of black before it disappeared behind a row of twenty-foot-tall cabinets.

“Sprites-licked idiot,” she cursed, whirling to look for a bow amongst the discarded gear. She was not sure whether she meant Rias or herself. If, after all he had lived through, he died to some random animal attack…

Tikaya spotted the bow stave she eyed earlier. The marine had left it in favor of the rifle. She stuffed the journal into her rucksack, then untied the bow with fingers too irritated to fumble with fear. She yanked the quiver free as well. Stringing the weapon was a struggle, and she prayed the draw wouldn’t be too heavy for her.

“Let my men do their job, Komitopis.” Rifle crooked in his arms, Bocrest leaned on the wall by the door, which had slid shut again. His voice was more sympathetic than she had ever heard it, and he did not try to take the weapon from her, but he did add, “You’re staying with me,” in an implacable tone.

She succeeded in looping the string over the limb of the bow. “I’m not going to—”

“I’m not going to lose you as well as Starcrest. We need someone to read this grimbal shit.”

Noise in the corridor made them spin toward the door. Tikaya nocked an arrow while Bocrest raised his rifle. In the lab behind them, the men stalked in silence, and she had no trouble hearing the fast, heavy footfalls outside as they grew louder—closer.

Bocrest cursed, probably regretting that he had sent all his men below. The footfalls thundered to a stop outside the door. Tikaya drew the arrow, ignoring the strain between the backs of her shoulders. At least her shoulder no longer vexed her.

The door slid open. She held her breath.

The tunnel was empty.

The tip of her arrow wavered as her muscles quivered from the effort of holding the draw. She glanced at Bocrest, a question on her lips.

Then a head popped around the jamb and disappeared again. It happened so quickly she doubted her sight. Then a familiar voice spoke with wry humor.

“Can I come in?”

“Rias!” she blurted, even as Bocrest shouted, “Curse you, Starcrest.”

Rias slid out from behind the wall. “I hope that’s a yes.”

They lowered their weapons as he joined them on the landing. First Tikaya noticed a garish black eye and fingermarks bruising his neck, then saw the sweat bathing his face, saturating his hair, and dripping from his chin. His chest, framed by the straps of his rucksack, rose and fell with rapid, deep breaths. He wore all his weapons too—in addition to the rifle he carried, pistol, cutlass, and knife challenged the ammo pouches and powder tins for room on his belt. He must have been back to camp since the fight.

“I can’t believe you left without me,” Rias said, eyes darting as he took in the lab.

“But I saw you with Ottotark,” Tikaya said. “He said—I thought you went in the tunnels looking for me.”

Rias dragged a sleeve across his brow, not quite hiding a grimace of shame. “No, I didn’t believe him. I just had to… I almost lost it with him. I needed to get away, to think.”

Tikaya sagged against the railing with relief.

Disgust curled Bocrest’s lip throughout their exchange, and he finally jabbed his rifle toward the lab below. “If you were behind us, who in the empire are my men trying to rescue down there?”

“I don’t know.” Rias glanced at Tikaya. “Maybe someone we can question if we recover him alive?”

Bocrest raised his voice for the benefit of the men below. “Starcrest accounted for. Continue with retrieval operation.”

“Treat them like grimbals,” Rias called. “It takes a cut to the neck or shot to the eye to kill. And, above all else, do not break anything in here.”

The last command seemed strange when a man’s life was at stake, but the grimness in Rias’s mandate kept Tikaya from questioning it.

A shot fired, and a roar came from the center of the lab. Something crashed against a cabinet, and Rias winced. “Not good. Wish I’d had time to do a briefing.”

He glared at Bocrest who in turn glared at Tikaya.

“This is your childish sergeant’s fault,” she said, “not mine.”

“Why couldn’t the cryptomancer have been a man?” Bocrest glowered at Rias. “Though after all that time on Krychek, you probably wouldn’t have cared.”

Rias raised an eyebrow. “I am armed, you realize.”

Another roar answered the first, and Bocrest’s head snapped back toward the lab. “There’s a second?”

“Back corner.” Rias headed for the stairs. “Who’s coming with me?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Bocrest said.

“I’ve fought these before. Better me than them. But I could use backup.” He offered Tikaya a tentative smile.

More gunfire and a spatter of curses sounded in the lab, but she stared at him for a long moment. “You want me? After last night?”

“Nothing’s changed for me,” he said with a sad smile. “Besides, you’re a better shot with that bow than my other option.”

Bocrest sniffed. “I am armed, you realize.”

But Rias was already heading down the stairs. “Third team advancing along the south wall,” he called.

A strangled groan of pain whispered through the aisles. Before she could think better of it, Tikaya slung the quiver across her back and followed Rias. She could figure out her feelings later.

They descended floating steps too deeply spaced for human comfort. Bow at half-draw, she trailed him across the open area toward a narrow gap along the south wall. As they approached, claustrophobia tightened her chest. The backs of cabinets and lab stations loomed in the same black as the wall, with the counters well above Tikaya’s head. She and Rias would have to walk single file.

Sweat dampened her grip and slithered down her spine. She had been ready to throw herself into the fray for Rias’s sake. Going on a monster hunt for uncertain stakes was another matter. Why had she followed him down the stairs? Surely he would have been better off with Bocrest. Despite her trepidation, she kept following. It should not matter, especially now, what Rias thought, but she could not bring herself to complain or back out.

He pressed himself against the wall and gestured for her to go ahead. “Since I can fire over your shoulder, you can lead.”

Just when she thought it couldn’t get bleaker.

“You know,” Tikaya said, struggling for nonchalance as she slid past, “some men protect the women they care about by keeping them away from danger.”

Rias raised an eyebrow. “Sounds stifling.”

“Perhaps so.”

“Military officers like to challenge people to encourage growth.”

“I’ve been six feet tall since I was thirteen; growth hasn’t been my goal for a while.”

“You could grow a bit more before you got too big for Turgonian tastes.”

She smiled a bit at the double meanings, her mind distracted from her fear. As on the ship, his steadiness calmed her. She could worry about whether it should or not later. In the meantime, she wiped her palms dry, and padded forward, bow ready.

As they traveled deeper into the lab, new higher pitched growls grew audible. They came from somewhere near the back wall. The second creature. Tikaya hoped some of the marines were moving that way too.

They eased closer. Twenty meters, fifteen, ten. Around the corner, claws clacked, teeth snapped, lips smacked, and a tearing sound ripped the air. Tikaya hesitated, certain she did not want to see the source of those noises—or what it was eating. Rias’s hand rested on her shoulder briefly. She nodded to herself and peered around the corner.

Fifteen meters away, in a wide aisle, a huge bipedal creature crouched over a ravaged human corpse. The beast lacked fur, and powerful muscles rippled beneath oily black skin that gleamed under the light. The only thing soft were full breasts that swayed as it tore at flesh.

Tikaya slipped out and raised her bow.

The creature snorted. The head that came up appeared simian except for the long fangs flecked with blood and tissue. The arms and hands, too, were disturbingly human, though claws flashed at the ends of those fingers. The creature reared on its hind legs, powerful thigh muscles bunching. It sprang and sprinted toward them.

A rifle fired over her head, the report deafening. Tikaya expected it and did not flinch. Rias’s shot grazed the creature’s jaw. She loosed her arrow at the neck. It sunk in, and the beast cried out, its scream eerily human. But neither shot slowed its advance.

Rias’s pistol fired, hammering the creature between its breasts. Tikaya had time for one more shot and aimed for an eye, but the beast was closing fast. Her arrow skimmed its temple instead.

Tikaya flattened herself against the wall, hoping she could dodge if those claws flashed. She thought the beast’s momentum would carry it past her, but it halted with amazing athleticism.

It whirled on her, claws raised. Rank breath washed over her. She ducked even as Rias yanked her out of reach. She almost lost the bow as he charged past, cutlass raised. She recovered and stepped back to nock another arrow. Rias ducked a swipe and darted in, but the muscled torso deflected his blade like armor. He nicked a vein, drawing blood. Claws gashed his arm before he could leap out of reach. Its speed was mesmerizing, but she forced herself to focus.

With the creature sparring with Rias, she could wait for a chance at a critical target. There. She fired, and the arrow plunged into its eye.

The beast staggered into a counter, gashing its own face as it clawed at the arrow. It stumbled, then pitched backward. Still.

Tikaya leaned a hand against the wall for support and let her bow droop. “Next time we attack a twelve-foot-tall monster, we probably don’t need to worry about me seeing over your head.”

“Conceded.” Rias rotated his arm to check the slashes below his shoulder, but dismissed them. “One down. Let’s see if the other is still alive.”

A rifle cracked in the center of the lab.

“I’m guessing so,” Tikaya said.

Rias jogged along the wall toward a cross-aisle where he could cut over. He paused when he reached the half-eaten man. It was wearing the black uniform of a Turgonian marine. Though the neck had been torn out, the chest smashed and ravaged, the face remained mostly intact.

“That’s not one of ours, is it?” Tikaya asked.

“No.”

“Somebody from the fort?”

Multiple rifles fired.

“Later,” Rias said, already disappearing around a corner.

A bestial screech reverberated through the lab, and men shouted orders. Tikaya raced after Rias, careening around the corner to face another melee. A second creature, larger and more muscled than the first, fought in the center. This one was male.

Marines attacked from both ends of the aisle, cutlasses and daggers struggling to pierce the resilient skin. The creature whirled, slashing forward, then back, its wild actions enraged, and Tikaya wondered if it knew its mate had fallen. Blood streamed from its sleek flesh, but it batted men away without faltering. As tall as the Turgonians were, they had little chance of reaching the neck or head with their blades.

Rias charged into the fray. Tikaya drew the bow, waiting to glimpse an eye, but the beast chose that moment to escape. It sloughed off its attackers and charged her direction. Her heart lurched. She loosed her arrow, but she lunged to the side too soon, and her shot only struck muscle.

She glanced at the cabinets on either side of her. There was no time to climb out of reach. She smashed herself to the side again, hoping this creature would run past. Though, even if it did, all it would have to do was rake her on the way past and—

Steel zipped through the air from the aisle behind her. A knife lodged in the creature’s eye.

It tripped and tumbled, skidding past her. The prone form crashed into a cabinet, jolting it. The door flung open, and trays of bones spilled out. Human bones, tagged and marked with colored dots. Smaller ones, fragile with age, shattered.

Tikaya found Rias’s eyes, thinking of his admonition not to break anything. Chest heaving, he stood amongst the other marines. He shook his head slowly.

“Everyone back to the entrance,” he said.

Before following the men, Tikaya tossed a glance toward the back wall. Someone had thrown that knife, yet no marines filed in from that direction.

A clunk echoed through the lab.

“Hurry,” Rias urged.

He led a sprint to the stairs where Bocrest twitched an eyebrow at Tikaya and said, “Nice shot.”

She did not answer. It had not been her attack that brought the second creature down.

“Let’s go,” Rias said. “In the hall. We don’t want to be here when the cubes arrive.”

“Cubes?” Bocrest asked.

Tikaya thought of the square vials from the rocket, but surely he could not mean those.

“No time to explain.” Rias pushed past and into the corridor. Leaving the lab without exploring it seemed an abandoned opportunity, but Tikaya did not question him, not when such grimness haunted his face.

Before they took three steps down the tunnel, a door ahead of them slid open. A black one-foot-wide cube floated out at chest level. Tiny red and yellow lights flashed on its top, and a one-inch hole glowed red on its front. A few symbols ran along the sides, and she leaned forward, squinting.

“Back,” Rias said. “Back into the lab.”

“What does it—” Tikaya started, but the glowing hole brightened and a red beam lanced out. Rias yanked her to the side, and it caught the edge of her sleeve. The beam burned a hole through the material.

She half ran and was half dragged back into the lab. Marines crowded the landing, but Rias shoved his way to a panel on the wall. He waved his hand over a pale square. The door slid down from the top of the jamb.

Tikaya stared at smoke wafting from the hole in her sleeve and swallowed.

A beeping started, soft but audible throughout the lab. It came from the walls, the ceiling, everywhere.

“Two more of those cubes coming from below,” Bocrest said.

“If I can get close enough to read what’s on the sides, maybe I can figure out how to stop them,” Tikaya said.

“If you get that close, you’ll be dead,” Rias said.

“There’re two more in the back.” Agarik pointed. “Shooting, burning, er, incinerating the dead creatures.”

“Yes.” Rias rummaged in his pack. “They do that to everything. And everyone. Also, I don’t know how to lock the doors. The one outside will be in soon.”

Tikaya bent to examine runes lighting the wall by the door. She recognized one that had indicated “up” on the rocket. When she pressed the symbol it indented, but nothing happened. She found she could rotate it. A soft thunk came from within the wall. “I think that may have—”

“We’ve got to split up, or we’ll be surrounded,” Bocrest said.

“Actually, I want them all in one spot.” Rias had opened his rucksack and knelt, mixing a liquid and something else into a bottle. Caustic fumes stung Tikaya’s eyes.

A red beam from below splashed against the wall on the landing. It adjusted, lowering, and marines ducked out of the way.

“Forget that,” Bocrest said. “Karsus, get these men under cover, and shoot at anything that moves.”

“Bocrest!” Rias barked.

The squads were already running off, Bocrest included this time, leaving only Tikaya and Rias on the landing. Below, a pair of cubes, which had been floating languidly toward the stairs, split and increased speed. One chased after each group of men. Before one of the squads reached cover, a beam shot out, taking the last man in the back.

He screamed. Tikaya gripped the railing, unable to take her eyes from the scene.

The rear two men from the squad shot and rifle balls clanged off metal. At the least, the force should have propelled the cube backward, but it never moved. The beam continued, piercing the marine’s body and coming out the other side as it incinerated flesh, muscle, and organs. Even when he dropped to the ground and curled into a ball, it stayed with him. It cauterized as it burned an ever-widening hole in his torso. The marine stopped moving, eyes glazed in death. The cube’s beam kept breaking down the body, even burning blood away.

Tikaya, thunderstruck by the ghastly scene, almost did not notice Rias racing down the stairs with nothing but a jar of orange liquid in his hands. At first, the automaton ignored him, busy finishing its incineration of the dead man. Rias kept sprinting, one hand gripping the jar, one on the lid. The cube abandoned its task and rotated toward him.

“No!” Tikaya grabbed her bow, though she did not know what good she could do if rifles had not damaged the device.

Rias flung some of the liquid on the cube, then ducked under it as the beam shot. It sizzled past, missing him. It struck the stair railing, but the beam did not affect the black metal. The viscous liquid on the cube smoked red. Pungent fumes gagged the air as it oozed down the sides.

That did not stop the automaton from rotating toward Rias, its ominous red hole glowing. Before its deadly side disappeared from sight, Tikaya fired, aiming for the orifice shooting those beams. Her shots flew true, and the shaft lodged inside. But the red glow flared and a beam incinerated the arrow.

Rias found cover behind a column.

A hiss sounded behind Tikaya.

“Look out!” Rias yelled.

She whirled. The door she had tried to lock opened, revealing two cubes on the threshold. Their holes glowed.

Tikaya leaped over the railing. The floor came quickly, and she landed with an ankle-jarring jolt. Two beams zipped over her head. Off-balance, she skittered into the shadows beneath the landing.

Gunfire echoed elsewhere in the lab. She sensed rather than heard the cubes floating down the stairs.

“Over here.” Rias beckoned with an arm. “Zigzag your path.”

With a wary glance at the cubes coming down—they were only a few steps from the bottom—Tikaya raced across the open space toward Rias.

“Zag!” he barked.

She angled left. A beam splashed the floor inches from her feet. After a few more steps, she veered right.

Something crashed behind her, but she did not slow to look. She skidded behind Rias’s column, nearly jabbing him in the face with her bow.

He gripped her shoulder and started to speak, but an agonized scream echoed from the back corner.

“Curse Bocrest for not listening,” Rias growled. He pointed at the cube he had doused with the goop. It lay on the ground, part of its exterior burned away to expose silvery innards. “It’s working. I made it in the vehicle garage in Wolfhump. I wasn’t sure it’d be the same as—”

“Those two are coming,” Tikaya said.

“Right, yes. We have to get some of this on them, too, but I don’t have a chance unless they’re distracted.”

“You want me to do that?”

“Not ideally,” Rias said.

The cubes floated closer, no urgency to their movement, but an eerie inexorableness marked their flight.

“This way.” Rias led Tikaya down the aisle to find cover behind the next column.

“I thought you wanted to challenge me,” she said.

“You saw how lethal one can be, and we’ve got two to deal with. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

More likely killed, Tikaya thought. She smiled bleakly. “If not me, who else?”

“I’ll do it,” an emotionless unfamiliar voice said from behind them.

A young man—he could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen—stood there, wearing fitted black clothing and soft black boots. Several sizes of daggers adorned his belt, and a set of throwing knives was strapped to his right arm. He carried nothing else.

“Go,” Rias said, hefting his jar.

If the boy’s appearance surprised him half as much as it did Tikaya, he did not show it. She lifted a hand, intending to protest sending someone so young on a suicide mission, but the youth had already jogged from concealment.

Two beams lanced toward his chest, but he anticipated the attack and dove, rolling beneath the cubes. They rotated to target him. This time he jumped to avoid the shots. Next, the mechanical assailants teamed up, showing a disquieting ability to work together. They tried to surround him, but the youth proved too quick. He darted away, keeping both cubes to one side of him.

“If I get killed,” Rias said to Tikaya, “get the jar and finish them. It’s an acid, so don’t let any of the liquid touch your skin.”

Before she could say how little she thought of his get-killed option, he left. Tikaya nocked an arrow. The bow might not do damage, but perhaps it would help distract the cubes. Though the boy was doing a good job of that on his own. He dodged, darted, jumped, and rolled with the fluid ease of a well-trained natural athlete. Who was this ally who had shown up just in time to help? Even when a beam washed the floor inches from him, his face held no expression, though the intensity of his dark eyes promised nothing would break his focus.

Rias neared the closest cube, keeping its backside toward him. Tikaya fired at it. The arrow clanged off, and the cracked head clattered to the floor. Despite the distractions, the cube somehow sensed Rias’ approach. It rotated toward him.

He flung some of the liquid and dodged just before the beam struck. Red smoke fumes plagued the air. The second cube remained focused on the youth who led it around columns and over lab stations. Rias zigzagged back to a column adjacent to Tikaya’s with the tagged cube shooting after him. Smoke drifted from its surface, and the corrosive liquid burned through the casing.

“What is that stuff?” Tikaya asked, shifting to keep the column between her and the cube as it approached.

“A variation on royal water,” Rias said. “The black metal is particularly susceptible to it. We were trapped in a room with all sorts of chemicals, and I tried several things last time. I couldn’t read any of the labels, and I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself. It took too long, though. A lot of men died before I figured it out.”

The smoke thickened, inflicting the air with an acrid tang. It was nothing like the scent of burning wood or coal or anything else Tikaya had ever smelled. Before the cube reached them, it ground to a halt, then plummeted to the floor, innards exposed.

“Next.” Rias headed toward the gunfire and shouts in the rear of the huge lab. “We lost ten men to these things last time. We have to hurry.”

“Shouldn’t we get the one attacking the boy first?” Tikaya asked.

“He’s the last one who needs to be rescued.”

They ran through the aisles toward the chaos. When they passed the spot where they had killed the creatures, there was no sign of the remains, not even a blood stain on the floor. The corpse of the marine was gone too.

Rias picked an aisle parallel to the gunfire and shouts of Bocrest’s squad. He jumped, caught the edge of a counter, and pulled himself to the top of a lab station. He knelt, his jar poised to pour when the mechanical assailant came into range.

Tikaya thought to wait on the floor, but the youth came into their aisle from the other end. His cube sailed in a few seconds later. Tikaya tossed her bow up, then climbed to Rias’s side, hoping to avoid the path of fire.

“Admiral,” the youth said as he ran past.

Tikaya blinked, almost as shocked at the calmness of the boy’s voice as the fact that he knew who Rias was. Rias leaned over, prepared to pour his concoction on the cube following the young man. It seemed to detect the trap, for it slowed several paces back. Its glowing orifice rotated up, toward Rias and Tikaya.

“Rust,” he muttered and prepared to jump.

“Wait.” Tikaya jabbed the tip of an arrow into his jar, nocked it, and fired. The dripping missile spun into the red hole. A flash later, a beam incinerated the arrow. The cube floated closer.

“Double rust,” Tikaya said.

“It was a good idea,” Rias said.

They crouched to jump down into the aisle behind, but the cube slowed, then halted. Smoke wafted from the beam hole. The cube sputtered and thunked to the ground.

“It was a good idea.” Rias clapped Tikaya on the shoulder and gave her an appreciative smile that warmed her soul, despite the dire situation.

Enemy of the islands, she reminded herself. She was not supposed to be pleased by his compliments anymore.

“Think you can hit that target again to help these men?” Rias pointed to the marines scrambling in the other aisle. They were so busy dodging beams of a cube in their midst they had lost their usual cohesiveness. Every man was busy trying to stay alive. “Make it quick, though,” Rias added. “The acid will eat away your arrowheads.”

Tikaya waited until the orifice faced her before dipping into his jar. Her shot flew true and made short work of the remaining cubes.

The relieved party met in the open area before the stairs. Tikaya picked up one of the mostly intact cubes so she could work on translating the writing.

Bocrest counted heads and scowled at the loss of two men and injuries of several others. He glowered at Rias. “Why didn’t you tell me you had something to battle them with?”

“You didn’t give me a chance,” Rias said.

“We had to act quickly, and you were digging around in your gear. If you want to override my orders, you need to give me a reason for doing so. Fast. You don’t have the right to make decisions and keep the reasons to your…” Bocrest gaped as the youth stepped out of the shadows to join them.

He was smaller than many of the big marines, standing only an inch taller than Tikaya, but, after seeing his grace in evading the beams, she doubted he lost many fights.

His dark-eyed gaze pinned Bocrest. “Admiral Starcrest is giving orders?”

He had short blond hair, a color unusual for a Turgonian, but he did have the olive skin, and he sounded like a native speaker. From the dialect, Tikaya guessed he came from one of the satrapies around the capital. When her gaze fell on the throwing knives on his forearm, she realized he was the one who had killed the creature chasing her earlier. Where had he come from?

“I…uhm…” Bocrest noticed his men watching him—they seemed as confused by the young man’s appearance as Tikaya—and straightened, lifting his chin. “Given his helpfulness thus far on the mission, and his familiarity with these tunnels, I deemed it wise to listen to him. I am aware of the emperor’s wishes for him, and they will be complied with in the end.”

“I see,” the young man said, voice cool.

Bocrest shifted uncomfortably under that steady gaze. His men murmured to each other, surprised at their blustery captain’s deference.

“What are you all looking at?” Bocrest barked. “Let’s get the wounded patched up and set up a camp. And for the emperor’s sake, someone figure out where in this blasted maze a man is supposed to piss and drop cannon balls.”

The marines scurried off to do his bidding. The youth produced a small sealed envelope and handed it to Bocrest, who accepted it and walked away to read the message.

Tikaya edged closer to Rias. “I’m perplexed. Who is this boy?”

“That is Sicarius, the emperor’s personal assassin.”

Rias’s voice was low, for her only, but the young man looked at them, as if aware of their discussion.

“Is he as young as he looks?” Tikaya asked even as she wondered why he was there. Why had he not traveled with Bocrest from the beginning if he meant to help the captain accomplish his mission? Her eyes widened. Could he be the one responsible for the tortured men?

“I believe he was fifteen when I met him two years ago,” Rias said. “He smashed my face into the deck and held a knife to my throat.”

Tikaya stared at Rias. “Did he catch you by surprise?”

“No. As I recall, I was trying to catch him by surprise.”

“Why? What happened?” She frowned, wondering why the emperor would send his assassin to harass his star fleet admiral. Something to do with Rias’s reasons for ending up in exile? She tried to read his eyes.

He opened his mouth, but he shut it again and shook his head. “No, I fear you’d suspect my motives if I told you the story.”

“Suspect your…” She scowled at him. Now what was he hiding? “I suspect your motives in not telling me.”

He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you so elusive about these things?” Her throat tightened. Now that she knew who he was and that she could have no future with him, his choice to keep things from her should not hurt, but it did. “Afraid to share imperial secrets with the enemy?”

She clutched the cube to her chest and stalked toward the lab stations, intending to find some nook where she could be alone to study the language.

“Tikaya…” Rias said.

“Stuff an apple core up it, Admiral Starcrest.”

She caught the boy assassin watching, and almost snapped at him too, but the dark impassive gaze stole the heat from her ire and left her chilled. She stalked by without comment.

Several marines sniggered behind her back. Cheeks flushed, Tikaya slipped into the aisles, glad for the concealment.

CHAPTER 16

Few runes adorned the cube, and it did not take Tikaya long to translate them. Automatic cleaning machine. She could have laughed if not for the unsettling realization that the people who created this place had considered human beings something to be incinerated to keep the labs tidy.

With that mystery solved, she itched to work on the next. Weariness plagued her body, and probably would for days in the aftermath of the poisoning, but her mind churned, so she could not think of sleep yet. There was so much to study.

She wished she had Lancecrest’s journal, but she would have to return to her gear to grab it, and she did not want to face Rias or the snickering marines. Instead, she explored the back half of the lab. Most of the finds were innocuous—alchemical liquids and powders, equipment and containers—but others were as disturbing as the bones that had scattered when the beast fell. The human organs sealed in jars and slides with blood samples made her wonder if the race who had created this place had come for the distinct purpose of experimenting on people. But, if so, to what end?

She probably should have been horrified by her discoveries, but the labels on the identifiable substances helped her resolve new nouns, and that kept her too busy for squeamishness. A few days wandering this place and she would have an impressive dictionary. If the marines gave her time.

Agarik rounded the corner and approached, his rifle crooked in his arms. He quirked an eyebrow at the rows of open cabinets in her wake.

“Exploring?”

“Yes, this place is perfect. If I had a few weeks here, I bet I could decipher the whole language. Or the science aspects, at least. Of course, this entire language seems to revolve around science and mathematics. I keep wondering who these people were, what happened to them. Where could such an advanced civilization—”

He was frowning, so she stopped.

“Problem?” Tikaya asked.

“No. Yes. I don’t know. We’ve lost so many men out here. Your enthusiasm for such a deadly place is… Well, I can’t share it.”

“But don’t you see? Everything here is labeled. If I can learn how to read it all, this place won’t be deadly. We’re bumbling into things. Those cubes, they’re the maids. Not some malicious security system, a cleaning device to take care of messes in the labs.”

“And the poison rockets,” Agarik said. “Are they also not malicious if only you know the words? And the gas that twisted our minds in Wolfhump? Was that not malicious?”

The sobering words squelched her enthusiasm. He was right. It was very likely this place had been created, at least in part, to build weapons. Weapons far deadlier, and ghastlier, than anything humanity currently knew.

Agarik sighed at the expression on her face. “Forgive me, I don’t mean to judge. Besides you’re not the only one fascinated with the place.”

“Oh, what’s Rias doing?” Tikaya asked, certain of her guess.

“He’s taking apart one of the boxes.”

“Figures.”

“Uhm, about him…” Agarik watched her, and she had a hunch he had brought up Rias to gauge her reaction.

“Did he send you over to talk to me?”

Agarik’s head shake did not surprise her. Tikaya had a hard time imagining Rias sending a minion—or admirer—off to solve problems for him. No, he would likely suffer in silence.

“No, ma’am. He, ah…” Agarik set the butt of his rifle on the floor and polished a smudge on the barrel. “He forbade me from bothering you.”

“Oh? And you’re going to disobey your boyhood hero?”

“If there’s a chance of fixing things, yes.” Agarik blew out a long breath. “I got the story about the assassin, if you want to hear it. I think it might influence your feelings for Rias.”

Though curious about the story, she hesitated to ask for it. Now that she knew Rias was safe, she needed to put aside her ‘feelings’ for him, figure out how to thwart the weapons-acquisition mission, find a way home, and warn her family they were in danger. She could not bring herself to send Agarik away, though. “Is that actually what he calls himself?”

“What?”

“Rias. I thought it might be something he made up because he didn’t want to tell me his real name.”

“He told me to use it. He goes by Federias and said his friends have always shortened it. Apparently, he’s never liked his first name. Got teased about it as a boy and told it was girly.” Agarik grinned, probably delighted to have been trusted with this secret information.

“Does ‘the story’ explain his exile?” she asked. “Why he was stripped of everything and declared dead?”

“Yes.”

She nodded for him to continue.

“He says he did recommend the Kyatt Islands as the place for a strategic outpost, on account of its location right in the center of the sea between Turgonia and Nuria, but he wasn’t planning on bloodshed. I don’t know if you remember, but a couple of imperial ironclads showed up in your harbor a few years ago. He went in with a diplomat to talk to your president.”

Despite her resolution to put aside feelings for him, a flutter went through her stomach. To think that Rias had been so close years before. She had been working at the Polytechnic then, and she remembered the hubbub around those ships arriving. If she had looked out the window at the right time, might she have seen Rias striding along the docks, straight and proud in a dress uniform, flanked by dozens of men who respected him?

“They offered your people entry into the empire as an imperial territory and protection from the Nurians in exchange. Your president said no. They negotiated, tried to get the right to build a naval base on one of your islands. Your president was adamant that your people would remain neutral, and he denied it all. The emperor was not pleased. He ordered Kyatt be conquered, and you know what happened after that.”

“Yes.” All too well.

“Rias was busy managing the entire Northern Eerathu Theater, and the skirmishes with your people were just a tack on his busy map, but he says he was impressed with your president’s backbone and how hard your people fought, especially considering the odds were all against them. The emperor was more annoyed than impressed. Particularly so after you started decoding messages and sending them to the Nurians.”

“I’ll bet,” Tikaya murmured.

“The emperor sent this Sicarius out to Rias’s flagship with orders—and don’t irk that fellow, by the way; he’s apparently been groomed from birth to be the throne’s assassin. All Rias was supposed to do was take his vessel into port and let Sicarius kill your president and his advisors.”

Tikaya stood statue still. She did not remember any personal attack on the president.

“Rias was angry that the emperor even had an assassin. We’ve always been an honorable warrior people, and sneak attacks are considered cowardly.”

“What’d he do?”

“He refused to take the assassin to your island and, when he learned Sicarius was trying to make other arrangements to get there, Rias tried to incapacitate him.”

That explained his earlier comment about attacking Sicarius.

“It didn’t work,” Agarik said. “Fortunately, Sicarius was loyal enough to the emperor not to take it into his own hands to kill a fleet admiral. Rias had time to send warning to your president and describe the assassin so your people could watch for him—that’s a part of the story you could verify when you get home, I imagine.”

A spark of hope kindled. If the president knew Rias had tried to help him, maybe it would make a difference someday if…

Tikaya shook her head. Was she truly still thinking of bringing him home?

“Sicarius took word back to the capital,” Agarik continued, “and the emperor about shi—, er, he was livid at Rias’s disobedience. He stripped him of his name, his rank, his ancestral lands, everything, and ordered him taken to Krychek Island. The story passed around is that Rias was assassinated by Nurians.”

“Why the story?” Tikaya wondered. “Why tell everyone he was dead?”

“He’s a hero to our people and well-liked. He had scads of loyal men who would have made rescue attempts if they knew he was alive.”

“Then why not actually kill him?” Could the emperor have known he would need Rias again?

“My guess,” Agarik said, “is the emperor wanted his best military strategist somewhere he could get to him again if needed. Though that’s quite a gamble.”

Tikaya raised her eyebrows.

“Krychek Island isn’t a place you put someone for safe keeping,” Agarik said, tone bleak. “I remember newspaper stories over the years about some of the men who got sent: cannibals, serial murderers who defiled their victims, molesters who tortured children. Crazy people who aren’t right in the head.” Agarik ran a thumb along the muzzle of his rifle. “I reckon Krychek Island is like a Harvest Moon War.”

Tikaya had heard the Turgonian expression a couple times, but had not stopped to think about the meaning. “As in the war goes so late in the season that even if you win, there’s no one at home to bring in the crops, so your family starves over the winter?”

“That’s the gist of it. When Rias first came on board, he didn’t talk to anyone. He was just the unpredictable monster locked away in that dark cell, and it seemed to suit him. You’d catch him in the light, and you’d see this crazy haunted look in his eyes. The captain was scared of him, and all those guards following him around in the beginning weren’t for show. That’s why I was so startled when he spoke out on your behalf. He hadn’t said a word to anyone up until then. But I guess having a woman present made him want to be more civilized. To pull himself together, you know?”

Tikaya closed her eyes. Rias had never spoken of his time on the island. What demons might it have left cavorting in his head?

“I would hate to see him like that again,” Agarik said, eyes sad. “Are you irrevocably mad at him? It’s hard to tell with you. Today you worked together as if nothing stood between you, and you saved us again. You’re a good team.”

Though there was nothing accusing in Agarik’s words, they made her gut twist with guilt. Everyone thought she was mad at Rias, him too most likely.

“I’m annoyed that he blindsided me,” Tikaya said, “but mostly I’m frustrated with the cosmos. I can forgive him for being born on the other side and for being an officer—the officer—in the enemy army, but I can’t see having a life with Fleet Admiral Starcrest. It would be a huge betrayal to those I love—I loved.”

“It wouldn’t be any sort of betrayal to turn your back while they return him to Krychek?” Agarik said.

“He wouldn’t let them do that.”

“He won’t have a choice. That assassin outfought him before, and…I’m not sure he’ll care enough to worry about escaping if he doesn’t have anything to live for.”

Tikaya stared at the floor. His words shamed her. She had been thinking only of herself and how Rias might fit into her life.

“I better get back to my rounds,” Agarik mumbled.

“You’re a good man, Agarik. I never expected you to play matchmaker for us.”

His lips curled wryly. “Me either. But I reckon if you care for someone and you can’t have their love, you can either be a spiteful bastard about it or you can try your damnedest to make sure they’re going to find some happiness in the world.”

• • • • •

Tikaya yawned, a great face-tilting-up kind of yawn that made her crack the back of her head on a cabinet door. That, and her bleary eyes, forced her to concede that she needed sleep. She, fearing the marines would move on too quickly, had spent several hours learning as much as she could from the lab, scrawling notes at top speed. Agarik had been nice enough to bring her food and her notebook so she could avoid the camp for a while longer, but he claimed not to have seen the journal. She thought that odd since she had tucked it into the same place in her rucksack as the notebook, but she had been in a rush to grab a bow at the time, so perhaps it slid to the bottom.

Tikaya picked her way past snoozing bodies toward her gear. Aside from Agarik and a man perched at the top of the stairs, the rest of the marines slept. She did not see the assassin.

She spotted Rias on the edge of the camp, sprawled on his parka amongst a pile of disassembled machine innards. She grinned. Just like a child fallen asleep on the floor amongst his toys. But, as she stepped closer, she noticed his eyes moved beneath his lids, and some dream turned his lips to a grimace. Agarik’s words about Krychek Island came to mind. She sat on the rucksack next to him and stroked his hair.

Rias’s eyes opened and, for a moment, confusion creased his brow.

“Where were you?” Tikaya murmured.

He rubbed his face. “Nowhere pleasant.”

“Should I feel bad about waking you, or is this an improvement?”

Though he did not lift his head, his eyes roved, taking in the bleak black ceilings, black walls, and snoring marines. He smiled though. “Nobody was fondling my head in the dream.”

Careful to avoid his bruised eye, Tikaya brushed a lock of hair back from his forehead. “I translated the symbols on the cubes.” She recited the lines from memory, and he made the same conclusion as she had.

“Cleaning devices? That’s amazing.”

“More disturbing, I’d say, since humans are something to be incinerated along with the trash.”

“Actually, I was talking about you. You just got your first real clue about the language in Wolfhump, what, three days ago? And now you’re reading it.” Rias gripped her hand and gazed up at her, dark eyes full of pride. “When you get home, you’ll be the main story in the next volume of Archaeology Monthly.”

The lump in her throat made her laugh more of a hiccup. Rias’s words reminded her, not for the first time, how different he was from Parkonis, who had always envied her language gift. His congratulations had been grudging when she had been selected by the president to work on decryptions during the war. She had not even wanted the dubious honor, made even more dubious by the predicament it had landed her in, but he had envied her the recognition. Maybe there was good reason to love someone who had so many accolades of his own that he could never feel jealous of a bright philologist. Of course, she reminded herself, Rias had nothing now except a trip back to a savage island of deranged criminals. And still he was proud of her.

“Something wrong?” he asked gently.

“No.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’ve—”

His eyes widened. “Tikaya. You don’t need to—”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “Let me finish, please?” When he did not nod, she left her finger there. “Before I met you, before Parkonis died, before the war, I knew what I wanted from life. I dreamed of sharing a little house near the beach with someone, close enough to town to walk to the market and the Polytechnic. I’d teach in the mornings and work in the labs in the afternoon, studying relics and data our field people brought in. And I’d have two children, a boy and a girl, of course. Blond hair, blue eyes, freckles.” She smiled wryly, acknowledging the unlikeliness that life would ever turn out exactly as she dreamed. “When Parkonis came along, I knew he was the one who could give me that dream.” Her smile faded, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Then the war came, and Parkonis died, and my dream died too. It’s hard for me to admit it, because it’s so selfish, but I think I’ve spent the last year mourning the loss of my dream as much as I’ve been mourning his death.”

She felt silly holding her finger to Rias’s lips. He was watching and listening. She turned her hand over and brushed her knuckles along his jaw.

“And then I met you. Of course I knew you were a Turgonian as soon as I heard you speak, and you admitted to being in the war, but I imagined you were just some ship’s engineer following orders, some simple soldier who none of my people could blame their troubles on, and I had all these ideas about how you could come home with me, and…maybe my dream could live again.” She shook her head. “It’s not your fault you don’t fit into the fantasy I made up. It’s not as if there weren’t clues to the contrary. I was just set on my theory, because I thought I could work you into my life somehow that way. Like I said, it’s selfish. And I’m sorry.”

Rias sat up abruptly, and her hand fell away. “Tikaya—”

“Emperor’s bunions,” Bocrest growled. He lay a couple of men away with his arm flung over his eyes. “If you two are going to wake people up with your relationship crap, you could at least be fucking, so we’d have something to watch.”

Rias winced at the crude words. Tikaya’s cheeks warmed, but she kept her tone light when she said, “Is he really one of your emperor’s most trusted officers?”

“Only because of his parents.”

Feral noises emanated from Bocrest’s throat.

Rias stood up, took Tikaya’s hand, and led her away from the sleeping men. Her heart sped up, and she wondered if he had Bocrest’s suggestion in mind. He went to a corner, out of earshot if they talked quietly, but within sight of the camp, so she supposed not. Too bad.

They sat, backs against the wall, shoulders touching.

“Tikaya,” Rias said, staring at the floor. “I appreciate your words, but hearing you apologize to me is like getting a dagger in the chest. I’m the one who… I need to say…” He snorted, or maybe it was a laugh. “My men used to call me courageous because I’d lead the way into battle and take risks others thought ludicrous. They didn’t know that it was just arrogance. I thought I was too good to get myself killed. I knew I wasn’t immortal, but I won often enough that I always thought I’d come out on top. So, it wasn’t really courage.” He continued to look down, avoiding her eyes. “Courage is the ability to do the right thing when you’re terrified of the consequences. I’ve only recently realized that I’m a coward.”

For a moment, the only noise was the snoring of the marines. She could hear herself breathing.

“You asked for my name, more than once, and I could have told you. You deserved the truth. If I’d wanted you to know, I wouldn’t have let Bocrest’s threats sway me, but I knew as soon as I told you, that your willingness to spend time with me would be over. I wouldn’t be able to dream that somehow, someway…

He fiddled with his hands. “Tikaya, I’m not a young man. I’ve been in love before, infatuated with beauty or taken by a sympathetic shoulder, but no woman has ever asked me to explain my papers on mathematics.” That familiar half smile tugged at his lips. “And, dear ancestors, the fact that you were the cryptomancer too?” He chuckled. “I fell for you that first day we shot together on the exercise deck.”

She watched his face as he spoke and tried to memorize every word. Her heart soared at his naked admission.

“But I knew you could never love Fleet Admiral Starcrest, the man who—Ottotark is correct—pointed out to the emperor the strategic value in having a base on your islands, and helped try to make that advice a reality. Even if you could somehow forgive that person for hurting your people, I’m sure they—your family—would never understand. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of your ostracism. I kept trying to convince myself to keep my distance, to figure out a way to make sure you walked away at the end of this, and to just accept my fate. It didn’t work. I was afraid to tell you, afraid to lose you, and so I made the wrong choice.” He finally looked up, forced himself to meet her eyes. “I’ve been a coward, and, in being so, I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry.”

Emotion welled in Tikaya’s throat. She had fallen in love with him every bit as much as he had with her. The thought of going home by herself, never to see him again, brought tears to her eyes.

She wanted to hug him, to kiss him, but she caught the marine on guard watching them. She settled for leaning her head against Rias’s shoulder. “I forgive you.”

He rested his head on hers, and neither suggested returning to camp to sleep. She thought about bringing up her suspicions about Bocrest’s mission. If Rias had risked his career because he thought assassinating her president dishonorable, surely he would not knowingly help the emperor obtain weapons that could wipe out millions of innocent people. She trusted him more after his confession, but she still hesitated. His first questions to her came to mind, the way he had asked if her president was a good person, if the people liked him. Now she realized he must have had regrets during his time on Krychek, that those questions had been a damaged man asking if it had been worth it. If he had those moments to live over, would he make the same choice? Could she trust him now to make the right choice over one that might gain him the emperor’s favor once again?

Rias lifted his head. “Is that the journal you found?”

Tikaya looked toward camp. It was the journal. And the assassin was reading it. She could have smacked herself on the forehead for not hiding it. If Sicarius was the one who tortured Lancecrest, he was also the one who had been looking for the journal.

She jumped to her feet and hustled toward the camp while trying not to look like she hustled toward camp. If she seemed desperate to keep it to herself, it would arouse suspicions, but she had to get it away from him.

Sicarius flipped through the pages. The way his dark eyes skimmed the columns from top to bottom and left to right made her believe he could read Kyattese. He lifted his head as she drew near, and Tikaya’s determined step faltered when that cool gaze landed on her.

“Uhm, that’s mine. I mean, I’m the one who found it, and I’ve been translating the runes drawn in there. The owner’s guesses are largely incorrect, so you wouldn’t want to…” She stopped talking since he had already turned his attention back to the journal.

To make sure her concerns were founded, she switched languages and asked, “Can you read Kyattese?”

His eyes flicked up briefly, but she received no answer. She took another step, toying with the idea of seeing if he would let her take it out of his hands. An arm slipped around her waist from behind.

“Yes,” Rias said near her ear. “He can. Among other languages.” He put a hand on her arm and guided her to her rucksack. “Is there something in it you don’t wish him to find?”

Her uncertainties about Rias’s regrets and loyalties made her hesitate, but she needed an ally, and he was still the most likely one. She did not see how she could fool the Turgonians and eliminate the threat to her people—to the world—by herself. “Instructions on how to launch the rockets.”

His grip tightened on her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me what was in there?”

Tikaya watched his face. “I didn’t know whose side you were on.”

“That’s…” Rias closed his eyes, “understandable. Get some rest. We’ll look for an opportunity to get it back tomorrow.”

Tikaya found her bedroll, but her earlier weariness had disappeared. For a long time, she lay on her side, watching the assassin read.

CHAPTER 17

Water trickled somewhere in the distance. After the monotonous black walls and tomb-like silence of the tunnels thus far, Tikaya would appreciate some dripping stalactites, striated walls, bumpy columns—proper cave appurtenances. As of yet, though, no end of the alien passages lay in sight.

The marines marched ever deeper with Bocrest and Rias leading, and Tikaya walking behind them. Sicarius came and went, sometimes padding soundlessly alongside the captain, other times exploring on his own. That morning, Rias had given a briefing highlighting the dangers of the tunnels. Admonitions had included “no touching things” and “don’t wander off on your own.” The assassin apparently did not believe rules applied to him, and she could not even wish him to get lost and fall off a cliff, not as long as he had her journal.

“You’ve been here longer than us, right?” Bocrest asked when Sicarius returned from one of his roaming stints. “Do you know where the archaeologists are?”

“No.”

“Do you know where the weapons are?”

“No.”

“Do you know what other dangers we’ll face?”

“No.”

The assassin’s cool monotone never changed, though Bocrest’s pitch grew more agitated as he failed to hear the answers he wanted. He was probably used to flogging kids this age for not cleaning the head sufficiently.

“What do you know?” Bocrest asked.

Tikaya, walking behind them, had a good look at the frosty gaze Sicarius slid the captain. She glanced at Rias who merely raised his eyebrows. He might pull her away and keep her from doing something stupid to annoy the young assassin, but he did not appear inclined to watch out for Bocrest.

“I crossed the mountains on foot and arrived only a day before you,” Sicarius said.

He withdrew the purloined journal, and Tikaya’s fingers twitched. She strained to see over his shoulder as he opened it to a dog-eared page. The instructions. He ripped them out. He turned to another page in the back of the journal and tore the bottom third off.

“What are you doing?” Tikaya blurted.

Sicarius ignored her, showing the scraps to Bocrest. “Operation instructions for the rockets and the sequence of runes Lancecrest pushed to get into the weapons chamber.”

Tikaya cringed. She should have hidden the journal. Assuming no one else could read her language had been foolish.

“Lancecrest claimed the sequence only worked once,” Sicarius said, “and his team has been stymied since.”

“Give the book back to Tikaya now that you’ve got what you wanted,” Rias told Sicarius.

Bocrest glanced at Rias, startled eyes wide. Even the captain had not dared give the emperor’s assassin a direct order. But Sicarius handed the journal back to Tikaya without missing a step.

“Thank you,” she said, though it seemed obsequious to thank him for returning something he had stolen out of her rucksack. He was going to be a problem—as if she did not have enough problems already. She needed more allies out here, not more enemies, and her only option was the team that waited within. “Why did Lancecrest fire the rocket on your fort?” she asked Sicarius.

He did not respond or even glance her direction.

“I’m just wondering why one of your citizens would turn on your people like that. Is living in the empire that bad? Are people disaffected and eager to fight back against the oppressive rule of your emperor?” She hoped to goad the assassin into speaking, but it was Bocrest who responded.

“There’s nothing wrong with living in the empire,” he snapped. “If that Lancecrest brat was motivated by anything, it’d be money.”

“I didn’t know slaying marines in remote outposts could be profitable,” Tikaya said.

Rias’s lip twitched. He was staying silent, but she decided it did not represent disinterest or annoyance at her sleights toward the empire. In general, he was not as garrulous around the marines as he was alone with her, and she imagined all but the closest of his men had known him as a quiet, enigmatic leader.

“I only bring it up,” Tikaya said, “because it might be useful to know why Lancecrest was attacking your people and whether those left inside are out to get you, too, or if he was the leader and now they’re rootless.”

“I’d like answers to those questions too,” Rias said when Sicarius did not respond. “What happened on that ledge?”

Sicarius glanced at the squad of marines following them, men who had grown silent as soon as the conversation started. Rias nodded to Bocrest, and the captain called a halt. He, Rias, and Sicarius walked ahead to speak privately. Tikaya followed. She’d asked the questions, and she intended to get the answers.

The assassin watched her walk up, his gaze cold and unwavering. He didn’t want her there. She folded her arms and leaned on the wall. Too bad. Rias’s eyes crinkled.

“I was too late to stop Atner Lancecrest,” Sicarius told Rias and Bocrest. No remorse or angst colored his tone. He spoke it like a simple fact. “But I learned much from questioning him. He originally heard of the tunnels from Colonel Lancecrest, who disliked his assignment and wanted to retire. He told Atner about the possibility of ancient valuables and asked for a split of whatever profits were made.

“So they intended to be relic raiders from the start,” Tikaya said.

“Atner Lancecrest started assembling a multinational expedition of archaeologists and linguists a year ago, and they’ve been inside for several months. They came for relics. They found the weapons. Atner revised his plan. He decided to figure out how to get the weapons so he could hand them to the emperor and gain favor for his family. Some of his team, which included a handful of Nurians, were against that. A pair of them slipped away with a box. They warned their government, and—”

“The box that was delivered to the capital?” Bocrest asked. “The one that killed hundreds?”

“Yes,” Sicarius said. “The Nurians delivered it, and, after the deaths, they sent a message telling the emperor to seal the tunnels forever or more killer artifacts would be delivered.”

“Your emperor doesn’t seem the sort to heed threats,” Tikaya said.

“No.”

“Nor,” Rias said, “does he suffer fort commanders who share top secret orders with little brothers. Or little brothers whose actions result in the deaths of hundreds.”

“But he didn’t know about the Lancecrest involvement when he sent you,” Tikaya said to Bocrest, “did he?”

“No,” Bocrest said. “But Lancecrest—both of them—would have known they’d be in an ore cart full of shit as soon as their roles came out.”

Rias nodded. “It would have been more than their deaths. For a disgrace like that, the emperor could take away the entire family’s warrior caste status and wipe their ancestors’ deeds from the history books.”

Tikaya raised her eyebrows at Rias, wondering if his act of disobedience had created a similar backlash for his family. He seemed to guess her question, for he hesitated, then shook his head. She took that to mean not as drastic a result, perhaps, but some backlash, yes.

“I don’t get it,” Bocrest said. “The family’s wrecked, but why make things worse by killing everyone in Wolfhump and Fort Deadend?”

“To delay your party?” Tikaya guessed. “If Lancecrest knew he was dead if he stayed in the empire, maybe he wanted to get the weapons out so he could sell them to the highest bidder. Maybe his family would forgive him if they could all live the life of luxury in some remote paradise.”

“But he got himself killed.” Bocrest nodded to Sicarius. “So, now all we’re dealing with is a confused bunch of science twits with no leader.” He appeared pleased at the prospect.

“And possibly Colonel Lancecrest and an indeterminate number of his men,” Rias said.

Tikaya nodded, thinking of the half-eaten marine they had found in the lab with the creatures.

“What?” Bocrest asked. “He’s dead. I saw his body.”

“Are you sure it was him?” Rias asked. “Or was the skin melted by the gas?”

Bocrest opened his mouth, shut it, then spat. “You’re right. I saw a body in his office and a jacket with his name on it on the chair, but it could have been anybody. Bloody ancestors, he’ll be a pain to deal with if he’s in here. Pissed his little brother slagged things up so badly and left him to endure the aftermath.”

Tikaya listened bleakly. She had been hoping for fellow archaeologists to ally with; instead she might have another cursed Turgonian military commander waiting. She looked to Rias, hoping for some comfort there, but his face was inscrutable. She still had no idea what he thought about his emperor’s desire to obtain these weapons.

“But his team is stuck, right?” Bocrest said. “If they could get to the weapons, they’d have taken them and disappeared by now.”

“Correct,” Sicarius said. “They lack what we have.” His gaze came to rest on Tikaya again.

Her bleakness increased. When this had started, she had worried her skills would not be enough to keep her family safe. Now she worried her skills would be enough.

“Valuable intelligence,” Rias told Sicarius. “Good work.”

Tikaya jerked with surprise. Was he actually complimenting an assassin on the bounty his torture session had yielded?

“Yes,” Sicarius said, apparently unaffected by the praise.

• • • • •

The tunnel opened into a cavern with a ceiling that disappeared into darkness. A chasm over a hundred feet wide yawned across the center, cutting through walls as well as the floor. A multistory building perched near the edge on their side, and eagerness quickened Tikaya’s step—finally, a chance to see something more than a lab. A plant for distributing water, she guessed. Pipes ran vertically and horizontally from the structure, and a smokestack rose as far as the eye could see. A reservoir adjacent to the building held driftwood-littered water, which trickled over the edge on one side, flowing into the chasm.

Tikaya peered over the edge. Darkness and distance cloaked the bottom—if there was one. The black floor ended at the lip and started again on the other side. The tidy cobweb-free tunnels made Tikaya forget how much time had passed since this place had been created, but this chasm, which appeared to have formed after the complex was abandoned, reminded her that thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands of years, stood between then and now.

“Looks like we’ve caught up with the other team.” Rias pointed at a tunnel entrance on the far side. Tikaya froze. Two men stood in it, and one had shaggy red-blond hair and a scruffy beard. She could not make out features at the distance, but they reminded her of Parkonis and sent a painful jab through her mind. Though her islands did not have the only blonds in the world, that hair coloring combined with the likelihood this was an archaeologist made her suspect this was one of her people. The second figure, dark-haired and dark-skinned, wore black and carried a musket. He could have been one of Bocrest’s men. The pair stepped back into the darkness when they noticed the marines watching them.

“How’d they get over there?” Bocrest asked. “And how do we follow?”

“Assuming they have a practitioner studied in telekinetics, they could have floated across,” Tikaya said.

Bocrest’s expression turned sour. “Starcrest, you know any other tunnels that lead over to that side?”

“No. I don’t know what’s over there. We were desperate to escape by the time we got here. We climbed those pipes and got out through a vent mountainside.”

Bocrest growled and gazed about. Two other tunnels left the cavern on their side.

“Karsus,” the captain said, “take your squad through that one and see if there’s a way across the gulf. Everyone else with me. We’re checking this one.”

“I’d prefer to stay here and study the journal,” Tikaya said. “Not to mention there’s probably much I could learn in that building.” And maybe, if she was alone, those archaeologists would come visit her and she could find out more.

“You’re not staying alone,” Bocrest snapped.

“I can stay too,” Rias said.

“Oh, yes, I’m going to leave you two alone to conspire.”

“Bet they want to do more than conspire.” Someone snickered.

Bocrest silenced the commenter with a glare.

“It’s possible there’s something in the pumping house that could get us across,” Rias said.

Bocrest’s gaze landed on the assassin. “Will you keep an eye on them?”

“Yes,” Sicarius said.

Tikaya grimaced. A babysitter who was young enough to be Rias’s son. Lovely.

Before the marines reached the tunnels, Rias was already checking out the reservoir. An underground stream fed the pool, and the current had pushed logs and branches to the nearest side. He gazed thoughtfully at the wood.

Though eager to explore the building, Tikaya dropped her rucksack and joined him at the edge. She could not remember her last bath, but dipping a finger in the icy water stole her fantasies of immersing herself. Maybe she could heat some up for washing later.

“Getting an idea?” she asked as Rias pondered the driftwood.

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t think the marines will find another way around?”

“If that rift is a result of a fault line, it could run a long way.” Rias tapped a finger in the air toward the building. “The last time I was here, I found a fantastic cutting tool in there. It burned through stone, wood, and metal like a knife slicing apple custard. If those archaeologists didn’t find it…” He dragged one of the logs out of the water and nodded to himself.

Tikaya waited for him to explain further, but the assassin appeared at Rias’s shoulder. Tikaya jumped. She had not seen or heard the youth’s approach.

“Ah, good,” Rias said, less discombobulated. “I’ll need some more muscle.”

Sicarius had to be curious, but his expression never changed.

“What do you think, young man?” Rias asked. “Ever want to fly?”

Sicarius gave the faintest hint of an eyebrow twitch.

“Let’s get this wood out of the water,” Rias said.

“Can I help?” Tikaya wondered what he planned.

“How are your carpentry skills?

“Er. I helped my father build a birdhouse once.”

“An impressive project.” Rias smiled and pulled another log out. “But don’t you want to explore the pumping house and look for language clues?”

“Yes.” Though her curiosity would have to wait for satisfaction, she would rather translate runes than hammer nails anyway.

“Be careful in there. Touching things is how my team got in trouble. Multiple times.”

“I won’t touch anything,” she said. “Unless I can read the label and know what it is.”

With journal in hand, Tikaya headed to the structure. Though dwarfed by the cavern, it rose more than fifty feet and sported three rows of windows along each side. She paused inside the threshold, patting down pockets until she located a pencil. Before she headed deeper, Sicarius spoke to Rias.

“I bring you a message from the emperor.”

Her ears perked.

“Oh?” Rias said.

“He believes you’ve been sufficiently punished for your transgressions and is willing to return everything to you—your name, your rank, your land—if you cooperate with Bocrest and myself and we’re able to accomplish this mission.”

Tikaya pressed a hand against the wall. She barely saw the vast room she had stepped into as she waited for Rias’s answer. When it came, it was so soft she almost missed it.

“My ship? My command?”

“Yes,” Sicarius said. “You can return with Bocrest, in command of the Emperor’s Fist until you can be transferred to the Raptor and resume your full duties.”

Say no, Tikaya urged. Tell him and your sprite-licked emperor to fall on their swords.

“What is the mission exactly?” Rias asked.

Tikaya clenched a fist around her pencil. What was he doing? He couldn’t possibly be considering this offer. He had to know it was only coming because the war had gone badly after he disappeared. Disobeyed orders or not, the emperor must have realized he overreacted and come to regret ousting his star admiral.

“Kill the terrorists mucking around in here,” Sicarius said, “obtain the weapons for our use, and seal the tunnels.”

There. All her suspicions confirmed. She wished she had been wrong.

“And what of Tikaya?” Rias asked.

“She’s only here to help with the translations.”

“Bocrest has orders to kill her.”

Tikaya nodded to herself, thankful Rias cared enough to be concerned. He might be tempted by the promise of getting his command—his life—back, but she did not believe he would throw her to the wolves on the way. She might even be the sticking point in this insidious proposition.

“Bocrest’s orders were to ensure her cooperation by whatever means necessary,” Sicarius said. “If we complete the mission, you’ll outrank him again, and you can choose who lives or dies. If you own her loyalty, perhaps you could convince the emperor that it would be more desirable to employ a gifted cryptographer than kill her.”

Own her loyalty? Presumptuous ass. But he was good. Curse him, he was good. Bocrest never could have swayed Rias, but this seventeen-year-old kid had all the right answers.

“I will consider your offer,” Rias said, giving away nothing of his thoughts. “For now, let’s get working.”

“Agreed.”

Tikaya headed into the room. Her interest in exploring had diminished, but she did not want to be caught eavesdropping. She forced herself into work mode. If the others came in, they would expect her to have made progress.

Tanks and pipes dominated the back half of the vast room, but she gravitated toward rows of black panels where more symbols than she had seen in one place marked the faces. A large oval glowed softly, displaying what she guessed were schematics or diagrams monitoring the station. She copied symbols, but her mind dwelled on Rias’s conversation with the assassin, and she struggled to concentrate.

“Focus,” she muttered to herself.

She tilted her head back to massage her neck and noticed only two rows of windows. There were three outside, so there had to be another story up there. No stairs, ladder, or anything similar led upward. Turgonians had steam-powered lifts in their taller buildings—might this advanced race have something like that too?

She circumnavigated the interior, finally spotting a pale blue circle glowing on the floor in one corner. Thinking it might mark a place where a lift would descend, she waved a hand above it. Nothing happened. She pressed her boot into it and pulled it out. Nothing. Finally, she stood in the center with both feet planted.

Air whooshed around her.

“Errkt,” she blurted, dropping her journal.

A platform of air thrust from below, propelling her upward. A circle in the ceiling slid aside, and the force raised her through a hole. As soon as her feet cleared the aperture, the floor slid back into place, and she stood on a second blue circle. It felt solid, but she jumped to the side anyway.

A cozy space spread before her. Though she could identify little at first glance, she had the impression of living quarters and furnishings. Perhaps the caretaker for the pumping house had dwelled there. If so, she had a chance to see beyond the weapons-building, experimenting-on-humans side of the ancient people.

Tikaya roamed the space, repeatedly reminding herself not to touch things. Furnishings included cubes, octagonal structures, high tables, and a large hollow sphere open on two sides. No knickknacks or artwork decorated the surfaces, nor could she find practical tools such as eating implements, but perhaps all that had been taken when the occupant left for…wherever these people went.

There was one exception. In a storage area, she found a rack designed to hold spheres slightly smaller than her fist. The rest of the concave slots were empty, save for one. She slid the smooth black sphere out. A few groupings of runes ringed the center. She did not recognize them, but eagerness suffused her. Here was an artifact she could take with her to show the world. She pocketed it to check against the runes in Lancecrest’s journal later.

She was about to peer out the window to check on Rias’s progress, when her gaze snagged on a clear tank against the far wall. All the furnishings were made from the usual black material, but that piece was as clear as Tenesian glass. An inkling that it might be a bathtub enticed her further. Why settle for washing in front of marines and teenage assassins in the reservoir when she had this private room? And with the men off exploring, what were the odds anyone would stumble upon her? Hammer blows started up outside, so the two remaining men were busy on Rias’s project.

Wary about making assumptions and touching the wrong thing, she puzzled over a small plaque near the ledge. She recognized the symbols for water and animals, but who would bathe animals? Then the pieces clicked into place: not animals, fish. It was an aquarium. Perhaps the plant siphoned off aquatic life from the stream for saving or for studying, or perhaps they simply liked observing fish for the same reasons as humans. Either way, Tikaya grinned. She was not above bathing in an aquarium.

She fiddled with the controls, and soon water flowed from an overhang around the inside of the tank. Her grin widened when she discovered she could change the temperature. Not only could she have a bath, but she could have a hot bath.

She snorted at herself. Such a female characteristic to be so tickled at the idea of a warm bath. She shrugged, removed her boots, and unbuttoned the Turgonian military jacket with relish. How she missed her sandals and loose hemp dresses.

There was no place nearby to set the clothing, so she folded it and crossed the room to leave everything on something octagonal, flat, and chest-high she decided to call a table. She skipped back to the tank and slipped over the side. Warm water embraced her, and she shivered with delight. She unbraided her hair, submerged everything, then draped her arms over the sides and laid her head on the ledge. Bliss. The bath reminded her of the volcanic hot springs near her family’s property. She wondered how everyone back home was doing. The harvest would be over by now. She had missed her nephew’s birthday and her parents’ anniversary celebration. She closed her eyes, lost in memories of home.

“Tikaya?” Rias called sometime later.

She sat up, and water sloshed over the side. When had the hammering stopped outside?

“Tikaya, are you all right?”

“Fine!” She scrambled out of the tub. “I’m fine up here.”

Naked and dripping water, she peered about for something to use as a towel.

“You didn’t touch anything, did you?” He sounded like he was right below the lift.

She darted for her clothes even as air whooshed.

Rias appeared on the platform before she made it half way. Worry furrowed his brow, and he clutched her journal. That expression changed to a wide-eyed gape when he spotted her.

Frozen mid-step, Tikaya felt ridiculous—and guilty at being caught relaxing while everyone else worked.

“I, uhm, sorry.” She stood, dripping, not sure where to put her hands or how to explain. “I found this tub, you see, and it’s been so long, and, well, one does get sort of dirty tussling with tunnel monsters and marching across the tundra, and…”

Rias was just staring. She really ought to shut up and put some clothes on.

He closed his eyes and clenched a fist, looking very much like a man trying to control his temper. With rigid, precise motions, he walked to the table, placed the journal on it, and turned his back on her.

“Take your time,” he rasped, then stepped on the platform and disappeared.

Belatedly, she realized it was not his temper he had been struggling to control. Her first thought was that she should have hopped into his arms and invited him to join her in the tub. Her second thought was to remember he was on top of the Kyatt Islands enemies-of-state list and that she had no idea what kind of seeds Sicarius’s promises had planted in his head. The third thought ran the way of dismissing the second and seeing what might come of the first.

“Tikaya, you think too much,” she muttered, grabbing her clothes.

Outside, she found Rias and Sicarius building the frame of something that promised to be large. While the assassin dragged wood over, Rias knelt, his back to her, and hammered. Hard.

“Rias?” she asked between whacks.

His shoulders tensed, and he hunched his neck. “Yes?”

She took a couple steps toward him. “May I speak with you?”

He fiddled with the hammer. “I should keep working, try to get this done so we can cross as soon as possible.”

Tikaya hesitated. Maybe she had guessed incorrectly. Yet he had never lost his temper with her, and it was hard to imagine a midday bath truly irking him.

“Please?”

Rias’s head drooped. He stood, gave Sicarius instructions, and finally faced her. Tikaya led him out of the assassin’s earshot.

Rias stared at the ground, avoiding her eyes. She was about to speak, but he did so first.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I wasn’t expecting you to be, ah…”

She resisted the urge to hug him—that would probably make him more uncomfortable—and gripped his forearm instead. Corded muscle lay beneath her hand. “I don’t mind. You can stare.” Though so many differences stood between them, she could not feel anything but delighted that he would want to.

Rias lifted his eyes. “Oh? I had the impression that your parents wouldn’t approve of Fleet Admiral Starcrest ogling their daughter.”

“They’re not here.”

He arched his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you were particularly enamored at the notion either. Something about a nation’s war enemies not being easily inserted into dreams involving beach houses and blond children.”

She blushed. “Originally, I was rather distraught at the dishevelment of my dreams, but I must admit I can’t think of anyone else in the world I’d rather have ogling me.”

“Really.” His eyes gleamed with humor but intensity too. He brushed his fingers down a lock of damp hair dangling by her cheek.

Tikaya considered the construction site and the assassin who, through tact or disinterest, was ignoring them. “Almost private around here at the moment.” She arched her eyebrows and stepped closer, placing a hand on his chest. “I haven’t figured out which piece of furniture up there is a bed, but I’m willing to conduct research.”

“I wouldn’t think it’d be a problem. You found the tub after all.” Rias slid his arm around her, drawing her against him.

“Actually, that’s an aquarium.”

She felt the soft rumble of laughter in his chest, but it ended with a sigh. She tilted her head back, searching his face.

“Trust me, I’d very much like to research the furniture with you, but…” He smiled and brushed his thumb along her lips. “I suppose it’d be rather irresponsible of me.”

She barely managed to avoid blurting ‘huh?’ Instead, she guessed, “Because you’re supposed to be building a, er, whatever that is you’re building?”

Rias snorted. “Rust what I’m building—and it’s a counterweight trebuchet, by the way.” His inability to dismiss his project without at least a short explanation almost made her laugh, despite her confusion over the rejection.

“I’m aware of what is, and what isn’t, included in a standard Turgonian field kit,” Rias went on, “and I wouldn’t want to put you in the awkward situation of explaining to your family how you came to be pregnant with an enemy admiral’s child.”

“Oh.” She laughed with relief. He wasn’t rejecting her.

Rias frowned at her reaction. “Tikaya, I know what the world believes about Turgonians, and the Kyattese have every reason to think the worst of me. I fear that if you intimate that we’re even friends, your people will believe I’ve tortured and brainwashed you into giving that response.”

He looked exasperated that his words didn’t drive the grin from her face, and his concern touched her.

“What you say may be true,” Tikaya said, “but that’s something to worry about after we both get out of here alive. As for the other, getting pregnant wouldn’t be possible until I returned home to see one of our doctors to have the…” She groped for words to explain it in Turgonian—as far as she knew, their women took their chances drinking egata tea for contraceptive purposes. “It’s a procedure, performed by a doctor—who is, in our culture, a practitioner specializing in the psychological and somatic aspects of the mental sciences. Anyway, it’s not irreversible. You just go see the doctor again when you want to have children.”

During her explanation, his expression changed from consternated to perplexed to enlightened. “There is no…danger?”

“No. After certain incidents during the war, it was recommended by our government that any women at risk of being captured have it done.”

His face darkened. “Were there many? ‘Incidents?’”

“I was sheltered by the fact that I never left the island, but from the folks who went out, I heard…there were some ships you really didn’t want to find yourself aboard.”

“I see.” His jaw was tight, body rigid. “I’d ask for the names of those ships, but there’s nothing I could do now. It’s hard to know—I don’t mean to make excuses, but men present a vastly different face to their superiors than they do to their prisoners.”

“I doubt you ever did.”

He grimaced, apparently not in the mood for praise, and she wished she had never brought up the subject. Except, she reminded herself, that bringing it up meant disavowing him of the notion that he could send her home a mother. Which actually was not a horrifying concept, though he was right in that it would be easier to deal with further down the line. Still, a smile curled her lips at the thought of a passel of precocious toddlers scurrying around the house, getting into mischief and cutting down heirloom fruit trees to build play forts.

“What are you thinking of?” Rias’s muscles relaxed as he watched her.

“Furniture research.” She rose on her tiptoes, marveling that her eyes still weren’t level with his, and kissed him.

Her explanations resulted in one pleasant outcome: he did not hesitate to return it.

The moment ended abruptly. Rias pulled away, annoyance flickering across his face. Before she could ask why, she heard the clomp of boots. One of the squads of marines had returned.

“What, by the emperor’s eternal warts, is this mess?” Bocrest bellowed as soon as he entered the cavern and spotted the fledgling frame and the heaps of wood surrounding it.

Rias sighed and dropped his head on Tikaya’s shoulder.

“Tonight?” she suggested.

He released her with a hand squeeze and a promise in his eyes. Please don’t let monsters, machines, or annoying marines ruin the night, she thought.

“We need help, boys,” Rias called. “Grab a hammer.”

“About this catapult…” Tikaya said, a question occurring to her as her gaze skimmed the chasm.

“Counterweight trebuchet,” Rias said.

“Yes, of course. How will one land without breaking every bone in her body?”

“Parachutes, naturally.” Rias held up a finger. “That reminds me.” He turned to holler at the approaching men. “Anyone who isn’t able to find a hammer and work on this is on sewing duty.”

Without glancing at the captain, the marines hustled over, prepared to dive into the construction work to avoid a stitching task. Chuckling, Tikaya returned to the second-story retreat to examine the sphere that had piqued her interest earlier.

CHAPTER 18

The sphere proved amazing. With the journal’s help, she deciphered the runes on the outside, which were a proclamation of ownership and instructions for firing it up. Once she did that, a hole smaller than a grain of sand projected a display above the sphere. It appeared solid but she could wave her fingers through it as with an illusion. Plenty of practitioners who studied optics could make them, but she could not fathom how it was done with technology. She did not care either. It was the images and runes within the three-dimensional display that enraptured her. She found herself reading someone’s diary, and she could look up symbols and terms she did not understand, as if a dictionary and encyclopedia underlaid the journal. This was the type of artifact every philologist dreamed of finding, something that held the keys to unlocking an entire language. She marveled that the other team had left it. Maybe they had not been up here, or maybe they had not realized what they passed up.

“How do you turn the water on?”

Rias’s voice startled Tikaya so much she dropped the sphere. It slipped from her fingers and clunked on the high table where she sat. She caught it before it rolled off the edge, though she almost dropped it again when she spotted Rias.

He stood by the tub, his weapons, boots, and shirt already on the floor next to his rucksack, and a towel and bar of soap on the ledge. She stared at his muscled chest. If he had been on the gaunt side when she first met him, that was not the case now. Hard to imagine someone filling out on that abysmal military food, but perhaps it suited him. Scar tissue scored his torso and arms: several old gashes and two dense knots where he must have been shot. Some of those wounds had been life-threatening and represented a lot of pain. As with Krychek, he never spoke of it, never complained.

“Should I be feeling self-conscious under this scrutiny?” Rias asked. “Or are you only looking this way while thinking about translating runes?”

Heat flushed her face. She decided his first question was safest to answer. “Push on that symbol and slide it up, then rotate it for hot or cold.”

“Hot? Excellent.” He turned on the water and hopped up to sit on the edge facing her. “You’re engrossed there. You must have found something good.”

She brightened, taking this for an invitation to share her findings. “Yes! It’s a journal someone kept. You must be wondering about this place, these people. It’s all explained in here, though if I wasn’t sitting here I’d think it the stuff of a storyteller’s imagination. These people—they called themselves the Orenki—they came from another planet. A group was persecuted for their scientific research methods and driven out of their homeland. They came here and experimented—this is chilling by the way—experimented on primitive humans because we were biologically similar to their people. They wanted to come up with devastating weapons so they could return to their home world, use them on their own kind, and take over.”

Rias opened his mouth to speak, but she barely noticed. She still had to tell him the best part.

“You’re going to love these instructional, uhm, illusions—sorry, no better word for it in my language or yours. The first one I found shows how to repair and maintain this pumping facility. It looks like there are thousands of sets of instructions on all sorts of mechanical things, though I haven’t quite figured out how to search through them. They’re organized by codes. But I will figure it out. It’s just a matter of…”

Rias turned off the water, and Tikaya realized she had been talking for a long time. And that she had cut him off. She smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, did you want to speak?”

Rias chuckled. “From another planet, you say?”

Tikaya, deciding she should let him talk for a while, offered an encouraging, “Mmhmm.”

“I’m too ignorant of astronomy to even ask how that’d be possible, but given what I’ve seen here, I can’t claim to be utterly surprised. I’m hoping they weren’t ultimately successful, because I’d not be comfortable knowing beings capable of making such weapons were still out there.”

Yes, that was an unsettling idea, but Tikaya was more concerned about human beings learning how to use those weapons. She could not allow the Turgonian emperor to have this technology. Or a disaffected marine colonel. Or anyone.

“Rias?”

“Yes?”

Tikaya wanted to tell him, ask him for his help going forward. But when she gazed at him, at the scar on his eyebrow and the war wounds on his torso, she stopped herself. He might share her passion for academics, but she could not forget he was a soldier. He had been loyal to a totalitarian government his entire life, and his one disloyal act had cost him more suffering than anyone should have to endure. Would he truly choose such a road again? “You should bathe before the water gets cold.”

He watched her with sad eyes, and she wondered how much of her thoughts he read.

“After all,” she said, “you’ve seen me naked. It’s only fair I get to see just how much of a Turgonian legend you are.”

That drew a self-deprecating chuckle, but not the repartee she expected. He slid his trousers off and climbed into the tub. Despite her words, she dropped her gaze to the sphere to give him privacy. She glanced up a few times, but Rias seemed lost in thought. He was considering Sicarius’s offer, she knew it. Probably trying to figure out if he could work her into his life once he had everything back together. She supposed, in some less than ideal scenario, she could see living in Turgonia with him, but slaving for the emperor, creating ciphers her own people would never crack if there was another war? That was not going to happen. And even the rest made her grimace. He would be off at sea most of the year, and she would be alone amongst strangers, thousands of miles from her friends and family.

“That bad of a show, huh?” Rias leaned against the tub wall, arms folded on the ledge, chin resting on them.

She tried to disguise her blank stare but doubted she succeeded.

“The show—me,” he clarified. “Nude. Never mind. I can see you’re busy with the sphere. I understand the appeal of a puzzle, though I fear your enthusiasm means I’ll be ogling only myself tonight.” His smile was wistful but accepting.

“Oh.” She shoved the sphere into a pocket and ran a hand through her hair, which still hung loose. “That wasn’t the puzzle I was pondering.”

Rias cocked an eyebrow. “No?”

Better to bring it up for discussion than guessing at—and maybe misinterpreting—his thoughts. For all she knew, he was musing over ways to remove a wart from his toe. “I heard Sicarius talking to you.”

“Ah.” He nodded with understanding, but did not say anything. No words to assure her she had nothing to worry about.

“I couldn’t fault you for being tempted, but…” She searched his face, but his eyes were cast down, thoughts apparently turned inward. “Rias, I love you, you know that already. But I’m not going to do anything to hurt my people, and I’m definitely not going to work for your emperor.”

“I thought not,” he murmured.

“And…” She drew a deep breath, “I’m not going to let Bocrest, that assassin, or anyone else walk out of here with weapons that could destroy millions. I don’t know how I’m going to stop them yet, but you’ll have to kill me to keep me from trying.” She lifted her chin. There, she had said it. Maybe it would have been smarter to lead him to believe otherwise, but she did not want to lie to him, even a lie of omission. Maybe that made her naive, but, so be it.

“Good.”

“Good?” She rapped a knuckle on the table. “Would it be possible to get more than one-line responses? Do I need to posit my statements as math problems?”

Rias chuckled. “Oh, you’re hard on me, Tikaya.” He dunked his head under the water, ruffled his hair dry, hopped out of the tub, and grabbed the towel. “I was proud of myself for baring my feelings to you last night. I’d been pacing through the hills rehearsing that while the camp was conspiring to leave me.”

Even frustrated with him, she had a hard time ignoring the ‘show.’ He wrapped the towel around his waist and padded over, rivulets of water snaking down the gullies between his muscles. He sat on the edge of her table, and she reminded herself to look at his face.

“I’m not used to confiding in people,” he said. “Being a captain or an admiral, it’s a solitary vocation. You’re expected to be infallible, even omnipotent. Sharing your thoughts, showing any kind of fear or hesitancy, might crumble that facade, and that’s something men need to believe in when chaos is erupting around them and odds seem impossible.”

“I’m not in your chain of command, Rias.”

That drew a smile. “I know. And I’m thankful for that. I’m glad you’re here to remind me… Yes, of course, the weapons need to be destroyed. That’s too much power for one man to wield, too much temptation. The easier we make it to kill, the less time there is to master the art of knowing when not to.”

Tikaya nodded—it was everything she had hoped he would feel—but his earlier thoughtfulness made her suspect more remained unsaid. “But?”

“But…” Rias combed his fingers through his hair, spraying flecks of water. “You’re right: I am tempted by the emperor’s offer. I can’t help but wonder if I could have it both ways. Help them with their mission, get my life back, and figure out how to make the weapons disappear later on.” He picked at the hem of his towel. “They’re selfish thoughts, not honorable ones, but dear ancestors, Tikaya, I’ve missed this.” He waved to encompass the tunnels and the marines camped outside the pumping house. “Command, purpose, a challenge. When I’m not Admiral Starcrest, naval strategist, I’m not sure who I am or what else could be out there for me.” He turned his eyes toward her, the question in the air.

Me. That was her first thought, but she kept it to herself. She was not fool enough to believe that she could dump herself in his lap as the answer—a man like him needed more stimulation than a relationship offered—but her second thought offered a neater solution. She hoped. “Do you know what the prime groupings in this language mean?”

His brow furrowed. “No… Did you figure it out?”

“I haven’t an idea.” She tapped a fingernail on the sphere. “I’ve learned that what we’ve seen is one of four languages these people used, and this one is all skewed toward mathematics and science. I may be able to translate it eventually, but the numbers are beyond me. Figuring it all out, finding useful applications for our own world, it’d be the work of a lifetime. For someone interested enough to stick with me for that long.”

“Ah?” A hint of speculation entered his eyes. “But you made it clear I wouldn’t have a place on your islands.”

“There are other countries in the world. Maybe we could find one where you’re not wanted dead on sight.”

“That might be a challenge. Doubly so, since I’m a penniless vagabond with nothing to offer you except myself.”

“I’m rather fond of yourself.” Tikaya scooted to the edge of the table to sit closer to him. “And…” She laid a hand on his bare arm. “Did you not say you appreciate a challenge?”

His gaze dropped to her hand, then returned to her face, and he smiled, the quirky half-smile that made her insides tangle. “This is true.”

She leaned into him, breathing in the scent of lye soap. His bare thigh touched hers, warm even through her clothing. Too much clothing. She really ought to…

Rias slid his fingers through her hair, and she forgot her thought as goosebumps rose across her flesh. He removed her spectacles, and set them aside.

“So, have you decided?” He bent and kissed her neck, warm breath tickling her skin. “Is this thing the bed?”

“Uhm.” Tikaya laid her hand on one of his broad shoulders, then slid it down his arm, tracing the dips and rises of the muscles. “What?”

He drew back, eyes narrowed in mock accusation. “You’re not thinking about runes, are you?”

“Furthest thing from my mind.”

“Really?”

“Well, it’s definitely a distant second place to something more prominent.”

“Oh, good.” He tilted his head. “I am the something, right?”

She grinned. “Let me answer your first question. I think our current seat is the human equivalent of a coffee table. I believe that sphere over there is the bed. You get in and warm air floats you up and supports you. You can just lay there or there’s an option for, ah, undulation.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

He slid off the table, faced her, and slipped his arms around her waist. She leaned into him, lips parting, and invited in his warmth. She tangled her fingers in his damp hair, pulling him closer even as his arms tightened around her. Where he had been hesitant before, asking permission, he was sure now, and she felt his need. And her own. It had been a long time for both of them, and she could never remember wanting someone so much. Not just for now, but forever.

His grip loosened, and she voiced a muffled protest, but his lips smiled against hers, then he knelt. He gazed up at her as he unlaced her boots, and her breath caught at the adoring tenderness in those gold-flecked eyes. She recovered and dug into the buttons of her uniform jacket. Her fingers didn’t seem to work as well as they should.

“I miss my dress,” she muttered.

“Me too.” Rias’s eyes crinkled as the first boot clunked to the floor.

She shucked the jacket, annoyed when her arm caught in the sleeve. By now, he knew she was no graceful gazelle, but it would have been nice to undress competently.

She started to tug the shirt over her head, but hesitated. It was silly—he had already seen her naked and was clearly interested—but a self-conscious twinge stilled her hands. With Parkonis and those scattered few before, she had shared bench space in the cute-but-not-beautiful part of the arena. Even before Rias turned into some legendary Turgonian hero, she had known he belonged up front, in the I-could-have-anyone-I-want seats. Tonight, he wanted her, but if by some miracle they made it out of here, would that change? When there were more attractive options available?

“Tikaya?” Rias asked gently, concern in his tone. The second boot had joined the first, along with the scratchy wool socks, but he still knelt, face tilted up, watching her.

“Sorry, it’s nothing.” The future was a murky incorporeal place; best to enjoy what was real, what was now.

Rias stood, body solid and warm between her legs, but tense. “Please, tell me. I don’t want any more secrets, any more misunderstandings. I’m on your side out here, above all others.” His eyes probed hers. “Do you trust me?”

She blinked. “That wasn’t what I was doubting. I mean, I wasn’t doubting. I was just wondering if…if you saw me, back when you came to Kyatt to talk to our president, if I’d been in your path somewhere along the way…would you have noticed me?”

“Ahhhh.” Rias grinned and the tension melted from him. “Indeed so.” His eyes grew hooded, sultry, and he leaned into her. “Especially if you’d been wearing that dress that so nicely accents your curves.”

He slipped his hands beneath her shirt and massaged his way up from her waist. She shivered at the sensations those callused but gentle fingers stirred. He kissed her mouth, her jaw, and down to her neck, and she closed her eyes, arching into him.

“You do know…” he murmured against her throat, lips sending spirals of heat to her core. “Those dazzling blue eyes are rather rare in Turgonia. Exotic.” He spoke slowly, lazily, kisses punctuating his words. “And it’s always a challenge to find a lady of sufficient height.”

She would have laughed, but his mouth returned to claim hers, and she met him with equal intensity, humor forgotten. He broke away only long enough to say, “You’re a beautiful woman, Tikaya, and I love you.”

She gave him a fierce hug before turning to other matters. There was not much talking after that, and fortunately he proved more adept than she at removing military uniforms.

• • • • •

Tikaya woke with a start. The soft light of the room left her confused as to the time. She was in the sphere, with its shelf of air acting as a mattress. Though she had no blanket, a cocoon of warmth kept the alien bed cozy.

Rias sat next to her, head cocked, ear toward the window.

She touched his bare back. “What is it?”

“I think I heard a scream.”

“Not one of mine?”

“Not this time.” He smiled and kissed her before crawling past her and out of the sphere. He reached the window before she maneuvered off the air cushion.

“Better get dressed.” Rias jogged to their piles of clothing and tossed hers on the bed.

“What’s going on?” She tugged her shirt over her head and tied her hair back.

“I can’t see. There’s some kind of fog out there.”

As soon as Tikaya had trousers and boots on, she hustled to the window. A gray-blue haze made it impossible to see more than a few feet. She could not make out the reservoir, the walls, or the ground where the marines camped.

Rias belted on his sword and checked the rifle.

“Wait,” Tikaya said as he headed for the lift. “What if it’s poisonous? What if everyone is already…”

Rias hesitated, one foot on the blue circle.

A yell of pain pierced the walls and was cut off.

“They’re not dead yet,” he said.

But he did retrace his footsteps and find the towel he had used earlier. He tore it lengthwise, handed half to her, then wrapped the other half around his head to cover his nose and mouth. She tied hers and followed him down the lift.

Rias slid the door open and paused to listen before venturing out. “Stay close,” he whispered.

They slipped outside. The haze stung Tikaya’s eyes. Even through the cloth, she smelled an odor reminiscent of burnt coconut.

Rias led her toward the camp. Visibility ran only a few feet in the dense fog. They reached the first prone form, Agarik, still under his blanket.

“Is he…” she started.

Rias knelt and checked for a pulse. “He’s breathing.”

“Sleeping?”

Rias shook Agarik’s shoulder, which elicited a snore, but nothing more wakeful.

“Not the type you can be roused from apparently,” Rias said.

They crept farther and found more sleeping marines. None of them could be shaken awake, and Rias stopped trying.

At the edge of the fog, a hint of green clothing appeared on the ground to the right. Tikaya stepped over a marine to find herself staring at an unknown face with blood still streaming from a slashed throat. She struggled for detachment—and to keep from stepping in the spreading crimson pool. The dead person was small and thin-boned with a green shirt and brown trousers that lacked any hint of military uniformity. Definitely not Turgonian, but she was not sure of the nationality.

“Rias?” she whispered.

He had disappeared in the fog. She walked in the direction she had last seen him, but tripped over one of the marines. Her reaction was too slow and, almost as if she floated in water, she toppled face-first to land on the man. He grunted but did not wake.

Confused at the heaviness of her limbs, she pushed herself up. It felt as if a hundred pound rucksack burdened her. The cloth covering her face might delay the fog’s effects, but she would be snoring alongside the marines soon if she did not get away from it.

“Rias?” she called a little louder.

“Tikaya?”

She nearly tripped again. That wasn’t Rias. That wasn’t any Turgonian. It sounded like…

She put a hand to her chest. It couldn’t be.

“Tikaya?” the voice came again. “Are you here?”

She closed her eyes. The voice, so familiar, was speaking in her language.

“Over here,” she said. She did not say his name. She still did not believe it could be him. How could it be? He was dead, his ship sunk over a year before.

She held her breath as the fog stirred. A shape coalesced.

“Parkonis,” she croaked, lifting a hand.

He was a slight figure in comparison with the Turgonians, and he looked even thinner than she remembered. His curly red-blond hair, always a mess, had grown and stuck out in every direction, much like the beard hiding his chin and neck. Anxious blue eyes looked her up and down. He was the one who had watched from the opposite side as the marines entered. Oh, Akahe, if she had been close enough to identify him earlier, would she have…

She glanced behind her shoulder. Where had Rias gone?

Parkonis started toward her, arms wide, a white toothy grin escaping the beard. But his toe bumped against the fallen green-clad man.

His smile faltered. “Tatkar, no.” His gaze darted a dozen directions. “One of them escaped the gas. We have to—”

A dark shape slipped out of the fog behind him.

“No!” Tikaya shouted before she even saw the bloody dagger.

She lunged forward, knowing she could never stop the assassin in time. He, too, wore a cloth across his face, but it did not hide the intent in his cold, dark eyes.

Rias stepped out of the fog behind Sicarius and dropped a hand on the assassin’s shoulder. The dagger froze.

Parkonis whirled, took in the tableau, and stumbled back. Eyes still fixed on the assassin, Tikaya stepped forward and gripped Parkonis’s hand.

“I have no idea how he’s here,” she said, talking to Sicarius who seemed to be deciding whether to finish what he had started or not, “but this man is a gifted archaeologist, and if anyone can help you get your weapons, he can.”

Parkonis’s Turgonian was as good as hers, and she had no trouble reading the incredulous look he gave her—helping the empire was the last thing he wanted to do. She squeezed his hand, hoping he would recognize the don’t-say-anything signal. Rias’s gaze fell to the hand hold, and guilt washed over her at his pained wince. He closed his eyes for a long moment.

Tikaya lifted her free hand and spoke as much for him as for the assassin. “Let’s figure out what’s going on before we do anything else.”

Rias pulled a mask over his face, but instead of responding he released Sicarius and disappeared into the fog.

“Brace yourself,” Parkonis whispered in Kyattese.

Tikaya opened her mouth to warn him the assassin understood their language, but the hairs on the back of her neck leaped to attention. A heartbeat later, blinding whiteness engulfed the cavern, and a thousand cannons roared in her ear. Her feet floated from the floor, and someone—Parkonis?—wrapped his arms around her. She had the impression of weightlessness, of her body moving toward the chasm.

“What’s going on?” she yelled, but she could not hear herself over the clamor in her ears.

With her senses overloaded, it took a moment to realize what was happening: Parkonis was rescuing her. And she did not want to be rescued, not if it left Rias to wonder if she had scurried off with her old lover.

She thrashed. She had to escape before they reached the chasm. Her elbow caught Parkonis in the gut, and she felt rather than heard his pained exhalation. Regret mingled with desperation—she did not want to hurt him.

Parkonis shouted in her ear, but she could not hear words above the roar. She squirmed again, determined to free herself. He let go with one arm, and she thought she had her chance, but something cold and coin-sized pressed against her temple. The world blinked out, and she knew nothing more.

CHAPTER 19

Tikaya woke slowly, mind groggy. She lay on her back, her head in someone’s lap. Rias? No, concerned blue eyes peered down at her. Parkonis.

She struggled to sit up. A woman and a man in marine blacks stood above her. Colonel Lancecrest had not bothered removing the name tag from his wrinkled jacket, though she would have guessed his identity without it. Greasy salt-and-pepper hair stuck up in spicules, bags haunted his dark eyes, and furrows creased his weathered face. He looked like a man with nothing left to lose.

The woman had straight blonde hair and pale skin, so she might be Kyattese. Crow’s feet lined her cold green eyes, and her thin lips flattened further under Tikaya’s scrutiny.

“Where are Tatkar and my men?” Lancecrest asked.

“Dead or captured,” Parkonis said. “Sorry, we—”

“Idiots.” The colonel clenched a fist and stalked away, back rigid.

“Hate that man,” Parkonis muttered.

Tikaya rubbed her face and tried to clear the wooziness from her brain. Another cavern stretched around them, this one with cracks and buckles marring a floor decorated with bat guano. Its pungent smell tainted the air. Stalactites hung from a ceiling far overhead. No sign of a camp or recent habitation marked the cavern, but her spine tingled with the telltale sense of nearby practitioner work.

A fifty-foot-high butte rose in the center, a natural formation with a steep, jagged face. A single chamber with transparent walls took up the space on top. Lit from within, the bright interior revealed dozens, maybe hundreds, of bristling rockets. Similar to the one in the fort, they stood upright, their outsides loaded with dense strings of colored cubes. Larger black cylinders stood in the middle, and Tikaya had no idea what they might do, but she doubted anything up there existed for a purpose other than devastation.

There was no obvious way to get to the chamber. Two broken pillars and the remains of a ramp had crumbled and collapsed. A cool draft whispered against her cheek. If bats were living in the cave, there must be access to the outside nearby. Several tunnels led from the cavern.

“Thank you for your help, Gali,” Parkonis said, addressing the woman. “I thought that sleeping gas would be enough, but you were right: one of their guards was too alert.”

“Tatkar was my colleague for years.” Gali turned icy green eyes on Tikaya. “You better be worth it.”

How nice. Tikaya had found people as amiable as Bocrest to be her new captors.

“She is.” Parkonis rested a hand on her shoulder.

A thousand questions for him burbled in her mind, chief among them how he was alive and what he was doing with relic raiders, but she would wait until she could get him alone to ask. As long as he was here to vouch for her, she might have the freedom she needed to investigate those weapons and plot their demise. Maybe she could even destroy them before the marines showed up.

Colonel Lancecrest returned, his face composed, though frustration still tensed his body. “You Starcrest’s ally or his prisoner?”

“She’d never ally with that monster,” Parkonis said.

Tikaya climbed to her feet, pushing back dizziness. She touched her temple. Whatever Parkonis had used to render her unconscious was gone.

“Captain Bocrest is in charge.” She decided to give them information that didn’t matter. Maybe she could gain their trust if she seemed to hold nothing back. “He kidnapped me from my parents’ plantation and threatened to kill my family if I didn’t translate these runes for him. I have no loyalty to him.”

“And can you?” Lancecrest asked. “Translate this gibberish?”

Parkonis turned curious eyes toward her.

“Some,” she said. “I’m learning more every day.”

Lancecrest jerked his chin at Gali. “Test her, witch. See if she’s telling the truth.”

Gali scowled but stepped forward. She cracked her knuckles and flexed her fingers. Lancecrest closed in on Tikaya.

“Test?” she asked.

She had never failed an academic test in her life, but somehow she doubted these people wanted to assess her ability to categorize vowels. Lancecrest stepped behind her, reinforcing her supposition by taking her arms in a viselike grip. An inkling of what they meant to do stirred in Tikaya’s gut, and she tried to pull away from him. He held her firmly.

“Telepath?” Tikaya asked Gali.

“Yes.”

“Just in case the oath you took matters to you, I do not grant you permission to poke around in my thoughts.” Numerous people on the Kyatt Islands had a knack for telepathy, but it had never concerned Tikaya since back home there were strict laws against intruding without permission.

“We’re not on Kyatt,” Gali said. “No one here to enforce oaths.”

“That’s when they matter the most, then, isn’t it?”

The woman stepped forward without answering and raised her fingers. Tikaya tensed. Cursed sea, she did not want someone rooting around in her mind, reading her memories, maybe replacing them with more acceptable ones.

“I’m sorry, Tikaya,” Parkonis whispered behind her.

In other words, he was abandoning her. He must not have much power in the group. She could not help but think about how Rias had started out with no power amongst the marines and he had never failed to fight for her. She pushed thoughts of him from her mind. They could only get her in trouble here.

Gali’s cool fingers prodded Tikaya’s temple. Something itched inside her mind, like stitches being pulled out. Panic gripped her. These bastards had no right to her thoughts. She yanked her head back.

“Hold her still,” Gali growled and reached again.

Tikaya kicked her in the gut. The woman doubled over, clutching her stomach and gasping for air.

Lancecrest forced Tikaya to the ground, leaned a knee into her back, and shoved her face to the floor. She tried to twist free, but he wrenched her arms until she gasped with pain. Her cheek smashed against cold rock.

They were too strong. Her fate was unavoidable.

Gali’s hand came down on the back of her head, nails gouging skin. Tikaya felt the other woman’s annoyance, not just in those tense fingers but in her mind.

Images from the last month were dragged into her surface thoughts. Tikaya tried to fight it. She thought of cutting cane on the plantation, her family, school, childhood escapades, anything but—

Rias.

The foreign presence in her mind focused on him, tearing into any thought related to him. And there were a lot. Tears formed in Tikaya’s eyes at the pain the invasion brought, the disdain she felt through the woman’s link. The experience was bad, maybe worse than Ottotark’s attack back in Fort Deadend. For the first time in her life, she regretted not studying the mental sciences. A practitioner would have known how to block a telepath.

After minutes that felt like hours, the presence in her mind dissipated. The hand left Tikaya’s head.

Awareness of her surroundings returned. The weight on her back. Her labored breaths. Gali’s boots before her face. Parkonis’s silence. A hot tear ran down her cheek and splashed on the floor.

“Well?” Lancecrest asked.

“You can’t trust her. They’ve duped her into working for them.”

Tikaya focused on their words, groped for equilibrium. And she frowned. Duped? What in her thoughts had suggested that?

“They must have known she would never willingly help Turgonians, not after they decimated our islands in their war. Admiral Starcrest made her believe he was a prisoner, too, and gained her trust.” Gali snorted. “He tricked her into thinking he loves her, and—this is lush—that the two of them are going to destroy the weapons together. Dear Akahe, Tikaya, I’m embarrassed for you. I could see it if you were eighteen, but you’re not young enough to be that naive.”

Stunned, Tikaya said nothing. The woman had been in her head, read all her thoughts, and that was the conclusion she had come up with? How could she possibly think Rias’s friendship—his love—had been a ruse after all they had gone through?

The weight on Tikaya’s back lifted, and she pushed herself to her knees. Gali stood before her, arms across her chest, pity and annoyance wrestling for room on her face.

“Love?” Parkonis asked in a soft, stung tone.

Tikaya winced. She would have told him about Rias, but not like this. Maybe the woman would have the humanity not to share everything. But she was shaking her head.

“You would lecture me on my oath when you’re sleeping with that man?” Gali looked over Tikaya’s shoulder. “Sorry, Parkonis, but your faithful fiancée has been sheet wrestling with Fleet Admiral Starcrest.”

Tikaya remembered an earlier thought where she had lamented having no females to talk to out here. She decided to rescind it.

When Parkonis said nothing, she risked a glance at him. He was staring at her, mouth hanging open, eyes bulging. Not angry, not yet. Still in shock.

“Parkonis,” she said quietly, trying to ignore Gali’s cold stare. “As far as I’ve known, you’ve been dead for more than a year. The Eagle’s Spirit went down at the end of the war. You never wrote, never sent word. I had no idea I’d ever see you again.”

He closed his mouth, turned his back, and walked away.

“Leave us, Gali,” Lancecrest said.

The woman shrugged and headed for an empty stretch of cavern. Between one step and the next, she disappeared. An illusion shrouding a camp, Tikaya guessed.

“Come.” Lancecrest offered a hand.

Tikaya eyed him, surprised he had not simply grabbed her and yanked her to her feet. She got up on her own, but she did follow him as he walked away. He led her past bat guano piles and to a portion of wall engraved with a column of symbols.

“I’ve only been here a few days,” Lancecrest said, “but I gathered from my little brother that Parkonis wasn’t as good of a translator as he’d hoped. Atner actually wanted you on his team from the beginning. Can you tell me what this says?”

Tikaya hesitated, but it was such a basic sign that she saw little reason to withhold the information. “Lights.”

“What?”

“It’s a panel to control the lighting level.”

“The lighting? You’re sure? Parkonis thought these panels might have something to do with the web.”

Tikaya slid one of the symbols up, and the lighting level in the cavern increased. Down and it decreased.

“Damn,” Lancecrest said.

“What’s the web?”

Lancecrest turned toward the invisible camp. “Lork, show her the web!”

A gaunt, wispy-haired man appeared. He lifted his gaze toward the ceiling, and Tikaya felt the tickle of the mental sciences being used. A bat flapped down from the shadowed stalactites and soared toward the weapons room. Before it flew anywhere near the glass, a small explosion lit the air like a miniature star exploding. The bat did not have time to squeal in pain. Its charred body fell, causing three more explosions on the way down. Nothing but ashes remained to trickle to the floor.

Tikaya stared at the fine pile.

“The kill zone starts about twenty feet up,” Lancecrest said, “and extends to the walls. You see that door in the chamber up there? And the symbols by it? My brother has—had—goggles that make it easy to see them. He got in once by randomly pressing them with that wizard shit he learned on your island.”

“Telekinetics?” Tikaya suggested.

“Yes. He lowered a rocket out, but the code changed before he could get back in, and he wasn’t able to find another combination that worked.”

“How could you let him use that weapon on the men in your fort? The men who trusted you to command them?”

Lancecrest’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t know. Atner just sent a note to get out of the fort with my best men and meet him at the canyon. I still can’t believe he—I know why he did it, but I can’t believe he made that choice.”

“Why’d he do it?”

“Keeler.” Lancecrest waved toward the camp, and she guessed he meant the practitioner who had come out to bestir the bat. “Keeler can see what’s happening elsewhere. He found out Starcrest was coming and my brother panicked, figured he had to do anything to delay you all.”

“Rias isn’t even in charge.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s there. And the other man—a captain, isn’t he?—doubtlessly had orders to requisition half the fort to help flush the archaeologists out of the tunnels and get the weapons. Atner probably figured I wouldn’t disobey those orders, even for him.”

“Would you have?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. Come.” Lancecrest led her to another panel. “What’s this one say?”

“Temperature and…” Not water, but similar to water. “Humidity,” she realized. “Controls for modifying the cavern atmosphere.”

He sighed. “I was hoping for more from these panels.”

“I doubt the instructions for disabling the security system are going to be on the wall in the same room as the security system.”

Lancecrest grunted and strode to the last panel of symbols, this one on the backside of the butte and situated fifteen meters from a tunnel entrance. Tikaya did not have to ponder long, for she had translated these exact symbols just a couple days earlier. Her stomach clenched. Rias was not here with his acidic concoction this time.

“Don’t let your people touch anything on this one,” she said.

“Security?” Lancecrest perked up. “Weapons?”

“Cleaning service. What’s down that tunnel?”

“Labs. What do you mean, cleaning service?”

Tikaya nodded. “We’ve seen them so far near the labs.”

Despite her own words, she prodded an “open” symbol. An invisible door swung outward, and her breath caught. Four stacked cubes waited inside, their deadly orifices pointed her direction.

Lancecrest cursed and jumped back. Tikaya stood frozen a long moment before her thoughts could push past her first instinct of fear. The cubes were dormant for the time being. A complicated drawing on the inside of the door caught her eye. A schematic? A label on top, a grouping of numbers and symbols, nagged her mind. There was something familiar about the arrangement. Oh, it looked like the codes on the instruction sets in the sphere.

“Can I get some paper and copy this?” she asked.

“If it’ll help. I can get you the goggles, too, if you want to take a good look.” He pointed at the top of the butte.

If she wanted to take a look? Strange, Lancecrest was treating her better instead of worse since Gali blabbed.

“Do I have a choice?” Tikaya asked. “I’m used to Turgonians threatening me or my family to ensure my help.”

Lancecrest studied her for a moment. “Starcrest’s a tricky devil on the water, but he’s no asshole who would play mind games with a prisoner. If he says you’re his woman, you are.”

“And that means something to you?” she asked, not sure whether to be hopeful or not.

“I respect him. If he’s between me and getting out of here alive, I’m still going to shoot him, but I’m not going to torment you.”

“Is that a Turgonian tenet? It’s fine to shoot a man you respect, but you don’t mess with his lady?”

A faint smile stretched his lips. “Something like that. My little brother…destroyed things for our whole family. All I’m hoping to do at this point is get out of here alive with some weapons to sell. Ideally, I’ll get those weapons and get out of here before Starcrest shows up.”

“What happens to Parkonis and the other archaeologists? I assume selling weapons isn’t what most of them signed on for.”

