Blood and Betrayal (53 page)

If he brought up his stupid statue, Amaranthe didn’t think she’d be able to keep from smacking him. Wasn’t anyone else concerned that Sicarius hadn’t reappeared? He’d saved all of their lives before. They owed him more than disinterest. She caught Basilard looking around, a hint of concern in his eyes. That was something at least. And Maldynado didn’t mention the statue. Maybe he was genuinely more concerned about her and her bounty.

“What are we going to do now?” Akstyr asked. “If he’s not the true emperor, do we even care who’s on the throne?”

“We care,” Books said, joining the conversation for the first time.

Amaranthe remembered the look he’d given her up on the ledge. He’d seemed to know about the Sespian-Sicarius link.

“We want someone in charge with the foresight and wisdom to manage the future’s changing currents in a manner that will empower the people, not impoverish them.” Books glowered at Maldynado, as if he, because of his older brother, was responsible for Forge’s scheme.

Maldynado lifted his hands, pointing a finger at Akstyr. “He asked, not me.”

Now that it’s possible there are choices
, Basilard signed,
are we certain a nineteen-year-old boy is the person with the ‘foresight and wisdom’ of which Books speaks?

“Perhaps not,” Books said.

Akstyr scowled at Basilard, perhaps objecting to the notion that young people couldn’t have foresight and wisdom.

“Let’s not abandon him yet.” Chin up and back stiff, Yara appeared miffed at how quickly people were dismissing Sespian.

Amaranthe shared the feeling, though she wasn’t sure it mattered. Would Sespian want anything to do with the throne now that he knew he wasn’t the rightful heir? What if he simply walked away? Though she didn’t know him well, she had a hard time believing he’d do that. Even if Sespian knew he couldn’t be a part of the ruling future, she thought he’d want to try and thwart the Forge and Marblecrest scheme. Besides, he still had a claim to the throne, albeit a muddled one.

Books came over and touched Amaranthe’s shoulder.

“Wait,” Maldynado said before Books spoke, apparently in response to Basilard, “who
is
Sespian’s father? Does anybody know?”

“Some kitchen boy, probably,” Akstyr said.

“Don’t be crude,” Yara said.

When Amaranthe didn’t speak, Books’s eyebrows rose. “Are you going to say anything?” he asked.

“How long have you known?” she murmured.

“I’ve had a hunch it was something like that for a while, but the exact puzzle pieces didn’t snap into place until Sicarius threatened Maldynado if he didn’t keep the emperor safe.”

“Ah.” At least she hadn’t been the one to give it away. Right, Amaranthe told herself, you can keep secrets from friends, just not from enemies.

“I have been working on ideas,” Books said, “for a new form of government.”

“A new
government
?” Amaranthe had only ever wanted to help Sespian retain his position. Now Books was proposing… she didn’t even know what. Revolution?

“It was only an exercise until this information came out,” Books went on, “but the antiquated notion of an empire might not be what Turgonia needs as it goes ahead into modern times. So much of the strife between the old warrior caste and the new entrepreneurial class is born out of mutual resentment, which never would have been a factor if land and power were not hereditary, gifts given to those loyal families who have been willing to support totalitarian rule over the centuries.”

Maldynado strolled over, and, for once, Amaranthe was glad. She wasn’t ready to think about spearheading a revolution.

“What are you two discussing?” Maldynado asked. “Some sort of… ” His gaze shifted over Amaranthe’s shoulder.

Sicarius strode out of the trees, as grim and deadly as ever. Relief flooded Amaranthe, though, with so many witnesses present, she didn’t run to him. He wasn’t looking approachable anyway. He wasn’t wet, so he must have found a back way out, but Amaranthe wished he
were
wet, as the water might have washed the blood stains off his hands and out of his hair. She’d seen him gore-covered before, but, given Sespian’s new knowledge, she wished he looked less like a soldier straight from the front lines. An assassin, she thought, not a soldier.