Lancecrest’s jaw tightened. “This isn’t what I signed on for either, but we’re all stuck in this together now. My brother didn’t make his choices alone. Everyone here is going to be wanted for crimes against the emperor. We’re all working for a split of the profits. And if you want Starcrest—and Parkonis—to walk away from this unharmed, you’d best get to work opening that weapons chamber up there. You can make sure there’s no bloodshed.”

No bloodshed. Right. Until whoever he sold the weapons to used them.

Better to let him think she would go along with him though. “Get me the goggles.”

“Lancecrest!” someone called from the other side of the butte. “The Turgonians are over the chasm!”

“Already?” Lancecrest cursed and jogged toward the speaker.

As he trotted away, Tikaya eyed the tunnel near the cube cabinet, wondering if she could slip away before someone caught up with her. But, no, it would not take Lancecrest long to notice she did not follow, and for all she knew the tunnel dead-ended. Besides, she wanted to copy that schematic, examine the door symbols, and talk to Parkonis.

She jogged after Lancecrest. He disappeared ahead of her, but she expected that by now. She kept going and between one step and the next, the camp appeared. Crates, backpacks, bedrolls, muskets and bows, and food sacks sprawled about her. The scent of stale sweat mingled with the pervasive guano stench.

Twenty people, several wearing marine uniforms, stood around the wispy-haired fellow, who hunkered over a bowl of water. A clairvoyant, she realized when she spotted images of Bocrest’s men moving on the still surface.

“How’d they get across?” someone asked.

“Built a catapult.”

A marine whistled.

“I wouldn’t have joined this team if I’d known we’d be against Admiral Starcrest,” a woman muttered.

“Isn’t he dead?”

“We’ll be dead if we tangle with him.”

“He’s just a man,” Lancecrest growled. “We’ve laid your wizard traps, and we know the terrain best. The advantage is ours.”

Tikaya edged closer to the bowl, hoping to catch sight of Rias. She wished she could communicate with him somehow, let him know everything that mattered. For the moment, the clairvoyant showed them Bocrest and Ottotark as they removed their parachutes and gathered their gear.

“Find Starcrest,” Lancecrest said. “Let’s see what they’re planning.”

The image shifted, focusing on Rias and Sicarius. Tikaya wrestled with the urge to kick the water bowl over. Even if she did want to see Rias, it was better if Lancecrest did not know what he planned. She took a step toward the bowl. Lancecrest gripped her forearm to keep her back.

“How was the ride?” Rias asked.

“Exhilarating,” Sicarius said in a monotone.

“I thought we might get a yell of excitement or at least a smile out of you, but I see the emperor has trained you well.”

“Yes.”

It was like conversing with a rock. Tikaya wondered why Rias bothered, especially when he ought to be worried about her. Not that she wanted him to fall apart, but a little agitation would have been flattering.

“Scouts will go ahead,” Bocrest said, somewhere beyond the edges of the vision. “See what we’re up against.”

Rias took a step.

“Not you, Admiral. We need you back here planning brilliance, not wandering around looking for your misappropriated camp follower.”

Rias’s jaw clenched and the tendons sprang out on his neck. There was her agitation. And then some. He looked like he might tear Bocrest’s head off.

Sicarius stopped whatever might have come next in the conversation, raising his hand and saying, “Hold.”

He tilted his head, as if listening to something, but his cool eyes stared straight through the water. The clairvoyant flinched, and the image evaporated.

“What is it?” Lancecrest asked.

“That young one has unexpected perception for a Turgonian.”

“He knows we’re watching? So, what? Get them back. I want you on their every step, so we know when they’re coming.”

The clairvoyant closed his eyes and draped his arms across his knees, palms up. Nothing happened. “I can’t. He’s blocking us somehow.”

Lancecrest’s fists clenched and unclenched. “Who is that boy?” he asked Tikaya. “He’s not in uniform, and he’s too young to be giving orders.”

She shrugged. “The marines didn’t tell me much.”

Lancecrest considered her, and she thought he might call Gali over, but the marines and relic raiders were watching him, and he turned to them instead.

“Time to get ready for company, people. Morrofat, take your squad out. Your job is to delay that team.” Lancecrest dug in a rucksack and pulled out a clunky pair of goggles that reminded Tikaya of the eye protection she had worn on the tundra. He tossed them to her. “You know what your job is. We’ve found dangerous relics that we can throw at Starcrest. If you care about him, you’d best get me those weapons before he gets within range.”

CHAPTER 20

Tikaya stood near the spot where the bat had been disintegrated. From there, the door to the weapons chamber was visible, and the runes glowed beside it. No ropes bound her hands—Lancecrest had decided she needed them for writing—but she had a guard. Gali. The woman huffed and sighed as she paced about, fiddling with a pistol. Her telepathy worried Tikaya more than the weapon. She wanted to copy the cube schematic on the chance Rias could do something with it. And she could escape the raiders long enough to meet up with him.

“You’re not looking at them,” Gali snapped. “I imagine that’ll make the translation difficult.”

“I’m ruminating,” Tikaya said.

“On how to escape, I know.” Gali slapped the pistol across her palm. “Ruminate on getting through that door.”

Tikaya held the goggles before her spectacles and peered through the magnifying lenses. The symbols grew crisper, the nuances easier to make out. They were numbers. Four rows of four, each different. She only recognized a few, but she could look up the others with the sphere if she could find a private place to take it out.

She pushed the tool from her mind. Better these people did not know about it.

With the enhanced vision, she examined the rest of the weapons chamber. A cuboid contraption hung from a ceiling and was attached to a large pipe disappearing into the cavern depths far above. Some kind of fan or ventilation system to suck away fumes if there was a break or accident? Probably not fast enough to save the life of the person inside, but if the door shut and that fan activated perhaps destroying the weapons would not prove deadly for everyone down here.

“What does one do with the symbols?” Tikaya asked. “Push them?”

“I wasn’t there,” Gali said, “but I heard Atner stood down here and moved them around with telekinetics.”

Gali stretched a hand toward the butte. One of the numbers indented and glowed red. She twitched her fingers, and it slid one place to the right. The number on the right edge disappeared and reappeared on the left.

“How’d you do that?” Tikaya asked.

“A bit of sideways pressure. The runes glide around naturally, as if they’ve been greased. Atner fiddled around for days and finally got lucky. But he only got in once and the symbols changed after that.”

“But he got a rocket out. How was he able to get it down without the web destroying it in midair?”

Gali shrugged. “The web didn’t attack it.”

“So, the defense system won’t attack what it’s supposed to defend?” Tikaya wondered if there was anything else it would not attack.

The symbol winked off, though it did not return to its original slot. Three red beams lanced out of the clear door. Tikaya jumped, nearly dropping the goggles. The beams scoured the air in front of the door. After a moment, they cut off.

“I guess if you don’t punch in the correct code while you’re standing up there, you get incinerated.” She chewed on the side of her mouth. “Your telekinesis does offer a workaround the original builders probably didn’t consider. If they were here as long ago as I suspect, humans wouldn’t have had the skill yet. Relatively speaking, our command of the mental sciences is a recent development in civilization. It’s not something that started appearing until after we developed agriculture and became more agrarian rather than hunter-gatherer. More free time, creation of a leisure class, and—”

“We didn’t bring you here for a lecture,” Gali snapped. “Figure out how to get in before your cursed Turgonian lover gets here.”

Tikaya turned her attention back to the numbers. The ones she recognized were prime: three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen. Could the whole series just be the first sixteen primes? She had not learned numbers beyond twenty yet, so she would have to look them up. Presumably, the sixteen digits had to be arranged in a specific order to open the door. If Atner Lancecrest had pushed them randomly, he truly had gotten ‘lucky.’ Rias could no doubt give her the exact odds of guessing correctly, but what she remembered of studying permutations in school suggested a ridiculously high number of combinations.

She did not have time for guessing. If the code changed regularly, it was probably a puzzle of some sort. If one knew the goal, one had a better chance of solving it. Could it be as simple as placing them in order? No, too obvious to someone who spoke the language, and the scientists who had built this place had surely had their own people in mind as potential trespassers, not the cave-dwelling humans who had occupied the world at the time.

There had to be more to it. Tikaya dug a sheet of paper out and copied the numbers for later perusal.

A distant clanking started up. She cocked an ear, trying to identify it. The noise had a muffled quality and did not sound like it came from within the cavern. A few men ran out of the camp and into a tunnel.

“I want to take rubbings of the panels too,” Tikaya said.

“Whatever,” Gali said.

Relieved, Tikaya pretended no more than vague scientific curiosity as she copied the panels—and the schematic on the inside of the cube cabinet.

“Can you work those?” Gali asked suspiciously.

“No.” Tikaya closed the cabinet and tucked the rubbings into her pocket along with the numbers.

“Tikaya?”

She turned to find Parkonis standing a few feet away. The remaining marines and relic raiders carried bows or firearms. Parkonis had nothing more offensive than a utility knife. The last year had apparently not turned him into a fighter.

Gali backed away a few paces, giving them a semblance of privacy.

“Parkonis,” Tikaya said, not sure what else to say.

He pushed a tangle of curly hair out of his eyes. “I’m sorry I ran off.”

“Earlier today?” she asked. “Or a year ago?”

He grimaced.

“What happened out there, Par? You obviously got off your ship, but why couldn’t you come home?”

“The Turgonians sunk us, just as you heard, but Atner Lancecrest happened by and rescued those left alive. There were only four of us. He showed us the runes from this place, and I was intrigued, of course. He swore us to secrecy before telling us anything about them, then asked if we wanted to join his team, to travel to the source and work on translating a previously undiscovered language. He was leaving right away to recruit others from Nuria and the islands. There was no time to come home. It was a dream opportunity, Tikaya. I couldn’t refuse.”

“You don’t find it suspicious that he just ‘happened by’ right after the Turgonians attacked you? He was Turgonian himself. Maybe he wanted to appear a benevolent rescuer, but actually set up the whole thing. Maybe he had a deal with the captain of the ship that sank yours. All so he could get his hands on a handful of grateful archaeologists. Are you sure you had a choice about coming?”

“That’s far-fetched, Tikaya. Atner wasn’t a bad fellow.”

“Wasn’t a—he killed everyone in that fort out there. In a ghastly way. And those were his countrymen!”

Parkonis winced. “He was desperate at that point. We didn’t… I didn’t have anything to do with that. I swear. I didn’t know about the weapons when I agreed to come. We were just looking for relics, and in truth I only cared about the language.”

Yes, Tikaya could understand that temptation. She stepped toward him and softened her voice. “Even if you joined voluntarily—especially if you joined voluntarily—why didn’t you write, Par? How could you let us believe, for a whole year… We had your funeral. I stood next to your weeping sister and parents. This devastated them. And me too. I spent months trying to get over…” Her voice broke. She was still struggling to resolve this new reality with her memories.

Parkonis avoided her eyes. The distant clanking continued, like metal beating against rock.

“I should have written,” he said. “I just didn’t know how to without explaining everything. I was heading off to Turgonian territory, and I knew it’d be dangerous. I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Worry! I thought you were dead. How could worrying for your safety be worse than believing you dead?”

“I know, I realize that now. I was a fool. You were always the smart one. You weren’t going to marry me for my brains, were you?” He grinned, a disarmingly boyish grin that she knew well. And she knew when he was using it to cover something.

She folded her arms over her chest. “Did you not want me to worry or did you not want me to find out about the language?” She watched his eyes as she spoke, waiting for—yes, there was a wince. “Colonel Lancecrest said his brother wanted me on the team from the beginning. Are you the one who talked him out of recruiting me?”

Parkonis looked away. “I told him you wouldn’t work for relic raiders, yes.”

“You wouldn’t either, at least I didn’t think so. But we do funny things for a chance at history, don’t we? I’ll wager you wanted to be the first to translate this new language, something you wouldn’t be able to lay claim to, not solely, if I came along and helped.”

He opened and closed his mouth several times, and she knew she was right.

“I didn’t think we’d be gone that long,” he finally whispered. “I thought, when we got back, we could pick up where we left off…”

“I understand.” Tikaya sighed. And she did. Hadn’t she been enticed by that language too?

“You do?” Hope widened his eyes.

“I understand, but I wouldn’t have made that choice. I would have wanted you to come along, to be a partner in the translating, even if it meant you got the credit.”

“But I wouldn’t have gotten credit. You were always first.” He shrugged helplessly. “It was always you.”

She rubbed her face and wondered if that clanking was in her skull. He was missing the point. Or she was. Maybe she couldn’t truly understand what he felt, always being second best. Either way, she was beginning to think it would have been too much between them, even if Rias had never come along. She thought of him, of all he had lost, and of the temptation Sicarius had laid at his feet. So much more than accolades. But he had rejected it because of her. At least, he had before Parkonis showed up and kidnapped her. What if Rias believed he had lost her? Would he no longer have a reason to say no to that temptation?

“Tikaya?” Parkonis asked.

She tried to focus on him, though a new urgency fueled her intent. She had to escape and find Rias before he made a choice he would regret.

“Whatever happens here…” She squeezed Parkonis’s arm. “I want you to know that I love you, and I’m beyond relieved that you’re alive, but I can’t go home with you. I can’t marry you.”

“What?” He reeled back. “Because of that Turgonian?”

“No.” She did not want to get into that now, but Parkonis grabbed her arm before she could step away.

“Don’t be a fool, Tikaya. You don’t love that monster. How could you? It’s a clear case of captive complex. No matter how badly you’re treated, you start sympathizing with your captors, even wanting to please them, because you’re grateful they’re not killing you.”

“I know what the term means, and that isn’t the case.” If anyone had captive complex, it was he. Even after hearing how he had come to be here, she could hardly believe Parkonis would be a party to this weapons-selling scheme.

“It’s not your fault. I forgive you. You were just trying to stay alive. Who knows what that monster would have done if you’d fought him?”

“He’s not a monster. I know our people have no reason to like him, and you even less, but he did save your life from that assassin. We can trust him. He disobeyed orders two years ago, and he refused to have our president assassinated. He’s been exiled since.”

“Exile?” Parkonis snorted. “Is that what they told you?”

“He’s only here because of his familiarity with these tunnels—he was part of the original mission that found them. He’s been as much a prisoner as I. He was the only ally I had.”

“Tikaya, don’t you see? It’s all an act. That man outranks a captain. If he’s been pretending to be a prisoner, it’s only been to fool you, to win your sympathy. He’s insidious, they all are. They’ve been tricking you.”

“I’m not a fool, Parkonis.”

“It’s not your fault. They say he’s a genius. He’s probably a master of manipulation.”

Tikaya groaned and dropped her forehead in her hand. Why couldn’t he just be jealous? Instead, he thought she was an idiot who had been brainwashed. This was a glimpse of what going home would be like. Torture. Her heart cringed at the idea of never seeing her family again, but maybe her notion of sailing off to some obscure port with Rias was a better idea than she realized.

“You have to come back with me, Tikaya. We’ll take you to see a doctor, someone who can heal your mind. You just need distance, some time to return to your old life. If—”

The lighting flickered and went out.

Tikaya whirled, but blackness swallowed everything. As with the marines, the raiders had been relying on the alien lighting and nobody had lanterns lit. Timorous voices called out questions while others cursed in irritation. The symbols at the weapons door and on the panels still glowed, but they did not provide enough illumination to diminish the darkness.

“Tikaya?” Parkonis’s hand bumped her chest, then found her arm.

She gripped him back. With the light gone, she abruptly grew aware of how many thousands of feet of earth lay above their heads. Since she had been unconscious for the trip to the raiders’ cavern, she did not know the way back. Half a dozen tunnels exited this place, so one could wander forever in the darkness.

A distant roar sounded. Or one could wander until one was eaten.

“Not them again,” Parkonis whispered.

She recognized it too. The humanoid creatures they had fought the first day.

Parkonis’s grip tightened. It did nothing to reassure her, not like Rias’s would have. She started. Could Rias have manufactured this? As a distraction?

Light appeared at the edge of the camp. Lancecrest strode toward them carrying a lantern, and she felt silly for her panicked concerns about not finding a way out. Of course, the raiders would have kerosene and lanterns, just as the marines did. Enough to last many days, she was sure. The roar came again. Closer this time.

“Come.” Lancecrest waved an arm. “Return to camp until we figure out what’s going on.”

“Gladly,” Parkonis muttered.

Tikaya glanced over her shoulder. She could no longer see the tunnel Lancecrest had said led to labs, but she wondered if this might be her opportunity to disappear. Had Rias created this for her sake? Or did he think she wanted to be here, with Parkonis?

Gali stepped out of the shadows, her pistol aimed at Tikaya.

Right. It would take more of a distraction to escape, and sprinting into dark monster-filled tunnels without a lantern and a means of defense would be unwise.

Inside the camp, more lanterns had been lit. People hustled about, grabbing weapons. An unclaimed bow and quiver rested on a crate, and she weaved through the clutter toward it. If those creatures were coming, maybe Lancecrest would not object to arming her.

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder.

“You’re sitting here out of trouble,” Lancecrest said.

Before she could protest, he grabbed her arms and drew them behind her back.

“Wait,” she said. “I can help fight. I know how to use a bow.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

A moment later, Tikaya knelt with her wrists tied behind her. She endured it with no more than a sigh until his hands fumbled at her ears.

“No!” She ducked her head.

Too late. Lancecrest removed her spectacles. Everything more than a few feet away grew fuzzy.

“I doubt you’ll wander far without these.”

Tikaya craned her neck, trying to see where he was putting them. He stuffed them in a pocket without any concern for protecting the lenses.

“Bastard,” she growled.

A shot fired, echoing from the closest tunnel. Everyone in camp dropped behind cover, but no squad of marines burst into the cavern. Three more shots followed, along with a distant angry yell. Still, no one entered. The raiders shifted uneasily.

Tikaya could not imagine the Turgonians tipping their hand before attacking, but maybe they had run into the creatures. Or Lancecrest’s traps.

She could not stay here and wait for something to happen. A nearby lantern gave her enough light to see, and the white and green fletching on the arrows in the quiver caught her eye. She edged closer. Maybe if she could filch an arrow, she could use the head to cut her bonds. That would be easier if her hands were in front of her, but she had to try.

Something fluttered above the tunnel entrance. It was too far away for her to identify, but someone fired. Black powder smoke wafted into the air.

“That was a bat, you lummox,” Lancecrest said. “And you just confirmed to the Turgonians that we’re in here.”

“Sorry.”

“Scientists with guns,” Lancecrest muttered. “What was my brother thinking?”

As the smoke rose higher, slowly dissipating, a faint white beam appeared in the haze. Tikaya blinked, wondering if she imagined the light. But, no, even with her spectacles off, she could see a beam. It reminded her of those emitted by the cleaning machines. Maybe that was all the “web” was, a pattern of beams crisscrossing the cavern, invisible under regular illumination. But if smoke revealed them, one might avoid them.

Ideas percolated in her mind. But first, escape.

Staying low, she crawled toward the crate. Though men and women crouched all around her, their focus was outward. Why worry about the tied, half-blind philologist?

A couple more feet brought her to the quiver. Gali glanced at her and frowned, a what-are-you-doing expression stamping her face.

Tikaya attempted what she hoped appeared a guileless smile. “Can you help me find my spectacles?”

The woman scowled.

“Incoming!” someone barked.

All eyes turned toward the closest tunnel. Tikaya rose, turned, and slipped an arrow out of the quiver.

No one noticed. She dropped to her knees, putting her back to the crate. She found the sharp metal head and maneuvered it until the edge slipped between her wrists. Careful not to cut skin, she eased it up and down against the rope. The awkward position made it impossible to apply much pressure. She held back a scowl, knowing this would take a while.

It was not marines but two black bipedal creatures that burst into the cavern. Even without her spectacles, she recognized the towering muscular beings. The illusion spell did not fool them; they barreled straight for the camp.

Muskets fired and bows twanged.

Tikaya rubbed the arrowhead against her ropes.

The practitioners threw up an invisible barrier, and the creatures bounced back while men and women fired through it. The scent of black powder permeated the camp. Smoke stung Tikaya’s eyes, but, in the rising haze, she spotted more beams in the air. They crisscrossed irregularly, nothing symmetrical or predictable like a spider web. None had more than a foot or two of open—safe—space between them. Even if they were visible, climbing past them might not be possible.

The rope snapped, and her wrists came apart.

She eyed the back of the cavern, trying to guess the distance to the cleaning cubes and the tunnel next to them, but, even if she had her spectacles, darkness would have thwarted her estimates. On the other side of the camp, Lancecrest stood, reloading a rifle. The creature battle had him distracted, but she did not see how she could retrieve her spectacles without him noticing.

In front of the camp, blood streamed from the beasts’ dark flesh. Their muscles flexed and strained as they hammered the invisible barrier. Roars of pain and anger echoed through the cavern. Sweat gleamed on the practitioners’ faces. One flexed his fingers. A pulse of power hammered the beasts. They flew backward, and landed hard, but they came up roaring with anger. Another volley was fired at them.

Everyone appeared busy.

Tikaya grabbed a lantern and slid bow and quiver off the crate. She turned the flame down so it would not make her a target as she ran, then slipped toward the back edge of camp.

Someone shot one of the creatures in the eye, and it toppled to the floor. A ragged cheer went up.

Tikaya eased around sacks of corn meal and rice. A couple steps and she would be out of the camp. She resisted the urge to hop the few couple obstacles and sprint for the wall. That would likely draw someone’s eyes. Stealth would serve her better.

“The linguist is escaping!” someone yelled.

So much for stealth.

She bolted. Her boot caught on the uneven ground, and she slammed to her knees even as a shot fired over her head. They would rather shoot her than let her escape back to the others?

Gulping, she leaped to her feet and sprinted to the wall, lantern and bow banging against her legs with every step. That was the first time her clumsiness had saved her life—she could not count on it happening again.

Tikaya plunged into the darkness, using the blurry crimson runes as a guide. She reached the wall and stood to the side, not wanting to be silhouetted against them for the shooters.

Footsteps hammered the floor behind her.

She jabbed the symbol that opened the cabinet, but nothing happened. Growling, she slowed her movements and added a rotation. The cabinet popped open.

The footsteps neared. Lancecrest. She didn’t have enough time.

Then a black shape blurred in from the side, crashing into him. The remaining beast.

Lancecrest yelled and flung his arms up.

As soon as it finished him, it would be on her. Tikaya pulled out a cube, praying it would not activate while she held it. Arms laden, she started toward the tunnel.

“Over here, you ugly pisser!” someone cried and a psi wave pulsed through the air.

It struck the creature full on, hurling it twenty feet. The edge of the wave caught Tikaya and smashed her against the wall.

Lancecrest patted the floor for his rifle. His men poured out of the camp and moved to surround the creature. And her.

She sprinted for the tunnel.

An arrow clipped Tikaya’s sleeve and shattered against the wall. Fear surged through her, and she ran faster.

Someone conjured a yellow orb of light, and it spun her direction, illuminating her, making her an easier target.

“Stop!” A man pointed a pistol as he ran at her, his face a rictus of determination.

She had to keep going, hope his aim was poor.

A shot fired, and Tikaya dove, knowing it would not be fast enough. But no blast of pain came. The man’s musket hit the floor with a clatter, and he collapsed a heartbeat later. Tikaya scrambled into a crouch and squinted into the gloom behind him. A tall blurry figure in Turgonian black stood in a tunnel entrance on the far side of the cavern. Rias?

She stepped in that direction, but he waved her toward her closer tunnel.

“Starcrest!” Lancecrest fired his rifle.

Rias flew back with a grunt. Tikaya gaped. It looked like he had been hit, but, curse her eyes, she could not tell. He ducked back into the tunnel. Lancecrest raced after him.

Tikaya took a step that direction, but an explosion roared, and the ground heaved. She was thrown onto her side, and the lantern flew from her grip. The cavern filled with confused yells and cries of pain.

A stalactite plunged to the floor where it shattered and hurled shards everywhere. A second explosion ripped through the earth. A sinkhole opened up in the floor, and rock poured in like water over a fall.

Tikaya scrambled for the nearby tunnel, hoping the alien walls would hold up better than the cavern. She had no idea where the lantern had gone. Even as the floor pitched, she clutched the cube and the bow, determined not to lose anything else.

Blackness smothered the tunnel. Three steps in, another concussion boomed, hurling her against a wall. Her breath whooshed out with a pained grunt. The bow and cube flew from her hands. She crumpled to the floor and barely had the presence of mind to curl into a ball with her hands protecting her head as further booms rocked the tunnel.

Nearby, rock shattered and cracked like gunfire. Tikaya cringed, expecting the ceiling to collapse at any second. Finally, the explosions ended, but rubble continued to pelt the floor. She kept waiting for rocks to hit her, but her tunnel seemed secure. Secure, but dark. Lifting her head to peer about was worthless since blackness pressed in from all sides. Worse, dust clogged the air and invaded her throat. She coughed and wheezed as fine particles smothered her tongue.

Distant, muffled yells made it to her ears, but she could not pick out words. She shifted to get to her feet. Her fingers bumped a hard edge. She jerked back. The cube. If ever there was a mess, surely an earthquake—or whatever that had been—qualified. She held her breath, expecting the cleaning device to flare to life, for the orifice to glow red, the beam to lance out.

But the cube remained inert.

Whatever the reason, she thanked her luck and hunted for the bow. She found it wedged under a pile of rubble. Rubble that blocked the mouth of the tunnel from floor to ceiling. Cave-in.

She hoped there was another way back to the cavern. And that she could find it in the dark.

Tikaya stood and started to brush herself off, but a new concern made her freeze. How far did the cave-in extend? What if it covered part, or all, of the cavern? And the tunnels beyond? Her heart lurched. What if Rias or Parkonis had been caught? She still didn’t know if Rias had been shot. Damn, damn.

She clawed at the rubble, trying to dig a hole. She had to get back in and check.

A minute later, her fingers were bleeding and she had made no progress. Breath rasping in her ears, she backed away. She would not get in that way. She needed to find another way around. She needed to—

No. Tikaya wiped sweat from her face and forced herself to calm down, to think. Rias would want her to continue with the mission, not tear off, hunting for him. For all she knew, he might have set this all up. She remembered the clinking. Had the marines been crawling around in passages beneath the floor, placing blasting sticks?

She turned around and felt her way along the wall, trying not to feel guilty for walking away from Parkonis and Rias. She had to ensure those weapons were destroyed, and she could not assume the cave-in had done that. In fact, she would be shocked if it had.

The darkness made the trek feel longer, but she doubted she had walked far before she came to a four-way intersection labeled with glowing runes. Three possible directions, three labs. Biology, alchemy, and… She touched the last one, a new combination of symbols. Mechanical? That sounded promising, but she ought to let Rias know which way she had gone. She dropped her hand and snorted because her bloody fingers had already smeared a sign on the runes.

She padded down the hall. A door whispered open, and she stepped onto a landing. She expected darkness inside, but low blue lighting pulsed from the walls. Some kind of backup illumination, perhaps.

This lab was larger than others she had visited and had an upper level as well as a lower. She chose the upper, less out of any notion of what she might need, but because it would not be immediately visible to someone walking in.

Upstairs, blurry cabinets lined the walls and high stations dominated the center. She had to wander close for the edges to sharpen. They reminded her more of woodworking benches than alchemy stations. Intricate black tools she could not identify were mounted to the table tops and hung from the ceilings on articulating arms. Rias would probably be fascinated by them.

Her gut twisted with concern at the thought of him, but she forced herself to focus on the one thing she could accomplish here. She dug her notes, the sphere, and a pencil out of her pocket.

Tikaya put more obstacles between herself and the landing before stopping at a countertop that was not too high for her purposes. She thumbed the sphere on and identified the rest of the numbers from the door pad. More primes, but not the first sixteen as she had guessed. The sequence skipped a few: three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine, thirty-one, thirty-seven, forty-one, forty-three, sixty-one, sixty-seven, and seventy-three.

“All right, Rias,” she muttered. “Where are you? I’ve translated them and done my half.” As soon as the words came out, she snorted at herself. Yes, they made a good team, but she had done this sort of thing before she met him.

There had to be some significance in the missing prime numbers. Maybe these were the first sixteen that could be turned into a combination that allowed one particular thing. She drew a bunch of four by four boxes, mimicking the layout on the door pad, and scribbled the numbers in. Four rows, four columns, sixteen numbers. She added and multiplied. She looked for patterns.

The door hissed open.

Rias? Tikaya lifted her head and almost called out, but could not see the landing and caught herself before she could give away her position. She waited for the sound of footfalls, thinking she might be able to identify his tread, but there was no sound at all.

The door hissed shut.

Quietly, oh so quietly, Tikaya picked up her work. It was possible someone had looked in, not seen anything interesting, and left, but she doubted it. That cursed assassin was the only one who walked without making a sound, and she had no idea what his intentions might be for her, especially now that she had, from the Turgonian viewpoint, escaped with the enemy. And if Rias had run off, too, Sicarius would know he had no intention of accepting the emperor’s offer.

Tikaya twisted the symbols to open a couple of cabinets beneath a nearby workstation. One was empty enough she thought she could fit inside.

She stuffed the cube in one cabinet and knelt before the larger one. Careful not to make a sound, she slid boxes and tools out of the way. She could barely breathe, but she fit.

She pulled the door most of the way shut. Since the cabinets had to be opened with a turn of the symbols, she assumed she could not get out if she locked herself in. Terrifying thought that. No one would ever find her, and the cabinet would be her tomb. The assassin might spot the door slightly ajar, but she had to risk it.

Silence reigned in the lab. Tikaya could hear her heart beating in her ears, her shallow breathing. The awkward position cramped her diaphragm. Minutes dragged past.

She closed her eyes and rearranged digits in her head. The four-by-four box reminded her of a Skiltar Square, those puzzles where the goal was to arrange the numbers so that every column, row, and diagonal added up to the same sum. It seemed unlikely an alien race would have the same math games, but she rearranged and totaled the digits in her head anyway, seeing if she could find a combination that worked from all sides. It surprised her when she found an arrangement where each option added up to one hundred twenty. Could that be the way into the weapons cache?

Her fingers tingled with excitement. Or maybe numbness from sitting scrunched up in a cabinet. Her tailbone ached. She longed to crawl out and check her math with pencil and paper. Maybe Sicarius had left, or had never been there to start with.

Tikaya lifted her hand to the door, about to push it open. Then someone glided past the crack.

Black clothing, blond hair.

She held her breath and closed her eyes, as if the assassin might feel her stare through the crack. He had sensed the clairvoyant watching him, after all.

A minute later, the door hissed again, and she spilled out of the cabinet. Sitting on the floor beneath the pulsing blue light, she checked her math with pencil and paper. Every row, every column, and even the diagonals added up to one hundred and twenty. Maybe it meant nothing. Or maybe it was the solution to the puzzle.

She hopped to her feet, longing to go check it, but thanks to the cave-in she was not sure how to get back to the cavern.

The door hissed again. Tikaya cursed to herself. Now what?

Footsteps sounded on the landing. She reached for the cabinet door, ready to hide again.

“Tikaya?” Rias.

Relief swarmed her. “Up here!”

She skirted the workstations and almost crashed into him at the top of the stairs. He wore his rucksack and carried a rifle, but he managed to envelop her in a fierce hug. She clamped onto him just as fiercely, burying her face in his neck. He smelled of black powder and blood, but it didn’t matter.

“You came for me,” she whispered.

“Of course.”

“The explosions… I was afraid you were…”

“Me too,” he said, voice hoarse. “I feared you’d been caught in that cave-in. Bocrest was too quick to light the charges. He was supposed to wait until—it doesn’t matter now. If I’ve succeeded, they think the weapons are buried and I’m dead.”

She lifted her arms, intending to hook them over his shoulders, but her fingers encountered dampness. A torn section of uniform wrapped his biceps like a bandage. She drew back, staring at blood on her hand.

“You’re wounded!”

“Lancecrest got lucky.” Rias twitched a shoulder. “It’s just a scrape. It’ll be fine. Besides, it was worth it. He was carrying something you might find useful.” He unbuttoned a pocket, withdrew her spectacles, and draped them over her ears.

Tikaya slumped against his chest. She should have been elated to have her vision back, but a lump of guilt lodged in her throat. “You got shot trying to help me. I’m sorry.”

Rias took her face in his hands. “I’d risk a lot more than a trifling arm to help you.”

Comforted by his words, she tilted her head back.

He seemed on the verge of kissing her, but he cleared his throat and glanced around. “Are you…alone?”

“Yes, though Sicarius was here a few minutes ago.” She realized he had probably been wondering about Parkonis, but his eyes widened at the mention of the assassin.

“He was? Rust, he’s not supposed to be on this side of the cave-in. He must have found a way through.” He scrubbed his face. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to avoid him.”

“I haven’t seen Parkonis since before the explosions,” Tikaya said. “Do you know if he… Did any of the raiders make it?”

“I didn’t see him amongst the dead.” Rias took a deep breath. “Tikaya, I’ll help you find him, but I need you to know… When he appeared and absconded with you I… My first thought was to hurl myself into that chasm. But there’s a stigma against suicide in my culture, and regardless it’s always seemed like giving up, which isn’t something I’ve ever strived to master. I fully intend to fight for you.”

“Rias—”

“I know he represents your dream, the life you always wanted, and I know its selfish of me to want you when it could alienate you from your family, but… How is it he’s been alive a year and never found a way to let you know? I would have toppled an empire to get back to you.”

“Rias—”

“I can’t walk away and let him have you, Tikaya. Not if there’s a chance…”

“Rias.”

He opened his mouth again, but she flattened her palm over his lips. His shoulders slumped, and wariness hooded his eyes.

“I appreciate hearing those things very much.” She grinned at the idea of him toppling an empire—for most people, that was just an expression, but she wouldn’t put it beyond his means. “But there’s no need for you to go on.” She lowered her hand, brushing his lips with her thumb. “You have me.”

He gaped at her in stunned silence.

“You have me for a lot of reasons,” she said quietly, “but especially because you’re willing to give up everything to be here at my side, plotting against your people to destroy those weapons. The definition of a good man is someone who makes the moral choice when temptation invites him to do otherwise. The definition of a hero is someone who makes that moral choice even when temptation, threat of reprisal, and the mores of his culture invite him to do otherwise.” She considered her words and issued a self-deprecating smirk. “That was preachy, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, no, I liked it. Especially the part where you’re calling me a hero.” He grinned, eyes sparkling, and her heart danced.

“I’m sure I’m not the first, Fleet Admiral Starcrest.”

“In Turgonia, you’re a hero if you sink more ships than anyone else.” He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and laid his forehead against hers. “I like your definition better.”

“Good. I hope you like this too: I don’t want you worrying about being selfish because you want to have a life with me. I want one with you too. Some people are worth changing your dreams for.” She kissed him, wishing there was time for more. “I want to be with you. Always. Even if it means we’re both exiles on your forsaken prison island.”

Rias’s grip tightened. “Cursed ancestors, don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth, though I’m going to be terribly disappointed if the preeminent military strategist of the era can’t outsmart a teenage assassin in order to avoid that fate.”

Whatever Rias’s retort was going to be, it was lost when the door hissed open.

Before Tikaya could do more than think of hiding, Sicarius strode in. His gaze swiveled upward to lock on them. The pulsing blue light painted his face in eerie shadows. Blood stained his short blond hair, spattered the side of his face, and painted his hands. As those dark hard eyes raked her, she had an unsettling hunch none of it was his. Two pistols were jammed into his belt, and he carried a dagger. A drop of blood fell from the blade and splashed on the landing.

“Sicarius, good,” Rias said.

Good? The assassin looked like he was about to kill both of them. Tikaya stifled the incredulous expression that wanted to waltz across her face.

“Do you have the door symbols from the journal?” Rias asked.

“You assured Captain Bocrest you were placing the blasting sticks to provide a distraction, but the tunnels came down in such a way that he believed the weapons cavern had been buried and you with it.” Sicarius spoke in such an emotionless monotone it was almost possible to miss the accusation in those words. “I informed the captain that it was unlikely you would miscalculate so badly. The marines are searching the tunnels for you and her.” His cool eyes flicked Tikaya’s way.

She groaned inwardly. The plan would have worked if the emperor’s perceptive henchman wasn’t here. She glanced at Rias, almost expecting him to dive behind the railing and rip his pistol free for a shot, but he did not.

“Demolitions are dangerous and sometimes unpredictable,” Rias said. “We can, of course, rejoin the others now, though why not get through the locked door and finish the mission while the relic raiders are too scattered to guard their cache? Do you have the symbols?”

“Yes,” Sicarius said, no sign on his face of whether he believed Rias’s lies. “I already tried them.”

“How?” Tikaya asked.

No doubt, he was agile enough to scale the side of that butte, but not with those invisible beams waiting to slice off limbs.

“Bow and arrow,” Sicarius said.

Rias lifted an eyebrow toward Tikaya. He probably had not had as good a look at the entryway as she had. She nodded thoughtfully. If Gali had used telekinesis to nudge the symbols around, she supposed something thrown—or shot—against them could do the same job.

“You lined them up?” Tikaya had assumed the numbers she copied were a different set than the ones that had appeared the day Lancecrest got in.

“As close as I could. Not all the symbols matched those in the journal.”

“Maybe you misread them,” Rias said.

Those dark eyes turned a shade cooler. “I did not.”

“I’ve been told the symbols change periodically,” Tikaya said. “It was probably designed so people who knew the secret to the puzzle could always get in, providing they had the math skills, whereas others would have, well, the trouble Lancecrest’s team has had.”

“You know the secret?” Sicarius glided up the stairs, eyes locked on her.

Rias dropped to the step in front of her, blocking the assassin’s advance. Sicarius halted.

“I’m close,” Tikaya said. Or not even remotely close. It was one of the two. “It would help to see the symbols you have that worked before, even if they don’t now.”

For a long moment, Sicarius stared past Rias’s shoulder at her. Finally, he wiped the dagger, sheathed it with the myriad others he carried, and handed her the torn scrap of paper, neatly folded.

“Thank you.” Half the numbers were the same. She would have to check the sphere to translate the others. “I have some ideas about how to get through the web.” Maybe pretending to include Sicarius in their plans would make him more likely to believe they shared the same goal. She put a hand on Rias’s shoulder. “Can you make something that causes smoke? A lot of smoke?”

“With the right ingredients, yes.” Rias snapped his fingers. “Sicarius, can you get us some bat guano from the cavern?”

Tikaya almost choked. Bat guano?

Sicarius’s eyes narrowed. “There is no potassium nitrate in these labs?”

Of course. Potassium nitrate—salt peter—was harvested in bat guano-rich caves, and it was one of the core ingredients in black powder. The kid was bright. They would have to be very careful—and probably lucky—to trick him into helping.

“I haven’t seen any,” Tikaya said. Which was true. With her spectacles missing she had not bothered examining the lab closely.

“I’ll prepare the vats and put together the rest of the ingredients to make some smoke bombs,” Rias said. “And Tikaya will work on the entry code for us. We can finish your mission before Bocrest even misses you.”

“Bat guano,” Sicarius said. “Very well.”

As soon as the door shut behind him, Tikaya and Rias grabbed each other’s arms and started to talk at the same time.

“You first,” Rias said.

“First, I think it’ll be a lot easier to find potassium nitrate in one of these labs than making it from scratch, but I assume you’re just trying to keep him busy.”

Rias nodded. “Yes.”

“Second, can you look at this and tell me what you think? These are the translated numbers from the door pad.” She fished out the page with her solution for the puzzle, wincing as she handed it to him. It had seemed a logical guess during her in-cabinet mulling, but now that she had to share the hypothesis with someone else, she feared it a foolish one.

“A Skiltar Square?” Rias asked. “It looks like you solved it. In Turgonia, you can get books full of them to entertain your precocious children.”

He smirked, and she wondered how many his parents had foisted on him. Her amusement at the idea faded quickly.

“This can’t be right then,” she said. “Too simple for these people. And surely they wouldn’t have had similar puzzles to what we have.”

“Why not? In your studies, haven’t you found that the fundamental properties of numbers are the same in every language, amongst every people? Mathematics surely transcends humanity, existing whether we do or not, so it doesn’t seem odd to me that another species would play the same sorts of games with numbers. And why wouldn’t this entrance code be simple? Do you think someone carrying a toxic weapon up a ramp would have wanted to stand outside the door for three hours making calculations? What if he dropped one of those poison-filled vials and it broke at his feet? Big oops, eh?”

Tikaya laughed. She had not considered that.

“Besides,” Rias said, giving her an appreciative smile. “Those squares aren’t that easy to solve. Why don’t you translate the combination from the journal and see if it’s a solution to one.” He thumped a fist on the railing. “We still need a way to destroy the weapons. I was thinking we might find a formula for a powerful alien version of naphtha or kerosene, because even gas is flammable, right? At a high enough temperature… Tikaya, where are you going?”

Halfway through his spiel, she had charged to the cabinet where she left the cube. She raced back with the contraption clutched in her arms, and Rias lurched back a step at the sight of it.

“It’s not active,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but it gives us the chance to experiment.”

Rias recovered, though he eyed the device warily. “Experiment?”

“The cubes already clean things by incinerating them, right? All we need to do is add those weapons to the list of items its programmed to burn, throw it in that chamber, and close the door. You took one apart, right? Do you think you could alter its parameters? Like a punchcard in a steam loom?”

“I… Tikaya, that thing is so far beyond a steam loom I wouldn’t have any idea where to start.”

“Even if I can translate the schematic?” She thrust the blueprint she had copied toward him. “Give me a moment, and I might be able to find repair instructions in the sphere’s library too.”

Though his eyes darted, devouring the schematic, his wary frown did not fade. “All before Sicarius returns or the marines stumble upon us or angry relic raiders burst in?”

So, that’s what daunted looked like on him. Huh.

“We can do it.” Tikaya slapped him on the backside.

He blinked. “What was that for?”

“I’m encouraging growth.”

CHAPTER 21

Gunfire cracked in the distance. Again. Bent over a table with Rias, Tikaya did not lift her head. The cube, one side removed, sat between them. Several parts she could not name lined the table in the order Rias had removed them. A three-dimensional display of the inside of one of the cubes hovered in the air, courtesy of the sphere. The blue lab lighting continued to flash, providing poor illumination for such detailed work.

A yell of rage—or pain—sounded in the tunnels. Rias grumbled something under his breath about how he ought to be out there, helping the men. He had set the situation up so everyone would be running around in the tunnels, distracted dealing with each other and the darkness, creating just this time they needed, but it clearly did not sit well with him.

“The screwdriver thing,” he muttered.

Tikaya handed him a long tool with a magnetic hook on one end and a tiny flat-tip head on the other. She had finished her work, gathering supplies for Rias’s smoke bombs and translating the schematic and the numbers Sicarius had given her. The latter had proved to be another Skiltar Square. Now she handed Rias tools and tried not to feel useless.

“Close,” he said. “It’s just a switch that modifies the level of ‘cleaning’ to be done, so it’s easier than I thought, but reaching it without taking everything else out is the problem. Also…I’m afraid if I take everything out, I won’t be able to get it back in correctly without breaking something. The insides are much more fragile than the outside.”

“Take your time,” she said, wishing it didn’t sound so inane.

She was not sure how many minutes—hours?—had passed since Sicarius had left the lab, but she was beginning to think he must have run into a distraction. As uncharitable as it was, she hoped for a nice arrow or pistol ball to the chest.

Rias grunted and held out his hand for another tool. The kit of precision implements they had found ranged from knives and scalpels to repair gizmos, most of which she could only guess at. Some were too large for human hands, but all were well-made, the craftsmanship amazingly sturdy for such fine tools. A pair of black knives, in particular, had caught Rias’s eye, and he had stuck them into his belt.

“There,” Rias whispered. “I think I got it.”

“Is there a way to test it?”

“Not here.” He started replacing the innards. “We’ll have to get into the tunnels on the other side of the cavern. That’s where I found the panel to cut off the lights. I’m guessing that whatever powers them powers these cubes and that’s why they’re inert.”

Tikaya realized how lucky she had been when the blasts brought down all that rubble. If power had been running to the cube, it might have cut her down after all.

The door hissed open.

They spat silent curses at the same time.

“Distract him,” Rias mouthed, waving at the mess still on the table. If Sicarius caught them with the cube, he would figure out their plan right away.

Tikaya grabbed the sphere and her notes and sprinted to the top of the stairs. Sicarius was halfway up. No bag of guano dangled from his grip.

Though her instinct was to keep space between her and him, she jogged down several steps so she could stop him before he could see Rias.

“We figured out the code,” she said, waving the pages. “It’s a puzzle with numbers.”

“Where is the admiral?” Sicarius asked.

“We made smoke bombs, and he’s packing them. We did find some potassium nitrate, so we won’t need the guano after all. Which is good, since you seem not to have gotten any.” She winced at her inane babbling. “What’s going on outside?”

Sicarius watched her, impassive eyes betraying nothing of his thoughts. He knew they had sent him on a useless errand. He had to. And he probably knew they were not on his side. They were going to have to kill him or incapacitate him somehow.

“Cat and mouse,” Sicarius said. “I killed one of the wizards. Some of Colonel Lancecrest’s men are proving elusive, and they’ve set traps. Captain Bocrest’s team has split them up, brought a few down, and taken others prisoner.”

Down. Dead. “Parkonis?”

“What?” Sicarius asked.

“The man who…kidnapped me against my wishes. Do you know if he’s alive?”

“He dropped to his knees and begged for his life when we came upon him. He bore no weapon, so the captain took him prisoner.”

Tikaya closed her eyes, thankful Parkonis was not the heroic type. He had no weapons training, and bravery only would have gotten him killed. Being a prisoner was no guarantee of safety, but there was still a chance she could help him.

“Where is the admiral?” Sicarius asked again.

“Here.”

Rias appeared at the top of the stairs, rucksack on his back, and what looked like ceramic globes with fuses in his hands. She had been busy with the translations and had not watched him assemble the smoke bombs. She thought of the vast cavern and hoped four would be enough.

He did not give her a wink or nod, not with the assassin watching, but she thought Rias’s rucksack appeared lumpier than before. He slipped two globes into pockets and handed the other two to Sicarius.

Tikaya wondered how they would detour to the lighting panel with Sicarius tagging along. And would the cube fly up to the weapons room of its own accord, or did they need to get it up there and lock it in somehow? For that matter, would their modifications even work?

Footfalls sounded in the corridor, and gear jingled.

Rias reached for his pistol, but Sicarius’s hand blurred, landing on his wrist in a firm grip.

Rias twitched an eyebrow, the only indication he felt things might not be going according to plan.

“The captain sent reinforcements.” The steely gaze Sicarius leveled at Rias was far too knowing for comfort. “To watch you and guard our backs while we retrieve some rockets.”

“Watch us?” Tikaya asked innocently. “Why?”

Sicarius did not bother to look at her.

Agarik strode through the door, and Tikaya lifted her head. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

Then Ottotark and Bones clomped in. She tried not to let her chagrin show. Even before Ottotark spotted her, he wore a self-satisfied smirk. Bruises from his fight with Rias still mottled his face, and a bandage wrapped his head, but he appeared delighted at this new turn. Bones ignored Sicarius and Rias in favor of glaring at Tikaya, an angry jaw-clenched glare. No delight there. She guessed Ottotark had buzzed in his ear, letting him know who killed his brother.

Tikaya looked at Agarik, but he avoided her eyes.

“Evening, Admiral,” Ottotark drawled. “We’ll relieve you of your weapons now.” The smirk widened. “Captain says you’re back to prisoner status.” He ambled up to the step below Rias and held out his hand.

Rias neither moved nor spoke.

Ottotark launched a punch at his belly. Rias blocked it and slammed his knee into the sergeant’s diaphragm. Ottotark’s heel slipped off the step, and he nearly tumbled to the landing, but he caught himself on the railing. Tikaya started to back away, to give Rias room to fight, but Sicarius stepped in. He held a knife she had not seen him draw in one hand and splayed the other against Rias’s chest. His eyes were icy in warning.

Rias froze.

Ottotark found his balance. Fury contorted his face, and he snarled as he snatched Rias’s weapons. He lifted the musket, as if he might slam the butt of it into Rias’s head. Tikaya stepped down with a vague notion of grabbing the weapon, but Sicarius stopped Ottotark with a word.

“Enough.”

The men dropped their arms. While punching Ottotark had won Rias nothing, it concerned Tikaya that none of that defiant spirit came out against the assassin. Had his last meeting with Sicarius disillusioned him so much that he would not move against the youth again? If so, that did not bode well for their success.

“Lead on, Admiral,” Sicarius said. “You two will get us into the weapons cache.”

And then what?

• • • • •

The pair of kerosene lanterns the marines carried did little to push back the darkness in tunnels that had fallen silent. Eerily so. Tikaya began to feel as if their tiny group represented the only people left alive in the Stygian passageways.

She and Rias walked side by side, leading the others. Ottotark and Bones kept their pistols trained on their backs. Agarik walked behind them, and Sicarius ghosted along in the shadows, rarely seen, rarely heard, always felt.

Tikaya checked symbols and peered down dark cross tunnels, hoping for inspiration. As soon as the marines had the weapons, they would likely shoot her. She wondered if Rias was expendable at this point too. At best, he could expect a trip back to Krychek. He would probably prefer death.

Rias caught her eye. “Sorry.” He spoke in Kyattese, which she had not realized he knew, though the words that followed proved he was far from fluent. “I was engineer. Picked where explosives go. Had chance.”

The slowness with which his words came out gave her time to puzzle over the meaning behind his choice of language. Bones, Agarik, and Ottotark probably knew no Kyattese, but hadn’t Rias warned her that Sicarius did? He had certainly seemed to be reading that journal.

“No talking in codes.” Ottotark jabbed Rias in the arm.

“Had chance,” Rias repeated, brow furrowed as he groped for words. “To drop roof on my people. End it all. Could not.” He shook his head and sighed.

Tikaya glanced between Ottotark and Bones, probing the shadows for Sicarius. Yes, he was there and close enough to hear. Maybe Rias wanted Sicarius to know he had spared the team. Tikaya could not imagine that or anything else winning sympathy from the stony assassin. Maybe Rias just wanted her to know without opening himself up for sneering commentary from Ottotark.

Tikaya gripped Rias’s forearm. She could not condemn him for being unable to murder his own people, though it would have been convenient if he had arranged an accident for Sicarius when the men were catapulting over the chasm.

In the darkness ahead, four sets of symbols glowed, marking corners of an intersection. Rias tried to walk straight through it.

“Right,” Sicarius said, voice cold.

“I can turn the lighting back on if we go this way,” Rias said.

“Darkness is tactically preferable.”

Tikaya shook her head; the kid didn’t even sound human. She and Rias had no chance if they couldn’t get the cube powered.

“What if the door on the weapons room won’t open without the same power that operates the lighting?” Tikaya asked.

“The lab doors are opening,” Sicarius said.

Good point. She sighed.

“But it’ll be easier to see what we’re doing in that weapons room if it’s lit.” Rias turned to face Sicarius. “You were in Fort Deadend. You saw what happened to those people. Do you want to risk dropping something? A single broken vial could kill everyone in the cavern.”

“Turn right,” Sicarius said.

“Why are you so against turning the lights on?” Tikaya asked.

“Because you two wish it.” Sicarius jerked his chin to the right. “Lead.”

In other words, he did not trust them. No news there.

A long moment passed before Rias headed right. Even as a prisoner with everything going wrong, he remained outwardly calm, and Tikaya reminded herself there was still time.

Lantern light played over piled rock ahead. This was a different tunnel than she had fled the cavern from, but it, too, had been partially blocked. They clambered over the waist-high rubble. When Agarik hopped down from the pile, Tikaya tried to catch his eye again. But he seemed to be deliberately avoiding them. In plotting to betray the marines, had Rias lost Agarik’s respect?

Boulders and shattered stalactites cluttered the cracked and uneven cavern floor. The illusion hiding the camp was gone, revealing a mess of smashed gear and broken crates. A pair of legs stuck out from a boulder, and Tikaya tore her gaze away. Above, darkness sheathed the rockets, though the number panel glowed, faintly illuminating the door area.

Sicarius detoured into the camp and grabbed a coil of rope and a bow. He plundered quivers, some still strapped to dead people, for arrows.

Tikaya waited to the side, not in a hurry to be helpful. Rias too, wandered into camp, though he looked less certain about what he sought. Inspiration, probably. Ottotark and Bones followed him, pistols cocked. The expression on Ottotark’s bruised face promised he would love to use his.

Agarik bumped Tikaya’s shoulder as he came up to stand by her. He pointed his pistol at her, though his finger did not touch the trigger. While Sicarius collected arrows and the other two men guarded Rias, Agarik chanced a whisper.

“Ottotark and Bones are planning to kill you as soon as you open the door.”

It wasn’t unexpected, but hearing how little time she had unsettled her nonetheless.

“Does Rias have a plan?” Agarik murmured.

Sicarius glanced their way. Fortunately, Agarik still had the pistol aimed at her.

Rias bent to pick something up. “Ah, these might help.”

Sicarius turned back to him as Rias hefted Lancecrest’s goggles.

“We had a plan,” Tikaya whispered back to Agarik. “You people weren’t a part of it.”

“Rias will have a backup one,” he said. “If I act against the others to help you, I can’t go back, or it’s the end of my career, probably my life.”

She feared they needed his help, but this was their cause, not his. As far as the marines were concerned, getting those weapons was a good thing. How could she ask Agarik to risk his life when it meant betraying everyone dear to him?

But he had already made his choice: “Just wanted to be sure your offer is still good.”

She wished she could hug him, but all she dared was a slight nod. “Beach house,” she whispered. “As long as you want it.”

A slight smile stretched Agarik’s lips. “Surfer with the talented tongue?”

“I’ll do my best.”

A rifle boomed in a nearby tunnel.

“It’s time, Admiral.” Sicarius pinned Tikaya with his gaze as he strode to the base of the butte beneath the door. “Bring the ordering for the numbers.”

Tikaya wanted to bring a dagger to stick in his gut, but she kept the thought to herself and the sneer from her face as she walked over. Best not to give him any warning that she would make trouble.

Rias joined her, deliberately turning his back on Ottotark and Bones. “What’s your plan, Sicarius? There are only a few of us and a lot of weaponry up there. Getting it out will be a challenge.”

“We don’t need that many rockets to satisfy the emperor’s needs,” Sicarius said. “If your smoke reveals a safe path, I’ll climb up with one other person. We’ll press in the correct code and lower several of the weapons to the floor. Once the captain has cleaned up the raiders, he’ll be here, and we’ll have plenty of men to transport the weapons out.”

“Over the chasm?” Rias asked.

“There are other ways out.”

He sounded certain. An image came to mind: Sicarius gathering information by torturing captured raiders—Parkonis. She winced.

“Who’s going up with you?” she asked. If Sicarius climbed to the top with Ottotark or Bones, that would leave her, Rias, and Agarik with only one hostile man to deal with.

“Starcrest,” Sicarius said.

Tikaya fought back a curse. She was beginning to wonder if the assassin had telepathy training, Turgonian or not. Or maybe he just wanted Rias up there because he was expendable at that point. Her hackles rose. “I’m not certain we have the puzzle right. You’re not making Rias push the numbers for you. Have you seen what happens if someone gets it wrong? Instant incineration.”

Sicarius lifted his stuffed quiver of arrows, and she blushed. Wrong conclusion. Of course, he intended to test it from below or he would not have bothered gathering the arrows.

Rias touched his index finger to his lips. To silence her? Or warn her not to irritate the assassin? She scowled at him. Somebody had to do something, and he was just going along with these brutes. He gazed back at her, steady and imperturbable.

Above their heads, the door panel pulsed three times.

“What does that mean?” Bones asked.

“The numbers are about to change.” Tikaya had no idea if that was true, but it sounded plausible, and if the marines feared they would need another translation, they might keep her alive a little longer.

“Give me the solution,” Sicarius said.

Tikaya showed him the order of the numbers. He stared at it a moment, nodded, and nocked an arrow. Rias handed him the goggles. She expected Sicarius to regard them with suspicion, but he looked them over, then tried them. He lifted the bow and shot, untroubled by the bulky eyewear. The first arrow passed through one of the invisible beams and sizzled to ashes before it reached the target.

“Shit,” Ottotark announced.

Unflappable, Sicarius took a step to the side and loosed a second arrow. This one found the target, bumping one of the symbols a slot to the left. The arrow did no damage to the durable alien technology. It bounced away, where another beam incinerated it.

“No need to worry about trash collection here,” Bones muttered.

While Sicarius continued moving the numbers around, she gauged the distance to the corridor they had exited, the corridor that eventually led to that panel Rias wanted to visit. She would not consider running with Sicarius on the ground, but if he was busy climbing, the odds improved. Ottotark and Bones were no doubt proficient with their firearms, but she judged them far more fallible than the assassin. If she just had a distraction…

A final arrow clattered off the panel after shifting the last number into place. A chime sounded and the door slid open. It was hard to feel triumphant given the circumstances.

Sicarius removed the goggles and returned them to Rias with a single nod.

“Light a smoke bomb,” Sicarius said, apparently unwilling to trust the ones Rias had given him until he had seen them used.

Rias held out the goggles, glancing around as if looking for a place to put them, then shrugged and strapped them around his head. He pushed the lenses above his eyes so they were not in the way as he lit one of the globes. He laid it on the floor at the base of the butte. Soon, plumes of grayish blue smoke wafted into the air. They diffused quickly, spreading over a greater area than the haze from a pistol firing. As Tikaya had seen before, an asymmetrical pattern of white beams grew visible in the smoke.

“Those kill you if they touch you?” Ottotark asked.

“Yes,” Tikaya said.

“Glad I’m not trying to climb past them.”

Sicarius gave him a cool stare, then laid down the bow and jogged to the bottom. Tikaya eyed the weapon. It would not take many steps to reach it.

“Come, Admiral,” Sicarius said.

Rias strode to Tikaya first. He gripped her hands. “Whatever happens, you’ve been the light that’s driven away the darkness in my life.” He did nothing so obvious as putting special emphasis on the word light, but she understood anyway: he wanted her to try for the panel.

She squeezed his hands. “I love you too. Be careful.”

Ottotark groaned. “Can we shoot them now?”

“Wait until we have the weapons out. If the symbols change, we’ll need her again.” Sicarius handed his two globes to Bones. “Light one of these if the smoke dies out before we reach the top.”

Rias widened his eyes slightly before releasing Tikaya’s hands and heading for the base of the butte. Tikaya tried to guess at the meaning in that look; had he done something with the other smoke bombs? The current haze tickled her nose and teared her eyes a bit, but had no significant side effects.

Overhead, the door slid shut. It had only stayed open a couple minutes before locking again. She wondered what happened if someone was on the inside when it closed.

Sicarius was already ten feet up the wall. Though natural, with protrusions and crevasses, it did not look like an easy ascent, even without the beams. They touched it in myriad places, and no easy routes awaited the climbers.

After considering the rock face, Rias removed his rucksack. Tikaya tensed. No, no, if he did not take the cube with him, how would they get it up there? He met her eyes and shook his head faintly. She grimaced. He must not think there was enough space between beams to climb with the rucksack on his back. After watching Sicarius, she reluctantly agreed. As soon as the assassin reached the level of the beams, he had to start sidestepping, twisting and contorting his body. For every two feet he ascended, he ended up dropping a foot somewhere else.

Rias started up, and worry gnawed at her before he even reached the beams. He was taller and broader—and older—than the agile assassin. Dodging those beams would prove a difficult feat. Not impossible, she hoped.

Tikaya eased toward the bow. Agarik remained near her, and he shuffled forward too. They froze when Ottotark eyed them.

“Agarik,” he said. “Go hold the lantern for Bones in case he needs to light another smoke thing.”

Ottotark slapped his pistol across his palm as he strode over to stand by Tikaya. Agarik glanced at her. She nodded infinitesimally. Better to comply now and wait until Agarik’s side-switching might accomplish something.

Light pulsed at the door. The symbols changed.

“Is that what I think it is?” Rias asked, cheek pressed to the rock, a laser less than an inch from his eyebrow.

“Yes.” Tikaya slipped the sphere out of her pocket.

Ottotark grabbed her arm, pistol digging into her ribcage. “What’s that?”

“Not a weapon,” she said, then raised her voice for Rias. “Give me a minute, and I’ll translate the new numbers. I know some of them.”

“How often does it change?” Bones asked.

Once a day, she guessed. “At random,” she said.

Ottotark stepped back, startled when the display flared to life. She manipulated it to find the number symbols.

“You want me to read them to you?” Tikaya called. “Or try to solve the problem and shoot the numbers into place from here?” She had to try, though she doubted Sicarius would be foolish enough to let her have a bow much less authorize her shooting it in his direction. He would probably laugh and say nice try.

“Give Starcrest the numbers,” Sicarius said with no sense of humor or annoyance. “He’ll figure it out and he’ll push them.”

Rias grunted. Pebbles clattered down the cliff face. One bounced into a beam’s path and was vaporized. The dwindling smoke made the sweat beading his forehead visible. Be careful, Tikaya urged.

The pistol bumped her ribs.

“Get to work,” Ottotark snapped.

“I’ve got the numbers,” she said a moment later and read them aloud to the men.

She hoped Rias would wait until he reached the top, or some place safe, to mull over the solution. He was about halfway up now. In a couple feet, Sicarius would reach the ledge.

“I could use more smoke,” Rias said.

Bones and Agarik lit one of the globes. Tikaya checked on Rias, hoping he would wait until the smoke thickened before trying to climb farther. She caught him pulling his shirt over his nose and tugging the goggles over his eyes.

As soon as smoke curled from the globe, Bones and Agarik dropped it and stumbled back. They threw their arms over their faces, gagging.

Tikaya sucked in a deep breath and held it. Even then, she still caught the first whiff as the smoke disseminated. More pungent than rotten eggs, it invaded her nostrils and teared her eyes. Ottotark leaned forward, grabbing his nose.

This was her chance.

She drew back her arm and slammed the sphere into his temple. It was not big, but it was blunt and solid. He reeled sideways and stumbled to the ground.

“My eyes,” Bones shouted, then retched.

Agarik clutched at his belly and vomited.

No time to check on Rias or Sicarius. Tikaya lunged for the bow and quiver, grabbed them, and wheeled. Agarik had dropped the lantern. She snatched it as well. By then, her lungs burned, demanding air, but she sprinted for the tunnel.

Tears blurred her vision, and she tripped over a rock. She sprawled, almost losing the bow, and her breath whooshed out. Before she could catch herself, she sucked in a mouthful of air. Distance stole some of the potency from the smoke, but it still made her gag. She staggered to her feet, forced her legs into motion, and clambered over the rubble pile and into the tunnel before retching.

As soon as she could, she raced toward the intersection. The air was clearer here, and she sucked it in. She rounded the corner, hoping to run straight to the panel without encountering a maze of tunnels to guess at. A T-section came first. She lifted the lantern and peered both ways. There. A faint crimson glow in the distance.

Tikaya sprinted to the panel, a column of symbols and five vertical lines that glowed solid blue.

Shouts echoed from the cavern. She shuttered the lantern and set it down, plunging the tunnel in darkness. The men would not be distracted for long, and the light would make her an easy target. She could only hope Sicarius would not take his irritation out on Rias, who she had left in a vulnerable position. Second doubts assailed her. She should have stayed and used the bow on the men, shot the cursed assassin, not run away. But, no, the lights were what Rias wanted, and her eyes had been too tear-wracked to aim at anything anyway.

She examined the symbols. Not all were familiar, and there were more than she expected, but she understood the gist. Lighting, power levels, and water controls. Right spot, but what to touch?

In the still tunnel, she felt her rapid heartbeat reverberating through her body. She started to reach for the sphere, but feared she had no time for research. Rias had guessed. She would have to as well.

Boots pounded into the tunnels. The marines would know right where she had gone.

Tikaya slid a finger across one of the horizontal stripes labeled with illumination. Nothing. There was no switch or knob. She slid her finger the other way. Nothing. She waved her hand before it as she had seen Rias do once to close a door.

The stripe pulsed once, and something thunked inside the wall. Had that done it? The lighting did not come on, and she waved her hand before the other stripes. More thunks, and a faint hum from behind the wall.

The footsteps hammered closer. She grabbed the bow, nocked an arrow, and flattened herself against the wall. The corridor offered no cover, but she could not run until she knew if her hand-waving had accomplished the goal. Besides, darkness stretched behind her, and she did not know if more tunnels lay that way or only a dead end.

The footsteps stopped near the intersection, and lantern light bobbed on the wall. She drew the bow, but no one burst into sight.

More footsteps, these ones softer and slower, reached her ear. She tensed. They were coming from behind her somewhere. Trap. And she had only the darkness to hide in.

Then the lights blinked on. It happened so abruptly, she squinted, half-blinded. She almost missed the movement ahead—someone slipping around the corner and dropping to a knee.

Tikaya loosed an arrow without waiting for her vision to clear. As soon as it flew free, she dropped to the floor. A pistol cracked.

She rolled to the side, cursing herself for getting caught in such a bad spot. She scrabbled for another arrow.

“Tikaya, this way,” Agarik urged, not from behind but from ahead.

She cursed. Had she just shot at him?

By the time she lunged to her feet, her eyes adjusted enough to see the intersection. Bones lay on his belly, blood pooling beneath his head. Agarik waved for her to hurry.

“What the—” Ottotark blurted, a hundred meters or more down the tunnel behind her.

Tikaya sprinted for Agarik. His pistol, not her bow, had felled the doctor. He pulled her around the corner as another shot fired. The pistol ball clanged off the corner and ricochetted down the tunnel.

“Traitor!” Ottotark screamed.

“No time to reload,” Agarik said as they ran toward the intersection that could take them back to the cavern. “You’ll have to shoot if he catches up.”

“Understood,” Tikaya said grimly.

She glanced back to see if Ottotark had rounded the corner yet and missed the reason Agarik skidded to a stop, cursing. He flung his arm out to halt her as well.

A cube hovered in the intersection ahead.

She slammed a fist against her thigh. She should have known—the whole reason for turning the lighting back on had been to power one of the cubes. With the mess from the explosives, all of them would probably respond.

“Maybe it’ll go on to the cavern,” she whispered.

It rotated, and its crimson orifice came into view.

“Back, back.” Agarik spun, taking her with him.

Tikaya ran at his side. They would have to take their chances with Ottotark.

“Zag,” she barked on a hunch.

She pushed Agarik one way and ducked against the opposite wall. A red beam seared the air between them.

As soon as it faded, they sprinted off again. Tikaya nocked the bow as she ran. Any second—

Ottotark lunged around the corner, pistol pointed at them. She fired without slowing, and it threw off her aim. The arrow skimmed past his head, stirring his hair, but doing no damage.

He must have seen the cube coming, for he looked between them and cursed before choosing a target. Tikaya.

Agarik hurled a knife at Ottotark. It bought them a second as the sergeant dodged the projectile. She yanked another arrow from her quiver, but Ottotark recovered before she had it nocked.

He fired. There was no room to dodge, no time to duck. Agarik leaped in front of her, grunting as the pistol ball slammed into him.

“No!” Tikaya cried.

She jumped around him, took the split second to aim, and shot. The arrow spun into Ottotark’s eye.

She dropped the bow and whirled back to Agarik, catching him as he slumped. His hand gripped his chest, and pain ravaged his face. The cube continued its inexorable advance, but she tried to pull him down the aisle.

“Leave me.” Blood spilled from his lips. “Help Rias.”

“It’ll get you,” she choked, refusing to accept the inevitable.

“Yes,” Agarik rasped. “Give you…time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it: that cursed glow intensified. She stumbled away as the beam fired. It burned into Agarik and started its deadly work.

“Go,” he gasped.

Tears blurring her vision again, Tikaya grabbed the bow and sped away. She leaped over Bones’s body and kicked Ottotark on the way past. She should have lit that bastard on fire when she had the chance. Agarik’s death was her fault.

She found the corridor Ottotark had used to circle around behind her and cut over toward the cavern. It would take time for the cube to clear away all three bodies, but she recalled the multiple units in that cavern closet and knew others would be about.

Tikaya slowed at the cavern entrance and tried to peer out without revealing herself. No shadows remained, though, and the assassin was already looking down at her when she spotted him. He crouched on the ledge, his shirt off and tied about his nose and mouth. His back was to the closed door. None of the symbols had been moved. He dropped his head to focus on the floor at his feet—or something on it. Paper and pencil, she guessed from his movements. He was trying to solve the new Skiltar Square.

But where was Rias? Smoke still wafted from the noxious globe, but it had thinned, and she would have seen him on the cliff if he remained there. His rucksack lay on the floor where he had left it. Dread crept into her as she continued to search the area without spotting him. If he had fallen, the beams could have incinerated him before he reached the ground.

Two cubes worked in the cavern, eating away the piles of rubble. They reminded her of the one in the tunnels behind her. As soon as it finished with the bodies—she forced herself not to dwell on Agarik, not now—it would head this way.

Tikaya eased out of the tunnel and kept her back to the wall. Sicarius kept track of her as he figured. Her hand ached where she gripped the bow. If Sicarius had killed Rias, he was not getting off the cliff. Agile or not, he could not dodge arrows while he climbed down past those lasers. She removed an arrow and nocked it with steady hands. Cold controlled anger made her movements sure, free of fear. Even if he had not killed Rias, he was the Turgonian emperor’s assassin, someone who had tried to murder her president. The world would be better off with him dead.

She drew the bow. No sense of alarm widened Sicarius’s eyes, but he stood. Balanced on the balls of his feet, arms relaxed, he appeared unconcerned by the weapon pointed at him. Even on that small ledge, he could probably dodge an arrow. But if she bumped one of the numbers, and he could not solve the problem on time, he would either have to climb down, where she could shoot him in the back, or he would be incinerated.

Yes, then why hadn’t she fired yet?

Killing Ottotark in self-defense was one thing; shooting someone in cold blood… Could she do it?

Motion across the cavern saved her from having to answer the question. Rias burst from a tunnel, diving and rolling as a red beam lanced the air over him.

“Rias!” she shouted.

He scrambled to his feet and zigzagged toward the butte. He chopped a wave her direction, but lifted his head to shout a stream of numbers at the assassin.

The solution to the door. Sicarius’s head tilted, and he gazed upward—calculating. Not trusting enough to enter them without checking for himself. And why should he be? Rias had no reason to help, to get the assassin inside with the weapons. What was he doing?

“Is that…” She thrust her bow toward the cube chasing him.

Rias dove over a fallen stalactite. A beam struck the rubble, and rock and dust flew. He came up, racing toward the camp this time, and a wild grin lit his face. He pressed a finger to his lips and mouthed something. Distract it?

Sicarius was punching in the door code. Tikaya cut toward the cube from the side. As soon as she was closer to it than Rias, it rotated toward her. She ran toward a pile of rubble and ducked behind it without any of the grace Rias had managed. Her shoulder clunked against a boulder with a painful jar. She peeped around the edge.

Rias reached his rucksack and tore open the lid. He dug out the cube, still inert, the lid still off. So the one following him—her now—was an extra.

She circled the pile to avoid its approach. A beam bit into the rubble, and shards of stone rained upon her.

Overhead, the door slid open. Rias thumbed something inside his cube. Sicarius entered the chamber. Rias hurled the cube toward the top of the butte.

The one at ground-level was nearing Tikaya and she had to sprint to the next pile of debris. She glanced upward as she ran, fearing pieces would fly out of the open cube or the beams would incinerate it, but it reached the top unharmed. It caromed off the transparent wall, and Tikaya thought it would bounce away from the butte, but it righted itself. Hovering in the air, the cube approached the door.

Inside, Sicarius whirled at the noise and dropped into a crouch.

“Get out!” Rias called.

He dug a familiar jar out of his rucksack and raced at the cube stalking Tikaya around the rubble pile. She let it get dangerously close to keep it occupied.

She risked another glance upward. If the modified cube started destroying rockets while the door was open, they would all be dead in seconds. But it focused on Sicarius first.

A beam shot out. Tikaya held her breath. Sicarius ducked, and the beam splashed against the wall without hitting a rocket.

Her own cube almost skewered her when her heel caught a rock, and she ripped her attention back to the closer danger. Rias scrambled over the pile from the side and splattered the air with his concoction. He and Tikaya split and raced away while the cube was deciding where to focus its beam.

As they met on the other side of the pile, an earsplitting shriek echoed from all around. The weapons chamber door started to shut. Sicarius dove under the cube and rolled through the entrance. The door sealed. His momentum took him to the edge, and Tikaya thought he would fly over the side, but he twisted and caught the overhang.

Smoke rose behind Tikaya. Their cube was out of action. She leaned forward, willing the one caught inside the chamber to do what they wanted.

Rias gripped her hand. He had lost the crazy grin and stared at the chamber, as if he could will the cube to work with the intensity of his gaze.

Then the first beam shot out. Tikaya could not see the target from where they stood, but a green haze filled the air in the weapons chamber. A bone-shaking rumble emanated from the butte—the ventilation system firing up. Smoke whirled and rose, drawn into the ducts at the top.

Sicarius hung on the cliff, his chin over the edge, staring at the display. A blue gas joined the green, mingling and merging as it too was sucked upward. Tikaya hoped some sort of filter existed, so everything in the mountains at the other end of that vent did not die.

“It’s working.” Rias smiled and wrapped her in a hug.

She could not bring herself to return the smile, not with Agarik’s death haunting her thoughts, but she did return the embrace. She smashed her face into his shoulder and hugged him with all her strength. And then released him. She would cry later, when they were safe.

A pebble clattered down the cliff. Sicarius was climbing down.

“We better get out of here,” she whispered.

Rias nodded, grabbed his rucksack, and jogged to the camp. She followed him, but when he started gathering food and gear, she shifted from foot to foot.

“Do we have time for that?” She jerked her head toward Sicarius. Even with the beams to navigate, his progress going down was faster than it had been climbing up. “He’s going to be irate.”

“I know,” Rias said, but he continued his preparations, unhurried. Black powder tins and ammo pouches went into his rucksack. “It’s weeks to get across the mountains and back to civilization. We’ll need supplies to survive the trek.”

“I need to find Parkonis and make sure he can get away from the Turgonians,” she said. “And, Rias? Agarik didn’t make it.”

His jaw tightened, but he kept himself to a curt nod.

“He saved my life,” Tikaya said, “so I could come back to help you.”

Rias grabbed a second rucksack and started filling it for her. She glanced at Sicarius.

“He’s almost down,” she murmured. “If we want to take him out, this may be our last chance.” That weeks-long trek would be arduous enough without an assassin hounding them. “If he comes after us…after you… We can’t waste the gift Agarik gave us.”

Rias finished packing. “We won’t.”

Sicarius jumped the last ten feet, landing lightly. Even in defeat, that same stony mask hid his thoughts, his feelings.

Rias handed Tikaya her pack and a fresh quiver of arrows for her bow. He picked up a rifle but did not bother to load it.

“Ready.” He pointed to a tunnel, a tunnel they would have to walk past the assassin to reach.

Metal rang softly as Sicarius pulled a dagger from his belt and stepped into their path.

Tikaya grabbed Rias’s elbow when he did not slow. “Are you mad?”

Rias removed her hand gently and strode toward the tunnel. Tikaya nocked an arrow, but did not fully draw the bow. Rias had to know what he was doing. Didn’t he? Shaking her head, she followed him.

Sicarius’s grip tightened around the dagger hilt. “You never intended to help. You had the chance to redeem yourself, but you betrayed the emperor again.”

Rias stopped a few feet from him. “Yes.”

Sweat dripped down the sides of Sicarius’s dust-streaked face and dampened his pale hair. For the first time, he seemed uncertain, frazzled. Young. “Why?”

“I couldn’t let him have those weapons. There’s no honor in destroying one’s enemies like that. Nobody should have that kind of power.”

“That wasn’t for you to decide.”

“Yes, it was. Sometimes the only person capable of such a decision is someone who stands on the outside, someone who has nothing left to lose, nothing to gain, by the outcome.”

“Nothing to gain?” Sicarius asked. “You could have had your life back, your lands.” The faintest hint of longing entered his voice. “You could have been a hero again.”

Tikaya lowered the bow as it dawned on her that Sicarius had yet to point the dagger at Rias. Not here and not at any point since he had shown up.

“That’s never been a goal of mine,” Rias said. “The definition of a hero changes depending on the needs of the person with the dictionary. And of late I’ve become more aware how much being a hero to the empire means being a war criminal to the rest of the world.” Rias smiled sadly at Tikaya before turning back to Sicarius. “For twenty years, I served Turgonia. I think it’s time now to see if I can serve the world.”

“I see,” Sicarius said, and Tikaya had a hard time telling if he truly did or not.

Rias unsheathed a dagger, flipped it in his hand, and held it hilt-first toward Sicarius. It was utterly black, one of the tools they had gathered for working on the cubes. The keen edge would probably never dull.

Sicarius considered it for a long moment before accepting it. Peace offering, Tikaya guessed.

“Are you returning with Bocrest and the others?” Rias asked.

“Yes,” Sicarius said.

“Parkonis is no threat to the empire. Will you see to it that he escapes when the ship docks in Port Sakrent?”

Tikaya’s eyes widened, not in surprise that Rias would care enough to make the request, but that he was asking Sicarius for a favor. After they had defeated him.

“If that is your wish,” Sicarius said, stunning Tikaya even more.

The kid was going to be in trouble already for not completing his mission, for letting Rias go. Earlier, she had been thinking of shooting him, but now she found herself hoping the emperor had invested too much in his education to dispose of him over a failure.

“Thank you,” Rias said. “And one last request: will you relay a message to the emperor for me?”

Sicarius tilted his head.

“Though I may never see them again, I have family and friends in Turgonia. It is not my intention to make trouble for the empire. But I want him to know that if he bothers them or—” Rias angled toward Tikaya, directing Sicarius’s eyes to her, “—if he sends anyone after her or her family, I will become trouble.”

Tikaya thought she detected bleakness in the assassin’s usual mask. Yes, all Fleet Admiral Starcrest would have to do to make the emperor’s life unpleasant would be to show up on the Nurian Chief’s threshold, offering to help war against his former nation.

“I will tell him,” Sicarius said.

“Thank you,” Rias said again, and he put a hand on Sicarius’s shoulder. “You would have made a good officer.”

“Not the road fate paved for me,” Sicarius said, but something in the soft exhale that followed his words made Tikaya wonder if he wished things were different.

EPILOGUE

As the light faded from the mountains, Rias placed the last block of snow on the top of the igloo. There was no wood to make a fire, though a kerosene lantern provided a pool of light.

He stepped back, brushed off his gloves, and quirked an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

It had taken two days to find a “back door” out of the tunnels, and it had brought them out above the tree line with only a couple hours of daylight remaining. Icy wind gusted along the ridge, and the first stars glittered in the clear sky. The night would be long and cold, very cold. Though she had helped build it, Tikaya eyed the igloo dubiously.

“You’re sure we won’t freeze to death?” she asked.

They had enough gear, Rias assured her, to make it out of the mountains and to the nearest town. Still, the lack of firewood and the plummeting temperature made her nervous for this first night.

Rias flattened his hand on his chest. “Are you questioning my engineering skills?”

“No, I’m sure it’s structurally stable. I’m questioning the wisdom of sleeping inside a box of snow.”

He chuckled, ambled over, and kissed her on the forehead. “Snow is insulating, my dear. Once our body heat warms up the igloo, you’ll be able to sleep naked if you want.”

“Sleep naked, huh?”

His eyes twinkled. “The sleeping part is optional.”

A distant boom echoed through the mountains. The marines had apparently found a different way out and were following their orders to seal the tunnels. She hoped they were treating Parkonis well. Leaving him felt like a betrayal, but the reality was he would probably make it home sooner and less eventfully than she. And though Sicarius ranked at the top of her list of People She Never Wanted to Meet Again, Rias trusted him to keep his word, and she trusted Rias.

She wished she had been able to keep her word to Agarik. Leaving him there to be incinerated by that machine… Another betrayal. She wondered what the marines would tell his family. If he even had family. It shamed her that a man had given his life to save hers and she knew so little about him.

Rias shoved their weapons and gear through the igloo’s low entrance, then belly-crawled after. Tikaya grabbed the lantern and managed to get snow down her pants following him. She hissed in frustration as she dug it out in the tiny confines. She could not wait to walk again on a tropical beach.

Inside, there was room enough to lie down if one did not straighten too many limbs. Rias shoved a rucksack in front of the tunnel, leaving them entombed with only a few air holes. The snowy walls gleamed next to the lantern. The single flame brightened the space surprisingly well.

Tikaya lay down, head propped against her pack. “Not bad.”

“Easy,” Rias said, “your lavish praise will inflate my ego.”

Tikaya pulled him down beside her, hoping to shake the gloomy mood that shrouded her. “I’d rather inflate other things.”

“I’m always amenable to that.”

She slid her arms inside his parka. If body heat was the way to warm up an igloo, then she was all for hastening that process along.

Sometime later, and with fewer clothes on, she asked, “How did you know Sicarius would let us go?”

“That was always my plan,” Rias murmured, his lips brushing her ear.

Tikaya chuckled. She lay snuggled in his arms “And how did you know he would go along with your plan? Especially after we betrayed him and destroyed the weapons before his eyes.”

“I read him.”

“You read him? The kid emoted less than a rock.”

For a moment, Rias did not answer, and she wondered if she had offended him. But, as she formed an apology, he spoke, his tone somewhere between amusement and bemusement.

“What do you think a military strategist does?”

An image filled her mind: Rias, leaning over a map-filled table surrounded by his officers. They pushed miniature battleships back and forth while debating numbers of troops, cannons, practitioners, and the like. Then she realized those battleships and troops were commanded by people. People he had never met face-to-face but that he had to analyze and outthink. She thought of the time Rias had spent working with Sicarius on the trebuchet, talking to him when no one else did, treating him like a promising young officer. As worldly and educated as the assassin seemed, he was still a seventeen-year-old boy, one who had doubtlessly grown up hearing of Rias’s exploits. Whether he showed it or not, Sicarius must have felt a little hero worship for the distinguished veteran. Tikaya smirked. All that time, she had thought Rias was succumbing to his fate. He must have seen Sicarius as the one person he could not escape or physically force his way past, and the one person he needed to befriend.

“I see now,” Tikaya said. “I was being obtuse. Military strategist isn’t a career option where I grew up.”

“Sounds like a lovely place.”

“Yes…about that.” She had told Rias she would follow him anywhere, and she would, but—

“You need to go home and let your family know you’re safe,” he said.

“Just for a week or two. Do you want to come or…” When she had learned his name, she told him he would never be welcome on her island, and she suspected that true, at least not until people’s memories of the war faded, but if he had saved the president from assassination, surely Rias could finagle visitation rights. The president owed her too. He had said as much after her decryption work proved so valuable. But maybe she was being presumptuous. “Or do you need to visit your own family? Let them know you’re alive?”

“I’ll write them a letter from some distant port. The emperor will be irked when he finds out about this, and I don’t think it’d be auspicious for my life expectancy to linger on imperial soil.”

Yes, the Turgonian emperor had never come across as the magnanimous type in the orders she decrypted.

“Besides…” Rias found her hand and linked his fingers with hers. “I have little interest in going home. I seem to have fallen in love with an exotic foreigner, and I have the urge to follow her wherever she wants to go.”

Flutters stirred in her belly. She had hoped that would be his response. “Well, we’ll have the sphere to work on, and as far as places to go, I know of all sorts of ruins around the world with unsolved puzzles and mathematical oddities. Of course, many of them are surrounded by dangerous aborigines, crocodile-filled swamps, and pistol-toting relic raiders, all ready to end your life if you let your guard down for an instant.”

“My dear,” Rias breathed, “if you’re trying to seduce me…it’s working.”

THE END

ENIGMA

by Lindsay Buroker

PART I

Point 1: Rias saved my life, and I never could have escaped my kidnappers and those blighted ruins without his help.

Professor Tikaya Komitopis nibbled on the end of her pencil while she considered her first argument. Her toe bumped against a sharp rock, interrupting her musings. Writing while traversing a goat trail across a mountainside in Northern Turgonia had its downsides.

A frosty wind blew down from a snowy peak to the left, tugging at the pages in her journal. Not far to the right, a cliff dropped hundreds of feet into the sea where foamy waves surged and churned, their temperature equally frosty, she wagered. The only warm thing in the land walked on the trail ahead of her. Rias navigated the rocky path with easy grace, though he possessed a broad-shouldered, six-and-a-half-foot frame that should have belied agility. For a long moment, her gaze lingered, admiring that grace, and other attributes as well.

Tikaya caught herself and snorted. If you want to continue enjoying that view in the future, she told herself, you’d best get back to the list.

Counterpoint, she wrote, anticipating her family’s response to Point 1, you never would have been in danger if his people hadn’t kidnapped you in the first place.

Yes, that would be the first argument her father would make, if she got him to speak at all. He might be too busy fuming and glaring at Rias to utter words. That was if she could somehow get Rias past the port authorities and out to her family’s plantation to meet her kin.

Point 2, Tikaya scribbled, he’s been exiled from the empire and holds no further loyalty to the emperor. If we allow him on our islands, he could become an advisor and invaluable ally.

Counterpoint: Whatever he is now, he was Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest during the war, a war in which thousands of our people died because he and his cursed emperor thought it’d be nice to have an “outpost” in the middle of the ocean.

Tikaya grimaced. Maybe making a list had been a bad idea. She was coming up with stronger counterpoints than points. She craned her neck and stared up at the blue sky, searching for an answer amongst the fluffy clouds drifting past. All she saw were puffs of her own breath crystalizing in front of her face.

Her toe caught on a rock, and this time Tikaya tripped, the rucksack, canteen, longbow, and quiver strapped to her back colluding to undermine her balance. Only luck—and copious flailing—kept her from pitching face-first to the ground.

Rias halted. “Are you all right?” It was at least the three hundredth time he’d had occasion to voice the question in the last two weeks.

“Yes.” Tikaya had no doubt that he would have caught her if she’d fallen and was glad she hadn’t needed such a rescue this time. Not that she minded falling into his arms—quite the opposite really—but she liked to do it on her own terms. She adjusted her gear, pushed her long blonde braid over her shoulder, and straightened her spectacles. “How do you manage to so effectively think and walk at the same time? I know your brain is as busy as mine.”

He might be retired, however forcibly, but she’d caught him designing ships and engines by the campfire several nights.

Rias plucked her pen out of a clump of tenacious weeds growing from between two rocks. “I don’t imagine it’s the thinking that’s causing you trouble.”

As he held out the pen for her, Rias offered a warm half-smile. The gesture always gave him a boyish mien despite the silver peppering his black hair, the laugh lines at the corners of his brown eyes, and the old scar bisecting one brow. He, too, carried a rucksack and weapons—a marine-issue dagger and a muzzle-loading rifle instead of a bow—but he wore the gear as if it weighed him down no more than a shirt.

“Perhaps so,” Tikaya admitted.

“Fortunately, I can offer you a possible solution. You may find it easier to think aboard a ship.”

Rias stretched an arm toward the south, and Tikaya blinked at the realization that they’d reached something more than harsh wilderness. Granted, the town of Tangukmoo might be just as harsh as the surrounding lands—indeed, the log and hide cabins, gambling halls, and taverns spreading out from the docks lacked a posh, civilized appearance—but the ships in the harbor lightened her heart. Even the abstemious nature of a cabin at sea sounded delightful after the nights spent sleeping on cold rocky ground.

“Any idea how we can pay for passage?” Tikaya asked.

“I can volunteer for employment as a fireman in the boiler room.” Rias took out a collapsible spyglass and perused the harbor. “Hm, make that as a seaman.”

Even without magnification, Tikaya could see that most of the vessels had masts rather than smokestacks. She smiled. “Are you sure you know how to work a ship that doesn’t come with an engine?”

“Of course. I can sail anything.” Rias lifted his chin, and Tikaya might have teased him for letting his Turgonian arrogance show, but he winked and added, “Even wooden toys in the tub.”

“That doesn’t sound like a difficult feat.”

“It is if there are a lot of them and they’re engaged in mortal battle with each other while cannonballs fly.”

“Cannonballs?” Tikaya asked. “In… the tub?”

“I carved them from the soap bars.”

Tikaya imagined an eight-year-old version of the former admiral, orchestrating this conflict in the washroom. “I’m sure your parents appreciated that.”

“It did mystify Mother for a while until she discovered me at the task.” Rias lowered the spyglass and pointed to the harbor. “We have a challenge.”

“You say that in the way other people might say we have a problem.”

“Most of those are fishing and whaling vessels. They’ll be plying the coast and the Durtan Sound, not heading south. Our two options are a Nurian merchant vessel and a schooner of indeterminate origins. The schooner lacks the size and armament of a typical brigadier or pirate ship, but it shows signs of having been in a battle—or at least fired upon—recently.”

Those limited options definitely sounded like a problem to Tikaya. “The Nurians would kill you for all the trouble you caused them in the war, and pirates might try to steal the priceless artifacts we took from the ruins.” Artifacts she planned to take to the Polytechnic for further research, not hand over to high-seas marauders.

Rias’s eyebrows rose. “Should I be concerned that it’s not entirely clear which would be more objectionable to you?”

Tikaya grinned. “Well, I have been passionate about archaeology and philology since childhood. You’re a more recent interest.”

“I believe the answer to my question is yes, then.” Rias collapsed the spyglass and returned it to his pack. “During our long sea voyage, I shall have to see what I can do to raise myself from interest to passion in your mind.”

Tikaya swatted him as he led the way down the goat trail again. His sense of humor always warmed her heart. She wondered if it was significant enough an attribute to earn a spot on her list of arguments. Reminded of the task, her grin faded and she stared glumly at the page. Would her people ever be able to see him as something other than an enemy? What if she was risking his life by taking him back to Kyatt? More than once, she’d considered going home alone and promising to meet him at some foreign port where they could start a life together, but the thought of saying goodbye to her family forever brought moisture to her eyes.

“This passion that I’m going to bestir in you,” Rias called over his shoulder, “it requires that we stay together.”

“Oh!” Tikaya wiped her eyes, put away her journal, and hustled to catch up. “I thought you might be planning to do it through love letters or poetry sent from afar.”

“Alas, we Turgonians are a military lot, not known for our literary prowess.”

“Just so long as you can convince any would-be pirate thieves to leave us and our gear alone.”

“I’ll keep you safe.” This time when Rias looked over his shoulder, his humor was gone and his eyes were intense with the promise.

Yes, Tikaya thought, but who was going to keep him safe?

PART II

Turgonians tended to have black or brown hair and olive to bronze skin, so Tikaya was surprised to see a number of people who shared her pale skin and freckles in Tangukmoo. They had the height and brawny breadth of imperials, though, and she didn’t feel overly tall in the crowd, not as she did at home where her six-foot stature tended to draw stares. Of course, most of the people in the rough, northern town were men. Piles of snow framed the muddy streets, and more than one person navigated the outlying areas by dogsled. Not many sane women ventured to this backward corner of the empire, it seemed.

Rias, his fur-lined hood pulled up to hide his face, strode toward the last of three piers. The schooner floated in its berth at the end. Letters stenciled on the side declared it the Feisty Fin. Further out in the bay, the large Nurian ship waited, its anchor deployed. Tikaya found its presence ominous even if it was a merchant vessel instead of a warship, featuring a colorfully painted hull and flamboyant pinions that added a cheerful element. Its few gun ports were closed and none of the sailors on the deck, or loading ivory and whale oil via dinghies, bore weapons. Wise, since two stone towers guarded the imperial town from the mouth of the harbor, their guns rotated toward the foreign ship.

A glacier loomed behind the southernmost tower, discouraging treks south by foot, not that Tikaya had wanted to continue with bipedal travel anyway. If she wanted to reach home sometime that year, they needed to risk one of the ships.

She eyed the two-masted schooner as they drew nearer. It didn’t look like it held a crew complement of more than a dozen, and she wondered if it would have room for passengers. She wondered, too, what services she might offer. Anyone could guess that Rias would be a hard worker, but she, despite her island upbringing, had little experience on ships. She’d always preferred the dusty libraries and research rooms of the Polytechnic to fieldwork.

Seamen engaged in repairs crawled all about the deck and through the rigging. Hammer blows emanated from somewhere inside, the noise reverberating through the harbor as it bounced from the surrounding mountains. Tikaya tried to guess the craft’s origins, but the crew was a diverse lot. A black-skinned man was repairing what looked suspiciously like a cannonball hole in the hull while a slender blond fellow sewed up holes in one of the topsails.

Tikaya started when she noticed a Nurian boy with two long black braids and almond-shaped eyes carrying a paint can. He paused to gape at Rias. Only twelve or thirteen, he shouldn’t recognize “Fleet Admiral Starcrest” from the war, but the attention made Tikaya uneasy. Rias still had his hood up, she reminded herself. The boy might only be responding to the Turgonian military uniform Rias wore. Even if it lacked insignia, or anything that indicated rank, it did, combined with his stature, grant him an intimidating visage. Tikaya hoped a Nurian cabin boy didn’t mean a Nurian captain and mate commanded the ship. Such men would be old enough to recognize Rias.

“Hello on the Fin,” Rias called, apparently not sharing her concern, at least not insomuch as it’d make him turn around. “Is the captain about?”

A conversation broke out on the deck, and a moment later a barrel-chested and bow-legged man strode down the gangplank with a rolling gait. A second man jogged after him. Both were balding and had the weathered faces of sea veterans. Fortunately, both also had the bronze-olive skin of Turgonians, rather than the bronze-yellow of Nurians.

“What d’you want?” The captain spat a wad of tobacco juice at Rias’s feet. Friendly fellow.

Though Rias had once earned bows and salutes from armadas full of men, he didn’t bristle at the lack of respect. He simply asked, “We seek passage to Port Malevek. Are you—”

“No.”

“You’re not heading south?” Rias tilted his head toward the forbidding northern coast.

“We’re heading south, but we’re not taking on passengers.”

“We’d be happy to work for our passage.”

“No work, no passage.” The captain spat again. “Now step aside. We’ve provisions to buy before—”

The second man, the mate Tikaya guessed, touched his captain’s elbow. He nodded toward her and said something in his ear.

Tikaya shifted her weight. Figuring she didn’t have an easily recognizable face, she hadn’t put her hood up. Perhaps she should have. Just as the Nurians loathed Rias, the Turgonians had reason to loathe her—she’d decrypted their encoded missives during the war, and her people had handed the results over to the Nurians. But very few Turgonians ought to be able to identify her. She hoped.

“You Kyattese?” the captain asked when the mate finished buzzing in his ear.

Rias eased in front of her, not enough to block her view, but enough to make sure he’d be able to intercept the men if they tried to grab her.

“I am,” Tikaya admitted. “A linguist specifically. I see you have an ecumenical crew. Are you perhaps in need of a translator?” She doubted that was the case, but wanted them thinking of her as a language lover rather than some cryptography expert. “I speak Turgonian—obviously—but also Nurian—” she glanced at the cabin boy, “—and am familiar with several of the desert and rainforest dialects from the Southern Hemisphere as well,” she said with a nod toward the black man.

“We don’t need a linguist,” the captain snarled.

“What do you need?” Rias asked.

“Nothing.”

The mate frowned, but didn’t say anything.

“Are you sure?” Tikaya asked. “I’ve also studied history, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, critical theory, and—” since she sounded like a student reading a class schedule, and they appeared unimpressed, she decided to end with levity, “—I play three instruments as well.”

“Cursed Kyattese overachievers.” The captain spat. So much for levity. “Go away. We’ve got no passage, free or otherwise.”

Again, the mate didn’t comment, though he looked like he wanted to.

Rias and Tikaya walked back to the head of the dock.

“What next?” she asked. “Do we try to find room and board and wait for a more promising ship to come in? Or stow away on the Nurian vessel when they’re not looking?” Tikaya hadn’t been serious about the latter, but maybe she shouldn’t have suggested it at all, for she caught a speculative look behind the fur fringes ringing Rias’s face.

“Let’s wait until these men change their minds and invite us on,” he said.

“Er, what?”

The mate and captain hadn’t left the base of the gangplank, and their heads were tilted together as they conversed.

“The mate’s eyes widened slightly when you mentioned your musical background,” Rias said.

“Widened slightly? That could just mean he found the remark surprising.” Or appreciated her joke.

Rias opened his mouth to respond, but stopped when the captain shooed the mate back up the gangplank and headed in their direction.

“You can come with us as far as Port Malevek, if he works and you—” the captain pointed at Tikaya, “—make yourself available if we need you.”

“Available in what capacity?” Rias asked.

Tikaya blinked. Back home she didn’t get a lot of lusty leers from the male persuasion, so she wouldn’t have guessed anyone here had that on his mind, but she supposed it was wise to have the terms defined before agreeing to the contract.

“We might have need of some translating work. Nothing else. Unless she gets tired of you and wants to warm someone else’s hammock.” The captain smirked and spat a brown stream into the water—mostly. Some of it splattered on the edge of the dock.

“Not likely,” Tikaya muttered.

The captain laughed. “Rustle up your gear and be back in an hour. We’re sailing out soon.”

“We have all our gear,” Rias said and took a step toward the ship.

The captain stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Be back in an hour,” he repeated, all signs of humor gone from his face. “We like to tidy up for guests.”

Rias lowered his chin to stare at the hand. The captain lowered it, but didn’t change his mind about anything. He spun on his heel and strode back to the schooner.

“Tidy up,” Tikaya murmured. “Is that how they say, ‘hide all the stolen goods’ from the empire?”

“Perhaps,” Rias said. “If you want to leave today, it’s this ship or the Nurian vessel.”

“Some choice.” Tikaya doubted this forlorn port saw many visitors. Who knew how long they’d have to wait for more options? “I know I should be tougher than this, but I’m weary of the frozen Turgonian north and long to see my family and enjoy my mother’s cooking again. And to walk barefoot on a sandy beach with sun beating on my shoulders and a warm salty breeze blowing in from the ocean.” She closed her eyes, easily picturing the scene. “How far is it to Port Malevek?”

“By sea, we should make it in three days.”

And from there, they could find passage to Kyatt.

“There’s a limit to how much can happen in three days, right?” Tikaya asked.

Rias’s grunt sounded skeptical.

PART III

Tikaya had to squat and duck her head to keep from clunking it when she followed the captain below decks. Rias followed behind her, his head bent even lower. He’d been staying close—one might say “looming protectively”—throughout their brief tour of the schooner and the captain’s description of his duties.

They descended a few polished wooden stairs. Tikaya wrinkled her nose at the musty, mildewy smell in the close air. At the bottom, one bulkhead held a couple of narrow doors, but the captain headed into an open bay strung with eight hammocks.

He pointed to a ceiling beam at the end of the row. “You can string up your beds here. Hammocks are in that cabinet. Stow your gear there. Don’t leave anything loose. Sea can be rough along the coast.”

“Much pirate activity?” Tikaya asked.

“Along the empire’s coast? Never. The imperial warships and fortresses keep these waters free of trouble.” The captain lowered his voice to mutter something else, and Tikaya thought she caught a “…what I’m hoping” in the jumble. “You—” the captain jabbed a finger at Rias, “—be on deck in five minutes. We’ll need all hands to depart.”

“Understood,” Rias said.

The captain waited a moment, as if he expected a “sir” to be tacked onto the end. Rias gazed blandly at him from where he hunched, forced into an awkward posture by the low ceiling. He hadn’t tugged down his fur hood yet, and Tikaya wondered if anyone would recognize him when he did. Most of the crew wasn’t Turgonian, and the captain, though he might have originated in the empire, had a muddled accent that hinted of many years spent in other lands.

When he didn’t get any more from Rias, the captain stalked out. With the departure imminent, nobody else was down in the hold, and they soon had two hammocks strung from the beams. Tikaya eyed the short, narrow dimensions of the dubious “beds.” Sharing one would be out of the question, not that she’d want to try in a bay full of sailors. This was only for three days, she reminded herself, and far less of a hardship than she’d suffered in the last few weeks.

“Stay safe.” Rias kissed her and headed up the stairs.

For lack of anything else to do, Tikaya sat in her hammock. “Might as well relax.”

That lasted for two or three minutes before she started drumming her fingers on her thigh. She thought of taking out her pack and studying one of the artifacts they’d retrieved, but the last thing she wanted was someone from this crew spotting her with valuable relics.

Shouts echoed from the deck above. A few bumps and scrapes emanated through the wooden hull. The schooner was pulling away from the dock.

The dark bay lacked portholes, so Tikaya could only listen as the Fin drifted out of the calm harbor and navigated into the rougher waters beyond. She imagined them turning south to hug the Turgonian west coast as they sailed into the approaching night.

At some point, a pale-skinned boy of fifteen or sixteen came down, dragging a bucket. He gave her no more than a curious glance before kneeling to scrub the floorboards. Tikaya wondered if his chore included keeping an eye on her.

Soon after, a second boy, the Nurian youth she’d noticed earlier, came down as well. He flopped into a hammock opposite from Tikaya’s and draped an arm over his eyes.

“No, no, don’t help me or nothing,” the scrubbing boy said.

The Nurian youth didn’t respond.

“I know you understand me, you lazy snot sucker.”

With his arm still flung over his eyes, the Nurian’s face was hard to read, especially in the poor lighting, but Tikaya thought he might have clenched his jaw. Several bandages wrapped his fingers, and he possessed the rag-doll weariness of someone driven hard. She wondered if he might be a slave or indentured servant, perhaps someone who wouldn’t mind divulging his master’s secrets if a friendly ally who spoke his tongue appeared…

“Are you all right?” Tikaya asked in Nurian.

The scrubbing boy kept working, but he watched the exchange as his bristles rasped on the wet wood. The Nurian youth lowered his arm. Without sitting up in his hammock, he looked toward the other boy before focusing on Tikaya.

“Yes.”

When he didn’t offer anything else, Tikaya wobbled. Preferring research to interactions with people, she’d never been the sort to initiate conversations with strangers. By luck—or the Polytechnic president’s wisdom—her position had rarely involved teaching.

“My name is Tikaya,” she finally said. “What’s yours?”

“Garchee.”

“How did you come to be here?” Tikaya waved to encompass the ship.

“I am the cabin boy.”

Hm, that wasn’t the answer to the question she’d asked. Though he hadn’t offered much of a sample, she tried to place his dialect. The eastern Chiefdom maybe. There was a formal touch to his words. Some educated merchant’s son whose family had fallen on rough times, forcing the youth to take to the sea?

“I thought he was the cabin boy.” Tikaya smiled and pointed to the other youth, who was still scrubbing though also scowling suspiciously at this spew of foreign words.

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t a ship this small typically have only one cabin boy?”

Garchee eyed the steps, as if whatever work might find him should he appear topside might be preferable to being questioned by a nosy passenger. He could simply say he was tired and drop his arm back over his eyes, but maybe he wasn’t yet at the age where he thought he could get away with avoiding questions from adults.

Tikaya lifted a hand to signal that she’d leave him alone, and only said, “If I can help you with anything, let me know.”

At least she’d initiated contact and let the boy know she spoke his language. Maybe he’d be more talkative if she tried again later.

Before the Nurian could close his eyes and resume his rest, the captain clomped down the steps. “The mate has work for you two,” he barked.

The scrubbing boy gathered his brush and bucket and scurried up the steps. Garchee was slower to comply, wincing when his feet hit the deck, but he shambled after the other youth. He kept his head down as he eased around his commander. The captain did not acknowledge his passing. Instead, he stalked toward Tikaya, ducking ceiling beams as he pulled out something long, narrow, and wrapped in black velvet.

She dropped her legs over the edge of the hammock and sat up. Something intangible, like the whisper of a breeze, stirred gooseflesh on her arms. Though she’d not had the feeling in some weeks, she recognized it instantly: a signal that a tool crafted from the mental sciences was nearby.

“Got something for you to look at.” The captain glanced toward the stairs—he was being careful to keep his back to them—before unwrapping his parcel.

Tikaya waited without commenting, though curiosity bubbled up inside. Maybe the captain and the mate wanted her to help with some relic they’d recovered in their adventures. Maybe they weren’t pirates or thieves after all. Of course, they might have stolen their prize and were now running from the owner. That could explain the battle damage they’d been repairing, an oddity on a craft with so few guns of its own.

Callused fingers peeled back the velvet covering, and Tikaya leaned forward. A wave surged into the schooner at that moment, tilting the floor. Her hammock colluded with the tilting ship to upend her. She tumbled into a heap at the captain’s feet. He hadn’t even taken a step to adjust his balance.

“I thought the Kyattese were experienced sailors,” he said.

“Oh, I can fall off things on land too.” Tikaya sighed and settled cross-legged on the floor. It was harder to topple a tree already on the ground.

The captain lowered an ornate ivory flute. More than ornate. It was made of eight segments with intricate pictographic carvings that one would need a magnifying glass to examine in depth. And better lighting. And a ship that wasn’t rocking with each rise and fall of the waves. Despite the less than ideal situation, Tikaya found her gaze riveted.

“Is that a Nurian Enigma Flute?” It hardly seemed possible—she’d only seen etchings of the instruments in books. The Nurians didn’t let such prizes go lightly, certainly not to random schooner captains plying the Turgonian seas.

“If it is, is it valuable?” the captain asked.

Tikaya gaped at him. Did he truly have no idea as to what he had? What kind of pirate accidentally stole a priceless artifact? Or maybe he’d salvaged it from a wreck. But did the Nurians even take such treasures to sea?

“I know it’s worth at least something,” the captain said, “on account of the ivory, and it’s real pretty too. Maybe old? I can’t tell. But I need to know if it’s magic before I try to sell it in Turgonia. I don’t need a squad of enforcers chasing after me because some tooter starts glowing in the middle of the transaction.”

Tooter? The more Turgonians Tikaya met, the more she wondered how Rias could have come from that culture.

“It’s a problem because magic is illegal there,” the captain said, apparently taking her silence for confusion.

“Yes, I’ve heard that.” Tikaya held out her hand, hoping he’d give her a closer look.

The captain hesitated, then laid it on her palm. “Oh, right, your big lover is Turgonian, isn’t he? Looks familiar too, now that I’ve seen him with his hood down. Did he serve in the fleet?”

“It’s very rare,” Tikaya blurted in a rush to divert the captain’s attention. As far as most of Turgonia knew, Rias had been assassinated—that was the story the emperor had given the populace when he’d exiled his famous admiral to Krychek Island. The loathsome ruler might have another reason to hold a grudge if Rias started popping up along the coast, destroying the credence of that story. “And, yes, the flute was made by a practitioner. If it’s what I think, it would have been a practitioner from the royal line as well. The secret of how to create Enigma Flutes is tightly guarded—the stories suggest the great chiefs have sent assassins out to kill people who thought to sell the secret or steal the artifacts from the palace.” Tikaya arched her eyebrows, inviting an explanation as to how this one had come to be on the Fin.

“What’s the secret that’s so worth guarding?” the captain asked, ignoring the message coming from her eyebrows. “What can they do?”

“The Nurians are preeminent mental scientists and, to a lesser extent, warriors. That’s all many foreigners know about them, but they have a rich cultural, artistic, and musical heritage. Singing and dance are a part of all formal gatherings, even the funeral to celebrate the passing of a chief or the ushering in of a new leader.”

The captain shifted from foot to foot and drummed his fingers on the closest ceiling beam.

“When the Great Chief calls an assembly of all his regional chiefs, the citizens are allowed to attend, and it’s always a massive gathering. To ensure their continuing rule, the chiefs must keep those citizens happy, so they issue numerous placating speeches, often offering promises of improvements to the chiefdom. Over there, leadership is a hereditary position, but Nurian history is replete with instances of unpopular chiefs being poisoned in their sleep or having other fatal accidents befall them.”

By now the captain had added eye rolling to his foot-to-foot dance of impatience. “Is there any chance you’ll get to the relevant part of this lecture before we reach Port Malevek?” He squinted at her. “There is a relevant part, isn’t there?”

At least Tikaya had distracted him from thinking of Rias. “Yes, I’m getting to it.” She lifted the flute. “The assassinations I spoke of have been rare for the last four hundred years, during which the Duk Noo Dynasty has been firmly entrenched. Prior to that, dynasties tended to be short, anywhere from three generations at the long end to half a year at the short end. Due to the frequent changes, the poor children studying Nurian history have had to make up long and involved songs to remember the ordering of the dynasties.” She smiled as she recalled memorizing such songs, but the captain was scowling, so she decided she’d best give him the information he sought. It occurred to her to withhold it, but he already looked like a man three seconds from wringing someone’s neck, and she didn’t have any weapons handy with which to defend herself. Even if her longbow were strung and within reach, she doubted she could draw it in the bay’s tight confines. “Here’s what’s applicable to you,” she said. “At these public gatherings—they’re called tek-lee, by the way—”

“Fascinating,” the captain said with another eye roll.

“—before, after, and between the speeches, it’s common for the chiefs to have music played. Flute tunes are typical. The tek-lees of the last four hundred years have been oddly peaceful gatherings when compared to those of prior centuries, with the citizens cheering in favor of everything the Great Chief has said. Though there’s no word of it in Nurian texts, visiting diplomats have insinuated that the music of the flutist’s special instruments had some scientifically enhanced qualities, such as might turn a contrary man into an amenable one.”

The captain’s eyes sharpened, and he stopped shifting about. “Enhanced qualities? You mean magic?”

“That is a Turgonian word that lacks precision, but essentially yes.”

“The flute can persuade people to go along with what the chiefs are saying?”

“That’s the hypothesis. The Nurian rulers deny it of course.”

So, if someone learned how to play this flute, that someone could persuade people too? A lot of people?” The captain scratched at stubble on his jaw. “That ought to be worth a great deal to someone.”

“To someone willing to risk the ire of Nurian spies who might be sent to recoup the stolen piece. It is stolen, isn’t it?” The captain’s focus had turned inward, and Tikaya hoped that, in his distracted state, he might answer her question.

But his eyes sharpened. “Not by me. I bartered for it. Legitimately.”

“It’s hard to believe any Nurian would barter this away, especially to a Turgonian. Even though your people are ignorant in terms of the Science, if you recruited someone with knowledge, the flute could possibly have military applications.”

“I don’t care what you believe, woman. And—” he stepped closer, raising a finger toward her nose, “—watch who you’re calling ignorant when you’re a guest on my ship.”

“Of course,” Tikaya murmured and bowed her head. There were worse things she might have called him, but it was best not to pick a fight. Not when one was in the middle of a thieves’ den. Who knew what the captain would do to protect his secret? An uneasy tendril of concern wormed its way into her gut at the thought. She shouldn’t have told him how valuable the artifact was or that the Nurians might send people to recover it if word got out about its location. What if he decided that Tikaya couldn’t be trusted to walk free at Port Malevek? Or even make it to Port Malevek? She swallowed.

The captain flicked a finger at the flute. “Figure out how it works.”

“What?” Tikaya blurted. “From what the historical texts say, that’s as much a secret as the manner of making them.”

“If you can’t make it work…” Though they couldn’t see the sea from the hold, the captain gazed in the direction of the ship’s stern. “If you want to reach Port Malevek, you will figure out how to make it work.”

As he stomped away, Tikaya tried to decide whether he was threatening her personally or suggesting some impending doom was chasing the ship, endangering them all. Rias might be some help with the former, but with the latter…

She stared down at the flute, her thoughts grim.

PART IV

Shortly after dawn the next morning, Tikaya stepped onto the deck to look for Rias. If he had slipped into his hammock the night before, it had been a brief visitation. She’d been awake until late, hunched over the flute and scribbling ideas in her journal, trying to dredge tidbits of Nurian history from the dark labyrinthine passages of her brain. She’d hoped Rias would come to bed so she could find a private moment to show him the flute and tell him about the captain’s threat. Most of the seamen had filtered through at some point as they alternately slept and worked on four-hour shifts, but she’d fallen asleep before Rias had come. If he’d come. Perhaps the captain and mate were keeping him busy to pay for his passage.

Low clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, spitting a soft rain. They brought little wind to fill the schooner’s sails. The mate paced above the forecastle and bellowed at men slinging themselves through the rigging, making adjustments. The captain stood beside him, silent and tense as he gazed to the rear.

Rias was in the rigging, working alongside the two cabin boys. Sort of. The Nurian kept throwing him nervous glances and seemed to be trying to keep his distance.

Most of the men aloft were short and wiry, little larger than the youths, so Rias seemed a giant next to them. He maneuvered about deftly, though the narrow perches had to be slick from the rain.

Rias pointed and gestured as he worked with the boys—teaching them, Tikaya supposed. Garchee appeared clumsy and out of place up there, but maybe it was just the presence of a hulking Turgonian making him uneasy. Under other circumstances, she might have been happy to stand on the deck and watch Rias at work—and muse about what a lovely father he might make—but she needed to talk to him. She waved, trying to catch his attention.

Someone yelled a command from the forecastle, and Garchee shouted an accented, “Aye, sir,” down. The youth eased toward the mast, then started climbing. He lacked any of the agility that Rias and the other seamen showed. Rias must have asked something, for Garchee shook his head. Turgonian seemed to be the language of the ship, and Tikaya wondered how much the Nurian understood. The boy reached the narrow topsail yard and inched along, crawling toward a flapping rope. He must have been twenty, twenty-five feet in the air. Rias watched from the lower yard.

As Garchee reached for a knot, a gust of wind buffeted the ship. It upset his balance, and he couldn’t recover quickly enough. He lost his grip and plummeted from the yard. Tikaya cried out and ran forward, anticipating a bone-shattering landing, one that might prove fatal, but Rias lunged three steps and caught the boy by the back of his shirt as he fell past. Garchee’s momentum almost tore Rias from his perch as well, but he compensated by dropping to his belly, boots hooked around the yard. Eyes bigger than ancient Ancorian saucers, the boy dangled, mouth open in shock—or terror—as he gaped at the deck below.

Someone called, “Catch of the day!” to Rias as he pulled Garchee up, but most of the men merely went back to work, as if such events were commonplace.

“What’re you doing out here, woman?” came the captain’s voice from behind Tikaya. “And where is—” he glanced about— “the item? You didn’t leave it below, did you?”

She faced the captain, hardly believing he was worried about his item when one of his men had almost endured a horrible accident seconds before. Besides, who did he think would dare steal his already-stolen possession when they were in the middle of the sea? The Turgonian coast wasn’t even visible.

“I bundled it up and hid it out of sight,” Tikaya told him.

“That’s where you should be too. Out of sight. Working.”

“I’m hungry.” Tikaya was beginning to suspect the captain wanted to keep her away from Rias, or vice versa, so figured that’d be better than telling him she wanted to talk to him. “When will breakfast be available?”

The captain had a wad of tobacco in his mouth again, and he worked it from one cheek to the next as he considered her. “Soon. Grits.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Not truly, but after weeks of eating little but dehydrated meat and hardtack—or, as the marines had called the biscuits, “tooth dullers”—something warm might be an improvement.

“It’s not. You make any progress?”

“Some. I’d like to consult… my comrade.” Though Rias was a shortened version of his middle name, and it certainly hadn’t made Tikaya think of Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest when she’d first heard it, she decided not to use it, just in case.

“You can consult with him tonight.” The captain smirked. “If you don’t mind an audience.”

“He’s an engineer and is good at solving problems. He might be able to help me with the puzzle.”

“He’s busy.”

“I see. And will he be un-busy at any point in this three-day journey?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Tell me about the puzzle.”

As Tikaya considered withholding the information or using it to bargain for less work for Rias, she gazed about the deck. For the first time, she noticed that all of the seamen wore pistols and cutlasses on their belts. They hadn’t been armed the day before. The captain, too, bore weapons, and, at Tikaya’s hesitation, he let his hand rest on the grip of his pistol.

“Tell me about the puzzle,” he repeated.

“Very well.” Her acquiescence stirred memories of herself as a pigtailed schoolgirl bowing to the demands of bullies. She thought about lying, but decided to go along until she had her chance to confer with Rias. “Each of the eight segments has six etchings that can be rotated about so different ones are on top. Though you can play the flute at any time, as the finger holes are available no matter what, I’m assuming you have to align the segments in the right order to create the special tone.”

“Special, yes.” The captain waved away a man lingering within earshot. “Does the music change tune if you get the order right? If so, you could guess until you got it, couldn’t you?”

“I don’t know that the music would sound any different to the human ear, but a practitioner might be able to tell if there was some otherworldly influence to the notes.”

“Could you?” the captain asked.

For a moment, Tikaya mused on whether there might be an advantage to pretending she had a practitioner’s skills—would the captain fear her and be less likely to threaten her?—but, given how superstitious Turgonians were about “magic,” she worried he’d simply be in more of a hurry to throw her to the sharks.

“Possibly,” Tikaya said. “I haven’t any skills in that area myself, but I grew up around practitioners and can usually sense it when they’re employing one of the sciences.”

The captain spat. “Why do you call it science? Like it’s geology or hoplology or something real?”

Hoplology? Tikaya almost snorted. The Turgonians were probably the only culture with a word for the academic study of weapons. She wondered if Rias had taken a class in it during his university years.

“What can and cannot be done with the human mind is just as legitimate a science as any you’ve named,” Tikaya said. “Though there is some variation, allowing for a user’s creativity and personal preference, the mental sciences are rigidly defined areas of study with precise laws, rules, and methods that can be repeated by different people as surely as experiments in an alchemy lab.”

“All right, all right, I shouldn’t have asked. Back to the item. If you keep trying different variations, are the odds good that you can get the flute to work in that special way? By—” the captain glanced toward the water behind the ship again, “—tonight would be good.”

“Unlikely,” Tikaya said. “With eight segments and six options on each segment, the odds of striking the right combination are…” She paused to set up the math problem in her head, but a familiar voice spoke from behind her first.

“One in twenty-thousand one-hundred-and-sixty,” Rias said.

Tikaya smiled and leaned against his shoulder when he stopped beside her. The captain scowled, not impressed by his math skills, or perhaps the fact that he’d left his duties momentarily.

“Morning,” Rias said. Given how little he’d apparently slept, he should have looked weary, but his brown eyes were bright and a smile rode his lips. Being back at sea must agree with him. “Need help with anything?” he asked.

“No,” the captain snapped. “She needs to get back to work, and you—” he pointed at Rias, “—if you’ve finished with the topsails, you’re needed down at the bilge pump.”

Rias arched an eyebrow, but merely said, “As you wish, Captain.”

A smug smirk stretched the captain’s lips. Like that of an emperor being fawned over by slaves who had once been soldiers from conquered nations.

With an unperturbed expression, Rias trotted down the stairs. Since the flute happened to lie in the same direction, Tikaya waited until the captain’s attention shifted, then slipped after him. Rias was waiting below.

“Are you all right?” Tikaya gripped his arm. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

Rias laid his hand on hers. “Yes, and no.”

“Why is he picking on you? Surely not all passengers must toil so for the price of a ticket. He doesn’t know who you are, does he?” Tikaya asked, though she didn’t think the treatment would make sense if he did. Rias had been a Turgonian hero during the war and a well-respected officer for years before it.

“No, I’ve been evasive as to my current status and why I have no rank—” Rias waved to encompass his uniform, “—but I believe he pegged me for an officer right away.”

“You do have a determined, in-charge appearance even when you’re at your scruffiest.”

“Thank you. I think. Regardless, the gossip is that the captain only lasted three years in the military before receiving a dishonorable discharge. I imagine he’s taking revenge on the officers he believes wronged him. Through me.”

“Such a lovely man.” Tikaya squeezed his arm. “I’ll commiserate with you later, but I think there’s something more important to worry about here.”

Rias nodded. “It’s clear we’re running from pursuit, though I haven’t seen sign of it on the horizon yet.”

Knowing they might not have much time alone, Tikaya rushed through a summary of her discussion with the captain and her thoughts on the flute.

“Perhaps I can help you with it tonight.”

“You can sleep tonight. You need some rest,” Tikaya said, hoping she didn’t sound too motherly. “Besides, I believe a background in Nurian mythology is going to be required to solve the puzzle.”

“Ah, I am aware of basic Nurian history, but mythology isn’t my strong point.”

“The scenes are of animals and people and hunting. I believe they go together in a certain order to tell a story. The problem is that there are a lot of Nurian stories revolving around hunting.”

“Have you talked to the boy?” Rias asked.

“Garchee?”

“Is that his name? He wouldn’t give it to me. He might know something.”

“I doubt any well-known tale is depicted,” Tikaya said.

“Well, unless I miss my guess, he brought it on board, so he might have some knowledge.”

Tikaya stared. “He told you that?”

“He’s told me nothing. He’s been doing his best to avoid me. But it’s clear he hasn’t been here long, and the captain doesn’t strike me as a man with the gumption to steal royal Nurian treasures. I think the boy brought it on board, offered to trade it for his passage, and now perhaps we’re being trailed by the owner.”

Tikaya mulled over the hypothesis. It might be plausible, but… “How would that boy have gotten the flute? Theft? Such treasures would be well-guarded.”

Rias hesitated, then shrugged. “I’m more concerned about who might be coming after it. If it’s magic, could a practitioner track it?”

“Oh, yes,” Tikaya said.

“We better talk to the boy.”

“We’re riding low in the water,” came the captain’s bellow from above. “My new seaman better be at the pumps!”

Rias snorted and gave Tikaya a hug before disappearing into the recesses of the ship.

PART V

That night, Tikaya woke to a touch on her leg. For a confused moment, she didn’t know where she was or why her back hurt. Ah, yes, she’d fallen asleep on the floor while in the process of scribbling notes. She recalled having a similar sleeping experience with that strange artifact in Wolfhump. Turgonians had a definite desk shortage.

Snores reverberated through the bay, and hammocks creaked and swayed as the ship rolled with the waves. Rias crouched in front of her with a low-burning lantern. “It’s good that we dug out those hammocks and strung them,” he observed. “We’ve used them so much.”

“The last time I was in mine, the ship pitched and it spit me out faster than a foreigner trying poi for the first time.”

Rias managed a weary smile. He might have appeared fresh yet that morning, but fatigue had finally claimed him; when he opened his mouth to speak, it turned into a yawn wide enough to swallow a parrot.

“Nice tonsils,” Tikaya murmured.

“Thank you.” Rias rubbed his eyes. “They’ve long been a source of pride for me.” He pointed at the Nurian boy, who swayed in his hammock, his eyes closed. “Have you spoken to him?”

“No, he wasn’t down here when I nodded off.” Tikaya sat up and groped behind her, trying to find whatever was stabbing her in the back. The flute, of course. She supposed it was good that she’d fallen asleep on the priceless artifact, so it hadn’t been rolling around the bay all night. The captain might not have approved of that.

“I’m finally off-duty,” Rias said. “For four hours. Now might be the best time to question him.”

“Now might be a time for you to get some rest.”

“Later. Do you mind waking him? Seeing me looming over his hammock might… distress him.”

“You did save his life today,” Tikaya noted.

“A bonding experience, you’d think, but I clearly make him uneasy. I suspect…” Rias lowered his voice. “Although it wouldn’t seem likely in a youth, I’ve had the sense that he knows who I am.”

Tikaya climbed to her feet, using Rias for balance as the ship rocked and swayed. “Maybe there are dartboards all across Nuria with your likeness painted on them, so that even kitchen scrub-boys know you’re an enemy of the chiefdom.”

“A cheery thought.”

After their uninspired first conversation, Tikaya didn’t think Garchee would be excited to see her looming over his hammock either, but she picked her way across the rocking deck and tapped him on the leg. His eyelids flew up, reminding her of a rabbit startled from its meal by a predator.

Fortunately, he didn’t fling himself from the hammock in search of a rabbit hole. He merely gave her a wary, “Greetings.” He peered around her and spotted Rias. He swallowed and licked his lips, but then gave him a wary nod too.

Tikaya held up the flute, drawing his gaze back to her. “The captain has tasked me with learning to play this, and I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”

Garchee shook his head.

“I know some Nurian mythology,” Tikaya said, “but perhaps not enough.”

Garchee shrugged.

“Are you familiar with the tale of the Three Huntsmen? One of these scenes depicts three bowmen stalking a hyena, so I thought of the story.”

Garchee eyed the flute. “You won’t guess it.”

You won’t guess it? He couldn’t know, could he? “Care to give me a tip?”

“It’s not for foreigners to play.”

“Then how did the captain get a hold of this one?”

Garchee turned his face toward the wall.

“You brought the flute on board, didn’t you?” Tikaya asked. “Did you give it to the captain to pay for your passage, or did he take it when he found out about it?”

“I don’t…”

Rias came to stand beside Tikaya, entering the boy’s view.

“I traded it,” Garchee mumbled. “It was all I had left after…” He sighed. “It wasn’t a fair trade, but I wanted to… I have only myself to blame for all of this.”

Tikaya glanced at Rias, wondering if he understood all of the boy’s words. She knew he had some familiarity with Nurian, but the mumbles would have been hard for the youth’s own mother to decipher. “The this you speak of,” Tikaya said, “was you deciding to steal the flute from the Great Chief’s palace?”

Garchee’s head jerked up. “I didn’t steal anything.”

“Then how did you acquire it?”

Someone up on deck called to someone else, the words too muffled by the wind and intervening walls to understand. Garchee hurled himself from his hammock so quickly he almost crashed to the floor. He found his feet, saying, “That’ll be the watch change. I have to go.” He sprinted for the stairs, as if he feared they’d try to stop him.

“He’s less helpful every time I talk to him,” Tikaya said. “Was that really the watch change? I couldn’t make it out.”

“I don’t think so.” Rias held out his palm, silently asking to see the flute, and Tikaya handed it to him. He rolled it in his hand and held it up to the lantern. “I’ve never seen one of these before. I remember many sea battles where Nurian drummers sought to inspire their men, and the booms floated across the water, but I never heard flute music.”

“The Enigma Flutes are highly prized. I imagine most are kept in the royal family’s vaults.”

“But if they do what you say and make crowds of people amenable to suggestion, surely Nurian admirals would have brought them along in times of war to be used on our marines when we closed to boarding distance. To implant the suggestion that the Nurian captains were benevolent leaders who should be obeyed.”

“I…” It was a good point, Tikaya thought. “Perhaps it only works on people in a certain state of mind. The brains and bodies of men riled for battle would be different than those simply attending a speech.”

Rias returned the flute. “Or maybe it’s just a story.”

“There is some Science about this one,” Tikaya said.

“Either way, I doubt it’ll provide the solution the captain seeks.”

It took Tikaya a moment to realize what Rias meant. Admittedly, she’d been more interested in the puzzle than debating the reason for the captain’s urgency at having it solved, but, yes, if he anticipated pursuit, it made sense that her story had stirred within him the hope that the flute could be used to sedate the fury of those who followed.

“We’d best hope we make port before the pursuit he fears shows up then,” Tikaya said.

Rias said nothing.

PART VI

Down in the bilge room, Tikaya sat on a rib running across the naked hull of the ship while Rias labored at a long lever, pumping out water that had collected in the bowels of the schooner overnight. Dawn might have come, but no outside light seeped into the dark room. A sole lantern burning by the hatch provided illumination, and Tikaya held the flute up to it as she twisted segments. Despite Rias’s implication that the instrument would prove ineffective against their pursuers, she, like a hungry dog gnawing a bone, couldn’t let the puzzle go unsolved. She’d been up most of the night and had finally come down to join Rias while she mulled.

“Want me to take a hand at that?” Tikaya nodded toward the pump. In part, she made the offer because she felt guilty sitting there while Rias labored, sweat dribbling from his brow, but also because she’d often found mindless repetitive work helpful for solving problems. On her family’s plantation, she’d spent countless hours firing arrows into targets while working on ancient language puzzles.

Rias, standing in calf-deep water, his back hunched in order to work the lever in the tight quarters, glanced her way without pausing in his work. “You must be truly stumped to make that offer.”

“What? You don’t think I’m simply jealous that you’re having all the fun there?”

“No.”

Tikaya tapped the flute on her thigh. “I am stumped. I’m tempted to go wring that boy’s neck for information, but it’d be slightly more satisfying to solve the puzzle on my own.”

“Only slightly, eh?”

“At this point, neck-wringing is sounding quite appealing. I’ve dredged every Nurian mythology tale I’ve ever heard out of the depths of my mind. None of them go together in a way that makes sense here. Either I’m forgetting something or the knowledge wasn’t there to begin with. If that’s the case, I’m going to have cross words for my World Mythology professor when I get home. My parents paid good money for me to receive a complete education.”

Rias paused and regarded her, one hand gripping a beam above his head, the other on the pump. “Does it have to make sense?”

“What?” Tikaya’s first thought was that he referenced her education, but then she remembered her earlier sentence. “Well, I’d think so. The history with which I’m familiar tells us the flutes always tell an old Nurian tale, and that presumes certain narrative traditions of chronological ordering, rising conflict, etcetera, etcetera. Some of their ancient narrative poems were on the quirky side, but—oh!” A new thought rushed into her mind, surprising her into dropping the flute. Caught in the moment, she didn’t rush to retrieve it, priceless artifact or not. “Dear Akahe, could that be it?”

“Hm?” Rias plucked up the flute before it rolled into the water.

“A poem. No a rhyme. There are countless silly Nurian nursery rhymes about animals and hunting, and they make about as much sense as… well, they’re for teaching children language by using repetition and—” Tikaya stopped, as an old nursery rhyme floated into her thoughts. She pointed at the flute. “I’m going to need that.”

“Of course.” Rias handed her the artifact, an amused half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth, and went back to work.

“Cavorting banyan sprites,” Tikaya muttered a minute later as she snapped the last puzzle segment into place. “Could that be it? A pictographic representation of The Lion, the Hunter, and the Trap? That title rhymes in Nurian, by the way.”

“Naturally,” Rias said.

Tikaya lifted the flute to her lips and played a scale. As the notes filled the bilge room, she closed her eyes and tried to detect an otherworldly influence to the sounds. If there was one, her lack of sensitivity kept her from sensing it.

“Did it work?” Rias asked.

“I’m not sure. I need to talk to that boy again. It is the first pattern I’ve tried that’s made sense. Er, not made sense as it were.” Tikaya hopped to her feet, intending to hunt down Garchee.

“Good.” Rias gave her a parting salute.

Tikaya paused and eyed him. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You have a knack for coming up with the solution, even when it has nothing to do with your field of expertise.”

Rias pressed a hand to his chest. “I didn’t come up with the solution. You did.”

“But it was your question that sparked my idea. And this isn’t the first time things have worked out that way.”

Rias chuckled. “All those years when I was a captain and then an admiral, do you know what I did when we were in some tricky situation and I needed to come up with a solution for a problem?”

“You mean the solutions didn’t simply flow into your brain as gifts from the gods? Or, I suppose, Turgonians would thank their ancestors.”

“Alas, it doesn’t work that way. Early in my command days, I gathered the officers and asked for opinions, but I realized we’d all come through the same training system and all had similar thoughts. The real brilliance came when I started chatting with the uneducated firemen in the boiler room.”

Tikaya studied his eyes, searching for a mischievous twinkle that would suggest he was teasing her, but she didn’t spot it. “You’re serious?”

“Absolutely. Nine times out of ten, the conversations wouldn’t go anywhere, but once in a while, some grunt who’d been a farmer before joining up would tell a story of how he had, for example, carved wooden owls to keep birds out of the berry patch, and that would give me an idea. In that case, I figured out a way for my ship to appear to be in multiple places at once to protect several vulnerable targets along the coast until reinforcements arrived.” Rias gave a self-effacing shrug. “I got a medal for that one.”

“So… you’re the equivalent of an uneducated grunt in the boiler room for me?”

The half-smile returned as he regarded the pump and his sweat-dampened clothing. “Apropos, don’t you think?”

“All hands on deck!” came a cry from somewhere above.

Footlockers thumped and hatches banged open and shut.

“I might not have time to talk to the boy after all,” Tikaya said, dread settling in her belly.

“Go find him now, before the action starts.” Rias returned to the lever, arms pumping twice as fast. “I’ll be up in a minute.” He seemed determined to empty every inch of water before he left the task. Maybe he feared they’d need to shed all the excess weight they could.

“All right,” Tikaya said, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what had prompted the shout from above.

Up on deck, wan dawn light seeped through a cloud-filled sky. Seamen scurried about, trimming the sails per the mate’s orders. The captain stood on the forecastle next to the wheel, gazing through a spyglass toward the gray seas behind them. It wasn’t until Tikaya climbed up beside him that she spotted the reason for the wake-up call.

The masts and sails of three ships—three large ships—were visible on the horizon.

“A frigate and two galleons,” the captain muttered, speaking to himself. He didn’t seem to have noticed Tikaya. “Hundreds of men. Hundreds of guns. I didn’t think they’d send such a force, not this deep into Turgonian territory.”

“New heading, Cap’n?” a swarthy man at the wheel asked.

“Take us closer to land. We’ve a shallower draw than those ships. If we can reach the Dead Snake River, we can head up into it where they can’t follow.”

Tikaya frowned. Wouldn’t the Nurians simply wait at the mouth until the schooner ventured out again?

Before the helmsman had said more than a quick, “Aye, Cap’n,” Rias appeared at Tikaya’s shoulder.

“We’ve already passed the Snake,” he said, nodding toward the east, though the coast wasn’t in sight. “We’ll reach land at the Fire Cliffs. They’re nearly twenty leagues long, and the water is deep right up to the rock.”

The captain scowled at him. “I don’t need the terrain explained to me. I know where we are, and we will reach the river.”

Rias said nothing, though he wore what Tikaya had come to recognize as a there’s-little-point-in-arguing-with-fools expression. The captain may have recognized it, too, for his scowl deepened.

“You.” He pointed at Tikaya. “You figure out the flute yet?”

She lifted the instrument and played a short childhood ditty about a boy who was hit on the head by falling coconuts whenever he didn’t mind his elders. The captain peered about, as if he expected some miraculous transformation of everyone around him.

“Well, does it work?” he asked when she finished.

“I don’t know,” Tikaya said. “Do you feel more kindly toward me?”

The captain growled.

“Perhaps not then.”

Rias touched her arm and nodded toward the rigging above them. Garchee crouched on the yard, his mouth agape as he stared down at them. As soon they looked in his direction, he snapped his jaw closed and scurried out of sight.

The captain hadn’t noticed. A string of curses flowed from his mouth, punctuated by terms such as “deadbeat passengers.” Tikaya wanted to defend herself—more than ever she believed she’d solved the puzzle—but, if Rias was right and the flute had no use in this setting, what did it matter?

“Someone get that boy down here,” the captain snarled.

The other cabin boy jumped to comply. A worrisome grin stretched across his face as he scampered up the mast. He darted behind sails that blocked Tikaya’s view, and she could only frown when, a moment later, the cabin boy practically shoved Garchee down the mast. Blood trickled from the Nurian boy’s nose.

The captain waited, eyebrows drawn into a V, his fists propped on his hips. “Do you see that, boy?” He pointed at the ships on the horizon, ships that had inched closer in the last few minutes. “Three Nurian warships. Three! What’d you do? Steal the most valuable piece in the collection?”

With nearly a foot of height separating them, Garchee had to look up to meet the captain’s eyes, but he did so, giving the older man a hard stare. “I warned you when I offered to trade the flute for passage that I might be pursued,” he said, speaking in precise but nearly flawless Turgonian. “You saw the ivory, and calculation and greed filled your eyes. I have not… made good decisions myself, but you had the option to turn down my offer.”

A crimson hue suffused the captain’s cheeks as he suffered this lecture. “You said someone might come after you, not the whole slagging Nurian navy!”

The boy’s resolve wavered as he glanced toward the encroaching ships. He looked like he might have an apology in mind, but the captain yanked a knife from his belt, snarling, “I’m going to kill you, you worthless runt!”

Before Tikaya could react, the captain lunged for the boy, murder in his eyes. Rias moved just as quickly. He darted in front of the boy, caught the captain’s wrist, and twisted against the joint. The dagger fell to the deck, landing point first in the wood. Bellowing with rage, the captain yanked his arm free even as he swung at Rias with his other fist.

Rias caught that fist in the air, but didn’t respond with any offensive moves. The mate had sprinted onto the forecastle, a pistol in hand. He aimed it at Rias. The helmsman had also produced a firearm.

Tikaya tried to think of something to do. She stared at the flute in her hand, but feared it’d be useless in this scenario. Even if she’d solved the puzzle, she didn’t know what to play.

“Let’s discuss this, Captain,” Rias said. “If you kill the boy, you’ll only make matters worse for all of us.”

“What do you mean?”

The captain yanked his hand back, and Rias let him go. He wasn’t mollified, though, not in the least. He stepped back a few paces and pulled out his own pistol.

Rias stood in the middle of the three men, arms spread, open hands lifted. He nodded toward the ships on the horizon. “Those Nurians will want the flute, yes, but if you don’t have the… person who took it, their captains will assume you stole it.”

As Rias spoke, Garchee eased closer to Tikaya. He met her eyes, pointed to the flute, and held out his hand. Was it possible he knew how to play it? And if he did, what might he be able to do if she gave it to him? She imagined him piping some tune that caused everyone on board, herself and Rias included, to fall unconscious and wait, helpless as the Nurians boarded. Someone over there might recognize Rias and kill him before he ever woke again.

The crew’s eyes were locked upon Rias and the captain; nobody was paying attention to Tikaya and the boy.

“If you hand the youth and the flute over to the Nurians,” Rias said, “you can say you were duped and didn’t know anything about the theft.”

Tikaya frowned at his back. Hand over the youth? Even if he was a thief, she bristled at the idea of giving him to a crew of vengeful warriors. If those ships had been sent all the way across the ocean, a multiple-week journey, simply to retrieve the flute, the Nurians would not be happy with the one who had caused the trouble.

“Maybe we’ll tell the Nurians you stole it,” the captain said, nodding and smiling as the idea took root.

Rias didn’t have a response for that. Tikaya wondered if the captain had any idea how much of a threat he’d truly made. If they identified him, the Nurians would do more than simply kill Fleet Admiral Starcrest. They would torture him for information and drag him back to their Great Chief in shackles for some horrific public execution.

Tikaya swallowed. She wasn’t going to let that happen. If nothing else, she could make a distraction, and Rias could leap overboard and swim for the coast. They couldn’t be that far from land.

Garchee touched Tikaya’s arm. “Please.”

She’d almost forgotten him. He could have ripped the flute out of her hand when she hadn’t been paying attention, but he hadn’t. Maybe he wanted to help.

Hoping she wasn’t making a mistake, Tikaya gave him the instrument.

“If you handed me over to the Nurians,” Rias told the captain, “you might be seen as accomplices and punished anyway. It’s likely they know who the true thief is. You could simply claim he’d stowed away.”

Flute to his lips, Garchee played a few notes so softly that Tikaya doubted anyone would notice them over the roar of the ocean. She didn’t recognize the song’s upbeat, cheery notes, but it didn’t sound like something that would knock out a ship full of sailors.

“Whatever.” The captain lowered his pistol and waved for his men to do the same. “We’re not handing the flute over to the Nurians. After all this trouble, and all that money I spent on repairs in Tangukmoo, I’m not doing anything except selling that thing to someone who can afford to pay well. We just have to stay out of reach a little longer. We’re only a few hours out of Port Malevek, and there’s no way Nurian ships are going to sail into that harbor, no matter how many guns they have. They won’t dare come into sight.”

The captain glowered at Tikaya, and she held her breath, expecting a backlash to the boy’s flute playing. “You three get off my deck,” was all he said. “I don’t want to see you again.”

Garchee lowered the flute.

“As you command, Captain.” Rias bowed his head, clasped his hands behind his back, and strolled down the steps with Tikaya and Garchee.

“Thank you for your assistance,” she told the boy, suspecting his tune had helped convince the captain to lower his pistol. Too bad it hadn’t improved his personality as well.

Garchee nodded once. His face held the sad recognition of one who had accepted his fate, however unpleasant. Tikaya hoped they could figure out a way to protect him from the Nurians.

Before they headed below, Rias stopped to gaze back at the ships. Tikaya didn’t like the way his face shared some of the youth’s resignation. They’d have to come up with something. She definitely wasn’t going to give him up to the Nurians. Maybe he could hide in the bilge room when the schooner was boarded. The captain liked to send him there anyway.

“Any chance we can make it to Port Malevek before those ships catch us?” Tikaya asked.

Without so much as glancing at the sails or checking the wind, Rias said, “No.”

“I assume there’s no way this small ship can fight them. Any chance of evading them? Maybe we’ll reach that river and—”

Rias was shaking his head.

Tikaya stepped away from the boy and lowered her voice. “What if you took command? Perhaps we could tell the captain who you are. That might change his willingness to listen to you.”

“There’s little I could do either.”

“Is there anything I could do?” Tikaya asked. It was meant to be a joke, but it didn’t sound very funny when it came out.

“Your people are theists, aren’t they? Perhaps you could pray for a storm or a dense fog.”

Tikaya eyed the clouds. They lacked the ominous darkness of thunderheads, and there was no hint of fog lingering in the troughs of the waves. “I haven’t noticed a high success rate amongst those who pray for weather phenomena.”

“Unfortunate,” Rias said. “At least these Nurians shouldn’t have a reason to kill you, not like those assassins we encountered last time. With luck, they won’t even know who you are, and they’ll leave you alone.”

“Oh, good. I can just stand back and watch as you’re beaten, chained, and thrown into their dank, windowless brig.”

“You could always come along.” Rias smiled and offered his arm. “Dank windowless brigs are always more amenable with company.”

She snorted and leaned against him, though his joke did little to lift her spirits. She scowled at the back of the captain’s head. How depressing to think that they might have survived assassins, deadly technology, and monster-filled tunnels, only to be defeated by human greed.

PART VII

Afternoon brought the first warning shot, a cannonball splashing into the water off the port bow. Towering granite cliffs rose to the east, the topography Rias had described, with no sign of a river—or any coves to hide in—within sight. Deep blue water promised plenty of depth for the Nurian warships to navigate through.

On the schooner, the captain paced back and forth, masticating his tobacco like an apothecary grinding a nettlesome root in a mortar. The mate was barking orders to his modest gun crew—the schooner claimed four cannons. Given the hundreds the other ships carried—which were clearly visible now that the Nurians had drawn closer—Tikaya thought the captain was addled for even contemplating a fight. If it was inevitable that the Nurians would overtake the Fin, better to let them board and take the stolen flute, rather than risk irking them further.

So long as they didn’t find Rias.

The waiting and worrying was enough to make Tikaya crazy. Part of her wanted to run down to the bilge pump and plan a mutiny with him, if only on the chance that having him in charge would make a difference, but she was the one who’d told him—implored him—to hide out down there.

“We just have to hold them for a while,” the captain told the mate. “We’ll reach Port Malevek by dusk.”

By dusk was three hours away. Those ships were in firing range now. Another cannon boomed, and the ball splashed into the water a few meters behind the schooner. The next one might very well crash into the ship.

“Need another idea,” Tikaya muttered. “Something better.” She still had the flute, but she doubted the Nurians would hear her over the sea and cannons even if she knew what tune to play. Garchee stood by the railing, watching the approaching ships with that same resignation on his face from earlier.

She jogged over to him. “Any chance you know a tune that would convince those captains to turn around and go home?”

He smiled sadly. “The flutes aren’t that powerful. Especially that one. It was made by a novice.”

One of the galleons was inching closer, trying to come alongside the schooner. A forward cannon fired, and Tikaya’s heart nearly stopped. The black ball arced straight toward them.

She grabbed Garchee and pulled him to the deck. The cannonball smashed into the hull of the ship not three feet below them. Wood shattered, hurling planks and splinters into the air. The deck trembled as the cannonball ripped through the ship’s innards. She didn’t know if it crashed all the way through to the other side or lodged somewhere in the middle.

Tikaya sat up, concern for Rias rearing in her mind. He was below decks. What if—

As if her thoughts had conjured him, Rias burst up the stairs and onto the deck, his eyes round with surprise. “They’re firing at the ship?”

“That surprises you?” Tikaya asked.

Rias’s gaze latched onto Garchee, who, still on his knees, was also blinking in surprise. “Yes.”

“I thought they’d surround us and board us,” Garchee said to himself in Nurian. “Maybe they don’t know…”

“They shouldn’t be trying to hit us unless they don’t know that more than an artifact is on board.” Rias extended a hand toward Garchee. “Come.”

He helped the boy to his feet, then pointed toward the closest mast. Not sure what he had in mind, Tikaya followed them.

“Up,” Rias pointed toward the yards.

Garchee nodded once and climbed. Rias headed up after him.

“What are you doing?” Tikaya asked. The firing of a cannon—one from their own ship—drowned out her words. “Rias, they’ll see you,” she called. “They’ll recognize you.”

“I know,” Rias said grimly. “But they need to see… their thief.” He looked up to where Garchee had reached the lower yard and crawled out onto it. The boy’s face was bleak but accepting.

“Rias, you can’t…” Tikaya didn’t know what to say. Did he truly mean to risk himself and to offer up the poor boy as sacrifice to save the mangy crew of this schooner? She couldn’t believe that of him. He had to be up to something else.

Before crawling out onto the yard himself, Rias looked down and met Tikaya’s gaze. Trust me, his eyes seemed to say.

“What are those idiots doing up there?” the captain bellowed.

He didn’t have time to follow up on the question. The two galleons were gliding closer, hemming in the smaller ship while the frigate closed from behind.

On the yard, Rias and Garchee stood. The boy inched out to the end and lifted an arm toward the frigate.

The galleons drew even with the schooner. The Nurians were close enough that Tikaya could hear their orders, shouts to disable the enemy ship in preparation for boarding. Then a panicked shout erupted from a man in the frigate’s crow’s nest. That ship was too far back for Tikaya to make out the words, but more shouts arose on the deck. She thought she heard a “cease fire” order.

“Grappling hooks,” someone bellowed from the nearest galleon.

A Nurian sailor lifted a megaphone and called in accented Turgonian, “Unnamed vessel, prepare to be boarded.”

Down on the deck, the captain seethed, fists clenched. The mate asked him something and pointed to the cannons. The captain spat, then shook his head.

“It’s over.”

Garchee was picking his way back toward the mast. Rias waited, perhaps ready in case the less-than-agile youth slipped again. Noble, but Tikaya wished to Akahe that he’d get down from there and hide somewhere before the Nurians boarded.

As the two were climbing back to the deck, another shout went up from a crow’s nest, this time on the closest ship. The words sent a swarm of dread into Tikaya’s gut.

“Tell the captain I think that’s Admiral Starcrest over there.”

Tikaya rubbed her face. “Oh, Rias,” she said as he hopped down beside her. “Why couldn’t you have stayed out of sight?”

“I never was good at hiding from trouble,” Rias said, reaching out a hand to steady Garchee when he jumped the last few feet to land beside them.

“Drop all weapons,” the Nurian with the megaphone commanded.

A squad of bowmen stood along the railing of each galleon, covering their comrades as they boarded.

Tikaya checked the waters in every direction, hoping a Turgonian fleet would appear on the horizon. “It’s really quite lackadaisical of your people to leave this stretch of their coast unguarded,” she told Rias. “These Nurians are close enough to Port Malevek to see what people are growing in their gardens.”

“Should I ever regain my warrior-caste status, I’ll be certain to write a strongly worded letter to the local base commander.”

A short, squat Nurian in a flowing, vibrant crimson and yellow uniform strode toward Rias and Garchee. Strands of gray wove through his black hair, which was swept into a thick topknot in the center of his head. Gold disks sewn into his collar proclaimed him a senior sergeant. The rest of his men fanned out, half of them covering their leader while the others aimed bows or swords at the crew, ensuring everyone had indeed dropped their weapons. Many of those bows were pointed at Rias.

“Mee Lin, Fahso, Torsee, and Mek,” the sergeant said in Nurian, “take the admiral prisoner. Search him, tie him, and put him in our brig. We’ll salvage something from this fool’s mission. By the pantheon, we’ve taken too much risk already in getting this close to the empire.” He glanced toward the towering cliffs in the distance.

Tikaya took a step forward, intending to tell them they were mistaken, and that Rias only looked like this Admiral Starcrest they’d fought in the war. But Garchee acted first.

He took a deep breath and raised a hand. “Leave him, sergeant.”

All of the Nurians halted.

“Dead deranged ancestors,” the schooner captain said around a plug of tobacco, “what’s going on?” Standing near the wheel with the helmsman and the mate, he seemed surprised to have earned the attention of only a couple of guards. Of course, he couldn’t likely understand Nurian and follow the conversation.

“Prince Zirabo,” the sergeant said, addressing Garchee, “do you know who he is? Even if you don’t, if he’s the one who kidnapped you, you must want him brought to justice.”

Prince? Zirabo? Tikaya blinked. That was the name of one of the Great Chief’s three sons.

“I know, sergeant,” Garchee—no, Zirabo—said. “But I… wasn’t kidnapped. I ran away. I was tired of— It doesn’t matter now. It was a mistake. Father will punish me, and I’ll deserve it.”

Tikaya found herself gaping at Rias. Again, she wasn’t certain how much of the conversation he followed, but he must have recognized the prince’s name. He didn’t appear surprised. Not in the least.

“Admiral Starcrest wasn’t a part of any of this,” Zirabo said. “I’m not certain how he came to be here, but he and the woman boarded as passengers the day before yesterday. I think… they just wanted a ride south.”

Tikaya nodded vigorously when the sergeant glanced at her. Rias was watching all, though he said nothing, and his face was impossible to read. Zirabo and the sergeant were using the Nurian version of Rias’s name, which translated to “Enemy Chief Fox,” and the captain and mate still didn’t seem to have a clue as to what was going on.

The sergeant lowered his voice. “Starcrest would be a great prize, Prince Zirabo. Perhaps your father would forgive you for your errors in judgment and the trouble you’ve caused if you brought this man home in chains.”

No, bad idea, Tikaya thought, concerned that the boy would find the offer tempting. What twelve year old wouldn’t want to avoid punishment?

Indeed Zirabo touched his chin, and his eyes grew speculative. But, after a silent moment, he dropped his hand and squared his shoulders. “He saved my life. We will leave him.”

Tikaya would have been proud of the youth, but she was busy watching the sergeant and his men, waiting to see if they’d override the prince’s orders. No adult on the Kyatt Islands would have let a child dictate in such an important moment.

The sergeant scratched his jaw. “You’ve grown up these last couple of weeks, My Prince.”

“Stupidity, or perhaps surviving stupidity, teaches one a few things,” Zirabo said.

“Well said, My Prince. If you’ll come with us, we’d best retreat from these waters before our presence instigates a new war.”

Zirabo winced, perhaps thinking that it would be his fault if that happened. “Of course, sergeant.”

The youth jogged to Tikaya and Rias. “I apologize, but I must have the flute back. I will have money sent to compensate the captain for my passage—and the holes in his ship—though I dare think he worked me hard enough to cover the repairs.”

“Perhaps so.” Tikaya handed the flute to him, wondering if he was old enough to have carved it himself or if it belonged to some older brother or cousin.

“A life for a life,” Zirabo told Rias with a solemn nod.

“Understood,” Rias responded.

With the flute in hand, Zirabo trotted to the boarding ramp. The Nurians waited for him to climb across and disappear onto a galleon before retreating. As soon as no weapons were trained on his chest, the captain bellowed, “Emperor’s warts, what is going on?”

“Do you want to explain it to him or should I?” Rias murmured as the Nurians continued to evacuate the ship.

“Neither.” Tikaya searched Rias’s face. “How did you know?” she asked, certain that he had. He’d propelled the youth up onto the yard to make sure the Nurians knew he was there. They must have only known they were following the artifact, not necessarily that their prince remained with it.

“When he was offended at your suggestion that he’d stolen the flute,” Rias said, “I assumed it was his to start with. And you’d said that only the royal family knew how to create them, so…”

“You couldn’t have known he was one of the princes, though.”

“It was a hunch from the day we spent together.”

“A hunch?” Tikaya asked. “You barely speak his language.”

Rias sniffed. “Really.”

“And he never spoke more than three words at once anyway.”

“I can read people.” Rias lifted his eyebrows, as if to remind her of a previous conversation they’d had, one where he’d suggested that much of being a military strategist was being able to get into the mind of the person on the other side. He’d done more than that here. He was proving a knack for winning people over to his side as well.

“Hm,” Tikaya said, “I’d been worried about taking you back to the Kyatt Islands with me. I’d even been contemplating going home alone long enough to ensure my family I’m fine, then asking you to meet me at some foreign port later on.”

“And now?” Rias asked.

“I’m still worried about it, but I’m beginning to think you might have what it takes to assure my government you’re not a spy, placate belligerent citizens who resent your role in the war, and maybe even win Grandpa’s regard.”

“Am I correct in assuming that Grandpa may be the most intractable obstacle your island holds?”

Tikaya grinned. “Probably.”

“It does sound like a harrowing mission, but I would have been distraught if you took it from me.”

“Because you’ve fallen deeply in love with me, and you can’t bear the idea of weeks apart?”

“Perhaps.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Or perhaps because I, too, have grown weary of the frozen north, and the sun and beaches you’ve been talking about sound relaxing.”

“Hmmph.”

The captain stomped past them, cursing, glaring, and spitting in every direction. “What’s everybody doing? Standing around and gawking? Do you think this schooner is going to reach port by magic? Get back to work!”

Sailors scurried away like a flock of pigeons startled by a dog’s approach.

Tikaya leaned against Rias. “What are the odds of the next portion of our voyage being more tranquil? And involving a private cabin?”

“Whatever would we need a private cabin for?” Rias smiled.

“If you don’t know that, then you’re not nearly as good at reading people as you think.”

Tikaya was of a mind to kiss him, lack of privacy or not, but the captain grumped to a stop in front of them and jabbed his finger into Rias’s chest.

“That bilge water isn’t going to pump itself. Get back to work.”

Rias exchanged sighs with Tikaya. “A private cabin, yes, we’ll look into it.”

THE END

DECRYPTED

by Lindsay Buroker

PART I

CHAPTER 1

Tikaya crossed out another opening line. A letter should not be so hard to write. True, the conditions were not ideal: the ship’s wooden railing made a poor desk, the salty wind tugged at the paper, and something redolent of seagull poop adorned the side of her pencil. But it was the topic that made the message a challenge. And the fact that she didn’t know the names of the people to whom the letter would be mailed. Nor was she certain they existed.

She glowered at the page.

“Linguistics troubles?” a familiar baritone asked.

Tikaya turned and spotted Rias. A clean Rias, the first time he’d appeared so in more days than she could remember. She flung herself into his arms with enthusiasm that would have knocked over most of the men on her island; he caught her with ease. His six-and-a-half feet complemented her annoyingly tall six-foot frame nicely. But that height, along with those broad shoulders and the dense armoring of muscle beneath his shirt, reminded her how unmistakably Turgonian he was. For the eight- or nine-thousandth time, she worried that none of her ideas for inspiring her people—her family—to accept him would work. Even getting him past the port authorities could prove challenging.

The basalt cliffs rising from the eastern side of the island told her they had a few more minutes before the ship reached the harbor. She could worry then. For now…

Tikaya rose on her tiptoes, kissed Rias, and wriggled deeper into his embrace.

Catcalls and whistles floated down from the ratlines.

Someone yelled, “Ain’t pass’gers s’posed to have cabins for that?”

“Give ’em a blanket, so’s we got a show to watch!”

Most of the sailors’ comments were easily ignored—especially considering how little of Rias she had seen during the three-week voyage—but the surly mutter of “traitor” from a passing man stole her ardor.

Tikaya broke off the kiss. “Sorry.”

The sailor had spoken in Kyattese, and she wasn’t sure if it was one of the words Rias knew, but he had to have guessed the nature of the comment. He merely raised his eyebrows. “I hope that apology is for stabbing me in the neck with your pencil—”

She blushed and adjusted her hands.

“—and not for kissing me,” he finished. “Because if you’ve forgotten how much I enjoy the latter, I’ve been spending far too much time in that stokehold.”

His brown eyes twinkled, but she winced at the reminder that he had paid their fare with his labor. Granted, he was the fittest forty-three-year-old man she had ever met, but neither that nor the fact that women were not allowed in the stokehold assuaged her guilt. She had strolled the deck or sat in their cabin and studied pages full of symbols and runes, while he shoveled coal into the furnaces twelve hours a day. He had already given up a world to be with her, and she feared the sacrifices would only increase. What if he came to regret his decision?

“No,” Tikaya said when his brow furrowed at her silence. “I just wasn’t sure if it was appropriate for a woman to fling herself into the arms of a naval admiral on the deck of a ship.”

“It’s not my ship, and these days I’m rather retired…” Exiled. “So, unless it’s unseemly for a dignified philology professor to be seen tongue wrangling with a man in a public venue, it doesn’t bother me.”

“You have been down in the stokehold too long if you think I’m dignified.”

Rias offered his familiar half smile, caught her hand and started to lift it to his lips, but paused at the paper crinkled in her grip.

“I’m trying to write a letter.” Tikaya realized she had not answered his original question. “To Corporal Agarik’s family. They’ll probably hate me on principle, but I want them to know that he was a good man, that he saved my…” She swallowed. “What he did for us… I want them to know.”

“Ah.” Rias unbuttoned a shirt pocket and withdrew an envelope smudged with coal dust. He handed it to her. “I wrote to my parents to let them know I’m alive. I was going to ask you to mail it. If you tuck your message inside with a note for my father, he’ll get your letter to the family. Include Agarik’s name, rank, and that Bocrest was his commander.”

Tikaya eyed the envelope, daunted at the idea of asking for a favor from his—from Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest’s—parents, especially when she was every bit the enemy to his people that he was to hers. “How about I give you the letter and you mail it with a note for your father?”

“I don’t know where the post office is on your island.” Rias smiled, but his eyes remained serious as he pressed the envelope into her hand. “And if something happens to me, I’ll be comforted, knowing you’ll be able to mail it.”

“Rias, my people are peaceful. We don’t have capital punishment, even for enemies of the nation. They’re not going to—”

A cleared throat nearby made her pause. It was the captain, a steely-haired man with a scar on his cheek almost as long as the pipe dangling from his chapped lips. He nodded to Rias. “You sure you want to get off here?”

The captain ignored Tikaya. The couple of times he had exchanged words with her, they had been in Kyattese, her language. He spoke in Turgonian now.

“Yes, sir,” Rias said.

The honorific surprised Tikaya. Though Rias had only a few gray hairs sprinkled about his temples, he had been as highly ranked in the Turgonian military as an officer could be, so the “sir” sounded strange coming from him. But, then, he had told no one who he was, and, as far as she knew, no one amongst the multiracial crew had identified him. With his short black hair and clean-shaven face, he probably had not changed in the two years since his last command, but most of the world thought him dead, thanks to the story his emperor had circulated. This was a merchant vessel, too, and the captain hadn’t mentioned anything about being a part of the war.

The captain’s gaze flicked toward Tikaya. “Because of her?”

“Yes.” A wary note crept into Rias’s tone.

“Had a talk with my chief engineer this morning.” The captain removed his pipe and tamped it. “Seems you two have had a few dialogues.”

“We’ve spoken,” Rias said.

Tikaya leaned against the railing, waiting for the captain to make his point.

“Seems you know the machinery,” the captain said.

“I’ve sailed on something similar.”

Tikaya almost laughed. She wondered what the captain and the engineer would think if they knew Rias had been designing a vessel of his own while he had been shoveling that coal. He had sketches in their cabin, and even though he’d been a military strategist rather than an engineer, she had little doubt he could build a craft from scratch.

“The chief isn’t usually blunt,” the captain said, “but he was this morning. He says I was an idiot for putting you in the stokehold.”

“The exercise suited me.” Rias lifted a hand. “Besides, the trip’s over now.”

“It needn’t be. Chief’s planning on retiring in the next year. He seems to think you’d be a better replacement than any of his junior officers.”

The offer sent a flutter of nerves through Tikaya’s belly. It shouldn’t appeal to Rias—even if they didn’t have plans to put his mathematical inclinations to work decoding ancient mysteries, it would be a pedestrian job after the challenges he had once encountered daily—but it reminded her that, imperial exile or not, he could find a place in the world just fine without her or the hospitality of the Kyatt Islands.

“I thank you for your consideration, sir,” Rias said, “but I’m not looking to stay on.”

The captain inhaled deeply, puffed out a ring of smoke, and sized up Tikaya. Her cheeks warmed as his scrutiny drifted from her spectacles above her freckled cheeks to the baggy military uniform that hid her curves—it was all she had for clothing until she got home.

“We visit Saltarr twice a year. The women there have teats like this—” the captain demonstrated lofty proportions with his hands, “—and they’ll do anything.” He jerked his pipe at Tikaya. “She doesn’t look like anything worth risking your life over.”

Rias’s jaw tightened. “She’s worth it.”

Tikaya pushed away from the railing and lifted her chin. “And she speaks Turgonian and understands what you’re saying.”

The captain shrugged and took another puff. “Just used to watching out for my crew. Men do stupid things for some skirt. It’s not safe for a Turgonian to step foot on Kyatt right now, not after the war. They might not shoot you,” he told Rias, “but they’ve got wizards and telepaths, and they’ll lock you up and brainwash you until you don’t know your own name.”

“That’s not true,” Tikaya said, though the fact that one of her people had inflicted a telepathic interrogation on her a few weeks earlier stole some of her certainty. That had been a relic raider, a woman who gave up the oath she swore before the Ministry of Science to pursue riches. “In my nation, it’s illegal for telepaths to pry without consent. As for brainwashing, I’m sure you Turgonians, with your manuals on torture methods, would know more about that than my people.”

For the first time, the captain stiffened, and his dark eyes narrowed. Tikaya tensed. Before she had been kidnapped by Turgonians, she would not have expected a man to strike her, but her captors had not appreciated hearing her opinions.

Rias chuckled, stealing the tension from the air. He gave her a fond smile. “I thought you only read the chapter on alchemical interrogation techniques.”

“I did,” she said. “The brainwashing comment was just a guess.”

“Chapter Seven,” Rias said.

The captain snorted, whether with humor or disgust Tikaya couldn’t tell, but at least he no longer looked like he meant to punch her. When a midshipman scurried up to report, he returned to his work.

Tikaya turned her back to the ship and resolved to push the captain’s comments from her mind. Worse insults would come, for both of them. She sighed and propped her forearms on the damp railing. Spray misted her cheeks.

Rias wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his cheek against her temple. “You’re worth the world.”

The sentiment warmed her more than the sun glittering on the sea, but it didn’t alleviate her doubts. “I hope you still feel that way after you’ve met my family.”

He chuckled, his breath stirring goosebumps as it tickled her ear. Not for the first time, she lamented his indenture below decks. The stokers received few baths, and he had been unwilling to share a bunk with her when he was caked in coal dust and dried sweat. Now he was clean, but they were about to dock. Maybe the reception would go more smoothly than she anticipated and they could spend the evening somewhere pleasant.

“So, is Saltarr a port you’re familiar with?” Tikaya smirked as she turned her head to eye him. Though it had no archaeological significance and was not the type of place to attract her interest, she had heard of the vices plied there.

“After more than twenty years at sea,” Rias said, “I’ve been to most major ports in the world.”

A yes. Her smirk widened. A careful yes. “And did you meet any of the women there?”

“That would have been unwise.”

“Because you were married then?”

“That and because…” His eyes drifted up and to the side in his making-a-calculation expression. “One in three.”

She twitched an eyebrow. “And that is the solution to what equation?”

“Given what the sawbones told me, that’s about the odds of a man returning from shore leave in Saltarr without… ah, I’m not sure what the Kyattese term is, but we call it pizzle rot.”

“You Turgonians are a blunt people.”

“Indeed we are.”

Tikaya leaned back into his embrace, trying to relax and enjoy the last peaceful moment, but a landmark above a beach caught her eye. The lighthouse. Snakes tangled in her belly. They were entering the harbor.

• • • • •

Though the merchant ship had Turgonians in the crew, none of them walked down the gangplank with Tikaya and Rias. More police than she had ever seen strode along the piers and the quay. In their sandals, shorts, and yellow button-down hemp shirts, they were far less intimidating than Turgonian marines, but the fit men and women all carried cudgels or crossbows. Much had changed since Tikaya last visited the harbor.

Only two months had passed since her kidnapping, but she had secluded herself on her parents’ plantation during the previous year, mourning the fiancé she had thought dead. Now she wished she had paid more attention to the goings on in the capital.

Tikaya and Rias mingled with the crowd as people wound their way down the busy pier toward the streets of Yikyo, but their height made them stick out. The departing passengers and crew represented a number of nationalities, but Rias’s size, bronze skin, and black hair left little doubt to his origins. Merchants at vendor carts selling everything from chilled coconut milk to sarongs and sandals to dictionaries for foreigners eyed Rias as he passed. Despite her dubious outfit, no one glanced twice at Tikaya.

The first policeman they passed frowned deeply. His eyes grew distant, the expression of a practitioner calling upon his science—or a telepath communicating with someone.

“Trouble?” Rias murmured.

“Likely.”

“A lot or a little?”

Rias carried a rucksack but no major weaponry—Tikaya had convinced him to trade their rifle and longbow for coin, figuring it’d be best to walk onto the island unarmed—so that shouldn’t bother the police. But he would stand out here no matter what he wore. Also, he’d kept a short blade that hung in a belt sheath. She would have called it a dagger, finding it plenty long and sharp enough to slit throats, but he’d balked at the idea of classifying it as a weapon. The Frontier Toothpick, as he called it, was a mere utility knife by imperial standards.

“It depends on whether they recognize your face or they’re just reporting that there’s a militant-looking Turgonian strolling the docks.” Tikaya picked up her pace. She planned to report to the capitol building straight away—better to tell the president she wanted to bring a war criminal to visit than being caught trying to sneak him onto the island—and thought it’d be best to arrive with the news, rather than after it. Besides, the president had once said he owed her a favor for her pivotal role in ending the war. This was his chance to redeem it. He owed Rias a favor as well—when he’d still been fleet admiral, he’d stopped the Turgonian emperor’s deadly young henchman from assassinating the Kyattese leader—but Tikaya feared the president might never have received the warning note or otherwise learned of the incident.

“You didn’t recognize my face,” Rias said.

Yes, and he had been careful to withhold his identity during the first couple of weeks they’d been dodging assassins, decrypting deadly alien technology, and otherwise getting to know each other. She’d forgiven him for that subterfuge, but she did wonder how their relationship would have developed if she had known who he was from the beginning.

“I spent the war with my nose buried in your military’s encrypted communications. And I’ve spent the rest of my life with my nose buried in philology and archaeology books. My family members are lucky I recognize them.”

Rias bumped her shoulder and smiled. “Sounds like you need more field work. More adventures. Wait until you see what I’m planning for—”

“Halt!” a male voice cried.

The crowd parted in front of Rias and Tikaya. A row of policemen stood at the head of the pier, blocking the quay and access to Harbor Avenue and the city beyond it. The squad aimed crossbows and muskets at Rias.

Though she didn’t expect them to shoot, Tikaya moved to step in front of him with her arms spread.

A firm grip on her elbow halted her, and Rias stepped in front of her instead. She snorted. There was probably some Turgonian regulation against hiding behind a woman.

Tikaya leaned around him and told the policemen, “I’m a citizen. This is my guest. Is there a problem?”

She had never seen a whole squad of men and women drop their jaws in a synchronized stunned gape before. A seagull landed on a pier and squawked. The sound stirred some of the policemen into shutting their mouths.

“Your guest is Fleet Admiral Federias Starcrest?” the squad leader asked. “The slaughtering bloodthirsty tyrant who decimated our ships during the war? The nonpareil war criminal of the high seas? The heinous Turgonian emperor’s most dangerous lackey?”

Rias looked over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised in a question.

“They recognize you,” Tikaya said. “And, uhm, they don’t like you.”

“Yes, I gathered that. There were a lot of words in there you haven’t taught me yet though.”

Curse him, he sounded amused. But then, she’d seen him grin maniacally in the middle of battle, despite being surrounded by people attempting to kill him—no, because he’d been surrounded by people attempting to kill him.

“My people like vocabulary words,” Tikaya said, trying not to sound worried.

The police advanced with wariness despite Rias’s easy humor—they likely had no trouble understanding him, as most Kyattese learned Turgonian and Nurian in school, and those working around the docks would have had practice speaking with visiting foreigners. Four policemen kept their weapons trained on him while two edged forward, one clenching a baton, the other gripping handcuffs.

Rias let them shackle his hands behind his back. His eyebrow twitched when a policewoman took his knife, but he didn’t try to stop her.

A third man stepped toward Tikaya. “You said you’re a citizen, ma’am?”

His words elicited a faint sting. She had never sought glory or recognition, but it was disappointing that the common man had no idea about her and what she’d done to help her people during the war. Of course, the president had deliberately kept her identity secret, hoping the Turgonians wouldn’t figure out who the Kyattese code breaker was—and punish her. He’d underestimated their fact-finding abilities.

“Tikaya Komitopis,” she said.

Her ancestors had been among the original refugees who colonized the islands, so at least the policeman nodded in recognition at the family name.

“You’ll need to come with us for questioning, ma’am.”

“Me? Why?”

Rias lifted an eyebrow. “You were planning to leave me to be tortured alone?”

“I thought we might expedite the process if I could go straight to the president,” she said.

“Expedited torture. Oh, good.”

“No torture. I told you, we don’t do that anyway, but he owes me a favor.” Tikaya smiled, though she feared it did not reach her eyes. Rias would not face the sort of torture with which he was familiar, but she had no doubt he would be in for an ordeal—an image of sugarcanes being smashed in her family’s press came to mind—if she couldn’t get an appointment to see the president promptly.

One of the policewomen cleared her throat. At first, Tikaya thought she’d issue a warning that they should speak in Kyattese instead of Turgonian. But, “President Mokkos is on Akatoo this week,” was what she said, naming the smallest of the Kyattese Islands, and the most distant. “He and his team are assessing the ongoing damage in Ititio Harbor due to the season’s increased lava flows.”

Tikaya grimaced. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

Before the woman could answer, the squad leader lifted a hand and said, “It’s irrelevant. It takes months to get an appointment to see him, and I doubt your family name will hasten that process. You’ll deal with the magistrate. Come.”

Tikaya wanted to state that her surname had nothing to do with anything, that it was her deeds that had earned her the right to see the president in a timely manner, but the police didn’t care to converse further. The squad swarmed around Rias, leading him away, and a pair of men stepped to either side of Tikaya, gesturing for her to follow. They did not otherwise restrain her, but that only made her feel guilty as she walked behind Rias, observing the handcuffs trapping his wrists behind his back.

CHAPTER 2

A breeze whispered down an alley outside the window, rustling fallen palm fronds and other debris, but failing to stir the air inside the muggy interrogation room. Strange to think that Tikaya should need to become readapted to the climate in which she’d been born, but she found herself noticing the heat and humidity. Long hours had passed since the police had deposited her in the room with nothing more interesting than a single bamboo chair and a pitcher of water to keep her occupied. She guessed the delay was a result of searches of her and Rias’s rucksacks. The black alien sphere that had helped her with translations was tucked inside hers, and his held a dagger that was, though simple, made of the same strange black alloy. Those finds had to have the police scratching their heads and wondering where she and Rias had been.

Tired of pacing, Tikaya sat on the hard chair and attempted to work on language puzzles in her head. Her mind kept bringing up thoughts of Rias and what they might be doing to him. She wished the police hadn’t separated them.

Finally, the door creaked open. The police chief entered, accompanied by a blonde-haired woman in a nondescript hemp dress. Perhaps thirty years old, she seemed familiar, and Tikaya tried to place her. She decided they’d studied at the Polytechnic at the same time.

The woman flexed her fingers and a further realization came: she was a mental sciences practitioner. Tikaya had never been detained by the police—alas, she had been too busy studying in her youth to rebel against authority, professors, or even her parents—so she had no idea if it was normal for a telepath to attend a questioning. She did know there were laws against intruding upon citizen’s thoughts. However, strong telepaths could often sense emotions without actually delving into a person’s head.

A young assistant brought in a second chair, and the chief settled in opposite of Tikaya. His chair had padding.

“Ms. Komitopis.” The chief propped his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingers. His green eyes regarded her solemnly from beneath thinning red hair and brows, the latter separated by deep worry lines. “We have a file on your kidnapping. It’s good that you’ve made your way home. Your parents will be relieved.”

His tone was friendly. Why didn’t that reassure her?

“Thank you. I’ll need to see them as soon as possible, of course, but it’s more urgent that I communicate with the president, in regard to my… guest. Will that be possible?”

“We’ll see.”

“He knows me,” Tikaya said. “I helped in the intelligence department during the war.”

The chief’s lined face, pale despite the sunny clime, gave away little, and she couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. “The president isn’t on the big island currently.”

“I know,” Tikaya said. “But surely I can send him a message?”

“Let’s see how things progress here first, shall we?”

Tikaya felt her fingers curl into fists and forced herself to unclench them. She almost missed the bluntly honest Turgonians. Captain Bocrest would have smashed her against a wall by now, but at least she would have known where she stood with him.

Abruptly, she remembered the telepath, and alarm flared inside her chest. The woman had taken up an unobtrusive position near the door, mostly blocked from sight by the chief’s chair. Deliberate placement? Either way, Tikaya had best not let kindly thoughts about her former captors seep out. When she’d run into Parkonis, her ex-fiancé had been certain she’d been suffering from captive complex.

“Why is she here?” Tikaya nodded toward the woman. “I haven’t signed a consent form.”

“It’s her job to ascertain your emotional stability through sensing feelings.” The chief spoke pleasantly, even enthusiastically, as if they were discussing the promise of a plentiful coconut crop this season. “While strong thoughts may reach her net, your defenses won’t be violated. Not during this preliminary investigation.”

Tikaya stared at him. What did that mean? Later violation was a possibility?

Sweat trickled down the inside of her arm. She forced herself to sit back and take a deep breath. If they wanted to read her thoughts, that could be a good thing. It could clear Rias of whatever suspicions they must have over his appearance.

Maybe.

She thought of Gali, the woman who had torn through her mind back in the tunnels and reached the wrong conclusion about Tikaya’s relationship with Rias. Having access to another’s thoughts did not make a telepath omniscient. People sometimes saw what they wanted to see and interpreted memories in such a way as to support their beliefs.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s happened since you disappeared?” the chief asked.

Tikaya would have preferred to save the story for the president, but he wasn’t there, and she wanted to clear up whatever she could so she could go home. It stung to be so close, after having been so far, only to be denied a trip of a few miles to her family’s plantation. She wouldn’t go without Rias though. She had to make these people understand that he wasn’t a threat. So Tikaya spent the next hour telling the story. She didn’t go into many details about the ancient technology, as dangerous weapons remained in those tunnels, and she wanted to consult with her Polytechnic colleagues before revealing much—if anything—to the world in general. She also rushed through the announcement that she and Rias were… close. Before long everyone on the island would know, but the judging eyes of the chief and the telepath made her uncomfortable. She felt like a child caught doing something forbidden, and now she squirmed on the chair, awaiting her punishment.

If the artifacts his people must have found intrigued the chief, one would never know. He didn’t ask any questions during that part of her story. In fact, he asked nothing at all until the end of the hour. The sole question, when it came, was, “What’s Admiral Starcrest’s purpose here?”

“Me,” Tikaya said.

“You.” The chief exchanged looks with the telepath.

“Yes, me. We wish to…” Get married, Tikaya thought, though Rias hadn’t mentioned the idea since their night in Wolfhump, where they’d struggled to decode the alien artifact amidst a grisly pile of frozen bodies. And he’d been speaking hypothetically then. Perhaps he wasn’t ready for a commitment of that magnitude or perhaps he had doubts whether a permanent association could work out. She hoped that wasn’t the case, because she’d already started wondering what their children might look like. “We wish to be together,” Tikaya said. “I brought him here so I can introduce him to my family.”

“Ms. Komitopis.” The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. “Surely you must have considered that he’s using you as a cover and is truly here for nefarious purposes?”

Tikaya shook her head. “He was stripped of everything and exiled two years ago. He has no loyalty to the Turgonian emperor any more. He wants a new career and a new life. With me. We’re going to work on archaeological puzzles together. He’s very smart.”

“Oh, nobody’s doubting that.”

No, they were just doubting her intelligence. “He’s an honorable man. Why don’t you talk to him for a while? You might change your opinion.”

“I don’t speak more than a few words of Turgonian.”

“He knows some Kyattese.”

The chief’s eyes narrowed. “Does he, now?”

Uh oh. Was Rias pretending otherwise to see what her people said when they thought he couldn’t understand? She could hardly blame him for such subterfuge. She wouldn’t open her mouth around potential enemies either. Unless—she snorted to herself—they intrigued her first with a puzzle. That was all it had taken for Captain Bocrest to convince her to speak.

The chief withdrew a piece of paper from a pocket and unfolded it. He held it before Tikaya’s spectacles. “What do you know about this?”

The drawing was familiar. Precise pen strokes delineated the cross-sections of an engine while neatly written equations lined the margins. Rias had been working on his blueprints whenever he had spare time.

“He wants to build us a ship so we can launch our own expeditions, something with enough space to house a team of—”

“It’s not a ship,” the chief said. “We had an engineer look over his drawings. It’s a vessel designed to travel underwater. Turgonian steam power alone wouldn’t suffice—the fire would eat up the limited oxygen—but if he had access to the energy orbs our mental scientists craft, he could make this a reality. Can you imagine the advantage that would give the Turgonians? They could drop anchor in our harbor, spying on us from beneath the surface, and we’d never know they were there.”

“The war has been over for more than a year, sir,” Tikaya said. “If Rias wants to build a—” there was no Kyattese word, so she used the Turgonian one for the concept, “—submarine, it’s because he likes a challenge. He said it’s something his people haven’t managed for the very reasons you stated.”

“You did know about it.” The chief’s eyes widened, and he glanced at the telepath again.

“He doesn’t have any diabolical reasons for building it. I imagine being able to travel beneath the waves would be an advantage during storms.”

“During storms.” The chief’s jaw tightened. “I understand you’re a linguistics professor, so I must assume you possess intelligence of some sort, but I question your wisdom. Perhaps being sheltered in academia has left you naive to the workings of the world.”

Now it was Tikaya’s jaw that tightened. So much so that it ached.

“Or,” the chief went on, “perhaps you’re in collusion with the Turgonians.”

She forced herself to unclench her jaw. “Philologist,” she said calmly.

“What?”

“I’m a philologist, not a linguist. While I do speak numerous tongues, my specialty is dead languages.”

The chief took several deep breaths. “I see. You don’t wish to cooperate. I’ll be forced to put collusion on my report.”

“Cooperate, how?” Tikaya asked. “You haven’t asked me to do anything.”

“Tell me why Admiral Starcrest is really here.”

Tikaya sighed. “I can only tell you the truth, not what you want to hear.”

“I see,” he said again. “Your family will be informed, and a plan will be discussed in regard to treatment for you.”

“Treatment?” Tikaya mouthed, but he was already stalking out of the room.

The door slammed shut. Outside the window, the debris in the alley rustled as a breeze stirred. The air also carried the faint sound of voices. The chief and someone else. No doubt, they were discussing Tikaya. She could not pick out many of the words, but thought she heard, “parents.” Would the police send a message, instructing them to come to the station? After all she had been through, Tikaya should have relished the thought, but dread curdled in her stomach, not just because of the threat of “treatment” that had been mentioned. Listening to the chief’s condescending accusations had been bad enough; hearing them on her mother and father’s tongues would hurt.

“It’s not your fault,” the telepath said.

Tikaya twitched. She had forgotten the woman was still in the room.

“The Turgonians are masters of interrogation and brainwashing.” The woman strolled over to stand beside Tikaya. “Though they favor violence, it doesn’t surprise me that Admiral Starcrest would use charm to win a woman over. He’s a handsome man, after all.”

True, though he had been a mess, buried beneath two years’ of hair and grime, when Tikaya first met him.

The woman put a hand on Tikaya’s shoulder. Though Tikaya was not trained in the mental sciences, she sensed when someone was applying them nearby, and the hairs on her arms rose now.

“It’s not your fault,” the telepath said, a soothing sensation accompanying her words. “You’re the victim here. We’ll have a therapist work with you, and you’ll come to realize—”

Tikaya lunged to her feet, breaking the contact. She whirled to face the woman. “Don’t touch me.”

“Of course.” The telepath clasped her hands behind her back and bowed her head. “Too soon. I understand. You’ll need to be separated from him for a while before you return to your senses. With time, his influence over you will wane.”

Tikaya tried the door. It was locked. She backed to the wall, folded her arms over her chest, and eyed the window again. She briefly toyed with the idea of kicking the woman’s legs out from beneath her, searching her for a key, and escaping if she had one. Except this was an island and it was home. Where would Tikaya go if not here?

“You don’t need to stay with me,” she said. “I promise I won’t get lonely if you go.”

The woman only smiled.

“I’m surprised you aren’t busy sifting through Rias’s thoughts,” Tikaya muttered.

“He didn’t consent to that. We asked.”

No, he wouldn’t. She remembered a comment he’d made that he’d been tortured by Nurians that way once.

“You gave him an option?” Tikaya asked.

“We don’t force people.”

Tikaya snorted. “Unless it’s for therapy?”

The door opened, and she tensed.

The chief strode in and glowered at her. “You’re free to go.”

Tikaya dropped her arms and gawked. It couldn’t be that easy. “I’m not leaving without Rias.”

“He can go too.”

The telepath inhaled a startled breath.

“What?” Tikaya asked.

“There are provisos,” the chief said. “War criminals can’t be permitted to stroll the island unsupervised, but, yes, he can leave with you.”

Too easy. This was too easy. “Who were you talking to outside the window?” Tikaya asked. “The president hasn’t returned, has he?”

“High Minister Jikaymar,” the chief said in a clipped tone.

The man Tikaya’s supervisor had reported to during the war and who had overseen the guerrilla efforts against the Turgonians. Yes, he would know who Tikaya was and how she’d helped the nation, but they had not spoken more than once or twice, and she had never received the impression he liked her or would go out of his way to do her a favor.

“What sort of provisos?” Tikaya asked.

“Come.” The chief waved her into the hall.

Tikaya glanced at the telepath as she left. A bewildered expression furrowed the woman’s brow.

As Tikaya followed the chief, she noticed her heavy Turgonian boots thudding on the bamboo floor. Sweat dampened the wool socks inside. A flutter of anticipation stirred in her breast. If the chief spoke truly, by that evening, she could be at home, wearing sandals and a light dress again, and enjoying a meal with her family.

The chief pushed open a door at the end of the hall. Rias stood inside, surrounded by men in white robes, the hems and sleeves adorned with gold stitching. Tikaya hesitated. At the least, they were science professors from the Polytechnic, but given the number of gray-haired heads, they might be members of the Council of Science Policies and Affairs.

Someone had taken Rias’s rucksack, jacket, and even his boots and belt. A seashell bracelet with a glowing red stone strapped his wrist. Beyond a brief meeting of her eyes, he did not react to Tikaya’s entrance.

She frowned at the chief and pointed at Rias’s wrist. “Is that a lizard tracking device?”

It was one of the professors who responded, a slight wiry man with gray hair. “It’s true the zoology department uses them for keeping track of rehabilitated predators to ensure they don’t attack people again, yes. This one has been modified for human use.”

“So Rias can be killed with a thought if some fallible controller thinks his behavior is questionable?” She searched Rias’s eyes, an apology in her own. Bringing him home had been a mistake. Had she truly thought it wouldn’t be misery—or worse—for him?

“Nobody’s going to kill anybody,” the professor said. “It’s to be used to render him insensate if he becomes violent.” His tone grew chillier. “And I’ll be the ‘fallible’ controller accompanying and observing you. Professor Yosis.” He turned a cool look of warning upon Rias. “My colleagues will serve as backup, in case something should happen to me. A death command could be given in response to such an event.”

Tikaya balled her hands into fists. “This is inhumane and unacceptable.”

“It’s the only way we’re letting him walk around the island,” the chief said.

“And he agreed to it,” Yosis added.

“You did?” Tikaya asked Rias, switching to Turgonian.

He nodded once.

She waited, expecting him to say more, to explain his thoughts, but he remained tightlipped. Like a prisoner of war not wanting to give anything away to the enemies holding him captive. And why shouldn’t he feel that way? Essentially, that’s what he was. She would have to get him alone to have an open conversation. But if Yosis was accompanying them, that might not be possible for a while. A long while.

CHAPTER 3

Humidity smothered fields green with new growth, but a pleasant breeze brought relief as it rustled through the coconut trees lining the road. A beach stretched along one side with gulls swooping and squawking over the waves.

The six-mile bicycle ride from the city to the plantation would have been pleasant if not for Professor Yosis pedaling behind Tikaya and Rias. Though more gray than blond marked his thinning hair, he wasn’t considerate enough to grow weary and fall behind.

“I’m sorry about the tracker,” Tikaya told Rias, feeling the need to apologize before they met her family—and she had more reasons to express regret to him.

“You needn’t be,” he said.

They spoke in his tongue, but the professor doubtlessly understood it.

Tikaya gave Rias a sad smile. “You won’t say that after you’ve felt the bite of… Ah, just don’t give our monitor back there a reason to use it.”

“I’ve felt its bite.”

Her hands tightened on the handlebars. “They used it on you?” She glared back at the professor.

“It is necessary for the subject to feel the pain that misrule elicits so as to fully realize the need to avoid it,” Yosis said, thus verifying he understood Turgonian. “Also, it is necessary for us to test the subject’s pain threshold in order to calibrate the device.”

“They used it on you a lot,” Tikaya whispered, horrified. She braked and dropped her boots to the ground. She wanted to kick the old man off his bicycle. “What gives you that right? He’s a human being. That’s torture.”

Yosis stopped beside her, while Rias waited a few paces ahead.

“Really, Ms. Komitopis.” Yosis regarded her mildly. “Do you believe he hasn’t done far worse to far more human beings?”

“I thought our people prided themselves on being more civilized than the Turgonians—than any of the more warlike cultures in the world.” Sweat dripped down Tikaya’s arms and splashed on the gravel. “Knowledge. Wisdom. Peace. Aren’t those words still engraved above the entrance to the Polytechnic?”

“Our way is more humane than theirs,” Yosis said. “Do you know how many of our people were maimed and disfigured, mentally and physically, when they returned after the treaty signings? Those who returned at all, that is. As you know, many were lost to us forever.”

Rias gazed at the sea. If the professor’s highhanded logic disturbed him, one would never know. His thoughts remained locked in his head. Tikaya wondered if he’d yet decided he’d made a mistake in coming here.

She returned to pedaling.

Before they had gone far, Rias nodded at a ridge across the field. Verdant ground sloped upward toward the top of the volcano that one could see from anywhere on the island.

“What’s up there?” he asked.

“Not much,” Tikaya said. “A few hunting cabins and campsites. The majority of our agriculture and settlements are down here in the flatlands.”

“I saw a reflection, like light striking glass. A spyglass, perhaps.”

Tikaya adjusted her spectacles, though she doubted she would see anything. It was miles to the base of the hills, and lush trees and foliage carpeted the slopes.

“Could be someone hiking or working,” she said. “I can ask later. It’s my family’s property, so only my kin or perhaps the neighbors would be wandering around up there.”

Rias cocked his head. “How much land does your family have?”

“I’m not sure exactly. It takes about a day to walk across it.”

He blinked. “So, forty miles? That’s huge on an island this size.”

“Probably closer to twenty,” Tikaya said. “My people have shorter legs than yours, and we rest a lot more often on a hike.”

Yosis snorted.

“Still, if that’s twenty on all sides,” Rias said, “you’ve more than two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand acres.”

“If you’re trying to impress me with your math skills,” Tikaya said, smiling, “it’ll take more than a simple square-miles-to-acres conversion.”

“Oh?” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Perhaps you can show me the plat map later, and there’ll be ragged borders that require more sophisticated calculations.”

“Why do you care how much land her family has?” Professor Yosis asked, his tone cold.

Tikaya lost her smile. “I’m sure he’s only curious.”

“Doubtful,” Yosis said.

Rias returned his attention to scanning their surroundings. He would have stuck up for her, she had no doubt, but he seemed resigned to whatever fate her people had in mind for him. Well, she would stick up for him, even if he wouldn’t fight for himself.

“How much land did you walk away from,” Tikaya asked him, “when you chose to help me destroy those weapons and escape instead of turning them over to your emperor?”

“Not much,” he said. “I’m my father’s third son, so I wouldn’t have stood to inherit the family properties. I just had what my grandfather left me.”

“More or less than twenty square miles?” Tikaya said.

“Well, more, but Turgonia is huge, so proportionally, far less.”

“Uh huh. So, your family controls how many millions of acres?”

“A few million. But it’s largely undeveloped. Mostly mountains and trees.”

“Ore and timber?” Tikaya asked.

“That follows, I suppose.”

Tikaya gave their spy a frank look. “And to think, he could marry me and walk into a fiftieth share of our taro farm and poi factory.”

“Poi?” Rias’s lip twitched into a half smile. “Didn’t you promise me rum?”

“You are naive for your age, Ms. Komitopis,” Yosis said.

“Yes, I’m hearing that a lot today. I believe the consensus is that my years ensconced at the Polytechnic left me unwise to the workings of the world.” She titled her head toward Rias as they coasted down a slope. “Have you found me to be flawed in that manner, as well?”

“I’d call that trait more endearing than flawed. I’ve dealt with enough worldly and jaded people to have grown weary of them.” Rias didn’t glance back at Yosis—he didn’t have to.

“We’re almost to the main house,” Tikaya said to edge out any comment that might spring to the professor’s lips. “That building over there is—”

An explosion boomed, and an orange blaze erupted from the earth. Stunned, Tikaya almost fell off the bicycle.

“What was that?” Yosis asked.

“The pumping house,” Tikaya whispered.

Without thinking to tell them to follow, she veered off the road. She cut through the stubbled field, the bicycle bumping over the uneven earth. Though it jarred her to the bones, she pedaled faster, angling toward the source of the explosion. Rias appeared at her side, matching her pace.

“An attack?” he asked.

“Attack, no. An accident, must be. There’s a boiler in there. It might have exploded. Anyone nearby could be hurt or…” She drove her legs faster, not bothering to glance back to check if Yosis followed.

Sweat streamed down her face by the time they drew near the pumping house. The top of the earthen dome had been blown off. Brush fires burned in the nearby grass.

Her father lay by the door, blood soaking his gray hair.

Tikaya jumped off the bicycle. “Father!”

She sprinted to his side, barely noticing that Rias jogged into the structure. A clatter came from inside.

“Father?” Tikaya rested a hand on his chest.

He was breathing, but his eyes were closed. She removed the uniform jacket tied around her waist, wadded it up, and pressed it against the gash on his head. She patted him, checking for other wounds.

His blue eyes fluttered open, wide and dazed at first. Then they squinted shut as he grimaced in pain. His hand went to his head, and he bumped her arm. He opened his eyes again, focusing on her this time.

“Tikaya?” he whispered.

She gripped his bloody hand. “Yes, Father.”

He lifted his head, concentration on his face, as if he couldn’t understand her. The explosion must have stunned his ears.

“Dead?” he mouthed.

Not sure whether he had thought she was dead or maybe feared that he had died, Tikaya spoke again, more loudly this time. “Nobody’s dead. It’s me. I’m home. What happened? Are you all right?”

“Yes… That’s right. They said you… were coming.”

They who? The police? It didn’t matter, Tikaya told herself. When Father put a hand on the ground, she helped him sit up. Blood ran down the side of his round face and spattered his sweat-stained shirt. His gaze landed on Yosis, and his brow crinkled in confusion.

The professor straddled his bicycle a few meters away, fresh dust gathered on the hem of his white robe. He’d taken out a notepad and pencil—maybe that was his idea of being useful.

Father opened his mouth, but a shadow fell across him, and he said nothing, only gaped up at the source.

Rias had come out of the pumping house, sans shirt. “There are two more injured inside. I made makeshift bandages—” he gestured at his bare chest, “—but they need medical attention.”

Father didn’t seem to hear him. He lunged to his feet, staggering before catching his balance, and, instead of heading inside to check on the others, he stomped over to Rias and glared. His eyes didn’t even come to Rias’s collarbone, but that didn’t keep his shoulders from tensing, his eyes from turning icy, and his hands from curling into fists. His chest rose and fell in fast, deep breaths, as he ignored the blood dribbling into his eyes. This wasn’t how Tikaya had imagined Rias’s first meeting with her family going.

“Father.” She rested her hand on his forearm. “This is Rias. He’s—”

“One of those bloodthirsty barbarians who kidnapped you. What’re you doing here, Turg? Come to steal my grandchildren this time?”

“He brought me back,” Tikaya said. “He saved my life several times.”

Father shook her hand off his arm. “You can’t trust him. You can’t trust any of them. They’re godless heathens, girl.”

Rias clasped his hands behind his back. “You may want to attend to your workers, sir. And perhaps search your property for intruders. The failure originated in the feed water pump, a malfunctioning float switch. It may have been an accident, due to aged equipment, but it may have been sabotage as well.”

Father looked like he wanted to fight, not analyze the incident, but he pushed past Rias and stomped inside. Tikaya tried not to feel stung that she had been gone months, months when her parents must have wondered if she was even alive, and he hadn’t even given her a hug. She shook the thought away. It was more important to tend to the injured and find out what had happened to the pumping house.

She headed for the door and, though conscious of Yosis’s watching eyes, leaned her shoulder against Rias for a moment. He surprised her by slipping a folded piece of paper into her hand. She pocketed it and continued past him.

Inside, the air was cooler, though afternoon sun slanted through a gaping hole in the domed ceiling, the jagged edges smoldering. Warped machinery steamed, and the entire boiler was missing. The energy orb that heated the water lay cracked and dormant on the earthen floor amongst shattered bamboo pipes and ceramic shards. Father knelt beside two hired workers. Rias’s jacket, which bandaged one man’s leg, was already saturated with blood.

“Is this common here?” Rias touched a bamboo pipe running vertically into the ground. “Modiglar’s equations of state, and Fargot’s thermodynamics studies suggest this material isn’t viable. Copper, wrought iron, or sometimes steel are—”

“Turg barbarian,” Father growled over his shoulder. “Men are hurt, and you’re worried about our steam technology?”

Rias dropped his hand and winced. “My apologies, sir.”

Tikaya shared his wince. She understood getting caught up in musings related to one’s passion. Her father never would. He’d always been the practical sort, someone more flustered by than interested in his children’s fancies.

“Iron or steel has to be shipped in from Nuria or Turgonia,” Tikaya told Rias quietly. “It’s costly. For centuries, our people have been using the mental sciences to reinforce everything from bamboo to coconut husks.”

“I see,” Rias said. “Regardless, structural materials don’t seem to have caused the incident. The feed water pump dried up, which kept water from entering the boiler.”

“I doubt it was sabotage,” Tikaya said. “Who would bother out here?”

“What’s this place for? Irrigation of the fields?”

“That and supplying fresh water to the house and outbuildings. The well—”

“Tikaya,” Father growled, “stop sharing the workings of everything with him.”

Tikaya sighed. “Father, he’s not… He’s my…”

She studied the packed earth floor. By age thirty, it should be a simple thing to admit to one’s father that one had a lover, shouldn’t it?

He didn’t look at her, but tension hunched his shoulders. “Go to the house. Tell Telanae we need her healing skills.”

“Yes, Father.”

Tikaya almost crashed into the professor on the way out. Yosis stood in the doorway, scribbling in his notepad.

“Can you do anything useful,” she barked, “except stand back like an observer in a science experiment?”

“I have no medical training, if that’s your inquiry.”

“So, the answer is no.” Tikaya brushed past him and strode to the bicycle.

Yosis bent his head and wrote something else. Rias followed Tikaya out, pausing to frown down at the professor. Unfortunately, Yosis did not notice. Even more unfortunately, his writing did not delay him from hopping astride his bicycle and keeping up as Tikaya led the way home. She wished she hadn’t snapped at him—he was doubtlessly there to observe her as much as Rias—but it was too late to do anything about it.

A bumpy dirt road led from the pumping station to the main house. Rias kept glancing toward the ridge as they pedaled down the slope.

“I’m sure it was an accident,” Tikaya said. “Maybe one of the hired hands removed something for maintenance and didn’t get it refastened properly.”

“An accident that happened as your father happened to be in the vicinity? And as we happened to be riding to your home?”

“You Turgonians are a suspicious folk.”

“One of my commanding officers used to say, ‘The paranoid survive.’”

“Pithy,” Tikaya said. “I wonder why Turgonia isn’t known for its poets.”

“It’s hard to compose poetry when you’re sharing the gun deck with two hundred rowdy, unwashed men.”

“Did you ever try?”

“That’s one of those questions a wise man doesn’t answer,” Rias said. “If I say yes, you’ll expect me to write you poetry. If I say no, you’ll think me an uncouth illiterate.”

“Maybe you could just compose me a nice math theorem sometime.”

Rias bit his bottom lip and gave her a shy-hopeful expression. “I’ve actually been working on something for you. My men used to call it Starcrestian Search Theory—I used Groatian Statistics to narrow possibilities in the search for missing vessels. I thought I could adapt it so we could hunt for historic wrecks, sunken ships, or maybe even thus-far mythical ruins with archaeological significance. Surely, the bottoms of the ocean hold all sorts of secrets, maybe even—”

Rias’s head jerked back. He gasped and tumbled backward off the bicycle.

Tikaya skidded to a stop amidst a cloud of dust. She lunged to Rias’s side. On his knees in the dirt, he clutched his head with both hands, his face to the earth.

“Rias?” She rested her hand on his back.

He managed nothing more than short, pained gasps.

Suspicion lifted her gaze. The professor had stopped and he watched, his eyes cold. Tikaya jumped to her feet, ready to flatten the man with a punch.

He lifted a hand, and she crashed into an invisible wall.

“Stop,” Tikaya demanded.

A finger on Yosis’s other hand twitched. Rias sucked in a deep breath and knelt back. He closed his eyes for a long moment and collected himself.

“You will refrain from discussing such topics, foreigner,” Yosis told Rias.

“Such topics?” Tikaya said. “Archaeology and math? By Akahe’s Eternal Spirit, what’s befuddling your mind?”

The professor’s cool gaze rotated toward her. “Ms. Komitopis, after so long amongst the Turgonians, you are not above suspicion. Do not incriminate yourself by meddling.”

She curled her lip and swore at him, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it in a language he would understand.

Rias got to his feet, picked up the bicycle, and nodded for Tikaya to lead on. All traces of his humor—his personality—were gone, hidden behind a face that might have been carved from stone.

CHAPTER 4

The homestead came into view, the buildings nestled beneath ancient palm trees near a bluff overlooking the sea. Made from cob and tigerwood, the main house rose two stories with several cottages around it. Wood lanais wrapped each building, and breezeways ran between the structures. Smoke rose from the kitchen chimney, bringing the scent of cinnamon-vanilla yams along with the tantalizing aroma of pork slow cooking in the earth oven.

“That smells fantastic, doesn’t it?” Tikaya smiled at Rias, though it was strained. Guilt over the professor’s attack rode the bicycle with her.

“Yes,” he said.

“My mother’s a good cook.”

Rias glanced back at Yosis, probably wondering what other topics would result in punishment. “Are you?” he asked her quietly, lips quirking up in a brief smile.

The question served as a reminder of how little they knew about each other in a domestic sense. Without a life-or-death adventure to bond them, would he remain interested?

“Didn’t you say you were impressed with the raccoon kabobs I made on our trek down from the mountains?” Tikaya asked.

“Hm. Impressed with the creativity, I think I said.”

“Not the flavor? I’m better when seasonings are available.”

A small figure darted across the path in front of them. Tikaya braked, skidded, and hit a rock. She pitched sideways into the grass, landing in an ungainly heap.

Rias was at her side before she sat up.

“Apologies,” he said.

“For what?” Tikaya asked. “You’re not the one who ran across the path in front of me.”

“Isn’t it my duty to catch you when you trip or otherwise try to hurl yourself to the ground?” Rias had caught her stumbling quite a few times on their frozen trek in the Turgonian frontier lands. “The bicycle slowed me down.”

Accepting his hand, Tikaya rose to her feet. “I was hoping I’d be less likely to do that back in my homeland.” She raised her voice. “Lonaeo, was that you?”

Movement stirred the tall grass on one side of the road. A slight curly-haired boy slipped out from the cover. He carried a jar and a butterfly net. His green eyes bulged when they locked onto Rias. Lonaeo stumbled backward, tripped on his bare feet, and landed on his rump, his gear flying free.

“Must be a relative of yours,” Rias said.

“Because we look similar, or because he tripped like I always do?” Tikaya asked.

“Indeed so.” Rias’s eyes glinted.

“Tikaya!” Lonaeo climbed to his feet and hurled himself at her for a hug. “You’re alive!”

The boy’s momentum almost propelled her onto her own rump, but Rias steadied her with a hand to her back. Yosis had stopped a few yards away, and he waited with his notepad on his thigh.

“I’m alive,” Tikaya managed around a lump in her throat. Finally, someone was greeting her as if she’d actually been missed. “Rias, this is one of my nephews, Lonaeo. He’d rather hunt insects than do chores.”

“Lon-a-e-o?” Rias asked, his tongue awkward around the extra vowels. “As to the rest, who wouldn’t?”

Lonaeo sneaked a peek at Rias beneath Tikaya’s armpit. “Are you a joratt?”

Tikaya winced at the racial slur, one derived from the particularly thickheaded gorillas of the southern steppes, primates noted amongst ethologists as being particularly brutal in the way they mated and defended their territory. “Don’t use that term, please.”

“Grandpa does.”

“Grandpa’s mouth is even uglier than his hammertoes.”

“I’m Turgonian, yes,” Rias told the boy without any hint that the term bothered him.

“Is it true that you kill babies that are born weak or deformed?” Lonaeo asked. “Because they’re not strong enough to be warriors?”

Lonaeo had been born prematurely and was still small for his age. Tikaya glanced at Rias, wondering if the boy would have been sacrificed if he’d been born in Turgonia.

“Not so much any more,” Rias said. “That’s an old custom from a harsher time.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Lonaeo asked. “Or Tikaya? Or Grandma?”

Rias crouched so his eyes were level with the boy’s. “No.”

“Then why are you here? Joratts, I mean Turgs only come here to kill people.”

“Sorry, Rias,” Tikaya said, releasing Lonaeo, “he’s only seven. With four years of war, he didn’t know a time when your people were just traders who passed through.”

“I’m here to visit,” Rias told Lonaeo. “That’s all.”

“Oh. Want to see my red-wing speckled butterfly?” Lonaeo darted to the jar he’d dropped.

Professor Yosis sighed, a bored expression on his face. Tikaya was tempted to take a good long time examining her nephew’s find, but her father would be waiting for Telanae.

“A fine specimen.” Rias nodded at the jar as Lonaeo displayed the butterfly.

“The red-wing speckled is a skipper,” Lonaeo explained. “A small butterfly that skips from flower to flower. You can tell by the big eyes, see, and how its wings fold up when it’s at rest.” He opened his mouth, probably readying himself to launch into a long lecture.

“Does your mama know you’re drilling air holes into the lids of her good canning jars?” Tikaya asked.

Lonaeo blushed. “Maybe.”

“I won’t tell her if you help us find Telanae. Father needs her healing skills up at the pumping house. Did you hear the explosion?”

“Explosion?” Lonaeo scratched his head. “Maybe. I dunno. I was busy chasing my butterfly.” He brightened. “I know where Telanae is though. The tide’s out, and she’s clamming at the beach. I’ll get her!”

“Tell her to go to the pumping house!” Tikaya called after him.

Lonaeo acknowledged her with a wave.

“He’ll talk about bugs for hours if you let him,” she told Rias.

“Burble on about his passion, you mean? Sounds like another sure sign he’s a relative of yours.”

“I guess I can’t deny that.”

Tikaya walked her bicycle toward the main house’s lanai, with Rias matching her pace. Several exterior walls housed floor-to-ceiling wooden shutters, many standing open to invite in the breeze. Inside the house, dishes clanked and cabinet doors thumped.

Tikaya took a deep breath and headed for the front stairs.