Sicarius spotted Sespian further down the beach, and a hint of the starkness faded from his eyes, though an uncommon stiffness accompanied his gait. It might have been an injury or simple tension.

“Glad you could join us.” Amaranthe forced a smile. She didn’t want to open with accusations, but she had to know what he’d done down there. “Did you, ah… ”

“There was a translucent barrier further protecting their meeting area,” Sicarius said. “I found another way around, but they sent their bodyguards to delay me. I dealt with them and was catching up with the Forge people when the tunnel collapsed.”

“Tunnel collapse?” Amaranthe asked, her heart sinking.

“There were several after an explosion sounded.” Sicarius looked at her, as if he knew she’d been responsible. And why not? Who else did he know that was crazy enough to blow up tunnels from within? “Water flooded inside, causing structural damage. I reached the docking pool too late to retrieve our vehicle. I had to find another way out.”

A swollen bruise on his temple made Amaranthe wonder if, for once, the blood spattering him
didn’t
belong to someone else. Dust caked his black clothing, and numerous scrapes abraded his hands.

“Sorry about that, but you
did
choose to take an alternative route out.” Amaranthe felt like a heel implying that he would have been safe had he stuck with her—she’d nearly gotten her entire team killed—but wandering off to stalk Forge people had been his idea, and she refused to pity him for the bruises he’d obtained. “You said you made it to the submarines. Do you know if, ah, did all of the Forge people get out?”

Sicarius hesitated. “Unknown.”

That uncharacteristic hesitation made Amaranthe probe deeper. “Truly?”

Sicarius clasped his hands behind his back. It wasn’t the first time she’d received silence in lieu of a response, and she’d learned to read some of his silences. He was protecting her. Her actions
had
resulted in deaths. Not all of the Forge people had escaped in time. Amaranthe stared at the ground, stung by the cosmic unfairness. She’d accidently achieved what an assassin had wished but failed to do. Sicarius stood there, stained by blood, while the water had washed any such stains from her. Visible stains anyway.

A few meters away, a boot crunched on pebbles. It sounded loud on the quiet beach. Amaranthe hadn’t realized how still it had grown, or how many eyes had been turned toward her conversation.

Assuming one of the men was simply moving about, Amaranthe didn’t turn to see who it was. Only when Sicarius’s hand dropped to his dagger, halted halfway there, and hung in the air, did she turn.

Sespian stood there, a loaded pistol in his hand. Aimed at Sicarius.

Stunned, Amaranthe could only gawk.

“Uhm,” Maldynado said, summing up her thoughts.

Amaranthe had expected a reaction from Sespian, but not this reaction. She lifted a hand and stepped toward him.

He skewered her with a hard gaze so similar to ones she’d received from Sicarius that it stopped her in her tracks.

“Don’t move.” Though Sespian spoke to Amaranthe, the pistol never wavered. Its muzzle pointed straight at Sicarius’s heart. When Sespian looked at him again, anger seethed in his eyes. “How?”

Sicarius lowered his hands, not toward his weapons, but to his sides. He didn’t say anything. He did glance toward Amaranthe, and she cringed, knowing she bore all the responsibility for this moment.

“How did it… ” Sespian took in several deep breaths that did nothing to lighten the tension bunching his shoulders. “Did you rape her?”

The blunt accusation startled Amaranthe, but she abruptly understood the pistol. In case Sicarius was going to answer with silence again—silence that might be misconstrued as an admission of guilt—Amaranthe said, “No,” for him.

Ignoring Sespian’s earlier warning, she walked toward Sicarius. She didn’t lunge to protect him, fearing a quick action would surprise Sespian into shooting, but she strode across the intervening distance and planted herself in front of him. Sespian moved the pistol so it didn’t point at her, but he didn’t lower it.