Before they reached the door, a woman walked out wearing a sleeveless floral dress that showed more leg than most bathing suits. Cousin Aeli. Tikaya’s reaction was halfway between a smile and a wince. She was, of course, glad to see all her relatives, but Aeli did grate at times, perhaps more so because she’d been a promising anthropology student before deciding to become the town floozy.

“Tikaya.” Aeli flung her arms wide and hopped down the stairs, bosom bouncing, to hug her. “They said you’d be here tonight. How wonderful. You look good too. Lost a few pounds, did you? Haven’t I always told you an adventure would do you good? And this is the Turgonian who brought you home?” Her eyes lit with interest.

Standing shirtless, Rias did make for an interest-inspiring spectacle. When Tikaya had first met him, he’d been half-starved and more bone than muscle, but he had filled out in the last couple of months, and his weeks shoveling coal on the steamer had left him more fit than ever.

Knowing Aeli couldn’t breathe without flirting, and wouldn’t be cowed by the grisly reputation of Turgonians, Tikaya was tempted to step in front of Rias and growl, “Mine.” She kept her response to, “He’s Turgonian, yes.”

“Is it true what the police said? That he’s the Black Scourge of the Seas himself?” Aeli released Tikaya and faced Rias, eyeing him up and down like a particularly delectable morsel on the dinner table.

“I just call him Rias,” Tikaya said. “It’s easier on the tongue.”

“Oh, I’m sure he is. Easy on the tongue that is.” Aeli winked.

Tikaya could have kissed Rias for the fact that he was watching her instead of Aeli, despite the fact that she was going out of her way to thrust her breasts out and flip her blonde locks. He wore an am-I-supposed-to-humor-this-woman-because-she’s-related-to-you-or-can-I-ignore-her expression.

Aeli didn’t notice—or perhaps she noticed but wasn’t deterred by—his lack of interest. She strolled up to Rias and leaned against his arm. “Handsome fellow, isn’t he? Does he know any Kyattese?”

“Yes, he does,” Rias said.

Surprise flickered across Aeli’s face, but she recovered quickly and smiled. “Wonderful.” She clasped his bare forearm. “Are you coming to dinner?”

Rias lifted his brows in Tikaya’s direction.

“Yes.” Tikaya removed Aeli’s hand so Rias could back away a step. “He is.”

“Excellent. If my uncle won’t let you stay here after dinner, you can come see me tonight. My place is just up the beach.” Aeli pointed past Tikaya without seeing her.

“Wouldn’t it be crowded there?” Tikaya asked. “What with the three or four field hands you’ve usually got warming your bed?”

Aeli, gazing up at Rias, apparently did not hear.

“Thank you. We will remember your offer.” Rias stepped closer to Tikaya.

“Tikaya?” A blank expression formed on Aeli’s face. “And you?” She looked back and forth between the two of them, then shook her head. “Are you sure?”

“You needn’t sound so shocked,” Tikaya said drily.

“What happened to Parkonis?” Aeli asked. “I heard he’s alive and back on the island.”

So, the assassin had kept his word and let Parkonis go free. The news was a relief, but at the same time, the potential for complications made Tikaya groan. Yosis, standing silently by the lanai railing, withdrew his notebook again and wrote in it.

“Not that I wouldn’t choose this fellow over Parkonis too.” Aeli patted Rias on the arm—somehow she’d made the space between them disappear again. “If you get bored with Tikaya, come see me. She’s not very experienced or imaginative. Or fun. You know what her problem is? She—”

“Really needs to introduce Rias to Mother now,” Tikaya said, hoping to head Aeli off before she could start listing character deficiencies. “But this chat has been lovely. We’re all caught up already, and it’s as if I never left. Bye now.”

“When you spoke fondly of your family, I was expecting people who love and support you,” Rias said as they moved toward the front door.

“Aeli does, in her own condescending way,” Tikaya said.

“Truly? She seems like someone who would have stolen all your boyfriends in school.”

“No, my boyfriends—the scant number that there were—weren’t up to her standards. Maybe I should be flattered she’s ogling you.”

Rias paused to admire carvings sprawled across the house’s double front doors. The intricate engravings showed Tikaya’s ancestors arriving in the harbor, rowing away from a colony ship and toward the beach. She pushed open one door. A great room opened up with enough rattan chairs and couches to seat the extended family and guests. Two ceiling fans swirled the air overhead. Clatters echoed from a hallway at the back of the spacious room.

“Mother?” Tikaya called.

The clatters stilled. “Tikaya?”

The sound of sandals slapping the hardwood floor came first, then Mother appeared and raced across the great room at full speed.

A plump woman, she jiggled as she ran, and though Tikaya stood a half foot taller, she braced herself for the impact. The hug was welcome, though, and Tikaya buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. Tears dampened her cheek, and she wasn’t sure if they were hers or Mother’s. They held each other for a long moment.

“Honey,” Mother murmured, “we’ve been so scared. We didn’t hear anything for weeks and weeks, and we thought…” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “Then last night, we got a message from Parkonis—dear Akahe, his mother is going to carve him like scrimshaw for letting everyone believe he was dead—and he said…” Her head rotated toward Rias. “Yes,” she said quietly, “that’s what he said.”

Tikaya braced herself again, this time mentally. “Mother, this is Rias. Rias, my mother, Mela. That fellow lurking in the doorway is Rias’s new keeper, Professor Yosis.”

“Ma’am.” Rias bowed, not a truncated bending but a full arm-sweeping-away-from-where-a-sword-usually-hung warrior-caste bow.

“Rias?” Mother said. “That’s not the name we got.”

“Formerly Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest,” Rias said, leaving out the “Lord” that went with the official title. Maybe he thought the Kyattese would find the notion of lords pretentious. “My exile means I’ve had my right to the last name taken. I never cared much for the first on account of, ah, boyhood teasing. I started using Federias in school, and friends shortened it to Rias.”

Tikaya smiled slightly at the mention of teasing. While he had his share of Turgonian arrogance, and he had no missing confidence when it came to battle and barking orders at men, he had a shy, almost awkward side which she found endearing. She hoped her mother would too.

“And do former admirals not wear shirts?” Mother finally asked.

Rias offered a sheepish shrug.

To distract her from his unkempt state, Tikaya explained the situation in the pumping house.

“I’ll check on your father shortly,” Mother said. “Come, I want to look at you.” She held Tikaya at arm’s length and hm’ed and ahem’ed while surveying. “You’re well? You’ve lost weight. All skin and bones. We’ll have to put some extra pork on the spit. For both of you. Come, big man, we’ll see if we can find a shirt that fits you. Or at least that you won’t rip trying to put on.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rias said.

Tikaya wondered when the last time was Fleet Admiral Starcrest had been mothered by someone. It didn’t sound like he minded.

“At least he’s polite,” Mother said. “But dear…” She bent her head close to Tikaya’s as they headed toward the hallway. “What are you doing with him? Is it just that he’s bringing you home? Or… Well, Parkonis said you two are… that he might have…”

“I love him,” Tikaya said.

“Oh.” Mother stopped at the entrance of the hallway. “Oh, dear. Are you sure?” She smiled at Rias, who had stopped a few paces back, then whispered to Tikaya, “He doesn’t seem your kind of fellow, honey. Parkonis—”

“He is, Mother. My kind of fellow. You’ll see. You just have to talk to him. Give him a chance.”

At least her mother was more concerned about Rias’s suitability as a match rather than his reputation.

A thump came from the end of the hallway, the sound of a screen door closing. Two men with bows walked inside. The first was her cousin, Elloil, but the second she did not recognize. He had the small build, brown skin, and almond eyes of a Nurian, and Tikaya tensed immediately.

The stranger spotted Rias and jerked his bow up. He shouted a battle cry.

Rias dove to the floor, taking Tikaya and Mother with him. An arrow loosed, whizzing over their heads.

A startled shout came from the great room. Yosis.

Rias leaped to his feet and launched himself at the Nurian. He ripped the bow free and flung it down the hall. The Nurian whipped out a knife. The two men hit the floor in a tangle of limbs.

A shoulder rammed Elloil, and he stumbled, going down with a surprised grunt. The knife flew several feet, skidding on the floor and striking the baseboard. After a flurry of limbs Tikaya struggled to follow, Rias found the upper hand and straddled the Nurian, pinning him.

“Don’t hurt him,” Tikaya called, not sure who the Nurian was but figuring he was on friendly terms with the family.

Rias clutched his head and pitched sideways.

“Not again.” Tikaya spun on Yosis. “Let him defend himself.”

“I’ll not watch him kill a man,” Yosis barked.

The meaty thud of a fist striking flesh drew Tikaya’s attention back to the battling men. The Nurian was taking advantage of Rias’s incapacitation. He picked up the knife and lifted it above his head.

Tikaya bowled into the stranger. Hard sinewy muscles lay beneath his loose island shirt, but her momentum and greater height helped, and she ripped him off Rias. Her elbow clunked the wall hard enough to send a painful jolt through her, but she batted the knife away. It clattered to the floor.

“Stop!” Mother yelled and rang a bell.

It might have only been the dinner bell, but it startled everyone to stillness. The Nurian glowered at Rias, but Tikaya was halfway sitting on the man and did not help as he tried to squirm free.

“Find peace.” Mom crossed her arms over her bosom.

Rias sat up, the pain apparently removed, though he groaned and closed his eyes as he let his head thump back against the wall.

“Are you all right?” Tikaya whispered.

“You’d think a man my age would dislike being shot at and wrestling on the floor, but you know by now that’s not true. Though the… interruption was less pleasant.” Rias opened his eyes and found Tikaya’s gaze. She wondered at the emphasis on the word age, but her more pressing concern was Yosis and his twitchy trigger finger. And perhaps this Nurian as well.

She shifted to let him up. “Who are you?”

“That’s Mee Nar,” Elloil said, “our new neighbor. We were out hunting snapping turtles, and I invited him to dinner.”

“You didn’t say that godless dog Admiral Starcrest would be at dinner,” the Nurian said, chest heaving, his accented words coming in sputters. “He’s killed thousands of my people. He’s worse than the devil-spawned Turgonian emperor himself.”

Tikaya rubbed her elbow. Dinner was going to be interesting.

• • • • •

The room made Tikaya feel silly. There weren’t any dolls or stuffed animals nestled on the shelves, nor did a pink patchwork blanket cover the bed, but the academic awards and achievement medals peppering the walls created the aura of a student’s domicile rather than that of a professor. She had been too busy moping to redecorate during the year she’d spent home after the war. She blushed at the idea of Rias seeing her silly childhood mementos—or sharing the small bed with her. Not that that would happen with her parents—and Yosis—in the house.

Tikaya changed out of the stuffy military uniform and into a calf-length calico dress more suitable for the climate. When she folded the Turgonian garb, the pocket crinkled, and she remembered the paper Rias had slipped her outside of the pumping house. She pulled out the folded note and checked the door to make sure it was shut. Rias was with Mother and Yosis, searching for suitable attire, so she had her first moment alone.

A series of gibberish letters adorned the page. Tikaya grinned. Only Rias would pass her encrypted notes.

Periods outlined sentences, and the nonsense letter combinations looked like words, albeit longer than average ones. The addition of nulls would account for that. Rias wouldn’t have had time to compose much, so it was probably a simple substitution cipher. It wouldn’t take long to break, though she probably couldn’t do so by dinner, unless he had given her the key.

She thought back over their day’s conversations. With Yosis watching on, Rias certainly hadn’t said anything obvious. Even writing and passing the note had been a risk, especially if it contained more than terms of endearment.

His last words after the hallway scramble came to mind. Age. He’d emphasized that, hadn’t he?

Rias was forty-three. She mentally shifted the Turgonian alphabet forty-three slots to the right and replaced the letters on the note with the new ones. She resisted the urge to get a pencil and leave written evidence of her deciphering.

Tikaya, the first word said. She’d guessed correctly.

A knock sounded at the door. Tikaya jumped and stuffed the note into her pocket. Before she could invite the knocker to enter, the door opened.

“Ho, Coz,” Elloil said.

He strolled into the room, his hands in his pockets. His straight blond hair hung to his chin and had a tendency to flop into his eyes. He didn’t seem to mind viewing the world through a curtain. Beneath his tan, Elloil had the family freckles and more than his fair share of the family looks, though his oversized yellow and pink floral shirt distracted one from said looks. One of his pockets bulged with a tin that was usually full of materials for making mood-altering concoctions to smoke.

“Hello, Ell.” Tikaya checked the hallway, half-expecting the new Nurian neighbor to stride in on his heels. The sounds of arguing voices floated up from downstairs. Father had returned.

“Just wanted to apologize for that little tiff downstairs,” Elloil said. “I didn’t figure on there being Turgonian company already invited for dinner when I extended my own invitation. Who is that bloke?”

“You didn’t get the message everyone else did about Tikaya’s Turgonian?” she asked.

“I’ve been busy carving wood the last few days, and this morning the waves were breaking oh-so-fine at Black Cliff Point so naturally I spent the day on my board.”

“Naturally.” Tikaya waited for him to leave; she wanted to get back to the note.

Elloil ambled over, lay on the bed, and pillowed his hands behind his head. “Mee Nar thinks he’s some great war criminal, and your father’s hollering about you getting sheet-tangly with the Scourge of… something. I forget.”

“Did you ever read a newspaper during the war?”

“Nah, but I guess I should have. This is good stuff. For once I’m not the biggest disappointment in the family.”

“I’m glad my distressing situation is pleasing you.” Tikaya turned her eyes toward the door, implying that he could go anytime.

“Your Turgonian seems all right to me though. Gave me a friendly nod and asked where he could get a shirt like mine. And he asked it like he meant it, not like he was being sarcastic and thought I was too dim to catch on—you know, like how most of the family talks to me.”

“Ah.” Tikaya eyed the horrible shirt again. Maybe Rias thought something like that would make him appear unthreatening. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“And give up my sartorial secrets? Of course not. But I did tell him I’d get him one.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Yes, I’ll have him looking like a native right soon, though you’d better get him to grow out that short hair a bit. Makes him look military.”

“Imagine that.” Tikaya held open the door. “I appreciate your help, Elloil.”

“Aren’t you curious about the new neighbors?” Before Tikaya could answer, he continued on. “Mee Nar decided to settle here after the war, seems to have fallen in love with a native. They bought a little piece of land off the Kaudelkas, and they’re expecting their first baby.” Elloil snapped his fingers. “That’s probably why he’s so upset about a Turgonian nearby. They kill babies, I’ve heard. To demoralize the enemy.”

“Kill them and eat them, no doubt.” Tikaya leaned against the door, giving up on her cousin taking a hint. She’d have to get him to leave some other way…. “How’s the business going? Sell any surfboards lately?”

“A couple. I have a few orders for custom paint jobs too. Before long, I won’t need to mooch meals anymore.”

“You should have Rias look at your board designs,” she said, silently apologizing for sending her cousin Rias’s way. “He’s an engineer. He might have some ideas for improvements.”

“Oh? A Turgonian engineer.” Elloil sat up, clanking his head on the shelf above the bed. “They say the Turgonians are almost as good at engineering as they are at killing.”

“I’ve been in one of their ironclads, and it was impressive.”

“Excellent, excellent. I’ll talk to him.” Elloil slid off the bed and tapped the tin in his pocket. “Join me for a pre-dinner smoke?”

“No, thank you. I need to finish changing.” She waved at her bare feet.

“Sure, Tikaya.” Elloil paused in the doorway and put a hand on her shoulder. “Good to have you back safe. You’re one of the few family members who doesn’t look down upon me.”

Tikaya squirmed under the display of gratitude, given that she had been trying her hardest to get rid of him. “That’s only because you’re one the few family members tall enough to look me level in the eyes,” she said lightly.

He chuckled and left.

Tikaya pressed her back against the door, yanked Rias’s note from her pocket, and deciphered the rest.

Tikaya,

Something untoward is going on, more than animosity for the role I played in the war. Your police chief was initially suspicious of my intentions when he discovered the submarine design, but I can understand that. Such a vessel would make the ideal spy craft. What’s odd is that your high minister walked in, saw the designs, and grew agitated. He covered it quickly, but I read the concern—no, it was fear—in his eyes. When he announced his intention to release me, the police were shocked. Tikaya, animals released into the wild make easier targets for poachers than those kept secure in zoos. I think I’m being set up. I’ll worry about that, but I need you to find out if there’s any other reason a submarine would be cause for alarm here.

I love you.

Rias

Tikaya leaned her head back, feeling the knobbiness of her thick braid against the door. More Turgonian paranoia, or was Rias right? She wanted to dismiss it, to think her people had only the best of intentions, despite questionable means, and were observing Rias out of fear for the safety of the islands, but it was hard to dismiss his suspicions. She wagered a lot of his hunches had proved right over the years. Surely one didn’t become the empire’s youngest admiral and highest-ranking naval officer by guessing wrong often.

She penned a quick, “I’ll check into it,” using his key, then grabbed a pair of sandals. As she tightened the straps, the dinner bell rang.

CHAPTER 5

“No, no, no, no!” Grandpa said from the front door, pointing at Rias. Though nearly eighty, the wiry old grump stood with his chest stuck out, his legs spread, and his ropy muscles flexed, as if he intended to charge over and start a fight. “No joratt gorilla is going to sit at my dinner table or sleep in my house, and he sure as spit isn’t going to bone my granddaughter.”

Tikaya, who was stepping off the last tread on the staircase, froze with her hand on the bannister knob. Two-dozen sets of eyes swiveled toward her, including those of nieces and nephews too young to understand what was going on. Yosis stood behind Rias, a pleased smirk on his lips. Rias wore his hard-to-read face.

“Father.” Mother had come out of the kitchen in time to hear the tirade. “Please curb your language in front of the children. And Akahe knows I don’t want to hear such words either.” She placed baskets of fried taro chips on the massive split-log table in the dining area at the end of the great hall.

“Language?” Grandpa roared. “That gorilla is swinging from the ceiling fans, and you’re worried about words?”

“A man is here for dinner, and he’s not made any trouble so far.” As she spoke, Mother directed youngsters, using gestures, to set plates and silverware. “There’s no reason to yell.”

Rias stood on the threshold between the two rooms, holding a tray of glasses and utensils for Mother. She’d found him a creamy, V-neck shirt that left his wrists bare. He filled out the shoulders, but the torso hung limply—the shirt had been designed for someone rotund rather than muscular and wasn’t particularly flattering. Perhaps one of Ell’s shirts would be an improvement after all.

On the opposite side of the great hall, beyond several sofas and chairs full of relatives, Mee Nar stood in a corner with a woman Tikaya didn’t know—his wife presumably. He was as far from Rias as one could be without going outside, and he was watching Rias like the chicken eyeing the fox stalking about outside the coop. He wasn’t the only one. Nobody seemed to care that the “fox” was doing nothing more hostile than helping set the table. Kytaer, Tikaya’s brother, had come in at some point, and now sat on a sofa with his wife and children, toddlers Tikaya had last seen the night of her abduction. She was glad they were well, though currently they were squirming about, hanging off the edge of the sofa. Their mother was insisting they stay seated instead of playing. No doubt, she worried that the visiting Turgonian would eat them if they wandered too close.

Ky gave Tikaya a relieved smile when he noticed her, but tension edged his eyes.

With great reluctance, Tikaya left the shelter of the stairway and walked into the room. At the same time Father and Cousin Telanae entered through a back doorway, escorting the pair of workers from the pumping house. Rias’s makeshift bandages had been replaced with real ones, though the men all appeared much haler. Father met Tikaya’s eyes, and his arm lifted, as if to invite her to a hug, but he noticed Rias, and his face hardened and his hand dropped.

“Are they truly going to tolerate Admiral Starcrest at their dinner table?” the Nurian’s wife asked, whispering to her husband loudly enough for most people in the room to hear. “And are we truly going to dine with him? Do you know how many of your people he’s killed? And how many of our people died because of his commands? How can they consider extending their food and hospitality?”

“Of course I know,” Mee Nar whispered back through a clenched jaw.

“Are we extending our food and hospitality?” Kytaer asked Father.

Grandpa’s eyes nearly bulged out of his face. “No!”

“Yes,” Mother said as she laid the last of twenty-odd place settings. “He’s Tikaya’s guest. And I’ll remind you all that Tikaya is back, and she’s healthy and well. It wouldn’t hurt you all to let her know you’re happy to see her, and thankful to Akahe that she’s returned safely. I, for one, cannot wait to hear the details of what’s happened. Parkonis’s accounting was terribly brief and a touch confusing.”

Mother’s speech inspired numerous hangdog expressions. Kytaer and a few of Tikaya’s cousins stood, and started toward her, arms outstretched for hugs as they offered humble apologies. The moment had the makings of being pleasant, but Grandpa’s cranky voice shattered it.

“Details,” he spat. “His people kidnapped her, used her in devil sprites only know what perverted manner, brainwashed her into sympathizing with them, and now he’s here to spy on our islands for that beast of an emperor of his. The war didn’t end the way those joratts wanted, thanks in large part to us—” he thumped his chest as if he’d been out there on the guerrilla ships himself, “—and now they’re here to figure out how to get our island in another way. You’re all blind if you don’t see that, and I’m embarrassed to call you my kin.” He stomped out the door, shutting it with a bang.

Tikaya looked past her family members, whose greetings and endearments were faltering in the wake of Grandpa’s tirade, and caught Rias’s eye. “Sorry,” she mouthed, apologizing for the fourth or fifth time that day.

He twitched his fingers as if to say it didn’t bother him in the least. That was hard to believe.

Behind him, Yosis bent and scribbled something in his notebook. When Mother took the last of the dinner utensils from Rias, he surprised Tikaya by joining Yosis. There were too many people talking in between her and him, so she couldn’t hear what he asked, but Yosis mumbled some response. She wondered if Rias hoped to humanize himself in his watchdog’s eyes. She’d seen him do it before, pick the one person he knew he needed on his side and win his loyalty. She couldn’t see Yosis developing a fondness for him though.

“Enough dallying about.” Mother gestured to the table. “Isn’t anybody hungry?”

A flock of people, spearheaded by the children—cousins, nieces, and nephews ranging from three to sixteen in age—descended upon the table. Mother recruited a couple of the older girls to help her carry platters out from the kitchen.

Tikaya received a few hugs and back pats on the way, though Grandpa’s words had draped a pall over the house. Even her closest kin peered into her eyes, as if to search for the mind that they were sure had gone missing. Her brother stopped her before she reached the dining area.

“Good to see you, ’Kaya, but this isn’t how I imagined you returning home. When I told you Mother was planning to give you a lecture on settling down with a new fellow and making babies, I didn’t think you’d do something drastic, like arranging to have yourself kidnapped to find a man.”

Tikaya knew he was trying to make her feel better by making jokes, but his grin seemed forced, and his attempt at humor earned a scowl from Father as he strode past.

“It proved a more effective way to meet men than moping by myself in the cane fields,” Tikaya said.

“Anything would be more effective than that. Tikaya…” Ky lowered his voice and eased her to the side, putting his back to Rias and blocking her view of him. “Is he… Did he coerce you into bringing him here for some reason?”

“No.” Tikaya fought down a grimace. She might as well get used to the question, as variations of it seemed to be on everyone’s minds. “I coerced him into coming. Which, given the reception he’s receiving, was probably a mistake.”

Ky blinked slowly a few times. “Oh. But… he’s… He’ll never be welcome here. Everyone on the island lost someone during the war or had a loved one return maimed. Or tortured. Or neglected for months in their prisoner-of-war camps. The Turgonians are monsters, Tikaya. They don’t respect humanity the way we do.”

“They’re not monsters; they’re people, the same as us. From a different culture with different values, yes, but the world is full of differences. It’d be a tedious place to live in if that weren’t the case. I know it’ll be hard for him to find acceptance here, and we’re not planning on staying long. I just had to come home and let everyone know I was all right.”

“Not planning on staying? But what about your dream of researching at the Polytechnic and having children and raising them near the beach and all that?”

Tikaya had already reconciled herself to the idea that in choosing Rias she was ensuring that vision wouldn’t come to pass, but the reminder did stir a pang of regret in her. Still, she lifted her chin and said, “Some people are worth changing one’s dreams for.”

Ky stared at her. “Not him. He’s—”

“A good man. Yes, he was on the other side during the war, but that doesn’t make him a monster. Talk to him. You’ll see.”

Ky looked like he’d swallowed something bitter. “What about… Oh, what about Parkonis?” he asked, eyes lighting as if he’d experienced an epiphany on how to turn the argument in his favor.

“I thought he was dead for a year. No, he let me think that. He let us all think that.”

“There’s a story behind that, I’m sure.”

“Nothing that shines a flattering light upon him,” Tikaya said.

“But, still, you were engaged. You made a promise to each other. Shouldn’t you…?”

“No. Rias is a bigger man than Parkonis.” Despite the seriousness of the conversation, the naughty part of her mind couldn’t help but smirk and think, in every sense of the word… “And he treats me like I matter. More than anything.”

This time, Ky didn’t say, “Oh,” but his mouth did form the syllable.

“Are you two going to join us for dinner?” Mother asked.

Everyone else had found a seat around the long table. Rias was stuck between Yosis and little Lonaeo whose gestures suggested he’d already started in on stories of his butterfly collection. He definitely wasn’t one of those children who was shy around adults. At least Rias would have someone to talk to who wasn’t employing frosty glares.

The closest available seat was four chairs down. Tikaya headed toward it, but Mother caught her and veered her in another direction, toward the head of the table. She patted the empty chair there.

“Erp?” Tikaya asked.

Elloil, sitting a few chairs down, pushed his bangs out of his eyes and smirked at her. “Those are the sorts of eloquent utterings that must make Mother and Father proud of the coin they invested in your years of linguistics education.”

Before Tikaya could do more than flush with embarrassment—for some reason, all the conversations had stopped, and the whole family was watching her—Mother smacked Elloil on the back of the head. “Hush, dear. We are very proud of Tikaya. And concerned for her too. That’s why she’s going to sit right there and tell us what’s been going on for the last couple of months.”

Tikaya met Rias’s gaze—my, he was way down at the far end of the table—and he gave her a supportive smile. Something in his eyes made her meet them longer than she might have otherwise. Wariness? He was probably wondering how much of the story she would reveal. Everything they had done was top secret, at least insofar as the Turgonians were concerned. Tikaya nodded once at Rias—she didn’t intend to bring up the power or the re-write-the-history-books nature of the ancient artifacts. A few people exchanged concerned glances. Because she’d looked to him before settling in? She sighed. An hour with her family, and she was already longing for the secluded library archives at the Polytechnic.

“I imagine you’re all wondering where I’ve been.” Tikaya forced a smile, pulled out her chair, and tried to sit down without feeling awkward beneath all those stares. It didn’t work. Her rump caught the edge of the seat instead of the middle, and it slipped off. She plopped to the floor, head dropping below the table, chair toppling onto the bamboo floor.

Blushing furiously, Tikaya scrambled to her feet. The good-natured laughter of the children reached her ears. That wasn’t so bad. The adults offered a mix of sighs, exchanged glances, and questions of, “Are you all right, Tikaya?”

“Fine.” She planted her rump firmly on the seat with her second try. She kept herself from looking at Rias, since people seemed to be concerned every time their eyes met.

“It’s good to see that some things never change,” Elloil said.

“That’s the truth,” Ky said. “And that’s why I said your theory wouldn’t prove true.”

“Theory?” Tikaya asked.

“Ell thought the Turgonians kidnapped you for your height and archery skills,” Ky said, “and that they were going to put you on some sort of baby-making farm to breed tall, strong warriors. But I pointed out that your clumsiness might be passed down to your children and that the empire would be disappointed in the result.”

Before she caught herself, Tikaya threw Rias an exasperated do-you-see-what-my-family-is-like look. She didn’t know how much of the conversation he was following—her kin had a tendency to speak often and rapidly—but the corners of his eyes were crinkled in amusement. So long as he felt entertained instead of bored—or endangered.

Mother, walking around the table with a giant bowl of poi, clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Nobody thought that, dear. We knew it was related to your work during the war. But, please, do explain before we burst from pent-up wonder.”

Tikaya eyed the table’s steaming platters of oysters, seared fish and limu, yams, chicken, and pork, and reluctantly acknowledged that her meal would wait. As the rest of the family heaped food onto their plates, she launched into her story. She took them from the day Agarik had first found her harvesting cane in the fields, to the kidnapping, to the journey across the sea, and the strange prisoner who’d been locked up across from her in the brig.

“I don’t see how you failed to recognize him,” Father said, interrupting her several minutes after she’d mentioned Rias and had gone on to explain the symbols the marines had given her to translate. Mother gave him a quelling glare. He said, “What? There was a tintype of him in the conference room during the war.”

Dear Akahe, was that right? Tikaya vaguely remembered pictures of Turgonian leaders posted on an “enemies of the islands” wall. Intent on the cryptanalyst work, she’d rarely paid attention to the decor.

“Of me?” Rias asked. “That’s flattering.”

It was the first thing he’d said to the table. Tikaya had a feeling he was trying to fill the silence that had blossomed after her father’s words. Or maybe Rias meant to distract Father from casting judgment upon her.

Father only scowled at him instead. “The high minister enjoyed throwing darts at it while receiving vexing news.”

“Ah,” Rias said. “I hear the Nurian chiefs had a similar practice.” He spoke slowly and took care with his pronunciation, perhaps not wishing to appear unschooled before Tikaya’s family. As if he needed to worry about establishing his education credentials.

“You’re a popular fellow,” Elloil said with a wink, apparently unfazed by Rias’s former occupation. Of course, not much ever fazed Ell.

“At the time we met, I wasn’t,” Rias said. “I’d spent two years in exile on Krychek Island, a—” He looked at Tikaya and asked, “Barren?” in Turgonian. She supplied the Kyattese word, and he continued. “A barren rock in the middle of the ocean. I was living off what… fishes the tides brought in…” He grimaced, fishes apparently not being the exact word he wanted. Doubtlessly he’d had to scrape seaweed and algae off the rocks and scavenge all sorts of dubious foods to make his meals. “And,” he went on, “I was also busy wishing not to be eaten by the more… man-eating—” another glance at Tikaya, and she supplied, “cannibalistic.” “Yes, cannibalistic residents,” Rias said. “I looked like… There weren’t any mirrors, but my own mother would have found it hard to identify me.”

“Cannibals?” Cousin Aeli asked, touching a hand to her always-on-display cleavage. “That must have been dreadful for you.”

“It was an unpleasant experience, yes,” Rias said. “But Tikaya’s story will interest you more, I’m certain.” He nodded toward Tikaya, inviting her to go on.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Aeli purred.

Mother, still walking about and making sure people’s plates were full—even though everyone could reach platters and ladle foods themselves—accidentally smacked Aeli’s hand with her ladle. “Sorry, dear. More poi?” The shrewd squint that accompanied the question suggested the smack hadn’t been so accidental.

At least Mother seemed to be on Tikaya’s side. After nibbling on a couple bites of yam, she continued with the adventure. From the point where she started talking of the corpse-filled outpost of Wolfhump, the craziness that descended upon the marines, and the strange device causing the trouble, the family grew silent. Even the toddlers watched her with wide eyes. Rias listened intently as well, perhaps curious how the whole adventure had played out from her point of view, though she did catch him observing the Nurian guest from time to time too. Was he wondering if these details would make it back to the Nurian government? Tikaya trusted that he wouldn’t attempt to make the foreign neighbor disappear, but she brushed lightly over information on how powerful the ancient technology was, and she said nothing of how it’d come into existence in the first place. She also didn’t go into the details of the language deciphering—as she’d long ago learned, few people in her family shared her philology passion—or of her and Rias’s moments of… relationship advancement, as she decided to think of them. But, seeing the interest from the youngsters, she did her best to relay the monster attacks in a lively manner. Knowing that people might condemn her for turning her back on Parkonis, she explained exactly what had happened with him and what he’d confessed to.

“Iweue will smack that boy on the nose with her fattest book,” Mother said. “She’ll be relieved to have her youngest son back, but, goodness, how could he let his family mourn him? All of us, for that matter. We had his funeral, by Akahe.”

“Just be glad we didn’t have to hold a funeral for Tikaya,” Father said. It was almost a warming sentiment until he added, “Joratt Turgonians.”

Tikaya might correct her little nephew’s use of the derogatory term, but she doubted her father would appreciate chastisements from his daughter. She let Mother scowl at him for her, then went on with her story. Tikaya made sure to mention Gali and her telepathic intrusion. She didn’t know if the woman would dare return to the islands after the oaths she’d stomped all over, but Tikaya did fear that the tide would bring other versions of the adventure up to the beach, and she wanted to lay down the facts first.

She finished by explaining how she and Rias had defeated the emperor’s assassin and the Turgonian plans for withdrawing the weapons, emphasizing how crucial he’d been in her safe return home. She never could have made her way across those frozen mountains on her own.

“Hm,” Father said when she finished. That was all he said.

Tikaya swallowed. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but that wasn’t it. She had the impression he didn’t believe her, or at least only partially believed her. It was, she admitted, a fanciful and unlikely story, but why would she make things up for them? Especially in front of Rias? Or was it because of Rias’s presence that they thought she was making things up? Did they think he was coercing her into telling this story? Why? It hardly slanted the Turgonians at a favorable angle. Though perhaps people were thinking that everything was a ruse to provide a cover story for Rias’s supposed spy mission. Surely, they would have thought up a less imaginative story if they were making something up.

Tikaya removed her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.

“It’s good that you’ve made it back to us, dear,” Mother said. Sometime during the narrative, she’d finally sat down. “Why don’t you eat before you faint and fall off your chair again? It doesn’t look like those brutes fed you.”

“I will, Mother.” Tikaya blinked when she noticed how full her plate had grown. How many passes had Mother made, shoveling food on with each round? Some things never changed.

“That was a good story,” Lonaeo said, his green eyes bright. He plucked at Rias’s sleeve. “Do you know any stories?”

“Nobody wants to hear his stories of blood-thirsty conquering,” Father growled.

Lonaeo sank low in his chair.

“Father,” Tikaya said, “he’s not like that.” How could Father truly think that after she’d explained everything? “Talk to him. He’s—”

“We’ve talked enough.” Father pushed his chair back and rose so quickly he almost upended it. “I’ve had enough of being cordial. That man is responsible for many of our cousins’ deaths, and his cursed marines raped and tortured half the men and women who fought to defend our islands. That he has the gall to come here, and that he’s done Akahe knows what to my daughter, is, is— I can’t even find words for this vileness.” Face redder than a sunset, Father stalked out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.

“Who wants rum?” Mother asked into the silence. “Or coffee? We make both here on our land, Mister Rias. Is it all right if I call you that or are you a lord or sir or some such? I do find Turgonia’s rule by aristocracy terribly impractical, but I suppose all peoples must find enlightenment in their own time.”

Tikaya cringed. Only her mother could offer someone a drink and call him a savage in the same breath.

“Just Rias is fine, ma’am,” he said, neglecting to comment on the rest.

“Very good. Everyone, if you’ll have a seat in the living room, I’ll bring drinks and desserts. We have grilled pineapple and caramelized plantains. Jea and Oalaia, come help me serve, please.”

Though Tikaya had not eaten more than a few bites, she was more than ready to escape from the table. Rias was rising as well, and she tried to veer toward him, but she found herself waylaid by a handful of nieces and nephews—nephews in particular—wanting more details on the monsters they’d fought in the tunnels. While she was trying to answer questions and simultaneously extricate herself, Elloil led Rias toward a courtyard door. Ell carried a bottle of spiced rum in one hand, and Tikaya worried about what he might have in mind. Getting Rias drunk? Or getting drunk himself? Neither sounded like intelligent propositions.

Before he walked out with Ell, Rias met her eyes across the room, giving her a head tilt that she guessed meant, “I’ll be out here when you can get away.”

Yosis trailed dutifully after him, so Tikaya doubted they’d find a chance for a private chat. The atmosphere in the great room lightened as soon as he left, with voices growing louder and more animated, and laughter punctuating conversations for the first time that evening. It stung Tikaya that Rias’s absence should be so welcomed, but she knew it’d take time before anyone could grow accustomed to him. Nobody had spat in his food or knocked his dish in his lap. Maybe that was a start. Or maybe they just hadn’t dared.

The Nurian and his wife said goodnights to Mother and left, both receiving smiles and nods from her family members. Tikaya would have wagered a lot that if the Turgonians hadn’t tried to take over the Kyatt Islands, the Nurians would have attempted the same move sooner or later. It didn’t seem fair that Rias should receive nothing but hatred while this Mee Nar wandered about on friendly terms with everyone.

Mother shooed the children away, but more people came up to welcome Tikaya home, so several minutes passed before she could escape to the courtyard lanai. She gripped the railing and searched for Rias by the dim lighting of whale oil torches dotting the paths.

The wooden lanai overlooked a garden sheltered on three sides by the wings of the house. The ocean roared in the distance, but not so loudly as to mask the gurgling of a large stone fountain in the center of the courtyard. Tikaya’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she picked out two figures standing near the water feature. No, three. The third lurked in the shadows of a candle bush a few feet from the others, his white robes standing out against the darkness.

“Rias?” Tikaya asked, picking her way down the flagstone steps and along the path.

“You didn’t tell me he doesn’t drink, ’Kaya,” Ell said, his voice drowning out Rias’s quiet, “Yes?”

She joined the two men, pointedly putting her back to Yosis. She hoped the dim lighting would make it hard for him to record notes in his journal. It’d be a shame if someone accidentally kicked the thing into the fountain.

“He’s a wholesome fellow,” Tikaya said, though Rias had shared an apple liquor with her one night during their adventure, so he was no teetotaler. His reluctance to imbibe here was probably due to not wanting to dampen his wits in “enemy territory.” How depressing that he considered her family’s home more of a danger than that frozen fort full of dead people where they’d spent the night.

“Wholesome?” Ell asked. “That’s a word better reserved for vegetables than men. Drink?” He offered Tikaya the bottle. The air smelled of vanilla and the spices in the rum.

“Maybe later. Rias, uhm…” She wasn’t sure what to say. Her apologies were starting to feel painfully redundant to her, but her father and grandfather’s behavior needed some explanation, she felt.

His hand found hers, warm and dry. And reassuring. Until he spoke. “I’m going to head into town shortly. Your cousin has offered suggestions on affordable lodgings.”

“You’re leaving?” Tikaya blurted in Kyattese, then repeated it in Turgonian, realizing he’d spoken in his own tongue.

“It’ll be for the best.”

She could hardly blame him, after the reception he’d received, but if he disappeared, her family wouldn’t have a chance to get to know him. She wouldn’t be able to show them that he wasn’t a monster, that he was a good man. And she wouldn’t be able to slip away for a tryst during the night, to discuss plans or engage in less… vocabulary-driven activities. She rolled her eyes, telling herself that sex was the least important thing to worry about just then. She’d been chaste for nearly a year before meeting him. A few nights alone wouldn’t be that devastating. Except that it’d already been more than a few nights, due to his long shifts in the boiler room…

“I’ll come with you,” Tikaya said, even as she admitted that her brain wasn’t entirely responsible for the words. An image of sharing a rented bungalow on the beach with Rias sounded lovely, though a guilty twinge ran through her at the idea of leaving Mother, in particular, after only a couple of hours back. “Family reunions are more palatable in small doses, after all,” she said by way of justification.

“You should stay with your family. They’ve missed you and would doubtlessly be upset if you chose to leave shortly after arriving.”

“I know, but—”

Rias squeezed her hand. “Also, it hasn’t eluded my notice that people think I’m coercing you somehow and have ulterior reasons for being here.”

“Oh.” Tikaya prodded the base of the fountain with her toe. It shouldn’t surprise her that Rias, despite not being a native speaker, had picked up on the nuances of the conversations going on around him, but it meant she knew what he’d say next.

“It’ll be better if we’re separated for a while, so your family can see that I’m not manipulating you. Others as well.” Rias tilted his head toward Yosis, who hadn’t moved or spoken since she came out. No doubt he hoped they’d forget he was there and let some devious Turgonian secrets slip out.

“Given what my people believe about imperial brainwashing methods, they’ll probably think you can sway me all you like from miles away.”

Rias chuckled softly, though she picked out a sadness underlying it. “Your family, at least, should know you’re too smart for something like that,” he said.

“You’d hope so, but…” Tikaya thought of Parkonis and how quickly he’d accused her of having captive complex. Of course, he’d been hurt that she was choosing Rias over him and had been looking for a justification. That was the problem. In the aftermath of the war, everyone on the island would seek similar justifications. They’d want to believe that all Turgonians were evil. Though a decade or two would dull the wounds, it might be too early to ask anyone to accept Rias as anything other than a savage. “Mother did seem to think you were acceptable,” Tikaya finally said, feeling the silence had grown too long. “At least she made pleased grunts every time she circled the table and saw that you’d cleared your plate and were ready for another serving.”

From his, “Hm,” Tikaya couldn’t tell if he was dismissing Mother as an ally worth having or considering the ways she might help his cause. Since they were observed, she dared not ask about any strategies he might plan to employ. If he was strategizing at all. Maybe he just hoped to bide his time until he could escape.

“Can you understand what they’re talking about?” Ell asked.

It took Tikaya a moment to realize he was addressing Yosis. The professor ignored him. It didn’t seem to bother Ell.

“Because all they’ve done so far is hold hands. Chastely. I’m beginning to fear The Black Scourge of the Seas is wholesome. How disappointing for someone with such a fierce name.”

Since Yosis was facing Ell for the moment, Tikaya took the opportunity to slip her response to Rias’s earlier note into his hand. “Not everyone wants an audience for… intimate activities, Ell. Perhaps you could take the professor out front and give us a moment to say goodbye.”

Ell eyed Yosis, who returned his consideration in a baleful touching-me-would-be-bad-for-your-health way. “I never had much luck getting professors to listen to me,” Ell said and dug his tobacco tin out of his pocket.

“Where are you going to stay?” Tikaya asked Rias as her cousin rolled and lit a cigarette. “I need to visit the Polytechnic tomorrow and get some advice from colleagues on the artifacts, chiefly whether we should make them disappear for all eternity or put together a team to study them.” She remembered the request Rias had made in his note, that she figure out why someone might be alarmed at the notion of his submarine, and added, “It’s a good place to do research,” while squeezing his hand.

Rias nodded. “Though I can understand your fascination with the language—and the puzzles intrigued me as well—my vote would be for burying those secrets somewhere. The world isn’t ready for them.”

Yosis moved a couple of steps closer to a torch and tilted his notepad in that direction so he could write. Tikaya curled a lip at him.

“As to my lodgings, your cousin here says the Pragmatic Mate is affordable.”

“And you can get all manner of poki there,” Ell added in Kyattese, making Tikaya wonder how much of their conversation he understood. As far as she knew, he’d failed most of his linguistics classes—all of his classes, in truth—but more from a lack of interest than aptitude, she’d always thought.

“Poki?” Rias asked dubiously.

“Hallucinogenic compounds,” Tikaya said. “But, really, Rias, the Pragmatic Mate? The locals call it the Pernicious Miasma, with good reason, I’m given to understand. The place makes your igloo seem palatial. You must not want me to visit.”

“I’m certain I’ve stayed in worse accommodations. Though it would be a shame if you didn’t visit.”

“You’re lucky I’ve discovered a new adventurous streak. Also, we don’t have to stay there if I visit. Kyatt offers many scenic and private destinations.” Which she’d dearly love to share with him, if they could get rid of—

“Put out that dreadful thing,” Yosis growled, speaking for the first time all evening.

“Dreadful?” Ell lifted his cigarette. “My proprietary blend of vanilla-spiced tobacco is most certainly not dreadful. It’s—” He crinkled his nose. An acrid, smoky scent had drifted into the courtyard. “That’s not me.”

“Fire?” Rias released Tikaya’s hand and snapped into an alert posture.

“It smells worse than a wood fire,” Tikaya said.

A surprised yell came from inside the house, or perhaps the lanai on the far side. Rias must have thought it originated outside, for he ran to the back of the courtyard and raced around the corner of the house.

Yosis cursed and fumbled to snap his journal shut.

Tikaya gripped his arm before he could think of stopping Rias with that ghastly device. “I’m sure he’s going to help.”

But the rest of her family might not appreciate his “help.” Tikaya released Yosis and ran after Rias.

Since she’d changed back into sandals, her footwear slapped against the flagstones as she raced around the house. As much as she’d loathed that Turgonian uniform, the boots had been more practical for active pursuits. She didn’t need to run far before a startling sight brought her to a halt so quickly she almost tripped.

The front lawn was on fire.

It wasn’t some random bonfire, but three lines of… Tikaya squinted. Letters? Words? From her angle, she couldn’t read them.

Her kin were pouring out of the house to stand on the lanai and gape. Tikaya searched about for Rias. When she didn’t see him on the lanai or lawn, a hunch drew her gaze upward. He stood on the roof, looking down at the flames, his face grim. She thought about shouting up to him, asking for a translation, but decided to climb up instead.

Using the corner lanai post for support, she clambered up the railing and pulled herself onto the roof without any particular grace. Unlike her brother, she’d never been one to sneak out from the second-story bedrooms to run off with friends or lovers, so she lacked practice. She made it up, though, and joined Rias. From the elevated perch, the flaming words were easy to make out. Unfortunately.

Go home, joratt. Death awaits you here.

“I suppose you can read that,” Tikaya said, groping for a way to make light of the situation, though worry weighed upon her heart. And anger as well. What bastard would have come onto her family’s property to do such a thing? Though a hint of the mental sciences lingered in the air and was doubtlessly responsible for the perfect outlines of those letters in flames, any fire had the potential to get out of hand. What if sparks landed on the thatch roof of the house?

“My vocabulary has many holes in it, but those are words I knew long before I met you, yes.”

“I’m sorry, Rias. I’m sure it’s just one angry person who’s misguided and not thinking. Or…” She stopped. She didn’t want to justify the actions of whatever idiot had done this.

“As I was saying, it’ll be best if I leave tonight.” Rias touched her back gently and maneuvered past her to hop off the roof.

Feeling numb, Tikaya watched the flames until her father’s bellow echoed up from the lanai below. “Everyone stop standing around. Get down here to put out this fire!”

By the time Tikaya climbed down, Rias and Yosis were gone.

CHAPTER 6

“It’s fascinating,” Professor Liusus said, her face so close to the black sphere, she kept bumping it with her nose. Her chin clunked the bamboo table on which the artifact sat more than once. She didn’t notice. She held her spectacles in one hand and, with the other, kept shoving back gray strands of hair that fell into her eyes as she examined the artifact from every angle. It’d been at least ten minutes since she’d said anything to Tikaya or acknowledged her presence in the room.

Tikaya didn’t mind. She knew Liusus had a passion as strong as her own, though her specialty was maritime archaeology rather than philology. They’d had occasion to work together often, and Tikaya considered Liusus a friend and mentor.

Tikaya leaned forward and touched a series of symbols on the outside of the object. A spherical projection formed in the air above the device, depicting one of the race’s languages, the last thing she had been studying. Liusus stumbled back, hand to her chest, eyes wide. She bumped her chair, upturning it with a loud thunk that echoed through the library alcove, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s not an artifact,” she said, giving the word the special accent to refer to a practitioner-crafted device rather than an archeological find. “There’s no sense of—”

“I know,” Tikaya said. “It’s all technology-based.”

“Technology…” Liusus started to lean back over the table again, but her foot caught on the leg of the fallen chair. She stared at it for a moment, as if perplexed as to why a piece of furniture might be lying down there, then straightened it with an exasperated grunt. “Have you showed this to anyone else yet?”

Liusus eyed the surrounding shelves full of scrolls and textbooks, as if she feared some spy might be watching from behind the stacks.

“Yes, the police searched my bags when I returned, and the artifacts were flagged and sent over to Dean Teailat. He, his staff, and I had quite the discussion about them this morning.” Tikaya had relayed the same story that she’d shared with her family, though there’d been far more questions related to the tunnels, language, artifacts, and ancient people. She’d given accurate accounts of everything. Someone had to know the truth about what the relic raiders and the Turgonians had been up to, and how dangerous the technology was, as she wasn’t comfortable holding all that information to herself, though she did hope she could trust her colleagues to remain tight-lipped about everything.

“And they let you have them back?” Liusus asked.

“Sort of. I’m to keep them at the Polytechnic and only study them here until the department heads have met and discussed the situation. I’m still trying to arrange communication with the president. He definitely needs to know about all this, and I need his help with another matter as well.”

“Yes.” Liusus reclaimed her seat. “I understand your other matter is the talk of the island.”

Tikaya grimaced. Her colleague had never married, nor, in the years Tikaya had known her, shown interest in physical relations; she’d hoped Liusus would be too fascinated with the artifacts to care about rumors concerning Rias. In the less than twenty-four hours that she’d been home, Tikaya had already received enough advice on that matter and had no wish to discuss it again.

“The fire in your yard must have been alarming,” Liusus said, her tone sympathetic.

“Yes… Who have you been hearing all the details from?” Tikaya wondered which of her family members was blabbing to the world. Everyone might know about Rias, but what happened on their plantation ought not be fodder for the island gossip mills.

“It was in the morning newspaper.”

“I didn’t think you read the news. It’s too recent, you’ve said on many occasions.”

“That’s correct,” Liusus said, “but everyone was discussing it in the staff lounge this morning.”

Tikaya sighed. “Wonderful.”

“If it cheers you up, only one in three of your colleagues thinks the Turgonian has brainwashed you into bringing him here so he can spy while perpetrating the ruse of being your lover.”

“Wonderful,” Tikaya repeated. “What do the other two thirds think?” Why, she wondered, am I asking when the answer will only irritate me?

“Mixed reactions. A few outliers think you may be knowingly colluding with him, rather than being brainwashed—”

Tikaya rolled her eyes. Was that supposed to be an improvement?

“—but those were people who aren’t aware of what your work in the war entailed. A couple of optimistic sorts who are aware of your cryptography contributions—and admire them very much—think you’re working for the president and, under his orders, seduced the admiral in order to extract information for our people’s benefit.”

Tikaya snorted. That was new. And even more ridiculous than the rest. As if she could seduce someone. “Does anyone think we were thrust into an adventure together, against our wishes, and happened to fall in love along the way?”

Liusus scratched her jaw thoughtfully. “I don’t recall that version. Not enough intrigue to capture people’s fancies, I imagine.”

No, of course not. “So, how are you doing? Is anything new happening in the world of marine archaeology? I haven’t talked to you much this last year.” Tikaya would have wanted to catch up with her colleague anyway, but she’d specifically sought Liusus out because of Rias’s message.

“Yes, I’ve been busy looking over wreckage from a Danmesk Empire shipyard that was unearthed on the Bratar Coast, a good four hundred miles south of what was previously believed to be the southern most border of the empire. We believe volcanic activity buried a significant coastal colony there nearly two thousand years ago.” Liusus took a breath, signifying that she was warming up to a lengthy lecture on the topic.

“Nothing closer to home?” Tikaya felt rude for cutting her friend off, and, in different circumstances, would have enjoyed hearing about the new dig, but she was quite certain that a civilization that had been dead for over fifteen hundred years wouldn’t have a problem with Rias building a submarine.

“What do you mean?” Liusus asked.

“Around the islands. Our islands.”

“Our history is well documented, given that our people were writing and keeping records when we first colonized the islands seven hundred years ago. The maritime museum even has one of the original settlers’ ships on display, along with examples of dress, tools, and housing from the time period.” Liusus tilted her head. “But you’ve been to the museum, surely, and know all of that.”

“Yes, I was just wondering…” Tikaya removed her spectacles and took a moment to clean the lenses while considering if she should tell her colleague about Rias’s suspicions. She believed she could trust Liusus, but she didn’t even know what to ask. All she had to go on was Rias’s hunch. “Rias sketched out plans for a submarine while we were on our way over here, and, out of all the items he had that might have given the authorities cause for alarm, it was those sketches that drew Jikaymar’s attention.”

“Jikaymar? The high minister in charge of foreign relations?”

“Yes.”

Liusus spread her arms. “I imagine he sees a submarine as a craft that could be used to spy upon our people. You can’t blame him for being alarmed. Was there anything unusual about the design?”

“Only that Rias believed he could make it work for long voyages. He said his people haven’t been able to do more than putter around on the bottoms of ponds, because there’s no way to create a viable underwater propulsion system with wood or coal as the fuel. He thought to acquire a Made power source from a local craftsman.”

“Well, there you go. Can you imagine the potential power of a craft that married our Science with imperial metallurgy and engineering technology? The Turgonians may be warlike and brutal by our standards, but nobody would call them dumb. They have the best ships in the world. When it comes to the mental sciences, they’re as superstitious as children in a graveyard on All Spirits Day, but that’s a good thing as far as the rest of the world is concerned. I’m sure the high minister is horrified by the idea of Turgonian submarines that use Kyattese power sources. What if your admiral is designing a prototype, and he intends it to be the first of dozens or even hundreds that their military builds? Can you imagine what sort of advantage that would provide in naval warfare? They could be ready to take on the Nurians again by the end of the decade. And where would that leave our little islands? In the line of fire again.”

Though Tikaya had been shaking her head all through the latter half of the speech, it took a lot to stop Liusus once her taro pot started bubbling over. “He’s only interested in building it for us,” Tikaya said. “Him and me. So we can work on intriguing puzzles and digs from the world of eld and then disappear beneath the sea if his past enemies catch up with us.” As much as Tikaya had always considered herself a homebody, the idea of such explorations had grown on her, and she smiled as she explained it, not realizing until she finished that Liusus was watching her with a frank gaze.

“You were never this hopelessly quixotic when you were engaged to Parkonis.”

At least she hadn’t called Tikaya naive. Yet. “No, we were a very… practical couple. But Parkonis never gave me a reason to adore him… Rias is very…”

“Yes, I’ve seen the tintype.”

Tikaya blushed. Was she the only one on the island who wouldn’t have recognized him at first glance? “I was going to say supportive. He makes you feel bigger than you are instead of smaller.”

“He’s certainly bigger than average.” Liusus’s eyes glinted behind her spectacles. “I suppose all his body parts are proportional.”

Tikaya’s blush grew so fierce it threatened to singe her cheeks from the inside out. “I never knew you had such a wicked mind, Liusus.” Figuring she’d best change the subject before she burst into flames, Tikaya switched back to the original topic. “If I wanted to research Kyattese maritime archaeology, where would be a good place to start? The Oceanography Wing of the library?”

Liusus studied Tikaya for a long moment before answering. “Yes.”

“Thank you.” Tikaya picked up the sphere and took a step toward the door, but Liusus’s words halted her.

“There are detailed bathymetrical maps of the waters around the Kyatt Islands in there. I trust… they won’t be used against our people.”

Such as by a spy in a submarine? Tikaya sighed. “He’s not working for the empire any more, Liusus. The emperor treated him like grimbal droppings, and he’s no longer interested in obeying imperial orders. And my kidnapping certainly didn’t cause me to develop a fondness for Turgonians. Quite the opposite, I assure you. I have no interest in those maps.”

“What are you looking for then?”

Good question. “I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.”

Liusus didn’t look suspicious exactly, but she did appear concerned. Tikaya groped for a way to lessen that concern before leaving.

“Who was it that thought I could actually seduce a man?” she asked.

Liusus blinked a few times. “Professors Iolas and Koaneoa.”

“Ah, one man blind and the other eighty years old. That explains much.” Tikaya smiled and waved.

This time she made it to the doorway before Liusus’s words made her pause.

“You’re not homely, Tikaya. You’re just tall.”

“Yes, well, it’s good that I found someone who’s… proportional, eh?”

Tikaya left Liusus making choking noises that might have indicated surprise or laughter or both. She strode through the sprawling Polytechnic library, a three-story building of volcanic stone walls and banyan tree wood. Though the Kyattese generally preferred symmetry and logic when it came to construction, the library was one of the oldest structures on the island and had grown and evolved over the centuries, leaving it something of a maze to newcomers. Tikaya knew it well though and found her way to the northern wing on the second floor. A sign on the Oceanography room door made her pause.

Closed for repairs.

“Repairs?” Tikaya tried the door and found it locked. “What kind of repairs could a library possibly need?”

Nobody was around to answer her question.

• • • • •

As Tikaya strode up the cracked walkway of the Pernicious Miasma, lizards, rats, and other verminous creatures skittered in and out of the overgrown clumps of grass on either side. Stuck in the middle of a shallow basin, the inn was not the benefactor of any tropical breezes, so the smells of the nearby harbor—seaweed, fish, and the burning coal from someone’s steamer—hung in the air. Warehouses arose on all sides, further hemming in the one-story building. A driftwood sign, half hidden by the tall grass, proclaimed it the Pragmatic Mate, but someone had painted Pernicious Miasma across the front in bold red letters. A piece of paper tacked to the side read, “Turgonians welcome” in the imperial tongue, though the nightly and weekly rates listed at the bottom were twice the normal prices.

When Tikaya grasped the doorknob, something sticky licked at her palm. She yanked her hand away with a grimace, wiping it on her dress. If the world were fair, the proprietor would be paying Rias to stay there.

A potted plant with more brown fronds than green nearly thwacked her in the face when she walked inside. Rusty iron bars covered a window to the left of the narrow hallway. Nobody sat at the desk inside the cubby, so she picked up a metal wand and rang a triangle dangling from one of the cross bars. Three lizards scurried across the floor and disappeared into cracks in the wall.

Several moments passed before a curly-haired blond man limped into the hallway, leaning on a staff as he walked. “Help you, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes, did a Turgonian named Rias check in here last night?”

“Along with an older Kyattese practitioner? Yes. Most unlikely pair I’ve ever seen. We don’t discriminate, but I didn’t know whether to give them the local rate, the Turgonian rate, or the hourly rate.”

It took Tikaya a moment to get past the image his words birthed, then come up with a response. “What rate do you charge the lizards?”

“They eat the flies and crickets, so they stay for free.”

“I see. What room is Rias in?”

“Three, but I don’t think they’re in. They left early this morning. Surprising since they were out so late at the gambling hall.”

“The gambling hall?” Tikaya hadn’t known there were gambling halls on the island—the Book of Akahe frowned upon such vices—though she supposed the waterfront businesses thrived by catering to visiting foreigners.

“Yes, after the big man asked for directions, they were gone for hours last night.”

“Any idea where they went this morning?” Tikaya asked.

“Nah, I don’t pry into my guests’ personal lives. Are you interested in a room?”

“No, thank you. Is there any chance you can let me in to see if he left a message?”

“Go ahead.” The man unlocked the door to the tiny office and shuffled inside.

Tikaya waited to see if he would pull out a keychain and escort her to the room, but he sat down and pulled out a magazine full of pictures of nude women. Maybe Rias had left his door unlocked….

She turned into an even narrower hallway, this one bereft of attack shrubbery lining its walls, and searched for Room #3. None of the doors had locks. She supposed that explained why the proprietor hadn’t felt compelled to show her to the room personally. The catch was broken on Room #3’s door, leaving it ajar, and Tikaya pushed it open without needing to risk touching any sticky residue that might lurk on the knob.

The tiny windowless room—closet might have been a better word—claimed a dearth of furnishings. It didn’t even have a bed. She was on the verge of cursing her cousin for recommending the place when she found the missing bed folded into the wall. A piece of wire stretching across one corner at the right height to garrote Tikaya held two hangers. Rias’s trousers dangled from one. A crate in a second corner served as the only other piece of furniture. There was a pen on it, but no note to suggest where Rias might have gone. She checked the pockets of the hanging garment, even as she wondered what clothing he’d found to replace the military trousers, and smiled when she found a note folded in the pocket.

It held a pair of nonsense words. She tried the same key as he’d used with the previous note and decoded it: Shipyard 4.

Tikaya hadn’t realized there were more than three shipyards in the harbor, and double-checked her decryption, but it appeared correct. Perhaps Shipyard 4 was near the privately owned docks at the far end of the quay.

She hustled out of the room, worried she’d miss Rias if he and Yosis had indeed left early that morning. The proprietor had pulled the curtains on his booth. She decided not to say anything in parting in case he was… busy.

Outside, Tikaya almost crashed into a big man heading up the walkway with canvas totes full of tools. A big Turgonian man, the bronze skin, muscled arms, and determined brown eyes suggested. Apparently in a hurry, he nearly strode right through her.

Tikaya gulped and skittered into the grass to let him pass. Though she doubted she was in further danger of being kidnapped, the role she’d played in thwarting the Turgonians’ conquering aspirations meant she’d always be wary when one approached. This one had a grim, fierce aspect as well. Marine, she guessed, though perhaps a former one, since he wore loose cotton and hemp island garb.

“Oh, pardon, ma’am.” He stopped to look her over. “Are you all right? Sorry, I was in a hurry to, uhm…” He eyed her more closely.

Uh oh. What if flyers were being passed around to Turgonians all over the world, displaying pictures of the “cryptomancer” with offers of reward? She glanced around. Nobody else was in sight.

“Pardon, ma’am,” the Turgonian said again, “but are you the admiral’s Kyattese woman? He said she was tall. And smart. And you look like both.”

She looked smart? None of her family members or colleagues would say that, at least if recent events were anything to go by. Of course, spectacles seemed to be rare amongst Turgonians, so maybe that fit their definition of “smart.” At least this fellow sounded more like an ally than an enemy.

“The admiral’s Kyattese woman?” Tikaya asked. “I guess that’s more or less accurate, though he’s somewhat… retired now.”

“I know,” the man groaned. “He didn’t explain it all, but I can’t believe it. I thought, er, we all thought that he was dead. To know that he’s here and alive, and—” the man’s face, one she’d been thinking of as grim and fierce a moment before, split into a broad grin, “—he talked to me! He asked about what ship I’d served on in the war, and he knew all about the action we’d seen and even about the way Captain Levk used to sing when he was deep in his cups.” The grin turned into a fond chuckle before the man seemed to remember Tikaya was standing there. “Oh, do you know where he went? These are for him.” He hefted his totes, and equipment clanked, everything from saws and hammers to metalworking tools. “And don’t tell that shifty bloke who’s following him around, but my boss at the steelworks said he could come by anytime to use our Bragov Converter. My boss used to be a marine too, you know.”

“I… am sure Rias will appreciate your support,” Tikaya said, mildly stunned by the deluge of information. It didn’t surprise her that Rias was already attempting to make allies and gather resources, but she hadn’t realized it’d be feasible. It hadn’t occurred to her that there might be Turgonian expatriates living on the island who held useful positions. “What was your name, sir?”

“Oh, Milvet.” He thumped his fist to his chest and gave a bow that surprised her with its depth. She wasn’t certain of the exact nuances but knew the degrees of torso inclination were adjusted based on the rank, military or warrior-caste, of the person receiving the bow. She had a feeling she’d been granted a lot of status on Rias’s behalf. Didn’t this Milvet care that Rias had disobeyed orders and was in exile? Or maybe he didn’t know exactly. “Real good to meet you, ma’am. Do you know if I should leave this in his room or is he around?”

“I believe he’s in one of the shipyards at the quay.”

“Already setting to work, eh?” Milvet winked.

“Uhm, I suppose so.”

Was Rias truly going to start building his submarine right under Yosis’s nose? Surely not. That’d be asking for trouble, assuming the government even let him get started. Besides, he’d need a lot of good Turgonian steel to craft the hull, and that wouldn’t be in large supply. This steelworks Milvet had mentioned was probably the only one in Kyatt and surely only worked with scrap metal rather than fresh ore. The volcanic islands didn’t provide anything like that.

“I’m heading down there now,” Tikaya said. “Do you want me to take those bags to him?”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t ask a lady to carry my dirty tools. I’ll go with you, ma’am.”

Tikaya doubted it would be in her best interest to be seen wandering around with Turgonians, but she didn’t see how she could turn down the earnest fellow. She certainly didn’t want to dissuade anyone from becoming an ally to Rias; he’d have precious few of them here.

“Right,” Tikaya said. “This way, then.”

As they wound through the streets toward the waterfront, Milvet handled all of the talking, or perhaps one might call it burbling as he extolled Fleet Admiral Starcrest’s virtues and spoke of all the times his own ship had been in the vicinity of the admiral’s flagship. They’d reached the quay, and Tikaya was searching the signs for mention of a Shipyard 4, so she almost missed it when Milvet asked a question.

“Do you think he’ll be coming back to Turgonia?”

“Huh?” Tikaya asked.

“Both of you, that is.”

“Ah, I don’t know what he told you,” Tikaya said, not wanting to trample on whatever story Rias had given the young man, “but you do know that he’s…?”

“In exile? Oh, sure, he told me that. And made me promise not to tell the world that he’s alive if I travel back to the empire, but he’s going to want to come home eventually, won’t he? The emperor’s powerful, sure, but if the admiral showed up in the capital, he’d have legions of people who would stand at his back and make it right clear that it’d be in the emperor’s best interest to give him his lands and title back, if you see what I’m saying.” Milvet offered a sly comradely smile, as if he were ready to sign up for one of those legions right then.

“We’ll… have to wait and see what the future holds.” Tikaya wondered if this young man was naive or if Rias truly could raise an army, one that could be used to coerce the emperor into rethinking the exile declaration. If it were a possibility… Well, it was sobering to think that Rias might be choosing Kyatt, where her people only wished to torment him, over returning home. “He said something about being more interested in helping the world than the empire the last we spoke of it,” she said as they passed the last of the three shipyards she was familiar with and entered a tangled snarl of old wooden docks jutting out into the harbor. Where was Shipyard 4?

Milvet trekked happily along at her side, muscles bulging as he carried the gear. If the long walk with his arms weighed down tired him, he gave no indication of it. If anything, he looked tickled to have this opportunity to work for Rias.

“What’s the dock number?” he asked.

“We’re looking for Shipyard Four,” Tikaya said.

“That’s the little one down at the end.” Milvet waved toward the end of the quay where a dilapidated block-and-tackle hoist system straddled an empty bay. “It’s the original one for the island, isn’t it?”

Tikaya squinted in the direction he was pointing. Compared to the private and public shipyards they’d passed, each capable of housing multiple vessels in various stages of completion, the spot ahead appeared to be little more than another dock. As they drew closer, she could see that the channel was enclosed with a gate at the end, but everything from the hoist system to the dock itself looked like something suitable for the maritime museum rather than actual use. It didn’t even have a sign, just a crooked, sun-faded “4” carved into a weathered post at the head of the channel.

“Is this privately owned?” Tikaya asked. Strange perhaps to ask a foreigner, but Milvet seemed more familiar with the docks than she. Her own work hadn’t brought her down here often.

“Think so,” Milvet said. “I know the Dukovics control some of the old docks down here.”

“That’s a Turgonian name, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. After the war, my people weren’t real welcome here, even those who’d made homes here long before the fighting started, and suddenly they weren’t allowed to dock their ships. Someone talked a native into buying a block on the quay and signing a contract to rent the berths out to Turgonians.”

Tikaya hadn’t realized there were that many Turgonians on the islands.

“I wonder if that’s the ship the admiral mentioned.” Milvet waved to the dock next to the tiny shipyard.

The only “ship” Tikaya saw was a giant pile of junk hunkering against the waves. Twisted metal arms and cranes rose from the deck of the old tug. At least it had been a tug once. Now, the entire deck was canted with water lapping over one end, and the vessel appeared about as seaworthy as a boulder. Rust coated the monstrosity like powdered sugar on a rum cake, except without any of the appeal.

“Are you sure that’s… a ship?” Tikaya asked.

Milvet set his bag down, scratched his jaw, and said, “I might have been more flattering than I intended in using that word, ma’am.”

Tikaya would have turned around, certain she’d decoded Rias’s message incorrectly, but she spotted Yosis sitting in a deck chair next to a gangplank—a knotty old board—leading onto the dilapidated tug. Head back, eyes closed, mouth hanging open, he appeared to be sleeping. The hem of his white robes flapped in the breeze, revealing hairier legs than she cared to see. Yosis didn’t stir to adjust his robes. Maybe Rias had worn him out with all his traipsing about the night before.

“After you, ma’am.” Milvet nodded.

The man didn’t look anything like Agarik, but his polite ma’ams were starting to remind Tikaya of him. For all that Turgonians might be warlike brutes, imperial mothers did seem to raise their boys to be polite, most of them anyway. She thought less fondly of Sergeant Ottotark and Captain Bocrest, though even Bocrest’s crustiness had seemed less harsh in the end.

“Thank you,” Tikaya said and walked up the dock.

She was close enough to shove Yosis’s chair into the water—and she contemplated what punishment she might receive should she do just that—before he snapped his mouth shut and opened his eyes. The withering look he gave her made her wonder if he was a telepath.

“Good afternoon,” Tikaya said, smiling to wipe any vestiges of a guilty expression from her face. “I’ve come to see Rias.”

“You should not be allowed to collude with him. I’ve sent my first day’s notes off and made my recommendations. I’ll hear back shortly.”

From whom, she wondered? The police? Or was he answering to another institution? “I can’t wait to hear the results,” Tikaya said, though his words roused concern. They couldn’t truly keep her from seeing Rias, could they? She was a free citizen. And he was… They hadn’t decided yet apparently.

“I doubt that,” Yosis grumbled.

Clanks came from the bowels of the half-sunken vessel. A moment later, a hatch clanged open, and Rias’s head poked out. All manner of rust flakes, dust, and cobwebs cloaked his hair, and a large smudge of grease adorned his cheek. Though Yosis had cast new worries into her mind, Tikaya couldn’t help but smile at this sight.

He smiled, too, when he saw her, pulled himself onto the tilted deck, and crossed the gangplank in a single long stride. Elloil’s handiwork was evident in his new attire, a sleeveless yellow shirt that wrapped across his torso, leaving a large open V below his throat, and vibrant green plaid clam diggers. She dearly hoped the garb represented an attempt to appear innocuous and didn’t reflect his true color preferences. If it did, she might have to return him to the Turgonian marines, just to get him back into a uniform. Though, she had to admit that as vile as she found the colors, they didn’t look bad on his olive skin, and the sleeveless shirt revealed a lot that was—she swallowed—worth revealing.

When he reached her, he swept her into a warm hug, though, after a quick glance at Yosis, gave her only a chaste kiss. The depth of Rias’s smile and an eager I-have-news light in his eyes suggested she may not have gotten much more anyway.

“Milvet, thank you for bringing the tools. That’s far more than I hoped for.” Rias gripped the Turgonian’s arm with one hand while keeping Tikaya close with the other.

“It was an honor and my duty, my lord,” Milvet said.

“Rias, please.”

“Yes, my lord. Er, sir. Uhm, Rias.” Milvet shrugged sheepishly.

Yosis had not risen from his chair, but he observed the exchange with narrowed eyes.

“Look what I won,” Rias said to Tikaya and stretched an arm toward the vessel.

“You won it?”

“In a game called Cockroach, a board game that pits two people against each other. You can choose to be either the plantation owner defending his crops or the insect army attempting to decimate the fields.” He grinned again. “Who would have thought I’d find military strategy games on the Kyatt Islands?”

“Military strategy?” Tikaya asked, bemused. Cockroach was a game children played, and it surprised her to learn there was a gambling-hall version.

“Of course. As the plantation owner, I had to deploy my troops and use my resources to stave off the invading insect armies.”

“Troops? Do you mean the… family members?” Tikaya asked, thinking of the freckled blond boy, girl, and spouse board pieces.

“Yes. Once I learned the rules—and that laying a trap in one’s own silo to blow up the captured invaders isn’t acceptable—winning was a simple matter.”

“Did you say… blowing up the silo?”

“An undesirable tactic since preserving one’s assets is preferable, but sometimes a small sacrifice is worth making if it facilitates the winning of the war.”

“How do you blow up a silo, my lo—Rias?” Milvet asked.

Rias winked. “Spontaneous combustion. That’s usually accidental, but one can certainly hasten it along by providing oxidation through moisture and air. Bacterial fermentation also works. The rules in Cockroach, however, do not appear to allow for such creativity.”

“Yes,” Tikaya said, “we don’t like to encourage our children to go around blowing things up.”

“A shame. Such skills can prove useful in life.”

“Turgonian life,” Yosis muttered. He produced his notepad and scribbled a few lines.

Rias only grinned, and Tikaya wondered if he might be deliberately provoking the professor.

“I better get ready for work,” Milvet said. “Though there’s not much going on there during the nightshift.” He didn’t say it to anyone in particular, though he widened his eyes slightly, and Tikaya assumed that was an invitation for Rias to come and do… whatever it was he intended to do.

Rias gave him a comradely wave, then offered his hand to Tikaya. Perhaps out of habit, Milvet saluted Rias before striding off. Yosis made a note.

“Do you truly think he’d be so obvious about all of this if he were planning something inimical?” Tikaya snapped at the professor.

“Perhaps,” Yosis said, without bothering to look up from his notepad, “it is by being obvious that he seeks to lull us into a false sense of safety.”

Tikaya opened her mouth, another retort on her lips, but Rias tugged her gently toward the gangplank. “Come see my prize.”

She took a deep breath and followed him. If Yosis didn’t bother Rias, she shouldn’t let him bother her. Still, she couldn’t help but grit her teeth when the professor followed them onto the old tug.

The rusty deck creaked ominously when they stepped onto it. Tikaya could scarcely identify the warped cranes and other lifting apparatuses. Aside from the rust bejeweling the hull, a slimy green coat covered much of the deck, and she had to walk carefully lest she slip more often than usual.

“Are you sure you won this?” Tikaya asked. “Maybe the other fellow pretended to lose so he’d no longer be responsible for the moorage fees.”

Rias lifted his chin. “I’d know if someone sandbagged in a strategy game. The fellow had already lost his coin in previous rounds, and this was all he had left with which to gamble. Normally, I don’t partake in such ventures, and I did feel underhanded in acquiring his belongings, but I have few resources myself these days and must think of our goals. Given how expensive it is to purchase metal here on the islands, I estimate the scrap here to be worth nearly forty thousand ranmyas.”

“And you think you can turn this scrap into your new… project?” Tikaya figured Yosis knew about the submarine, but was reluctant to mention it out loud regardless.

“I’ll need to recruit helpers to provide the manpower, but with the use of a shipyard—” he waved at the slender channel next to his dock, “—I’m certain I can build… something. Whether it’ll be quite as ideal as what I drew on paper, that remains to be seen.”

“That’s not much of a shipyard.”

“It’s more than I expected. Since your people aren’t as advanced, er, since they don’t build as many ships as my people, I feared the Kyattese version of a shipyard might be a beach with a nice slope.” He mimicked shoving something big into the water.

“He’s denigrating us?” Yosis asked.

“If I have the opportunity,” Rias told Tikaya without acknowledging the professor’s comment, “I can have a prototype done in a matter of weeks.”

Tikaya imagined sitting beside him as he piloted a submarine made from a patchwork of tin cans, old copper pipes, and Mother’s silverware. She tried to remain optimistic, since he was smiling at the idea of his project. “Well, you have one helper already, it seems.”

“Two.”

“Oh?”

“Milvet you met, and your cousin also promised to help.” Rias stopped before the hatch. Water sloshed around below, and Tikaya hoped he wasn’t going to invite her down.

“Elloil?” she asked. “He’s promised to do manual labor for you?”

“In exchange for advice on his upcoming surfboard line. Apparently someone suggested my years of engineering, mathematics, and physics studies should be utilized in designing toys for children.” Rias quirked an eyebrow.

“Actually, surfing is popular amongst all age groups here. There are even a few spry eighty-year-old grannies who take on the North Coast waves. If you designed a superior board, you might win the love of the Kyattese people, causing them to forget your previous misdeeds.”

Yosis snorted. It was the closest to a human emotion he’d expressed thus far.

Rias considered Tikaya with a speculative gaze before sighing and saying, “Just to be clear, you are teasing me, right?”

Tikaya smirked, imagining him rearranging his mental to-do list to place surfboard design above the melting down of scrap for submarine materials. “About the likelihood of people forgetting your misdeeds, yes, but not about the popularity of the sport.”

“I see.” Rias extended a hand toward the open hatch. “Would you care for the full tour? Yosis has already received it, due to his unwillingness to let me go anywhere alone.”

Tikaya leaned over to peer through the open hatch. Rusty holes in a bulkhead, some with warped bolts sticking out of them, were all that remained of what must have been a ladder; their tracks descended into murky water that might have been three inches deep—or three feet. She crinkled her nose at the fishy, mildewy scent wafting up from below. “Did he enjoy his tour?”

“Oh, yes. I believe he was immensely impressed with the craft.”

Yosis’s second snort contained even more emotion—and volume.

Tikaya had little interest in going down, but perhaps Rias wanted her to see something, or maybe he thought they could steal a private moment. She kicked off her sandals, hiked her dress up to her thighs, and tied it so it wouldn’t get wet—so long as the water wasn’t more than a foot or two deep. “After you.”

Rias gave her bared legs an appreciative look and brushed his fingers down her calf as he lowered himself through the hatch. A delightful little shiver ran up her leg, and she thought again how unfortunate it was that he was staying in that lizard-infested closet instead of on her family’s plantation. Maybe she could slip away one night to visit him.

With the ladder missing, Tikaya braced herself for a plunge into icy water. Rias caught her before her toes splashed down, however, cradling her against his chest. “This way, my lady.”

Before she could decide whether she wanted to be independent and ask to be let down, he carried her out of the water. The cabin floor tilted as much as the deck above, and about half of the space remained dry, though that hadn’t kept the barnacles, algae, and mildew from making themselves at home on the bulkheads.

Rias set her down. There weren’t any lanterns, but sunlight seeped through holes that dotted the ceiling like stars on a clear night.

“If I’d known you intended to carry me to someplace dry,” Tikaya said, “I wouldn’t have taken off my sandals.”

“Then I would have missed the leg display.” Rias gave her a half smile, though it vanished quickly. He lowered his voice to a murmur and put his back toward the water and the hatch. “Did you get a chance to do any research?”

“I asked a few questions and tried to visit the Oceanography Wing in the Polytechnic library, but the door was locked with a ‘closed for repairs’ sign on it. I thought that quite unusual.”

“Unusual as in worth breaking into on the sly because the information housed within might be relevant to one’s current predicament?” Rias asked.

A soft splash behind them announced Yosis’s presence. Not certain if he’d been there long enough to hear anything, Tikaya said, “Probably not. Besides it’s not as if I’m the type of girl who partakes in midnight breakings-and-enterings. I have enough trouble to deal with right now.”

“I understand.” An apologetic grimace flattened Rias’s lips.

Tikaya winced. She’d meant to hint that he could meet her at the library at midnight if he could sneak away, not to imply that he was the cause of her trouble. She’d talked him into coming to the islands, after all.

By that point, Yosis was staring at them, and she couldn’t bring herself to clarify in front of an audience.

“The engine room is this way,” Rias said, breaking the silence.

“Is there anything in there worth salvaging for the new engine?”

“No, I’ll be designing that from scratch. It’ll need to be extremely compact and efficient.” Rias ducked a drooping ceiling beam and slipped into a cubby full of machinery that hadn’t run in years. Maybe decades. “I will soon need to know specifications of, ah…” He glanced over Tikaya’s shoulder, noted Yosis gamely tagging along, and shrugged and said. “Do you have any suggestions on who might be able to help me with a power source? I’ll need the energy statistics soon.”

“I can only think of two Makers who specialize in energy sources for powering engines.”

“Does either of them owe you favors?”

“Not exactly.” Tikaya grimaced. “One is Parkonis’s mother. She’s retired now and only teaches a few hours a week, but she used to be one of the best Makers on the island.”

“Your ex-fiancé’s mother? I can’t imagine she’d care to do either of us a favor. Who’s our other choice?”

Tikaya’s grimace deepened. “My grandfather.”

“Ah. So, if either of these options agreed to take on the task, I’d have to worry about them building something that would blow up at an inopportune moment, thus ensuring my death.”

“If it helps, I think they’d both simply refuse to help. Neither has a long history of murdering foreigners.”

Rias arched an eyebrow. Nobody was appreciating her attempts at humor that day.

“I’ll ask around,” Tikaya said. “Let me worry about that.”

“This is ridiculous,” Yosis said, shaking his hand. Apparently he’d been writing so quickly his fingers were cramping. “You don’t seriously believe anyone is going to let you build a spy submarine from within our harbor, do you?”

“A spy submarine?” Rias asked. “No, but wouldn’t your people appreciate one designed to aid in underwater exploration and salvage missions?”

“Not by you.”

“Who better?” Tikaya asked. “Turgonian engineering is superior to ours, everyone admits that, and wouldn’t you rather have him building a submarine for our use rather than for the empire’s?”

Yosis responded with a glare.

“If it turns out well,” Tikaya said, “he can make more and sell them here on the islands. I’m sure the maritime archaeology department would love one. Lots of people would. They might prove more popular than surfboards.” She smiled, meaning the last part as a joke, and thinking it might draw an amused response from their stodgy watchdog.

“He won’t be here long enough for that.” Yosis stalked out of the room, banging his elbow on a warped flywheel on the way past. He cursed in several languages. Unfortunately his curses didn’t fade in a way that would mean he’d left the area. No, he would continue to spy on them from the corridor.

“Help me out,” Rias murmured. “Was that a death threat or a deportation threat?”

“Rias, nobody’s going to try to kill you here.”

“I’d rather face a duel, or even an assassin, than someone who makes threats from the shadows and lights a woman’s lawn on fire.”

Tikaya searched his face, trying to decide if his words implied he’d been threatened by more than words burned into the grass. Some anonymous enemy that he couldn’t strike? Even if he could identify those lurking in the shadows, would he attack? He might fear the image he’d present to her people if he did so.

“Do you get to face assassins?” Tikaya asked, hoping he’d prefer levity to grimness. “I thought they plied their trade from behind.”

“You just have to practice turning around very quickly.” If he meant that as a joke, his face didn’t lighten to show it.

Tikaya followed him out of the engine room, sad that her visit seemed to have stolen his good humor rather than improving it.

CHAPTER 7

Tikaya’s stomach rumbled, eager for lunch, as she bicycled up to the front lanai. She eyed the blackened pieces of earth on the lawn—the fires had burned down in such a manner that the letters were still visible. She’d have to throw some compost out and smother the area with seeds. At least in their sunny climate, it wouldn’t take long for something to grow out of the charred earth.

An unfamiliar bicycle leaned against the lanai railing. Tikaya hoped it was some innocent visitor, meeting with one of her family members, but an uneasy twinge poked her in the gut. She had a feeling it had to do with her.

She headed for the door, but a low, “Ho, Coz,” made her pause on the threshold. Elloil sat in one of the chairs at the end of the lanai. “You missed lunch.”

“I’ve had a busy morning.” Tikaya reached for the knob.

“Parkonis didn’t.”

Her hand froze. “What?”

“He didn’t miss lunch.”

Tikaya glanced at the bicycle. Yes, it’d be a good match for someone of Parkonis’s height. “Is he still in there?” It’d be cowardly to hide outside instead of going in to see him, but the temptation came to her nonetheless. “Did he seem… well?” The emperor’s assassin might have kept his word to Rias and seen Parkonis returned to Kyatt, but there was no guarantee the time her ex-fiancé had spent with the Turgonians had been pleasant, especially considering he’d been working with those who’d launched an attack on the capital and had tried to thwart the marine sortie into the tunnels.

“He looked all right, though he had a fancy tale to share. It doesn’t quite match up with the one you told.”

“I’m not surprised. From what he admitted to me, and what I saw, the truth didn’t flatter him.”

“He was still spinning his truth when I came out for a smoke. There was a lot of I-knew-its and nodding from your brother, cousins, and father.”

Tikaya groaned. Of course everyone would believe her lying ex-fiancé instead of her. Under normal circumstances, that might not have been the case, but they all wanted to believe Rias was the enemy. “Not you?” she asked.

“Nah, Parkonis called my surf shop a quaint hobby the first time he came to dinner. We’re practically mortal enemies.”

“Does he know that?”

“I don’t think he even remembers my name.” Ell stirred in the shadows. “He’s talking to your mother one-on-one now. You might want to interrupt.”

Tikaya must have been speaking in Turgonian too much of late, for a handful of curses involving Parkonis’s dead ancestors and the smelters he could slag himself in tumbled from her lips before she could stop them. She was glad Yosis wasn’t around with his notepad.

“Thanks for the warning,” Tikaya said and turned the knob.

A few voices drifted in from an open door at the back of the great hall, but they sounded young. Guessing Mother would be spearheading kitchen cleanup, Tikaya headed in that direction. A familiar masculine voice drifted out through the swinging door. Her mother responded. Tikaya meant to walk directly in and confront Parkonis, but she caught herself stopping and pressing an ear to the door.

“Of course he’s acting polite and pleasant,” Parkonis said. “He wouldn’t come in here being abrasive and self-absorbed. He’s a genius.”

“Most of the geniuses I’ve met are on the self-absorbed and abrasive side, dear.”

Tikaya held back a snort. She wasn’t sure if Mother was poking arrows at Parkonis specifically, or simply referring to the entire body of colleagues Tikaya had brought by the house over the years. Either way, she didn’t sound ready to turn on Rias. Good.

“If that’s true, then the fact that he’s not should worry you,” Parkonis said. “He’s a mastermind and a manipulator of people—just look what he’s done to Tikaya. He convinced her to turn her back on me and to bring him here, so he can do Akahe knows what. If the Turgonians get a toehold here today, it could mean the downfall of our people tomorrow. You have to talk to Tikaya. She’s blinded by her infatuation and can’t see that he’s fooling her.”

Even if Parkonis wasn’t succeeding in winning over Mother, Tikaya figured it was time to enter and put an end to the conversation. When she pushed open the door, she imagined herself striding into the kitchen, thrusting a finger at Parkonis’s nose, and telling him that his opinions weren’t appreciated, but her hip caught on the corner of the counter on her way in, and she stumbled into his back.

“Ooph,” Parkonis said, staggering forward and catching himself on the pastry table.

“Afternoon, dear,” Mother said without commenting on the clumsy entrance. She stood over the sink, washing plates, but she turned off the water and wiped her hands on a rooster apron, complete with a fringe of feathers. One of Tikaya’s nieces had decorated it, thus ensuring it would be in use for ages, however questionable the fashion statement. “Are you hungry?” Mother asked. “I’ve saved you a plate.”

“Thank you,” Tikaya murmured, though food was the last thing on her mind.

Parkonis had righted himself and turned to face her. He’d cut his unruly red-blond curls and shaved the beard since last she’d seen him. She didn’t see any scars, bruises, or missing limbs that would suggest he’d been treated poorly of late. Her first instinct was to snap at him for coming here while she was gone—had he waited until she left that morning to approach the family?—and spreading lies, but she’d probably give him less ammunition if she acted like the bigger person. That should be doable. Even barefoot, she had three inches on him.

“Good afternoon, Parkonis.” Tikaya clasped her hands behind her back. “I’m pleased to see you’re well. I’ve been worried about you. After that chaos there at the end, I wasn’t sure if… I was afraid that you wouldn’t make it out.” Her words were true, though she had to bite her tongue to keep from pointing out that he never would have been in danger if he hadn’t gone off with relic raiders in the first place.

“I barely escaped,” Parkonis said. “They dumped me, Gali, and the rest of the survivors in the brig of their warship, taking us south to the Turgonian mainland, to be dealt with—that’s what they called it—for our crimes against the empire. As if they’re not the savages. Those bloodthirsty mongrels deserve to receive that which they’ve given over the years.” He started to curl his lip, but seemed to remember something, for his eyes widened and he glanced behind Tikaya. “Is he here?”

She took that to mean he wouldn’t call Rias a savage to his face. “No.” She supposed she shouldn’t be pleased that the story meant Gali wouldn’t likely be by to pester her soon. For all she knew, the Turgonians would “deal with” their prisoner using a firing squad, and she couldn’t wish that fate on anyone. “How did you escape?”

“That stone-faced teenaged assassin sailed down the coast with us and was in charge of prisoners. He was taking people off the ship, moving them to the train station for a ride to the capital for I shudder to think what punishment, but he got careless. He forgot he’d unlocked my cell, and when he herded off the others, I slipped out. It was night and most of the crew was off on shore leave by then, and I got away. I’ve been thanking Akahe every day for that bit of luck.”

“You can thank Rias for that luck,” Tikaya blurted before she could question the wisdom of it. Bringing up his name might be a mistake—defending him at every turn would only give credence to people’s notions that he controlled her somehow, but she couldn’t let Parkonis remain unaware of his assistance, not the way she feared her president was. Why should Rias be blamed for every death in the war and receive none of the credit for the lives he’d saved?

“Pardon?” Parkonis glanced at Mother, as if to catch her eye and give her a knowing nod, but she had her back to them. She’d been washing the same pot for five minutes, but she acted like she wasn’t listening.

“At the end of the ruckus, Rias told the assassin to relay the message that if the emperor didn’t leave me and my family alone, he’d make trouble. He also asked the boy to ensure you were able to make it home.”

Parkonis opened his mouth as if he wanted to protest outright, but he glanced at Mother’s back and seemed to decide on another tactic. “Well. If that’s what you saw, that’s what you saw, but is it possible that he made a point of having this conversation in front of you? Thus to win your favor?”

“He’d already won it by then. He didn’t need to play tricks.”

Parkonis winced, and she regretted her hasty rebuttal. He’d see it as an admission that she’d rejected him in favor of Rias, and that had to hurt. She might wish that he’d disappear on another year-long field expedition, this time a legal one perhaps, but she didn’t want to hurt him.

“Listen, Par.” Tikaya stepped forward and hesitantly laid a hand on his arm; she feared he might jerk away, but he didn’t. “I apologize if… It wasn’t my intent then or now to hurt you. When I met Rias, I thought you were dead. As far as I knew, you’d been dead a year. And you let me believe that—let us all believe that.” She didn’t want to rub in his failings, but she didn’t want him to believe he had a right to play the victim here either, not entirely anyway.

“Tikaya, it’s not about that.” Parkonis avoided her eyes as he said the words. “If you don’t want me after the choices I’ve made, I understand, but to pick him as the alternative… I don’t want to see you get hurt. I certainly don’t want to see you bring shame to your family by being the one to… Could you live with yourself if a year from now, our islands have been conquered, our people enslaved, and Turgonians are building fortresses on our beaches?”

“That’s not going to happen. Didn’t you hear what I said? He specifically told the emperor that he’d make trouble if Turgonians harassed us.” All right, Rias had told the emperor’s seventeen-year-old henchman that, and he’d only tried to finagle protection for her family, not her entire island chain, but she truly believed Rias would stand up for her people if she asked it. And if they treated him as a valuable ally who’d defected from his people, not some spy.

Parkonis was shaking his head. The sadness—or maybe that was pity—in his blue eyes seemed genuine, but that only made Tikaya want to smack him. Why couldn’t any of them trust her to judge a person correctly?

“Don’t be blinded by your feelings, Tikaya,” Parkonis whispered. “I believe this was set up from the beginning, and he saw your gulli– desire to find the good in the people and picked you as a likely target. Even if you’re right and he was exiled, maybe he saw you—and our islands—as a way to earn back his emperor’s favor.”

Tikaya thought of Milvet, the earnest Turgonian she’d met that morning, and his words of how Rias could raise an army to march on the capital if he wished his lands back. “You’re wrong, Parkonis. He wouldn’t need to do that. He has resources. If he wanted to go back, he could.” Tikaya didn’t know how true that was, but it disturbed her nonetheless to know he might have options—that he could leave at any time if he decided she wasn’t worth all the trouble.

“Tikaya…” Parkonis sighed and shook his head again, as if he were dealing with a particularly slow and stubborn child. “Just do me one favor, will you? Tell him, or, no, just ask him… What would he do if you decided to come back to me. See what his reaction is.”

Tikaya remembered Rias’s reaction when Parkonis had first shown up alive. He’d been disappointed—stung—until he’d decided he’d fight for her. She smiled at the memory of him arguing his virtues in an attempt to win her back when she’d never intended to leave him in the first place.

Parkonis frowned at her. “Just see what kind of pressure he puts on you to ensure you don’t leave him. Even if you don’t intend to—” the corners of his mouth twitched downward, “—it wouldn’t hurt to test him, right?”

Except that it’d show Rias that she didn’t trust him completely. He’d see Parkonis’s test for what it was. Out loud, she said, “I’ll think about it. But not right now. I have work to do.” Like figuring out who she could find to Make Rias’s power source. “May I see you to the door?”

Whether Parkonis found comfort in her promise or not, she couldn’t tell. He sent one last long look at Mother before letting Tikaya guide him out of the house. Unlike the other glances, that one seemed to hold only sadness, as if he were regretting that she wouldn’t be a part of his life any more. His fault, Tikaya told herself. He needn’t have disappeared for a year without sending word to anyone. But what then? What if, when she’d been kidnapped, she’d known Parkonis was alive and waiting for her back home? She couldn’t have considered Rias as anything more than an ally then, or if she had… she would have been the dishonorable one. Maybe she should thank Parkonis for his shortcomings, for giving her a way out.

• • • • •

After lunch, Tikaya bicycled north along the coast, heading for her grandfather’s cabin and workshop on the far end of the plantation. She dreaded the idea of talking to him when he’d so vehemently displayed his displeasure over Rias’s presence, but not quite as much as the idea of going to Iweue, Parkonis’s mother.

The winding coastal road took Tikaya along a sandy shore, one that was popular amongst clammers. A low tide left much of the beach bare, and several people were busy with shovels and buckets. Most were relatives, but a bronze-skinned figure out amongst the freckled natives made Tikaya pause. The neighbor. Mee Nar. The man who’d taken his wife and left dinner a mere fifteen minutes before that fire was started on the front lawn. Her father had searched around the house after the flames had been extinguished, but hadn’t found any evidence as to who might have started it.

Tikaya leaned the bicycle against a tree at the head of a path leading through tall grasses and out to the beach. Maybe it was time to ask the Nurian a few questions.

The ocean breeze tugged at the man’s red and orange silks. Unlike Rias, Mee Nar apparently hadn’t felt the need to clothe himself in native garb. Given that he’d attacked Rias, Tikaya felt uneasy approaching him. There were several other men, women, and children on the beach though. Surely he wouldn’t do anything to her. Besides, with nothing more than a shovel for a weapon, he appeared innocuous enough. Damp sand clung to his bare calves and feet, and clumps flew as he thrust the blade into the wet earth. He dug a deep hole, then bent to pluck out two clams and drop them in his bucket.

The wind and the roar of the sea should have disguised Tikaya’s approach, but when she was still twenty meters away, Mee Nar turned in her direction. Chance? Or was he a practitioner? One who could manipulate fire, perhaps?

Tikaya smiled and gave him a neighborly wave. He offered an open palm to the side, a Nurian civilian-to-civilian salute that was supposed to signify one bore no weapons nor was bringing the mental sciences to bear. In Kyatt, the Science was practiced for research and life enhancement. In Nuria, martial applications were common.

Tikaya picked her way around sandy pools and limp seaweed to stop a few feet away. “Hello, Mee Nar, wasn’t it?” she asked in Nurian.

“Indeed, Ms. Komitopis.” He responded in accented Kyattese, then dipped a knee and ducked his head in a bow. He kept his eyes upon her as he did so.

Tikaya knew that was how Nurians bowed—always maintaining eye contact—but she couldn’t help but wonder if he wanted to watch her every move out of more than habit.

“How is the clamming going?” she asked. She wanted to ask, “Did you light my family’s lawn on fire?” but thought that might be a tad forward.

“Quite well. Your islands are bountiful. My wife tells me it never snows, and I have seen how each season remains pleasantly warm, and the only change is that it sometimes rains more often. But even when it rains, it seems to finish by mid-morning, leaving the people to enjoy the sun in the afternoon.”

“Yes.” Tikaya had no interest in discussing the weather, but perhaps she could use it to lead into other topics. “I missed it very much when I was kidnapped and taken to the frozen wasteland that is the empire’s Northern Frontier.”

Mee Nar’s face grew closed at the mention of the empire. “I imagine so. Many parts of Turgonia are as inhospitable as the people.”

“You’ve been?”

“I was a prisoner of war interned in a camp outside of Port Malevek for six months.”

“Ah, so you fought the Turgonians in the Western Sea Conflict.” And had every reason to hate Rias…

“That is not what we called it, but yes. I served in the navy for twenty years.” He scarcely looked older than she, but Nurians, Tikaya recalled, could enlist as young as fourteen. “I decided to retire after my time in the camp,” he added.

“That bad, eh?”

“I was not important enough to be interrogated, but it was still… austere. The time made me think and realize I’d spent too much of my life at sea and too little time seeking love and a family. Back in ’63, I was injured nearby and spent two months here recuperating. I found the women most accommodating.” He smiled at some memory. “Beautiful, of course, but also not so obsessed with a man’s status and place in society as my own people. Once my chief accepted my retirement, I came here and soon found my wife.”

“What did you do in the navy?” Tikaya wanted to know if he’d studied the mental sciences.

“I was a simple sailor.”

“Mundane work?” She’d heard the Nurians could use the Science to fill their sails with wind.

“I never studied the mental sciences if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Ah, I was just curious.”

“Of course you were.” Mee Nar’s expression remained bland, but something in his eyes made her believe he knew exactly what she was angling for, or at least that her questions masked more than casual curiosity.

“As a retired naval sailor,” Tikaya asked, “will you feel obligated to report back to your people that one of their old enemies is living on the island?”

Mee Nar’s eyebrows shot up. “Living on? I thought… ah, I was led to believe he was visiting temporarily.”

Tikaya studied the sand rimming her sandals for a moment. The man’s surprise seemed genuine. If he’d thought Rias was only going to be a short-term visitor, would he have thought there was a need to play tricks to scare him off?

“We are not… temporary,” Tikaya said, so she could gauge Mee Nar’s reaction.

“You will live here instead of in Turgonia?”

Tikaya wondered if he was merely curious as a neighbor, or if he was collecting information to send back to his government. You shouldn’t have come down to talk to him if you were worried about that, she told herself. “You said it yourself. The climate isn’t as desirable there.”

“Yes, but you would have power and rank there, would you not? He’s a hero to his people, I understand.”

“His people think he’s dead.”

Mee Nar frowned. “Then his arrival on their shore will be a pleasant surprise, surely?”

Tikaya didn’t want to explain the rift between Rias and his emperor. It wasn’t her story to tell, and, in case Mee Nar was planning a letter back home, she shouldn’t give him any extra fodder for it. After all, she’d come down here to learn about him.

“Either way, my work is here, and Rias is retired. I wanted to ask you if it’d be a problem if your children grew up with one of your people’s most infamous enemies for a neighbor.”

“It would be difficult to explain to my parents if they ever came to visit,” Mee Nar said.

“Considering that you attacked him at dinner, you don’t seem very concerned by the notion now.”

“That was a reflex. You don’t serve twenty years in the military without having a few reactions drilled into you, such as attack Turgonians on sight to protect those you care about.” Mee Nar shrugged. “I didn’t even recognize him at first. It was just… when he walked in wearing that uniform.” Another shrug.

“If you had recognized him, would that have changed anything? Or would you have simply raised your bow more quickly?”

“It is true that dropping his head onto the Chief’s throne room floor might earn me a title, or accolades and honors for my family at least, but… my life is here now, and I no longer crave such hollow things. Also, Starcrest is… heesu ming. You know the term?”

Tikaya knew it, but there wasn’t a Kyattese equivalent. Her people had a lot fewer words for enemies than the Nurians and the Turgonians. “Honorable foe?” she suggested.

Mee Nar wiggled his fingers to imply that wasn’t quite it, but might be as close as they’d get. “Every Nurian sailor hated to see his flagship on the horizon, because it almost assuredly meant defeat and capture. Even when the odds were against him, it never seemed to play out the way those odds suggested. He was more slippery than soap, and we called him King Fox for his cunning. He’d do whatever it took to make sure his ships came out ahead in a confrontation. Yet, we knew if we were captured, we’d be treated fairly until such time that our government bartered for our release. It was also known that if he gave his word, he’d keep it. I cannot speak from personal experience, but there are stories of times when he went against his emperor’s wishes to keep his word to our officers.”

If that were true, that might explain why the Turgonian emperor had been so quick to exile Rias for disobeying the order to facilitate the assassination of the Kyattese president. Maybe it had been the final blow that broke the sword.

“He was respected on both sides,” Mee Nar finished. “To answer your earlier question, no, I wouldn’t care to have my children growing up next door to Fleet Admiral Starcrest, retired or not, but I also wouldn’t fear for their safety in his presence.”

“That’s a relief,” Tikaya said, though she didn’t know if she could trust Mee Nar’s words. Was it possible he was only telling her this, so she wouldn’t suspect him of the fire? He seemed sincere, but she wasn’t the best judge of people, having always preferred books to social situations. It did strike her as sad that a foreigner might be more open to accepting Rias here than her own people. The Nurians had suffered just as much in the war as the Kyattese and had just as much reason to resent him. “Thank you for your time. Good luck with the clamming.” She nodded toward his bucket.

Mee Nar bowed, eyes meeting hers again, and headed off with his shovel.

Tikaya returned to the bicycle and her journey. As she covered the last couple of miles to Grandpa’s home, she mused upon the likelihood of more threats coming Rias’s way. She doubted anyone would attack him, and that was almost a shame, because he’d prefer that. Instead, they’d pester him like a mosquito buzzing about, not drawing blood, but staying out of reach.

The sun was dipping behind the volcano when Tikaya turned off the main road and onto the dirt path heading up to a small bungalow nestled beneath coconut trees. A much larger rectangular building lay behind it, banging sounds and pulsing lights emanating from within.

Tikaya parked the bicycle and knocked on the workshop door. The bangs stopped, though the lights continued to escape through the windows, a mixture of blues and greens.

“What?” came Grandpa’s crotchety voice.

Despite the uninviting opening, Tikaya turned the knob and poked her head inside. “Grandpa? It’s Tikaya. Do you have a moment?”

A few seconds passed before Grandpa asked, “That joratt mongrel with you?”

She bristled at the slur, but knew it was pointless to correct him. Her mother had been trying for decades. “It’s just me.”

“Good. You throw him back in the ocean yet?”

“He’s moved into a place of his own in town.” Not exactly evading the question…

Grandpa grunted.

Tikaya let herself in. She had to weave past tables, cabinets, and waist-high toolboxes before finding him in a back corner, hunched over a workbench with a mallet and a chisel. Barefoot, with his shirt buttoned askew, he might, at first glance, appear senile, or at least forgetful, but Tikaya knew he was too caught up in his work to care about dressing. At least he was wearing pants today. With Grandma passed on, one never knew what state of civility—or lack thereof—one would find him in when visiting his home.

The tendons on the backs of his gnarled hands leapt as he carved an axe handle from a piece of driftwood. An obsidian blade lay next to it, the oily black stone imbued with a faint blue sheen. Though he could make energy sources such as Rias needed, Grandpa specialized in Making enhanced farm tools. Few finished pieces adorned the workshop; his implements were widely sought and tended to be purchased before he’d done more than sketched a design.

A communication orb sat on a pedestal by the end of the workbench. Usually dust or a cloth covered it, but not this time. Tikaya wondered who Grandpa had been talking to of late.

“You’re too good for some Turg dog, girl.” He leaned closer to his axe handle, squinting. He had spectacles somewhere, but he always refused to wear them.

“What are you working on?” Tikaya asked instead of responding to his suspicions. Grandma had been the only one to succeed in changing his mind about things, and even her victories had been rare.

“Axe for the Uluoe place.”

“It’s a handsome blade. You’ve imbued it with strength and sharpness?”

“That’s right.” When finished, Grandpa’s stone implements were as strong as those made from Turgonian steel, and the blades never rusted or grew dull. “You need to chop anybody’s sugar cane off, you come see me for the appropriate tool.”

Tikaya knew he was referring to Rias, but she thought of that bastard, Sergeant Ottotark who’d harassed her all through the mission. “I wish I’d had one while I was being dragged around by those marines.”

For the first time, Grandpa tore his gaze from his work. His blue eyes, still sharp despite his ninety years, bore into her as his hand clenched about the haft of the axe-in-progress. “Did those animals touch you?”

Though her first thought was of Captain Bocrest smashing her against the wall, she knew he meant more personal touching. “One tried, but I doused him in kerosene and threatened to light him on fire.”

Grandpa’s eyes grew round. For a moment, he only stared, but then he laughed. “Good, good, I wouldn’t have guessed you had that sort of gumption in you, girl, but that’s good.”

Tikaya wondered if her mother would think so if she knew. Perhaps in Ottotark’s case, she would approve, but what of the men she’d shot and killed during the escapade? What would Mee Nar think if he knew she’d killed Nurians? Granted, the assassins had been after her, to keep her from helping the Turgonians, but she’d killed people nonetheless.

“Grandpa, I’d rather not talk any more about what happened out there. I want to put my life back together and return to my research.” And figure out a way to make Rias a part of that life and that research. She didn’t mention that.

“That’s good. Your mother was concerned when you were working our fields with the hands instead of at school, studying and teaching.”

“I know. I’m ready to begin again. And, to help with my research, there’s something I need.” Tikaya took a deep breath, afraid he’d immediately guess her reason for the request. “Would you be willing to Make an energy source of sufficient means to power a… small ship?”

Grandpa propped a fist against his hip. “A ship? Don’t you do your work at the Polytechnic?”

“Yes, but I told Ri—. Uhm, there are a lot of unsolved puzzles and mysteries out there in the field, old ruins and artifacts too large to bring back here to study. I wish to take Rias to them, to see if we can make headway where other teams have failed. He has unique skills that—”

“Take Ri-as,” Grandpa snarled, saying the name the same way he spat out his racial slurs. “You came here to ask me to craft something to help that murderer? To complete his underwater spy boat?”

“Grandpa, he was a marine, not a murderer, and he’s neither now. He’s done with the empire. He wants to help me with my work.” And who had told Grandpa about the submarine plans? Tikaya glanced at the communication orb.

“Why can’t he build a normal ship then? Why does he want to snoop around underwater?”

“So we can evade the nations who’d shoot him simply because he was a Turgonian marine once.”

“Not a marine,” Grandpa said. “The marine who caused all our grief.”

“If you asked him what really went on back at the beginning of the war, you might be surprised. Our president might not even be alive if not for him.”

For a heartbeat, puzzlement drew Grandpa’s thin, white brows together, but he shook his head again. “What he told you and what happened aren’t likely the same things.”

“Fine, we’ll have to disagree on that.” Tikaya glanced toward a window—daylight was dwindling, and she needed to bicycle to town for the midnight infiltration of the library she’d planned. She hoped Rias showed up to infiltrate with her. Not only did he seem the type to have more experience with such things, but she missed him. “Is there no chance you’ll Make an energy source? For me?”

His only answer was to glower and fold his arms across his chest.

Tikaya sighed. This had been a waste of time. She’d have to ask the mother of the ex-fiancé she’d left back in the frozen north with a passel of vengeful Turgonian marines while she had returned home with her new lover. That would be a fun conversation, oh, yes.

She was relieved she could justify putting it off for another day. There was a library waiting for a midnight visitor.

CHAPTER 8

The midnight moon and stars provided enough light to bicycle down the road toward town, but not enough to keep Tikaya from finding ruts and divots with her wheels. After falling into the grass twice, and dumping the lantern out of the knapsack she carried three times, she parked on the outskirts of the city and walked the last mile to the Polytechnic campus. A handful of whale oil lanterns burned along the street dividing it from the historic homes of the original colony, but shadows lay thick around the library, classrooms, and research buildings. Paths and roads wound through low vegetation, leading to doors and courtyards. The ground cover was kept clipped within a few inches, so wouldn’t offer many hiding spots for someone sneaking toward the buildings.

Tikaya circled to the back half of the campus where she found a tree-dotted route. Using the palms and jackfruits to hide her, she veered toward the library. She didn’t expect company out there, but one never knew. Besides, lamps burned behind a handful of windows in the research buildings, promising that a few souls remained there late. The library, fortunately, stood in darkness, including the second-story wing she wished to visit.

When she reached the last of the trees, Tikaya paused to check in all directions. A heartbeat before she stepped out onto the open path, a soft rustling reached her ears.

She froze. Rias?

She’d mentioned midnight infiltrations, on the chance he could escape, but she didn’t think evading Yosis would be easy. Besides, she’d wager a Turgonian marine could sneak through the night without rustling. If someone was out here, it probably wasn’t he.

Hugging the nearest tree, Tikaya peered in the direction from which she had come. High above, the palm fronds waved softly. Maybe she had simply heard fallen leaves being stirred by the breeze?

Another crunch sounded, as if someone had stepped on a leaf. Definitely not the wind. She eased around to the other side of the tree, thinking she might need to abort her breaking-and-entering attempt.

“Fruiting darkness,” someone cursed. Someone familiar.

“Ell?” Tikaya whispered.

“’Kaya?”

“Over here.” She shook her head as a dark shape eased into view. “What are you doing here?”

“Following you. What are you doing here?” The smoke smell clinging to Elloil’s clothing identified him as much as his voice.

“Nothing you need to be concerned about,” Tikaya said. “Why were you following me?”

“I was out on the lanai, enjoying a smoke, when I saw someone shimmy down the drainpipe from the rooftop above. I figured it was one of the boys sneaking out. Imagine my surprise when this glint of moonlight reflected off your spectacles.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Didn’t I? Huh.”

“Ell!” Tikaya’s exasperated whisper came out louder than she intended. After glancing about to make sure they were still alone, she lowered her voice and asked again, “Why are you following me?”

“Your mother made me.”

Tikaya leaned against a tree for support. She’d thought… Well, it had seemed that Mother was the closest thing she had to an ally in this. “Why?”

“She’s worried about you. She doesn’t want you going to the docks or the Pernicious Miasma at night where you’ll—” Ell propped his fists on his hips and attempted a feminine pitch to his voice, “—get mauled by transients or stolen by another batch of villainous kidnappers. Those Turgonian brutes haven’t got any reason to like her, you know.” He dropped his arms and let his voice return to normal. “I didn’t want to, but she made me promise to keep an eye on you. She said I wouldn’t be invited to any more family dinners if I didn’t. Oh, and I could forget about the money she’d promised to invest in my surfing business.”

Tikaya rubbed her face. At least Mother’s concerns seemed to revolve around her daughter traipsing through questionable neighborhoods, not visiting Rias. “Was it the food threat or the money threat that motivated you most?”

“She’s a really good cook. And I’m still looking for a lady love who’ll make victuals for me.”

“You could learn to make them yourself.”

“Were you not there when I almost lit the kitchen on fire with a pile of lemons?”

“Ah, yes, I’d forgotten about that. Though technically, weren’t you trying to turn the lemons into a battery, not a food dish?”

“Yes, but I took the smoking dish towels as a sign that I wasn’t meant to spend time in kitchens.” Ell waved at the Polytechnic buildings. “If I’d known you were coming to work, I would have stayed on the lanai. I was enjoying a particularly fine smoke.”

“As long as you’re here,” Tikaya said, “you can help.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m going to sneak into a locked-off wing of the library. If you see anyone coming, I’d appreciate it if you’d warn me. Toss a pebble against the window or some such.”

“You’re going to sneak into a locked building?”

“Yes, why is that so shocking?”

“You’ve never done anything mildly illicit,” Ell said. “Is Rias coming?”

“I’m not sure he’ll be able to get away.”

“Then how are you planning on getting in?”

Tikaya sniffed. “I’ve decrypted messages encoded by the brightest military minds in the world. I think I can thwart a simple door lock.”

“You haven’t a notion of how to bypass one, do you?”

“I brought a couple of hairpins. That’s always enough in adventure stories.”

“I’ll just get comfortable then.” Ell sat at the base of a tree, making a show of settling in. “Don’t be afraid to give up. I want to hit the nine o’clock waves tomorrow.”

“Oh, please. With your nocturnal inhaling and imbibing practices, you’re never out there before noon anyway.”

“True enough.” Ell waved for her to continue about her business.

After giving the grounds another check for activity, Tikaya trotted to the back door of the library. As part of the faculty, she had a key for it, so she needn’t worry about Ell witnessing her fumbling attempts at lock picking. Or so she thought. In the darkness, she dropped the key twice before finding the hole. She didn’t hear Ell’s snickers, but she had no trouble imagining them.

As Tikaya slipped inside the hallway, cool air caressed her cheeks. Without any light coming through the windows at the ends, the lava rock walls seemed pitch black. She paused to listen. Nothing stirred. Though she had a lantern, she felt her way along, not yet wanting to risk a light, not with other people up late, working on campus. After years spent at the Polytechnic, she could find her way in the dark anyway.

She crept past several doors, running her hands along the book-filled cases that lined the walls on one side. When the books ended, she knew she’d reached the stairs. She eased up them and passed through two archive rooms on her way to the Oceanography Wing. She padded around in the darkness until she found the doorknob. It was still locked with the sign hanging above it.

Tikaya slipped her knapsack off her shoulder and dug out the lantern. A few minutes later, she knelt before the door, a puddle of light illuminating the area as she poked and prodded in the lock with her hairpins. Reluctantly, she admitted that she didn’t know what she was doing. Maybe she should have asked Ell to come up with her. He’d probably laid siege to a few secured doors as a youth. Or perhaps even more recently.

Tikaya knelt back, giving the door another once over. The hinges were on the outside. She hadn’t thought to bring a chisel or screwdriver. “Ell’s right, you’re terribly inexperienced at this,” she whispered. Maybe she could try Rias’s tactic of using the lantern flame. Could she use the heat to loosen the hinges so they’d be easy to pop? There’d be no way to hide that someone had been there if she left the door leaning against the wall, but maybe she could put everything back together so the tampering wouldn’t be too noticeable.

She stood, intending to give it a try, when a voice behind said, “It looks like a four-pin tumbler. Challenging for the tools you have, but not impossible.”

After nearly kicking over her lantern in surprise, Tikaya spun and grinned. A few steps away, Rias leaned against the wall, as if he’d been watching for a while. He wore the same dubious clothing he’d had on that morning, though he’d added footwear: bamboo thongs with woven vine straps. Awful. But they only made her grin more widely, and she strode toward him, lifting her arms for an embrace. She did pause halfway through the motion to check behind him. The hallway was empty.

“I left him sleeping,” Rias said and stepped toward her for a hug and a heated kiss that suggested he wasn’t happy spending the nights apart either, especially with Yosis as his only alternative for companionship. When he drew back, Tikaya made a mew of protest, having forgotten where they were and what the priority was.

Rias tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know how long my keeper will stay asleep, so we’d better hurry. I’m sure he can track me through this.” He raised his wrist, displaying the glowing red stone set in the bracelet. “Unfortunately, it’s proved more difficult to remove than Turgonian shackles.”

Sighing, Tikaya drew back. “Yes, of course. Thank you for risking the trip.”

“You’re welcome.” He tilted his head toward the door. “What’s on the agenda for tonight?”

She thought of his kiss and what she’d like to put on the agenda, but said, “Research. It’s good that you’re here. This section of the library is huge, and I’m not sure what exactly we’re looking for. Having a research assistant will be helpful.”

“Research assistant?” Rias took the hairpins from her and bent them into new shapes. “I see my former career counts for little, and I’m going to have to start over at the bottom in this new field.”

The gleam in his eyes suggested he was more amused than offended, so Tikaya teased him with, “If you do a good job making the morning coffee, I’ll see if I can get you a promotion.”

Rias held up the two hairpins, now contorted into unrecognizable shapes. “This is your torque wrench and your pick.” He knelt before the door. “I’ll handle this since we’re pressed for time, but I’ll explain what I’m doing in case you want to try picking a lock later. I’ve found it to be a useful life skill.”

Tikaya recalled the numerous times on their journey that he’d escaped Captain Bocrest’s prisons and shackles. “When,” she asked, holding the lantern to shed light for him, “did a stalwart, law-abiding, military officer have occasion to learn to pick locks?”

“My familiarity with locking mechanisms began with one of my mother’s favorite lectures, the one that always ended with, ‘If you took it apart, you can blasted well put it back together again.’ As to the picking, my older brothers found my youthful curiosity irritating at times and had a tendency to lock me in closets, cupboards, and storage chests. It vexed them terribly when I appeared at the supper table none the worse for the experience. The skill was thus worth mastering for that reason alone.”

He talked her through the systematic picking process, and after a few minutes pushed the door open. Before he stood, Tikaya rested her hands on his shoulders and bent over to kiss him on the cheek. “I might just promote you before I’ve tasted your coffee.”

“That’s good because cider and tea are the primary drinks in the empire. I wouldn’t know what to do with a coffee bean.”

“Oh? Maybe Grandpa is right and Turgonians are barbarians.” Tikaya stepped inside.

Rias snorted and followed her. Tikaya closed the shutters on the windows before lighting a few lamps and candles. Bookshelves lined the walls of the spacious chamber, with rolling ladders allowing access to tomes near the carved obsidian molding under the arched ceiling.

“This is all related to oceanography?” Rias eyed the towering stacks.

“Yes. Though I think we’re going to be interested chiefly in the seas around the Kyatt Islands. That’ll narrow things down.”

“How much?”

Tikaya checked a directory. “Uh, that wall.”

Rias considered the twenty-five-meter-long wall with its floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with books. “You may need more than one research assistant. Why didn’t you invite your cousin to join you?”

“A lot of the historical tomes will be in Old Kyattese. Ell wouldn’t be able to read that.”

“Tikaya, I can’t read it either. I can barely read new Kyattese.”

“You’ve proven numerous times that you don’t need to be able to understand a language to make useful insights.” Tikaya swatted him on the backside as she headed for the shelves.

“Demanding woman,” he murmured, but strode to the shelves as well. Instead of examining the book titles, he stopped before a tall case holding rolled scrolls. Maps most likely. That jangled a bell in Tikaya’s memory.

“A colleague mentioned that all the topography and bathymetric maps for the islands and surrounding waters are in here. I think she was worried about them getting into Turgonian hands, especially since you’re building a submarine and could find little nooks from which to spy, but maybe there’s another reason she didn’t want me handing them to you.” Tikaya tried not to feel guilty about the fact that she was not only handing them to him but encouraging him to study them.

Rias slanted her a sidelong look. “Turgonia has your bathymetrical maps.”

“It does?”

“There were old ones in the archives that I dug out, and then I sent a scout ship early on in the conflict to take depth readings at night and verify the accuracy. We had plans to occupy your island and knew there’d be less opposition if we didn’t use the harbor. We were concerned with the underwater lava flows and how they may have changed the terrain, so my men were quite thorough.”

“Oh.” Tikaya shouldn’t have been surprised, but she experienced a moment of numbness at the reminder that he, despite his cute stories of boyhood intellectual pursuits, was still the enemy admiral who’d caused her people so much pain during the war. Her exasperation at her family’s unwillingness to welcome him was perhaps unfounded. “Well, take a look. I can’t imagine yours are terribly accurate if your men were out there with knotted ropes. I’m sure our practitioners worked with the sailors making the recordings.” After she spoke, she wondered if he’d find the comment… snotty. She’d implied, after all, that his people had primitive methods that weren’t equal to the ones used by those who practiced the mental sciences. Offending one’s only research assistant probably wasn’t a good idea.

Rias nudged a few candles aside and spread the first of the maps out on the table. After a brief look, he said, “Actually, I think ours are more accurate.” He scratched his jaw. “I don’t suppose there’s anyway I could get copies now.”

“How can that be?” Tikaya had selected an armload of books and she brought them over, setting them down with a thump on the table. Dust flew up and tickled her nostrils as she peered over the map.

“About twenty years ago, a young captain was assigned the dangerous mission of creating an accurate bathymetric map of Nuria’s east coast. Though dodging Nurian scout ships kept him busy, he found the rope method tediously slow and inaccurate and invented a primitive echo ranging device that used sound waves to determine the depth and shape of the undersea environment.”

“And was this young captain someone with whom I’m familiar?”

“He was.” Rias tapped the map. “A copy of this would be useful for navigating in and out of the harbor on our first voyage, especially if there’s something out there—” he waved toward the ocean, “—we should investigate.”

“I’m told there isn’t, nothing of archaeological significance anyway. Our people have documented everything that’s happened in the last seven hundred years, and before that the islands were uninhabited.”

Rias lifted his gaze from the map. “Nobody had ever been here before?”

“According to the history texts, when my ancestors landed here, there wasn’t any evidence that other humans had ever settled or even set foot upon these islands.”

“After my ancestors chose to depart from the Nurian continent, they roamed the oceans and explored widely, looking for an uninhabited land before choosing what they eventually turned into Turgonia. I haven’t studied that period of history extensively, but I’m surprised they didn’t find your islands at any point in their travels.”

“It’s interesting that you said your people ‘chose to depart’ Nuria,” Tikaya said, wondering if he’d be offended if she shared an alternate view of the history with which he’d been raised. “The Kyattese global chronicles tell us that the peoples who banded together to become the early Turgonians were those who were persecuted and shunned and even enslaved in Nuria because of their poor affinity for learning the then burgeoning mental sciences. They fled the continent in search of a land where they could live without worrying about Nurians.”

Rias lifted a hand, palm up. “History has always been written to favor the viewpoints of those penning the texts. Were not your people also fleeing something when they left the Southern Hemisphere?”

“A plague, yes. It broke out after opposing factions started a war that decimated the continent. My ancestors were those who left after governments collapsed and chaos reigned. They vowed to find a new land where they could adopt a peaceful way of life and stay neutral in other nations’ disputes. They found their way here seven hundred years ago, and we’ve always prided ourselves on starting over so successfully.” Realizing she sounded a tad supercilious again, Tikaya mumbled, “Not that any of that matters now,” and returned her attention to the table. While comparing historical accounts was interesting, they had limited time in the library. She opened one of the books.

“What are your people hiding, I wonder?”

Perusing a map, Rias sounded like he was talking to himself, but Tikaya felt compelled to ask, “You just have a hunch, right? No proof of anything?”

“They’re upset by my submarine construction plans.”

“Because they fear you’re still holding hands with the emperor and he’ll want to use your submarine for purposes that’ll be detrimental to our people.”

“Yosis’s comments aside, I don’t believe for a moment that your high minister thinks I’d build my craft in front of them if that were my intent. I also suspect that the Kyattese diplomats stationed in Turgonia have ferreted out the truth about my alienation from the emperor—they must know I’m no longer his man. Your government is making up false concerns to camouflage something else. There’s something down there that they don’t want me to see.”

“I’m not aware of any underwater secrets that my people are hiding from foreigners.”

“Maybe they don’t want you to know about it either.”

Tikaya propped her fist on her hip in exasperation. So far, she had nothing more than his hunches to go on, and they seemed to be straying farther and farther from the likely. The only thing that supported the idea that something fishy was going on was the odd closing of the library wing. For all she knew, there was a burst pipe waiting to be fixed or some other innocent piece of maintenance requiring attention. “Maybe you’re a paranoid Turgonian who’s ascribing entirely too much intelligence to my government.”

“I’ll admit that there are a number of popular sage quotes involving paranoia and survival in my culture, but your government isn’t full of fools. Regardless, if we do operate under the assumption that there’s something down there, something that’s not visible from the surface but would be visible with the help of an underwater craft, it’ll narrow down our search a great deal.” Rias tilted his head toward the overflowing shelves. “We’ll only need to look up the history of water exploration around the islands.”

“It’s as good of a starting point as any, I suppose. Those books will be in Old Kyattese.”

“I’ll stick to the maps.” Rias waved to the shelves, then paused and took a longer look. He rolled the ladder over and climbed up to a row of maps drawn on parchment, their edges yellowed and tattered with age.

“I’ll grab some of the old chronicles from the other room,” Tikaya said. “It’s always possible the ones I grew up reading contain revisionist history.”

Rias, perched on the ladder and already engrossed in a map he’d withdrawn, did not answer.

• • • • •

Tikaya yawned and glanced toward the shuttered windows. She didn’t think dawn lurked on the horizon, but she and Rias had been buried in their research for at least two hours. Perhaps because she’d found so little of interest, she’d been spending a lot of the time worrying that Yosis would wake up, notice Rias gone, and hasten in this direction with some draconian punishment in mind.

“I may have something,” Rias said. No fewer than twenty maps sprawled about him, some recent, some so old that the edges had crumbled when he opened them. “Your main island here has gained square footage over the decades, I assume due to the volcano’s continuing leakage of lava onto the sea floor. Following these maps—there was a new one done about every hundred years or so—you can see the gradually increasing footprint on the east side.”

“Yes, that’s a fairly well-known fact here.”

“What’s interesting is that these first three maps all have a basin delineated just north of the underwater lava flows. Here, next to this inlet.” Rias pointed to the same spot on different pages. “Then, four hundred years ago, the basin disappears from the maps. Not just one but all the subsequent ones.”

Tikaya removed her spectacles, rubbed gunk out of her eyes, and leaned close to examine the tiny underwater terrain lines. “It’s possible it was filled in. Every couple of generations the volcano gets frisky and spits out larger amounts of lava.”

“Frisky? Is that the geological term?”

“I’ve never had occasion to learn the Turgonian words related to volcanology. If you’d like to switch to Kyattese, I can be more precise.”

“Not necessary. It’s just that the word frisky brought other thoughts to my mind.” Rias wriggled his eyebrows.

Tikaya blushed, forgetting her weariness. “If we finish here, maybe there’ll be time for exploring those thoughts more thoroughly before you have to get back.”

“In that case, let us be most efficient in the study of these maps.”

Tikaya traced the basin on one of the older versions and eyed the legend. “That would be a big area for lava to have filled in without a major seismic event.”

“Deep too. Turgonian diving suits wouldn’t allow one to descend even halfway down to the bottom, if the basin still exists, that is.”

Tikaya scribbled the dates AC 374-469 on a scrap of paper, the years between the last map drawn with the basin and the first map drawn without it. “I’ll dig out a geology text and see if anything significant happened during that gap. Are there any other discrepancies?”

“Not that I found.”

“I don’t suppose you memorized the bathymetric maps your people took and could verify or disprove the accuracy of this one?” Tikaya tapped the 469 version.

“Sorry, my ancestors gave me a reasonably good memory, but not an eidetic one.”

“Ah, apologies. I sometimes expect too much of you.” Had she the energy, Tikaya would have laughed at his chagrinned shoulder slump. He always seemed so disappointed when his education failed her in some way. She patted his arm to let him know she was teasing him. “We should leave before Yosis realizes you’re gone. I’ll head to the geology wing and grab a couple of books to take home. If that section isn’t closed for repairs too, that is.” In her wanderings around the Oceanography Wing, she hadn’t seen any problems that would have justified the locked door and sign. “Do you want to put those maps away and meet me at the door?”

“Cleaning up, is that one of the roles of assistants?”

“I don’t care what Grandpa says; Turgonians are faster learners.”

Rias snorted. “Take your time with the books. I want to copy this side of the island.”

“Planning your first trip already?” Tikaya asked lightly, though her colleague’s words came to mind. How many of her people would consider it treasonous of her to facilitate Rias’s acquisition of the bathymetric maps? But, assuming his story was true, the Turgonians already had this information—better information—so it shouldn’t matter.

“The craft will need a maiden voyage, and this isn’t that far from your harbor.”

Maiden voyage, sure. He wanted to know what was down there.

Tikaya had to admit that the strings of her curiosity were being plucked as well. Though they’d found nothing major, the small discrepancies were making her believe there was something to Rias’s hunches. She put away the books she’d looked at, and headed for the geology department, hoping to find a historical accounting of seismic activity on and near the Kyattese Islands. On a whim, she veered into the civil history room first. There hadn’t been newspapers back then, but the government had maintained annual journals, recording significant events. They were more political than geological, she was sure, but an earthquake or volcanic anomaly would have affected the populace and therefore been mentioned. When she located the appropriate date range on the shelves, she found herself staring at a gap in the middle. It was only a one-book gap, and she might have missed it if she hadn’t been perusing the years with intent, but 397 was gone. As a historical reference book, it shouldn’t have been checked out.

Tikaya lifted her lantern and gazed at nearby tables, thinking someone might have left it out, but they were all empty.

“All right, 397,” she murmured, “what happened to you?” Or, more specifically, what happened in that year that someone wanted forgotten?

Her mind filled with research ideas, histories of other fields that she could cross-check, but she’d been in the library too long already. Rias needed to get back, and he was probably waiting for her to finish before leaving. Besides, none of the other rooms was locked, so she could come back and investigate during the day.

Nodding to herself, Tikaya strode back to the bottom-floor door through which she’d entered. Rias wasn’t there.

“Still tracing?” She thought she’d been gone long enough for him to finish, and then some.

She returned to the stairs. A thump came from somewhere on the second floor. Worry knotted Tikaya’s gut and she broke into a run. Taking the stairs three at a time, she sprinted toward the Oceanography Wing. Rias had closed the door on his way out but not made it farther than that. He was curled on the floor, clenching his temples.

“Akahe curse that man,” Tikaya growled, knowing Yosis had to be responsible. She dropped her knapsack and raced to Rias’s side. “Rias?” she whispered. “Are you…?”

He gasped and shook his head so hard he almost clunked it on the floor. “Heard… cousin’s warning… too late. I can’t… block… it.” He clawed at his wrist.

Though her first instinct was to stay and help him somehow, the only way to stop his pain was to stop Yosis.

“Stay here,” she barked, though it was unnecessary. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Tikaya lunged to her feet and sprinted down the stairs. Rage fueled her, and she flew out the library door like a champion sprinter. Right away, she spotted the white-robed figure on the dark path nearby. Her vision narrowed to a black tunnel until she saw nothing but Yosis. His gaze was toward the second-story windows of the Oceanography Wing, and he didn’t see her coming. Good, Tikaya thought, the word a snarl in her mind, and she ran at him like an arrow loosed from a bow.

She smashed into him so hard, they both hit the ground and rolled several meters. Her battles at Rias’s side must have taught her something, for she came out on top, straddling Yosis. She smashed the heel of her palm into his face before he got his arms up in a semblance of a block. With anger and frustration still coursing through her veins, she simply aimed for a different target. She punched him in the gut numerous times before an indignant yell of, “Ms. Komitopis!” pierced her fury-clouded mind.

A moment later, someone grabbed her shoulders and hauled her off Yosis. Blood charged through her body, and she almost took a swing at this newcomer as well, but cold awareness cut through her rage. Striking one’s fellow citizens was illegal on the islands, and she had witnesses who had seen her beating up on Yosis. Lots of witnesses, she realized, as she peered about at policemen carrying lanterns along with a couple of government officials that she recognized from the war room. Their hair was tousled and clothes rumpled. One woman wore a bathrobe. Yosis must have sent out some sort of alarm when he woke to find Rias missing.

Several sets of eyes stared at Tikaya, some stern, some shocked, some outraged. Yosis staggered to his feet, one hand pressed against his abdomen, the other clutching his nose. Blood ran from one nostril and dripped down his arm. The lantern light shown brightly enough to reveal several droplets spattered on his white robes. Tikaya couldn’t bring herself to apologize.

“Ma’am?” the ranking policeman asked one of the officials. “Do we take her to—”

He broke off and cast an uneasy glance over Tikaya’s shoulder. Rias had come up behind her without a word or a sound. Blood trickled from the side of his eye and his ear, and Tikaya ground her teeth, not regretting her attack on Yosis for a second. If there weren’t policemen edging closer, she’d be tempted to punch him again.

Rias eyed the professor, but Tikaya couldn’t guess what was going through his mind. None of the rage she felt seemed to burn in his eyes. How could he be so calm?

“Take them both to jail.” Yosis had moved away from Tikaya and Rias and was standing—hiding—behind one of the patrollers. “You see what kind of animal she’s become under his influence?”

“His influence?” Rias asked mildly. “I haven’t pummeled anyone.” He rested his hand on Tikaya’s back and gave her a half smile. She blushed, though she had the impression he was pleased that she’d beaten up some fellow on his behalf.

“What were you doing in the library at night?” the ranking policeman asked.

Tikaya opened her mouth to proclaim that she was on the faculty and could visit the library any time she wished—no need to mention the second-floor lock picking, but Rias answered first. “Searching for a private spot. Between her family-filled home and the thin walls of the Pragmatic Mate, we’ve found it difficult to… visit with each other.”

Tikaya blushed harder. She could understand making up a story to cover their true interest, but she didn’t want all of these strangers imagining her… visiting.

“Are you telling me that you were using the library for some sort of… tryst?” the policeman demanded.

“We are both academically inclined,” Rias said. “And those posh reading chairs on the first floor are quite comfortable.”

That earned a round of glowers, and a lip curl from the official who was probably even then vowing to never read in those chairs again.

Tikaya nudged Rias with her elbow. “Stop helping,” she whispered. As it was, this news would likely spread all over town. If she was going to go visit Parkonis’s mother, she didn’t want the woman thinking she’d become the sort who… violated library reading chairs with men.

“Ma’am?” the policeman asked again.

“Though I’m inclined to have Ms. Komitopis put in jail,” the female official said, “her father would create a fuss over that. Take her home and leave someone to ensure she stays there. If Professor Yosis wishes to file a complaint of assault, we’ll have a judge attend to it.”

Stay at home? How was she supposed to find a power source for Rias if she had to stay at home?

“I want a full psychiatric evaluation done on her,” Yosis said.

Tikaya slumped. As satisfying as beating him into the ground had been, the repercussions were going to be unpleasant. She imagined a flock of telepaths descending on her home to “evaluate” her.

“And him?” the policeman asked.

“Yosis’s summons was heard,” the official said.

“What does that mean?” Rias murmured.

“I’m not sure,” Tikaya said.

“My colleagues are coming?” Yosis asked. “Excellent.”

“Reinforcements?” Rias guessed.

Something about the smug expression on Yosis’s battered face made her think it might be worse. A moment later, Yosis turned his head toward the street. A cluster of men and women in the white robes of the Practitioner School strode onto the Polytechnic campus. A pair of gold braids were sewn into the sleeves of each person, a couple of inches above the hem. Tikaya’s stomach sank. These were faculty members from the College of Telepaths.

The policemen stepped back, perhaps happy to hand the Rias problem off to someone else. The practitioners joined Yosis, bent their heads, and conferred for a moment before forming a line facing Tikaya and Rias.

“It is time to see why this enemy of our people is really here,” a white-haired telepath said.

Though Tikaya already stood in front of Rias, she eased over so she more fully blocked him from them. “What are you planning to do? He’s my guest here, and even if he weren’t, there are laws about using invasive mental techniques on people.”

“On Kyattese citizens, yes, but he is not a citizen.”

“There are treaties about employing those techniques on Nurians and Turgonians as well,” Tikaya said.

“Ah,” the white-haired man said, “but I’ve been informed that he’s no longer a Turgonian citizen. The police said you made a statement to that effect during your questioning, is that not true?”

Tikaya stared at him. Dear Akahe, what did they plan to do to Rias that they needed to go fishing for loopholes in the law?

“He has also told me that he’s in exile,” Yosis said. “As odd as it seems, he’d have more protection here if he were still a Turgonian citizen.” The professor smiled sweetly at Rias around his split lip. “You wouldn’t care to change your stance would you? Admit that you’re still the emperor’s man?”

“I am not,” Rias said without hesitation.

Emotion welled in Tikaya’s throat. Rias might tell a story about a lovers’ tryst to protect what he doubtlessly thought was some greater good, but he wouldn’t lie to save himself.

“He’s my guest,” Tikaya said. “I invited him here to meet my family. Taking him off for… whatever inimical mind probes you have in mind is unacceptable.”

Rias stirred at the mention of “mind probes.” Maybe she shouldn’t have been so blunt. Whatever mental intrusions he suffered in the past couldn’t have been a pleasant experience. Mind rape. She didn’t think her people would be cruel, but the very act of drilling into someone’s thoughts… It couldn’t be anything other than painfully invasive.

“Inimical?” said the white-haired man. “Really, Ms. Komitopis, there’s no need for histrionics. I assure you, we are professionals. We merely seek the truth.”

The truth. Gali had also sought the truth when she probed Tikaya’s mind.

Tikaya looked at Rias over her shoulder, tempted to tell him to sprint into the darkness and find passage off the island before they could find him. He could send a note, let her know where he landed, and she would go to him. Even if it meant leaving her family and her career for the foreseeable future. She opened her mouth to say as much, but Rias winced.

“Come,” Yosis said. “Now.”

“He’s not a hound,” Tikaya snapped at him, fingers curling into a fist again. She wondered how long his range was. When had he first attacked Rias? Within a hundred meters of the library? Two hundred? A mile? She didn’t know how long Rias had been hunched on the carpet, in pain. She shouldn’t have left him alone up there.

“Perhaps not,” Yosis said, “but, like a hound, he’ll learn that pain comes with aberrant behavior. Appropriate behavior offers the cessation of pain.”

Yosis either thought Rias couldn’t understand him or that he was an idiot. Or maybe he knew that Rias understood him and was arrogant enough to think he could break him even with that awareness.

“We’d best call it an evening, Tikaya,” Rias murmured and walked toward the practitioners, his hands clasped behind his back. He gazed over his shoulder at her. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to revisit the chairs another time.”

Two policemen stopped him and patted his waist and pockets before allowing the practitioners to take him. Nothing came of the search. Had he not had time to finish tracing the map? Or maybe he’d hidden his work on his way out. He’d mentioned the chairs twice.

A policewoman headed in Tikaya’s direction. Searching for that map would have to wait.

The officials turned away, apparently feeling their work was done. Tikaya jogged over and planted herself in front of the female who’d been giving orders. “Ma’am, I request that you assign someone different to follow Rias around. Professor Yosis seems to have some sort of vendetta. Either that or he’s just a small man who’s relishing this chance at power far too much.”

“Ms. Komitopis, I suggest you go with the police and stay home and out of trouble. Your time spent with the Turgonians and your actions of late have many people questioning your loyalties and what you seek to accomplish in bringing a hated enemy here.”

Tikaya, beginning to question what she sought to accomplish as well, didn’t have an answer. Perhaps it was time to give up. She and Rias could return again in a few years, when time had softened the pain of the war—and people’s hatred of Turgonians. She watched the practitioners stalking away, Rias hemmed in between them, his head and shoulders above the tallest of them. His size mattered little. They had him. If she chose to leave, how would she get him away from them?

When Tikaya didn’t respond, the official stepped past, heading for the street.

“Can you at least tell me when the president is due back?” Tikaya asked. He was the one person who could wave his hand and see to it Rias was treated well, and he was the one person who owed Rias a favor. If he knew about it.

“That is unknown. Goodnight, Ms. Komitopis.”

The policewoman who remained cleared her throat and pointed Tikaya toward a different road, the one leading to her family’s plantation. A short, sturdy lady with pale brown hair, the woman didn’t appear as threatening as the practitioners, but her presence could certainly keep Tikaya from continuing the research she and Rias had started that night. An agate rank button pinned on her uniform shirt glowed faintly, reminiscent of moonlight, and Tikaya recalled that the police could communicate with each other from different parts of the city. Yes, her every movement would likely be reported.

Tikaya sighed and headed toward the tree where she’d left her bicycle. After the practitioners and officials disappeared into the city, Elloil ambled out of the bushes, pushing his own bicycle.

“Ho, there, Tikaya,” he said. “Where have you been? Mother sent me to look for you.” He turned his shoulder toward the policewoman and mouthed something that might have been, “I tried. Didn’t you hear my warning?”

Tikaya only shrugged. Maybe Rias had heard it, but it hadn’t come soon enough to help.

“Are you all right?” Ell asked after she’d collected her bicycle.

“Of course not.” Tikaya gazed toward the dark, empty street that had swallowed Rias and his pack of watchdogs. “I’m waiting for him to wake up, decide I’m not worth all this pain, and disappear. I don’t think there’s a prison that could hold him, if he were determined to escape.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Are what?”

“Worth it.” Ell smiled.

Tikaya tried to feel better at his assertion, but couldn’t manage it.

CHAPTER 9

Tikaya sat on the steps of the lanai, gazing out at the sea and ignoring the stack of books at her side. Her colleague Liusus had brought a pile of work over that morning, certain she’d find her confinement restless. Given that Liusus had not approved of Tikaya’s interest in “maritime archaeology,” she had expected frowns of disapproval, but apparently nobody knew that she and Rias had been in the Oceanography Wing. He must have put everything away and locked the door before Yosis’s attack. Tikaya had been too embarrassed to ask if the entire island thought she’d been polishing Admiral Starcrest’s sword in the Polytechnic library.

“Nobody’s been able to figure out what to do with that sphere,” was what Liusus had said when Mother dragged the two of them inside, insisting Liusus have lunch before returning to work. “When I told them that it lights up and shows pictures, it was amusing to see so many stuffy old archaeologists and philologists completely agog. Once the smoke around your Turgonian blows away from the island, the dean will be leaning on the government, begging, imploring, and otherwise bribing them for permission for you to come back to work.”

Tikaya had mulled over whether she could use that somehow to escape house confinement. Under normal circumstances, she’d love to return to work to study alongside her colleagues, but she was too worried about Rias to think about the ancient technology. Once Liusus left, Tikaya ignored the stack of books and let the mystery of his disappearing basin fill all the space in her head. She itched to get back to the Polytechnic and find everything she could on that missing year.

The policewoman, however, sat on the end of the lanai, munching on taro chips and lemonade. Tikaya tried not to find it a betrayal that Mother was feeding her keeper. Mother fed everyone. If the Turgonian emperor showed up at their door, he’d likely have a platter of roasted pork and grilled pineapple in his hands before he could sit down.

As if the thoughts had produced her, Mother pushed open the sliding screen door and came out with a pitcher. “More lemonade, dear?” Without waiting for a response, she filled Tikaya’s glass and the policewoman’s as well.

“Thank you, ma’am,” the woman said, though she cast a furtive glance toward the road, as if she were worried some superior would chance upon her enjoying refreshments while on duty.

“Tikaya, dear,” Mother said, “you haven’t eaten.” She tilted her chin toward a plate sitting on the railing. “How are you going to gain your health back when you don’t eat?”

“My health is fine, Mother. I’m just busy thinking.”

“You spend too much time thinking. You always have.” Mother set the pitcher down and settled on the steps next to Tikaya. “What is it today? Your young man or the trouble you’ve stirred up?” She glanced toward the policewoman.

Despite herself, Tikaya smiled at hearing Rias called her “young man.” “They’re inextricably intertwined right now, but I’m most worried about him. The College of Telepaths has him. They could be forcing their way into his head right now.”

“I’m sure that won’t happen, dear. That’s not ethical, and the treaty—”

“They’re ignoring the treaty. Because he’s no longer a Turgonian citizen, they think they can.”

Mother frowned. “That’s abhorrent. I’ll talk to your father. As a Komitopis guest, your fellow should be afforded some protection.”

“If Father would be willing to claim him. That seems… unlikely.”

“I’ll talk to him when he comes in from the fields tonight.”

“Rias has been a prisoner before,” Tikaya said. “Tortured and mind-assaulted by the Nurians. I didn’t think… I wouldn’t have brought him here if—”

“I’ll talk to your father, dear. I promise. If he wants to continue enjoying my cooking and good favor, he’ll listen.”

“Thank you, Mother.” Tikaya doubted her gratitude sounded sincere. She didn’t want to underestimate her mother’s ability to influence people, especially those who lived within her domain, but she doubted Father would prove malleable on this topic. Besides, tonight might be too late. The telepaths may have already done their work on Rias.

“It’ll turn out,” Mother said. “We may not have an aristocracy, the way the Turgonians and Nurians do, but our family has played a significant role in Kyattese history since the beginning. The government won’t ignore us.”

Tikaya gazed past her mother and at the door carving highlighting the first landing. “Yes, that’s true, isn’t it? A Komitopis captained one of the colony ships, and many of our ancestors have served in office over the years.”

Mother nodded. “As president several times, among other positions.”

And what, Tikaya wondered, had her ancestors been up to in the 390s? In 397, specifically. “You keep a journal, don’t you?”

Mother cocked her head at this change of topic. “Yes, I write it in almost every day.”

“Do you know if other people in the family have? Throughout history?”

“Yes, of course, it’s commonly done. Unlike some of the first colonists that let their ancestors go rural, the Komitopises have always prided themselves on literacy and education.”

Tikaya lowered her voice. She doubted the policewoman had any knowledge of government intrigues, but who knew what she would report back? “Do we have an archive of family history or anything like that?”

“An archive? That’s an optimistic word for it, but there are crates full of books and family relics in the attic.” Mother offered a crooked smile. “Crates full of utter junk too. Organizing it all would be a project for…” She lifted her eyebrows. “Perhaps for someone confined to the house and seeking to distract one’s mind from grim thoughts.”

“Mother, are you trying to trick me into cleaning the attic?” In truth, Tikaya was delighted to have an excuse to run up there and hunt around. She wondered if her mother knew that and had made the suggestion for the benefit of the policewoman.

“Of course not, dear.” Mother’s eyes grew wide and her smile innocent. “More lemonade?”

“Maybe later.” Tikaya helped her mother up. “This is the original house our family built, isn’t it? So there might be items dating all the way back to the original colony up there?”

“The original house, yes, though it’s grown and expanded quite a bit over the years. I honestly have no idea what’s up there, though the older stuff would be in the west wing. That was the original bungalow.”

“Thank you.”

Tikaya nearly ran into the house and up to the second floor where a creaking pull-down ladder led to the attic. Faint light seeped in through vents at one end. Dusty crates filled the dark space, and she tripped before she’d taken a step. She recovered, clunking her head on the low gabled roof, and thought about retreating for food and water and other spelunking supplies after taking in the sheer bulk of furnishings, crates, trunks, and various—as Mother had called it—junk that stuffed the space. There weren’t any aisles. There were simply areas that would be easier to climb over than others.

Once Tikaya lit a few lamps, she began the hunt for bookcases and other book depositories—such as the ash can she upended, dumping out magazines filled with hand-drawn nude women.

“Lovely. My family members thought it important to collect the earliest forms of Kyattese pornography.” Regardless, she eyed them long enough to date them. Less than seventy years old. “Ugh,” she muttered at the thought that they might have belonged to Grandpa or one of his brothers.

The find meant that section of the attic contained relatively recent memorabilia. She crawled deeper, passing everything from exotic art brought in from far off ports, to trunks containing wedding dresses, to a taxidermy octopus that fell off a wardrobe and onto her head, eliciting a startled squeal. Her outburst roused some bats, and they flapped past in a flurry, wings brushing her head, before disappearing through the vents.

“Not a mission for the squeamish.” Tikaya checked a disassembled bed frame for the craftsman’s name and date. “547. Making progress.”

When she reached a painting from a popular artist from the late 300s, she stopped. With the cessation of movement, the quietness of the attic grew noticeable. Tikaya wiped slick palms on her dress. It might have been the exertion causing her to sweat, the fact that there was little airflow in the warm attic, or the notion that she just might find a clue to her mystery up there. Surely, no government busybody with something to hide had thought to check in her family’s attic for books that needed to be removed.

The corner of a cobweb-choked bookcase against the wall came into view. Hidden behind wooden pumping equipment from some long-retired well, it would have been easy to miss. Tikaya crawled over trunks and boxes—and clunked her head on the descending ceiling several more times—for a closer look. The books she pulled out were from the right era, with leather straps around the bindings to keep the parchment pages from warping and buckling from changes in humidity, but they were all by well-known authors. They were titles on religion and mythology for the most part, nothing that would shed light on conspiracies from 397. She needed the hand-written journal of some ancestor.

“Ms. Komitopis?” came a muffled voice from the attic entrance. The policewoman.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Ah, good. I feared you might be attempting to escape through some secret exit.”

Tikaya glanced toward the nearest roof vent. “Unless I grow wings and shrink, I don’t think that’d be possible.”

“An unlikely occurrence given how fond your mother is of proffering food.”

“Quite.” Tikaya sought something to say that would convince the woman to leave her alone. Or maybe she ought to try to coerce her into helping search. A tempting thought, but the last thing she wanted was to make discoveries that someone might report back to the police headquarters. “I’ve been tasked with a time-consuming job.”

“Can you take a break?” her mother asked, voice muffled by distance. She must be in the hallway underneath the trapdoor. “Your cousin wants to see you.”

“Ell?” Tikaya guessed. “Can you have him come up here?” She didn’t know if that was wise, but she didn’t want to leave the attic now.

“No, one of those sprites-cursed concoctions is dangling from his lips. I won’t have that smoke in my house.”

Tikaya sighed. “Be down in a minute.”

She looked around, making note of nearby objects, so she could come back to the same spot, and crawled away from the bookshelf. The hem of her dress snagged on something. She tried to twist her leg and pull it free, but the object held her fast. She reached down between trunks and found a pile of old whaling gear. She grabbed the hilt of the tool entrapping her hem and pulled it out, intending to toss it aside. But she froze and gaped at her find instead. It wasn’t a tool; it was a sword in a worn leather scabbard that had been nibbled by rats.

Due to Kyatt’s relatively peaceful history, she hadn’t chanced across any weapons. This had to be a gift someone had received in trade or…

Tikaya pulled the blade free, and her breath caught. Though dulled by time, the fine steel was unmistakably Turgonian. Other nations had been dabbling with steel during that time period, but the empire had mastered efficient production methods early on. Their old swords illustrated the fact, when one was lucky enough to find one. The Turgonians had always been secretive with their metallurgy technology, with laws forbidding the selling of weapons and tools across the borders. Something like this had probably come off a soldier who had fallen in an overseas skirmish. But there hadn’t been any battles on the Kyatt Islands back then. How had this weapon found its way into her family’s attic?

Maybe some Nurian war hero had acquired it, then bartered it away, or given it as a gift. But her ancestors had largely been farmers, not traders or world explorers. She stuck her head down between a sofa and a wardrobe to dig deeper into the pile of fishing gear. Beneath the harpoons and hooks, she unearthed a leather messenger bag. Her heart sped up again. Though the history of clothing wasn’t her specialty, she had a colleague who studied military archaeology and maintained a small museum in his office. Tikaya had seen this very bag and knew it was Turgonian marine issue from the late 300s.

She eased it out and unbuckled the straps. Mindful of the piece’s age, she tried to take care, but her fingers were shaking with the excitement of the find. It might be nothing, she told herself. But it could have to do with everything.

“Tikaya?” Mother called.

She twitched in surprise, and the flap came open, spilling its contents.

“Elloil says it’s important and that he can’t stay long.”

“Just a minute,” Tikaya called. “I… caught my dress. It’s more treacherous than a dig at an ancient Nurian battlefield back here.”

An old cap had tumbled out of the bag as well as a leather journal and letters threatening to disintegrate with age. Horrified that she’d dumped them so carelessly, Tikaya feared that touching them would make matters worse. She picked up the cap. It didn’t look like part of a military uniform, but a bill designed to keep sun out of one’s eyes might make it a sailor’s garment. The straps on the leather journal were secured with a small lock. Someone’s private diary? She rifled through the bag, looking for a key, but nothing else remained inside.

“Maybe I’ll get to put Rias’s lock-picking instructions to use, after all,” she said.

“Ms. Komitopis?” That was the policewoman, a note of suspicion in her voice.

“Yes, yes, coming.” Tikaya put the journal, cap, and letters back in the bag and carried it most of the way to the trapdoor. Before reaching the exit, she tucked the gear behind a painting where she could find it again later. She started toward the door, but changed her mind, went back, and pulled out the journal. She untied the sash belt of her dress, slipped the book into her undergarments, and arranged the material and belt so that others shouldn’t notice the bulge. It’d probably be fine if she left it, but who knew if that policewoman might come up and snoop around?

“You’re becoming as paranoid as Rias,” she muttered, picking her way toward the trapdoor.

When Tikaya climbed down, her mother was waiting, the policewoman not two feet away—and eyeing the attic opening suspiciously.

“Ell’s on the back lanai,” Mother said.

“What does he want?”

Mother spread her arms. “He doesn’t talk to me, possibly because I so often let him know how disappointed his mother is in his career choice.”

“I thought you two were sharing confidences now.”

Mother blinked. “What do you mean?”

Tikaya glanced at the policewoman, wishing she’d disappear. “He said you sent him off to keep an eye on me last night. Or maybe just in general,” she added when no hint of understanding entered her mother’s eyes. “To keep me out of trouble.”

“No…” Mother sniffed. “As if I’d send that perennial teenager to keep someone out of trouble.” She strode down the hall, muttering about sloth and family underachievers.

A bang sounded from downstairs—a door hitting the wall. “Tikaya, what’re you doing in there? I’ve got to get to the beach—giving some visiting foreigners some lessons.”

Tikaya hustled through the house, though Mother’s words had roused new suspicions in her mind. If Mother hadn’t sent Ell to follow her, who had?

Ell was pacing on the back lanai, bluish smoke wafting from a cigarette. “Tikaya,” he blurted when she stepped outside. “I’ve got news for you. Rias is…” He trailed off when the policewoman stepped outside. “Oh, right. Forgot about that.”

Forgetting her suspicions for a moment, Tikaya grabbed his arm. “What about Rias?”

“He’s, uh…” Still eyeing the policewoman, Ell took out his tobacco tin. “Well, they let him go.”

“They did? Did they… the telepaths, what did they do to him? Is he all right?”

“I don’t know exactly, but he seemed the same as usual when I saw him.”

“You saw him?” Tikaya barely resisted the urge to grab Ell by the collar of his oversized hibiscus-dyed shirt to shake more details from him.

“Indeed so.” Ell must have sensed her urgency—her fingernails were digging into his arm after all—but he took his time rooting around in his tin, pulling out two already rolled cigarettes. “Smoke?”

“You know I don’t…” She stopped, catching the slight widening of his eyes. “Fine, I’ll take one if it’ll get you to spill the news.”

“Good, you know I hate to smoke alone.”

Ell pressed two cigarettes into her hand. Tikaya recognized one as a fake, a tightly rolled paper with nothing in it. Keeping her back to the policewoman to hide the motion, she slipped the extra into her pocket. She held the real one up, so Ell could light it for her, then held the noxious thing to her lips, pretending to inhale.

“Where’d you see him?” Tikaya asked.

“He’s back at the shipyard.”

“They’re going to let him return to work on his submarine?” Tikaya couldn’t believe it.

“Not exactly. He didn’t say much about the telepaths, but I guess he’s been giving permission to finish building a ship, not a submarine, and to hurry up about it. Once it’s seaworthy, he’s to sail away from Kyatt and never return.”

Tikaya rocked back on her heels. “He said that? It was his choice or…?”

“Some high minister’s order, I gathered.”

“And he agreed to it?” she whispered, gripping the railing.

“I don’t figure he had a choice.” Ell put a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, Coz. I know you were hoping for… I don’t know, marriage or something, I guess. I liked him a lot too. He treated me better than—” he glanced toward the house, “—lots.” He lowered his hand. “I need to grab some food to take with me. Don’t tell your mother, all right?”

Ell hustled into the house. Tikaya, imagining Rias leaving forever, barely noticed him go. Would Rias ask her to leave with him? Was she ready to go if it meant forever? Or… what if he wasn’t planning to ask her? What if whatever he’d suffered at the telepaths’ hands had convinced him that she wasn’t worth it, that it was time to go home?

The fake cigarette—before she formed premature conclusions, she needed to see if that was a note from Rias. She turned and headed for the house. The policewoman, who’d stood beside the door during the conversation with Ell, followed her inside. Tikaya thought about going back to the attic, but the lighting was poor, and her escort might decide to follow her up the ladder this time. She veered into the water closet, opened the window for light, and yanked out the rolled paper. She released a relieved breath when she recognized Rias’s handwriting. By now, she could decrypt the code quickly and read the words straight through.

Tikaya–

I know you are concerned, but I am well. The telepaths were debating over what to do with me (at the same time, I was debating whether to simply consent to their intrusions of my free will) when High Minister Jikaymar strode in, said nobody would be touching my head, and dragged me off to the side. He told me I could go where I wished, but that it’d better be to the docks. He wants me off Kyatt as quickly as possible, and he’s allowing me to build a ship, but bluntly stated that I’d be stopped, one way or another, if I attempted to create a submarine.

I don’t have to tell you that these allowances are surprising, if not ideal. The paranoid, as you would call it, side of me wonders if it’s all part of some trap they hope to spring. If not, I must assume someone spoke to Jikaymar on my behalf. Is it possible your president has returned?

With love,

Rias

Tikaya stuffed the note into her pocket and strode out of the water closet. She had to go see Rias, but she wanted to retrieve the rest of the items in the attic so they could examine everything together. As she turned into the hallway, she almost crashed into the policewoman. Oh, right. Tikaya couldn’t leave the house. How ironic that Rias was now free to walk about, and she was confined. She couldn’t count on him coming to visit her right away either, not when her family had made it clear that he wasn’t welcome. Did he even know she was confined to the house? He’d been pulled away before her sentence had been given, hadn’t he?

“Is everything all right, dear?” Mother asked from the doorway to the kitchen, the kitchen that overlooked the back lanai. She held a spoon dripping batter in her hand, so she’d been working in there. Tikaya wondered how much of the conversation her mother had overheard.

“I need to get a message to Rias,” Tikaya said. “Do you know if anyone is about who isn’t busy?” She didn’t know who that might be, as she hadn’t seen many people that day. The house was quiet due to planting time.

“Where is he?” Mother asked.

“He might be back at the Pernici—, er, Pragmatic Mate, but he’d more likely be eating, sleeping, and working at Shipyard Four.” Sleeping being questionable, Tikaya thought.

Mother’s gray eyebrows twitched at the slip-up. She was well aware of the name of the hostel—and the dubious neighborhood it occupied. “That’s hardly a fit place for an upright young man.”

“The hostel or the shipyard?” Tikaya asked with a smile. “If you’d seen the not-entirely-floating shipwreck he acquired, you might find the Mate a superior abode.”

The pursed lips turned into a disapproving pucker. “I need to go to the market. I can relay your message.”

Tikaya hadn’t meant to send her mother off on errands for her, but as long as she was offering… “I don’t suppose you could give a message to Parkonis’s mother, as well? As soon as it’s permitted—” she glanced at the policewoman, “—I need to go over and see her, but I’d hate to stop by unannounced.” Actually, it was more that she’d hate to find that Parkonis was living with his mother until he settled in somewhere again. Tikaya couldn’t stomach the thought of knocking on the door and coming face-to-face with two sets of disappointed stares.

“Iweue?” Mother’s spoon drooped. “Are you sure she’ll want to see you right now? Or me?”

“No, but Grandpa wouldn’t help, and she’s the only other person I know who could Make an energy source to power a big engine. And Rias needs one.” Tikaya realized that might not be true if he no longer intended to build a submarine. Perhaps a standard Turgonian boiler and furnace system would suffice. She needed to talk to him before making further plans.

“I suppose it couldn’t last,” Mother said.

“What’s that?”

“You being the least needy and demanding of my children. Your brothers always craved attention, whereas you simply wanted to be left alone with your books and puzzles. Father and I worried now and then, you know.”

“Oh.” Awareness of the policewoman standing by caused warmth to creep into Tikaya’s cheeks. She didn’t want to have her failings deconstructed in front of strangers. “There’s no need to worry about me. I’ll just wait here while you go talk to Rias. I appreciate it. Thank you.”

“Parents always worry. We were relieved, though, when you started seeing Parkonis. I thought I’d finally get those grandchildren I’d pictured for so long. I used to tell your father that I feared you didn’t know one must plant a seed to grow a tree, and that suitably virile pips are scarce in the dusty archives of the Polytechnic.”

Tikaya winced. How had her mother drifted onto this topic again? And was that a smirk on the policewoman’s face?

“Yes, Mother. Would you like me to start the runabout for you? Bring it around front?”

“Though you and Parkonis did always seem more like friends,” Mother went on, caught up in some memory as she gazed out the window. “You didn’t stare at him across the dinner table, as if you wished the family would disappear, so you could tear off his clothes and assume a horizontal plane.”

“Mother!” Tikaya whispered. By now the policewoman’s smirk had turned into a hand-covering-her-mouth attempt to hold back laughter. Tikaya’s cheeks were no longer simply warm; they were being seared by a surge of molten lava. “I did not look at Rias like that. I was too busy being uncomfortable relaying our adventure to twenty pairs of judging eyes.”

“Dear, if that’s true, I can’t imagine how you look at him when you’re alone and… comfortable.”

Escape, Tikaya thought. She had to escape. “I’ll go get the runabout for you. The afternoon’s already growing long. You don’t want to delay. What if the market closes?” She headed for the front door, but her mother continued to muse.

“Though, I can understand the feeling. Parkonis was—is—a nice lad, but a touch scrawny and scattered, don’t you think? Your new fellow is quite handsome, especially when he’s roaming about shirtless. Intriguing stories behind those scars, I imagine. That one on his eyebrow, it looks like someone must have been trying to kill him.”

“I’m fairly certain someone was trying to kill him on all of the instances he received scars, Mother. And, shouldn’t you not be speculating on shirtless men when you’re married to Father?” Shouldn’t you not? Tikaya groaned to herself. How sad that a linguistics specialist could fumble her own language so.

“Don’t be naive, dear. Of course a woman’s allowed to speculate. I’m certain that Akahe doesn’t judge us for what’s in our minds, and being married doesn’t mean we must suppress our fantasies. Why a good fantasy can enhance one’s intimate relations with one’s spouse. It’s all perfectly acceptable.”

Tikaya had no response for that. She hustled out the front door, nearly slamming it in her haste to escape. As much as she’d wanted an advocate for Rias, having her sixty-year-old mother displaying salacious interest in him wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind.

CHAPTER 10

Tikaya had wanted to delve into her attic finds as soon as possible, but Mother left her with a number of cooking tasks to perform in her absence. She could hardly object when Mother was out running errands for her. If the policewoman hadn’t been lingering, Tikaya would have tugged out the journal, cut open the lock, and devoured the contents while stirring soup on the cooktop. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d read while attending to household chores, though all the scalds, cuts, and spilled pots had resulted in numerous parental warnings on the folly of such practices. As it was, a couple of hours passed, and numerous kin came and went before she could escape the kitchen.

Hoping she could leave her watchdog below, Tikaya left the soup to simmer and headed for the trapdoor. When she reached up to push it open, she met resistance. A shiny new padlock dangled from the latching mechanism.

She stared at it, dumbfounded.

The attic hadn’t been locked two hours earlier. At least, she didn’t think so. Was it possible her mother had come ahead and unclasped a lock before asking Tikaya to “organize”? But, no, she’d lived in the house most of her life. There’d never been a lock on the attic. Her brothers and cousins had gone up there to smoke during their rebellious teenage stages, which Ell had yet to grow out of. No, somebody had locked the trapdoor within the last two hours.

The hallway floor creaked as the policewoman stopped a few steps away.

“You don’t know anything about this, do you?” Tikaya doubted the woman carried padlocks in her pockets or would presume to secure a room in someone’s house, but she didn’t know who else to suspect.

“No, ma’am.”

“Did you by chance see anyone head this way while I was cooking?”

“At least a dozen people were in and out of the house this afternoon.”

For a long moment, Tikaya stared at the lock. Unbelievable. She’d ask at dinner, though she couldn’t believe this was a coincidence. Someone in the family must have heard she was up there. Someone who knew about the Turgonian artifacts? Or was there something else up there that she had yet to discover, something important? She thought of Ell—he’d gone into the house, supposedly for food, hadn’t he? Had Mother let him know she’d been up in the attic when he came? He couldn’t possibly be in on some familial conspiracy, could he?

Growling, Tikaya stalked down the hallway, brushing past the policewoman and heading for the other wing of the house. At least she still had the journal. Maybe it would hold the answers she sought.

When she reached her bedroom, she paused with her hand on the knob. “Mind if I have some privacy?” she asked the woman tagging along after her.

“So long as you don’t decide to escape out the window.” The policewoman smiled, but there was a speculation in her gaze, as if she thought Tikaya might do just that.

“I promise to stay inside.”

“Very well.”

Tikaya shut and locked the door. Before she took the three steps to her desk, she’d practically torn her undergarments off in her haste to pull out the journal. It wouldn’t be long until dinner, and whoever had locked the attic might confront her then or forbid her to research the family history further. She didn’t think anyone would search her room, but one never knew…

Intending to force open the lock, Tikaya pulled a letter opener out of the drawer, but she paused. The three-hundred-year-old journal wasn’t as ancient as many of the artifacts she’d studied, but it was a piece of history. Tamping down her growing sense of urgency, she fished a couple of hairpins out and applied Rias’s picking techniques.

Despite its age, the diary lock was in good condition and proved far simpler than the one at the library. It released with a soft click.

“Hah,” Tikaya said. “So, at the age of thirty, you deviate from pure academics to embark on a life that involves beating up professors and prying into people’s diaries.” For a moment, she wondered if she should blame Rias’s warmongering Turgonian influence, but she was too busy unfastening the leather straps and easing open the book to wonder for long.

With the first page, she knew it was indeed a personal journal, one written in Middle Turgonian, the letters large and wobbly, as one might expect from an accounting written at sea. When she spotted the date at the top of the first entry, a flutter danced through her stomach. 17 Frost Moon, 342. The Turgonians had started their calendar after their first major acquisition on their new continent, fifty-five years after the Kyattese “After Colonizing” dates had begun. That meant her new find was from 397, the year of the missing book in the library.

Tikaya settled onto her bed to read. It’d been more than ten years since she’d studied Old and Middle Turgonian, so it took a few moments to get into the rhythm, but she was soon skimming through the opening pages. Darkness descended outside her window, but she barely noticed.

When a knock sounded at her door, it jarred her out of the world she’d delved into, and she almost dropped the book. Clanks and voices came from the yard out front. Tikaya leaped from her bed and checked the window.

The family’s runabout had returned, its engine glowing a soft blue with the energy source that powered it. Her mother had opened the rear and was piling groceries into—Tikaya’s heart gave a relieved flip—Rias’s arms. The lizard-tracking device no longer adorned his wrist, and there was no sign of Yosis.

She clenched a fist. “Good.”

Mother said something, and Rias, arms laden with a crate and an impressive number of sacks, walked around the runabout. He gave it a long thoughtful look on his way to the front lanai. Tikaya wondered if he was dreaming up ways to improve upon the design or simply hoping he never had to ride in the thing again. With its wooden wheels, bamboo frame, and engine parts carved from—if memory served—whale bone, the vehicle must lack the finesse—and smoothness—to which he was accustomed.

In the hallway, someone knocked again, this time with a swift sternness that suggested a reply should be prompt. Tikaya had hoped Rias might glance up at her window, but he didn’t see her, so she hustled toward the door. She almost opened it before realizing she still held the journal.

“Just a moment,” Tikaya called. Her delays would seem suspicious, but she didn’t see a way around them. She searched for a safe place to stash the book. Given that someone was wandering about, locking doors, she didn’t want to leave it out. Unfortunately, unlike her brothers, she’d never hidden dirty posters, tobacco, or other parentally forbidden items in her room, so she’d never created a secret niche. When the knock came again, she resorted to stuffing the journal into her undergarments again. She grabbed a decorative sash for her waist, and then, to draw the eye from the area, a flamboyant flower brooch that she’d adored when she was eleven or twelve. It was garish but suitably distracting. “A girl needs to dress up when her beau comes to dinner after all.”

Tikaya unlocked the door and strode into the hallway, an apology for the policewoman on her lips. But her father was the one standing there, scowling.

“Do you know what the soup is doing?” he demanded.

“Er.” She’d forgotten she left that pot on the cooktop. “Simmering?” she asked hopefully.

“Boiling all over the place and making a mess in the kitchen.”

“Sorry, Father. I’ll clean it up.” She wanted to add, “Right after I see Rias,” but the depth of that scowl suggested the addendum would be unwise.

“You’ll sleep in your room tonight as well,” he growled and stomped toward the stairway. “Alone,” he added as he descended.

Sighing, Tikaya hustled toward the stairs. It seemed she was catching up on the youthful indiscretions she’d forgotten to pursue as a teenager, including sneaking out and irritating one’s parents. The policewoman stood in the hall, her hands clasped behind her back as she imitated a potted plant. So lovely to have a witness for one’s life.

By the time Tikaya cleaned up, the family had gathered around the table. With so many watching, she didn’t hug Rias, instead only gave him an awkward hand pat on her way past. She ate swiftly, hoping everyone would finish soon so she could excuse herself for a more private conversation with him, though she didn’t know how much she dared discuss with the policewoman still around.

Ell didn’t show up for dinner, and she wondered where he was. As much as she hated to think suspicious thoughts about family members, the shiny new lock on the attic had her hackles up.

Rias asked a few polite questions at dinner, and responded with a thankful smile whenever Mother included him in the conversation, but mostly he remained quiet. Given how often Father’s glower shifted in his direction, that wasn’t surprising.

At one point, Rias asked his across-the-table seat mate Ky, “How long have your people had vehicles?”

Tikaya’s brother shrugged. “Two or three centuries at least. They’re rare because it’s a lot of effort for a practitioner to Make a power supply. Most people ride bicycles or pull wagons with donkeys.”

“That rickety vehicle is actually a sign of our family’s prosperity,” Tikaya said dryly.

“Nothing wrong with our runabout,” Father said, sparing a new scowl for her.

“No, sir,” Rias said. “If you were of a mind, you could make the ride smoother by installing…” He glanced at Tikaya and asked, “Shock absorbers?” in Turgonian.

She offered an unwieldy translation. Her people didn’t have an equivalent, as far as she knew.

“I could take a look at it and see if I can come up with something,” Rias offered.

“That sounds lovely.” Mother’s voice held true pleasure, and she beamed a smile at him.

For a few heartbeats, Father’s expression seemed to soften and turn speculative as well, but he shook his head, and the scowl climbed back onto his lips. “We don’t need any Turg improvements.”

After that, the dinner conversation limped along. Tikaya was relieved when Mother dismissed the children and put an end to the moribund event. She couldn’t grab Rias’s arm and lead him to the back lanai fast enough. The policewoman trooped after, though Mother stopped her with a raised hand.

“Dear, you look tired. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll bring you a spot of rum cake?”

The policewoman pointed at Tikaya. “I need to—”

“Here now, you can see through the window from this chair. Won’t that do? It’s only polite to offer privacy to young couples.”

Father appeared at Mother’s shoulder. “What are you doing? Devil’s spit, don’t help them.”

“Come, Loilon,” Mother responded, “we’ve raised three children. Surely, you’ve learned that they’ll do what they wish, and it’s better to let them do it under a watchful eye than to force them to slink off into the night where they’ll get in trouble.”

Tikaya thought Mother would give her a disapproving frown when she finished speaking, but she leaned around Father to eyeball Ky and Tikaya’s other brother, Kolio, instead.

“What?” Ky asked innocently from the dining room.

“We’ll discuss this further.” Father guided Mother away with a hand on her back.

“Of course,” Mother said, something in her voice suggesting she wasn’t worried about coming out on top in the brewing argument.

Grateful for her mother’s interference, Tikaya joined Rias in the courtyard. The fountain burbled, a half moon cast beams upon the water, and a soft breeze stirred the fronds of the plants and trees. A perfect evening for a little romance, but the questions that had been threatening to bubble over in Tikaya’s mind—similarly to the soup in the pot—spilled out as soon as they were alone.

“Did the telepaths truly leave you alone? What’d the high minister say to you? Did he threaten you or did you reach an agreement? Where’s the tracking device? And Yosis? Is he done following you? Are you free to go wherever you wish? Are you truly giving up your dream of building a submarine?”

“Hm.” Rias took Tikaya’s hand and led her to a stone bench. “This is our first private moment…” He glanced at the windows overlooking the courtyard, through which the policewoman and several of Tikaya’s teenaged cousins observed. “Rather, this our first semi-private moment, and you wish to interrogate me?”

“Rias.” She gripped his forearm with both hands. “We can practice lip osculating later. If you tell me what happened with all those telepaths, I’ll show you what’s under my dress. As a Turgonian, I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating.”

“Er, yes, as a man, I’m sure I will, but…”

Tikaya rolled her eyes, shifted so her back faced the windows, and tugged his hand over so he could feel the outline of the book beneath her sash.

“More intrigues? Very well, I shall endeavor to respond to your inquiries in an adequate manner.” Rias tilted his face toward the moon for a moment. “Yes, the telepaths left me alone, though I sensed a number of cursory probes as a few tried to gauge my top-level feelings. I don’t believe they learned much. There’s an advanced class at the academy for high-ranking officers as well as those who work in beyond-borders intelligence operations. It’s taught by an ex-Nurian wizard hunter. You learn a few rudimentary techniques for resisting mental interrogations.”

“At a Turgonian academy? I didn’t think your people acknowledged that the mental sciences existed, much less that there’s a need to defend against them.”

“They don’t openly, no. It’s a top-secret class. As to the rest of your questions, I do not know who the high minister was in contact with, but I must surmise that it was someone of influence. He didn’t look happy about it, but he removed the tracker and said I could walk around without an escort. The stipulation for my freedom was that I agreed not to build a submarine and that I promised to leave by the end of the month unless they recanted and invited me to stay.”

“The… month?” Tikaya sagged against his side. “And they want you gone forever? I knew that’d be a possibility, but I’d thought—hoped—that… with time, my people would get used to having you around, and you’d at least be able to come back for frequent visits and…”

“I did too. I didn’t want you to have to choose between me and the home you love, but I suspected this would be the case. That’s why…” Rias reached out and touched one of the fronds draping over the bench, brushing it gently—sadly?—with his thumb.

“What?”

“Why I haven’t asked you to marry me,” he said.

“Oh.” Tikaya remembered him bringing up the subject once in a room full of bodies when she’d asked him to distract her from the grisly surroundings and some particularly taxing mental work. He’d been joking then, sort of, but she hadn’t forgotten that he’d mentioned it. But she was still trying to get used to the idea of sailing off and having adventures with him; she’d always wanted to raise a family here.

Rias cleared his throat. “Given the lack of encouragement in that monosyllabic response, perhaps it’s just as well that I haven’t asked.”

“No, no.” Tikaya leaned closer and kissed him. “I was thinking, sorry.”

“I suppose I’ve learned by now that I’m not quite as intriguing as what goes on inside your head.”

“That’s not true. All right, that’s not always true. These are just intriguing times. Let’s talk about our future together later, shall we? I do want to spend it with you. And I want to see what kind of potato-gun-making, lock-pick-wielding, bathtub-armada-creating children I might have with you. I’m just not certain I can see raising them on a submarine. Or without the support of my family. You sound like you might have been… trying to your mother.”

“Me?” The shadows didn’t quite hide the magnitude to which Rias’s eyebrows climbed. “I wholeheartedly deny the likelihood of such an accusation. Of course… my denial might be less wholehearted were my mother not thousands of miles away and unlikely to chat with you any time soon.”

“I’m actually composing a letter to her.” Tikaya was only teasing him, but perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea. One ought to introduce oneself to one’s potential mother-in-law, shouldn’t one?

“You are? Then… why don’t I get back to answering your initial questions? Yes, let’s do that. I haven’t seen Yosis since this morning. He stalked off when he heard the high minister’s mandates. I did have the impression he wasn’t done with me. Jikaymar suggested I finish my ship swiftly, leaving unspoken the implication that unsavory things might happen to an ex-Turgonian commander who stayed around.”

“So you’re building a ship now? Wouldn’t it be faster to simply spend a few more nights in the gambling hall and win enough to purchase one? You can’t possibly finish one from scratch by the deadline you’ve been given.”

“I doubt it would be that easy—you can usually only win everyone’s money once before word gets around and people start avoiding you. Besides…” Rias glanced at the windows again and lowered his voice. “I haven’t given up on my submarine. I’m simply altering the design, so it’ll appear to be a surface-based craft.”

“Ah ha, I knew you wouldn’t abandon that idea so easily.”

“As to the build time, it’ll be tight, but I’ve recruited a crew of sorts to help. There are more ex-Turgonians living in the city than I would have guessed, many of them former marines who chose to marry a native and settle here, much like your Nurian neighbor. They’ve all proven willing to assist me so far.”

“Not surprising. What about my cousin, Ell?” Tikaya asked, remembering the locked attic. “Has he been helping you?”

“He has, yes.”

“Keep an eye on him,” Tikaya said.

“Oh?”

“Just in case he’s someone’s eyes.”

“I don’t get that sense from him, but I’ll be careful and compartmentalize my team.” Rias shifted his weight on the bench. “My new design is compact, so it won’t take as long to build as a warship or something of that size.”

“Your… new design? You have one already? Didn’t you just learn that you had to change it this morning?”

“Yes, I had time to revamp it on the ride out here. So long as the bumps I received to my head while sitting in your family’s conveyance didn’t cause damage that will render my calculating skills untrustworthy.”

Tikaya snorted. “I knew you thought the runabout was awful.”

“Just… incomplete.” Rias touched her sash. “Have I answered your questions adequately? Are you going to slap my hand if I slip it under your dress to see what you’re hiding?”

“Have I ever?” Tikaya checked the window. The youngsters, perhaps bored by the dearth of physical activity, had disappeared, and only the policewoman remained. Unfortunately, she seemed to take her job seriously, and she watched them like dedicated surfers surveying the ocean for a promising wave. “We better put on a show for her,” Tikaya whispered. “Can you slip it out and take it to your hostel room?”

Rias eyeballed his sleeveless shirt and clam diggers. “I suppose I can employ a similar method to yours, so long as nobody’s looking too closely at my groin area.”

“Don’t walk past my mother on the way out.”

“What?”

“Never mind. It’s a journal that was written over three hundred years ago by one of your countrymen. He’d retired from the military and was sailing on an exploration vessel. They were seeking gold, ancient treasures, and signs of some sort of lost colony. The latter intrigued me, because, for all that I’ve studied history, I hadn’t heard of any such thing. Do you know of it?”

“It’s a fable,” Rias said, “one of many my mother read to me as a child. According to our history, there were eight waves of ships that left Nuria, all intending to colonize different parts of what’s now the Turgonian West Coast. After a generation or two of conquering, assimilating, and carving out places for themselves, they eventually found each other again and formed a central government. The history books claim that all of the original colony waves were accounted for, but the fable says that there were actually nine waves and that one never made it. The story tells of a great storm that forced the small fleet off course and eventually sank the ships. Every now and then, someone goes looking for evidence of the lost colonists, because the fable also tells of priceless antiques that had been taken from the old world.” Rias shrugged. “I suspect it’s simply a tale kept alive by wistful treasure hunters.”

“Many cultures have such stories,” Tikaya said, “some based on a grain of truth but some totally fantastical. I don’t know about a lost colony, but according to this journal, this exploration vessel was here in 397—that’s 342 by your calendar. It’d be an impressive coincidence if their quest didn’t have anything to do with the altered map and the missing government journal from that year.”

“Did this countryman of mine find anything?” Rias asked. “How did the journal end up in… Where did you say you found it?”

“Our attic. I’m—”

A door banged, and Tikaya flinched.

“It’s getting late,” Father said. “Finish up, send your… suitor home, and come to bed.”

Suitor. That was an improvement. Maybe Mother had won the argument. The door thudded shut again. At least he was giving her a couple more minutes. “Ever notice how you’re always a child in the eyes of your parents? So long as you’re staying under their roof….”

“I have experienced similar scenarios during my homecomings, yes.” Rias turned his shoulder and leaned in to stroke her face with one hand while resting the other on her thigh near the book. “It doesn’t matter how many military medals and accolades you receive; your mother still expects you to clear the table and take out the trash.”

Tikaya might have chuckled, but her body had instantly grown aware of the warmth of his hand through her dress. “Er, yes, as I was saying, I didn’t get to read all of it before dinner, but the book will be safer with you.”

“Safer?” Rias’s roaming fingers paused. “What do you mean?”

Tikaya, aware that Father might be back out at any moment, gave him a quick synopsis of the afternoon’s events.

“You suspect your cousin?”

“He’s been around—and around me—far more than usual.”

“And here I thought he simply found me intriguing.”

“I’m sure that’s true too.” Tikaya tapped the back of Rias’s hand, reminding him that his fingers were supposed to be delving under her dress. She supposed she could get the book out herself without her observer noticing, but thought Rias might perform the move more adroitly. Akahe knew it was within her range of talents to fall off the bench while trying to extricate the tome.

Fortunately Rias obliged, his warm fingers slipping beneath the hem to find bare skin. He lowered his lips to hers for a kiss as well, perhaps figuring the policewoman would be more likely to watch that than his hand. Tikaya certainly didn’t mind. Too soon, he pulled back.

“Wait, did you say this journal was written in three-forty-two?” Rias whispered. “It’ll be in Middle Turgonian then.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Only if you want me to be able to read it.”

“It’s not that different from the modern tongue. I’m sure you’ll be able to work it out. If you’re as smart as I believe you are.” Tikaya took his face in both hands, smiled, and leaned into him to resume the kiss.

“There better be maps and pictures,” he muttered around her ardor.

Before she could decide whether she wanted to respond, his roaming fingers inched higher, finding the book, but also delivering a few teasing strokes that made her breath hitch and her body flush. “Rias,” she whispered against his mouth. “You can’t do such things if you’re leaving.”

The door slammed open again, and Tikaya jerked away from Rias like a guilty teenager.

“Enough, Tikaya,” came her father’s voice.

She wanted to tell him to go away, that, by all the blighted banyan sprits in the forest, she was thirty years old. Besides, he’d never objected to her spending late evenings in the courtyard with Parkonis. Of course, she’d had her own room in the city then, and necking sessions at the homestead had been rare. It didn’t matter anyway. The book was gone. When she glanced at Rias’s lap, he gave her a nod. Mission accomplished.

“Coming, Father.” Tikaya stood and smoothed her dress.

Her father had gone back inside, but the policewoman stood on the lanai. A second woman in uniform had joined her. The night shift?

Rias stood up and captured her hand. “Ms. Komitopis, would you be available for a date in three days hence?”

“A date? I’m confined to the house and under watch.”

Sure, he might be free now, but Tikaya had still assaulted a professor.

“Perhaps you can figure out a way to sneak away,” Rias said softly.

“I’ll… see what I can think of.” Tikaya remembered that Liusus had said her colleagues were missing her, or rather missing her expertise when it came to the alien artifacts. She could try sending Dean Teailat a note. He had some sway in the city; maybe he could speed the judicial process along. “What did you have in mind for this date?”

“I thought we might take a stroll up the coast, and you could show me the sights. I’ve heard you can stand on the rocks and watch live lava plop out of tubes, then sizzle as it falls into sea.”

Ah, he wanted to explore the shoreline near the basin that had disappeared from the maps. “It’s not as exciting as you’d think,” Tikaya said, hoping he understood that to mean that she’d been to the area and seen nothing suspicious or intriguing. Surfers hit the breaks up there every day and kids tramped all over the caves in the nearby cliffs. After more than three hundred years, any evidence of historically significant happenings would be long gone.

“You only say that because you grew up here. I’m sure I’ll find it fascinating.” Rias smiled, kissed her in parting, and strolled out of the courtyard, choosing, with his book burden, to walk around the house rather than through it.

“Fascinating?” Tikaya murmured. Dear Akahe, what did he have in mind?

CHAPTER 11

Tikaya took a deep breath and climbed the steps to Iweue’s lanai. It’d been two days since Rias’s evening visit. That morning, a new policewoman had come by, relieving the old one of duty, and handed Tikaya a message. Apparently, her plea to Dean Teailat had worked. She had a month of community work to look forward to, along with eight weeks of counseling sessions in which she’d learn to control her “inappropriate rage,” but at least she could walk around without an escort. Of course, she was supposed to be back working at the Polytechnic, not visiting Parkonis’s mother.

Tikaya pulled the doorbell ringer, a braided seashell chain with a pewter book dangling on the end. She’d loved that ringer once—as it showed how much Iweue adored reading—but now it reminded her how much she’d liked having Iweue for a future mother-in-law, and she’d seemed to like Tikaya too. If the woman had been a condescending nag, it would have been much easier to walk away from the family. Showing up today and asking for something on Rias’s behalf would likely wound Iweue. Tikaya could only hope she’d be in a cheery mood thanks to Parkonis’s recent return from the dead.

A thump sounded within the thatch-roof bungalow, followed by a call of, “Coming.”

Tikaya reminded herself that she was on a necessary errand and that it wouldn’t do to feel chagrin at the fact that Iweue was home. When the door opened, she forced a bright smile, though she doubted it disguised the wariness that hunched her shoulders.

“Good afternoon,” she said.

Iweue, a graying woman with her hair swept into a bun, leaned forward to squint through the screen door, almost dropping the book clutched to her chest. She patted about, checking the pockets of a loose blouse and an apron before finding her spectacles in their usual perch above her brow. “Tikaya?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The formal title slipped out before she caught herself. Parkonis’s mother had always insisted on being called by her first name, even by her students at the College, preferring that to ma’am, and certainly not Mrs. Osu, thank you very much, for that surname had come by way of a deadbeat husband who’d wandered off to one of the small islands to lounge about the beaches and avoid work and responsibility, a story Iweue had explained often. Even so, Tikaya wasn’t certain the woman would appreciate first name usage from her any more.

“Iweue, please.” With her spectacles now affixed, she looked Tikaya up and down. “It’s wonderful to see that you’ve returned home safely. And that you’re well. There are rumors all over the island, and I’ve heard… so many things, really, from Parkonis. I’m not certain what to believe about, er, is there no hope for you two, Tikaya? Underneath it all, I think he misses you and would come back if… your new… relationship doesn’t end up lasting.”

Tikaya didn’t know what to say. She had expected disappointment and maybe condemnation from Parkonis’s mother, not for her to ask if she’d take her son back. The mature thing to do would have been to discuss the situation; instead Tikaya avoided it completely by asking, “Rumors?”

Iweue pursed her lips thoughtfully—probably seeing through Tikaya’s reluctance to discuss the matter—and said, “Yes, rumors. Here, sit down.” She waved to a pair of rattan chairs and a small table at the corner of the lanai.

Before their rumps had more than touched down, Iweue launched into details. “Parkonis says that his team was there on a sanctioned—” her eyebrow twitched at the word, “—relic hunt with several others from the archaeological community when Admiral Starcrest showed up with a company of marines and started slaying people left and right. This being the group who had kidnapped you from your parents’ plantation, Parkonis felt quite justified and heroic in kidnapping you back from their vile midst. But you were uncooperative in helping our own people thwart the Turgonians. For the safety of all of her allies, his colleague Gali was forced to use her telepathy training to enter your mind—” Iweue’s eyebrow twitched again, this time at the word forced, “—and found out Starcrest had duped you into working for him. Parkonis claims that Starcrest is here now, under the guise of courting you, to delve into Kyattese secrets and seek a weakness that imperial forces, led by himself, can swoop in and exploit.”

“That’s… similar to the version of events I keep hearing,” Tikaya said. “I suppose I should have guessed that the government didn’t make up such an elaborate tale of its own accord. Bureaucrats aren’t known for their creativity.”

“Yes, Parkonis reported to them immediately upon his return.” Iweue folded her hands in her lap and waited. For Tikaya to offer her own version of events? It was promising that Iweue didn’t seem to have formed an opinion yet.

Though Tikaya was starting to grow weary of telling the story—maybe she could put together a pamphlet to hand out to folks—she launched into it again, adding in a few more details of the ancient civilization and puzzle-solving because Iweue had often shown interest in her work when she and Parkonis had come for dinner.

“Hm,” Iweue said after the story’s conclusion.

Tikaya wondered if that meant she’d lost belief in the tale somewhere along the way and had continued listening only out of politeness.

After a moment, Iweue asked, “Did he mention his wife to you?”

“Huh?” Tikaya blurted. Of course Rias had mentioned his former wife, but nobody had asked about the woman yet—how did Iweue even know?—so the topic surprised her. “I mean, he did, yes. Early on. He said the marriage had been dissolved as a result of him losing his name, warrior-caste status, and ancestral lands.” Realizing that implied he hadn’t necessarily wanted the marriage to end, Tikaya rushed to add, “He said he didn’t regret that. I gather it was something of a relief because she wasn’t faithful. It’d been a relationship arranged in his youth, and they’d turned out not to have anything in common.”

“She wasn’t faithful?” Iweue leaned forward so quickly, her spectacles slipped down her nose. She stared at Tikaya over the rims.

Not certain what response Iweue wanted or expected, Tikaya only said, “Yes…”

Iweue sank back in the chair and adjusted her spectacles. “That’s hard to imagine. He’s a great hero over there. I’d think being his wife would have been very prestigious, second only to wedding the emperor himself.”

“Uhm.” The last thing Tikaya wanted was some scenario in which Rias’s wife regretted her past indiscretions and showed up on the docks to ask for him to return. How had they ended up on the subject? She’d come to discuss components for powering engines, not Rias’s past loves. “I suppose some warrior-caste women, being born into a privileged aristocracy, may not appreciate the gifts Akahe—er, their ancestors—bestow on them.” Tikaya tilted her head. “I didn’t know you were an expert on Turgonian marriage practices.”

“Not an expert, no, but I’ve read…” Iweue flipped a hand, as if to dismiss the notion, but a thoughtful expression drifted onto her face. “Actually, why don’t I show you?”

Before Tikaya could agree or disagree, Iweue slipped out of her chair and into the house, leaving the screen door banging in the breeze in her haste to reach… what? Curiosity propelled Tikaya after her host.

Little had changed in the small home, though Tikaya barely had time to notice the woven grass rugs, the beach-themed wall decor, or the bamboo and rattan furniture—all littered with books—before Iweue zipped through the living area and up a ladder to the loft. Bookcases, their shelves bent under the weight of so many tomes, filled the low walls and formed aisles through the space. In some spots, lesser encyclopedias and compendiums were simply stacked on the floor. Tikaya followed her guide through the maze to the back of the loft where a lamp and a plush chair waited. Iweue put her hand on a case built into the back wall. Numerous history and Science tomes with bland black and brown leather bindings filled it.

“As you may have noticed,” Iweue said, “I’ve been collecting over the decades. I keep saying I’ll donate some of my books to the library, but it’s difficult to part with one’s treasures.”

“I’ve always found that to be true,” Tikaya said politely, not sure what else to say. Though she had a fondness for all sorts of books herself, she wondered at the point of this diversion.

“I so crave good adventure yarns that I read novels from a number of different cultures. I must admit, I find our own authors tend toward the academic; some are very imaginative, but you wonder if they’ve ever actually had any adventures themselves. And they can be quite verbose. I don’t care how much symbolism one can find in a dead fish washed up on the beach—there’s just no reason to spend paragraphs describing it.”

By this point, Tikaya had no idea where Iweue was going with the conversation, so she merely nodded.

“I’ve found that Turgonian novelists, though terse and not known to pen books of great literary merit, at least when judged by other nations, have a knack for telling stories in a succinct way that moves the story along and makes you want to turn the page.”

Tikaya gave another encouraging nod. Iweue’s rambling seemed to be coming to a head.

“Of course, it grew terribly hard to acquire such novels during and after the war—and it’s considered quite unseemly to own them today. I was encouraged by colleagues to burn my copies, if you can imagine. Ghastly notion, that. I did make their placement in my library more… discreet.”

With that, Iweue pulled out a particularly drab looking tome entitled On Manipulating Alchemical States. A soft click sounded, and the bookcase swung outward. Surprised, Tikaya stepped back to evade its bulk. Iweue pushed it all the way around, revealing a second case full of books on the backside. These were more slender texts, some with quite vivid colors. Tikaya didn’t think she’d ever seen a book with such a luscious pink binding.

“The Rapier and the Rose, by Lady Dourcrest?” she read.

Iweue cleared her throat. “Pay no attention to those books. They’re terribly salacious. Not at all worth your time to read, but the merchant captain who smuggles, er, brings the latest Turgonian publications to me when he passes through always includes that author’s latest titles. The way he smirks and admires my physique when he hands them over… I dare say he’s trying to put suggestions into my head.” Iweue sniffed.

Tikaya tamped down a smile. “And do you read them?”

“Of course not.”

“That one has a bookmark in it.”

“What? Oh, it must have come already inserted. No doubt some lewd passage to which the captain wished to draw my attention.” Iweue pointed to the top shelf. “These are the titles I thought might interest you.”

As Tikaya read the first one, her mouth dropped open. “Captain Starcrest in the West Markiis?” She skimmed the shelf, and her jaw sank lower and lower. There had to be more than thirty titles. “Fleet Admiral Starcrest and the Nurian Armada?”

“That’s from later in his career. I’d start at the beginning. The ones by Lord Bearcrest are best.” Iweue plucked a book from the shelf. “Here. Lieutenant Starcrest and the Savage Saboteur.”

Tikaya stared at the row of books. She’d known Rias was considered a hero amongst the Turgonian marines, but these stories… They implied he was a household name in the empire. There were probably children who were, at that very moment, reenacting his exploits in backyard adventures. That Turgonian metalworker’s words came to mind, the suggestion that Rias could take back what was rightfully his if he chose to stir up trouble. It might be a difficult road, but when had he ever shied away from a battle where the odds were against him? What if… What if the only reason he’d chosen not to return home was her? What if they’d never met? Would he have gone straight to marching on the capital to demand his title and rights back? Was she costing him a chance at regaining his old life?

“What was that?” Iweue asked.

Tikaya realized she must have muttered some of her questions aloud. “I was… wondering about the books. Are they biographical?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Just stories loosely based on actual events in the admiral’s career. The author admits he didn’t have any interaction with Starcrest—who, it sounds like, spent most of the twenty-odd years of his career at sea, making him rather unreachable—but he did do research to ensure the battles and historical events were as accurate as possible. That seems to be quite important to Turgonian readers.” Iweue selected two more novels. “Here. This is another one from when he was a lieutenant, and then the story of how he obtained his captaincy, largely by being one of the few survivors of the battle of—oh, I don’t want to spoil it for you. Why don’t you read them? How novel to think that you could actually ask him how true the adventures are, hm!”

Tikaya stared at the books. It was bizarre to think that she knew someone—was loved by someone—who had popular novels written about his exploits. Further, he had been someone so important that an author, even a Lord something-or-other-crest, wouldn’t think to pester him for an interview to get the facts. “Have you read them all?”

“Oh, yes. As I said, they’re romping tales. I read several books a week, you know. Especially now that I’ve retired from teaching and that the children are grown up. It can be a touch lonely in the evenings.”

“Perhaps you should invite that Turgonian merchant captain up for tea once in a while.”

Iweue sniffed. “Really!”

“Forgive the insinuation.” Tikaya waved her hand. “Thank you for lending these to me. I’m certain they will be interesting to read.” Whenever she found time to break away from the rest of her research. That thought reminded her of the reason for her visit. She was about to ask after a power supply when a new thought pranced into her mind. “They didn’t… ah, do any of the adventures mention… the wife?”

“Briefly. Mostly to describe her beauty and mention how Starcrest was pining after her during his long months at sea.”

“Oh, please.” Tikaya doubted Rias would pine after anyone if there was even the faintest problem around to keep his mind busy.

“Also, the authors all decided he was quite faithful to her.”

Tikaya made a face at the books in her hands. Maybe she didn’t want to read them after all, not if they included passages of Rias waxing nostalgic on his distant wife. Well, she had asked.

“They’re just stories, of course,” Iweue said. “They show him as a noble and honorable man, but a tricky one as well. The tactics he pursued to keep his men safe and outthink—and sometimes utterly destroy—the enemy were often cunning, sometimes unorthodox and… Let’s just say it’s clear he would be perfectly capable of fooling someone, even an intelligent someone, and it wouldn’t be any fault of hers if she fell for his tricks.”

Just when Tikaya had thought Iweue might prove a supporter of Rias. She did not lift her gaze from the books when she asked, “Are you saying you believe Parkonis’s interpretation of events, after all?”

“No, Tikaya, just that you should proceed with wariness. If the man still feels loyal to his emperor…”

“He doesn’t. The reason he’s here, that he was ever in trouble to start with, was because he refused to cross certain lines for that beast. Emperor Raumesys’s mistakes are the rest of the world’s gains. Rias won’t return to him—he was offered that opportunity already and refused it. We could have him if the president would get back here, call off the College and ministers, and talk to him.”

“Have him? Are you suggesting we start a permanent naval force?”

“He can do more than order boats around,” Tikaya said dryly. “I’m actually here to speak to you about something he’s building and to ask… are you still Making?” Tikaya hadn’t noticed any tools littering the house the way they did her grandfather’s workshop. What if this trip had been for naught?

“Now and then. It takes a lot out of me, and there are younger folks with as much knowledge, and they have new ideas.”

But none of them had a reason to help Rias. “Rias needs something more compact than a boiler and furnace to power the ship he’s building.”

“Does he now?” Iweue stroked her chin and glanced at the shelf—perhaps imagining some ship she’d had a role in building being mentioned in a future novel. “That would be… a great deal of work, but interesting work. It’s been some time since I Made an energy source for powering more than well pumps and irrigation systems. I believe I could do it, but I’ll need at least a week of uninterrupted work time.”

“Are you willing to undertake the task?”

“I might be, in exchange for something of value.”

Tikaya had little money and hated the idea of asking her family for coin, especially given that nobody seemed to want her and Rias to end up together, but she’d figure out a way. She owed him… more than she could ever repay. “Such as?” Tikaya prompted.

“I want a ride.”

Tikaya almost dropped the stack of books. “A what?”

“I want a ride on the ship when it’s done.”

The submarine, Tikaya thought, but she wasn’t about to admit to that. By the time they were ready to take on passengers that secret would be out regardless.

“I’m sure I can arrange that.” She smiled and added, “I know the captain, after all.”

CHAPTER 12

Wooden surfboards rattled in a long, bamboo carrying cart attached to the back of Ell’s bicycle. He rode ahead of Rias and Tikaya, leading the way to “entirely excellent waves.” He’d invited himself along on the lava-sight-seeing trip, and Tikaya wasn’t pleased about it, not when she still wondered if someone had hired or otherwise coerced Ell into spying on them. After inquiring amongst numerous family members who lived in the house, Tikaya had learned nothing about who placed the padlock on the attic trapdoor, only that nobody knew anything about it. Mother had seemed bewildered and suggested that perhaps Grandpa had done it to keep the grandchildren from climbing up and hurting themselves on the old fishing gear. Unlikely timing, that.

“You’re going to adore surfing, Rias,” Ell called over his shoulder.

Rias’s only response was to exchange glances with Tikaya. When he’d shown up at her door at dawn for their “date,” he’d been wearing a hollow bamboo tube on his back, one typically used for carrying artwork or maps. Whatever he had planned for the day, it had little to do with water sports.

“You have to learn anyway, if you’re going to design boards,” Ell added.

As if that were his top priority. Tikaya shook her head at her cousin’s back. She and Rias had been strolling to the bicycle shed when Ell had come racing down the path toward them, having apparently spent the night at the house. He’d asked where they were going, because he’d been planning to talk Rias into a surfing lesson that afternoon. When Tikaya had attempted to quell him with a succinct, “We’re going on a date,” he’d failed to be quelled and simply asked where. When Rias had mentioned the lava cliffs, Ell had clapped, proclaiming the waves there perfect, so he could come along and give Rias a lesson that very day.

“The East Coast isn’t a beginner area,” Tikaya said. She didn’t want to see Rias smashed against the rocks for his trouble.

“I know safe spots. I’ll take care of Rias. Besides, he looks like a born athlete. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“He hasn’t seen me swim,” Rias told Tikaya.

“I’ve seen you swim. Amidst burning shards of wood from ships you’ve recently crashed.”

“I can wave my arms in the correct motions, but I’m not a natural. My tendency is toward sinking.”

“If you humor him for an hour, maybe he’ll leave us alone.” And if he didn’t… that would suggest Tikaya was right in suspecting Ell, and that she’d have to figure out a way to question him. The idea of interrogating a relative didn’t appeal, so she pushed the thought aside for later contemplation. She nodded toward the basket on the back of Rias’s bicycle—it held a picnic hamper and the bamboo case. “Is the map you copied in there?”

“Yes, and some modern ones from your physical oceanography department. I pored over them last night and have some ideas on—”

“We’re here,” Ell announced, dropping his feet to the ground.

Only the fact that they’d been pedaling uphill kept Tikaya from crashing into the surfboard cart. She cast another exasperated look at her cousin’s back and looked for something to lean her bicycle against. There wasn’t much. The ground was nothing but black lava rock, and only a few scrubby clumps of grass grew from pockets of dirt in the crevices. Below the road, waves broke against the fifty-foot-high cliffs. They curved inward, forming an inlet, but most of the action was out in the open sea. Despite the early hour, dozens of surfers straddled their boards, waiting for waves beyond Obsidian Hollow, the name for a stretch of black sand beach at the beginning of the cliffs. A steep path wound down to it in switchbacks. Other bicycles and two runabouts were parked near the trail sign.

“Excellent.” Rias hopped off his bicycle and took a few steps toward a point overlooking the inlet.

“The trail down is over there.” Ell pointed at the sign.

Rias paused. “I wish to see the sights first. Is this where the live lava spills into the sea?”

“Yes.” Tikaya doubted he had any interest in the lava, but went along so they could fool Ell. “There are numerous spots along the cliffs. All sorts of caves dot the walls too,” she added. “There are outfits that lead tours out here for visitors. They usually end up at Squall Lodge on the other end of the cliffs. There are hot springs with mineral baths that supposedly have restorative properties.”

Now Ell sported the exasperated expression. “Really, ’Kaya? Mineral baths? That’s where old people go. I know he’s got a few years on you, but I don’t see a cane.”

“I do have a few old war wounds that act up from time to time.” Rias smiled. “Are these mixed-sex, clothing-optional baths?”

“Actually they’re clothing-prohibited baths,” Tikaya said. “It’s quite the romantic spot. I went out there once with—ah, I visited once briefly.”

Rias’s eyebrow twitched.

“They’re romantic if you’re old.” Ell gave Tikaya a was-your-brain-damaged-during-your-kidnapping look. “And don’t mind seeing the wrinkly old bodies of the patrons. Let’s go surf.” Ell waved to the sea.

“I will shortly,” Rias said. “I simply wish to see the lava.”

“It’s boring,” Ell said. “Drip, smoke, drip, smoke.”

“Yes, but I’m fascinated by volcanology, specifically the ways in which one might tap geothermal reservoirs as a source of energy. My people have drilled around the Kraftar Geysers on our mainland, finding liquid magma a hundred meters deep, and scientists posit that natural heat could be employed similarly to that which we gain from burning coal. We could power our steam machinery and warm homes in the winter without having to mine for fuel. Given our current reliance on coal stoves and hypocaust systems, such an efficient energy source would prove a great boon.”

Ell stared as Rias spoke. At the end, he shrugged his shoulders helplessly at Tikaya. “What are you supposed to do when he goes on like that? Nod? Grunt?”

“I’ve found that he appreciates it when you listen in enraptured appreciation and ask questions at the end.”

“Enraptured what?” Ell blinked a few times, then shrugged again. “I’ll be in the water. Give me a wave when you’re done sightseeing and you’re ready to have some fun.”

“Hm,” Tikaya said when Ell had pedaled out of hearing. “I didn’t know you could sound so passionate about something in which you have no interest.”

“Not no interest,” Rias said, resuming his walk toward the point. “Just little interest right now.”

Tikaya caught up with him, wishing she’d worn something sturdier than sandals as she picked her way over the uneven black rock. The former lava fields were mostly level, but they were littered with hardened ripples, buckles, and fissures. “I was moderately certain you hadn’t brought me up here to watch plops of lava fall out of a tube.”

“No.” Rias extended a hand to help her across a wide crack. “Though I appreciate your willingness to listen in enraptured appreciation no matter what the subject.”

“That’s what lovers do.”

“That… hasn’t been my experience.”

“That must be why you came looking for me.” Tikaya stopped a few feet from the edge of the cliff. Warm wind, misty with sea spray, gusted down the coast, tugging at her long braid and ruffling the hem of her dress.

Rias strode up to the precipice and peered over the edge. “I wasn’t looking exactly; you were just conveniently placed in an adjoining cell.”

“But you would have looked for me if you’d known I existed, right?”

“Oh, yes.” Rias removed the stopper from the hollow bamboo case and pulled out a rolled map. “Had I known the Kyattese cryptanalyst decoding our secret messages was a beautiful woman, I would have started sending encrypted letters of adoration along with our secret missives.”

Tikaya choked on the idea, imagining how bewildered she would have felt deciphering something like that. “That wouldn’t have gone over well in the war room.”

Rias grew silent after that, head bent as he studied his map. The wind whipped at the corners, trying to tear it from his hands, but he didn’t seem to notice. Tikaya knelt at the edge of the precipice, eyeing the cliffs as well as the dark blue waters beyond. Of course, nothing of the missing basin was visible from the surface. The old bathymetric maps had shown it nearly a mile off the coast and hundreds of feet deep. What Rias hoped to find in these cliffs she didn’t know.

Tikaya returned to his side and considered the flapping parchment in his hands. The map displayed ocean currents around the main island.

“I’m prepared to listen in enraptured appreciation any time you’re ready to share,” Tikaya said.

Rias smiled though he continued studying the map. “Am I correct in assuming all of those caves down there have been thoroughly explored? And that archaeologists would have long since removed any significant findings?”

“That’s likely, yes.”

Rias returned the map to the tube. A few other papers were rolled up inside. “I want to look anyway.”

“Look at what?”

“A hunch.”

“About what? And based on what?” Tikaya asked.

“About… things.” He must have seen her prop her hands on her hips in exasperation, for he added, “Do you remember me mentioning a search algorithm I worked out based on tides, currents, prevailing winds, and the like?”

Mostly she remembered Yosis zapping him with the bracelet when he started talking about it. “Something for finding wrecks, wasn’t it?”

“Wrecks, yes, and perhaps significant amounts of flotsam and jetsam.”

“Like you said, anything in those caves would have been discovered long ago.”

But Rias was already returning to the bicycle. He opened the picnic hamper and pulled out climbing gear. Two lanterns and an oilskin pouch followed. What’d he have in the pouch? Matches?

“I thought you had a romantic picnic lunch for us in there,” Tikaya said.

“Not this time. This way,” Rias said cheerfully as he passed her, a coil of rope slung over his shoulder and a bag of jangling metal appurtenances in one hand.

“You’re going down to the caves?” Tikaya jogged after him.

“I thought we might go down. There are only a couple I want to check out.”

Tikaya couldn’t bring herself to tell him that her last climbing experience—the one that had seen her poisoned by a giant practitioner-controlled bird-of-prey—hadn’t left her enamored of the sport. Not when the adventurous wink he threw over his shoulder told her how much the prospect excited him. She wouldn’t dampen his spirits.

Rias walked nearly a half mile along the cliff tops before dropping to his belly and peering over the side. Tikaya checked to see if they’d be in view from the surfing area, should they drop a rope and descend. They didn’t need to give Ell any fodder, in case he was indeed reporting back to someone, perhaps the same someone who had been removing clues all week, someone who might find it suspicious that Rias had chosen this particular spot for his sight-seeing picnic. Tikaya couldn’t see most of the surfers and hoped most of them couldn’t see her.

“Let’s check this one first.” Rias opened the bag and dumped rope and hooks for creating rappelling harnesses, as well as a number of bolts and a drill.

“Who outfitted you with climbing gear?” Tikaya asked, amused by how easily he seemed to be navigating these foreign waters and acquiring what he needed.

“Someone in town who takes visiting botanists into the rainforest on the west side of the island.”

“Turgonian?”

“A native but a mongrel half-breed, according to him.” Rias finished drilling bolts, attached the rope to them, and tossed the end over the edge. He’d created seats for himself and Tikaya. He helped fasten hers around her waist and between her legs, an awkward proposition given that she wore a dress, then hooked her to the rope. “Use that hand to brake. The other’s your guide.”

“Got it. How many people are working on your ship today while you’re off sight-seeing?”

“Eight. But we’re not constructing anything yet, simply forming the pieces that will become the hull and bulkheads in the steel mill. Ready?”

“After you.”

In a few bounds, Rias found his way down the cliff to a ledge. It protruded from one side of a cave opening a couple of feet above the water. He must have timed this exploration to match up with a low tide.

Tikaya removed her sandals and eased over the edge. With her hands gripping the ropes like vises, she inched down the cliff.

“Loosen your braking hand if you want to go faster,” Rias called up.

“No, no, it’s fine. I like this pace.”

Several seagulls glided past, one squawking at her. Yes, she wagered she put on quite a show as she inched her way down the cliff. Several minutes later, she reached the ledge.

“Sorry,” Tikaya said, because Rias was waiting outside the cave, no doubt watching to see if he needed to assist her. “Given my propensity for tripping on land, I view scaling and descending cliffs as something that should be done slowly and carefully.”

“There’s no hurry.” Rias unfastened her from the rope. “We’re on a leisurely date, remember?”

“Ah, yes.” Tikaya crinkled her nose as the scent of sea lion droppings drifted out of the cave before them. “For some reason, I’d forgotten.”

Daylight slanted into the cave, gleaming against damp black walls. Inside, the crinkles and buckles exhibited in the field above had largely been eroded by the ocean’s constant influence. A channel of seawater flowed in and out with the tides, filling a large pool. No wider than three feet, the ledge they stood upon followed the waterway on one side, eventually disappearing into the shadows. The black walls made even the lighted area near the cave mouth feel dark and ominous. Nonsense, Tikaya told herself. Ten-year-old children played in these caves, especially the ones close to Obsidian Beach. She had nothing to fear beyond stubbing a toe on a rock and falling into the water.

“What are we looking for?” she asked.

“It’s unlikely that we’ll find anything, but I estimate that these three caves—” he waved to include theirs as well as others to the north, “—would be depositories of any flotsam that might have come ashore from the southern end of that basin.”

“You think there’s a shipwreck out there? One those Turgonian explorers came looking for three hundred years ago?” Tikaya thought of Rias’s story of lost colonizing ships.

“Something happened out there. Something that’s kept generations of mapmakers from being allowed to accurately report their depth findings.”

“Maybe the basin was filled in somehow. Why are you assuming there’s a wreck? Did you find something in that journal?” Tikaya had wanted to ask earlier, but had dared not with Ell riding nearby. “Some clue about all this?” She recalled that Rias had suggested their “date” before he’d had a chance to see the book. What did he think would lie in the depths of these caves? And how far back did this one go? A long ways, she supposed, since it had originally carried lava flows. In theory, it could extend miles, all the way to the volcano itself. These particular caves were tens of thousands of years old, though, and time had likely brought down ceilings and blocked passages.

“From what I understood of the journal,” Rias said, “it was the story of an affair between one of your married ancestors and a Turgonian sailor on a treasure-hunting expedition.”

“An affair?” Tikaya tripped over a rocky protrusion and caught herself on the wall. “I didn’t get that far. The author was describing his voyage and arrival here in the first few pages.”

“The journal gets rather torrid once he meets Uouri.” Rias took a couple of tries at pronouncing the name, then gave up and stopped to light the lanterns. They’d gone around a bend, and the entrance was no longer in view. “The young woman apparently found him dashing and handsome in comparison to her stodgy farmer husband. Also, according to the author’s lurid descriptions, she was unexpectedly skilled at copulation methods.”

“Must have been one of my cousin Aeli’s forebears.” Tikaya’s mind wandered into curious musings at what Rias, an ecumenical man in his own right, considered lurid and torrid. “I’ll need to get the journal back from you then. For further research.”

“Research, eh?”

“Er, yes. About my ancestor. It sounds like she may have been historically significant by family reckoning.”

“Well, then, the research section starts about halfway through. It’s quite descriptive. I hadn’t realized how flowery Middle Turgonian could be.”

Glad the shadows hid her blush, Tikaya asked, “What happened to them in the end? And does any of it tie in with our missing year?”

“The last entry describes the pair’s plans to escape the island together. His treasure-hunting ship had finished searching for signs of the lost colony and was ready to depart for its next port. She was going to meet him at the docks where they planned to sail away together on his vessel.”

“That’s it?” The ledge on their side of the channel dipped away, and Tikaya hiked up her dress to follow Rias into thigh-deep water. Currents tugged at her legs as the tides fluctuated. Barnacles scraped at the bottoms of her feet—maybe she shouldn’t have left her sandals up above. “If the journal and the man’s sword ended up in my attic, that doesn’t bode well for the relationship. Perhaps her husband grew wise to the affair and decided to stop it.”

“Murder?” Rias asked.

“Violence isn’t my people’s hallmark, but I imagine a man who’d learned his wife was sleeping with some foreign sailor could be moved to extreme acts.” Despite her words, Tikaya had a hard time believing any of her ancestors would have shot a man full of arrows, then snatched his belongings like trophies for the attic. Perhaps the bereft Uouri had taken the letters, sword, and journal herself and hidden them away as keepsakes. “Even if there had been a murder, why would any of that matter now? Why hide the record of the entire year? I can see where my family might be embarrassed if news of the affair leaked out, but in a minor manner, I should think. How upset can you be over something that happened ten generations ago?”

Rias didn’t answer right away. He had to duck his head and maneuver around bumps in the ever-lowering ceiling. Their tunnel was angling slightly downward. That was surprising—Tikaya had assumed that, if anything, it would slant upward. She eyed the walls, wondering how much deeper they’d be able to go. So far, Rias’s lantern hadn’t illuminated anything more intriguing than graffiti that hadn’t yet been washed away by the tides. She caught a mention of a professor at the Polytechnic and what embarrassing things someone hoped would befall him. Tikaya had taken classes from the man years ago and found herself nodding in agreement at some of the suggestions.

The water kept rising as they descended, and it lapped at her thighs now. The barnacles had been replaced by algae that squished beneath her bare feet. Rias took her to such lovely places.

“From what I could tell,” Rias said, finally answering her questions, “our lovelorn sailor was so focused on his affair that he wasn’t documenting the ship’s expedition thoroughly, but perhaps you can find something when you read through. I struggled to read the language.”

“I did notice,” Tikaya said, “from my original flip-through of the entire journal, that there were more than three months’ worth of entries from the time he reached the island until he stopped writing. Why would your people have been here so long? In two weeks, you could sail around all the islands in our chain and have time left for hunting, fishing, and lounging on the beach.”

“That suggests they either found something to cause them to spend more time here, or they believed they’d find something and didn’t want to stop looking too soon.”

“Yes. Uhm, Rias?” The ceiling had continued to drop while the water level rose, and the current tugged at Tikaya’s waist. They’d entered a wider area, the channel turning into a pool. “How far back are you planning to go? Though I’m certain you’re aware of this, I feel compelled to point out that this cave will be underwater when the tide comes in. I shouldn’t like to hold my breath to swim all the way back to the entrance.” In water that would be inky black. The thought stirred uneasiness, and she had to remind herself that tides didn’t come in that swiftly.

Rias lifted the lantern and pointed toward a wide ledge on one side of the pool. “Let’s climb out there for a moment.”

By the time they reached the spot, the end of the passage showed up in the lantern light. Though she knew Rias wanted to find something interesting, Tikaya was glad they wouldn’t have reason to linger.

They crawled out of the water and sat on the ledge—the low ceiling didn’t offer room for standing. Seaweed, dead crabs, and broken sand dollars littered the rocks. Rias considered the back wall and watched the pool with intensity. Tikaya was almost to the point of asking if he’d seen something moving around in there when he slipped off his shirt.

“We’re disrobing?” Tikaya asked. “If you’re thinking we should practice the torrid, three-hundred-year-old copulation techniques described in that journal, this wouldn’t be my first choice of locations.”

Distracted, Rias only said, “I’m going to check something. Back in a moment.” He removed a couple of matches from his oilskin pouch, laid them on the lanterns, then tightly tied the knots closed on the pouch and tucked the remaining matches into a pocket in his clam diggers.

Before Tikaya could ask what he expected to find, he slipped into the water, head disappearing beneath the surface.

She eyed the dark walls around her ledge. The idea of making some discovery down there intrigued her, but she doubted it would happen. The tides scoured the caves clean every day, and they must have been explored countless times over the years.

Long seconds meandered past—minutes?—and Rias did not resurface. Tikaya crept to the edge and peered into the pool. The lantern light did nothing to illuminate the dark water, but surely she’d see ripples from his movement if he were down there. Where had he gone? Further into the lava tube via an underwater entrance? If he didn’t find some pocket of air inside, he’d be in trouble. As heroic a constitution as he had, even he couldn’t hold his breath for more than a minute or two.

“Rias.” Tikaya gripped the lip of the ledge. “Drowning on a date would be a stupid way to die.”

Leaving the lanterns, she slipped her legs into the water, intending to submerge and see if she could see where he’d gone. Before she’d gone more than a step, Rias popped up in front of her, short hair matted to his head. He wiped water out of his eyes but didn’t draw in a huge gasp of air. He must have found some pocket of air nearby.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

“To look for you of course. I thought a giant squid might have eaten you.”

“The waters are a touch shallow here for them.” The soft light from the lanterns failed to show any humor on his face. He considered her for a moment, his face grave. “I have a couple more matches. I think you’ll want to see this.”

“You think?”

“It’s not a sure bet. Not like romping puppies or wrestling kittens.”

“Is it worse than that room in Wolfhump?” Tikaya asked, referring to the bodies she and Agarik had found, the frozen corpses mutilated from garish combat with crazed human beings.

Rias brightened. “No. Not now, anyway.”

“Not now?” Tikaya mouthed.

Rias pointed toward the water under the back wall. “It’s about a twenty-second swim. There’s nowhere to get lost, as it continues on as a lava tube, but it curves downward and then back up, so it’s easy to scrape your hands. You can hold onto my leg if you want.”

“I’ll be fine.” If it was as straightforward as he said, she could make it without a guide. Besides, she ought to save her wimp moments for truly frightening scenarios. Like climbing back up that cliff later.

“Can you swim with your spectacles on? You’ll want them when we come up on the other side.”

Tikaya wasn’t as certain about that, but she took them off and clenched the wire frame between her teeth. She hadn’t thought to bring another pair along and would hate to lose them down here.

Rias took a deep breath, then dropped below the surface again. Despite her assurance, she didn’t want him to swim out of reach, so she followed after promptly.

They’d left the lanterns on the ledge, and the light didn’t extend far. Tikaya had to grope her way through the darkness. With one hand running along the bottom and the other stretched ahead, she found the opening Rias had mentioned and kicked her way into it. In the cold blackness she kept her fingers outstretched and fluttered her feet for forward momentum. The tide surged about her, one moment helping her progress and the next hindering it, but her fingers soon bumped into bare skin instead of rock. She identified Rias’s leg and pulled herself upright beside him, her feet finding the bottom.

He hadn’t yet lit a match, so utter darkness greeted Tikaya. The air was cooler than outside and musty as well. Old. It smelled old. She thought of poisonous gases that could accumulate in sealed tunnels and hoped Rias didn’t plan on staying long. A shiver ran through her. It was from the coldness of the water and the air, she told herself, though perhaps her senses were warning her that she wouldn’t like what she was about to see.

Rias hugged her with one arm, then moved away. “I’m going to strike a match.”

Tikaya wiped water out of her eyes and hooked her spectacles over her ears. “Ready.”

A couple of soft scrapes sounded, the noise oddly loud. Little of the roar of the sea penetrated the walls around them.

“Too wet,” Rias muttered. “Let me see if—”

Light flared. At first Tikaya noticed the flame and the match held between Rias’s fingers. Then her eyes focused on what lay behind them. Bones. Skulls. Partial and complete skeletons. She swallowed. Human skeletons covered with the dust of the ages. So many bones were wedged in crevasses or laid on ledges that she would have believed someone had brought them in bags and dumped them. Could so many have come in on the tide? How would they have—

Rias grunted and dropped the match. Blackness engulfed them again.

Tikaya took a deep breath, not certain whether she preferred the view now or before. Either way, the image would be imprinted on her mind. Suddenly her cousin’s proffered surfing lesson was sounding like a pleasant way to spend the day.

“Kittens are less disturbing,” Tikaya said, trying to sound nonchalant, “but you’ve certainly lit my curiosity here.”

Rias wrapped an arm around her. “This would have made my former wife scream.”

“A not inappropriate response to a cave full of bones.” One Tikaya might have made if he hadn’t prepared her for the notion of something bad. “I was busy debating whether they’d been placed here or if the tide—some storm perhaps?—could have brought them in.”

“The sea, I believe, though there must have been a lot of corpses if so many found their way into this cave.”

“That’s why you were thinking shipwreck,” Tikaya said. “Your colony ships? Did some storm get them before they could reach land?” And did the incident pre- or post-date the arrival of her own people?

Rias shifted away from her. Soft clunks sounded. Was he… sifting through the bones? Why?

“Last match,” Rias said and struck it. In his free hand, he held a skull with a hole in the side. He shook it, and something rattled inside. “Arrowhead. A stone one.”

Tikaya skimmed the scene again, looking for any other clues she could take out with her, but the light winked out before she could do more than gawk at all the bones. “I can’t believe nobody has ever found this.”

“Perhaps people haven’t been encouraged to look.”

With more and more evidence stacking up to support Rias’s hunch that all wasn’t as it seemed on the Kyatt Islands, Tikaya couldn’t bring herself to disagree. Someone knew what had happened out there all those years ago, and was going to great lengths to make sure she and Rias didn’t find out what it was.

PART II

CHAPTER 13

It had been a long time since so much work filled Tikaya’s desk, and it doubtlessly accounted for the fact that she couldn’t find a pen. Any of them. Pages of notes battled for space with the old Turgonian journal, family lineage trees, and teetering stacks of Kyattese archaeology and history books. After more than two weeks of reading and note-taking, Tikaya was finally compiling a summary of her findings. The damaged skull Rias had pulled out of that cave presided over it all, empty eye sockets staring at her as she worked.

The obsidian arrowhead sat on a shelf above it. Based on the style, she’d placed it as Kyattese and estimated it at seven hundred years in age, but it differed from sketches of other arrowheads from the time period. It was sharper, finer, and smaller than the giant lizard- and boar-hunting projectiles of the era.

“It looks like it was made for hunting people,” Rias had said in a note. He hadn’t been by for a while, but he’d sent encrypted messages almost every day. She’d come to look forward to receiving them, like one might anticipate love letters, albeit these “love letters” focused on ancient mysteries, modern bureaucrats, and pesky telepaths showing up at his shipyard.

“My people have never hunted human beings,” Tikaya had written back, though not with the same certainty she would have felt a few weeks earlier.

Rias hadn’t brought it up again. Subsequent notes had detailed the progress he was making with the submarine-that-looks-like-a-surface-ship. He’d mentioned little of troubles, but Tikaya sensed he was leaving things out. One day, he’d informed her that he’d switched to living aboard the ship. That same day, a colleague at the Polytechnic had shown her a newspaper that mentioned a fire at the Pragmatic Mate.

More than once Tikaya had thought of bringing the arrowhead to the Polytechnic or the archaeology museum to seek out physical specimens to compare it to, but she’d had little time for extracurricular activities. After leaning on the police to get her back at work, Dean Teailat had been keeping her busy from dawn to dusk—often later—every day. Her colleagues were not only studying the sphere and the ancient language held within but deciding what to do with the information. Should it be locked away or shared openly in hopes of furthering man’s understanding of nature and the world? As much as Tikaya wanted to be out helping Rias, and delving deeper into their subaquatic mystery, she couldn’t walk away from the decision-making process when it came to that alien technology. Her colleagues hadn’t seen the horrible things it could do, and too many of them were leaning toward publicizing their notes and inviting experts from around the world to study them.

Tikaya pushed away the thoughts; she’d been worrying about the technology at work all day. This was the time she’d set aside to study her and Rias’s mystery. She’d best make use of it. Iweue had sent the energy source to the shipyard a couple of days earlier and, in his last note, Rias had alluded to a maiden voyage. Tikaya wanted to have as much information as possible for him when the submarine was ready, even though she worried about what they might find out there, or more precisely that they might dig up something that would mean she was no longer welcome in Kyatt. She bent back over her work, refusing to grow weepy-eyed thinking about being exiled and never seeing her family again.

Just as Tikaya finally found a pen, a knock sounded at the door.

Tikaya pushed a few papers over the Turgonian journal and propped a history book in front of the skull. “Come in.”

Her cousin Aeli sauntered into the room, a letter clasped in her hand. She wore a flowing ankle-length skirt—one might have called it modest—with a sleeveless top that left everything except her breasts bare—definitely not modest. Tikaya had confirmed that the adulterous Komitopis who’d been the love interest in the Turgonian’s journal was indeed Aeli’s ancestor. Who knew such tendencies would breed true through the centuries?

“Thank you for coming, Aeli,” Tikaya said after her cousin flopped down on the bed.

“But of course. You don’t often ask for my help. In fact, you never have. I can only assume you’re seeking advice in regard to your relationship with your strapping Turgonian.”

Tikaya had been on her way over to shut the door, and she almost tripped and used her face to do the task. “My what?”

“Your relationship. You know what an expert I am on matters such as pleasing a man in the bedroom. Or on the beach. Or in the waves. Wherever you choose, though knowing what a prude you are, I imagine a bed is involved. Likely with little ruffling of the sheets.”

“Aeli!” Tikaya shut the door with a bang. She’d intended to close it to keep the discussion quiet anyway, but this was a topic she was even more certain she didn’t want escaping into the hall.

“You’ve found yourself a handsome stud, one most certainly accustomed to less… cerebral mates, and you’re worried that he’ll grow bored with you. Or perhaps he already is.” Aeli patted the bed. “Come, I have all sorts of suggestions that you can try.”

Cheeks flaming, Tikaya stalked over to the desk and pushed aside the book hiding the skull. “I asked you here about this.”

Aeli’s lips moved a few times before she managed to say, “That?”

“And this.” Tikaya held the arrowhead up to the window—the sun was dipping toward the horizon, but enough light remained to highlight the obsidian. “Despite your unambitious secretarial status of late, you did study anthropology at the Polytechnic, and, as I recall, your thesis was on mental science dating methods for fossils, artifacts, and rocks to determine the time periods of past geological events.”

Aeli’s eyelashes fluttered a few times. “That was the exact name of my paper. You read it?”

“You’re my cousin, and it’s in my field. Of course I read it. I thought you’d go on to study with—” Tikaya shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not comfortable going to my usual sources at the Polytechnic right now, so I’d appreciate it if you could date these items for me. I believe they’re from the earliest years of our colonization, but the popularity of historical artifacts amongst collectors of late has caused some unscrupulous sorts to learn how to create—and sell—plausible fakes.” Not to mention the dubious career of for-profit relic raiding that had grown up in the last generation.

“All right.” Aeli held out her hand. “Let me see the arrowhead first. That—” she tilted her chin at the skull, the hole in the cranium clearly visible, “—is ghastly.”

“Then I’ll wait until after you’ve finished to mention where we found the arrowhead.”

Aeli’s lip curled, but she wrapped her fingers around the artifact and closed her eyes. Tikaya caught herself bouncing from foot-to-foot and forced herself to sit down at the desk. She’d seen other practitioners date items and knew it would take time. Also, Aeli had trained predominantly in telekinesis, not Seeing, so it’d take her even longer. At least she seemed to remember how to apply the Science. The last Tikaya had heard of Aeli using her skills, it had been to cause the seams and belts of handsome young Polytechnic students to fail at inopportune times. That had been two years earlier and had resulted in Aeli losing her job and being encouraged to enroll in counseling for her addiction to “wanton living,” as the student newspaper had called it.

A while later, Aeli said, “Your estimate is correct.”

Tikaya had resumed compiling her notes, but she dropped her pen and spun around in her chair. Beads of sweat moistened her cousin’s brow, and her freckled face had grown pale. Tikaya handed her a glass of tea Mother had brought by earlier. Aeli guzzled it.

“I’d say this was made within months of the original landing,” she said. “I can’t tell if it was before or after, but obsidian implies island origins.”

“Thank you. Did you get… anything else from it?” Some seers could sense how an object had been crafted and used, though Tikaya didn’t know if her cousin’s skills were that well developed.

“I saw that.” Aeli scowled at the hole in the skull. “The moment of impact. Then darkness. Ages of darkness.”

Tikaya leaned forward. “You saw the arrow kill that man?”

“It wasn’t a man. It was a woman. And Tikaya?” Aeli collapsed fully onto the bed.

“Yes?”

“I hope you like mysteries, because it looked like a Nurian.”

Tikaya leaned back in her chair. “Turgonian, I’m guessing.”

“No, she was darker skinned and shorter and—”

“Thirty-odd generations ago, which is where we’re placing that arrowhead, the Turgonians basically were Nurians. They spent the next seven-hundred years interbreeding with the taller pale-skinned natives of their current continent.”

“Oh. Huh.” Aeli sat up. “I guess that’s right.”

“Could you tell…” Tikaya wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to the next question, but pushed on anyway. “Could you tell who shot the arrow?”

“No. The only aura around it that I sensed was the impact point. That was vivid. I could almost feel the crunch of stone piercing flesh and bone.” Aeli shuddered and set the arrowhead on the desk. “Really, Tikaya, I would have much preferred it if you’d wanted advice on creative ways to please a man.”

“Maybe next time.” Tikaya tapped a fingernail on the arrowhead. “So, the Turgonians were here seven hundred years ago.”

“And we were shooting them. How odd. I wonder what it was all about.”

“We don’t know for certain that one of our Kyattese ancestors fired the arrow,” Tikaya said.

“Who else would have been around and knapping obsidian arrowheads back then? The Turgonians were using copper or iron for weapons, weren’t they?”

“Yes, but it’s possible they ran low on supplies and had to make do with what was here. Maybe this was some squabble between crews on their own ships and had nothing to do with our people.”

“It seems more likely that the Turgonians tried to start their conquering and invading earlier than the history books say, and that our people drove them off to defend their new home.”

“If that’s so, why isn’t it mentioned in our history books?” Tikaya asked. “And why were our ancestors shooting women?”

“The Nurians have female warriors. Maybe the Turgonians did too back then.”

Tikaya decided not to argue further. She didn’t yet have enough evidence to posit a different hypothesis. Besides, the hypothesis creeping into her mind wouldn’t be a popular one if it proved true.

Paper crinkled. “I almost forgot,” Aeli said. “This letter’s for you. Aunt Mela told me to bring it up.”

Tikaya recognized Rias’s writing on the address. “It’s been opened,” she said when she accepted it.

“Has it? Huh.” Some of Aeli’s paleness had faded, and she winked.

“Did you find it entertaining reading?” Before looking, Tikaya knew it was encrypted, as all of Rias’s messages had been thus far.

“I found it a bunch of gobbledygook. When I first saw the man, I couldn’t believe he’d be interested in you…”

“Thanks.”

“…but if he encrypts his love letters, perhaps you’re made for each other.”

“Someone finally noticed. Could you tell Father and Grandpa?”

“I will if you read it to me.” Aeli wriggled her eyebrows.

“You’d be bored. They’re not about ruffling sheets.” Tikaya unfolded the page and started replacing the substitution letters in her head. “He’s just checking on me and asking about the family.”

“I don’t believe you. That sounds far too boring to bother encrypting.”

There were a few inquiries about their mystery too, but Tikaya didn’t mention that. “Oh, here’s some fodder for your lusty imagination.” Tikaya grinned as she summarized. “He says he’s looking forward to once again calculating the coefficient of friction with me once all this is resolved.”

“Calculating the what of the what?”

“The coefficient of friction. You know, in math. It describes the ratio of force of friction between two bodies and the force pressing them to…” Tikaya sighed at her cousin’s blank expression. Of all the people who shouldn’t miss an innuendo. “Never mind.”

Aeli flopped back onto the bed again, her skirt flapping. “You are made for each other. Unbelievable.”

Tikaya decoded the rest of the note. “Oh. He wants me to come to the docks at sunset. His ship is ready to sail. Already? I can’t believe it. I’ve barely seen any of—” Tikaya ran to the window. The sun was already setting. “Why didn’t you give me this earlier?”

“No need to thank me for examining your arrowhead. I’ll just leave you to dress in something appropriate for an evening out. Hint: that—” Aeli pointed at Tikaya’s ankle-length skirt, “—is not it.” She ducked through the doorway, perhaps anticipating a pillow being hurled after her.

As if Tikaya were that juvenile. She threw her pen.

“Thank you,” she called out the window as Aeli bicycled away.

Then she hustled to gather a few notes and hide what work she intended to leave behind. If Rias was ready to sail, and had indeed crafted a vessel that could investigate the ocean’s secrets, maybe Tikaya would finally have a chance to stop guessing at this mystery and to find some answers.

• • • • •

By the time Tikaya reached the quay, the sun had fully melted into the ocean, emblazoning the western sky with reds and oranges. A woman in a city worker’s short-sleeve blouse and skirt moved from lamppost to lamppost, filling reservoirs with fresh whale oil and tapers, then setting them to light.

Tikaya’s bicycle tires bumped along the wooden boardwalk as she pedaled toward Shipyard 4. She had to weave past groups of students and numerous couples strolling hand-in-hand. At first, she thought everyone was simply out enjoying the sunset, but there were a lot of people for that. Drum and conch-shell tunes drifted from somewhere ahead.

Trying to recall if she’d forgotten some festival, Tikaya slowed as she approached the shipyard. Dozens of lamps and torches had been lit around it and the adjacent dock, pushing back the approaching evening. Numerous people milled in the area, forcing her to leave the bicycle parked several docks away. Tikaya didn’t see many Kyattese in the crowd. The multicultural group included more than a few Turgonians, though, not only ex-soldiers but women and children as well. A Turgonian carrying a bulging toolbox and wearing a bristling tool belt ambled past, flashing a gap-toothed smile at Tikaya. Another helper Rias had recruited?

As she walked closer, she realized the music was coming from the dock beside the shipyard. The scent of grilling seafood and pork wafted to her nose as well.

Rias had planned a party? A launch party? That wasn’t exactly the way to keep away people who might notice his steamer had the ability to turn into a submarine…

“Pardon me,” Tikaya said as she slipped around and between groups of people, suffering more than one clunk in the ribs from elbows involved in excited gestures. The smell of spiced rum reached her nose—more than one person carried kitschy coconut mugs as well as skewers of shrimp and pork. “May I pass, please?” Tikaya asked when she reached a thick knot of people. The docks left little room for slipping past congregating crowds. “I have a… I know the…” What would Rias call himself? “I have an appointment with the captain.”

Between the music and dozens of conversations, nobody heard or noticed her. She cleared her throat to try again, but a familiar head appeared above the crowd. People stepped aside, making room for Rias. Naturally. Unlike her, he had all that formidable Turgonian brawn along with his height. Though the clothing he wore made him appear less formidable than usual… Dear Akahe, she hoped that Ell had picked out that hibiscus-dyed shirt and that he hadn’t chosen it for himself. She intended to look into his eyes and ask if this outfit was part of a master plan or simply an unpleasant accident, but her gaze snagged at his chin. In the days since she’d last seen him, Rias had started growing a beard. More of a goatee, she decided. It was in the incipient stage, but his black hair made it stand out.

“What do you think?” Rias stopped in front of her and took her hand.

His presence created an insulating bubble, and people eased away from Tikaya. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have to get used to it. It’s, uhm…” She lifted her fingers and stroked his chin. “Kind of bristly.”

The corner of Rias’s mouth lifted in a wry half smile. “I meant the Freedom. Our ship.” He lifted an arm toward the berth at the end of the dock.

“Oh.” Tikaya dropped her hand, aware of chuckles and shared nods on either side of her. Who were these people? “I haven’t had a look yet. There’s a crowd all the way back to Dock 58.”

Rias chuckled, though the mirth didn’t reach his eyes. There was a tightness about their corners and a tension in his posture. Because of the party? All of the people swarming about? “When Milvet asked if he could invite the families of the workers for a celebration, I was imagining a small gathering. Certainly not anything that included a music troupe.” Rias shrugged and led her the rest of the way down the dock.

When they reached the end, the Freedom came into view, and Tikaya halted to gawk. There was no sign of the rusted wreck from three weeks earlier. The dark gray ship that floated in the berth was…

Sleek. That was the word that popped into her mind. Like a dart. No, a javelin. An arrow-shaped deck comprised the back half, while ladders in the middle led up to a wheelhouse and down to a cabin. A man wielding a spatula worked a portable grill set up on deck next to the music troupe. The entertainers left little room for much else. Tikaya guessed the entire vessel was only meant to carry four people. Her gaze roved fore and aft as she tried to figure out how it might become a submarine. For that matter, how would it sail? She’d assumed he’d build a steamer, even if it was a fake steamer, but the sleek craft lacked a smokestack. Maybe that hadn’t been necessary with the energy supply.

“What do you think?” Rias bit his lip.

“It’s fantastic,” Tikaya said, realizing he was watching her, holding his breath it seemed as he awaited her response. “I never thought I’d say this about a mode of transportation, but it’s quite handsome.”

She’d never seen Rias smile so widely. The warmth in his eyes stole the strength from her knees, and she swallowed, more than a little effected by the fact that her praise meant so much to him.

Tikaya leaned over the edge of the deck, trying to peer through the water toward the craft’s aft end. “What sort of propulsion does it have?”

Rias’s smile beamed even brighter at this display of interest. “A screw propeller system much like we—the empire—uses on ice breaking ships. Compact and powerful, capable of…”

When he stopped speaking, Tikaya followed his gaze to the companionway leading to the sunken cabin. A string of blond-haired men and women strode onto the deck, speaking rapidly and gesticulating to each other as they maneuvered past the entertainers and toward the gangplank. Tikaya recognized most of the faces. Five were on the faculty at the Polytechnic, mathematics and engineering professors, and from the toolkit the last man carried, she guessed him a shipwright or some sort of naval expert. If anyone could suss out the fact that this was a submarine in disguise, that group could.

“Inspection?” Tikaya guessed.

Rias’s eyes had grown tighter. Someone who didn’t know him probably wouldn’t have noticed the change, but he was worried. “Sent by your government, yes.”

“You must have anticipated that they’d check up on you.”

“I was hoping they’d send someone like Yosis, not experts in the field.”

“But you were prepared in the event that they didn’t, right?” Tikaya asked as the men stepped off the gangplank and made their way through the crowd toward Rias. They were gesticulating and chattering to each other—definitely excited about something.

“We’ll see,” Rias said.

Tikaya chewed on her lip as the men and women approached. What would happen if the high minister learned Rias had never planned to build a ship?

The shipwright and an engineer named Professor Yaro jostled for the position directly in front of Rias. In an impressive bit of elbow jabbing, the professor captured the spot.

“It’s not a steamer,” he blurted.

Tikaya winced.

Rias glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes, then focused on the professor. “No, it’s not.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Yaro said. “None of us have. There’s no boiler at all. The machine for powering the engine, what do you call it?”

Rias glanced at Tikaya again, this time with one of his am-I-understanding-the-language-correctly looks. She shrugged back at him.

“Are you referring to the generator?” Rias’s tone made it sound like he thought this a trick question.

“The generator?” Yaro asked.

“Yes… It would have been inefficient to build a boiler when that orb’s energy can be converted into electricity.”

“Into what?” Yaro looked to Tikaya for a translation.

Except that she didn’t have one. She’d heard the term, but couldn’t think of an equivalent in her tongue. “Like what the shock eels produce? Or more like a static charge?” She shuffled her feet and poked his arm to demonstrate.

Rias blinked slowly a few times. “The Drokovic Jar hasn’t made it to the islands yet?”

“The what?” Yaro asked.

“It’s a device for storing static electricity between electrodes on the inside and the outside of the jar.” Rias pantomimed with his hands as he explained. “We used it for many early experiments on electricity. Generators—” he pointed to his ship, “—are relatively experimental themselves in the empire, but they convert mechanical energy, such as might come from a steam engine or in this case a battery into electrical energy that can power the motor that runs the propeller as well as other ship’s systems.”

His explanation went on for a few more minutes, and Tikaya was hoping nobody asked for a translation, because she’d have to think a while to make up compound nouns that might work. But it seemed Yaro and the others were too busy devouring the concept to care that they didn’t know all the words.

“You must share the schematics,” Yaro blurted at the end.

His colleagues nodded vigorously. Tikaya wondered if any of them remembered why they’d been assigned to investigate Rias. The high minister would probably receive enthusiastic reports on the wonders of electricity when he asked for details on the craft Rias had made—and blank looks in regard to questions about submersible abilities.

“Well,” Rias said, eyes narrowing, “that’s something we could talk about.”

Tikaya might have struggled with the earlier terms, but she had no trouble translating “talk about” into “negotiate over” in her mind.

“Ho, there, cousin,” came a familiar voice from Tikaya’s side. Elloil ambled into the middle of the conversation without worrying about whether he was interrupting anything important. He thrust a rum-filled coconut into Yaro’s hand. “What’s everyone being so serious about over here? This is a party.” He plucked more beverages from a tray a woman held and armed the rest of the professors.

Yaro and the others frowned down at their drinks. “But we were talking about the—”

“A subject for later discussion, gentleman,” Rias said, “and ladies.” He gave the two women a nod. “I must give Tikaya a tour and tend to my guests.”

Tikaya doubted Rias planned to have anything to do with the guests, but the professors seemed to accept this excuse, and they trundled off up the dock, heads bowed again as they conversed with each other.

“Maybe it’s fortunate you didn’t get Yosis after all,” Tikaya said. “He might not have been so easily distracted by a shiny new engine.”

“True,” Rias said.

“Now, now, enough of this boring people with engineering minutia.” Ell had produced two more coconut mugs and extended one toward Tikaya. “Have some rum!”

“Tikaya does not find my minutia boring,” Rias said a touch stiffly, though Ell only smiled and waved the cup toward them again. The drummer’s beats had grown louder, and Ell probably hadn’t heard the protest anyway.

Tikaya slipped her arm around Rias’s waist. “You can tell me all of the details later. Are we going to be able to try out the—what did you call it? The Freedom?—tonight?” She hoped he had more than floating around the harbor in mind, though she didn’t know how they’d be able to test the submersible feature with so many people around. “Once the crowd grows bored and wanders away?” Unfortunately, given the lively conversations and the amount of rum flowing, that might not happen any time soon.

“That’s the plan, yes. How does one end a party on your islands?”

“Wait for everyone to pass out?” Tikaya guessed. She hadn’t hosted many parties in her life.

“That sounds time-consuming,” Rias said.

“How does one end parties in the empire?”

“Eventually a duel or a brawl breaks out, blood flows, and the sawbones is called. If enough people are injured, that dampens the festive mood and people wander home.” Rias extended his hand. “Ready for the tour?”

Tikaya accepted his hand. “You Turgonians are a strange folk.”

“Yes.” Rias smiled and led her to the gangplank, a drawbridge-type structure that looked like it could be folded back into the deck of the ship when not in use.

“That’s clever.” Tikaya gave it an admiring nod as she stepped off. “A vast improvement over the rotting board.”

“I hope you’ll find the rest of the ship equally clever. The enforced revisions gave me pause for a day, but I’ve been dreaming up parts of this since I was—”

“Pork skewer?” Ell and a buxom raven-haired woman sauntered up with trays laden with food. “They’re fabulous.” He stuck one into Tikaya’s grip.

“Uhm, thank you.” Tikaya tried to think of a polite way to shoo them away. Perhaps Turgonian fisticuffs wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“Not me,” Rias said with a wave when Ell tried to foist rum on him. “I’ll be piloting the ship out of dock soon. Why don’t you have the troupe pack up?”

“What? It’s not even fully dark yet. This launch party could last until midnight. Or dawn.”

“Move them to the dock,” Rias said, letting some of his old commander tone creep into his voice.

“All right, all right. But at least give Tikaya the tour first. She hasn’t been out here yet has she?”

Rias acknowledged this with a wriggle of his fingers and nodded for Tikaya to head for the wheelhouse.

“And don’t bore her with engineering stuff,” Ell advised. “Show her the fun things. Like where the Science will be performed.” He grinned and turned back to his helper—or perhaps she was his date.

Wanting to see how the craft could turn into a submarine, Tikaya chose down instead of up for their first stop.

“Was that a euphemism for sex?” Rias held her refreshments while she descended the ladder into the cabin.

“Yes.”

“Oh, because I did include a study nook where one can read texts or decipher ancient mysteries and such,” Rias said. “You can even extend tools to take samples from the ocean. I was thinking of calling the spot the science station, but… perhaps not now.”

“Don’t alter your names because of one lewd surfer.” Tikaya found herself in a narrow low-ceilinged corridor brightened by soft, steady illumination. She touched one of the small jar-shaped lamps mounted to the wall. “Are these practitioner-made?” Few houses on the islands had such lamps because of the effort—and therefore expense—that went into crafting light sources. She’d assumed Rias would have been too Turgonian to add anything Kyattese besides the energy source.

“Sort of.” Rias had dropped into the corridor behind her. “I noticed Iweue’s energy source was a touch bright.”

“Like a small sun?” Kyattese practitioners all seemed to think brighter was better, perhaps so nobody could miss noticing the culmination of their efforts.

Rias tapped the bulkhead. “There are mirrors back there that reflect the light into lamp receptacles.”

“Good idea.”

Rias dipped his head to acknowledge the compliment. “They can burn oil in a pinch, but I was pleased to come up with a way that—” he glanced at the companionway and lowered his voice, “—avoids consuming oxygen.”

Tikaya hadn’t spent much time contemplating the problems that might come with traveling beneath the surface, but she was glad Rias had. “What about the oxygen we’ll consume?”

“I have plans, but for now we just won’t be making any extended voyages beneath the surface.”

Tikaya was sure her face didn’t portray any sort of disapproval—after all, it was amazing that he’d already accomplished so much in such a short period of time—but Rias rushed to add, “I’m working on a device that can eliminate carbon dioxide and moisture from the air, but I’m inventing it from scratch, so it’ll take a little time and experimentation. My people haven’t yet had a need for such things. And your people… well, the raw materials are scarce here. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make a container for pressurized oxygen out of coconuts and bamboo?”

“I, er, did you actually do that?”

“Let’s just say I found an alternative for the primitive, er, limited engineering supplies on the island.”

Tikaya quirked an eyebrow at the word fumble. With her people so quick to dismiss the Turgonians as savages, and pride themselves on science and Science research and discoveries, it was strange to think that he might find the islands… provincial. Of course, had Kyatt been blessed with ore or other copious natural resources, history might have evolved differently.

“We’ll be fine for short excursions,” Rias said. “Just, ah…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Should you ever be interviewed about this, my maiden shipbuilding project, don’t mention the plants in the engine room, please.”

“The… plants?”

“As I said, the carbon dioxide eliminator is still incipient, but there’s all that light from the energy source, so I thought some greenery might thrive. I didn’t expect Virka—that’s Milvet’s wife—to bring quite so many specimens. She’s a horticulturist here, I’m told. And, well, just don’t tell any other engineers about my kludgy solutions, please.”

“I’d never betray you so,” Tikaya said. But, kludgy? Please. He’d even impressed her people with his craft. Generations of would-be acolytes would be copying his ideas. “Now, I’m eager for the rest of the tour.”

Rias guided her through the compact but plant-filled engine room, showing off his generator, motor, and other machinery. He explained everything, though he didn’t mention the one thing Tikaya was most curious about.

“How does it dive?” she finally asked.

“You can’t see it from the outside, but there are four sets of docking clamps. We seal everything, and the lower half of the ship simply detaches.” Rias waved his hands, as if to demonstrate on some smaller version of the craft that floated in the air before him. “I doubt the combined vessel would stand up to the rigors of the sea indefinitely, but we only need it to fool your people for a while.”

“Are you saying the entertaining deck isn’t a permanent construct? That’ll fluster my cousin in his future party-planning ventures.”

After leaving the engine room, Rias walked to an empty bulkhead in the bow. “The underwater navigation controls are behind here. I’ll show you when we’re alone.”

“Is the wheel up top capable of steering the ship then?”

“Yes, until the transition lever is thrown.”

Tikaya had never fancied herself a naval enthusiast, but she found herself eager to see the craft in action. “This sounds amazing, Rias. I can’t believe you did all this in a couple of weeks. Have you slept any?”

“Rarely. It’s hard to sleep when your brain is overflowing with ideas. As for the rest, you might want to wait to see if we successfully pull out of the harbor before you praise me.”

“Speaking of that, how are we going to—”

“How’s the tour going?” Ell called from the companionway.

“We’re fine,” Tikaya called back, then finished asking Rias, “—escape all of these people?”

“Once we make ready to pull away, I’m hoping the musicians and the barbecue chef will decamp.”

“About my cousin.” She eyed the companionway, wondering if Ell was lurking just out of sight. She’d been careful to keep her voice low when asking about the submersible aspect, but had it been low enough? “How much has he been around?”

“He’s come by most days.”

“And been helpful?”

“He’s been eager to please.”

Tikaya couldn’t remember any teacher, mentor, or employer ever saying that about Ell. “Does he know…?” She waved at the walls.

“Nobody except you knows.”

“How is that possible? Weren’t some of them here every day, helping construct it?”

“In the Turgonian factory, every laborer has a particular gear or cog that he’s an expert at making. He spends his days churning out his assigned pieces without ever having to know how it’ll fit with the other pieces or what the final product will look like.”

“This ship isn’t nearly as big as a factory; I can’t imagine how you kept everyone from noticing what you were doing down here.”

“Not easily. And there have been…” His gaze flicked toward the companionway. “Spies.”

“Ell?”

“I don’t know if he is or not. I don’t sense deception or subterfuge from him, but there have been nocturnal visitors to the site.”

“How do you know?”

“I left harmless booby traps that would be triggered if intruders came through. One morning they’d been tripped. After that, I built locking mechanisms for the wheelhouse and cabin. Also, there was the incident at the Pernicious Miasma.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Tikaya said. “The newspapers mentioned a fire.”

“In my room, yes. Someone was in there, searching for my schematics I’m guessing. One of the Turgonians staying there saw the door open and peeked inside. He spotted someone rummaging through my clothing. Being a Turgonian through and through, he attacked the intruder instead of questioning. They fought, and my man says he would have won but a second fellow came in and clubbed him in the back of the head. The intruders escaped, but, in the process of the fight, knocked lamps on the floor. Given all the rum vapors dousing the floors and furniture of that hostel, I’m surprised the whole place didn’t burn to ashes.”

Tikaya listened to the tale grimly. She wished Rias were staying at the plantation. Though there seemed to be a spy within her own family, she’d worry about him less if they were sharing a roof—or a bed, as would be preferable. What if the activities of these spies escalated? If they figured out Rias had disobeyed the minister’s wishes and built a submarine, might he himself become a target?

“Were these intruders Kyattese?” Tikaya asked, imagining minions sent by High Minister Jikaymar.

“Nurian.”

“Nurian?” Tikaya blurted. How many nationalities were a part of all this intrigue?

“Yes, my witness was certain, though they did wear island garb, a more sedate style than I’ve adopted, I’m told.”

Tikaya snorted. “Everyone wears a more sedate style than you. I didn’t even know you could buy lime-green clam diggers.”

“Yes, just so you know, I’m not intentionally choosing such garish colors. My funds are limited and clothing options available in my size are even more limited. Also… I believe Ms. Eleke at Brazen Beach Attire is having some fun with me.”

“That’s…” Tikaya plucked at one of the bone buttons on his shirt—each one featured a palm tree carving. “Very likely. Did the intruders find anything when they were there? Or did the fire make it impossible to tell?”

“There’s nothing to find. The schematics are in my head.” Rias led her to a pair of hatches on either side of the steps leading up to the deck. “Last stop.”

He twisted an inset handle and pushed a hatch open.

A muffled cry of surprise came from within. A man and woman were sitting on a bunk, arms and legs entwined like the aerial roots of a banyan tree. The man tried to lurch to his feet, but with the woman’s legs over his, he ended up tumbling to the floor instead. He popped up so quickly he clanged his head on the low ceiling.

“Sir!” It was Milvet, his hair mussed, his face flushed. “I thought you were, uhm, that you’d be… Uh.” He flung a hand toward the woman, a dark-haired beauty with the handsome broad, bronze features of people from the southern island chains. “You remember, Virka. I was just showing her around. She’d been wondering what you did with the plants. And why I’ve been working so much extra and didn’t have time for, uh, home life.”

Rias considered the pair, the discarded coconut cups on the floor, and arched a bland eyebrow. “I see.”

“We were just looking for a quiet—”

“Hush, dear.” The woman rose from the bed with more aplomb than her husband, pinched him on the rump, and told Rias, “It’s a fine ship. Thank you for the lovely party. We’ll be leaving now.”

Rias and Tikaya stepped aside as she sashayed out. Milvet tumbled after her, clanking his head, and a few other body parts, in his haste to hurry after her.

“What is it about this place?” Rias asked when he and Tikaya were alone. “The people are randier than sailors pulling into port after six months at sea.”

Amused by the entire exchange, Tikaya said, “Pleasant climate, beautiful scenery, and we eat a lot of oysters. They’re a known aphrodisiac.”

Rias straightened the bed and picked up the coconut cups. “Perhaps allowing the gathering was inadvisable. I thought, though, that letting so many people onto the Freedom would convince observers that I have nothing to hide.”

Tikaya’s amusement evaporated at this reminder of lurking spies. “Do you think it’s possible Milvet and his lady were only pretending to be amorously engaged and were, before we entered, in here with their ears pressed to the hatch?”

“I don’t know. I made the hatches thick and watertight, in case there’s a need to seal off compartments. Come, let’s invite the revelers to move to the dock.”

The music troupe had already decamped, and it didn’t take Rias long to usher the rest of the people off his ship. That didn’t begin to end the party, though. If anything the crowd had grown larger. Someone had rolled a rum barrel down the docks and was filling cups as quickly as the amber liquid flowed out of the bunghole.

“Have a seat, my lady.” Rias gestured her to a bench on the deck.

Tikaya imagined that once they were out on voyages together, she’d have to learn how to share all the duties, but Rias seemed content to have her seated while he hopped about like a cricket, handling all the departure preparations on his own. He smiled every time he passed her, reminding her of a youth getting ready to show off some prized project to his parents. A soft hum vibrated through the craft as the engine started up, much quieter than the rumbles of the ironclad warship on which Tikaya had been a prisoner.

Rias appeared on deck again, untied the lines securing them to the dock, and hopped into the wheelhouse. Tikaya climbed up beside him. As the Freedom inched away from the dock, a cheer went up among the onlookers. Tikaya leaned into the shadows so she could watch those onlookers without being observed herself. While many people were clearly having fun, a few faces held more serious miens. Kyattese faces, she noted, not surprised but a little sad. One or two might be spies, but some were probably folks who simply loathed Turgonians and hoped Rias’s ship exploded on its maiden voyage.

The thought sent an alarmed start through her. What if someone had booby-trapped the engine or energy supply? “Rias? Did you ever figure out what those nocturnal visitors did when they came aboard?”

The grim look he gave her said he’d long since considered the question. “I hope they were just looking around. I hadn’t installed the energy supply at that point, but most of the engine was finished. I went over every inch of it and the rest of the ship, looking for signs of sabotage.” Rias lifted a polished bone swimming mask. “I even pretended to spear-fish in the harbor this morning, so I’d have an excuse to check the hull.”

Tikaya relaxed an iota, but felt compelled to add, “There are ways one could sabotage a vessel using the mental sciences, possibly ways that wouldn’t be detectable to touch or the human eye.”

“I feared as much and started the engine this afternoon, before people showed up, to make sure nothing untoward occurred. I wouldn’t want to endanger you if it could be helped. I almost didn’t invite you out for this.” He waved toward the mouth of the harbor.

“I would have felt slighted if you’d invited my cousin to your party and not me.”

“I thought as much. In regard to otherworldly sabotage, would you be able to detect it?”

“I’m… not sure. I didn’t sense anything other than the energy supply during your tour, but it’s such a significant source of power that its field could overshadow lesser devices in the vicinity.”

Rias turned the wheel to guide the craft around the last of the docks and angle it toward the sea beyond the harbor. “Could that be sabotaged? I have wondered at the wisdom of accepting such a significant piece of equipment from your ex-fiancé’s mother.”

“Parkonis’s mom wouldn’t blow you up. She’s read your books.”

“My what?”

“Lieutenant Starcrest and the Savage Saboteur, among other titles. She seemed to have the whole collection.”

“Those are here?”

“Specially ordered. It seems Iweue is a fan.”

“That’s…. unanticipated,” Rias said. “I did wonder how you convinced her to craft me such a powerful artifact.”

“She expects a ride later. It definitely didn’t sound like she wanted to blow you up.” Tikaya scratched her chin. “She might blow me up if Parkonis moves back in with her, but that’s a concern for later.”

“Hm.”

Tikaya could no longer make out individual faces amidst the crowd on the dock, but the torches burning in the area pushed back the darkness, so she could see bodies turned in their direction, watching intently. Rias slipped something into her hand. A spyglass. For all his excitement over sharing this moment with her, his mind seemed to be running down the same railway track as hers.

Tikaya leaned farther into the shadows and arranged the spyglass so she could skim over the revelers. She lingered on anyone watching the ship, especially those who seemed to be alone and who weren’t enthusiastically enjoying their rum. Near the back of the crowd, she spotted a familiar face.

“I don’t suppose you invited High Minister Jikaymar?” Tikaya asked.

“No.”

“It seems he invited himself then.” Tikaya returned the spyglass. “Why don’t I take another tour of the vessel and see if I can sense anything?”

“Good idea.”

Tikaya hesitated, feeling she should remind him that, as someone who’d never trained in the Science, her senses were of limited use, but decided to wait and see if she discovered anything first. She climbed down to the cabin and started at the front, touching the bulkhead Rias had said hid the submarine navigation controls. From there, she worked her way back, trying to open her mind and stretch out her senses, the way she’d heard practitioners describe the act. All the while, she wished she’d thought to invite one of her more skilled family members, though, with locks mysteriously being fastened to attic doors behind her back, she didn’t know who to trust.

A half hour passed while Tikaya checked every bulkhead, then moved into the engineering area and poked around the copious numbers of securely fastened potted plants. The energy source emitted light and power like a small sun. Reluctantly she admitted that if someone had tinkered with it, she’d never know. Lastly, she came up to the deck and leaned over the railing, getting as close to the propeller as she could without jumping into the water. She closed her eyes, trying to sense anything suspicious, but felt nothing more than the spray of the sea splashing her cheeks. They’d pulled out of the harbor and moved into more vigorous waters.

“Anything?” Rias asked when she rejoined him in the wheelhouse.

“Not that I could tell.”

“At this point, we can disengage from the top and descend. Do you want to continue or wait for another night?”

Tikaya eyed their surroundings. They’d headed east from the harbor mouth. Rocky hills hid the docks and the city from view, and the moonless night cast the Freedom in shadow. Thinking of the dark gray paint Rias had chosen, she decided they’d be nearly impossible to see out there, especially given the vessel’s low profile. Without masts or sails to be visible against a starry horizon, observers would have trouble distinguishing them from the waves.

Tikaya picked up the spyglass again. This time, she searched the dark hills. Here and there, a torch burned. People watching their craft? Or simply folks heading home after a day spent in town? Lush vegetation grew along the hilltops, and even with the spyglass, Tikaya couldn’t make out the details of the torch bearers.

“I doubt they can see us,” Rias said, “but either way, they’ll continue to see the top of the vessel. I’ll drop its anchor before we detach. People should just think we’re out here canoodling.”

“If the submarine doesn’t work, we can give that a try.”

“Doesn’t work?”

He sounded so affronted at the possibility that Tikaya had to laugh. A mechanical error would probably leave him far too consumed with troubleshooting to consider canoodling. “I mean due to sabotage, not because of any failing on your part.”

Rias’s hmmph sounded vaguely mollified. He checked a couple of gauges on the console. “Are you ready? We’ll only go down a few meters and for a short time on this first run.”

Tikaya lowered the spyglass and noticed a tremor in her hands. Nerves at the idea of diving into the ocean depths? Or from knowing she hadn’t been able to perform as thorough a check for booby traps as this deserved? “Ready,” she said, despite those nerves.

Rias slipped a hand under a console, and something clacked. “Time to go below.”

CHAPTER 14

Tikaya and Rias entered the main cabin, and he shut the hatch behind them, spinning a wheel several rotations, his arm muscles flexing as he tightened it. In addition, he threw two heavy latches. A twinge of claustrophobic unease ran through Tikaya. Without access to the deck, the cabin suddenly felt tighter, the lights dimmer. Several clinks emanated from within the bulkheads, followed by a soft tremor and a last resounding thunk-clang.

“Those noises are normal, right?” The hatch lacked a porthole, or Tikaya would have had her nose pressed to it to check the results.

“Yes.”

She touched the hatch. “Is this the only way out?” Given how much muscle he had thrown into tightening the wheel, she wondered how hard she’d find it to open on her own, should some emergency require her to do so. “What if there’s a leak and we have to escape quickly? A leak due to sabotage, that is.”

Rias took a couple of steps, reached above his head, flipped a hidden switch, and slid aside a panel between two beams. An escape hatch, the other side of which must have been buried beneath the wheelhouse, was set into the hull. “If we’re at the surface, this won’t be underwater. We’ll enter and exit this way.”

“And if we’re not at the surface?”

“You’d flood the submarine if you tried to get out. Also water pressure is problematic to the human body below certain depths.”

Problematic. As in instantly deadly. “Let’s hope for no leaks then.”

Rias regarded her gravely. “Do you still want to go forward with this?”

“Oh, yes. I just wanted to be aware of the options.” Or lack of options, Tikaya added to herself. Then, deciding she wasn’t showing enough enthusiasm for the adventure—and his new craft, smiled and said, “If we get bored in the confined space, there’s always that canoodling.”

Rias returned the smile. “I doubt you’ll be bored. There’s a porthole in the science station as well as the navigation chamber, and lighting outside to illuminate our surroundings. You’re about to see the ocean in a way very few have. Perhaps no one in the world.”

“Can glass withstand the pressures of water down… however deep we’re going.” She pointed in the direction of the ocean floor.

“I wasn’t planning on skimming the bottoms of deep sea trenches in the Freedom—it’d take some of that black alien metal to withstand that kind of pressure—but there may be times when we want to drop a couple hundred meters to reach a wreck, and the hull should be able to handle that. As for the windows… Milvet arranged for the glass, and he claims a Maker enhanced it, but he couldn’t give me specifics as to how many PSI it could withhold. I would have preferred real glass, as formulas tell me what to expect. As is… I’ve made my best guess and factored in as much redundancy as possible.”

Rias thumbed a hidden switch, and the forward bulkhead split vertically down the middle, each piece sliding away on a concave track. He fastened a couple of latches, securing them to the hull. In the bow, controls and instrument panels had come into view, along with two chairs mounted to the deck. One of the portholes he’d mentioned allowed a view of the black waters outside.

“It’s going to be dark down there,” Tikaya said, then realized she was stating the obvious.

“Yes.” Rias sat in the seat with the majority of the gauges and controls in front of it and flicked a few switches. “I want to wait until we’re beneath the surface before turning the lamps on. We don’t want to be visible to onlookers. We’re close enough to the top that you could use the periscope I installed if you want to check on the upper shell of our ship. We should have cleared it by now.”

“It looks like you’ve planned for every contingency.”

Rias paused and tilted his head thoughtfully. “There’s at least one thing I just realized I forgot. Allow me to apologize for that in advance. You didn’t drink much of that rum, did you?”

“No… You didn’t forget to build a head, did you?”

“It’s there. It folds out of the wall next to our cabin. But I might have forgotten to… stock it.”

Tikaya smirked. “Well, it can’t be much worse than trying to find leaves on a frozen tundra in the Turgonian Northern Frontier.”

“I was hoping I’d improve your life, not force you to reminisce about hard times. We won’t stay down long. I just want to see…” Rias flicked another switch, and a faint sound reached Tikaya’s ears—water gurgling? “Have a seat.” He gestured toward the other chair. “Water is filling the ballast tanks. We’ll start descending shortly.”

Tikaya sat on the hard metal chair and promptly decided to suggest cushions as a later upgrade. She interlaced her fingers in her lap, crossed her legs, and tried to appear calm as she gazed through the viewport, waiting for the promised descent. The tightness of those interlaced fingers might have betrayed her nerves.

“Five feet,” Rias said. “Ten.”

At first, Tikaya didn’t notice a change. The floor didn’t tilt, nor was there any increased thrumming of the engines. The view of black water outside of the porthole remained the same as well—she imagined it’d be a much more intriguing view by day. Rias was watching a gauge—something like an altimeter? Except for depth? Tikaya leaned closer for a better look at the instrument panel.

Rias flicked a switch and a soft bong echoed from somewhere. He tapped a nearby display. “This is a version of that echo ranging device I mentioned.”

“That the young captain invented?”

“Indeed so.”

“For taking bathymetry readings of the ocean terrain?” Map-making practice shouldn’t prove necessary, as the waters in front of the harbor were well-documented—and traversed often enough that Tikaya doubted any legerdemain-practicing cartographers could have fudged the maps.

“We could do that,” Rias said, “but I’m more concerned about not crashing into said terrain.”

“Ah.” Good plan. That sole porthole didn’t offer much of a view. There was a reef that circled a good part of the island and who knew what else out there? Numerous ships had been wrecked during the war, and while some had been salvaged many of the deeper ones had been left to gather barnacles on the sea floor.

“We’ve reached a depth of twenty meters.” Rias checked all of his gauges again and seemed satisfied by what they told him. The soft bongs continued. “The floor isn’t much farther down. I’m going to keep us at this depth. We’ll turn on the lamps, I’ll show you the science station, and we’ll—”

A shudder ran through the craft.

Tikaya gripped the edges of her seat. “Double check the readings to make sure we’re not running into things?” Her gaze latched onto the viewport, but darkness still reigned outside of it.

“Hm.” Rias checked the gauges again. “We shouldn’t be.”

Another shudder coursed through the Freedom.

“Could there be a hiccup with the engines?” Tikaya asked.

It was amazing how much indignation a former Turgonian marine could infuse into one quick glance. “I think something’s bumping us.”

“We’d hear scraping sounds if it were a rock or a part of a wreck, wouldn’t we?” Tikaya asked.

“I’d imagine so.” Right, it was his first submarine ride too.

“Then what—wait, did you say something is bumping us? Not that we’re bumping something?”

Rias lifted his hands from the controls. “I’ve stopped all forward and downward propulsion.”

“The currents would move us some though, wouldn’t they? Maybe we’re snagged in seaweed.”

“No. Something bumped us.” Rias flicked a new switch, one labeled lamp.

For the first time, the darkness outside lessened. Tikaya left her chair and leaned her hands on either side of the viewport. From somewhere beneath the glass came a beam of yellowish light the same hue as Iweue’s energy source. It illuminated less of the water around them than she would have wished. They weren’t deep enough for her to see the sea floor, though a large coral nodule covered in colorful polyps rose at the edge of the light. She was surprised they’d traveled out far enough to reach the reef. Were they close enough that they might have hit a stray coral colony? That might account for the shudders.

“See anything?” Rias asked.

Tikaya pressed her face as close to the glass as her spectacles would allow.

A snake-like appendage slapped the viewport.

She shrieked and leaped away. Her leg caught on her chair and she fell backward, tumbling to the deck.

“I’ll assume that means yes,” Rias said.

From her back, propped on her elbows, one leg hung over the chair, Tikaya managed an inarticulate grunt and pointed at the viewpoint. Nothing was there.

“I saw something,” she insisted.

“Yes, I gathered that from the shriek.” This time Rias leaned in for a closer look.

“It wasn’t a shriek.” Tikaya scowled at his back. “It was… a high-pitched exclamation of surprise.”

“You’ll have to explain the difference to me sometime.”

“It’s a Kyattese distinction.” Tikaya climbed to her feet. “Do you see it? It looked like a snake. No,” she said, changing her mind as she remembered where they were, “a tentacle. One belonging to an octopus or a squid, though, if it’s the former, that would technically make it an arm.” Lovely time for vocabulary distinctions to pop into her mind. “That doesn’t matter. What’s odd is how big it was.”

Rias looked at her.

“Giant squid and octopuses are more common in deep, temperate waters, aren’t they? I’ve never heard of anything more than a foot or two long making an appearance here.”

“Perhaps, due to being startled, you overestimated its size.”

Another shudder pulsed through the submarine. The craft lurched to the side.

Tikaya stumbled again, this time catching herself against the hull. “And perhaps I didn’t.”

The view of the coral outside had shifted several feet to the side. Rias leaned close to the viewport again. This time the vista did not remain empty. The tentacle, a slimy grayish-green appendage, slapped the glass and stuck to it. Tikaya wouldn’t have minded if Rias shrieked a little, or at least grunted in surprise, but he merely issued a thoughtful, “Hm.”

“That’s definitely from a creature more than a foot or two long,” Tikaya said. “Do you think it’s wrapped around us?”

“It seems so.”

Rias clasped his hands behind his back, his legs spread so the intermittent vibrations—was that creature trying to drag them off somewhere?—didn’t upset his balance. Tikaya chose to keep a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the console.

“You’re correct,” Rias said. “Giant squid and octopuses have occasionally harassed imperial ships, but always in northern latitudes. And usually, according to hesitant suggestions in reports from captains who’ve survived the encounters, under the influence of otherworldly persuasion, or so they believed.”

Tikaya didn’t like the implication that some of the captains who encountered the creatures didn’t survive. “Do you mean to imply that some practitioner convinced this critter to visit?” She thought of the ice condor that had poisoned her in those desolate Turgonian mountains. It had been controlled by Nurian assassins practiced in the mental sciences.

The tentacle disappeared from the porthole, and the Freedom jerked again. This time the movement took the submarine closer to the coral.

“Would you be able to tell?” Rias sat back down at the controls and pushed a lever. “If a practitioner was controlling it?”

“Another animal telepath might be able to, but if someone is controlling it, he or she is far out of the range of my senses.” Tikaya thought of all those people gathered on the docks. It could be any one of them. The high minister—was he a practitioner? She couldn’t remember. “But if it smashes us against that big hunk of coral, I think we’ll have an answer.”

“I understand octopuses are quite intelligent. Perhaps it’s mistaken us for the shelled prey it favors, and it simply plans to hurl us against the coral to break the submarine open and extract the innards for a meal.”

“That’s not any more reassuring than the practitioner hypothesis,” Tikaya said. “Here’s an idea: why don’t we try to escape its clutches.”

“I have been trying.” Rias tapped a lever that he’d pushed to its maximum position.

“Oh. It’s… holding us?”

“So it seems.” Rias eyed a panel near the hull to his right.

Tikaya squinted to read the label. “Weapons?” What kind of weapons had he managed to lug down the docks in front of everyone and load onto the boat?

“Torpedoes,” Rias said.

“Tor-what?” Tikaya had never heard the Turgonian word.

“They’re self-propelled weapons driven by compressed air that can travel at speeds between fifteen and twenty knots. There’s a charge in the head that explodes upon impact. It was named after the torpedo fish.”

“By whom?” Tikaya asked, suspicious that he knew the origins of the name. Though she’d reconciled herself to Rias’s martial past—mostly—it chilled her to imagine him sitting at a desk, designing weapons. “The same captain who invented that echo ranging contraption?”

Rias cleared his throat. “Actually, he was a lieutenant at the time, and the project was foisted on him by a particularly bloodthirsty superior officer.” He seemed to be studying his controls and avoiding her eyes—maybe he could guess that it discomfited her to think of him inventing new ways to kill people. “I built these on board when nobody was around, and I have some stationary mines that I can deploy too, but neither will do any good against something wrapped around our hull. We’d just blow ourselves up with it.”

“Let’s save that for a last resort.”

“Unfortunately, I was thinking of the possible need to defend ourselves against Nurian warships, not hungry sea life.” Rias sounded annoyed with himself.

Tikaya gripped his shoulder. “As evinced by the empty tissue holder in the head, one man can’t think of everything.”

Rias snorted.

“Maybe it’ll get tired of toying with us and swim away.” Unless it truly was being controlled by a practitioner, Tikaya thought grimly.

Without warning, the Freedom was thrust forward in the water. Rias lunged for the control panel and yanked the wheel that controlled lateral movement. He spun it all the way to the right, but the coral outcropping came up too quickly. They glanced off it with a bang and a screech. The deck lurched, and if Tikaya hadn’t still been gripping a beam she would have flown to the other side. An image of the hull bursting open and water flooding inside flashed into her mind.

Rias calmly maneuvered the controls to right the craft. He pushed another lever. “I think it let go to hurl us. I’m attempting to move away and rise before it catches us. It’ll take time for the air to push out the water in the ballast tanks, but we can travel forward at—”

A warning bleat came from the echo ranger.

Rias spun the wheel hard. As the submarine turned, a myriad of colorful coral skimmed past.

“Sorry,” he said, “I had a map of the reef in my head, but the octopus must have moved us more than I—”

A shudder raced through the craft again. Rias sighed.

“At least it doesn’t seem to be strong enough to crush us,” Tikaya said. “Or maybe it hasn’t thought to try.”

Rias spared her a glance, and she wondered if it meant her random thoughts weren’t helpful.

“Why don’t I check out that science station you mentioned and see if there’s something that might be useful in prying stowaways off the hull?” Tikaya suggested. “You mentioned tools for collecting samples, didn’t you?”

“Yes, one of my helpers just finished installing extendable arms with gripping hooks and shovels. But they’re designed to pick up small samples, not pluck off gigantic octopuses.” Intent on piloting the vessel, or perhaps keeping the creature from hurling them against the coral again, Rias didn’t look at her as he spoke.

“I’ll see if I can come up with something. Holler if you need me. Or if it succeeds in opening the sub like a tin of sardines.”

“That will not happen.”

Tikaya hoped he was speaking to the craft’s superior engineering and not simply choosing to remain optimistic.

“Some maiden voyage,” he added under his breath. The words didn’t reassure Tikaya.

She hustled to the rear of the craft, to a hatch on the opposite side from their cabin. She flung it open and found herself in a cubby half the size of the sleeping area. Metal cupboards filled the walls, their doors all secured with clasps. She picked up an upended stool and set it before a desk secured to the deck in front of a porthole. The desk had a few control levers along the sides, presumably for manipulating those extendable tools.

Tikaya spun a wheel to unlock a porthole cover and found herself staring at the gray-green body of the octopus. “Lovely.”

The hum of the engines increased, and a soft tremor ran through the craft, one that had nothing to do with the creature’s attack.

“I’m pushing the engine,” Rias called, “to wrest back some control. I’m going to steer close to the coral and try to scrape the octopus off.”

Now why did that sound as dangerous for them as for their attacker?

“I understand,” Tikaya called back, already opening cabinet doors, seeking inspiration in case Rias’s plan didn’t work.

A surprisingly thorough collection of specimen jars, digging tools, maps, and mapping equipment waited within, as well as alchemy substances useful for dating archaeological finds. Rias must have talked to a field researcher, or maybe he’d found someone to put the collection together for him. The man certainly knew how to recruit useful people.

The Freedom turned hard enough to send Tikaya stumbling into a wall. A bump and a scrape followed, and a ripple went through the gray flesh flattened against the porthole. The octopus was only adjusting itself, not releasing them. More hard turns and bumps followed. At least Rias had regained some control, though the deck vibrated hard enough to rattle Tikaya’s teeth, and she wondered how long the engine could maintain the output required to fight the octopus. Maybe the creature would tire and give up first.

“There’s a wishful thought,” Tikaya muttered, then raised her voice so Rias would hear. “Do you have enough control to take us to the surface?”

“Possibly, but it’s pressing down on us with a lot of weight. We’ve hit the ocean floor twice now. It’s as if, when it’s not hurling us against the coral, it’s trying to smother us.”

“If we could make it to the top…” What, Tikaya? How would the situation be improved up there? Unless they could drive the submarine up a beach like a runabout, the octopus wouldn’t likely let go.

“Do you know someone waiting up there with a harpoon launcher?” Rias asked, his tone dry, even as he navigated them close to something that elicited another shuddering bump. Again the octopus shifted its grip, but did not let go.

“No,” she responded. If anything, someone waiting up there might want to help the creature finish them off.

Tikaya opened a long, tall cabinet and found shelves filled with books, tightly packed so they wouldn’t fall out. After a quick perusal of the titles, she plucked out an encyclopedia on sea life and flipped to the octopus section. Maybe they had predators she and Rias could mimic or fears they could exploit.

“I’m getting some different readings from ahead,” Rias called. “You said there are wrecks down here?”

“By the harbor mouth, yes. There was fighting near the island at the end of the war, and the president sacrificed a few ships to fire to blockade the harbor at one point.” Her first thought was that Rias should know all about those events, but then she remembered that he’d been on Krychek Island during the last year of the war. After he’d disappeared from the theater, the Turgonians had been at their worst, ignoring treaties and using more direct and desperate tactics in an attempt to subdue her people. That was a lot of what the Kyattese remembered and why people might never welcome Rias. Thoughts for another time, she reminded herself when another shudder coursed through the craft. She sat down to read.

“I’m going to head in that direction, then,” Rias said. “There’ll be more chances to scrape this fellow off, and maybe he’ll have a claustrophobic streak.”

Doubtful, Tikaya thought as she skimmed through a paragraph on ways octopuses defended themselves, which included hiding in holes. They also expelled ink, camouflaged themselves by changing color, and poisoned creatures with venom. “They have all sorts of defenses,” Tikaya muttered, “but how do you kill one?”

The next bump was so hard that it hurled her from her stool. “Did we hit the ground?” she called.

“Yes,” Rias said. “The structural integrity should remain intact through quite a bit of abuse, but this is a more taxing maiden voyage than I had in mind.”

“I guess that means canoodling is out.”

“Unless you think that would be useful against the octopus.”

“The book doesn’t mention it.” Tikaya located her page again. This time, she stayed on the deck to read.

“Finding anything useful back there?” Rias asked after a few moments. “It’s taking all my concentration—” a squeal of metal rang through the hull as they bashed against something, “—to keep this thing from preparing us for a suitable meal.”

He sounded so equable. Tikaya struggled to keep her own thoughts calm. If he could joke, surely the situation wasn’t too dire. She snorted, remembering that he’d made jokes when they’d been outnumbered, outgunned, and trapped on an enemy vessel before.

“Still looking,” she responded as she continued to skim the octopus entry. In an attempt to show him that she could also stay calm and make jokes when their lives were in danger, she tapped a paragraph and added, “Apparently, octopus wrestling is a Turgonian sport increasing in popularity on your west coast. There’s even an annual competition in Tangukmoo. Too bad we missed that when we passed through.”

When Rias didn’t respond, she assumed he thought the factoid too silly to comment upon. A moment passed, and she’d moved further down the page when he spoke again. “Would a dagger in the eye kill one?”

Tikaya almost dropped the book. He wasn’t thinking of going out there, was he? “Rias, that was a joke, not a request for you to wrestle with this one. The octopuses in that area are a maximum of eighty, ninety pounds and aren’t poisonous to humans. Whatever’s out there must be five times that size if it’s giving us such trouble.”

“Given the force it’s able to apply, I estimate closer to fifteen times that size.”

“Either way, you’re not going out there. Besides, I don’t know how to steer your boat.”

“Yes, shortsighted of me not to give you a lesson during the tour. I’m—” A loud crunch sounded, drowning out his words. Outside the porthole, the octopus shifted so that it only partially covered the opening. Tikaya glimpsed little more than dark water, though she thought she caught sight of something jagged before they moved past it.

“What was that?” Tikaya asked.

“We’ve gone through a hole in the hull of a wreck.”

“Was the hole there before we went through?” Tikaya asked.

“Yes, though our stowaway broadened it.”

“Be careful. Some of the wrecks out here are your people’s, and they’ll be made of metal, not wood.”

“Noted,” Rias said.

Another crunch sounded. Tikaya returned to reading. “Octopus predators include sharks, eels, some whales, and large fish,” she muttered to herself, then snorted, trying to imagine the fish that could eat this creature. “Eels,” she said again, tapping the page.

Wait, she’d been thinking of shock eels earlier. They could zap their prey with electricity, right?

With the inkling of an idea forming, Tikaya flipped to the eel entry. “There. Shock Eel. …more closely related to catfish than true eel… organs able to produce electricity… positively charged sodium… ion channels.” She stopped after a few more sentences. She didn’t need to know how the creature made electricity, as Rias’s generator was already supplying it. If they could use it to…

“Rias,” Tikaya called, “can you electrify the hull?”

A quiet moment passed, and she stepped out of her cubby.

“Rias?”

“Yes, sorry, I’m thinking. Absolutely, it can be done, but it should have been done in the shipyard. From down here, I’m not sure… Well, maybe. Here. Come pilot.”

Tikaya groaned. “I should have known that would be required at some point.” She jogged into the navigation area.

Rias stood and was pointing out controls before she even sat in the seat. “Rudder for left and right, diving planes for up and down, engine thrust, and—” Rias lunged and made a quick adjustment, steering them toward a hole so they didn’t crash through the barnacle-covered wooden hull of a wreck. “You’ll figure the rest out. The wrecks are giving the octopus something to think about, so you might want to keep weaving through them.”

“Oh, good, an obstacle course. The ideal training environment for an inexperienced navigator.”

Rias patted her on the shoulder. “You can handle it.”

He disappeared into the back before she could grumble a response. Just as well. Tikaya needed her concentration. It didn’t take more than three seconds for her to decide she didn’t have time to figure out what the needles on the display for his echo ranging system meant. Instead, she rose from the seat and peered out the viewport. For the moment, nothing blocked the opening. She made small experimental adjustments to the control levers and prayed to Akahe that the octopus wouldn’t smother the window with an arm.

The vessel jerked abruptly, and Tikaya felt the resistance in the control wheel. She wrestled with it to keep the craft in position. Another jerk came, the octopus trying to pull them toward the reef again.

“Oh, and stay away from Turgonian wrecks,” Rias called, his voice muffled. “There may be mines and other unexploded ordnance in and around them.”

Mines? A bead of sweat slithered down her spine. “You know, there are times when I really hate your people.”

“Sorry.”

Tikaya’s adjustments to the wheel had little effect. The extra weight—and any force the octopus was applying—must affect the sensitivity. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a gauge with a needle pressed into a red area. She took a deep breath and fought for calm. And focus.

Despite their smothering tag-along, the outside lamps continued to work, illuminating the ocean floor for several meters ahead. Another wooden wreck came into view, and Tikaya nudged the rudder control, thinking to skim alongside it. Warier than Rias—especially in lieu of his last warning—she couldn’t bring herself to search for an entry spot. The last thing she needed was to get them stuck. Maybe she’d try veering close enough to force the octopus to scrape against the barnacled hull. Rias had been doing that, and it hadn’t had much effect, but she only needed to keep the creature busy for a while, not defeat it.

When the Freedom drew close, however, the octopus enacted a plan of its own. With an abrupt heave, it shoved the submarine, driving it into the hull. The Freedom crashed through with a great snapping of wood, and the force hurled Tikaya sideways. Her fingers flew from the controls, and she barely kept from landing on the deck again.

Cursing, she lunged back to the viewport, glancing out as she wrapped a hand firmly around the rudder lever. They’d smashed all the way through the side of the wreck. The light played over algae- and barnacle-smothered wood—lots and lots of wood. It snapped and jabbed at the Freedom with every foot they covered.

“How’s it going up there?” Rias called, his voice even more muffled than before.

Tikaya imagined him crawling behind access panels, running or rewiring cables. “I’m, uhm, experimenting with different strategies.”

She fought with the wheel, trying to find the hole they’d just made, so they could escape the clutches of the wreck. But the octopus or currents or a combination of both were determined to push the submarine deeper. Seaweed grew up everywhere, blotting out the already limited view and dimming the exterior lamps’ influence. A school of startled fish burst out of the shadows and fled. More wood crunched, and Tikaya winced at each impact. No matter how sturdy Rias had made the submarine, surely it couldn’t hold up to this abuse forever.

A solid wooden post loomed out of the darkness. Cursing, Tikaya spun the wheel to the maximum point. This time, the octopus must have been distracted, for she was able to turn the submarine. The nose of the craft still glanced off the beam, but didn’t strike it head on.

Ahead, fish swam out through a hole. Hoping it represented the opposite side of the wreck, Tikaya angled toward it. It was too small, she realized too late, and they crunched through, enlarging the opening as they went. She groaned. They weren’t outside yet, but in another portion of the ship. That had been a bulkhead, not the hull. She glimpsed fish again in her light, and followed them, hoping they’d lead her out.

By now sweat bathed her face and burned as it dripped into her eyes, but she dared not lift her hands from the controls to wipe it away. “Any progress back there?” Tikaya called.

If Rias responded, she didn’t hear it.

Finally, she found another hole, one large enough to steer the craft through without destroying anything else. She eased out of it, with only a small bump—the octopus brushing the wood rather than the hull of the submarine striking it, and blew out a relieved breath when open water appeared around them.

Her relief was short-lived. Something huge and black appeared in the lamplight. The side of a Turgonian warship.

Rias’s warning of explosives flooded into her mind. Tikaya yanked at the rudder control so hard she feared she’d tear it from the console. Though the octopus didn’t seem to be fighting her, the extra weight still made the response slow. She grimaced as they floated closer. Engine, which lever had he said controlled engine thrust? That one. Yes. Hoping to slow them, Tikaya pulled it all the way back. They accelerated. She cursed again and thrust it in the opposite direction.

“Lessons, I definitely want lessons next time before being left alone up here!”

Again, Rias didn’t respond. Tikaya growled and checked the viewport. The Turgonian ship was too long, their momentum too great. They’d end up glancing off its side. The hull wouldn’t have explosives on it, would it?

“Up,” Tikaya whispered, realizing she had another option.

She grabbed the lever that controlled the dive planes. This time she tested it slowly, not wanting to bury their nose in the sand. Slowly, the view through the glass inched up the black side of the ship. Too slowly. Tikaya could see every barnacle and the corrugations of rust pockmarking the hull. She pressed her face to the viewport, hoping to spot the railing, hoping they’d clear it. A huge gun came into view instead. Tikaya gulped. The hull might not have explosives embedded into it, but there might be shells loaded in that gun. If one of those exploded… Even Rias’s sturdy engineering couldn’t hold up against that kind of power.

“Ready?” came a call from the rear.

“Blessed Akahe, yes!”

Maybe if they lost the octopus, the Freedom would rise more rapidly. Tikaya tried to turn the rudder so they’d veer away from the gun, but with the engine thrust halted, nothing responded quickly. A whole bank of the weapons came into view, lining the hull, less friendly than bristles on a porcupine. The submarine drifted toward those guns, their course inevitable. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the viewport.

Between one blink and the next, blackness blotted out the view. Her first thought was that the lamp had been extinguished, but a faint tremor ran through the submarine. Ink, Tikaya realized. The octopus had released the ink in its sac. Had it fled as well? She couldn’t see anything through the blackened viewport.

Footsteps pounded on the metal deck. “Did it work?” Rias burst into the navigation room. “It felt like it let go.”

“I think so, but we have another problem.” Tikaya pointed at the viewport, but the black ink hadn’t fully dissipated. “We’re on course to run into—”

Rias leaped to a control panel on the wall next to her seat and threw four switches.

“—the side of a Turgonian warship,” Tikaya finished. “What’s that do?”

“Fill the ballast tanks with air so we’ll rise, but it might not be fast enough.” Rias squinted through the porthole.

Beyond the fading ink, the rusted railing of the warship came into view. Tikaya stood, fingers pressed against the console. They’d risen past the guns. Maybe they’d clear the entire ship. A smokestack loomed, though, canted toward them on the wreck’s tilted deck.

Rias slid into the navigation seat, and Tikaya was more than happy to let him take the job back. He fired up the engines again and steered them toward the gap between the smokestack and a second one with its side torn open. They bumped against the first stack, but Rias didn’t flinch. Tikaya heaved a sigh and sagged against the wall.

“I was afraid to touch anything on that ship,” she admitted when he glanced at her, “after your mention of unexploded munitions.”

“Ah. They shouldn’t be dangling from the smokestacks.”

“You wouldn’t think so, but with Turgonians, one never knows.” Tikaya bent down and wrapped a hug around Rias from behind, pressing her cheek to his. She decided not to admit that she’d nearly scared herself to death a couple of times when piloting his creation—he always seemed to think her above that sort of thing—but she let her relief show in the tight embrace.

Rias was adjusting the controls to take them to the surface, but he paused to grip her arm and lean his temple against hers. “It’s true that there have been instances of defeated Turgonian captains booby-trapping their ships to ensure enemy parties would, ah, blow up, as it were, when attempting to board.”

“Blow up? Wouldn’t that have caused some of the crew to blow up as well?”

“All of them, yes. And usually the ship as well, but that kept the enemy from acquiring secret orders or taking the vessel as a war prize.”

Though Tikaya didn’t break the hug, she did pull her head back, watching Rias out of the corners of her eyes. “They didn’t do such things under orders from their admirals, did they?”

“There was no need to give such orders, the idea having long since been instilled in them during their academy days.” Rias pointed at the viewport. Rivulets of water ran down the outside. Now on the surface, the submarine bobbed and swayed with the waves.

After that crazy adventure, Tikaya almost expected it to be dawn, but darkness still hugged the sea. A chronometer on the wall behind Rias’s chair informed her that it’d only been an hour since they’d left the dock. The rum was probably still flowing. Odd to think that all that chaos had gone on beneath the surface and the people above probably had no idea about it. Most of the people anyway. Someone had been controlling that octopus.

Brought back to the reality that they’d only survived one attack and that the war might just be beginning, Tikaya released Rias from her hug and stood up, though she left her hands on his shoulders. “Did you ever booby trap one of your ships?” she asked. After all, he’d gone to that academy as well, and at a younger—and perhaps more impressionable age—than normal. “Or were you too gifted to ever find yourself in that predicament?”

“Oh, I found myself in that predicament more often than you’d think, since I had a stubborn determination not to simply equal but to exceed the expectations set forth in my orders. I tended to poke my nose into a lot of burning buildings. But I was always convinced that I could trick or scheme my way out of the situation without blowing up my ship or surrendering my crew.”

“Since you’re here with me, nearly being eaten by an octopus, it must have worked most of the time.”

“Yes. My amazing knack for getting myself into trouble was surpassed only by my supreme luck when it came to getting out again, often with results that impressed my superiors. Fortunately, I’ve grown more sedate of late.” Rias leaned his head back and smiled at Tikaya.

“Are you truly telling me that the Rias I know today is a sedate version of the old one?” Tikaya remembered the way he’d led her through a Nurian warship, determined not simply to escape it but to destroy it in the process and, oh, the one sailing alongside as well. “Are you sure you didn’t simply drive your superiors crazy? Maybe they promoted you through the ranks so quickly so they wouldn’t have to deal with you as a subordinate any longer.”

Rias blinked a few times, then let out a round of laughter that rang from the metal walls. Tikaya thought it might be his way of expressing his relief that they’d survived the octopus—sturdy submarine or not, he had to have been worried too—but she hadn’t heard such amusement from him since they’d arrived in Kyatt, so she savored it. He even wiped tears from his eyes.

“I haven’t had anyone suggest that notion to me,” he said when the laughs stilled, “but if I get an opportunity to return to the empire someday, I’ll be certain to run the idea past a few of my former superiors.”

His expression grew wistful, and Tikaya’s pleasure faded. He must be thinking about how much he missed his home and his old colleagues. Her recent thoughts—that she was asking too much to keep him here—returned and filled her with sadness. She cleared her throat and attempted to tamp down the melancholy feelings. “We’d best get back to the party before all the rum is gone.”

Rias chuckled. “Indeed. I was abstaining before, but I could use a swig now.”

“Me too,” Tikaya murmured.

CHAPTER 15

By the time the Freedom floated into its berth, most of the revelers had drifted away. Or, Tikaya thought as she glimpsed a familiar scowling figure, maybe they’d been driven away. She’d thought High Minister Jikaymar might be waiting, but it was someone worse. Her father.

He stood, fists against his hips, wearing what had become a permanent sneer of late. He turned his scowl on Rias, as if he were some juvenile delinquent who’d taken Tikaya out to roam the countryside until all hours, alternating between necking and bashing in old ladies’ mailboxes.

“Good evening, sir,” Rias said before hopping onto the dock to secure his craft.

Though they’d reattached to the upper portion of the ship, Tikaya gave the Freedom an uneasy look fore and aft, almost expecting to find an octopus arm dangling from a corner or some other sign that would prove they’d been beneath the water’s surface. Not that it mattered. Despite Rias’s camouflage, someone had known the craft had the ability to submerge—and had been ready for it to do so. If, on their next run, they tried to explore the inaccurately mapped waters near the cliffs, what further troubles would they find?

“It’s late and you didn’t tell your mother where you were going.” Father’s scowl wasn’t much softer when it landed on Tikaya.

She wished she could think of something to say to lighten his mood, to bring back the father she remembered. He’d always been a quiet man, one to spend long days out in the fields or in the distillery, always preferring work to the emotional chaos of being in the house with so many family members, but he’d always been fair as well as stern. He’d usually had a smile for his only daughter. Since she’d returned with Rias, Tikaya hadn’t once seen him without his shoulders hunched to his ears and his eyebrows drawn down in a V.

“I know, Father.” She joined him on the dock. “You didn’t need to come all the way down here. I would have returned.”

Squeaks sounded as the men who had been manning the portable grill wheeled it toward the boardwalk. “To the peace after the war,” one called to Rias in Turgonian. It was a common before-drinks salutation in the empire, and Tikaya didn’t miss the significance of it being used in this context. Rias lifted a hand and offered only a wry, “Indeed” in response.

“It’s late. Finish up quickly and go back to your hotel,” Father told Rias, apparently not finding anything odd about ordering around someone who’d once held the rank of fleet admiral. You—” he stabbed a finger at Tikaya, “—come.” He stalked toward the boardwalk.

Tikaya knew her father wouldn’t approve, but she gave Rias a goodnight hug, lingering long enough to say, “Be careful.”

“Indeed,” Rias murmured again, returning the hug with one arm since he was holding a mooring line in the other. “I’ll send word when I’ve finished repairs and… additions.”

Tikaya imagined him adding all manner of weapons to deal with wayward sea creatures that might attack them. She hoped the government would let him. Now that someone knew that he’d gone against their agreement, Rias might find the roadblocks in his path had turned into flaming tar and caltrops. She snorted to herself. She was thinking in terms of Turgonian metaphors now. She hoped no telepaths were about, sniffing at her thoughts.

“Love you,” she whispered and kissed him—because her father was scowling from the head of the dock—on the cheek.

She refused to hurry to catch up. She didn’t want to anger Father, but she wanted him to have time to think of how unreasonable he was being. Couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t any of them?

“Night, Ms. Komitopis,” one of the Turgonians said with a wave for her as she passed.

She lifted a hand to acknowledge him, but would have preferred people let her pass in silence. Especially Turgonian people. Her father continued on without further glares or comments.

“Where’s Ell?” she wondered when she caught up with him. She would have thought he’d be one of the last to leave. Maybe his lady had dragged him away. Or maybe he’d had something to do with the incident. He certainly came and went at inopportune times.

Actually… when Tikaya took another look at the last of those gathered, she realized that only Turgonians remained. They were cleaning up discarded cups and tossing garbage into bins. During the event, there’d been a mix of people. Not many Kyattese natives, true, but lots of other foreigners. She wondered what had happened to dampen the party and cause it to end early. Wrathful octopuses or not, she and Rias hadn’t been gone that long.

“Sent him home,” Father said, drawing her eye from the docks.

“And he listened?” Tikaya asked. Even when Ell had been a boy, he hadn’t been very good at listening to her parents or his own.

Father didn’t answer. He picked up his pace. Tikaya wondered if Mother had promised him she’d clear the house of youngsters for the evening if he hurried home quickly.

As they left the boardwalk and headed toward a beachfront street with runabouts parked on the sides, Tikaya resolved to come back down and help Rias in the morning. Dean Teailat could let her have a day off.

“Get in.” Father was holding open the passenger door to the runabout, and he jerked his chin for her to hurry.

“I—”

A boom sounded behind them, louder than a cannon being fired.

Tikaya spun back toward the quay, her jaw plummeting. Orange flames roared into the night, leaping as high as the hilltops behind them, the brilliant intensity brightening the harbor for hundreds of meters in every direction. Shouts of surprise and cries of pain rose over the rumble of the ocean.

From the hill overlooking the waterfront, Tikaya was too far away to read the dock numbers, but she knew where the explosion had originated. Nobody else would have been a target.

Her legs seemed to have rooted to the earth, but she forced them to move. He could be injured. He could be—

No, no thinking like that, she told herself.

Tikaya started to run toward the quay, but an iron grip caught her by the elbow. Father.

“You’re not going down there,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

There was no surprise in his voice. No horror. He’d known, she realized numbly. He’d known it was coming. That was why he’d been hurrying her away. That was why he’d sent Ell home. Had he warned all the other Kyattese to leave as well? Was he the one who’d been keeping an eye on her at home too? The one who’d locked away the secrets in the attic?

Later. It was something to worry about later.

Tikaya yanked on her arm, but his fingers, strong and calloused from years in the fields, had the tenacity of iron.

“It’s gone, girl,” Father said. “It’s for the best. One day, you’ll understand.”

“Understand?” Tikaya cried. “If I ever understand why someone would blow up a good, honorable man whose only crime was being born on the other side of an ocean, I’ll shoot myself.”

She stomped her foot onto her father’s instep. Her sandal lacked the bone-crunching heft of Turgonian combat boots, but her anger lent it power. Her father gasped and his fingers loosened. This time, Tikaya succeeded in yanking free of his grip. She sprinted down the street, pausing only long enough to tear off her sandals so they wouldn’t slow her down.

“Tikaya!” came her father’s cry from behind.

She didn’t glance back. With her bare feet pounding on pavement, then grass, then finally the wood planks at the beginning of the boardwalk, she sprinted toward those flames. She dodged people who were fleeing in the other direction, bumping elbows and shoulders, but barely noticing. Someone tried to grab her arm.

“Woman, you’re going the wrong way,” a man yelled. “Get out. The whole harbor’s going to burn.”

Not likely, Tikaya thought without slowing. The cold, calculating minds who had planted the explosion wouldn’t have wanted to harm the Kyattese people or destroy any more of their own property than necessary.

Ahead, the height and breadth of the fire had lessened as whatever ultra-incendiary fuel it had initially been burning dwindled, but flames continued to roar and wood snapped, flinging burning shards in all directions. The breeze sent smoke inland, stinging Tikaya’s eyes. Her vision blurred, but she kept going as far as she could. Shipyard 4 and Rias’s dock were gone. Utterly and irrevocably. The docks on either side were burning, their pilings and boards charred like skeletons in a funeral pyre. A portion of the boardwalk had collapsed, and water blocked Tikaya’s route. She kept running, of a mind to jump off and swim to the remains of Rias’s dock, despite the flames licking every broken board and piling, despite the heat searing her cheeks with the power of molten lava.

Before she reached the jumping point, a board broke beneath her foot, and her leg plunged downward. Jagged wood gouged her flesh. Pain flashed up her leg, but she scrambled back, tearing the limb free without worrying about injuring herself. She had to—

Someone grabbed her from behind.

Her breath snagging in her throat, Tikaya whirled. She hoped it was Rias and was ready to fling herself into his arms. But it was her father, sweat streaming down his face.

“Tikaya, there’s nothing you can do out here except get hurt. That freak of a ship is gone.”

“I don’t care about the slagging ship,” Tikaya growled, hardly noticing the Turgonian curse on her lips. “I have to find Rias.”

“If he listened to me, he went back to his room before any of this happened.”

“His room was burned down! He’s been sleeping out here.” Tikaya thrust her arm toward the flames gnawing at the scorched pilings, all that remained of Rias’s dock.

Surprise flicked across Father’s face before he clenched his jaw in grim acceptance. “That’s unfortunate then, but he knew he wasn’t welcome. You never should have brought him here.”

“I?” Tikaya dragged her sleeve across her eyes and nose, knowing the smoke wasn’t entirely to blame for their running. Father was putting this on her shoulders? “I shouldn’t have brought the man I love and that I plan to marry home to meet my family? I’m sorry, but I thought that was the expected thing and that it’d be appreciated more than me disappearing to Turgonia or some other Akahe-forsaken country for the rest of my life. I thought you and Mother would like to see grandchildren if we had them. I thought—” Her voice broke with a choking hiccup. She was shrieking and she knew it, but she couldn’t find control.

“Sir, ma’am, please return to shore,” called a voice from out on the water. A fireboat had drawn near, the first of several angling toward the flames.

Footsteps sounded on the boardwalk. Policemen were jogging toward Tikaya and Father.

“There’s nothing we can do here,” Father said, giving her arm a tug. “Let these people handle it.”

Tikaya curled her toes around the edge of the boardwalk, as if she could grow roots and become as immovable as a giant palm. Wood floated in the water all around them. More than wood. A body drifted out from beneath the boardwalk, face-up, sightless eyes staring at the sky, flesh burned away like wax on a candle.

Tikaya clenched her teeth and squinted her eyes shut. It wasn’t Rias, but it was one of the Turgonians who had been helping clean up. If those men hadn’t escaped the flames, how could he have?

Soft curses reached her ears. She caught her father saying, “…made a mess of it,” under his breath.

Tikaya pried her eyes open. She scanned the water, not just searching for bodies but for the Freedom as well. With a wooden ship, there would have been floating boards. But the submarine was made of metal, even the detachable deck and wheelhouse. If its hull had been damaged, it would have sunk like a rock. She lifted her head. What if the body of the craft had survived the explosion? What if it was down on the bottom of the harbor, still intact but filling with water? With Rias in it.

“Can you help me get her home?” her father asked someone.

With her back to him, Tikaya barely heard it. She couldn’t go home. She had to organize a search, a dredging of the harbor. And if nobody would help her, she’d dive down herself. How deep was the water there? Twenty feet? If the submarine had sunk straight down, she could—

A hand gripped hers, and something cool came to rest on her arm. “Ma’am? There’s nothing you can do here. My men are here, and this is our job. Let us help.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Tikaya turned and found herself staring into a policewoman’s eyes. They were sympathetic, but Tikaya didn’t want sympathy; she wanted a search team at her disposal. “It’s possible he’s still alive. We need divers to search the bottom of—” A yawn halted the rest of her sentence. How could she be tired now? She frowned down at the hand resting on her arm. The hint of something blue peaked out from beneath the policewoman’s palm. It took Tikaya a moment to recognize it as one of the patches they used to subdue agitated criminals. In her own agitated state, she hadn’t noticed the telltale tingle of a Made item.

Tikaya cursed and tried to pull her arm away, but the leaden limb barely responded. When she stepped back, she couldn’t feel her foot and she stumbled. Someone caught her from behind. Her father? No, a policeman. He gripped her armpits while the woman took her ankles. Tikaya tried to fight, but the weariness weighing down her limbs wouldn’t be bucked. They carried her down the boardwalk, away from the fire and away from Rias. Frustration charged her soul, but her body wouldn’t respond. Before they reached the end of the quay, unconsciousness robbed her of thoughts as well.

• • • • •

Tikaya woke in her room with her head throbbing and her tongue dryer than lava rock baking in the sun. Afternoon light slanted through her window. Late afternoon light. She jolted upright in bed, instantly aware of how much time had passed. Curse those policemen and curse her father for playing a role in all of this. From the very beginning, he’d been on their side. Their? She didn’t even know who they were. She had a vague notion of High Minister Jikaymar and others in the College of Telepaths, but that was it. And she still didn’t know how much of this had to do with whatever ugly portion of history they were covering up and how much had to do with Rias being Rias.

Rias!

Tikaya lunged from her bed and grabbed clothes from a dresser. She had to—

“What, ’Kaya?” She paused, underwear dangling from her fingers, to consider the grim realities.

By now, he’d either found a way to survive on his own, or…

She didn’t want to think about or. After all that he’d lived through, all the attacks he’d endured, she refused to believe he’d succumbed to explosives planted on the dock. Unfortunately, if he was alive and well, she had no idea where to find him. She glanced at the sun outside her window. She’d been out at least twelve hours, probably more like sixteen. Too much time had passed. He could be anywhere.

She’d have to do what she could here and wait for him to contact her. Her thoughts went to the lock on the attic. If the answers she’d sought hadn’t been in the journal, maybe they were in those letters. She used a trip to the washout to check the house and see who was home. Mother’s humming came from the kitchen downstairs, and children’s voices drifted in through open windows, but nobody was about on the second floor.

Tikaya fetched a few hairpins and crafted them into the tools Rias had shown her. Picking a lock that dangled over one’s head wasn’t the easiest thing, especially given that her sole expertise in the area lay in thwarting the security system on a three-hundred-year-old diary. Her arms soon burned from holding them overhead. She stuck with it, though, and a satisfying click reached her ears. She unclasped the padlock, pushed the door open, and pulled herself up. In the darkness, she had to grope her way to the spot where she thought she’d left the rapier and satchel. When she patted around and didn’t find anything, she grew concerned that Father had removed the items—curse her, why hadn’t she done this days ago? She clenched her jaw, determined that she’d search her parents’ bedroom if she had to, but she remembered that she’d tucked the rapier and satchel down out of sight. She dipped her hand between two pieces of furniture and found the items. As soon as she had them, she scurried out of the attic. She dropped as softly as she could into the hallway below, then winced when the door fell shut above her with a thunk. Afraid the noise would draw someone, she stuck the sword scabbard and satchel between her legs and reached up to slip the lock back into place. It snapped shut, and she turned to head to her room, only to halt in her tracks.

Her mother stood in the hallway, not three feet away.

“Uhm,” Tikaya said. “Good afternoon?”

“After the night you had, I doubt it.” Mother regarded the scabbard and satchel. “Let’s talk, dear.”

Trying not to feel like a child caught stealing cookies from the jar, Tikaya rearranged her purloined gear and trailed Mother down the hallway. She eyed the stairs, thinking of bypassing the lecture and heading out to look for Rias, but Mother might have information that could prove useful in finding him.

They entered Tikaya’s room. Mother sat on the side of the bed and patted the quilt next to her. Tikaya shook her head. She couldn’t sit. She set the sword down and paced.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Tikaya.”

“Oh.” Mother didn’t realize that Rias wasn’t dead. Or at least that Tikaya refused to accept that Rias was dead, not until she saw the smashed remains of his submarine and his body washed up on the beach. The image pumped a fresh feeling of dread into her. What if those things had happened while she’d been unconscious? What if Mother knew for certain of which she spoke?

“He seemed… Well, he’s not what I’d envisioned when I told you to bring me home a son-in-law and a father to my grandchildren, but I saw that he made you happy.”

“Yes,” Tikaya murmured, even as she sought a way to end this conversation. If Mother wasn’t going to object to her pilfering artifacts from the attic, she wanted to get on with examining them. She fiddled with the strap on the dusty satchel.

“Now that he’s gone, it’d be wise if you stopped investigating whatever it is you’re investigating.” Mother eyed the desk. “I didn’t say anything about the skull, but—”

Tikaya lifted her head. “You saw that?” She’d been careful to hide it every time she left her room.

“I dust in here, dear. I’m fairly certain I came in to collect dishes several times last week without you noticing. You’re not the tidiest of people when you’re wrapped up in a mystery.” She held up a hand before Tikaya could voice an objection. “As I was saying, whatever history you’re trying to dig up, I get the feeling everyone would prefer it didn’t surface.”

“I’ve gotten that feeling too.”

“And?”

“And that makes me all the more curious to know what everyone’s hiding.”

Mother shook her head slowly. “That curiosity is what got your young man killed.”

He’s not dead, Tikaya almost said, but she didn’t know that. Not truly. She closed her eyes. What if…?

A touch on her arm brought her mind back to the room.

“Let this one go, Tikaya,” Mother said. “It’s not worth dying over. And your father’s worried that’ll happen to you.”

“Father knew. He knew about the explosion at the dock. Ahead of time.”

“And he tried to save you, to pull you away from there, didn’t he?”

“Mother, do you know what it is they’re trying to hide? And who exactly is involved? Is Father…?” Tikaya closed her eyes. She didn’t want to believe her own father could be responsible for an attempt to murder Rias, but…

“I don’t know, and he won’t tell me.” The bed frame creaked as Mother shifted her weight. “You know I married into the family, so I’m not an original Komitopis. Even after all these years, it’s possible there are family secrets I haven’t been privy to.” She glanced at the sword on the bed. “Your father’s not sharing anything with me about this, but since you returned with Rias, he’s been tenser than a boar cornered by hunters. He did tell me that everything he’s done has been to protect the family. And you. He specifically said that you’re in danger and need to go back to researching ancient and distant cultures.”

Tikaya sighed. “I understand, Mother. I’ll think it over.”

She glanced out the window again. She couldn’t see the setting sun from the room, but lengthening shadows promised night would be upon them soon. Time to shoo Mother away so she could take a look at those letters. No matter what she said, Tikaya was going to get to the bottom of this. If Rias really was gone, she’d make sure she found out why he’d been murdered.

Mother patted her leg and stood. “I trust you’ll do the right thing, dear. Just… stay safe.”

As soon as the door shut behind her, Tikaya dug into the satchel and pulled out the letters.

CHAPTER 16

Night had fallen and the family had gone to sleep when a soft clack drew Tikaya from her reading. She stood up, picking her way past the two dozen letters scattered about on the floor, and checked the hallway. Darkness lay thick in the passage, and she heard nothing beyond the snores coming from her parents’ bedroom.

“Your imagination,” she muttered, though she couldn’t help but hope Rias would stroll through the door.

Tikaya returned to her cross-legged position on the floor amongst the letters, all recently opened. She’d felt like a deviant prying into someone’s personal wax-sealed envelopes, but none of them had ever been posted. Before she’d opened the satchel, she’d assumed they would be letters from the Turgonian soldier who had written the journal, but only one held his signature at the bottom. The rest were from other crew members, including two from the ship’s captain. The letters from the crew were addressed to wives, parents, or siblings back in the empire—the collection led Tikaya to assume that her lovelorn soldier had been chosen to take the missives ashore and post them. While a few of those letters had held clues as to the crew’s mission in Kyatt—find the ships from the long-lost colony and bring home any treasures within the holds—it was the two messages from the captain that had occupied her attention for several hours. They were addressed to a Fleet Admiral Dovecrest, and they were encrypted.

At first Tikaya had assumed the old code would prove easy to crack—how sophisticated of cryptographers could treasure-hunting civilians from three centuries prior have been?—but the deciphering was going slowly. The admiral to whom the letters were addressed must have provided a key for the captain to use if he found anything worth sharing with the military. Naturally, that made Tikaya want to know what they contained more than ever.

The clack sounded again.

Tikaya lifted her head. “That’s not my imagination.”

The noise hadn’t come from the hallway but from outside. From the window.

Hope poured into her limbs, and she sprang to her feet. Rias? Who else would be tossing pebbles at her window?

She scurried around the bed, unlatched the pane, and shoved it open. A strong wind blew in from the sea, and clouds scudded across the sky, blotting out any moon that might have shed light over the yard or the cane fields beyond. With the family in bed, there weren’t any lanterns burning along the walkways, and Tikaya squinted, trying to see if someone stood below her window. She didn’t see anything, though she could make out the dark smudges that remained on the front lawn, evidence of the fire a couple of weeks earlier.

“Over here,” came a low whisper, so soft she almost didn’t hear it over the wind, but she recognized that voice, and she almost scrambled out the window in her haste to greet its owner.

Rias stopped her with a touch and slipped inside to join her. “It’s been raining and the roof is slippery,” he explained.

Only the knowledge that sleeping kin occupied the adjacent bedrooms kept Tikaya from bursting into laughter—for all she knew, he’d been dead, and he thought she cared about the treacherousness of the roof? She slung her arms around him in a hold that a Turgonian wrestler couldn’t have bested and buried her face in his shoulder.

Rias returned the embrace, though he didn’t seem as overcome with emotion—of course, he’d known all along he hadn’t been dead—for he lightly observed, “It’s good to know that news of my death wasn’t enough to force you to retreat to your bed and weep inconsolably into your pillows. I think.”

“I knew you weren’t dead,” Tikaya said, voice muffled by his shoulder. It took another deep breath before she could loosen her grip enough to lean back and gaze into his eyes.

“Truly? Because I wasn’t certain I was going to survive at first.”

Indeed, a new scab ran from his forehead into his hairline, and a bruise blackened one eye. He’d changed back into the somber black Turgonian military uniform, a pistol, dagger, and ammo pouches hanging from his belt. He looked like a man ready to go to war.

“What happened?” Tikaya asked.

“It seems your guess that there might be a trap waiting to be triggered was correct, only it was on the underside of the dock instead of on the Freedom. I was fortunate to be down below when the explosion went off. If I’d been on the dock or even on the deck…”

Tikaya nodded. “I saw the bodies of… I saw bodies.”

“You were there?”

“I ran back down to the harbor when I heard the explosion. My father tried to stop me—I realized later that… that he knew it was coming.” Tikaya licked her lips. Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that, especially given that Rias looked to be in the mood to stop his attempts at diplomacy and start filling people full of pistol balls. “I pulled away from him and sprinted down there. I didn’t see the Freedom. At all. I was ready to dive in and search for it—for you—by myself, but the police showed up and someone used a calming patch on me. It knocked me out, and they brought me back here. How did you—your boat wasn’t anywhere to be seen when I got there.”

“No. The explosion caused the dock to lurch sideways and it collapsed onto the Freedom, tilting it onto its side. Me too.” Rias touched the fresh scar. Tilting wasn’t likely a violent enough word to describe the event. “Water flooded into the cabin. My first instinct was to throw the switch and put the Freedom into submarine mode. I didn’t know if it’d work from there. It did, but tons of water was trapped inside, and it sank straight down. I had to revamp the system for pumping water out of the ballast tanks and use it on the interior. The oxygen tanks were damaged. I wasn’t sure if they’d blow up on me or if I’d have enough air to breathe, but I had a feeling it’d be better to remain at the bottom of the harbor instead of coming up. For all I knew, someone was waiting up there to finish the job if the explosions didn’t kill me.”

“From what my father said—and Rias, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize he was part of this and that—” Her voice cracked and she wiped at her eyes. Curse the volcano, all she’d done was apologize to him since he stepped foot on her island. Why had she ever thought bringing him here would work out?

“Sssh,” Rias murmured, his gaze flicking toward the door. “It’s all right.” He lifted a warm hand to her face and brushed a tear away with his thumb. “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who defied them and continued to build what seems to be the main source of their agitation. I’m having problems with following orders and minding authority in my old age.”

Tikaya snorted and made a note to lower her voice. “You’re not old.”

“I feel it after the last twenty-four hours. I spent most of the night at the bottom of the harbor, wondering if I’d run out of air and worried someone would send divers down to make sure the Freedom was destroyed. There were fireboats, and there was a private yacht sailing around on the outskirts of the activity too. Someone keeping an eye on things. Finally at dawn, I was able to get the submarine to limp out of the harbor, bumping and scraping along the bottom of the ocean. I stayed shallow and followed the coast up to those cliffs—”

“You didn’t go down into that basin, did you?” Alarm flashed through Tikaya, partially at the idea of swarms of octopuses assaulting the Freedom and partially at the thought that he’d leave her behind and try to solve the mystery on his own.

“Not when I was standing in a foot of water and wondering if I’d even be able to surface again, no. I slipped into one of those caves and climbed out. The Freedom requires repairs, and I need more tools than I had on board. I need to add a few modifications too. I also need my—” he glanced at the mess of papers on the floor, “—letter-purloining co-navigator.”

Good. She wasn’t going to miss this expedition. “They’re from that soldier’s satchel. Two were written by his captain. In code. I’m working on the decryption and hoping there’ll be some useful clues within.”

One side of Rias’s mouth quirked upward. “Are those the letters you mentioned being locked in the attic?”

“Yes. Someone’s lock-picking lesson came in handy. I—”

A floorboard creaked in the hallway. Tikaya froze. She hadn’t locked her door. Anyone could walk right in.

The knob rattled and turned. Rias released her. Tikaya lunged around the bed, hoping to block the view into her room before her visitor came in. She was two steps away when the door opened.

Mother stood there in her nightgown, eyes bleary as she held hands with one of Tikaya’s little nieces. “Tikaya, what are you still doing up?” Mother frowned at the lit candles all over the room and the letters littering the floor.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Tikaya didn’t look over her shoulder, not wanting to bring attention to Rias, though he must have hidden somehow. Even sleepy, Mother couldn’t miss seeing a six-and-a-half-foot Turgonian standing at the foot of the bed.

“Grammy, I’m thirsty,” the little girl complained.

Mother allowed the child to tug her away from Tikaya’s doorway, but not before frowning and saying, “Blow out those candles and go to bed. And remember what I said. It’s best to let it go. For your sake… and all of ours.”

“I understand, Mother. Thank you.” Tikaya closed the door and locked it this time.

The window opened, and Rias slipped back inside. Raindrops glistened in his black hair. “Ready to sneak out?” he whispered.

“Sounds fun,” Tikaya whispered back. Oddly, it was the truth. To think, she’d missed out on such adventures by staying home, being good, and obeying her parents during her teenaged years.

“Are our actions putting your family in danger?” Rias nodded toward the hallway.

Tikaya’s sense of having fun evaporated as she considered her mother’s parting words. “She said she doesn’t know what’s going on exactly, just that Father has been tense. And, as I said, he knew about…”

“Perhaps someone is blackmailing him, forcing him to work against us.”

Tikaya paused. She hadn’t considered that. Maybe her father was acting to protect the family and had little choice but to cooperate. If so, that made his actions at least somewhat less reprehensible in her eyes.

“I’m not sure, but they’re not giving me any answers. The answers are out there.” She waved toward the ocean.

“Agreed. Do you need help packing anything?”

“No, just give me a moment.” While she put the letters and journal in the satchel, Rias added the sword scabbard to the weapons on his belt.

“Do you still have your bow?” he asked.

In the act of blowing out a candle, Tikaya hesitated and rotated her face toward him. “Do you think I’ll need… Are we planning to shoot people?” It had been one thing when, in their previous adventure, they’d been fighting for their lives against Nurians who wanted to assassinate her; killing her own people was a different matter.

“People? No. Unless I miss my guess, we’ll never see any of your people. They don’t seem to care to confront a man face-to-face.”

A hint of condemnation twisted his lips. A warrior through-and-through, he must find such tactics distasteful. She remembered how much he’d detested the idea of his emperor employing a back-stabbing assassin.

“If they can send a giant octopus against us, a creature far from its native clime,” Rias said, “there’s no telling what else we might face.”

Good point. “My bow’s in a shed out back. I can get it on the way out. We’ll visit the smokehouse too. It sounds like we’ll need a couple of days’ worth of supplies.” Tikaya grabbed matches and candles and added them to the satchel.

“If we’re given a couple of days,” Rias said.

“You think they may already know you and the submarine survived?”

“You know the capabilities of your practitioners better than I do. I’ve dealt with shamans and wizards in battle on the seas before, but…” Rias spread his arms, palms up. “It’s different when some of the enemy are related to your lady and challenging them outright isn’t a possibility.”

The floor in the hallway creaked again. Tikaya blew out the last candle, and the room succumbed to darkness. She felt her way to the window and Rias, patting him on the chest. She hoped he knew it was meant to be reassuring and also to thank him for putting up with all of this.

They waited a few moments, until whoever had been in the hallway had gone back to bed, then slipped outside and into the darkness.

• • • • •

Tikaya balanced the bow across the handlebars as she bicycled side-by-side up the coastal road with Rias. Wind gusting in from the sea threatened to hurl them off the gravel and into the weeds. Rain came and went in fits, leaving them drenched and shivering. The cold couldn’t compete with the frigid temperatures of the imperial Northern Frontier, but wind and wet clothes certainly didn’t make for an enjoyable nighttime ride. She was tempted to suggest staying in one of the plantation’s out-buildings until the storm blew past, but knew Rias wouldn’t entertain the idea. Pedaling hard, he was forcing a grueling pace. He was certain they didn’t have any time to spare. After gathering their initial supplies, they’d stopped only once, to risk sneaking into her grandfather’s workshop to retrieve the fine tools Rias needed for repairs.

A hint of predawn light had come to the sky by the time they reached the northern edge of her family’s property. Instead of continuing along the road that would take them to the cliffs, Rias veered up a bumpy, dirt drive.

“Wait,” Tikaya blurted, dropping her feet to the ground. “Where are you going? That’s where the Nurian neighbor lives.”

Rias stopped but didn’t return to the main road. “I know.”

“He’s not going to want to see you.”

“Few people here do.” Rias gazed up the dark hillside. It was a small lot, more rocks than vegetation, so it was easy to see the cottage even in the gloom. “I’ll feel better going into this if we have the assistance of someone who can sense magic and perhaps use some if we’re in a pinch.”

“Mee Nar said he was a sailor, didn’t he? Not a practitioner. Besides, didn’t you say Nurians were the ones responsible for burning down the Pragmatic Mate? Because they were trying to find the Freedom’s schematics?”

“Yes,” Rias said, “I believe Mee Nar knows about that infiltration as well. Perhaps he directed it.”

Tikaya almost pitched sideways in surprise. “Then why would you go to him now?”

“Because, if he’s a spy, I have information he wants.”

“You think he’s a spy? He’s married and expecting a child.”

“Spies rarely announce their intent to spy,” Rias said dryly. “He probably met the girl and volunteered for the mission, hoping for a long-term placement.”

“To watch my people? Why?”

“The Nurians, like the Turgonians, have spies around the world to make sure they’re not surprised by other nations.”

“What can he learn out here?” She waved to the rural home.

“He works in the city, does he not?”

Tikaya didn’t know. How did Rias know more about her neighbor than she did?

“Choosing a home out here may have been part of his ruse to appear semi-retired and harmless,” he said. “But this location overlooks the shipping lanes and offers proximity to an old, prominent family.”

“On what are you basing your suppositions?”

“That he told us he’s a warrior, when he’s actually a practitioner.” Rias tilted his head toward the hill. “If he says no, we’ll continue on, but it’s worth asking.”

Tikaya pedaled after him, but added, “Why do you think he’s a practitioner?”

“He probed my mind after we squabbled in your house.”

“Like a telepath?”

“Exactly like a telepath. Not a strong one, I suspect, or he could have been in and out without me sensing him, but I think he sought information or, at the least, wanted to read my intent in being there.”

Tikaya hadn’t sensed that, but then the room had been full of people and she’d been a tad distracted. If Rias was right and could somehow convince Mee Nar to help, it might keep them from triggering traps. She was chagrinned that she’d missed whatever had been planted under the dock. A real practitioner would be far more helpful than she in that capacity.

“But if he is a spy, shouldn’t he be the last person you ask for help? How can you trust him?”

“Because I know what he wants.”

They parked their bicycles and climbed the single step to the covered lanai. If nothing else, it was good to get out of the rain for a few minutes. Rias lifted his hand to knock.

Before his knuckles touched wood, Tikaya whispered, “Do you have any parting instructions for me in case he kills you with his mind?”

“If he were that strong a wizard, he wouldn’t have attacked me with his bow in your house. But in the event of my death, now or later in the day, I request that you defeat these meddling bureaucrats, uncover the secret they’re hiding, stop them from threatening your family, and… send that letter to my parents.”

“Is that all?”

“Also—” Rias nudged her shoulder with his, “—I’d like to think that you’d pine eternally, refusing to accept the embrace of another, knowing that he could never measure up to me.”

“Well, that’s a given.” Tikaya squeezed his hand.

Rias knocked on the door.

The small cottage could only have one or two rooms, so it didn’t take long for footsteps to sound on the other side. A curtain moved in a window near the door. Tikaya tensed. If Mee Nar saw who was on his stoop, he might greet them with a weapon. Maybe she shouldn’t have left the bow on the bicycle. Rias had the sword and pistol on his belt, she reminded herself.

When the door opened, she tensed, but Mee Nar stood there, empty-handed, his black hair down about his shoulders instead of up in a topknot. Though he bore no weapons, tension tightened his face, and his fingers were curled, almost into fists. His wife was nowhere in sight.

“Enemy Chief Fox,” he said in Nurian, using his people’s name for Rias, though the rest of his words were in Kyattese. “What brings you to my home?” He didn’t add, “at this hour,” but his gaze did flick toward the dark sky.

“I’m in need of assistance,” Rias said. “I thought of you as someone who might be trusted to help.”

Mee Nar’s jaw sagged. Several seconds passed, and his mouth opened and closed several times before he decided on, “Why?”

“You’re not Kyattese,” Rias said.

Tikaya watched him, wondering if he’d thought through this conversation before knocking on the door. This didn’t seem like a particularly compelling argument.

Mee Nar snorted though. “No, no I’m not.”

Tikaya had some sense of an understanding passing between them, and, for the first time that she recalled, she wondered what exactly the rest of the world thought of her people. Did the Nurians and Turgonians have some common beliefs?

“What do you want?” Mee Nar asked.

“Someone to come with us for a couple of days and keep an eye out for practitioner attacks while I repair my watercraft and we prepare for a short journey.”

Mee Nar twitched in surprise at the mention of practitioners. He opened his mouth, perhaps to deny any personal experience with the Science, but simply shrugged and let it go. “You are perceptive for a nik-nik-too,” he said, using the Nurian term for someone who either had never studied the Science or lacked aptitude for it.

“Not perceptive enough to handle Kyattese who wish me and my craft ill.”

“Yes… I heard of the explosion. I’d hoped you’d died.”

Tikaya almost choked on his bluntness.

Oddly, Rias smiled. “Not enthused at the prospect of having me for a neighbor?”

“No.”

“Even if it would give you all sorts of information to send home to your chiefs?”

Mee Nar’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer the insinuation that he was a spy. Instead, he said, “To assist you, I would have to miss work. I have a wife here with a child on the way. What would you offer in exchange for my help?”

“What would you want?”

Mee Nar considered Rias thoughtfully. “Tell me about this watercraft that is worrying the Kyattese so. It goes underwater, yes?”

Rias nodded, clasped his hands behind his back, and proceeded to describe the Freedom. The amount of detail he offered surprised Tikaya, both because she hadn’t realized his Kyattese had come along so well in the last few weeks and also because she couldn’t believe he was volunteering so much information to a man he’d said was probably an intelligencer.

Mee Nar rubbed his jaw as he listened. “I see why the Kyattese are concerned. Boats like this could be used for spying and sneak attacks. You built weapons into it, yes?”

Interesting—he did seem to be fishing for as much information as possible. Unless the man had a secret passion for engineering, maybe Rias was right. A Nurian spy for a neighbor. Tikaya’s home certainly had changed a lot in the last few years. Or maybe she just hadn’t been paying attention to the world around her.

“Some weapons, yes,” Rias said. “For defense. I designed it for science and exploration purposes.”

Mee Nar’s response was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Exploration, yes. No doubt.”

“Perhaps informing your chiefs of its existence would cause them to look upon you favorably.”

“Perhaps. But if I am to help you, I want more.”

“Such as?” Rias asked.

“I want the schematics.”

Tikaya snorted. Sure, he did. She didn’t know how Rias had known, but he seemed to have guessed correctly.

Hands still clasped behind his back, Rias dropped his chin and studied the threshold. “I must have a moment to consider this.”

“Understandable,” Mee Nar said.

Surprised he hadn’t outright denied the request, Tikaya trailed Rias off the lanai and back to the path where they’d parked the bicycles. He put his back to the house and gazed out at the sea.

“What are you going to do?” Tikaya asked.

“Stand here thoughtfully for a few moments in discussion with you, then agree to give him the schematics.”

“Er. Really?”

“It was to be my bargaining tile from the beginning.”

Tikaya studied his face. Just when she thought she had him all figured out… “Won’t that be seen as a betrayal by your emperor? Aren’t you worried the Nurians will use the technology to build submarines of their own and spy upon, or attack, your military? Your former military,” she amended and a new thought came to mind. “Or are you doing this to snub the emperor? As revenge for the wrongs he’s bestowed upon you?” Even as she spoke the words, she shook her head. That didn’t seem like him. Oh, maybe he’d snub the emperor if he got a chance, but to do something that would put soldiers and marines at risk, men who had once served under him…

Rias gazed into the face of her scrutiny. “I intend to send copies of the schematics to the empire as well.”

“Oh,” Tikaya said, not quite certain she understood. “But they won’t be willing to use a Made power source, will they?”

“Perhaps not, but they’ll be inspired to work out something else. Just as the Nurians will not have easy access to the Turgonian steel used in the construction. They’ll be inspired to work out something else. In the end, decades hence, they’ll both have submarines of a sort, and they’ll develop methods of detecting each others’ submarines and nullifying each others’ advantages. Little will change in the end, but perhaps by making the basic schematics freely available, I can avoid seeing more of my hostel rooms burned down.”

“Hm, I guess it sounds better than selling the information to the highest bidder.”

“Glad I have your heartfelt approval.” Rias offered a faint smile.

“Do my people get a copy of the schematics too?”

“It depends on how much they annoy me over the next couple of days. And whether we live long enough for me to write them down.”

“They’re still in your head only?”

“The final ones, yes.” Rias returned to the lanai where Mee Nar leaned against the doorjamb. “I agree to your terms.”

“You do?” Mee Nar asked. “You must be desperate for my help.”

“I trust you would not be in this position if your chiefs did not deem you capable.”

Mee Nar’s lips flattened at this further insinuation that he was a spy. “I’ll need to see the schematics.”

“I haven’t had a chance to write them down. I will do so when we’ve completed this mission.”

Mee Nar frowned. “This mission where you believe your life is in jeopardy?”

“Yes. I propose you do your best to keep us alive, so that I’m able to write everything down for you.”

The frown deepened. “I should demand you do it now.”

“We don’t have time.” Rias eyed the sky, which, though still cloud-filled, had grown lighter since they’d arrived. “The Kyattese will soon know that the Freedom and I aren’t wrecked on the bottom of their harbor. They may already know. Please gather supplies for a couple of days and join us.” Rias nodded and headed toward the bicycles without waiting for agreement.

Mee Nar grumbled under his breath, but he went inside, and drawers and cupboard doors banged and thumped as he complied.

CHAPTER 17

Tikaya sat on a mostly dry rock ledge near the mouth of the cave where Rias had docked the submarine. She had the captain’s letters and a notepad in her lap, protecting them from intermittent spurts of rain as she worked on the decryption. The worst of the weather had passed, though clouds still hugged the island, gathering around the top of the volcano. Behind her, thuds and bangs drifted out of the cave, evidence of Rias’s work. Mee Nar was in there, too, going over every inch of the submarine. He’d already searched the interior and, when last Tikaya had checked, was swimming around on the outside. She tried to ignore the noise and concentrate on her work, though her gaze kept lifting to the sea and the cliffs rising around them. They were north of the mystery basin and the cave they’d visited before, but close enough to make her nervous. If those plotting against Rias knew he was alive, they’d guess to check here. Apparently, Rias hadn’t had many choices in how far he could go, though, not with the damage done to his craft, and the cliffs had been a logical place to hide, due to the sheer number of caves. They’d left their bicycles in bushes miles back, specifically so no one heading up the road would guess someone had descended the cliffs nearby.

Tikaya grew entrenched in the decryption work and was startled when someone touched her shoulder.

“How’s it going?” Rias asked. Something about his tone, or maybe it was the amused twinkle in his eyes, told her he’d asked more than once.

“Slower than I’d hoped.” Tikaya rattled the pages. “If anybody’s done a chart on the frequency of vowels and consonants in Middle Turgonian, I’ve never seen it, so I’m having to compile that first. It’s not the same as in the modern language; the alphabet isn’t even entirely the same. It further complicates matters that the ink has faded over time, and it’s hard to pick out some of the letters.”

“Can I help?” Rias rearranged the sword on his belt, so he could sit beside her. He was barefoot and had removed his shirt, providing an arresting sight that distracted her for a moment. “Is that a no?” Rias handed her a piece of the ham they’d taken from her family’s smokehouse.

“Er, no.” Tikaya blushed and accepted the offering. It was time for a lunch break apparently, for he had a couple of slices of his own. “Thank you. As for help, I don’t know. Unless you want to read some of this aloud to me?” She lifted the journal. “I’m using our randy sailor’s diary to create an alphabetic frequency chart, but maybe hearing the language spoken will give me something that I’m not seeing.”

Rias took the book, but didn’t open it right away. He was peering around the ledge. “Where’s your bow?”

“I left it by my pack in the cave. Why?”

“I’ll get it for you when I head back in. You should keep it close.”

“Are we being prudent or has trouble already found us?”

“It might be nothing, but a shark swam past Mee Nar when he was in the water.”

“Oh?” Tikaya asked. “It’s true there’s no reef around this part of the island, but they don’t usually come this close. The surfers hardly ever see them, and that cave is fairly shallow.”

Rias nodded. “I wondered if your animal-loving practitioner—or practitioners—might be using sea creatures to scout the area.”

“If so, they might have our cave pinpointed already.”

“Perhaps not. We killed it swiftly.” Rias touched the sword.

Tikaya stared at the cave mouth and imagined him leaping from the hatch of the submarine to wrestle with a shark. Distracted by his shirtless state, she hadn’t noticed that his trousers and hair were damp. “How did I miss hearing that?”

“You have a knack for channeling intense focus when it’s required to solve a problem.”

“That’s a nice way of saying I was oblivious to my surroundings.” As usual.

Rias only smiled and lifted the book. “Do you want to hear any particular passage?”

His eyes crinkled, and Tikaya blushed, remembering the penned details of the physical relationship the sailor had shared with her ancestor. Aeli’s ancestor, she reminded herself. Having Rias read one of those passages—and there had been a number of them—might be… intriguing under other circumstances, but this wasn’t the time.

Tikaya cleared her throat. “No. Actually, I can do it myself. Read the book aloud, that is. It’s more important that you finish your work.”

“I don’t know about that. I want to know what’s in those letters. That basin out there, if it is indeed there, is large. It’d be nice to have a clue as to where to look to find… whatever it is we’re searching for. I have a vague notion that there’s a seven-hundred-year-old wreck down there and that those three-hundred-year-old treasure hunters managed to pull some secret off of it, something important enough that your government has been leaning on mapmakers ever since, so that there’s no evidence that the basin even exists.”

“I know.” After finding all those bones in that cave, Tikaya had the same notions. “I’ll finish with these.” She waved the letters. “If the information is there, I’ll find it. Before you’re ready to sail out.”

“I know you will.” He gave her an appreciative smile, one that promised he had faith in her skills and that also warmed her heart—and a little more. She caught herself holding his gaze, admiring the gold flecks in his brown eyes, growing aware of his half-clothed state, and thinking about how long it had been since—

This time Rias cleared his throat. Instead of giving her back the journal, he flipped it open to read. “A boring passage. Perhaps that would be wise, don’t you think?”

“At least until we’ve finished here,” Tikaya whispered, a touch breathless.

“Oh, yes, I remember this one. His attempt at a poem describing the clouds as seen during his watch in the crow’s nest. This fellow didn’t have the Turgonian warrior’s heart, which is I suppose why he let some irate husband kill him. Oh, wait, the poem is in Old Turgonian, isn’t it?” Rias tapped the page. “I better read a sample of the then-modern tongue, eh?”

“Wait.” Tikaya placed a hand on the journal to keep him from turning the page. “I’d forgotten about that poem. Was he just trying to capture some nostalgic feeling of the olden days, or was there a reason why he switched to that tongue? The history books say your language changed fairly rapidly, linguistically speaking, from Old to Middle over about a hundred and fifty years, as your people spread out, adopting new words and even switching the verb-subject orderings to that of one of the civilizations they encountered. By the time these letters were written, Middle Turgonian was well-established. But maybe…”

Rias seemed to track her musings, for he said, “I don’t know about the transition from Old to Middle, but Middle was maintained for academic and formal military writings long after modern-day Turgonian had been adopted by the common man. As a boy at the university, I had to fumble through a couple of mathematics treatises written in Middle Turgonian by a stodgy old professor who refused to update his work, claiming the ideas were clearer when explained in their… I’m boring you, I can see.”

Tikaya had turned her eyes toward the letters, but she jerked them back in his direction. “No, not at all. I’m just wondering if it’s as simple as that. If it is…” She flipped to a page in her notes. “I need to rework my frequency analysis data, this time for Old Turgonian.”

Rias chuckled. “I’ll leave you to work then.”

Before the new ideas could swallow her attention completely, she kissed him and said, “Thank you.”

“Starcrest,” Mee Nar called from below the ledge. “You have a problem.”

“I guess that means the lunch break is over.” Rias stood up. “What is it?”

Mee Nar held up a tiny dark nodule. “A tracking device. It was disguised as a rivet.”

Rias digested the news without a word, his face a mask.

“I’m sorry,” Tikaya told him. “I didn’t sense anything like that when I checked. If it’d been on the inside, maybe…”

“I missed it, too, and I actually swam around out there. It’s not your fault.” Rias touched the back of her head before hopping down from the ledge.

“It’s good work.” Mee Nar dropped the tiny device into his hand. “Very subtle.”

“How do I disable it?” Rias asked.

“I can show you the sophisticated way we do it in Nuria.”

Rias handed the device back to him. “Go ahead.”

Though Tikaya was eager to get back to the letters, she watched the exchange, her curiosity piqued. Mee Nar dropped to one knee, placed the fake rivet on the rock, pulled a sturdy knife from a belt sheath, and smashed the device with the hilt. A tiny spark flew out, but nothing more serious happened. He held up the flattened device for inspection.

“Interesting,” Rias said. “That’s how we do it in Turgonia too.”

“Perhaps your two nations have more in common than you thought,” Tikaya said.

The two men shared edged smiles.

“Let’s get back to work,” Rias said. “We may have less time than ever.”

He and Mee Nar disappeared into the cave, and Tikaya hunched over the letters, determined to do her part.

• • • • •

Tikaya smiled as she worked on the last paragraph of the second letter, though she caught herself squinting and leaning closer to the page. The light was fading anyway, thanks to the sun dropping behind the volcano. She’d have to find a candle soon, but maybe she could finish in time… She was almost done. Old Turgonian, who would have thought? Once she’d figured that out, she’d made quick work of the basic route cipher. The letters confirmed that there were wrecked Turgonian ships in a basin a half a mile away from the cliffs, the same area now missing on the maps, and the last paragraph looked like it might hold more detailed instructions for finding the spot.

With her new key balanced on one leg, the letter on the other, and her journal in her lap, Tikaya almost failed to notice the warning tingle that flicked at the back of her neck. She jerked her head up and lunged for the bow Rias had set beside her.

Expecting an attack to come from the water, she stood up and checked in that direction first. The waves lapped at her ledge, and it alarmed her to see how high the tide had come in while she hadn’t been paying attention. Another half an hour, and a wave might have swooped over her ledge and stolen all her work.

Tikaya shook her head. Not important now. What had twanged her senses? She didn’t see anything in the water. She froze. Rias. What if something was about to attack them?

Bow in hand, she whirled, intending to leap into the cave to warn him, but an ear-splitting screech sounded behind her. She fumbled and almost dropped her weapon. She spun around, anticipating an attack at the back of her head—that cry had been right behind her. A huge white-chested hawk leaped from the ledge, stirring Tikaya’s hair with its great wing flaps. At first, she thought it meant to attack her, but it flew away from her. With something clenched in its talons.

The letters. Ugh.

“Rias!” Tikaya shouted, but what could he do?

She snatched an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and lined up the shot. Steady, she told herself. The hawk was heading for the cliff tops. She’d only get one shot…

Tikaya adjusted her aim for the wind and its movement, then released the arrow. It spun away, and she held her breath.

The arrow caught the hawk in the chest, halting its wing flapping. Tikaya’s feeling of triumph only lasted a moment, for the bird plummeted, falling into the water a hundred meters away.

“Blighted banyan trees,” she snarled. For lack of any better options, she took note of the cliff features near the hawk, dropped her bow, kicked off her sandals, held her spectacles to her face, and dove into the water. She wasn’t going to lose those letters before she finished decoding them.

Tikaya plowed through the waves, her head up as she paddled, trying to keep the dead hawk in sight—and her spectacles on her face. Water ran down the lenses, adding to the difficulty of seeing anything. She didn’t think the body would sink, but the current might carry it out into the sea. Or, if it’d released the letters as it fell… Wet paper would sink.

Tikaya swam faster. A wave washed into her face, almost knocking off her spectacles. Cursing again, she readjusted them. If she lost them, she might not find her way back to the cave and Rias. Or if there were other creatures out there, ready to thwart her efforts, they might attack before she reached land again. Had Rias heard her shout? She’d hate to need rescuing, but sure hoped he was available for the job if required.

When she thought she’d reached the right spot, she treaded water, trying to kick up high enough to see over the waves all about her. A quick flash of green caught her eye. The fletching on her arrow. Tikaya paddled in that direction and was relieved to see the bird still attached to that arrow. She grabbed the end of it and lifted the dead creature, surprised by how lightweight the huge hawk proved. She almost sobbed in relief when she spotted the letters still clenched in its talons. Prying them out proved challenging, especially since they were soggy and she didn’t want to tear them, and she tried not to feel uncomfortable over the fact that she was mauling some dead bird in the process. Finally, she pulled the pages free. She released the hawk and searched the cliffs, alarmingly distant now, trying to pick out their cave in the deepening shadows.

Through the water droplets spattering her spectacles, she spotted a dark figure waving. Tikaya waved back and paddled toward Rias, the soggy letters clutched in one hand. She was going to feel like a fool if they were too damaged to read by the time she returned.

She had to fight the current on the way back, and her arms and legs burned from the effort, but she reached the ledge. Mee Nar had joined Rias, and they helped her out of the water. Candlelight came from inside the cave. Time to move inside to finish her decryption efforts.

“What were you…” Mee Nar started, then spotted the limp letters.

“Did it attack you?” Rias asked.

“No, it just wanted my work. Completely unacceptable.” Tikaya snatched up the key and her notes—at least they were still there—and stalked past the men. “Watch my back while I finish, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rias picked up her bow and quiver and trotted inside after her. Tikaya went straight to one of three lanterns on the ledge beside the Freedom, dropped to her knees, and spread out the letters. Fortunately, the old ink was indelible at this point and hadn’t faded after the immersion, but she struggled to lay out the pages without ripping them. Too bad the Turgonians hadn’t been using vellum any more by then.

The men stopped behind her and spoke in soft tones. She barely heard them. She was even less aware of her own shivering as water dripped from her chin and onto the stone ledge. Only when she sat up did she realized Rias had draped a blanket around her shoulders. She clutched it about her wet dress with one hand and lifted her paper with the translation in the other.

Mee Nar was standing guard by the cave mouth, crouching on a boulder that remained out of the water. With the tide in, the ledges on either side of the pool where the Freedom floated were scant. She noticed that Rias hadn’t bothered to bring along the top portion that had allowed it to look like a ship. Perhaps it lay at the bottom of the harbor. The long, sleek cylinder that remained resembled no craft Tikaya had ever seen.

“I don’t know if you heard Mee Nar,” Rias said, “but he apologized for not sensing the bird’s approach until too late. He said he was focused on the water and the cliffs above us, and the hawk barely registered.”

“I understand. It’s fine.”

“He’s also been trying to find where the practitioners are hiding to launch these attacks. If he locates them…” Rias set his jaw. “I’ll visit them personally.”

Tikaya pulled the blanket tighter. “Better to find what they’re hiding rather than risk a confrontation where people could be injured.”

“After all this, injuries aren’t what I had in mind.”

Tikaya couldn’t blame him. Still, she’d prefer to avoid bloodshed. If there was any chance that, after this was all over, she’d be allowed to step foot on the island again, killing people would crush it. “If we dig out their secret, it might take the fight out of them.”

“Or it might convince them to increase their efforts to kill us to permanently silence us,” Rias said.

“Turgonians are a pessimistic sort, aren’t they?”

“I believe paranoid is the word you’ve used previously.” Rias nodded to the paper clenched in her hand. “Was there anything useful?”

Tikaya brightened. “Oh, yes. Nothing explains exactly what led our three-hundred-year-old treasure hunters to the Kyatt Islands, but they were convinced they’d find signs of their lost colony here. I got the impression that they’d gone back to study the logbooks that remained from the other colony ships, found dates for the storm that took them off course, and compared them to the departure dates and prevailing winds and currents to figure out…” She caught Rias eyeing the hatch of the submarine, and blushed. “Sorry, you’re probably not interested in that part.”

“Oh, no, I like it when you include all the details,” Rias said. “It makes me feel less bad about babbling about my own interests. I was listening and being impressed that these treasure-hunters went to such lengths. They must have had…”

“Someone like you on board?” Tikaya smiled.

“Sounds more like a research specialist.” He nodded at her.

“Regardless of the how, they found evidence of a single wrecked ship that they believed had been attempting to sail away from the island.”

“Away? That suggests some likely routes.” Rias gazed toward the cave mouth. Darkness had fallen outside, but he was probably picturing the topographical and bathymetric layouts in his head. “No longitude or latitude recordings, I suppose?”

“I don’t think they were that precise back then. I know my people were navigating by the stars. Wayfinding, they called it. But…” Tikaya tapped the last paragraph of her notes. “The captain wanted others to find the wreck, so he left very precise descriptions of the landmarks in sight and the sunken ship’s distance from the cliffs. It’s supposedly a half a league due east of a butte with a fissure splitting it in the middle.”

“He wanted others to find it?” Rias asked. “Why would a treasure hunter share the location of his find?”

“The short answer is that his crew couldn’t reach it. With utter luck—ropes and hooks—they pulled up a few pieces of the old ship, but they estimated it to be two hundred meters down. They didn’t have diving suits back then—and I don’t think there are even any diving suits today that allow people to go that deep, are there?”

“Not even close,” Rias said. “My people have suits that require a sea-to-surface connection, a tube through which air is pumped down. I’ve heard the Nurians have used magic to create self-contained suits, but nothing that can withstand the pressures at that depth.”

“Can the Freedom go that deep?”

Rias blew out a slow breath. “If it’s two hundred meters, yes. If it’s much more than that…” He lifted a shoulder. “When I started all this, I was simply thinking of a vessel that could sail a couple of dozen meters below the surface and avoid the prying eyes of Nurians in their crow’s nests. I figured most wrecks we’d want to investigate would be in coastal waters and not too deep.” Rias stuck his hands in his pockets and eyed the submarine glumly.

Tikaya gripped his forearm. “It’s a wonderful craft, Rias. I’d certainly prefer to spend more time on the surface than below it. Sunsets and starlit skies are far more romantic than the dark depths of the ocean.”

He smiled faintly, though still seemed disappointed in himself. “We may be able to reach it. We’ll see how exact those old measurements were. So the captain sent word to Turgonia to ask for help in recovering the wreck?” His eyes shifted upward thoughtfully. “I’m not sure we had salvage ships capable of pulling craft up from such depths back then—even today, they usually use divers to set the hooks—but the captain might simply have been hoping.”

“The treasure hunters were also pressed for time. They were having trouble with my government, due to the months they spent sailing around our waters. It was done in secret in the beginning, though my people eventually figured out they were out there and objected to their presence. According to the letter, the captain made up a story about how they were pursuing pirates that had sailed into Kyattese waters and disappeared, but he feared the Kyattese had stopped believing the ruse and that he had limited time. He specifically states that they seemed agitated about the explorations.”

“And these letters were never mailed,” Rias said, “suggesting the entire crew might have disappeared shortly after. Our lovelorn sailor may have fallen to one of your irate ancestors, but what of the rest? Attacked by a giant octopus? Or, I suppose for a ship their size, a kraken might have been more likely.”

Tikaya had a hard time believing her people had simply made an entire ship of treasure hunters disappear, but admitted, “Animal mastery has long been a skill my people have had.” She thought about the fact that the hawk’s attack meant someone knew exactly where she and Rias—and the Freedom—were now. “There’s one more thing. The last lines of the last letter read, ‘The Kyattese are hiding more than a wrecked ship. I suggest you bring the fleet for a full investigation.’”

Rias gazed into her eyes. “Are you sure you should be sharing your findings so openly with me?”

The question surprised Tikaya. At this point, they were surely in this together. “Why do you ask? Are you planning to send an encrypted letter to someone back in Turgonia?”

“I don’t know. It depends on what we find and how it affects the empire.”

“I can’t imagine it’d be anything that would endanger anyone, not after all this time.”

“Hm,” Rias said neutrally.

Tikaya chewed on her lip, wishing he hadn’t raised the issue. Now she wouldn’t be able to put it out of her mind. He might not have any loyalty to his emperor any more, but he’d admitted more than once that he still cared for Turgonia—his family and countless old friends lived there. What if whatever they found forced them to choose sides? And her side ended up being different from Rias’s?

“I’m going down there,” he said. “Are you certain you still wish to accompany me? Even if it means… we may have a tough decision to make?” He must have been thinking thoughts similar to hers. “You may be seen as someone who’s betraying your people if you reveal these long-held secrets.”

“I’ve been made aware of that repeatedly, yes,” Tikaya said, “but whatever group is protecting these secrets has come close to killing me right along with you, so I don’t think they deserve my loyalty. I wouldn’t do anything to harm my people, but… after all this, I have to know what’s down there. I don’t know that backing away at this point would protect me or make me any less of a traitor in these people’s eyes. And if they are blackmailing my father or threatening my family…”

Rias pulled her into a hug. “Let’s see what’s down there before we worry about this further. A few more hours, and I’ll be finished with—”

“Something approaches,” Mee Nar called from the cave entrance.

“Or maybe I’m finished now,” Rias said.

A high-pitched animal squeal raised the hairs on Tikaya’s arms. She’d gone with her brothers on hunts often enough to recognize it, and, by the time Mee Nar jumped into the air, leaping over something, she’d grabbed her bow.

Rias had his weapons out too, the sword in one hand, the pistol in the other. He fired before she caught sight of the javelina. The first javelina. Others stampeded into the cave, racing through the shadows, straight toward Rias and Tikaya.

The darkness made it hard to pick out more than blurry bodies with glimpses of dark, bristly fur, beady eyes, and sharp yellow tusks. Tikaya nocked an arrow with hands steadier than she expected. She’d faced wild pigs before, at least. Albeit not in such tight quarters.

A gunshot rang out, the noise deafening as it echoed from the cave walls. One animal flopped over, but the rest of the herd continued toward them, eight, no ten powerful javelinas.

“Get on the boat,” Rias said.

Tikaya loosed an arrow, then leaped onto the Freedom. The top of the submarine wasn’t meant for walking on, not like the deck had been, and she almost slipped into the water on the far side. Being up there might not protect them anyway. A three-foot gap stretched between the craft and the ledge, but, as far as she knew, javelinas had no trouble swimming.

As if to reinforce her thoughts, a squeal rent the air right behind her. Tikaya spun back toward the ledge. She hadn’t had time to nock another arrow yet. Rias leaped the gap, stabbing down into a swimming pig’s back while he was midair. The creature squealed and disappeared beneath the surface as Rias landed beside her. Other javelinas surged toward them. Tikaya shot another arrow, taking a swimming pig between the eyes.

She glanced about, trying to find Mee Nar, but full night had fallen, leaving more shadows than light. One of the creatures kicked over one of the lanterns as it raced off the ledge and into the water, further dimming the cave. Tikaya hoped the rest of them weren’t smart enough to figure that out. Fighting them in the dark would be impossible.

Beside her, Rias’s sword sliced down, hacking into a brawny javelina’s neck as it tried to climb the slick side of the submarine to reach the top. The sword stuck, and he had to kick the creature free with his boot. Two more animals climbed over the sinking pig, eager to take its place.

“How many are there?” Tikaya yelled, struggling to pick out another target in the poor illumination.

Light flared, almost blinding in its intensity. A gout of flame burst across the ledge, angling into the water at Tikaya’s feet. A bevy of squeals assailed her ears, even as the smell of singed flesh invaded her nostrils. Not stopping to question the help, she used the light of the conflagration to pick out new targets, firing three arrows in rapid succession. Rias put his sword to quick work, ending the lives of the creatures writhing in pain from the fire.

The flames died out, leaving dead javelinas on the ledge and more blackened bodies floating in the water. None of the creatures moved.

Tikaya checked her quiver to avoid looking at the carnage. She was beginning to share Rias’s desire to find the practitioner, or practitioners, responsible for this and end the battle in a more direct manner.

“Just a retired sailor, eh?” Rias asked Mee Nar who was picking his way around bodies toward the Freedom.

“One acquires a few skills when one isn’t busy swabbing the deck and trimming the sails.” Mee Nar pointed toward the sea beyond the cave mouth. “There are lights out there. A ship I’m assuming.”

Tikaya lowered her bow. “Were the javelinas just a distraction? To give the ship time to find us?”

“They’re not approaching the cave,” Mee Nar said. “They’re waiting out there.”

“North of here? About a half a league offshore, straight out from the butte with the split in the middle?” Rias asked, giving Tikaya a significant look.

“It’s hard to tell at night, but that sounds about right,” Mee Nar said.

Rias fished a spyglass out of his pocket. “Wait here.” He hopped onto the ledge and trotted out of the cave.

“Will he use his underwater boat to attack them?” Mee Nar asked.

Tikaya had been about to jump back to the ledge herself, but she froze, alarmed at the thought of Rias’s torpedoes slamming into the side of a Kyattese ship. “I don’t think so. I…”

“I saw he has a lot of ordnance in there,” Mee Nar said.

Thus far, Rias had been acting defensively, but what if they’d pushed him too far? Could she blame him if he chose to attack the people who had tried to blow his craft—and him—into countless pieces?

“We’ve had to fight some underwater creatures,” Tikaya said. “It might simply be for them.” Though… if Rias had added a switch to more easily run an electrical charge through the hull, that ought to be all the submarine needed to defend against enthusiastic aquatic huggers.

Mee Nar waved at the cave entrance. “I’ll have to leave if he chooses to attack. As much as I’d like to deliver those schematics to my superiors, I wouldn’t be able to continue to operate here if I openly sided with Starcrest.” He grimaced. “I’m not even sure my people would let me come home if they learned I’d openly sided with Starcrest.”

“He’s not going to attack anyone,” Tikaya said. She hoped the statement was true.

Rias ran back inside, bounding over javelina bodies so quickly that Tikaya slid out an arrow, her gaze darting toward the entrance. She expected some rabid animal to race in on his heels, but nothing came.

“If you’re coming with me, get in,” Rias barked. “We’re going down.” He untied the Freedom, leaped onto its hull, and spun the wheel to open the hatch.

“What’s happening?” Tikaya scrambled toward him.

“Do you intend to attack that ship?” Mee Nar asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. They’re dropping glowing orbs over the side. Explosives is my guess.”

“To destroy the evidence?” Tikaya asked. “Or do they think we’re already down there and want to hit us?”

“Both goals are likely.” Rias hopped through the hatchway.

“Why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to go well?” Tikaya muttered.

CHAPTER 18

Tikaya dropped her bow and quiver into the submarine, though she couldn’t imagine having a use for them inside, then climbed down herself. A dozen questions threatened to spill from her lips. Like Mee Nar, she couldn’t see being a part of this if Rias meant to take actions that could result in deaths. But she couldn’t pass up the chance to see what was down there either, not after weeks of digging into this mystery. For the moment, she kept her mouth shut. She’d stop Rias if he intended to do more than scare the people out there with warning shots.

She lifted a hand, intending to pull the hatch shut, but Mee Nar dropped in beside her.

“I’m sure I’ll regret this,” he said. “No, I’m already regretting this.”

Tikaya wouldn’t have minded if he’d stayed behind—her people might be even more distressed to find out that Nurians as well as Turgonians were snooping into their past—but she and Rias might need Mee Nar’s help. She doubted mundane Kyattese technology could produce an explosive device that would drop hundreds of meters into the water and detonate. No, they’d be facing some practitioner’s deadly work down there.

“Close the hatch,” Rias ordered from navigation. He’d already started the engine.

Tikaya secured the hatch, then perched on the seat next to his. Mee Nar, wandering through the craft and muttering to himself in Nurian, was slower to join them. By the time he reached navigation, Rias had already steered them out of the cave. He flipped the switches to fill the ballast tanks with water.

“We’re going under?” Mee Nar squeaked. He cleared his throat and said, in a more normal register, “I mean, don’t you want to get a close up look at that ship first?”

“We’ll get a look soon enough,” Rias said.

Outside the front porthole, dark water replaced the view of the waves.

“Oh.” Mee Nar clenched an overhead beam with a firmer grip than the ride required.

Tikaya admitted a bit of pleasure, or at least mollification, that a Nurian warrior and practitioner who had spent countless years at sea was more nervous than she had been when it came to diving beneath the surface in a submarine. Of course, he might simply know more about what they were about to face. That thought was sobering.

“What are you planning?” Tikaya asked, concerned about the grim expression on Rias’s face.

“To get close enough to determine if they are dropping explosives.”

“And if they are?” she asked.

“Disable their ship to encourage them to stop.”

Already on the edge of her chair, Tikaya shifted uneasily. “By shooting at them? Is there a way to disable them without causing casualties?”

“It’s a wooden sailing ship, so not likely. There’s no engine I can target, so I may have to inflict substantial damage to incapacitate them.”

“Rias… we can’t do this. We don’t even know for sure what’s down there and if it’s worth this.”

“One torpedo may be enough to make them hesitate, giving us a chance to go down. They won’t have a target if they’re of a mind to shoot back, and they won’t know if we’re near or far with more weapons.”

“Rias,” Tikaya repeated. “We need to know what we’re protecting before we take action that could kill people.”

He turned in his seat, seeming calm and reasonable, but determined as well. “I don’t want to attack your people any more than you do, but we’re not going down there to investigate if someone’s dropping charges all around us. Octopuses and water pressure, we can withstand, but not explosives dropped on our heads.”

Mee Nar cleared his throat. “If they are Made devices, I should be able to sense them as they approach. I can give you directions so you can avoid them.”

“And if they hit the wreck and destroy it before we get a chance to investigate?” Rias asked.

“We have to risk it,” Tikaya said.

He’d already turned back to the controls, and he flicked on the underwater lamp. The submarine surged forward, toward the Kyattese ship, Tikaya feared.

“All right,” Rias said, “but let’s give them something to think about before we go down.”

“Something to think about?” Tikaya asked. “Like a cannonball down the gullet?”

“Technically, we have torpedoes, not cannonballs,” Rias said.

Mee Nar frowned.

“Neither is acceptable, Rias,” Tikaya whispered harshly.

A few long seconds passed, and she couldn’t tell if he was mulling over alternatives or simply refusing to reply because he knew she wouldn’t like his answer. Finally, he tilted his head thoughtfully and met her eyes.

“Did you have a chance to familiarize yourself with the tools in the science station?”

“I looked at them when I was seeking octopus-fighting inspiration,” Tikaya said, “but I didn’t try any of them.”

“There’s a cutting tool. Why don’t you go make friends with it?”

Tikaya’s first thought was that he wanted her out of navigation so he wouldn’t have to explain his actions to her, but a hint of a smile had found its way onto his lips. A mischievous smile.

“What do you want me to cut?” she asked.

“I designed it for boring into the hulls of wrecks, figuring that we might encounter old vessels with archaeologically significant items inside. Of course, I was imagining us traveling to remote and exotic parts of the world to find these items, not into the water a few miles down the beach from your parents’ house, but regardless, that tool may prove useful now.” Rias’s smile widened. “I imagine your people will have a hard time focusing on hurling charges over the railing when their ship is in danger of sinking.”

“You want to drill a hole in their hull?” Tikaya asked.

“Actually, I thought you might handle that. It’ll take some tricky maneuvering to slip in close enough for the tool to reach the hull without bumping into the ship and alerting the Kyattese to our presence. You seemed uncomfortable the last time you were in charge of navigation.”

Mee Nar gave her a startled look, as if surprised she’d been allowed to touch the submarine’s controls.

“It’s not my fault you still haven’t given me proper instruction in that regard,” Tikaya said.

“Soon.” Rias pointed behind her, toward the science station. “You’ll do it?”

She supposed it was a better option than watching a torpedo burst through the hull of her people’s ship. “How big of a hole?”

Rias paused, and she imagined him running an equation in his head, then held up his hands to form a circle in the air. “One they’ll notice, but that they should be able to patch before they get into too much trouble. And while they’re making repairs, we’ll go exploring.”

As Tikaya headed back to her new station, she caught a comment from Mee Nar. “Depending on the skills of the practitioners aboard and what they’re focusing on, they may notice our presence no matter how careful you are not to bump the ship.”

“Perhaps you can give those practitioners something else to think about?” Rias suggested.

“You want me to get into their heads? I had some rudimentary instruction in that area, but telepathy isn’t my strength. I’m sure they’d sense me meddling. I’m best at offensive attacks, flamboyant ones in particular. It’s what impresses my people.”

“Yes, my ships were on the receiving end of some of those fireballs,” Rias said dryly. “We’re almost there. If there’s something you can think of to help—even if it’s only to give me a warning that they know we’re here—I’d appreciate it.”

Here? Already? Tikaya opened the hatch and slipped into the tiny science station. A lamp outside the porthole was already on, and she peered into the water, wondering if they were close enough yet to see the Kyattese ship.

A distant boom reached her ears. Though she didn’t see a flash of light or feel the effects of a shock wave, Tikaya assumed the sound meant Rias was right; her people were dropping explosives. That boom must have come from deep down, too. What if she and Rias were already too late?

A shark swam into view, one beady eye visible above a partially open mouth that revealed rows of sharp teeth. Coincidence, Tikaya told herself when it disappeared from sight. Something bumped against the submarine, and she gripped the desk with both hands. Maybe she’d been wrong.

“Company?” she called.

Another shark drifted past.

“Yes,” Rias responded. “The water around their ship is teaming with sharks.”

“I noticed. Do my people know we’re here?”

Rias and Mee Nar conferred in a low tone.

Tikaya leaned close to the porthole, this time peering above them, figuring Rias would come in from below, but she didn’t see anything. He would probably cut out the lamps when they drew near. That would make sawing holes difficult. She sat down. Yes, familiarizing herself with the tools ahead of time would be a good idea.

“It may not be a practitioner, but simply the carnage that’s attracting the sharks,” Rias called. “We’ve seen dead fish and other creatures floating up. I’m sure those explosives are doing damage to the sea life down there. A brutal tactic, given your people’s peaceful reputation.”

Tikaya grimaced. She knew he wasn’t judging her, but she couldn’t help but identify with those making these choices. How not? As far as she knew, they weren’t rogues or foreigners; they were operating with the full knowledge of key members of her government. They represented her people, her country, and… her. “Yes, it is,” she said. Then, compelled to make an excuse for them, she added, “They must be desperate.”

“We’re going in,” Rias said. “We’re about thirty feet down right now, and I don’t want our light to be visible to someone looking overboard, so I’m turning off the lamps. When we’re under them, I’ll risk turning yours back on so you can see.”

“Understood.”

Hardly feeling ready for the task, Tikaya found levers that controlled the pair of articulating arms she’d briefly explored during their last trip. A soft click sounded as something on the outside opened, and the “arms” unfolded to stick out into the water. One of the sturdy, black-painted implements held a claw with pincers that could open, close, and rotate to grip things. The other held the cutting tool Rias had mentioned. Tiny serrated teeth circled a long, cylindrical blade with an oval tip.

The outside lamp winked out, and darkness interrupted her assessment of the implements. Even the interior lighting seemed to dim. Tikaya could do little but wait. The Freedom’s engine was quiet, even at full speed, but she sensed the craft slowing down.

“We’re under them,” Rias said, his voice lower than before, as if he feared those on the ship might hear him.

Tikaya doubted that could happen, but she found herself answering in kind anyway. “I need a little light to see what I’m doing.”

Before she’d finished speaking, a faint illumination grew outside. Rows of dark green boards came into view, not a foot from Tikaya’s porthole. Knowing they might not have much time, she extended the saw. The tip touched the wood but didn’t do anything. She eyed the controls, trying to figure out how to move it back and forth or up and down, something that would cause the teeth to bite into the wood.

“Rias?” she asked.

“Under the desk.” Soft footfalls approached her station, and Rias appeared at her shoulder. He pointed at a switch with three different positions. “Those move the teeth at different speeds. The energy orb powers it. You just direct the blade.”

“Thank you. Is it—”

“Starcrest,” came a strained whisper from the front.

“Never mind, I’ll figure it out,” Tikaya said.

Rias squeezed her shoulder and jogged back to the front.

Tikaya fiddled with the switch. Outside, the serrated teeth started spinning around the blade. The submarine had drifted a foot away from the ship, and she had to extend the arm farther before the tool touched the hull. It bit in with impressive speed and power, and almost immediately she felt the give as it pierced through the board to the other side. Moving the blade to cut out a circle was harder than piercing the original hole had been, especially given the length of the arm and the fact that the ship kept floating in and out of reach. She could feel Rias trying to keep close without bumping the wooden hull, and knew he was doing the best job that he could.

Gradually her crooked line took on the dimensions of a half circle. A little longer, and she ought to be able to—

Something slammed into the submarine. The force threw Tikaya backward in her chair, and the cutting blade was torn from the hole.

“Company,” Rias called.

“They know we’re down here,” Mee Nar added.

“I guessed that.” Trusting they’d handle the “company,” Tikaya leaned back toward the porthole, her hands gripping the tool controls.

Just as the blade found the hull again, a shark rammed into the articulating arm. Startled, Tikaya almost fell out of her chair. She pressed her face to the porthole, afraid the strike might have broken the arm. It remained in tact, but, that close to the glass, she spotted dozens—hundreds?—of sharks milling around out there.

“Is the hull electrified?” she asked.

“No, not with you at the tools,” Rias said.

Right, the current could probably travel up the metal and into her body. Ouch.

“The sharks shouldn’t be able to damage us though,” Rias called, then lowered his voice to talk to Mee Nar. “Any idea what they’re going to try? Besides sharks?”

Tikaya didn’t hear the answer. She directed the tool toward the hole again, hissing when more sharks came in, bumping the arm with their bodies. She took an irritated swipe at one, drawing blood, and it swished its tail and shot away in a streak. Rias’s words about the carnage her people were causing came to mind, and she promptly felt guilty.

A couple of clunks sounded. The submarine had eased closer, scraping against the ship’s hull. Rias must no longer care if they bumped it. Taking advantage of the nearer target, Tikaya angled the tool in again.

“You’re getting it,” came Rias’s voice, this time from the hatchway. He stepped into the science station. “Good.”

“I can handle it,” Tikaya said, focusing on the porthole. “You should stay up front.”

“I’m experimenting with my extendable clamps. We’re attached to them now. Mee Nar’s trying to distract their practitioners. He says there are at least four.” Rias set a metal object on the desk with a clunk. He unlatched a cabinet door and plucked out something else.

“What are you doing?” Tikaya asked, eyes riveted to her work outside.

“Giving them something to think about.”

“More than the leak?” Tongue between her teeth, she guided the saw closer to the start of the circle. Almost there. Another inch and—

A shark’s blue wedge face pressed against the porthole. Tikaya gasped. Knowing it couldn’t do anything didn’t keep that leering face full of teeth from alarming her.

“Rias,” she said in exasperation. Of course, he couldn’t do anything about it either, but he was in the cabin, so he received her complaint. “It’s blocking my view.”

Rias laughed. “So it is.”

Tikaya was about to give him a how-can-you-find-this-amusing glare when her gaze fell upon the cannonball-shaped object on the desk. Welded seams ran around it and a tiny flap stood open while Rias poked around inside with pliers and a screwdriver.

Tikaya stared. She had seen pictures of enemy ordinance during the war, and some of them looked a lot like that. “Is that… a mine?”

“Yes. I’ve removed the powder charge. I thought I’d see if I could insert it into the hole as a warning. Maybe put a little note in the middle.”

“A note? Like what? We didn’t blow you up this time but we could have?”

“Something of that sort. Just to give them plenty of time to think over their situation.”

Something else thumped against the hull.

“Right now, I’m more concerned about our situation.” Tikaya pointed at the porthole—the shark was still floating right outside.

She angled the cutting tool up to poke the finned intruder. At the first touch, it burst away from the window, but, unlike the first shark, it returned. That huge maw opened and snapped down on the articulating arm.

“Demon-spawned sprites,” Tikaya blurted and tried to pull the tool back into its cubby in the hull. The shark refused to let go. It shook its body from side to side, like a dog trying to rip a rope from its master’s grip.

Though she feared it was already too late, she grabbed the controls for the second tool. She could barely see with the shark thrashing about in front of the porthole, but she tried to bring the gripping claw in to… She didn’t know what she hoped to do. Distract it. More by accident than skill, she jabbed it in the lower belly hard enough to surprise it. The shark’s mouth opened long enough for Tikaya to yank the cutting tool back into the hull. She couldn’t tell if it’d been mangled beyond use yet, but the blade was still rotating, and it grazed the shark’s nose. This time the creature disappeared, leaving only bubbles behind.

“Good work,” Rias said, “you got him in the balls. That tool will need repairs, but see if you can slice out that last couple of inches there. That’s all we need for now.”

“Already on it,” Tikaya said, pushing the saw toward the wood again.

Awkward vibrations shook the arm, and the saw lacked the smooth cutting efficiency of before. She struggled, but made progress while Rias finished his modifications to the mine.

“Do sharks actually have balls?” Tikaya asked.

“Of course they do, as evinced by its alarm at your precise placement of that grasper.”

“I’m sure it was just startled by having something poke its underbelly.” Tikaya finished carving the circle—if one could call the lopsided, crooked outline a legitimate geometric shape.

“That wasn’t its underbelly.” Rias smirked.

“Do you actually know how sharks reproduce, or are you simply teasing me?” If Tikaya hadn’t been busy with more pressing matters, she would have grabbed that encyclopedia on sea life. Instead, she maneuvered the claw toward the damaged hull, hoping she could pull out the wood, rather than punching it in; the sailors would have a harder time making repairs if they had to fashion a plug.

“Sharks reproduce via internal fertilization.” Rias knelt and unlocked a tiny hatch underneath the desk. He placed the mine inside a cubby, closed the hatch again, and hit a switch beside it. Several clunks sounded, as if the metal ball were being cycled past a number of safety hatches. “The back of a male shark’s pelvic fins has a pair of intromittent organs called claspers, which are essentially the same as a mammalian penis.” Rias stood back up and made the mistake of meeting Tikaya’s eyes—she imagined her brows had climbed into her hairline—and he seemed to remember he was talking to a woman. He blushed and his academic lecture turned a tad shy. “The sharks swim side by side, with the male, uhm, well, it bites the female to get a good grip, and one of the claspers goes in and delivers sperm to the female’s, uhm, woman area.”

Woman area? Tikaya held back a smirk of her own. “I see. I didn’t realize you were so well versed in the reproductive natures of sea creatures.”

His blush deepened. “Twenty years at sea, and you learn a few auxiliary tidbits of information. Do you need a hand with that?”

“No, I have it.” Tikaya had wedged the tips of the claw around the sides of her circle, and she pulled out the “cork.” She glimpsed a dark hold before water flooded in, obscuring the view. Dark was good. It should mean nobody was in there, watching her handiwork. The crew might know a submarine was under them, but they apparently didn’t know what it was doing yet.

“May I?” Rias waved to the controls.

Tikaya slipped out of the seat. He nudged another switch under the desk, then guided the grasping tool out of view. Soft scrapes and clunks came from the hull. That she heard them made Tikaya aware of the utter quietness around them. Chaos had to have erupted on the Kyattese ship at the first sign of the submarine’s approach, but she couldn’t hear a thing.

Water started streaming past the porthole. The submarine bumped and drifted, drawing alternately closer and farther from the ship’s hull. At first Tikaya thought some vigorous waves had come their way, but then she realized the other ship was moving. Because they were attached, they were going with it.

“They’re trying to escape us,” Rias said. “We’ll let go as soon as…” He leaned closer to the porthole. “Should have included some mirrors so I could see—there.”

The claw came back into view, now holding the mine. Rias thrust it through the ragged gap and released it. Tikaya thought she could detect light in the hold now, but the waterline was above the hole, so she couldn’t make anything out for certain.

“That ought to keep them busy.” Rias pulled the tools back into their compartments in the hull. “Mee Nar, want to release those hooks we put out?” He faced Tikaya. “Ready to go down?”

“Yes, though there’s one other thing I’m wondering about.”

“I’m absolutely certain the mine is diffused and won’t cause harm, yes.”

“That’s not it.” Tikaya propped her fists on her hips.

Concern wrinkled Rias’s brow. “What?”

“The male shark bites the female? And she allows that?”

“Oh,” Rias said, though he didn’t look like he knew if he was completely off the hook. “Well, it’s in the water, you see, and they don’t have hands or legs or any other way to, uhm, hold on. Not like we do. Er, we could. If you wanted to… get creative underwater.”

“Underwater? Completely? Even that diary doesn’t mention that.”

“Yes, I suppose one would have to either be quite, ah, swift or have some sort of device for breathing underwater. One could take tanks of compressed air down. There are prototypes in the empire for diving suits like that, though they’re terribly awkward and heavy.” Rias dropped his chin into his hand and tapped his jaw with one finger. “As I said earlier, they’re meant for salvaging wrecks, but I imagine one could come up with a much lighter suit and system for recreational diving.”

Tikaya tapped him on the shoulder.

Rias blinked and looked up. “Yes?”

“Did you truly just go from a discussion of sexual positions to designing some new diving prototype in your mind?”

“Er, maybe?”

“You must have mystified your wife,” Tikaya said before she thought better of it. He never seemed that distressed when he mentioned how incompatible they’d been, but she would never wish to remind him of painful moments.

“Yes,” was all he said. “I’ve mystified a lot of people with my interests. Fortunately, you seem unfazed.” Rias offered his arm and nodded toward the navigation cabin.

“Fortunately,” she agreed amiably, taking his arm. The Nurians had even less mundane technology than the Kyattese, so poor Mee Nar was probably being mystified up there himself.

“Just so we’re clear,” Rias murmured as they headed back up front. “No biting?”

“We’ll see.”

“We have a problem,” Mee Nar called before Rias could respond to her comment.

Mee Nar was pointing at the front porthole when they came in. Sweat gleamed on his brow and his loose shirt stuck to his back. A red sphere floated in the water inches above the Freedom’s nose.

“Is that one of the explosives?” Tikaya asked.

Rias had already lunged into the primary navigation seat.

“Yes,” Mee Nar whispered, his voice strained. “They threw a bunch out as soon as we detached. Most of them didn’t come close, but…” He licked his lips.

“I guess they didn’t like your mine gift.” Tikaya gave Rias a grimace that she hoped portrayed an apology for distracting him with that silly conversation. He gave her a quick headshake, as if to say he was to blame.

“I’m keeping it from dropping farther,” Mee Nar continued, “but I can’t disarm it, not when it’s this close. I don’t know if it explodes on impact or on a timer.”

“Does this thing go in reverse?” Tikaya asked, trying to remember if Rias had mentioned a control for that. She was fairly certain he’d just driven it forward and used the rudder to turn in a circle when they needed to change directions. With that sphere hovering so close to their nose, there was no way they could go forward. It’d smack right into the porthole and blow up.

Rias flipped the switches that controlled the water-to-air ratio in the ballast tanks. “This thing goes down.”

“Sorry,” Tikaya murmured. Apparently calling an engineer’s latest invention a thing wasn’t the way to his heart.

The sphere rose out of sight as the submarine descended. Rias nudged the propeller lever, and the vessel glided forward.

“You can release it now,” Rias told Mee Nar. “We’re not—emperor’s balls!” He turned hard to avoid a second sphere, this one dropping into view ahead of them rapidly.

The submarine changed headings faster than a sailing ship, but not nearly as fast as Tikaya would have liked at that moment. Standing behind Rias, she caught herself sinking her fingernails into the back of his chair. Slowly the sphere drifted off to the left of the viewing area, or, rather, they drifted away from it. Only when it dropped out of sight did Tikaya let out a relieved breath.

“That was—”

A boom thundered below them and to the port side. The craft lurched, the deck tilting so hard it almost threw Tikaya off her feet, even with her grip on the chair. Mee Nar tumbled into the bulkhead. Rias’s hands never faltered—he rode out the bucking wave and brought the craft back to a horizontal position. His gaze skimmed over the gauges and displays.

“Did that do any damage?” Tikaya asked.

“Nothing that’s showing up.”

“That wasn’t really a no was it?”

“No,” Rias said. “Any deficiencies will become clear when we descend to lower depths.”

“Because the hull will implode and we’ll die?” Tikaya asked.

Mee Nar threw her a wild-eyed look.

“Something like that,” Rias said. “Mee Nar, are there any more of those out there? I can’t pick up objects that small with my echo ranging device.”

“You should come up with a catchier name for it,” Tikaya said. It was a stupid thing to say, but somehow it was better than standing there imagining more of those mines dropping onto their heads. Wasn’t that the whole reason they’d sneaked in to disable the ship? To avoid this situation?

“Mee Nar,” Rias repeated, turning in his chair.

The Nurian was still staring at them, his face pale, his breathing rapid. Maybe the morbid exchange hadn’t been wise.

Rias was tall enough to grip the other man’s shoulder without standing up. “Mee Nar, you said you could detect the charges around us.” His voice was penetrating, and he stared straight into the Nurian’s eyes. “We’re depending on you here. All of us. And your wife and child will be waiting for you to come home safely.”

Mee Nar’s stare shifted to Rias’s grip. For a moment, he looked like he might pull away and dart off into some hole to hide, but he held out his hands and drew in a big gulp of air. “Yes. Yes, I know. I understand.”

“Guide me.” There was definitely a tone of command in Rias’s voice. He gave Mee Nar a nod and turned back to the controls.

Mee Nar took a few more deep breaths. Tikaya was tempted to offer him a shoulder to lean on, but after Rias’s words, he seemed to regain some of his composure. She remembered her own moment, trapped on a Nurian warship, and how she’d almost fallen apart after shooting—killing—people and how he’d calmed her down. Strange to think that a veteran warrior would need similar treatment, but she supposed the submarine—and the tons and tons of water above them—presented a unique experience.

“There are none above us dropping.” Mee Nar’s eyes were closed, and his hands gripped the console as he concentrated. “One is approximately fifteen meters to the starboard.”

“Understood.” Rias guided them toward the port. “Are there any below us? I want to descend now.”

“Not close enough for me to detect. There don’t seem to be many left. I think they threw a bunch over the side, hoping to hit us before sailing off to make repairs.”

“I’m taking us down then. It won’t take them long to recuperate up there.”

Mee Nar’s gulp was audible, but he nodded. “I’ll keep my senses open.”

“Thank you,” Rias said.

Since Mee Nar seemed content to stand, with a death grip on the console, Tikaya slipped into the seat beside Rias. “How far down are we now?”

Rias glanced at a gauge. “Only thirty meters.”

“And we’re going down to two hundred?” Tikaya might be sharing some of Mee Nar’s claustrophobia in a moment. “It occurs to me that the landmarks in the letter won’t be very helpful down here. Are you going to be able to find the wreck?”

“We’ll see. I’d say something cocky like I have the map in my head, but I ran into the coral reef on our last excursion, so I better not talk too soon.”

“Well, you were distracted by a giant octopus hurling us about.”

“My commanding officers never would have accepted such an excuse,” Rias said.

“Over the eons, women have learned to be accepting of men’s flaws.”

Rias gave her a sidelong look. “That must be a Kyattese-only philosophy. I never noticed it amongst imperial women.”

Tikaya alternately watched a depth meter and the viewport as they descended. Thanks to nightfall, the water outside had been dark all along, but there was an oppressive, absoluteness to it now. And a stillness. The only sounds came from the soft hum of the engines and from creaks and groans that Tikaya tried not to find alarming. Rias’s face gave away nothing.

“How much pressure are we under?” Tikaya asked softly, not wanting to disturb Mee Nar.

Eyes still closed, the Nurian seemed to be taking his task seriously. Maybe he needed the work for a distraction.

“Atmospheric pressure is approximately fourteen point seven pounds per square inch at sea level,” Rias said, “and it increases by fourteen point seven psi every thirty-three feet.” Rias glanced at the depth meter. “We’re nearing two hundred meters, so approximately 291.994 psi.”

“Approximately,” Tikaya said and smiled.

Rias didn’t return the gesture. Maybe he was thinking about all those pounds of pressure on the hull of his craft. Tikaya studied his profile. He wasn’t paying attention to the viewport at all; his gaze swung back and forth from the depth meter to the readings on the echo ranging device. Hoping to see a promise of the ocean bottom before they reached the submarine’s maximum operating depth? What was their maximum operating depth? Rias hadn’t told her.

“The last two spheres have blown up,” Mee Nar said. “I was tracking their descent.”

“It’s random then?” Tikaya asked. “When they blow up? Or were they adjusted to a shallower depth to target us?”

“I don’t know,” Mee Nar said.

Rias didn’t acknowledge the Nurian’s announcement. As Tikaya watched him, a question floated into her mind. Maybe distracting him wasn’t a good idea.

“Have we reached two hundred?” Tikaya asked.

“Yes.”

“And no sign of the wreck?”

“No sign of the bottom.”

“Oh. I checked the letter twice to make sure of my translation. I’m sure it said two hundred meters.”

“I believe you. Their measurements weren’t likely accurate.” Rias glanced at his gauges. “Two hundred twenty meters.”

Tikaya swallowed. She wanted to let him know that it was all right to give up. As much as she desired to know what was down here, she desired to live more. Quiet filled the cabin, creating an eerie sense of solitude, or maybe isolation. If they disappeared down there, never to return to the surface, nobody would ever know what had happened to them. She wished she’d left a note for Mother, instead of simply disappearing into the night.

She could hear Rias’s breathing. It remained steady and regular; he’d appear calm to someone who didn’t know him well, but she could read the tension in his rigid posture. It warned her of danger in a way his words did not.

“What are you thinking?” Tikaya murmured.

“Among other things? That I regret bringing you down here.”

“I would have been annoyed if you’d gone without me.”

“There are worse things to be,” Rias said.

Like dead. Tikaya didn’t say it out loud. Another groan emanated from the hull. The ominous noise was louder than before, she was sure of it. “We can turn back,” she said. “Curiosity is only an admirable trait until it gets you killed.”

“We can go deeper,” Rias said.

Tikaya stood for a better look outside the porthole. The life in the waters outside had dwindled. The sharks had disappeared along with the schools of fish that had flitted through their light earlier. What did swim through the beam of illumination were strange creatures with rows of uneven, bristly teeth and misshapen bodies, nothing she’d seen fishermen selling in the market. In their own ways, the fish were as strange and alien as anything they’d seen in those ancient tunnels in the empire. Like something from another world, a bizarre world that had few commonalities with the one she knew. A bioluminescent squid—at least Tikaya thought it was a squid—jetted away at their approach.

She pressed a hand against the hull to lean in for a better look. The icy temperature of the metal numbed her fingers and she pulled them back. It was only then that she noticed the puffs of air in front of her face with each exhalation. She wrapped her arms around her body. Who would have thought she’d need a jacket and mittens off the coast of the Kyatt Islands? She almost made the joke to Rias, but his face was grimmer than ever.

“Mee Nar,” Tikaya said, “do you want to watch the porthole in the science station and see if there’s anything coming up—or down, as it’d be—in that direction? We must be getting close to the bottom.”

“All right,” Mee Nar whispered.

Tikaya never would have guessed a Nurian warrior and practitioner could sound so meek. And afraid.

Rias’s gaze shifted away from the instruments just long enough to regard Tikaya with knowing eyes. Yes, she wanted to ask her question and she didn’t want Mee Nar to know the answer, not when he’d grown so alarmed at the mention of the submarine failing.

“What’s the maximum depth the Freedom is designed to handle?” Tikaya whispered when they were alone. “I know you have an exact number in mind.” According to the depth gauge, they’d just dipped below two hundred and fifty meters.

Rias blew out a long breath. “I rate it at a maximum operating depth of two hundred and eighty meters.”

A surge of alarm charged through Tikaya’s limbs. Dear Akahe, they were almost there already. She struggled to keep her breaths slow and calm, not wanting to fall apart the way Mee Nar had—or worse. “And there’s still no sign of the bottom? We have to go back. This isn’t worth dying over.”

“If the captain’s letter said they pulled up something, it couldn’t have been much deeper. Their estimates couldn’t have been that far off.”

“How sure are you that we’re in the right spot?” Tikaya asked.

“We’re in that basin; we would have hit the ocean floor by now if we weren’t.”

“How deep is the basin?”

Rias didn’t answer.

“I know you know. You studied the old maps closely enough to know when the basin turned up missing. You must know its depth.”

“Four hundred meters at its deepest, but there’s a ridge coming up.”

Tikaya glanced at the depth meter and a fresh wave of alarm washed over her. “We’re almost to two-seventy-five.”

“The ridge is—”

“You said two-eighty was the maximum, right?” Tikaya interrupted, her heart in her throat. “This is insane. Take us back up.”

“The maximum operating depth is the depth at which I deem it’s safe to operate. The crush depth should be closer to three-twenty-five to three-fifty.”

“Should be?”

“It won’t be before three-twenty-five,” Rias said. “We crafted the strongest Turgonian steel alloy that’s ever been invented for the hull.”

How he could have melted that wreck into any semblance of a strong alloy, she couldn’t guess, but she wouldn’t doubt him when it came to metallurgy.

“So… we should be fine as long as we stay above that point?” Tikaya asked.

He was speaking calmly, but that tension was still in his shoulders. He wasn’t telling her something. “On paper, yes, but I haven’t tested it anywhere near this deep. If one of the tanks ruptures or there’s a mechanical failure or… Emperor’s teeth, a thousand different things could go wrong, and if one of them does, and I can’t fix it quickly, we can easily drop below crush depth, and the Freedom ends up as another wreck on the bottom of the ocean.”

Tikaya wished she hadn’t goaded the reason for his concern from him. It was obvious as soon as he said it, but she hadn’t been thinking of the possibility that they might not be able to return to the surface. She’d imagined them as a balloon being held underwater, just waiting to be released to shoot back up. But they weren’t a balloon; they were a couple of frail human beings encased in a steel cylinder. And steel sank. Tikaya found herself imagining what it’d be like to die down here. Would it be like drowning? With water rupturing the hull and rushing in to smother them? Or would their bodies, without the protection of the vessel, implode under such pressure?

She shook her head and banished the unhelpful thoughts. She slid out of her chair, stood behind Rias, and put her hands on his shoulders. “We’ll be fine. None of those things will happen.”

Rias snorted. “What makes you so sure?”

“You built it.”

“Tikaya… I’m not infallible. Trust me.”

“Would you be this worried if I weren’t here?” she asked, thinking of his comment about regretting bringing her down.

Rias hesitated before admitting, “No.”

“And if I were safe on the beach, would you be excited and thrilled to be down here testing it and searching for the wreck and probably going deeper than any human being has ever gone before? Even if it meant risking your life?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d be devastated if you died down here while I was sitting up there, braiding my hair, so let’s pretend I’m one of your marines right now and nothing else.”

“Hm.” Rias checked a different gauge—had his range finder finally found the bottom? “I never discussed biting with my marines.”

“Yes, I understand some of them found that regrettable.” Tikaya thought of the letter she’d written to Corporal Agarik’s family; she wished she’d posted it and Rias’s letter already, in case… Well, the letters were in her room. If she proved incorrect about Rias’s infallibility, her mother would find them and take care of the task.

“Tikaya?” Rias asked softly.

“Yes?”

He tugged his gaze away from the instruments and met her eyes. “If we make it out of this, will you marry me?”

“Erp?” It wasn’t the most eloquent thing she could have said, but he’d startled her.

“I was going to wait until… to see if there was any chance we could make things work with your family and your people, and to wait until I had established some sort of stability, financially and otherwise, in my life, but plummeting into the ocean depths to unknown dangers makes a man rethink his priorities, and I… I’m talking rather rapidly, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Tikaya whispered. “And you should probably be monitoring our descent.” What a stupid thing to say. But her heart was thundering against her ribs, and she needed a moment.

“Yes, of course,” he murmured, facing the console again.

Tikaya had been imagining—hoping—Rias would propose to her one day, but at the same time, she kept thinking that he’d have such a better life if he returned to the empire where he’d have the support of his family and friends, and where he’d be a hero instead of a target for angry Kyattese citizens. How was it anything but selfish of her to ask him to give up all that and stay with her?

“You’re not saying anything,” Rias observed. “In the world of asking for dates and proposing marriages, that’s generally a bad sign.”

“I’m wondering if it’s fair of me to ask you to choose between Turgonia and me.”

Rias glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve talked to Milvet, and I see how you are around the Turgonian expats, or rather how they are around you. I believe it’d be feasible for you to return to Turgonia and recruit the men you’d need to take back your lands and force the emperor to return your warrior-caste status to you. You could have everything from your old life again. I feel like it’s not fair to ask you to give that up and to force you to try and find a place in a world where everyone wants you dead.”

As she spoke, Rias made adjustments at the controls and faced his console, but he kept his ear toward her. “You never asked me to choose between the worlds,” he said. “I chose of my own accord. I want to be with you, Tikaya. As for going back to the empire, I suppose if you had some notion of being the wife of a well-to-do warrior-caste gent, I could try to get my lands and title back, but… blood and battlefields, Tikaya, it’s cold there six months out of the year. Like touch-your-tongue-to-a-lamp-post-and-it’ll-be-stuck-there-until-spring cold. Then in the summer, it’s so hot, you might as well be working in a smelter. Sure spring and autumn are decent, but they’re short. I’d much rather stay here and figure out a way to make things work with your people.”

Tikaya’s jaw drooped open as he spoke. “I—it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t want to go back if you could.”

“Well, now you know. Think on it, will you, and maybe give me an answer to the other thing, too, eh?”

Tikaya recovered some of her equanimity and leaned against his chair. “I seem to remember you promising that there’d be music, a nice dinner, and candlelight if you ever proposed to me.”

“I have some dried fish in the back. As to the rest, it seems I must add to the list of items I forgot to pack. I—” Rias leaned forward and tapped a gauge. “I think we’ve reached—”

“There’s something out there,” came Mee Nar’s cry from the back.

The hull creaked and groaned again.

“Let’s level out while we check it out, shall we?” Tikaya asked. “No need to keep descending, right?”

“Already done.” Rias turned toward the starboard.

Their light played over a ridge smeared with brownish plant matter or maybe that was mud. Branches of strange seaweed and mushroom-type growths ran along the sides with wild spicules thrusting from the top. A foot-long piggish creature with numerous short stubby fins, or maybe they were legs, shuffled along the ridge, probing the mud with tentacles. Further along, something that looked like a cross between a crab and a spider hunkered in a dark nook.

“Bizarre,” Tikaya whispered, awed by the utter strangeness of the life. “How can anything live down here? I mean, if the pressure is so great that it could crush a steel hull…” She glanced at Rias, feeling a little ashamed by her lack of knowledge. She should have read that marine encyclopedia front to back before this trip.

But Rias didn’t seem any more knowledgeable than she. “They must have the same pressure within their bodies as is exerted on them from their environment, though it’s admittedly hard to fathom. With their molecules squeezed together so, they’d have reduced fluidity in their—” He shrugged. “I don’t know. They’ve adapted somehow.”

“No light makes it this far down either, does it?” Tikaya asked. “We’re below the euphotic zone. This is amazing, Rias. As far as I know, nobody has ever been able to study these creatures. The aquatic biology students and professors at the Polytechnic should be lining up to ask you for rides down here, not letting government dullards try to blow up your submarine.”

“You’re welcome to suggest that to them when we return.”

Footsteps clanged on the deck behind them.

“Find the wreck yet?” Mee Nar asked.

“Looking now,” Rias said.

“You see those fish out there? Those are the ugliest, strangest I don’t even know whats.”

“Any sign of explosives from our friends above?” Rias asked.

“I haven’t sensed any, or seen any signs that they’ve exploded down here.”

“Maybe the pressure crushed them before they could reach the ocean floor?” Tikaya suggested.

“It seems as if your people would be smart enough to compensate for that,” Rias said. “We—wait, got something. There’s a big change in the ridge topography ahead.” He checked his gauges, then peered through the viewport.

Tikaya pressed her shoulder against his, eager for a glimpse of the wreck. After all these weeks of sneaking about, searching through elusive—and missing—archives, and fighting against invisible foes, she couldn’t wait to see the source of all their troubles.

What glided into view, however, was not a ship. It was a crater. Almost hidden by a cloud of silty dirt, a huge concave gap marred the ridge. All the plant life was obliterated, and countless dead fish, squid, and other creatures Tikaya couldn’t identify floated about the area. Rocks and pebbles trickled down the sides, leaving little doubt that the crater had just been created.

“I was wondering how powerful those spheres were,” Rias muttered.

Tikaya pulled back, sickened by the view. How could her people, people who prided themselves on pursuing peaceful methods, both with other nations and with nature, make this choice? She could imagine Turgonians blowing up swaths of the countryside to test new weapons, but not the Kyattese. Her people didn’t do such things. They just… didn’t. She sat down hard.

Rias had paused the submarine long enough to pull out a scrap of paper. He scribbled an equation on it, then plugged in a few numbers.

“Are you calculating whether one of those spheres would blow us down to the South Pole if it hit?” Tikaya asked.

“Given the dampening effect the water’s pressure would have, the explosive potential is… Impressive. I didn’t think your people had any weapons like that. They didn’t hurl anything with that power at us during the war, unless you made advances during the last year when I was in exile.”

Tikaya was sure he didn’t mean to condemn her with that “you,” but it made her wince anyway. As if she’d been a part of this… “Apparently, my people are making progress.”

“Or are only willing to kill sea life and nosy intruders, not attack enemy warships with everything they’ve got.” Rias set aside his paper and took the controls in hand again. “Mee Nar, you’re still keeping a magic-seeing eye out for those spheres, right?”

“Yes,” Mee Nar said from behind Tikaya. “Your leak must be keeping them busy. I haven’t sensed anything new being dropped.”

“Good, though we can’t count on that lasting long.” Rias had nudged the submarine into motion again and was watching the echo ranging display. “Something else is coming up.”

This time, Tikaya didn’t lean in for a better look. She was afraid they’d find crater upon crater down there.

“I sense something,” Mee Nar said.

Rias’s hand froze on the control lever. “Dropping from above?”

“It’s… No.” Mee Nar stood with his eyes closed, chin drooped to his chest. “It’s already at our level, and I think… Yes, I’m positive. It’s not moving.”

“A dud?” Tikaya wondered. “That dropped down but didn’t explode?”

“Are we in danger of running into it?” Rias asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mee Nar said. “It’s on the ridge. Or on something on the ridge. Oh, that actually might be what you’re looking for.”

Tikaya frowned. What did that mean? She poked Rias. “Get closer.”

“Weren’t you the one telling me to go back up a moment ago?” Rias asked as he guided the submarine farther along the ridge.

“That was at least five moments ago, and you didn’t take the opportunity when you had the chance. It’s been rescinded.”

A deep moan emanated from the hull, and Tikaya’s humor disappeared. Mee Nar shifted uneasily too.

“We’ve reached the end of the ridge,” Rias said. “But there’s something… Yes, there it is.”

Outside of the porthole, a lumpy shape had come into view, its form so covered in centuries of mud and silt that Tikaya wouldn’t have identified it, if not for the masts. Even they were obscured by seaweed growing up around them. The ancient ship lay on its side, no holes obvious in its hull, at least not on the half she could see. Unlike modern Turgonian ships, it lacked portholes and spaces through which cannons could fire as well. If there were oar holes—and there should be on a vessel that age—grime had long since covered them up.

Shedding light upon the ship was a six-inch-wide glowing red sphere. It perched on one of the few sections of railing that weren’t broken, waiting to explode.

CHAPTER 19

Tikaya stared at the orb. She couldn’t believe it had landed so precariously without falling off the railing. Or exploding. Yet.

“I hope it is a dud,” Rias said. “Or it’s going to be inconvenient.”

Inconvenient? Tikaya thought of the crater they’d passed, and shuddered.

“I wouldn’t touch it,” Mee Nar said. “It’s emitting a lot of power.”

“It couldn’t have been made to explode on impact.” Rias guided the submarine along the wreck, showing them more of the ancient structure, the wood impressively preserved despite all the grime and growth on and around it. “Or it would have done so when it touched down. And then there are the ones above that exploded early in their descent.”

“Maybe it’s random,” Mee Nar said.

Rias took them up and over the ridge so they could see the back side of the wreck. “Is it possible someone is up there controlling when they explode?”

Mee Nar shook his head. “That would take a great deal of concentration, concentration that would have been difficult to maintain given the leak and other excitement that must be going on up above.”

“We’ll just do our best to avoid it then.”

While the men spoke, Tikaya was scouring the wreck with her eyes, searching for the clues that had prompted the treasure hunters to pen letters to the Turgonian military. “There aren’t any holes in the hull or on what we can see of the deck. The masts aren’t even broken. What caused it to sink?”

“A good question,” Rias said. “It shows little damage from the landing too. No debris field around it. That would have been different if it’d landed on top of the ridge, but it looks like it sank into plenty of mud on the side instead.” He pointed to the bottom of the hull. “It’s about ten feet deep.”

“I assume there’s no way for us to step outside of this vessel without being crushed,” Mee Nar said. “How are we going to get in to look around?”

Rias waved to the back. “The cutting tool wasn’t completely destroyed by the shark attack. We should be able to bore a hole in the hull.”

“One wide enough for us to pass through?” Tikaya asked. “Would that even be possible? This ship looks to be in better shape than the two-year-old ones in the harbor.”

“Yes, from what we’ve seen so far, it’s in pristine condition.” Rias slowed the submarine to a stop—they’d circled the wreck and come back to the sphere, which glowed ominously at them, like a guard dog growling at the gate of a junkyard.

Tikaya gave a short laugh. “Are we sure it’s the right ship?”

“Oh, yes,” Rias said. “That’s a colonial era penteconter. I had a model of one as a boy. The oars must be around somewhere, buried under the silt perhaps.”

“Time,” Mee Nar said.

“You sense something?” Tikaya asked.

“The Kyattese ship is heading back to its position above the wreck.”

And above us, Tikaya thought.

“Let’s cut into the hull.” Rias closed his eyes for a moment. “If my model was historically accurate, the captain’s cabin would be forward, on the port side.”

“Who’s going to do the cutting?” Tikaya feared she already knew the answer to her question, and she eyed the sphere warily.

“You have as much experience as I do at this point,” Rias said.

“And rather less experience navigating.” Tikaya sighed and headed for the science station again. “Mee Nar, let me know… Give me a warning if you can.” She feared that if the sphere fell off the railing, or randomly decided it’d found the right moment to explode, there wouldn’t be time for a warning.

“I’ll try.” Mee Nar sounded even less optimistic than she felt.

Tikaya hesitated before maneuvering the claw and cutter out of whatever storage slots Rias had built into the hull. She remembered that he’d been able to get the mine from inside to outside but doubted that would be safe at these depths. “Are you sure these cutters will work down here? Can I grab something with the claw?” Would there even be anything in there to grab? What if the pressure had destroyed whatever evidence existed inside that hull?

“The tools should work—I had my helper make them sturdy, and we didn’t use anything that’ll contract or expand,” Rias called back. “But don’t open that hatch to bring anything inside. There’s an airlock, and it should technically work, but if you find something just hold onto it with the pincer, and we’ll go back to the surface to—”

Mee Nar interrupted him. Tikaya couldn’t hear what he said, but she could guess. The Kyattese ship was up to something.

She slid the cutting tool out of its cubbyhole. It took more effort to move it through the sluggish water down there, and the shark’s attack had left it with a wobble, but she managed to get the saw to the ancient hull. She held her breath when she started it up, but the sharp blade bored into the wood. Wood and centuries’ worth of ocean gunk. The saw’s bites stirred up a grayish-brown cloud, and soon Tikaya couldn’t see a thing outside the porthole.

“Great,” she said. “I couldn’t cut a decent circle even when I could see what I was doing.”

“Easy,” Rias warned. “The sphere is wobbling.”

Tikaya gulped and slowed down. They’d attributed randomness to the timing of those explosives, but maybe they weren’t granting those practitioners up there enough skill. What if that one had been sent down and placed precisely there to act as a booby trap? Disturb it and…

She shook her head and focused on her work. It was slow going. There was no way she could cut a hole large enough for the submarine to float through, especially not with that sphere poised to fall. She could only hope that they’d be able to find something helpful when they opened up the hull. If nothing else, she could cut a few smaller holes, and they could check various spots.

The hull of the Freedom moaned again. Tikaya eyed the walls warily. She told herself they were level, not going any deeper, so nothing should snap now. Despite the chilly air, she caught herself wiping sweat off her brow.

“Your progress?” Mee Nar asked from the hatchway.

“Hard to say. I can’t see much. Tell Rias to make a saw that can suck up the dust it makes next time.”

Mee Nar grunted and withdrew.

Abruptly, the resistance vanished, and she was cutting through air. Had she succeeded in slicing out a circle?

Tikaya pulled the tool out and squinted, trying to see through the haze. Guessing as to the outline of her cutaway, she gave the hull a poke with the saw. A ragged oval fell inward. A cloud of sediment and debris shot up, and Tikaya winced. She should have grabbed the cutout with the claw, not pushed it in.

Something dark shot out, bumping into her porthole. She stumbled back, fearing some new attack, but it was only one of those misshapen fish. It righted itself and flitted away.

Tikaya found the directional controls for the lamp, and angled the light into the hole. Rias had guessed right; it was a cabin, though she had no way to tell if it had belonged to the captain. It did seem to be on the larger side, though she couldn’t see from wall to wall. She wished they could get closer, but with that booby trap waiting to fall, they dared not bump the craft.

A few dark humps were all that remained of the cabin’s furnishings. Mollusks or other creatures that ate wood must have devoured them over time. Her hopes of finding anything useful faded.

“What’s the hull made from?” Tikaya called. Now that she’d seen the lack of furnishings, she was surprised the outer shell of the ship remained intact. Perhaps the paint or whatever varnish they’d used back then had protected it.

“Teak was abundant in Nuria,” Rias responded. “That’d be my guess. Is there anything left in the cabin?”

Tikaya extended the claw tool to its maximum reach and probed around at deck level on either side of the hole. Since she couldn’t change her position to see more of the interior, blind groping was the best she could manage. The claw did bump against things on either side. She fumbled about, trying to find a grip so she could drag one of the items into view. Though Rias had failed to adorn the science station with a clock, Tikaya was aware of the seconds ticking past.

When she succeeded in hooking something, she pulled it out carefully. And warily. She thought of the bones in the cave and had visions of dragging out a seven-hundred-year-old skeleton. But, no, there was too much life about down here for that. Something would have eaten the human remains long ago. Not exactly a comforting thought.

Tikaya eased her find into the light and discovered it was… a ceramic wine amphora.

“Wonderful,” she muttered.

She couldn’t work up any archaeological interest in the artifact; she’d seen dozens, if not hundreds, of similar amphoras, so unless ancient secrets were etched on the sides, somewhere beneath the centuries of gathered grime, she doubted they’d found anything useful. She set it down and probed for something else.

Three amphoras later, her groans were loud enough to reach the navigation cabin.

“Problem?” Rias called.

“Unless this colonial captain was an utter lush, I think we’ve opened the wrong cabin.”

“It might be a steward’s cabin. I’ll move us forward.”

As Tikaya retracted the claw, she heard Mee Nar’s snort and utterance of, “If this ship is full of wine, then I’m sure it’s Turgonian.”

“Ceramic just happens to withstand the centuries well,” Tikaya said. “I’m sure there were other things in the room as well.”

“Like kegs of mead?” Mee Nar asked.

“Tikaya,” Rias said, “you were right. I believe my side trip to fetch this Nurian was in error.”

“At least I’m not the one foolish enough to contemplate firing a torpedo at some Maker’s exploding artifact.”

Tikaya sat up straighter. “What?”

“I wasn’t seriously contemplating it,” Rias said.

“I should hope not,” Tikaya said.

“Unless I could modify the torpedoes to shoot at a much greater speed, thus to carry the sphere out of range of the wreck before exploding.”

“Rias?”

“A joke,” he said. “I wouldn’t fire them at this depth anyway.”

Tikaya shook her head. “I’m ready for you to move the submarine forward.”

“Understood,” Rias said, soberness returning to his tone.

The hole she’d opened up slipped from view, and the Freedom stopped ten feet farther along the hull.

“Just so you know,” Rias said, “you’re directly under the sphere now.”

“How lovely.” Tikaya started sawing again. At least if the sphere dropped and exploded, she wouldn’t have time to know what was happening before it was over. “So comforting.”

“They’re right over us,” Mee Nar said. “They must be tracking us. Or the wreck. Or their orb.”

“It doesn’t really matter which,” Rias said. “Let me know if they start dropping more explosives.”

“If the creator is up there and figures out this one is sitting down here, waiting to be detonated,” Mee Nar said, “then they won’t need to drop more.”

Tikaya pulled out a hole in the hull, this one even more ragged than the first. She slipped the claw inside and fished about, hoping for something more useful than wine. A chest full of journals perhaps, though she admitted a book wouldn’t have likely survived the water, unless it had been sealed in something air- and watertight. She groaned when she pulled out another ceramic container.

“More wine?” Rias asked.

“This might be your mead. Or food. I don’t know.” Whatever it was, she didn’t think it’d be worth grabbing as their one item that they could haul to the surface.

“They’ve dropped a round of spheres,” Mee Nar said.

Tikaya thumped her fist on the console. “Cursed banyan sprites, I don’t have anything.”

“Go in again,” Rias said. “It’ll take a moment for them to fall down here.”

“Not that long of a moment,” Mee Nar said.

“Just let me know when I have thirty seconds.”

“They’re falling fast.”

Tikaya jammed the claw back into the hole, barely remembering not to knock hard against anything—not with one sphere already down there with them. She patted about on the slanted deck, wishing she could feel what the pincers touched, not simply sense that they were bumping against things.

“Now,” Mee Nar said.

“Tikaya?” Rias asked.

She grabbed the closest thing. It scraped and bumped along the deck slowly. Either the claw tool wasn’t working as well, or this was something heavy. Hope arose within her. Then it caught against something. She cursed.

“Tikaya, we need to go,” Rias said, his voice steady but underlain with contained urgency. “Is it safe to pull out?”

“One second…”

Tikaya yanked again, but her find wouldn’t budge. Remembering the second tool, she swung the saw in, hacking into the hull, creating a wider hole.

A thump and a grunt came from navigation. “Starcrest, get us out of here!”

“Calm down, Nar.”

Tikaya finished cutting and thumped on the new cutout with the saw. There was no time to worry about whether bumps would rattle the sphere on the railing free, not when dozens more were plummeting down. Cutting the wider hole let her find a better angle, and she was able to pull her prize free. Though gray with grime, it looked like a chest. Praying that she’d found something worth risking themselves for, she worked the claw through a thick metal—or was that stone?—ring on one end. She closed the pinchers, hoping they could pull it up with them without the contents being dumped on the—

“Starcrest, it’s falling!”

Before the words were out, the submarine was moving. It lurched forward so fast, Tikaya fell into her seat. She almost lost her grip on the controls, but, not knowing if she’d entirely secured the ring, she refused to let go.

“Look out,” Mee Nar called. “It’s—”

Tikaya held her breath. They must have knocked the sphere on the railing free. Had it struck the ocean floor? It couldn’t have exploded or she would have felt it.

The submarine pulled away from the wreck, turning as it went, and she caught a glimpse of it. The glowing orb had dropped into the mud beneath the ship. And it hadn’t exploded. Tikaya released the breath she’d been holding. More might be coming, but at least they’d evaded—

A flash of crimson light assailed her eyes. Tikaya stumbled backward, tripping on the chair, and going down. Before she hit the deck, a wave of force slammed into the Freedom. It flung Tikaya into the bulkhead, her head cracking against the solid metal. Dazed, she was barely aware of sliding down the wall to the deck. The interior lighting went out, and blackness invaded the cabin.

Shouts erupted from elsewhere in the boat, but a loud snap echoed from the hull, drowning out the men’s words. Tikaya had a vague sense that she needed to get up, to help somehow, but the boat continued to rock, as if they were in a storm on the surface, and she struggled to find her knees. Dampness covered her hand. Blood? She blinked and lifted it, as if she could see through the blackness to identify it. Wetness found her knees too.

“Not blood, you dolt—water.” The ramifications washed over her. Any second, the rest of the hull might snap, or it’d collapse in on them, crushing them. “Rias, leak!”

Tikaya scrambled to her feet, blood surging through her veins and pushing away the fog in her head. For all she knew, Rias was already busy with a leak, or he was injured. Or dead. “No,” she whispered and groped her way to the hatch. Maybe if it was just in that compartment, she could—

Something bumped against her torso. A hand?

Before she could identify it for certain, it gripped her and yanked her out of the cabin. Metal clanked, announcing the hatch being shut. A soft squeal sounded as the wheel was turned. A thunderous crack came from the other side of the hatch.

“You all right?” Rias asked, his voice brusque but concerned.

“Yes, but—”

He released her and pounded away, boots ringing on the metal decking. “I have to get us up,” he called back, already in the navigation chamber.

In the utter darkness, Tikaya couldn’t move as quickly, but she patted her way to the front. Heavy breathing came from a corner. Mee Nar.

“Should I close this door too?” Tikaya tapped the hatch leading to navigation.

“If anything besides the science station floods, it won’t matter.” From the sound of Rias’s voice, he was sitting at the navigation chair. Not an iota of light seeped in from outside. He wouldn’t be able to see the gauges, his instruments, or anything. “As it is, we’re rising slowly. I’ve pumped as much air into the ballast tanks as we have, but when there’s water inside…”

“I get it,” Tikaya said. Her ears popped. At least they were rising. For now. “Does the lighting being out mean the power source is dead?”

“Dead or disconnected. That was quite a jolt. Mee Nar, I’ve still got some steering capability. Can you let me know if any more of those explosives are dropping around us?”

A rapid chain of Nurian curse words flowed from Mee Nar’s lips, punctuated by orders for Starcrest to shove his sword up his butt and laments for his choice to answer the door that morning.

“He says no,” Tikaya said.

“Yes, I got the gist.”

“Just doing my job as team linguist.” Tikaya snapped her mouth shut. Her words were coming out almost as quickly as Mee Nar’s. She probably sounded hysterical.

“I’ll try to bring us up as far away from the Kyattese ship as possible,” Rias said.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Tikaya couldn’t imagine how he had any idea of which direction they were pointing.

“Did you get anything more out of the wreck before we left?” Rias asked quietly, as if he was afraid of the answer, afraid to find out that this had all been a waste of time.

“A chest, but I doubt we still have it. If we do have it, I doubt it’s still shut with anything inside. I had the claw wrapped around a ring on one end.” Tikaya imagined them pulling up an empty chest, its secrets spilled all over the ocean floor, the depths too great for them to descend to again. If the submarine was even salvageable after this.

Rias sighed.

Tikaya thought she could see his outline in the shadows. Yes, shadows. There was a hint of light coming from the viewport. Her ears popped again. “Are we close to the surface?”

“I’m guessing fifty meters.”

“It must still be night,” Tikaya said. Otherwise, the water would be brighter, even that deep.

“Yes.”

Hard to believe they hadn’t been underwater longer. A great weariness weighed down Tikaya’s limbs, and she leaned against the hatchway. It seemed like they’d been down for days.

“I didn’t see any weapons on the Kyattese ship,” Rias announced a moment later, “but I suppose they could have more magical ordinance to throw at us. Tikaya can you man the controls? I need to see if the power supply is dead or can be brought back to life.” He sighed again, the sigh of a man who doubted it mattered either way.

Tikaya caught his arm as he stood. “We’re still alive. That’s something to be thankful for.”

“Yes.” Rias hugged her, but pulled away too soon. “But we’ve gained nothing and lost a chance to do it again.”

“You don’t know that. We could fix—”

“I saw two of those spheres drop on the wreck as we were pulling away. It’s gone.”

“Oh.” Tikaya stared at the deck. “Maybe we’ll have managed to retain that chest, and it’ll contain what we sought.”

“Maybe.” Rias didn’t sound optimistic.

CHAPTER 20

The Freedom bobbed on the surface, the stars telling Tikaya that dawn wasn’t that far off. Mee Nar hadn’t said anything since they’d come up, but she imagined he was thinking of opening the exit hatch and swimming to shore. It might not be a bad idea. The Kyattese ship wasn’t visible at the moment, but Mee Nar had nodded when she’d asked if it was out there. The dark sky and darker sea might hide the gray of the submarine for the moment, but it’d be easy to see once dawn came. They were about a mile out from the black cliffs and dead in the water unless Rias could get power flowing to the engine again. If the engine were the problem, she’d have faith that he could, but he wouldn’t have any experience fixing Kyattese energy sources.

“I wonder if he’d mind if I swam out and took a look at that claw,” Tikaya mused. She’d been musing upon the idea for a while, but hadn’t gotten further than that. As long as she didn’t go outside and check, she could hope they’d managed to pull up something. If she went out and found nothing there…

Rias appeared in the hatchway, holding a lantern turned to its lowest setting. “Something struck the power supply and there’s a hole in the exterior. I could patch it, but somehow I doubt that would fix it.” He shrugged.

“No,” Tikaya agreed. “You’d need to Make a patch with your mind.”

“If you have a technical manual that explains how to do that, I’ll give it a try, but I’m guessing such things aren’t taught in such a manner.”

Mee Nar snorted.

“They’re not,” Tikaya said. “Are we dead in the water, then?”

“There’s some energy stored in the battery. We may be able to make it to shore.”

May be able to make it. That didn’t sound promising. Where would they go that was safe anyway?

“I’m hoping the practitioners won’t be able to track us as easily with the energy source inoperable,” Rias said.

“They’ll see us floating on the surface as soon as it gets light,” Mee Nar pointed out.

“We’ll leave soon,” Rias said.

“Back to the cave?” Tikaya yawned. Back home to her bedroom sounded better. But would that ever be an option again? After she’d sabotaged a Kyattese ship and put her family in danger with her choices?

“We’ll see.” Rias eyed the sky outside. “Let’s see if we pulled anything up first. It’s doubtful the grasper kept its grip in the face of that explosion, but…”

“Yes, I was thinking about that too.” Tikaya rose from her seat and swung her arms to encourage blood flow—and to wake herself up. “It was my project. I’ll go check on it.”

“I’ll do it,” Rias said.

“You better stay in here in case there are more mechanical problems. Besides you’ve done enough.”

“I don’t know why you two are arguing,” Mee Nar muttered. “There are probably still sharks out there.” He’d lost his hysterical edge and didn’t seem to retain any of his animosity from earlier. He just sounded… defeated. Maybe he suspected he, too, would not be allowed to remain on the island—and with his family—because of his choice that night.

Tikaya hoped she didn’t sound that way. Rias was watching her.

“What?” she asked.

“I want you to stay in here while I take a look,” he said, his eyes intent, like he wanted to pass some secret message to her.

What couldn’t he say out loud? There was little left that Mee Nar didn’t know. Without waiting for her agreement, Rias tugged off his shirt and sandals, opened the upper hatch, and climbed out of the submarine.

“Are you sure he’s entirely on your people’s side?” Mee Nar asked.

“I’m entirely sure he’s on my side,” Tikaya said. “As for unswerving loyalty to groups of people en masse, I don’t think he feels that toward any nation any more. Akahe knows, my people haven’t welcomed him.” She lowered her voice and added, “Idiots.”

“Can you blame them? My people would have shot him full of arrows the moment he set foot on one of our docks.”

“I doubt that,” Tikaya said. “I think the Nurians are smart enough to see the value in a high-ranking officer who’s forsaken his emperor.”

“The Great Chief perhaps, but it’d only be luck if someone on the citizen protection force had that sort of foresight and didn’t shoot him on sight.”

The sound of water dripping interrupted Tikaya’s response. Her first thought was of the sealed science station, that it might be leaking somehow, but then a soggy Rias dropped through the open hatchway. Wet hair plastered his brow, and his trousers clung to his legs. He was empty-handed.

Tikaya’s hopes sank, but he immediately jogged into the rear, an intent expression on his face. Maybe he had found something.

“Need help?” Tikaya called.

Clunks and clanks answered her. A moment later, Rias reappeared, unwinding a coil of rope as he went. “Can you two turn the winch back there? This is heavy.”

Without further explanation, he climbed back outside. A splash announced his descent into the water again. Tikaya waved Mee Nar to follow the rope to its source, but she paused to stick her head outside. Either the moon had set or clouds covered it, for there was little illumination. The only light came from the Kyattese ship, a mix of mundane firelight in lanterns and green-glowing Made lamps.

The craft didn’t seem to have moved from the area over the wreck. Didn’t they know they’d completed their mission? Maybe they were out there with spyglasses, searching for the submarine even now.

A clank sounded as something struck the hull. The rope had gone taut. Rias’s head popped out of the water.

Curiosity hummed inside of Tikaya, but she dropped back below. If they had pulled up something heavy, it might take two people to operate that winch.

She joined Mee Nar, who was indeed straining to operate the hand-cranked machine. He shifted to the side, so she had room to grip the lever. A lantern on the floor cast his face in shadow and light, illuminating the sweat moistening his skin.

“Still regretting that you answered the door this morning?” Tikaya asked.

“Technically, I think that’s yesterday morning, now,” Mee Nar said. “And yes and no. The Kyattese won’t be pleased if they learn I had a role in this, but we made it back up. If this boat starts to sink now, I can swim to shore. Having spent time in here, and taken a look at everything, I’m sure I could create detailed drawings should anything befall Starcrest before he can sketch the blueprints for me.”

Tikaya supposed she couldn’t be surprised that Mee Nar was more interested in relaying information to his people than finding out what they’d pulled from the wreck.

“I will also remember that throwing explosives into the water is a possible way to damage one of these boats,” Mee Nar added.

“If you get lucky. We could have easily avoided them if my people hadn’t known exactly where we needed to go down there.”

“Yes, I know.” Mee Nar paused to wipe his brow, and the effort required to move the lever doubled. “Imagining the empire with a fleet of these boats is terrifying. Especially after what he said about…”

“What?” Being back in the science station, Tikaya had missed quite a few conversations between the two men.

“These torpedoes of his. He said he’s working on a clockwork mechanism that would cause them to explode a specific number of seconds after leaving their launch tubes. They travel at a specific knots-per-hour so he could gauge the distance to an enemy ship, so they’d explode precisely underneath it.”

It chilled Tikaya to think of Rias designing such weapons. Given how easily the submarine could slip beneath the waves, why did it need weapons? For their purposes, it could simply evade those who might wish them ill intent. Though she didn’t want to doubt Rias, or question his word that he’d broken ties with the empire, she couldn’t keep away the niggling doubt that tugged at a sleeve in the back of her mind.

A clank sounded against the hull behind them.

“We’re almost there,” Rias said, lowering his head through the hatchway for a moment. “Keep pulling. Thank you.”

Mee Nar grumbled and joined Tikaya at the lever again.

“An explosion underneath a ship is apparently even more powerful than one that strikes it,” Mee Nar said. “Or so he explained to me. That explosion forms a sphere of gas, and the gas rises with such force that it hurls the ship into the air and breaks it in half.”

“That’s… disturbing.”

“More so if you’re an innocent Nurian sailor on that ship.” Mee Nar gave her a significant look. “Or a Kyattese one.”

“He’s not going after my people,” Tikaya said.

“Their successful resistance is the only blemish on his otherwise perfect naval record.”

“He doesn’t care about his record, and I don’t care to discuss this further.” Tikaya stared at the winch, avoiding eye contact with Mee Nar as she focused on turning the crank.

More scrapes and clunks sounded outside as something was dragged across the hull. The chest. It couldn’t be anything else. And from the weight, it must still have something in it.

“You can stop pulling,” Rias called.

He hopped inside again and lowered the chest with his bare hands, though he staggered under the weight before dropping it to the deck with a thump. “There. Much easier to move when you’re not in the water or trying to clamber up the side of a submarine.”

Given its weight, Tikaya was surprised the chest had fit through the hatchway, but it was only about two feet long and a foot-and-a-half wide. Maybe less once one removed all the grime crusted to it. Prying open the lid would be challenging.

“Too bad all the tools are in the flooded science cabin,” Tikaya said.

“I’ll handle it,” Rias said. “Can you climb up top and keep an eye on the other ship?”

“What?” How could he think she didn’t want to be here, helping him pry that lid open?

“I imagine they’ll start looking for us as soon as they confirm that the wreck has been destroyed and that we’re not down there.”

“Mee Nar can keep watch.”

“Mee Nar will be busy concentrating to see if any magical attacks are being readied,” Rias said.

Mee Nar leaned against the hull, his arms crossed, and his eyebrows raised as they discussed him.

“Let’s find a way to get the Freedom someplace safe, where we don’t need to worry about the other ship,” Tikaya said, “and then we can all open the chest together.”

“When practitioners are involved, I don’t believe there are any safe places to hide. At least on or around this island.”

“Rias,” Tikaya said, “I want to see what’s in the box too.” She knew she sounded whiney, but what was he doing? Her curiosity was as great as his. He had to know that.

“Yes, I understand, and I’ll show you when it’s open. I want to open it by myself, though, in case it’s booby-trapped.”

“Booby-trapped?”

“These are my ancestors we’re dealing with,” Rias said dryly.

Tikaya wasn’t amused. If those amphoras were any indication, his ancestors had been too besotted to think of anything as clever as booby-trapping. “I’m sure seven hundred years at the bottom of the ocean will have eroded any security measures they might have employed.”

“I don’t want to risk having you harmed if something goes off while I’m opening it.” Rias gripped one of the rings on the ends of the chest and started dragging it into the bowels of the submarine. “I’ve already endangered you enough tonight.”

As Tikaya watched him go, it was all she could do not to stomp her foot like a petulant schoolgirl. She might have, but Mee Nar was gazing blandly in her direction. A hatch clanged shut. Rias sealing himself in to open that chest in private.

“Do you truly think he believes it’s booby-trapped?” Mee Nar asked.

“It might be. Paranoia does seem to be bred into Turgonians.”

“Or maybe he just wants to see what’s inside before he shows it to you.”

Tikaya glowered at him. “He’ll show me.”

“Perhaps.”

“What’s your agenda here, Mee Nar? I thought you were just along to get your government its precious submarine schematics, not try to start something between Rias and me.”

Mee Nar held out his open hands. “I’m simply making observations. I believe he’s fond of you, and vice versa, but in the end, he is still Turgonian. And you are not.”

If Tikaya could melt stone—or Nurians—with her glower, she was sure its intensity would be turning Mee Nar into a puddle. She was tempted to stomp back to wherever Rias had secluded himself and bang on the hatch, demanding to be let in.

But… what if she did and he didn’t let her in? Knowing the truth might sting more than having doubts.

“Aren’t you supposed to be checking for Science work?” Tikaya asked, then climbed outside for her own appointed task. Keeping watch. She grumbled and hoped Rias couldn’t read whatever he found and had to come out and beg for her help.

• • • • •

Tikaya sat cross-legged next to the open hatch, watching the Kyattese ship. It had left its spot over the wreck and was sailing back and forth in lines running parallel to the cliffs. Search pattern.

She was surprised the ship’s practitioners hadn’t tracked the submarine down yet, but supposed it was a big sea, and they might be looking under it instead of on top of it. Also, as Rias had mentioned, the energy source would have acted as a beacon to practitioners; without it, they were only three people amidst all the life in the nearby sea. Isolating the humanoid auras would take time. Though daylight would make the process much easier. She cast another uneasy glance toward the eastern sky. It seemed a smidgen lighter than it had when she first came outside.

“Tikaya?” Rias called up softly.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you come down for a minute? We have… something to discuss.”

“That sounds ominous,” Tikaya muttered to herself.

She climbed inside where Mee Nar and Rias waited. The chest wasn’t in sight. Rias wasn’t holding anything either.

“Well?” she asked.

“I opened it,” Rias said.

Tikaya propped her hands on her hips. “And was it proliferated with booby traps?”

“Actually…” Rias lifted his palm to display a new gash. “Yes.”

Tikaya dropped her arms. “Oh.”

“There would have been more of them seven hundred years ago, but, as you said, water and time effectively disarmed most of them.”

Booby traps. That meant there’d been something to protect.

“The chest was carved from granite,” Rias said. “The rings on the sides too. Only the locking mechanism was made from iron—I’m guessing because it was missing. I believe there are bacteria in the sea that consume iron. Only the shell of half-petrified grime on the outside kept the lid from falling open as we rose. We’re lucky the contents didn’t fall out.”

It was as if he was avoiding telling her what those contents were just to frustrate her. “Not to belittle your wound, but what—” Tikaya grabbed his arm, “—is inside?”

“Ah, yes, about that. Before I show you, I’m going to need a favor.”

“A favor.” Tikaya glanced at Mee Nar, wondering if he’d been privy to the chest’s contents, but he merely shrugged. “Rias, you know I’ll be happy to perform all sorts of favors, but later. I want to know if all this has been worth it.”

“The favor needs to be done soon.” Rias glanced toward the open hatchway and the fading stars above. “Now. I need you to go to the Kyattese ship and open negotiations with them. On my behalf.”

“Your behalf?”

Rias took a deep breath. “On behalf of the Turgonian people.”

Tikaya didn’t know what to say. Had he truly found something that he couldn’t share with her because he worried she’d be forced to choose her people over his? Over him? She opened her mouth to say that she’d never make that choice, but she closed it without uttering a word. Would that be the truth? What allegiance did she have to Turgonia? Absolutely none. She cared about him, yes, but enough to betray her people if it came to that? She’d gladly hand over the idiots out there on that ship, but what if the contents of this chest somehow threatened her entire nation?

“I see.” Tikaya released her grip on Rias’s arm. “What if they don’t want to negotiate? What if they’re more interested in capturing me and throwing me in the brig—or worse—because I’ve been your accomplice? A half hour ago, you were worried about me falling victim to a booby trap, but you’re perfectly happy sending me over to a ship full of people who’ve been trying to kill me?”

“Not happy, no, but this is the only way.”

Tikaya took a step back, putting distance between them. “Were you truly worried about booby traps or were you just determined to keep me from seeing what was inside before you did?” She didn’t know why she was asking. She already knew the answer.

“Will you go over and act as intermediary for our negotiations?” Rias asked.

A part of her was tempted to tell him to send Mee Nar. He’d make a more believable third party anyway, but she couldn’t stand the idea of completely stepping away from this. Besides, the Kyattese knew what this was all about; they wouldn’t have been so desperate to blow up the wreck before Rias found it otherwise. If he wouldn’t tell her, maybe they would.

With that thought, Tikaya’s musings leaped off one rail and onto another. Was that exactly what Rias wanted? What if they’d pulled up a pile of junk, and he hoped that, in pretending they’d already discovered the big secret, the Kyattese themselves would reveal it to her? Now that she thought about it, the odds that they’d found, in their hasty rush, just the right piece of information down there were slim. Though, she argued with herself, Rias had known where the captain’s cabin was. If any one spot on the ship were to hold a secret, it’d be that one. And that chest obviously had something in it.

There was no way to tell one way or the other for certain. And as long as she didn’t know the truth, she couldn’t give it away if some telepath invaded her mind to check for himself.

“I see,” Tikaya said again, more to herself than Rias this time. “Are you going to turn on the lights and wave a flag so they’ll come pick me up? I don’t fancy another swim.”

“Until negotiations are complete, it would behoove me to remain out of their reach. I have a collapsible dinghy that you can use to row out to them.”

“Oh, fabulous.” She imagined the other ship either shooting her with a harpoon as she approached or not picking her up at all, leaving her to float out to sea. “I’ll have you know that my life has become incredibly fraught since I met you.”

A hint of his old half-smile touched his face, though it had a self-deprecating edge. “I’ve heard that from people before.”

Mee Nar snorted. “That I don’t doubt.”

“Come.” Rias lifted a hand toward Tikaya. “We need to discuss my terms and what I can bring to bear if they’re not willing to negotiate.”

A mischievous—or perhaps wicked—glint entered Mee Nar’s eyes. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that ship-breaking-in-half explosion you mentioned earlier.”

Tikaya ignored him and told Rias, “I can tell that negotiating on your behalf is going to be quite the experience for me.”

“Fraught?” Rias asked.

“Undoubtedly.”

CHAPTER 21

If there was anything that could test a woman’s love more than rowing a flimsy dinghy across choppy waters toward a cannon mounted in the stern of an enemy ship, Tikaya couldn’t come up with it at the moment. A sailor in typical island garb, clam diggers and a loose hemp shirt that flapped in the breeze, stood behind that cannon with a lantern in hand, one that could be touched to the fuse to loose the deadly black ball. She imagined the man’s contemplation. Should I fire on this nettlesome woman now? Or wait until we’ve interrogated her for all she knows and then fire on her?

Normally, Tikaya would chastise herself, proclaiming that Kyattese citizens were peaceful and would never contemplate such things, but whoever commanded this ship obviously followed a different philosophy than the majority of her people. Though the simple two-masted schooner had the design of a typical research vessel, the cannons were an atypical addition. If the craft held more of those explosives, the cannons were probably the most innocuous weapons aboard.

A man and woman in white robes came to stand beside the sailor. Though dawn brightened the horizon, and lanterns dotted the ship, shadows lingered on the deck and Tikaya couldn’t make out facial features yet. A hood further guarded the woman’s face, leaving only a hint of dark, wind-tangled hair.

“Greetings,” Tikaya called when she was close enough to be heard. “May I have permission to come aboard?”

“Are you surrendering?” the man asked, his voice familiar.

Professor Yosis. Tikaya couldn’t claim to be surprised, but she would have preferred enemies who didn’t hold a personal grudge against Rias—or her. She hoped Yosis was some underling, not the person in charge.

“Surrendering?” Tikaya continued to row as she spoke, not out of any real desire to hurry aboard, but because it’d be preferable to face people instead of the black mouth of that cannon. “I’m here to act as a third-party intermediary. Former Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest wishes to open up negotiations on behalf of the Turgonian people.”

“I thought he wasn’t in a position to do that,” Yosis said. “Didn’t you claim he was exiled?”

“He claimed that to me, yes. I am merely relaying the information he gave me.”

Rias had given her a great deal of leeway insofar as what claims she could make about him and the empire, giving her only, as he’d said, his terms and, “My trust that you’ll handle the situation far more competently on your own than if I tried to instruct you.” Nice of him to say that, but she couldn’t help but feel she’d been given, as the old Turgonian expression went, enough rope to hang herself.

Yosis and the woman bent their heads together. Two other practitioners in white robes watched from the railing while sailors in island garb called to each other, preparing to steer the ship into shallow waters so they could set anchor. Someone had decided to stop searching, it seemed, to see what she had to say. Though the sky had lightened, Tikaya couldn’t see any sign of the Freedom. Rias must have submerged again. She was on her own.

“May I come aboard?” Tikaya asked again. “He knows our people’s long forgotten secret, and if we don’t want a message going straight to the emperor, we need to deal with him.”

A moment of silence passed, not shocked silence, Tikaya decided. Others on the ship were looking back and forth, as if wondering if anyone knew what she was talking about, but the shoulders of Yosis and his female comrade drooped. The woman pressed a hand to her forehead and muttered something. Yosis’s answer was short and sharp, though the wind swept the words away before Tikaya could hear them.

“We?” Yosis asked. “You’ve been walking at his side and fighting us since you returned, and now you want to identify yourself as one of us?”

Not in the least, Tikaya thought. Out loud, she said, “You should have told me what was at stake from the beginning. This is… this could change everything.” She shut her mouth and told herself not to rush things. They wouldn’t likely blurt secrets across the open deck, and if she said the wrong thing and clued them in on the fact that she had nothing more concrete than hunches, this trip would have been for naught.

“When he so clearly had you in his pocket?” the woman asked, speaking for the first time. Her voice sounded familiar, but Tikaya couldn’t place it. “Despite your old lover’s stories, nobody knows for sure what happened during those months you were gone,” the woman continued. “Many people believed—believe you’ve been brainwashed.”

“I wouldn’t do anything to put our people at risk,” Tikaya said. “My entire family lives eight miles from the capital city. Do you think I want to help the Turgonians attack?”

“That’s exactly what’s going to happen now,” Yosis grumbled, “thanks to you helping that murdering joratt.”

So, whatever was down there would give the empire reason to attack? Tikaya thought of the skull in her room, and the arrowhead that had pierced it.

The white-robed woman put a hand on Yosis’s arm. “Let’s bring her on board and see what she has to say.”

“You mean what she’s being a joratt mouthpiece about.”

Tikaya sighed. By now she’d reached the hull of the ship, and she bobbed in the water beneath the arguing practitioners. Maybe it’d been better when she hadn’t been able to hear all the muttered snarls.

Yosis leaned over the railing and glared down at Tikaya. “If you want to be welcomed aboard, why don’t you tell us where he is?”

“So you can hurl more explosives at him?” Tikaya asked. “No.” As if she knew where Rias had gone, anyway. Not far with the limited energy in his battery. “You needn’t welcome me. I’ll settle for not being shot.”

While Yosis stewed on that, the woman disappeared for a moment, then returned with a coil of rope.

She tossed the end down. “Tie up your dinghy and climb up.”

Tikaya obeyed and soon found herself being escorted below decks. The woman had disappeared, leaving Yosis to prod Tikaya along. She wondered if she was about to find out who was captaining this ship. If so, was that person in charge of the entire mission? Was he or she the one who’d ordered the wreck destroyed, along with the explosion in the harbor? What if it was someone prominent amongst her people? The president, perhaps? Was it suspicious that he’d been unavailable ever since Tikaya had returned? Or what if her hypothesis about her family being strong-armed proved incorrect because one of them was involved here? Father or maybe Grandpa?

Sweat dampened Tikaya’s palms as Yosis guided her down a narrow passage, ducking frequently to avoid low beams. He knocked on a polished koa door. Several seconds passed, and Tikaya found herself tracing patterns in the whorls of the rich wood with her eyes. Muffled voices came through the door, but she couldn’t make out the words. Yosis huffed and shifted his weight, but he didn’t raise his voice to call. Not-in-charge, his body language said. Tikaya nodded to herself. She was about to meet those who were. If they decided to let her in.

“Come,” the call finally came.

Tikaya glanced at Yosis, and he jerked his chin for her to open the door. She licked her lips, turned the knob, and pushed. It wasn’t a captain’s cabin but a conference room. Or perhaps war room was the better term. Bathymetric maps scattered the surface of a table that occupied most of the floor space.

Two people sat in high-backed wooden chairs at the end. High Minister Jikaymar and the woman who’d stood beside Yosis at the railing. She’d lowered her hood, but it took Tikaya a moment to identify her, as they’d never spoken previously. High Minister Tosii, that was it. The woman who presided over the College of Practitioners and set policies and precedents for all things Science-related on the islands. Well, Tikaya thought, numb to learn she faced people who were effectively the president’s left and right hands, Tosii certainly would be the one with the skill and power to craft those explosives or else she’d know exactly who to recruit to Make them. Though the rank of the people behind this was cause for concern—she wasn’t dealing with some crazy fringe group of zealots here—she was relieved that none of her relatives seemed to be involved. At least not on this ship.

“Sit down, Tikaya.” High Minister Jikaymar sighed and waved to a chair. Dark circles smudged his eyes.

Yosis started forward, but Jikaymar waved him back. “You have duties up top.”

“Are we still looking for Starcrest, sir?” Yosis asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Jikaymar gave Tikaya a tired look. “Is there any chance that we’ll find him?”

“He submerged as soon as I rowed away, so I suppose it depends on how well you can track him.” Tikaya shrugged, as if it mattered little to her.

“Yes, that’s worked so well.” Tosii snorted and tugged a hairband off her wrist. She scraped her disheveled brown locks back into a tail. She and Jikaymar both looked like people who hadn’t slept, maybe in several nights. “We thought we’d have no trouble finding his energy source, but it’s too sophisticated. However did you get Iweue to work on that for him? You’d think she’d be the last one to help you with your new beau.”

Tikaya must have been wearing a blank stare, for Tosii explained, “Her work is good, recognizable, and she weaved some sort of deflection field into the outer layer. I can sense that it’s out there, but not where. We’ve almost hit rocks twice now as I tried to guide us toward it.”

“I didn’t know about that feature,” Tikaya said. She’d have to give Iweue a hug next time they met.

Tosii’s lips twisted down, her expression wry as she peered into Tikaya’s eyes. “Yes, I see that.”

A telepath. Not surprising. A good one too. Tikaya couldn’t even feel the touch inside her mind, not like that clunky probing that Gali had done. She decided not to point out that the High Minister of the College of Practitioners probably shouldn’t be rifling through people’s minds unasked; after all, she was the one who had a hand in making such laws.

Tosii’s expression grew even wryer, as if she were following right along with Tikaya’s thoughts.

“You’ll likely find it very difficult to find him then,” Tikaya said aloud, for Jikaymar’s sake. “He has the chest and little reason to linger around the wreck, not like before. Also, he has a Nurian warning him when the charges are coming.”

“Does he now?” Tosii murmured.

“Chest?” Jikaymar frowned.

Uh oh, maybe that hadn’t been the right thing to mention. If they knew for a fact that chests weren’t involved, they’d know Rias had nothing that mattered. Aware of Tosii scrutinizing her, Tikaya thought of the skull and the arrowhead. That alone might be enough to rouse Turgonian suspicions and bring a fleet.

Tosii winced and stretched a hand out, laying it flat on the table. “It’s not right that we should be blamed, or punished, for the choices our ancestors made seven hundred years ago.”

“Do you truly think the empire will seek reprisal after all this time?” Tikaya asked.

“Of course they will,” Jikaymar said. “During the war, they were busy with the Nurians, and they were fighting on multiple fronts. Now that they’ve signed an armistice with the Nurians…” Jikaymar shook his head. “However temporary that peace may be, it’s got the president, all of us, concerned. And with reason. We’ve long feared that, with nothing else to distract them, they’d set their sights on Kyatt again.”

“We fought them off before,” Tikaya said, more to keep him talking than because she disagreed with his concern.

Jikaymar lifted his arms toward the ceiling. “At what cost? We barely fought them off, and that was when their forces were split. Now they could afford to send their entire fleet to our doorstep. And this would be just the excuse they’d need.”

Tikaya wanted to say, “Yes, and what is that excuse exactly?” but they wouldn’t be fooled by anything so simple. She groped for a better way to get them to admit it.

Tosii’s eyes narrowed. Erg. Tikaya tried not to squirm.

“You don’t know,” Tosii said.

Jikaymar dropped his arms. “What?”

Tosii closed her eyes, lips flattening as she concentrated.

Tikaya tried to keep her out, but she couldn’t even feel the woman’s deft touch inside her mind.

Scant seconds passed before Tosii announced, “He didn’t show you what was in the chest.”

“I have hunches,” Tikaya said. “There’s a Turgonian woman’s skull in my room with a Kyattese arrowhead in it. And we have other evidence that proves their lost colony ship sank down there. Not that they’d need evidence. They already want our islands. Any excuse…” Tikaya didn’t know whether she was having an effect on them with her words or not, so she closed her mouth. Let them make the next move.

“So, they have a chest,” Jikaymar told Tosii. “And she hasn’t seen what’s in it, but Starcrest has. Does she think they found anything or that he’s just bluffing?”

“She doesn’t know. She thinks it might be a bluff, but she’s not sure.” Tosii snorted. “Starcrest played that well.”

“He’s very smart,” Tikaya said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d pieced everything together before we ever went down there and only sought some proof to send back to the emperor.” She didn’t truly believe Rias had meant, all along, to send anything back to the emperor, but she couldn’t be entirely certain. He’d been harder than ever to read when he’d been briefing her on his terms.

“Yes, we all know he’s ‘very smart,’” Jikaymar said, imitating her voice when he said the last two words. “That’s why we were so terribly tickled when you brought him here to nose around.”

Tikaya bristled. She wanted to say that she hadn’t forced him to come and it wasn’t her fault, but… he truly was only here because of her. If all this ended up being detrimental to her people, to her family, it would be her fault.

“What are his terms?” Tosii asked.

For the first time, Tikaya felt like she might have a little power. At the least, they needed her to negotiate with Rias. “Tell me first what really happened back then. Until I know, I won’t know who I’m negotiating for here.”

“You’d better not be negotiating for the Turgonians,” Jikaymar growled.

“I am negotiating for my and Rias’s safety,” Tikaya said. “You have been trying to kill us.”

Tosii winced.

“We were trying to destroy the wreck before you got to it. If you’d stayed away, you never would have been harmed. Even Starcrest, we didn’t want to kill him—Fircrest said that’d be a huge mistake—but he wouldn’t stop with that sprite-licked underwater boat.”

“Fircrest?” Tikaya didn’t recognize the name.

“We’ve had to work day and night to create those abominable explosives,” Tosii said, ignoring Tikaya’s inquiry, “something sturdy and powerful enough to sink to the bottom of the ocean. We never would have—our people don’t create weapons.”

“Seven hundred years ago, someone created a bow and arrows and drove one into a Turgonian woman’s skull,” Tikaya said.

“If we share this story, you’ll have to agree to our terms,” Jikaymar said. “Or rather Starcrest will. Nothing spoken of here must make its way back to the Turgonians.”

“I can’t assure you of that, as he may already know the story. I’m the only one who’s—” Tikaya decided the word ‘clueless’ spoke poorly of her and switched mid-sentence to, “—missing information. I can, however, give you my word that I won’t share any of this with the Turgonians.”

“You wouldn’t have anyway. As if they’d listen to someone who played an instrumental role in their defeat during the war.”

“Actually, they would,” Tikaya said. “They respect enemies who challenge them.” Well, Rias had anyway. Every other Turgonian she’d met, with the exception of Corporal Agarik, had wanted to take her face and grind it under his boot. Turgonians only seemed to respect those who challenged them with swords. “Either way, you have little to lose by telling me the truth.”

“I doubt that.” Jikaymar’s eyes narrowed. “What is at stake if we don’t cooperate? I can’t believe the president wished to allow him to stay and build that monstrosity. We know Starcrest has built weapons into his craft.”

Of its own accord, Tikaya’s mind pulled up the memory of Mee Nar describing how the torpedoes could be made to detonate beneath a ship, resulting in the craft being hurled into the air with such force that it snapped in half like a reed toy.

Tosii sucked in a quick breath.

Tikaya thought to assure her that Rias would never do something like that, but she had no interest in assuaging the woman’s concerns. Besides, if she was reading all of Tikaya’s thoughts, Tikaya hardly needed to voice anything.

She watched Tosii for a further reaction, but the concern never left her face. Another Gali type perhaps, who thought Starcrest was brainwashing her, or at least using her to further his own goals, and those of the empire.

Tosii’s lips stretched in what might have been a pitying smile.

“Where is the president?” Tikaya asked. “It seems he’s of a different opinion of how Rias should be handled.”

“He’s an optimist,” Jikaymar said. “If he wasn’t, we already would have learned… Never mind.”

Tikaya considered him through slitted eyes. “Does the president have something to do with why you didn’t probe Rias’s mind when you took him prisoner? And why you took that bracelet off him?”

Jikaymar’s face twisted with disgust. “That had nothing to do with the president. Lord Fircrest, the Turgonian spy-cum-diplomat on the island, heard that Starcrest had been apprehended and came to my office and demanded to know what we planned to do with him. After being appalled that we’d put a lizard tracker on Starcrest—the man was actually stuttering—he informed us that the emperor would retaliate with great swiftness if he found out someone had been sifting through his former fleet admiral’s thoughts. You don’t reach that lofty a rank in the Turgonian military, he said, without becoming privy to numerous secrets that are worth killing over. I wasn’t willing to risk any of my people to some imperial assassin.”

“Knowing the empire,” Tosii said, “the entire island might have been a target. Just to ensure those secrets were squashed.”

Tikaya sank back in her chair. She hadn’t known there was a Turgonian diplomat living in Kyatt, but she imagined he would have been following Rias’s arrival closely. She doubted his warning had been hyperbole. The story of the tunnels alone, not to mention the powerful artifacts contained within, were secrets the empire would probably kill to keep undisclosed. She thought of the relic raiders who’d been dragged off to the Turgonian capital for who knew what fate. It was probably only Rias’s protection that had kept her and Parkonis from being targeted. She shuddered.

“Fircrest said the smartest thing we could do to ensure our people’s safety was to get Rias off our islands as quickly as possible.” Jikaymar sighed ruefully at Tosii. “In hindsight, we should have given him a ship.” He turned back to Tikaya. “As for the president, he’s been busy of late. We’ve taken matters into our own hands.”

Obviously. But that didn’t mean… “You didn’t do something to him, did you? To ensure he wouldn’t return to the capital?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not criminals or scheming murderers who would—”

“You almost did.” Tikaya pointed downward.

“It’s not our fault you insisted on prying and got in—”

“Enough.” Tosii flung a hand up.

“Tell me what you’re defending,” Tikaya said. “Let me be a part of the solution rather than an impediment. Regardless of what you think, I do have Rias’s ear.”

Jikaymar sat and fumed, but Tosii cupped her chin with her fingers. Considering the offer?

“It is part of her family’s history,” Tosii said. “She would have likely found out one day anyway.”

Tikaya shifted in her chair. Just how many people in her family knew? Mother didn’t, Tikaya was certain, but Father, yes, and Grandpa maybe. Her cousin, Elloil? Surely nobody would have included him on a sensitive matter. Despite her roaming thoughts, Tikaya clasped her hands in her lap and waited. If Tosii was thinking of sharing, there was no reason to say anything.

Before speaking, Tosii shared a long look with the still-fuming Jikaymar. There was nothing blatant about it, but it might have held a trust-me-I-know-what-I’m-doing undertone. Tikaya resolved not to take any offered information for fact.

“Our people left their ravaged homeland in the Southern Hemisphere hundreds of years ago,” Tosii said, “and found their way here. It was not the first place they stopped. They were driven from mainland ports by people who feared they carried the plague. They sought uninhabited islands instead, but all the places they found had cities or at least tribes on them, and news of the devastation—and sickness—down south had spread even to these remote places. Again and again, they were driven away at spear point. When they finally found a promising island they thought uninhabited, the dense jungle interior turned out to house cannibals with sharpened teeth and necklaces made from the finger bones of their eaten enemies. Again our people were chased away.”

Tikaya nodded, though she wanted to prod Tosii to move the story along. This part was in the history books. Though she supposed time wasn’t a concern at this point, there was always the possibility that Rias would fear for her safety and make a move.

Tosii frowned at Tikaya. “Yes, the history books tell us all that, but what they don’t dwell on is the fact that our people were hungry, sick, and extremely weary to the point of desperation. When they found these islands, which were full of animals to hunt, sea life to fish, and fruits and vegetables to gather, their hopes finally rose. With the warm tropical climate so different from the hot and cold extremes of the mainland they’d left behind, they believed they’d found paradise. The first island they explored, Nimu, was uninhabited and they believed they’d finally found a home. They started recuperating and building houses, but one day someone saw smoke arising from Muiele.” Tosii waved to indicate their main island. Outside a porthole, the cliffs and beaches had grown visible as dawn’s influence spread. “They’d avoided it because of the active volcano, and they hoped it was merely smoke from lava flows that they were seeing. They sent a team to investigate and found… another group of people in the process of building a town. At first, our ancestors thought they’d found more refugees from the desecrated continent, but these people had darker skin and hair coloring, and they spoke in an unfamiliar tongue that seemed to be an offshoot of Nurian.”

“And did these early Turgonians arrive first?” Tikaya asked.

“It’s impossible to say. We believe both groups arrived at approximately the same time.”

Tosii rattled off the response quickly, and Jikaymar glanced at her. When he noticed Tikaya following the glance, he dropped his gaze to study the table.

“Though I usually decrypt documents rather than spoken words,” Tikaya said, “even I can see that’s code for, ‘Yes, the Turgonians were here first.’”

“Believe what you wish,” Tosii said. “Both groups could have shared the islands. With more than ten in the chain, there was plenty of room for the two peoples to grow and prosper.”

“But the Turgonians weren’t interested in sharing.”

“No. They had only one ship in the harbor at the time, but they spoke of their colonizing mission, saying they’d soon be building more ships and going off to find the rest of their people to bring them back. Our ancestors tried to negotiate, but the Turgonians were intractable. They wouldn’t share the islands.” Tosii met Tikaya’s eyes. “A linguist by the name of Jeo Komitopis was doing the translating.”

Tikaya swallowed. She’d had a feeling some ancestor of hers would come into the story eventually.

“We can’t know for certain what conversations went on all those years ago,” Tosii said, “but a woman, Eolila Mokkos, kept a journal that has survived.”

“Mokkos, as in some ancestor of the president’s?”

“Yes. We also believe the Turgonians kept records.” Tosii’s gaze dropped to the deck, perhaps indicating the wreck and what they believed it held—had held. “Through Mrs. Mokkos’s journal, we know that our ancestors decided they weren’t leaving. Some felt we had to attack, to strike first and drive the Turgonians away. Others said they were tired of fighting and pointed out that they’d left their homeland to seek peace. Some noted how many weapons the Turgonians had brought with them and the way they practiced with swords in their daily lives. They pointed out that it’d be ludicrous to pick a fight with a warrior society. While all this discussion was going on, a small group of people decided to solve the problem on their own. A botanist had brought seeds and samples from home, wanting to bring some of their old life to their new habitat, and apparently there was also a sample of the organisms that caused the plague. The botanist had thought to study the species and find a cure. Regardless, this group of people took the sample, sneaked into the Turgonian town, and spread it around.”

Tikaya shuddered. Even though she’d known something like this must have happened, it disturbed her anew to think that her people could have, in a calculating, premeditated manner, chosen murder. It was a strong word, but she couldn’t bring herself to use a less condemning one.

“The Turgonians were decimated, but they were a hardy folk and more people survived than was expected. At that point, our ancestors believed they were forced to attack, to finish the job that an unauthorized few had started. If not… the Turgonians would have no doubt as to who’d caused all these deaths. So, our people charged in and attacked, using hunting bows and boar spears against swords and harpoon launchers. The Turgonians had superior weapons and training, but their numbers were few. Our people were winning, but a few Turgonians slipped away during the night with their most prized possessions, and, we assume, records of the events. They boarded their ship and used darkness to cover their escape. Almost.”

“We didn’t see what sank the ship,” Tikaya said. “The wreck was as pristine as something that’d spent centuries at the bottom of the sea could be.”

“Our journalist, Mrs. Mokkos, wasn’t amongst the attackers and only recorded that our people destroyed it without warning, to ensure no reinforcements could be brought. They proceeded to kill everyone in the settlement as well. Many were against it, but their choice had been made for them. To let anyone survive would be to risk the annihilation of our people when word reached the remaining Turgonians. And those original colonists… if they hadn’t survived, our entire people, our culture and all we’ve accomplished in science and the mental sciences would never have existed.”

Justification, Tikaya thought. “History is full of atrocities, though I suppose it’s different when it’s your own people who committed them. Easier to lord over those warlike Nurians and Turgonians when we have the luxury now to live a peaceful lifestyle. We’ve done a good job of portraying a pure image to the world, haven’t we?”

“It’s not our image we’re worried about,” Jikaymar said. “The Turgonians already want our islands. This would give them an excuse to marshal their entire force and take them. No other country would come to our aid, not if it came out that the Turgonians were here first and we slew them to take the islands for ourselves.” He gave Tosii an exasperated look, as if to say he’d known Tikaya wouldn’t understand and ask why she’d bothered to share the story.

Tosii was gazing at Tikaya through hooded eyes. “It was a small group of people who made a decision the rest of the colonists had to live with. And which their descendants must, per force, live with also. According to Mrs. Mokkos, the rest of the colonists were outraged, but we know the names of those who participated in the group that sailed over to unleash the plague spores. Their descendants have extremely large, fertile parcels of land on the main island, close to the harbor.”

Suggesting they’d been rewarded, not ostracized. And, from the way Tosii continued to stare at her, she must want Tikaya to think of her own family. “I assume the Komitopis who served as translator was also in this party,” Tikaya said.

“He was.”

That made Tikaya wonder if her father had been strong-armed at all. Had he chosen to go along with the high ministers, to ensure the family’s secrets remained buried? “Well, I’d already learned about the adulteress in my bloodlines. Apparently we weren’t all wholesome plantation workers after all.”

Tosii blinked. Had she expected Tikaya to be more upset? To jump to join their side because of this revelation?

“The Turgonians already want me dead for my role in the war,” Tikaya said. “What are they going to do? Kill me twice?”

Jikaymar frowned at Tosii. “This was a waste of time.”

“Let’s get back to discussing Rias and his terms,” Tikaya said. “I doubt very much that he wants to see the Kyatt Islands ravaged or our people annihilated over something that happened seven centuries ago.”

Jikaymar snorted. “Why not? He was the one who tried to make those things happen three years ago.”

“All he wanted was an outpost here, for more convenient monitoring of the Nurians. As I understand it, he came here openly, hoping to negotiate for it. You must have been privy to that.” Belatedly, she realized she had only Rias’s word as to those events. She didn’t doubt him, but if these two ministers hadn’t been involved, they’d have no reason to believe it.

“Yes, he came,” Jikaymar said, “and I said no. To give the Turgonians a base would have been, in the Nurians’ eyes, to ally with the empire.”

I? Jikaymar had been the one to veto the outpost? Had the president been consulted? Rias, she recalled, had never met the president. One of the first things he’d asked her, back when he’d been Prisoner Five, was if the president was a good man.

“In response,” Jikaymar said, “they sent a fleet to utterly destroy us.”

“By the emperor’s orders, not Rias’s,” Tikaya said. “He respected us for fighting back. He even respected—” me, she thought, but changed it to, “—our cryptanalysts for deciphering their codes. He’s an honorable man who appreciates an honorable battle. He refused to help the assassin the emperor sent to kill the president.”

“The what?” Jikaymar looked at Tosii, but she only shrugged and said, “If that’s true, that might explain why the president hasn’t been as quick to see him as an enemy. Perhaps we should have…” She glanced at Tikaya and shut her mouth.

“You’ve mentioned his terms multiple times,” Jikaymar told Tikaya. “What does he want? More specifically, what is it going to take to keep him silent on this matter?”

“He’s not willing to remain silent,” Tikaya said.

Jikaymar gave her the sort of look one gives to an ill-prepared squid dish with the rubbery texture of a bicycle tire. “That’s your opening move? That’s obviously going to be unacceptable to us.”

“He believes that as long as he’s the only one outside of your inner cadre to know this secret, his life will be at risk. At any point, someone may decide it’s safer if he’s simply not around to drop the coconuts.”

“We’re not assassins,” Jikaymar said.

Tikaya intertwined her fingers on the table and gave him her best is-that-a-fact stare. Out loud, she said, “He’s unwilling to risk that, given the events that have take place over the last couple of weeks. He proposes, instead, that the information be made publicly available to the entire world and—”

Jikaymar’s sputtering interrupted her. Tosii dropped her forehead into her hand.

“In exchange,” Tikaya continued, “Rias is willing to act as a military adviser should any nations sail into Kyattese waters with hostile intent.”

“Oh, sure,” Jikaymar said, “he’s going to take our side against the Turgonians. You expect us to believe that? What reason does he have to defend the Kyatt Islands?”

“Me, you dolt.” Tikaya caught herself rolling her eyes at him, but stopped. Negotiators probably weren’t supposed to do such things. Before Jikaymar could deliver an insulting comment on the value of her worth, she added, “He proposed to me. And I would have accepted by now if you folks hadn’t been so busy trying to blow us up.”

For the first time in the meeting, neither Jikaymar nor Tosii could come up with a response. Tosii must not have been browsing in that particular pasture in Tikaya’s mind, for she seemed even more shocked than Jikaymar.

“In addition to his council, Rias is willing to share the schematics for his submarine with our people.” All right, he hadn’t said that, but Tikaya believed he would if she negotiated for it. He was giving the plans to the Nurians after all. “And he will assist with building a small fleet of research submarines as well.” Hm, maybe she should have checked with him on that one. How did marriage customs work in Turgonia? Did the bride give a gift to the husband’s family or was it the other way around? The Kyattese used to have a bride price. Goats, pigs, and sometimes canoes, as she recalled. Rias could be the first one to offer a bride’s father submarines.

“Research submarines?” Jikaymar asked.

“He’s Turgonian. If the prototype is anything to go on, they’ll have torpedoes and deployable mines. I’m sure these submarines could be invaluable in defending the islands, should that ever be necessary.”

“That prototype has certainly vexed the rum out of our barrels,” Tosii said. “Even with the Science, it’s difficult to judge where it is when it’s submerged. The Turgonians don’t even study the mental sciences, so they’d be doubly clueless in finding a craft like that.”

Though surprised by the support, Tikaya gave the other woman a quick nod.

Jikaymar rubbed his chin. “With underwater attack vessels—”

“Research submarines,” Tikaya said.

“—available to protect against sailing fleets, I imagine we’d be able to fight off far greater forces. They’d learn to consider the Kyattese seas akin to a mine field.”

“Undoubtedly,” Tikaya said. “And Rias has quite the reputation in Turgonia. His people would think twice before launching an attack if they knew he was an honored and valued adviser to our government, an adviser who walks freely about the islands without being harassed by its citizens.”

Tosii snorted. “Is that one of his terms?”

“No, that’s my term.” Tikaya didn’t want her future… husband—she blushed at the thought—to be forced to wear ridiculous clam diggers and sun-colored floral shirts because he was worried he had to appear unthreatening here.

Shouts sounded on the deck above. A second later, knocks struck the door with enough force to rattle the planks. “High ministers?” came the accompanying shout.

“Yes, what?” Jikaymar called.

The door flew open, and an earnest cabin boy clutched his hat to his chest. “Pardon, sir, ma’am, but there’s a ship. It’s swung out of the shipping lane and is approaching our position. It’s the Eagle’s Perch.”

It wasn’t until Jikaymar and Tosii exchanged knowing glances that the significance of the name emerged from Tikaya’s memory. “That’s the president’s ship, isn’t it?”

“He did say he’d be returning this week,” Jikaymar said.

“There’s more, sir,” the cabin boy said. “The black monster? It’s on the surface and is approaching the Perch.”

“What?” Jikaymar stood so quickly, he knocked his chair over.

Tosii stood as well, but ran straight past the cabin boy and out the door.

Jikaymar spun toward Tikaya. “Starcrest won’t attack the president, will he?”

It took Tikaya a second to realize “black monster” had to be their name for the submarine. “No, of course not. He probably thinks he can get further circumventing you and approaching the president directly.” Tikaya hoped that was all Rias had in mind. In addition to everything else, he might be worried about her at this point. She had been on the ship for some time. It wasn’t surprising that he’d know who sailed around in the Eagle’s Perch, but he didn’t mean to force a resolution in a… martial manner, did he?

Jikaymar may have been thinking along the same path, for he grabbed her arm and jerked his head toward the door. “We’re going up top.”

Tikaya twisted free from his grip before they reached the stairs and jogged up of her own accord. She rushed to a railing that was already lined with people. The president’s large catamaran could reputedly make great speed, but they had brought down its sails and it was gliding to a stop. The Freedom, its form indeed nearly black compared to the twin white hulls of the Perch, bobbed alongside it. It was close enough that Rias could have hopped out and climb aboard the president’s ship.

Tikaya cleaned her spectacles and squinted. The hatch was open. Maybe Rias had already boarded. What was he up to? He’d given up his advantage by coming to the surface—Tosii or another practitioner could easily target the submarine now. Rias hadn’t known if the president was aware of the assassination attempt he’d stopped or not, so he couldn’t be certain he’d receive a friendly reception on the Perch. For all he knew, he’d be shot if he stepped aboard.

“What’s he about?” Tikaya murmured.

Tosii walked up to stand at Jikaymar’s elbow. She whispered something in his ear. Pointing out that the submarine was on the surface and therefore vulnerable? They wouldn’t fire with the president’s ship next to it. What if they missed? Of course, a weapon guided by the mental sciences might be trusted not to miss.

“Yosis, come here,” Jikaymar barked.

Before the practitioner could obey, a young sailor scrambled down from the crow’s nest, almost tripping over his bare feet as he ran up to Jikaymar. “Sir, we can’t fire at the black monster. The president went aboard.” His voice squeaked with excitement—or intense alarm—on the last word.

“What? What’s he thinking?” Jikaymar flung out an arm. “Take us over there.”

Tikaya blew out a slow breath.

“Did he go aboard of his own will?” Tosii asked.

The young sailor nodded. “The crew of the Perch was terribly concerned when the black monster popped up in front of them, and men were scurrying all about on deck, but the Scourge popped right out and started talking to folks. It wasn’t long before the president himself came out. Don’t know what they were telling each other, but he climbed overboard with one of his men and they disappeared inside.”

Jikaymar’s ship glided closer as the conversation progressed. They’d be alongside the Perch in a moment. Full daylight had come, so Tikaya could see the nervous expressions on the faces of the sailors pacing the Perch’s deck. Watching the president disappear into the strange craft had to be nerve-wracking, especially for those who knew exactly who Rias was.

Everyone on both decks halted their pacing when a head rose from the Freedom’s hatchway, and Tikaya imagined she heard collective exhales of relief. The president’s short sandy hair was more gray than blond these days, but, with a clean-shaven face and a slender build, he appeared similar to the last time she had seen him. Rias climbed out behind him. They were still too far away for Tikaya to hear words spoken, but the president must have invited Rias aboard, for they clambered up onto the Perch. Leaving the Freedom unguarded? Mee Nar wasn’t in sight, but he wouldn’t know how to take the submarine under if someone tried to board it.

“Mister President,” Jikaymar called.

The president squinted into the rising sun at them. “Yes, yes, come aboard, high ministers.” He didn’t sound that pleased with his right- and left-hand people. Good. “You too, Ms. Komitopis.”

Hm, he didn’t sound that pleased with her either.

CHAPTER 22

Once aboard the Eagle’s Perch, Tikaya found herself sitting at a fancy full-slab wooden table with Rias to her left and the president to her right. Jikaymar, Tosii, and a couple of other officials that hadn’t been introduced sat across from them. Rias had given Tikaya a reassuring pat on the shoulder before they sat down, whatever that meant. She wanted to tug him to the side and brief him on her discussion with the high ministers, but there’d been no opportunity.

Once everyone had settled into their seats, the president rested his hands on the table, fingers steepled, and met each person’s eyes. “I understand there are no secrets left in this room.”

Tikaya glanced at Rias, still wondering what he knew. His face gave away nothing, not even to her.

“And,” the president went on after a glance at Tosii, “I understand we have an offer on the table.”

The president was also, Tikaya recalled, a telepath. But Tosii had seemed as surprised as anyone at the appearance of the president’s ship, so they couldn’t have been in communication for long. A single hasty exchange perhaps?

“And that there’s been a marriage proposal.” The president didn’t smile exactly, but the creases at the corners of his blue eyes deepened.

Several faces swung toward Tikaya, and she blushed. Rias, too, regarded her, as if to ask what had prompted her to include that tidbit in the negotiations.

“Yes.” Tikaya cleared her throat and faced the president. “Is that pertinent to this discussion?”

The president spread his hands. “It may be. What Admiral Starcrest wishes to reveal to the world… Well, once the octopus is released from the trap, one does not shove it back in.”

Tikaya kept herself from wincing at the mention of an octopus.

“Thus it is, with our… checkered history,” the president went on. He liked to make those dramatic pauses, Tikaya noticed. Maybe he was simply guarding his words carefully before letting them fall. “Admiral Starcrest, on the other hand, can only prove his willingness to keep his word over time. In short, he is asking much from us with nothing tangible that can be given immediately, to ensure his future cooperation.”

Tikaya leaned back in her chair. It sounded like the president wanted something physical that could be used to, essentially, blackmail Rias if he decided to wander off without following through on his promises.

“Were he married to a citizen and living on the islands, with a passel of children perhaps…” The president spread a palm toward the ceiling. “Many would see this as a sign that he’d be unlikely to betray us…or simply forget us, and return to the empire at some future point.”

Rias’s eyebrow twitched, and Tikaya guessed he might be thinking something like, “Oh, sure, now you want me to stay on your island.” All he said was, “While it is my desire that this might come to pass in time, Ms. Komitopis has not given me an answer to what was not a particularly well-timed proposition. Apparently music and candles are preferred to…”

“Explosives detonating outside the window?” Tikaya suggested.

“Indeed.”

Tikaya was about to tell him that she’d happily accept his proposition, for reasons that had nothing to do with an interracial marriage being convenient for the president, but Rias spoke first. “I am, however, a man of my word, Mr. President, as you can verify if you ask any of my old comrades or enemies. It sounds like Ms. Komitopis has delivered my offer. I stand behind it.”

“I believe you to be an honorable man, Admiral, which is probably why—” he gave the high ministers a frank look, “—so many outer island problems have come up to delay my return to the capital since your arrival. But you have no old comrades or enemies here to vouch for you. I must consider this carefully before deciding. What you ask… could be the undoing of our entire nation.” The president pushed his chair back. “We shall reconvene after I’ve contemplated this offer thoroughly.”

“Mr. President,” Tikaya said.

Rias touched her wrist and shook his head.

Tikaya hesitated, not certain if he knew what she had in mind, to tell everyone that she wished to accept his proposal. In case he did, she only said, “He does have an enemy here. Didn’t you meet Mee Nar when you toured the submarine?”

Half-standing, half-sitting, the president frowned and looked back and forth between them. “No.”

“He hid,” Rias said dryly.

Uh oh. Tikaya had thought it’d be an innocuous question.

“I believe he still hopes he may continue on with his current job,” Rias said, “something that might not happen if he enters the president’s awareness.”

“Mee Nar,” the president said, as if trying to dredge the details of a familiar name from memory. “Is this the Nurian spy who lives near the Komitopis plantation?”

Tikaya almost laughed. How long had the government known of Mee Nar’s secret occupation? Rias didn’t seem surprised. Spying upon spies was probably commonplace in the empire.

“Yes, sir,” Tikaya said.

“If he’ll… come out of hiding, I will speak with him.” The president rose from his chair. “My officers, come with me please.”

“Shall we leave a guard for them?” Jikaymar asked.

The president considered the bank of windows overlooking the sea—the side of Rias’s submarine was just visible outside—then eyed Tikaya and Rias in turn. “I think not.” He walked out the door.

Tosii frowned at his back, but followed after with the others. Tikaya scratched her head. Was he offering them a chance to escape if they wished it? Or leaving them with the possibility of escape to see if they could be trusted by not taking it?

“As much as I’d love for you to accept my marriage offer,” Rias said, pulling her attention away from the windows, “I don’t want it to be out of some political motivation.”

“It wouldn’t be. I would have said yes already if people hadn’t been hurling explosives at us. And if the submarine hadn’t sprung a leak. And if you hadn’t turned annoyingly secretive over that chest.” Reminded of the chest, Tikaya added, “Care to tell me what’s in it yet?”

Rias glanced at the door. “Not yet.”

“And you don’t care to accept my marriage-proposal acceptance, either?”

Rias smiled sadly. “Not like this.”

“Marriage proposals don’t have to be perfect, you know. My first one involved drinking and vomiting.”

“On your part or his?” Rias asked.

“His. I understand he was nervous so he fortified himself beforehand.”

“And you accepted anyway?”

“Yes.”

“Even with—was the vomiting a part of the evening or did it come the morning after?”

“Let’s just say that I retired that pair of shoes after that dinner,” Tikaya said.

“Given these revelations, I’m feeling even more stung that you hesitated at my offer.”

“Only because of extenuating events.” Tikaya grasped his hand. “You don’t have to tell the president, but I accept now.”

“No vomiting required?”

“None at all.”

“I always suspected that scrub-brush-headed boy lacked class,” Rias said.

“His name is Parkonis.” It was the first time Tikaya could remember him insulting anyone, and she didn’t believe for a second that he’d forgotten Parkonis’s name. She supposed she could forgive him the flaw; after all, she’d have less than savory things to say about his former wife if she ever strolled onto the waterfront. Still, she couldn’t resist teasing him. “How much class did you display when proposing to your first wife?”

“Well. I didn’t vomit.”

“But you drank?”

“Copious amounts. Any man will tell you that legions of enemy troops are less intimidating to face than a woman.” Rias leaned closer and smiled. “In the empire, kissing is customary to seal a marriage proposal.”

Tikaya returned his smile, taking a moment to admire his strong jaw, the old scars that somehow added to his handsomeness instead of detracting from it, and those dark brown eyes with their flecks of gold—and mostly the way those eyes gazed back at her with love. The proposal might not have gone quite how she’d imagined, but he was here and he’d denied any interest in returning to Turgonia. “An imperial custom that doesn’t involve bloodshed?”

“Yes, it’s one of two or three that fall into that category.” Rias leaned closer, his lips parted, his—

The door opened.

Rias drew away, and Tikaya sighed. All the mischievous sprites on the island were conspiring to keep them apart. This time, only Tosii, the president, and Mee Nar entered the room.

“We accept the premise of your proposal,” the president said as soon as everyone sat down, “but require modification of the final details.”

“Such as?” Rias asked.

“We need time to prepare before this information is released into the world. These submarines, for example, must be built, and we’ll need to increase our readiness in military matters. We’ll also need to see that you’re still around and committed to the continuing safety of the Kyatt Islands, or at least some of its residents.”

The president glanced at Tikaya, and she remembered his comment about a passel of children. Though she was getting all that she’d wanted—a place for Rias on her island and a chance to have a life, even a family, with him—this new twist did disturb her, the suggestion that their choices going forward might not be entirely a matter of free will. Rias’s profile was toward her, and she watched him, wondering if he had similar thoughts.

“In theory, a time delay would not matter to me,” Rias said, “but as long as I am the only Turgonian with this knowledge, I will be a target for your people.” The president shook his head and opened his mouth, but Rias interrupted him. “You can attempt to promise me otherwise, but it’s clear that you don’t have full control over all of your people. Even those you work closely with. Also, you are an elected official whose term is up in two years. There is no guarantee you will be reelected for another term.”

“I understand your objections,” the president said, “and have anticipated them. I propose that you send the information to one or more trusted colleagues or family members you have in the empire, with instructions not to open the sealed information for a certain period of time. Upon the date specified, your acquaintance would be free to deliver the message to your emperor. I suppose it’s too much to hope that he won’t be reelected for a second term.” The corner of the president’s mouth twitched.

The negotiations had been flowing along in Kyattese, and, thus far, Rias had seemed to follow every word, but at this joke, he gave Tikaya a curious translate-please look.

“I believe the president is hoping your emperor might be somehow replaced in the near future. Lifelong reigns are tedious for those who don’t care for a particular ruler.”

“Ah.” Rias faced the president again. “Assassinations aren’t terribly common in Turgonia. It’s considered a cowardly way to get rid of a man, though I suppose you could hope for him to fall in a war.”

“Or trip and hit his head in the bathtub,” Tosii muttered to herself. “Fatally.”

“The emperor is fairly young,” Rias said, “and his heir is only a year old, so you’ll pardon me if I don’t share your hope for his demise. His passing would cause internal strife, and my people would only lose in that matter.”

“But the rest of the world would enjoy peace while it lasted,” the president said.

“Or take advantage of the turmoil,” Rias said. “If I were to agree to write the letters you suggested, what do-not-open-until date would you require?”

The president straightened, a back-to-business firmness steeling his jaw. “You can pick the exact date, but we want twenty years.”

“Twenty years?” Tikaya asked at the same time as Rias and in the same startled tone.

The president frowned at her. Right, she was probably supposed to be on the Kyattese side of the negotiations. He was probably asking for a high number, so he could afford to settle at a lower one.

“Too long,” Rias said. “I’m not a young man and the trusted confidants that come to mind were my superiors when I was coming up through the ranks. I shouldn’t wish them to pass on before they can deliver the letters.”

“You are welcome to send the news to more than one person. I am the one taking the largest risk here.” The president spread his arms, palms up. “I have only your word that you’ll send the letters with instructions for a post-dated delivery, and I can only hope that the people you choose will deserve your trust and not open the envelopes prematurely. I would… not be able to live with myself if the decisions I made today resulted in imperial warships filling the harbor before the year was out.”

“Five years,” Rias said. “That is enough time to build the submarines that have been promised.”

“Fifteen years. Our volcanoes don’t ooze metal ore. We must import the raw materials and we’ll need to upgrade our manufacturing facilities. Military issues aside, we’ll want to build larger underwater boats than the one you’ve shown me, thus to house teams of scientists on extended voyages. There are a great number of wrecks in the world, and this offers a fascinating opportunity for exploration and study.”

Though Tikaya knew he was bargaining for more time, she smiled at the way the president’s eyes lit up as he spoke of exploration. He’d been a history professor at the Polytechnic before running for political office, and he doubtlessly did find the idea of undersea research intriguing.

“All you wish can be done in five years, but I’ll agree to ten if you accept that I will not divulge the names or locations of the persons I’ll entrust with these letters. Though I find the idea of a Kyattese assassin unlikely, I would not wish to tempt anyone.”

“I will agree to these terms so long as you show me the content of the letters before you send them.”

It sounded like a formality. For whatever reason, he seemed inclined to trust Rias. Perhaps, down in the Freedom, they’d discussed the imperial assassin that had once tried to find passage to the president’s doorstep via Rias’s flagship. Or perhaps the president had already known about that. Rias had once said he’d sent a message of warning, though who knew if letters from enemy admirals were placed on the president’s desk?

“I accept.” Rias stood and lifted a hand.

The president nodded solemnly at him. “I suggest, then, that we leave these waters to the surfers. We can formalize the agreement tonight after dinner. My staff will prepare a hearty sampling of local dishes, certain to satisfy even a Turgonian appetite.”

Hand still poised in the air, Rias gave Tikaya another questioning look. Recalling that Turgonians often sealed deals orally, with nothing more than a hand clasp, she said, “Papers will be written up, and both parties will have to sign them. There’ll be multiple papers with multiple pages that require multiple signatures. Make sure to eat up at dinner. You’ll need your strength to get through it.”

Rias lowered his hand. “I see.”

The president gave Tikaya a wry look, but made a gesture of dismissal for everyone. He escorted Tikaya and Rias to the railing where the Freedom was tied. Mee Nar waited nearby, having apparently been, as Tikaya suggested, consulted in regard to Rias’s character. Speaking of wry expressions…

“Coming?” Rias asked him.

“I’ve had enough of that deathtrap.” Mee Nar waved a dismissive hand. “The captain of this ship has offered me a ride back to the harbor. Where I should apparently start looking for a new job.”

Tikaya paused. “You’ll stay here even with everybody knowing about…?”

Mee Nar twitched a shoulder. “I’ve grown somewhat fond of my wife. And the weather is most agreeable.”

“See?” Rias nudged Tikaya. “Your climate is more of a draw than you realize.”

“Apparently so.”

Tikaya caught sight of Yosis glowering from the deck of the other ship, but nobody objected when she and Rias climbed down onto the hull of the submarine. He untied the line docking them to the larger craft, and they dropped into the interior. Despite the peaceful conclusion to the negotiations, Tikaya’s shoulders didn’t lose their tense hunch until Rias sat in his chair at the navigation console and began pulling the Freedom away from the Perch—and the vessel with those explosives.

She sank down in the seat beside Rias. “I’m glad we were able to reach an arrangement that didn’t involve bloodshed. Though I’m sorry you were, ah, I hope you won’t feel unpleasantly pressured over the president’s suggestion of marriage and, er, passels of children.”

Rias rotated toward her in his seat, a serene expression on his face.

“Personally, I find big families overrated,” Tikaya said. “I should think two children would be a nice, manageable number, but only if you have notions of fatherhood.” It would be difficult to stomach if he didn’t, but they’d never spoken of it. Rather, they’d spoken of going off in the submarine and exploring together. That might prove difficult with babes along.

Rias was still facing her, his expression calm, almost bland. Or maybe… expectant?

“What?” Tikaya asked.

He smiled slightly. Waiting.

Erg, was she supposed to be figuring something out? Oh, had he…? Tikaya squinted at him. “You didn’t by chance manipulate the president into thinking he wants you to have a tie to the islands, did you?”

Finally, Rias chuckled. “Your people haven’t been that welcoming thus far. I thought it might take something on the order of a presidential mandate to gain me acceptance, or at least the right to walk and breathe without fruit being pelted at me.” He touched his jaw, and Tikaya feared that had actually happened.

“So, when we were arguing about marriage… Were you really arguing with me or was that for show?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to feel pressured about that, but, yes, I did assume we were being monitored when we were alone in there. One way or another.”

Tikaya leaned back in her seat. “Huh.”

“I hope that vague grunt denotes approval.”

“It does. And also that I was thinking that if our children are as sly as you, they’re going to be challenging to raise.”

“Perhaps you and my mother can exchange letters,” Rias said, facing the controls again.

“I wonder if she’d send advice, or warnings.” She waved to a lever he was gripping. “Back to the harbor?”

“Hm. Not quite yet, I think.” Rias nudged a control. The lighting dimmed as the submarine dipped below the surface, and water covered the porthole. He took them down ten feet or so, then leveled the craft.

“Don’t you need to find a safe harbor for conducting repairs?”

“Yes, but I had something else in mind first.” Rias draped his arm over the back of his chair. “This is the first time we’ve been alone together, somewhere that nobody can interrupt us.”

“Oh?” Tikaya bit back a smile and strove for an expression of innocence instead. “Did you have… something in mind?”

“Yes, my lady.” Rias surged to his feet and swooped her up into his arms. “I did.”

“You did? Whatever is it? I require details.” Tikaya looped her arms around his neck.

Rias ducked and slid sideways through the hatchway so her legs wouldn’t bump the frame. “It’s been irking me to no end that my helper is the only one who’s entertained a woman on my bed.” He ducked through a second hatchway, this time into the sleeping cabin.

“That does seem terribly unfair.”

“I’m glad you agree.” He bent his head and kissed her jaw, then her neck.

Tikaya would have happily given into the delightful sensations and crawled into the bed with him, but she caught sight of that chest. It sat in the corner by the door, grime still crusted to the outside, though enough had been cleared away from the lid area to reveal handsome hand-carved stone features. “Rias. You still haven’t told me what was actually in there.”

“Hm?” he asked, lips moving down to her collarbone. He set her on the bed.

Tikaya promptly squirmed out of his grasp. “I have to know. Was the captain’s log in there? A detailed explanation of the events that befell the colony? Protected and preserved in a waterproof scroll case sealed with beeswax?” Tikaya almost laughed at herself. As if the captain could have guessed that his words would spend centuries on the bottom of the ocean. “Or some other treasure of historical significance?”

Rias sighed. “I suppose it depends on how you define treasure.” He lay propped on his elbow on the bed.

Tikaya wasn’t sure if the chest would be locked again, but when she tried the lid, it opened. It was heavy, though, and took two hands to lift. She found herself staring at—

“Gold coins?” Her shoulders sagged. “That’s it? That’s all there is in here?” She raked through the mound. “They’re not even an interesting collection; just plain old coins stamped from a seven-hundred-year-old Nurian mint.”

Rias’s laughter echoed from the walls of the small cabin. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who would be disappointed by finding a fortune in gold.”

Tikaya curled her lip at the coins. She’d seen dozens of similar ones in the past. They weren’t rare or collectible, and were simply worth their weight in gold. A fortune, perhaps, but nothing historically intriguing. “I should have taken one of the amphoras.”

“The chest is nice,” Rias said. “Hand-carved by a master mason, unless I miss my guess. Perhaps if we clean it up further, the carvings will have some historical value.”

“I suppose.” Tikaya let the lid drop. “So, all that time, you didn’t know anything at all in regard to the secrets of those old colonies.”

“Nothing but guesses.”

“I’ll have to tell you the story, so you can relay it properly.”

“It was nice of you to get the information, but…” Rias patted the bed. “Why don’t we save story hour for later?”

Tikaya climbed in beside him. “If you insist.”

EPILOGUE

Tikaya searched the growing crowd of friends, colleagues, and relatives as she plucked at a seashell bracelet dangling from her wrist. She kept hoping to see her father. She didn’t expect Grandpa—he’d probably die before he called Rias anything other than an ugly joratt, and her a fool for marrying one—but she’d hoped… She wanted to see Father there. She shouldn’t, after all he’d done to try and get rid of Rias, but if he came to the wedding, it might mean that he regretted those choices, and regretted letting himself be strong-armed into making them. Or at least it might mean that he could accept that Rias would be a part of the family.

She sighed and leaned against a post supporting a flower-bedecked bamboo bower. Inside awaited a simple table supporting an old carved wooden bowl. It overflowed with stuffed dates, coconut candy, and other sweets designed to entice Akahe to visit and perhaps bless the wedding. Of course, it held at least two times the normal amount of sweets—dates had spilled out of the bowl onto the lace doily beneath it. Mother must think much more than the usual bribe would be required to get a blessing for this pairing.

“What’s taking so long?” Tikaya glanced at the house and toyed with the bracelet again. Her mother had given it to her when she’d been putting on her dress. Generations old, it had apparently been worn by many Komitopis women on their wedding days. Sensing a touch of the Science, Tikaya had asked what sort of properties it was imbued with, but her mother had simply smiled. Knowing her, it probably encouraged fertility.

“Last I heard, your mother and aunts are fiddling with Rias’s wardrobe, trying to make him look unthreatening and unmilitary.” Elloil was lounging against a post on the other side of the bower and eyeing the sweets.

“Not one of your floral shirts, I hope.” Tikaya thought Rias looked quite dashing in a Turgonian uniform—it suited him far more than island clothing—but she supposed not everyone there would appreciate seeing him so garbed.

“Nah.” Ell was wearing a chaste cream-colored shirt and forest green trousers. He almost looked respectable, though his yellow and orange sandals, replete with blue tassels, rebelled against the sedateness of the rest of the outfit. “Though, on my last trip through the house, I did hear someone musing about a vine crown woven with flowers.”

Tikaya groaned. “I hope you’re teasing me.”

“Would I do that?”

“Yes.”

Ell grinned.

Tikaya touched his arm. “Listen, I want you to know… I appreciate the help you gave Rias—and me—these last few weeks.” She especially appreciated it, given that she’d been suspecting him of being the spy in the house. His eagerness to please and help out hadn’t faded of late, and she’d finally decided he’d just been following them around because he was, much like all those young Turgonians, a touch enamored with Rias.

“You’re welcome.” Ell said it solemnly and seriously, but the grin soon returned, and he winked. “It’s been enjoyable not being the biggest ham-head in the family of late.”

“Out of curiosity, why did you follow me to the Polytechnic that night and claim my mother sent you?” Tikaya wriggled her eyebrows to let him know she’d found out Mother had made no such request.

“You had that knapsack with you. I thought you might be running away from home to go with Rias. Forever.”

“Oh. I don’t think they call it ‘running away’ if you’re over thirty.”

Ell shrugged. “I was going to offer to come along. They have surfing in Turgonia, don’t they? Anyway, I didn’t realize you were just meeting Rias to do unspeakable things together in the reading chairs in the library.”

Tikaya decided to smile rather than wince in embarrassment, though the gesture faded as she searched again for Father amongst the seventy or eighty people chatting while they browsed the mile-long buffet table. Mother and her chosen kitchen helpers had smothered it with platters that were sending sumptuous scents into the air, and few guests were straying far.

Someone cleared his throat nearby. “Tikaya?”

She turned, thinking her father had joined them, but it was her brother. “Oh, hello, Ky.” He’d dressed up and looked like he meant to stay. That was something. Nothing he’d said thus far led her to believe he was excited about having a Turgonian in the family.

“Give us a moment, Ell, will you?” Ky asked.

“Sure.” Ell offered Tikaya a you’ll-get-through-this pat and strolled toward the buffet table, his sandals slapping against his heels, the tassels dancing with each step.

Ky stuck his hands in his pockets. “Mother said to tell you we’ll be ready to start soon. I guess they’re almost done dressing your… I don’t know what to call him.”

Rias, Tikaya thought, but she imagined it’d be some time before her brother would deign to speak to Rias, much less call him by his first name. “My husband?” she suggested.

Ky grimaced. “I suppose. I had a chat with Father about… things. I hope Starcrest’s name will be as much of an umbrella as the president seems to think it will. And that he’s truly here for innocuous reasons. I don’t trust—nobody’s been in his head, have they? We don’t have any way of knowing… not really… that he’s not still the emperor’s man.”

“Ky…” Tikaya tried not to sound weary, but it was hard. This should be a happy day, she reminded herself; it wasn’t the time to start another fight. “If he were the emperor’s man, do you think he’d be bothering with Kyatt? Yes, the empire would like a base here, but they’d like to take over the whole world, too, I gather. Rias was too talented of a naval commander to be relegated to a spy position. If he were working for the empire, he’d be back out at sea, in charge of a fleet.”

“Huh.” Ky scratched his jaw.

Tikaya arched an eyebrow. Had that argument swayed him? She should have tried it earlier. Maybe it would work on Father too.

“About your chats with Father,” she said, “did he say if he was coming today?”

Ky shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

That sounded like a no. “Did he… Do you know if the pumping house was truly an accident or…? Well, I guess he was the one around the homestead, trying to thwart me and get rid of Rias.”

“I gathered he was a victim at the pumping house and that the incident was meant to insure his compliance. After that… he was only trying to protect the family. And you.”

Tikaya wished Father could have come and told her that himself, instead of telling her brother. But then she hadn’t gone to talk to him in private either. Maybe she should have. “It’s good that Rias isn’t the sort to hold a grudge.”

“I guess,” Ky said neutrally.

Something bumped into Tikaya’s ankle, startling her. She looked down to find some sort of clockwork bamboo toy rolling around with a large jar secured horizontally to its back. Butterflies flapped about inside the glass. A hand crank and staging chamber allowed one to put in new specimens without losing those already inside. Before she could puzzle out more details, laughter reached her ears, and Lonaeo bounced over to her with a net in his hands.

“Where did you get that, Lonaeo?” Ky pointed at the ambulatory jar wagon.

Tikaya could guess, but she held her tongue.

“Uncle Rias!” Lonaeo announced and plucked up the jar—it detached from the carrier wagon. “Do you want to see my butterflies? Here’s a green swallowtail and a spotted moon, a dark cerulean, a…”

Ky didn’t manage to utter anything as this list went on, but his mouth silently formed the word, “Uncle?” over and over again.

“We’re going to build a habitat in my room with food and water so I can keep the butterflies and draw them and study them,” Lonaeo finished.

Ky shook his head and walked away, mouth still stuck on that one displeasing word. Lonaeo shrugged and headed to the buffet table to impress the other adults with his finds.

“He’s built toys for a number of the kids,” Ell said, returning with a drink in his hand.

“He’s got a knack for knowing exactly who he has to sway to his side to win a battle.” Tikaya wondered if Rias had figured out yet that Lonaeo was Grandpa’s favorite grandchild, or if that was simply a coincidence. They might not have enticed the old grump into coming to the wedding, but maybe he’d eventually join them at family dinners again.

“Kids are easy to win over,” Ell said.

Tikaya gave her cousin a frank stare. “Didn’t he win you over with the promise of surfboard designs?”

“Oh, yes, and I forgot to ask you. Rias said, if it was all right with you, you two would invest in my business, enough to help me open a big shop and stock some initial inventory.”

“Invest? But we don’t have any—”

“Why didn’t you tell me you pulled a chest full of gold off the bottom of the ocean?” Ell asked.

“Oh, that.” Tikaya supposed they had funds to invest with after all. “The coins weren’t historically significant, so I forgot about them.”

“You forgot. About a chest of gold. You’re a strange woman, ’Kaya.”

“I prefer to think of her as unique,” came Rias’s voice from behind them. “Extraordinary. Sui generis.”

“Careful,” Tikaya said, turning around. “The Kyattese love for vocabulary words might be rubbing off on…” She forgot her words when she got a good look at him.

Mother must have brought in a tailor, for Rias finally wore clothing that fit him and there wasn’t an obnoxious pattern or color in sight. The creamy vest and trousers and white button-down shirt accented his olive skin, broad shoulders, and powerful form. He’d trimmed his thick black hair and shaved the goatee, leaving an admirable view of his strong jaw. Tikaya wasn’t certain even the most sedate plantation suit would hide the fact that Rias was a physically imposing man, but she’d have been disappointed if Mother had succeeded in making him look like a farmer or an academic. Or getting him to put flowers in his hair.

“You’re missing the banana yellow shirt, aren’t you?” Rias asked after she’d looked him up and down a few times.

“Oddly not.” Tikaya grinned and resisted the urge to fling her arms—and maybe her legs—around him. Too many relatives were gazing on, ready to cast judgment, no matter what agreements had been reached with the president. She limited herself to gripping his hands. “You look wonderful.”

“Thank you. You also look lovely.” He nodded to her white, satiny dress and touched a lock of the hair that she’d let Mother talk her into wearing unbraided. The loose blonde strands dangled to her hips. “Though I am partial to your usual ensemble,” he added.

“A hemp dress?”

“One blotted with ink stains and draped in cobwebs and dust acquired while rooting around in attics, archives, and library wings that have been closed for repairs.”

“I’m sure I can get this one dirty somehow tonight.”

Ell groaned. “All right, nobody wants to hear mushy pillow talk between my cousin and the Black Scourge of the Seas. Look, Yolo is taking the pig off the spit. It’s time to get this shindig started.” With that, he sauntered away.

“Your mother said the ceremony would begin soon.” Rias held up a pen. “Should I be concerned that she gave me this and said I’d need it?”

Before Tikaya could explain the implement, Mother and one of Tikaya’s uncles strolled past, Mother with a plate of fig cookies to add to the bowl for Akahe, and her uncle with two chairs, which he sat down beneath the bower, side-by-side in front of the table. He rested two stacks of documents next to the overflowing bowl of sweets. Tikaya rubbed her face as Mother balanced as many cookies as she could manage on the already huge mound.

“I shouldn’t have mentioned that you’re an atheist,” Tikaya said. “Now she’s doubly concerned that Akahe won’t bless us.”

“Is that a concern of yours?” Rias asked, probably wondering if they’d need to have the what-religion-do-we-raise-the-children-in discussion soon.

“No. Don’t tell Mother, but I’m not that interested in religions that aren’t at least a thousand years old.”

“Good.” Rias eyed the stack of papers on the table.

Tikaya was about to explain them when she caught sight of Iweue and Dean Teailat strolling toward the buffet table. She’d already run into the dean that morning—after a quick congratulations, he’d reminded her that he hadn’t leaned on the police for her sake so she could run off and get randy with a Turgonian; he expected her back at work in the morning—but this was her first time seeing Iweue. Though she wore a formal dress and sandals, she still managed to look quite bookish with her spectacles on the bridge of her nose and a pencil tucked behind one ear—Tikaya suspected the latter was an accidental rather than intentional ornamentation. She hadn’t been certain about inviting Iweue, given her relationship to Parkonis, but she and Rias owed the woman for that energy source. She’d thought Iweue might like a chance to meet the legendary fleet admiral she’d only read about thus far. Tikaya waved for Iweue to join them.

“Good afternoon, Tikaya,” Iweue said, then offered Rias a shy smile. “Admiral Starcrest.”

“Just Rias, ma’am.”

Tikaya didn’t think they’d met in person and was about to introduce Iweue when Rias gave her a deep warrior-caste bow. Judging by the degree of inclination, Tikaya figured he knew whom he was addressing. Iweue had apparently read enough books involving Turgonians to recognize the respect that the deep bow indicated, for she flushed and her shy smile spread wider.

“Your energy source proved invaluable to us,” Rias said. “The Freedom needs repairs, but when she’s ready, she’ll be at your disposal for a journey wherever you wish to go.”

“That sounds wonderful, thank you.”

Poor Parkonis wouldn’t be happy when he learned that Rias had won over both his ex-fiancée and his mother.

“I’ll bother you for more details later,” Iweue said. “I know you have a lot of paperwork to do today.” She winked at Tikaya before heading over to join the other guests.

“Paperwork?” Rias asked mildly, eyeing the stacks of documents again.

“Yes. Ah, what are Turgonian weddings like these days?” She hadn’t spent much time studying wedding customs that weren’t described in interesting dead languages.

“The bride and groom make promises to each other and kiss in front of witnesses, then the man carries the woman over the threshold and into the bridal cabin, suite, cave or other bed-containing shelter where they… make things official. No witnesses required for that part.”

“It’s done similarly here, except the promises aren’t delivered orally.” Tikaya pointed to his pen and the stacks of papers. “There are contracts to sign.”

Rias’s eyebrows rose. “Contracts?”

“Come, I’ll show you.” Tikaya led the way into the bower. “That’s your stack, so you sit there. And I sit here. When we’re all done, the priestess will notarize them, we’ll kiss, the audience will cheer, and they’ll drink and dance the night away while we’re busy making things, as you say, official.”

“Your holy person notarizes documents. Sounds like an enlightened religion.” Rias eased into the chair, careful not to bump the table with his long legs—he was probably worried the precariously balanced sweets would tumble to the earth.

“Almost everybody in a position of authority can notarize documents here, even the clerks at the adult novelties store. Welcome to the Kyatt Islands.”

Rias leafed through the first few papers in the prodigious stack. “It looks like there’s something to sign on every page. During these Kyattese weddings, is it typical for the consummation of the marriage to occur on the same night that the festivities start?”

“Not early in the night, but eventually.” Tikaya decided not to mention the essay portions she’d heard about. “Divorce is frowned upon, so we Kyattese like to make sure young people have time to think things through before they consummate anything.”

“I better get started then.” Rias removed the cap from his pen and studied the first page. “This probably goes more quickly for people who grew up reading the language.”

“I’m not sure how closely the documents get read, regardless.” Tikaya patted about, searching for a pen of her own.

One appeared in the air beside her. She lifted a hand, intending to thank Mother, Ell, or whoever was providing it, but found herself looking into her father’s eyes. He wore his dark gray dressed-for-the-symphony suit, the only non-plantation clothing he had, and his short hair was damp and freshly combed, his chin shaved clean of stubble. He gave Rias a flat look. It wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t antagonistic either. Tikaya swallowed. It was a start.

“Make sure he signs page eighteen,” Father said. “That gold won’t last forever.”

Tikaya smiled and accepted the pen. “I will. Thank you.”

While Rias flipped through the pages, no doubt wishing to check what eighteen contained, Tikaya glanced about, searching for Mother, certain she’d had a hand in Father’s appearance. She was carrying yet another tray out to the table, though, and seemed startled when she spotted him. With his pen and message delivered, he walked over to join her.

“I must vow to practice my bow and spear skills, thus to ensure I can always deliver a boar to your spit?” Rias asked, summarizing the page’s contents.

“My society wishes to ensure its mothers and children are well cared for. Given your physical prowess in other areas, I expect only the finest boars.” Tikaya winked.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do my best.”

Tikaya glanced over her shoulder and caught Mother giving Father a hug. “I wonder what made him decide to come,” she mused.

Rias said nothing, keeping his head bent over the pages and scribbling initials and signatures in the appropriate spots. Tikaya remembered the look Father had given him.

“You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”

“I might have spoken to him this morning,” Rias said.

“And he listened?” Tikaya imagined Rias in there, hands clasped behind his back, sturdily taking the brunt of her father’s ire. “Without calling you any derogatory names?”

“Well, he listened. I told him I wanted to see you happy, and that it’d please you to have him here.”

“That worked?” She was sure her mother would have already tried that argument, though maybe it meant more coming from the enemy camp.

“I also promised to install the shock absorbers on his runabout,” Rias said. “That may have been the tipping point.”

Laughing, Tikaya bounced off her chair and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you. I love you.”

He returned the embrace, dropping his chin onto her shoulder to murmur, “Just remember that feeling when the first boar I bring home is scrawny and emaciated.”

Before Tikaya could say she doubted he’d be anything less than a superb hunter, Mother’s voice interrupted. “Now, now, dear, you know the rules. No physical affection is permitted until after both parties have signed the contract.”

“Yes, do get back to work, please,” Rias said as Tikaya huffed and returned to her chair. “I want to see what sorts of tasks you’re signing up for over there.”

“Hm.” Tikaya decided not to mention the last quarter of the contract, which contained instructional information on satisfactorily fulfilling bedroom duties. Waiting until marriage to have sex had fallen out of favor in recent generations, but the contract had originally been devised to assist young couples who might lack experience in that area. More entertaining, she decided, to let Rias find that section on his own. If nothing else, it ought to amuse him how thorough her people were with labels and diagrams.

“What’re they doing here?” Ell asked.

On the road at the edge of the palm tree copse, several elegant runabouts were gliding to a stop. Aides and white-robed men and women stepped out, followed by the president and four high minsters, including Jikaymar and Tosii.

“It seems they’ve come to ensure the event goes as planned,” Tikaya said.

“Not exactly.” Rias lifted a hand toward the president and wriggled the pen. “I invited them.”

“You, what? All of them?”

“My side of the guest list looked a tad sparse.” His smile was on the sly side. Sparse, indeed. He might have denied an interest in politicking once, but Tikaya had a feeling he’d be one of the most popular men on the island in five years.

Shrieks of laughter sounded as Lonaeo raced past the bower, chasing after his self-propelled butterfly wagon. Tikaya lifted an eyebrow at Rias. He gazed back blandly.

Five years? It might only take one.

THE END

AFTERWORD

Thank you for following along with the adventures of Tikaya and Rias. Look for them to make an appearance in the final Emperor’s Edge novel, as well.

As always, I’d love to hear from you; you can get in touch with me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or my blog. If you would like a quick note when I have something new out, please sign up for my newsletter. Also, if you enjoyed Forgotten Ages, you can help me out by leaving a review at your favorite store. Thank you!

BONUS EXTRAS

I bring you an interview with the exiled retired Fleet Admiral Rias Starcrest. He’s recovering from the events in Decrypted as I talk with him (note: Decrypted takes place approximately eighteen years before the Emperor’s Edge books, so any references to Sicarius will be of the young seventeen-year-old assassin Rias last dealt with in Encrypted), but I’ll edit out any spoilers.

Interview with Former Fleet Admiral “Rias” Starcrest

Thank you for agreeing to join us for a few minutes… Rias. Is it all right if I use that name? I know you have your friends call you that, though I’ve admittedly put you through some… distress of late.

Indeed.

That… wasn’t really a yes, was it? Well, either way, thank you for joining us. I understand the Kyattese have been keeping you quite busy, and I imagine Tikaya is, too now that you’re… ah, better not spoil things for the reader, eh?

*eyebrow quirk* Indeed.

Hm, this is starting out a lot like that Sicarius interview. I sense you don’t approve of me fully. Well, perhaps you’ll open up to your readers? Why don’t we jump into the questions…

First up, Moondreamer asks, “Does he want kids? How does he view his future with Tikaya now that they’re both free?”

Yes, I do want children. Freedom, now that’s an elusive concept. So often people claim to seek it, yet they construct the bars of their own cages.

That’s how you’re going to open this interview? With philosophy?

*another eyebrow twitch* I’m getting a sense of why your characters don’t approve of you.

Hey, it’s not me. The readers like… Well, you’ll see what folks really want to hear about in some of the future questions… but let’s keep things simple. Next up, Daisy and Cat wonder what your first impressions were of Tikaya.

My first thoughts were along the lines of… “Dear ancestors, they’re putting a woman in the cell across from me? When I look and smell like this? Maybe if I hide in the corner back here, she won’t notice me…” I wasn’t in a very good state of mind then, you understand. It was only her mutterings of puzzles and mathematics that intrigued me enough to speak.

Right away, her presence on the warship caught my interest, but it wasn’t until I learned about her unique role in the war that I became rather smitten.

Meera asks, “Would you return to Turgonia if it had a more progressive emperor?”

Though I’m reconciled to the life of an exile — and the Kyatt Islands are a far better place to live in exile than most! — it would be pleasant to be permitted to visit my family and old colleagues at some point. But there is little point in musing upon such matters. Emperor Raumesys is neither an old nor unhealthy man, and I expect he will continue to rule for a long time.

Sarah asks, “Is there really a Starcrest Adventure Series for Boys, also known as the less factual tales of Rias’s adventures, that Sicarius kept in his cubby at the Imperial Barracks? Is there an accompanying action figure now with more strategizing action? If there is an action figure, how does he see Tikaya reacting to this knowledge?”

*blink, blink* You’ve heard of those books? I confess that I haven’t read any of them, but I’m sure they overly dramatize true events. I’m not aware of any “action figures.” How does one strategize in an actiony manner? With much pacing?

As for Sicarius, we did not discuss books or… cubbies (I believe that what a young man keeps in his cubby is no one’s business but his own), but I did, of course, sense that he regarded me with deference that he didn’t display toward the other officers. I suspected he was familiar with my military career and found it admirable.

Leslie, SparkleGirl, and others want to know how you survived on the penal island. “How long was he there for? What was it like, and was he forced to eat anyone?”

Will this interview be publicly available in the Polytechnic library?

Oh, I should imagine so. They keep records of everything, don’t they?

Well, then, since I may have children one day, I’ll say only that surviving on Krychek Island was difficult, but I was not forced to do anything forbidden by the Kantioch Treaty or that would be otherwise considered reprehensible by modern human notions of morality.

I see. And these nightmares you still suffer from on occasion, they’re of…?

*Rias eyes the Kyattese landscape for a moment* Coconuts falling on my head. It’s dreadful.

Turgonians are very good at keeping secrets secret, aren’t they?

It’s part of the anti-interrogation training, yes.

K2N2 asks, “Is there anything that scares you to the point where you’d seriously consider running in the other direction? No, I understand the Turgonian military doesn’t run….so I’ll rephrase that to ‘perform an expeditious strategic retreat to a more defensible position?’”

I have, on more than one occasion, expeditiously retreated to a more defensible position when my ex-wife’s mother came to visit. Interacting with Tikaya’s grandfather is a pleasure by comparison.

As for physical threats, I’ve rarely found those too daunting to face. I’ve been told, by those under my command or otherwise foolish enough to stand within range of artillery fire with me, that this isn’t always an admirable trait.

Sweartoad asks, “What’s your stance on goatees/facial hair? Spelunking is a very popular sport in Turgonia. Your thoughts?”

Turgonian military regulations require facial hair to be kept shaven. But… I suppose those regulations don’t apply to me anymore. Do you think I should grow a goatee? I had some facial hair for a brief time during the story you know as Decrypted, as I was too busy to tend to daily ablutions. Or sleep. Or eat. Tikaya, however, seemed relieved when I shaved it.

Spelunking? In the aftermath of recent events, it may be a while before I’m ready for more cave explorations, though, for the purpose of research, I did enter a cave with Tikaya during our adventures here on Kyatt. Twice.

Just to be clear, you’re talking about real caves, right? With rocks and bats and things?

What else would I be referencing?

Never mind. Rebecca and Kara want to know about the black knife. “Has your black dagger become your tool of choice, like Sicarius? Or did you snatch other super sweet tools from the Alien ruins?”

Actually, the Kyattese confiscated the knife and everything else in my pack when they first detained me. I haven’t seen the black blade since. Perhaps some erudite archaeology professor is using it to clean his nails during staff meetings?

Kitty asks, “So is he gonna be a good submariner and do it deep?”

Yes. Yes, I am.

You know that was a sexual innuendo, right? I only ask because English isn’t your first language, and Tikaya isn’t around to help with translations. You kind of missed the spelunking thing.

*bland expression* Yes.

All right, then. Moving on. Parang asks, “Rambunctious Rias in his youth… what was he like to his closest friends?? Do his teachers have stories that they pass on to future cohorts?”

Due to the age difference my classmates and me, I was usually… Let’s just say there were years when books were my closest friends. I was often able to convince the neighborhood kids to play with me by showing off the incendiary and sometimes explosive devices I’d built. Nothing dangerous, of course. Nobody lost more than their eyebrows. Or part of an ear. But I maintain that Rivvy Ravencrest blew off his own ear.

As for teachers, I’m told they found me bright, delightful, and… don’t confirm Tikaya’s suspicions here, but the word trying came up often at parent-teacher meetings. That started sometime after the outhouse-as-a-rocket incident. I’m certain I wasn’t the first boy to see if it was possible to make an outhouse… airborne. It’s possible I was the first to achieve it. Have you ever noticed that incidents like that remain on your record? It came up during my officer candidacy interview, if you can imagine.

Rhiannon asks, “Did he like those who must have been in charge when he was still a Warlord? The Emperor, Hollowcrest and (perhaps) Pike.”

I had little contact with them until I reached the rank of admiral. Even then, I was at sea most of the year, interacting with my superiors only through written documents. Since I usually only came into ports for restocking and repairs, and the capital is far from the sea, I didn’t meet the emperor or Commander of the Armies Hollowcrest in person until my promotion ceremony to fleet admiral.

Is it just me, or are you avoiding answering the question?

As a marine, you’re taught to obey the rank, no matter what you think of the person.

I guess that’s the best we’re getting, hm? Okay, last question. Sam says, “I would like to know more about his first wife.”

Sam, if you have a warrior-caste lineage, money, great stamina, dexterity, and an utter lack of inhibitions, I can introduce you to her. Oddly, I don’t believe she’s remarried yet.

~

Q&A with Lindsay

In interviews, you’ve said that Encrypted is still one of your favorite works. What makes it special for you?

Encrypted was my first attempt at writing a romance in addition to a grand action/adventure/mystery story, so it sticks in my head a little. I’ve written many more fantasy and science fiction romances now, but Rias and Tikaya are still one of my favorite pairings, maybe because they’re both big geeks. Their passions seemed to give them some common interests and fun chemistry, right from the start.

I also felt that because they were from enemy nations, they had so much built-in conflict that there wasn’t any need to have them snapping at and misunderstanding each other, at least not for long. Conflict between the hero and the heroine is at the heart of any good romance, but sometimes the characters end up being so snippy with each other that you start to hate one or both of them.

On the topic of enemies, I have a longstanding fondness for stories that explore the relationships of characters who realistically should be great friends but who can’t be (or at least not easily) because their peoples are enemies. This fondness goes all the way back to The Fox and the Hound, which I saw when I was about four (and proceeded to memorize, as any good fan-kid does). One of my favorite Original Star Trek episodes (I saw all of those when I was quite young too) was Balance of Terror, where Kirk and the enemy commander were such similar types of people that they should have been buddies, but their people were at war with each other, so one of them had to die.

Fortunately (I think), I’m more into happy endings than tragic ones, so Rias and Tikaya were able to work things out.

In addition to all of that, I enjoyed the mystery and the danger elements in Encrypted, and I felt that the tension was quite high throughout the story. By mixing in the science fiction elements, I think it ended up feeling like a more original fantasy novel than some.

Did you find it difficult to write such smart characters? Any tips for other writers doing the same?

Oh, absolutely. I adore smart heroes and heroines, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a stack of advanced degrees or a particularly good memory, so I have to scramble to look smart. It’s definitely daunting to write geniuses for heroes. I did the best I could and am not sure I have any advice, other than that it’s a lot easier to make someone seem smart if he or she isn’t the point-of-view character. I’m guessing there was a reason Watson usually narrated the story instead of Holmes!

Unlike with the typical romance formula, I didn’t jump into Rias’s head at any point in these books. Part of that was because it would have ruined the mystery about who he was (it’s hard to make a character seem smart when the reader knows something he or she doesn’t), but also it was partially because it was easier to make him comes across like the genius military strategist he was supposed to be if I wasn’t showing his thought processes. I just tried to show that he was usually a step or two ahead of the rest of the characters.

The cover for this bundle is a lot different from the covers on the original books. What’s the deal?

One of the cool things about being an independent author (or one horrible things, if you don’t have a knack for design) is getting to hire your own cover designer and having a lot of input on what you want on there. The trouble is that a lot of us authors don’t have the experience that publishers do, and we don’t know what will really draw the eye of our target audience. Early on, I just did my best to represent the story when I gave blurbs to the designers. I still haven’t figured everything out, but I’ve learned that going for what’s more typical of what’s selling in the genre is usually better than going with something esoteric from the stories.

If you’ve seen the Encrypted cover, you know it has one of those cubes on it, and if you’ve seen the Decrypted cover, you know it has a submarine. Both of those covers have more of a science fiction vibe than a fantasy one. I think that’s fine, since there are elements of science fiction, but they’re also romances, and that’s not represented well. I thought putting a woman with a bow on the cover would suggest, if not romance specifically, a female heroine and more of a fantasy feel than a science fiction one. I’ve always thought these stories could appeal to high fantasy/epic fantasy fans.

I’ll admit the chick on the front isn’t quite “Tikaya” in my mind, but at least she has a bow and the right hair color. It’s tough to find what you want on the stock photo sites!

What should I read next?

If you haven’t read anything else by me, and you’re interested in trying more, you might want to go on to The Emperor’s Edge series. Those books are set in the same world as Encrypted and Decrypted, about twenty years later and with characters from the empire (Sicarius, the young assassin from Encrypted, is one of the main characters). There’s plenty of action, mystery, humor, and Tikaya and Rias (and children) show up for the last two books in the series.

If you want something that’s still a fantasy adventure but that’s heavier on the romance side, check out the Dragon Blood series. Balanced on the Blade’s Edge is the first.

Lastly, if you want lots of romance (including steamy scenes) with your action and don’t mind jumping into science fiction, you can try my Ruby Lionsdrake books. The first is Mercenary Instinct and is free in the various stores.

Thanks for following along!

Table of Contents

- Main Title Page
- Forgotten Ages, Books 1 - 3
- Title Page
- PROLOGUE
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- CHAPTER 16
- CHAPTER 17
- CHAPTER 18
- CHAPTER 19
- CHAPTER 20
- CHAPTER 21
- EPILOGUE
- Title Page
- Part I
- Part II
- Part III
- Part IV
- Part V
- Part VI
- Part VII
- Title Page
- CHAPTER 1
- CHAPTER 2
- CHAPTER 3
- CHAPTER 4
- CHAPTER 5
- CHAPTER 6
- CHAPTER 7
- CHAPTER 8
- CHAPTER 9
- CHAPTER 10
- CHAPTER 11
- CHAPTER 12
- CHAPTER 13
- CHAPTER 14
- CHAPTER 15
- CHAPTER 16
- CHAPTER 17
- CHAPTER 18
- CHAPTER 19
- CHAPTER 20
- CHAPTER 21
- CHAPTER 22
- EPILOGUE
- Afterword
- Bonus Extras