“Your mother chose him,” Amaranthe said, keeping her eyes toward Sespian, though she was aware of the slack-jawed stares from the rest of her team. “Raumesys got rid of his first wife for not producing an heir. Your mother intended to make sure she wouldn’t suffer the same fate. She could have seduced some kitchen boy, but she wanted you to inherit athleticism and intelligence.” She looked at the pistol in Sespian’s hand and over her shoulder at Sicarius, who ought to be saying something by now. “
Some
intelligence, anyway.”

That earned her a brief slit-eyed look from Sicarius. She tilted her head toward Sespian, implying that Sicarius could take over the explaining any time.

“How does the boss know so much about this?” Maldynado muttered to Books.

Amaranthe didn’t hear the answer. She was focused on Sespian. He was doing a good job of being just as stony and hard to read as Sicarius.

“That’s the story he gave you?” Sespian finally asked. “And you believe it? Without any proof?”

A grimace wanted to find its way to Amaranthe’s lips, but she forced herself to smile and keep her tone light. “If you had any idea how much prying I had to do, you wouldn’t doubt that I’d finagled the truth out of him.”

“You’re wrong. My mother was a good person. She
never
would have slept with a psychopathic murdering monster.” Sespian threw the pistol down. “If you want to protect him, fine, but I want nothing to do with him or anyone who chooses to be around him.”

Sespian sent a dismissive glower toward the others before turning his back and stalking down the beach. Not down the beach like someone who needed time to think, but down the beach with the determined stride of someone who never planned to come back.

Amaranthe sighed. At least, with nothing except rowboats left un-crashed, he couldn’t go anywhere quickly. She faced Sicarius, whose expressionless façade was firmly affixed. “Please note, for future reference, when someone asks you if you’ve raped someone else, the appropriate answer is a prompt no.”

Though Sicarius’s expression never changed, Amaranthe was close enough to catch the long, soft exhalation. It had a deflationary effect on her as well as him. “Saying something would not have mattered,” Sicarius said. “He would not have believed it.”

Probably true. With no peers and so few allies growing up, Sespian must have loved his mother a great deal. Imagining her as someone who had willingly sought out a man that he considered a monster couldn’t be easy. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to do it at all. No, Amaranthe couldn’t accept that. Sespian might never come to care about Sicarius, but he
would
know the truth. After all the times Sicarius had saved her life and backed up her silly schemes, she owed him that.

“Don’t worry,” Amaranthe said, “I’m not giving up.”

She gazed out over the lake. The serenity of the water belied all the craziness that had gone on beneath the surface. She didn’t know what she’d say to Sespian, but she had best go after him before he found a way off the island.

“No,” Books said, in response to someone’s murmured comment. “Sociopath is more applicable than psychopath, though I don’t believe either is wholly accurate.”

Amaranthe rubbed her face. Leave it to her men to focus on the inane and unimportant. Sicarius didn’t seem to have heard. He was gazing in the direction Sespian had gone, his face—to most—unreadable, but Amaranthe sensed the bleakness beneath the mask.

“There are enforcers out there,” she told the team. “We need to leave soon. Please gather whatever gear might be useful from the steamboat. Oh, and that money too.” She had a feeling they’d need it to fund… She wasn’t sure yet. “I’m going to talk to Sespian.”

“Where will we be going when we leave?” Books asked.

“I’m not sure. I need time to think of a plan.”

Amaranthe heard Akstyr saying, “I hear the Kyatt Islands are nice in the winter,” as she walked away. She might have to do some extra persuasive talking to keep everybody from going their separate ways now that they knew backing Sespian wasn’t a path to having their dreams fulfilled—or bounties lifted.

After several minutes of searching, Amaranthe found fresh footprints on the sandy beach near the dock. They led to the boathouse. She paused in the doorway to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior. She expected to find Sespian readying a canoe or rowboat, but he was merely sitting on the worn wooden deck, his face resting in his hand. He must have heard her walking in, but he didn’t lift his head.

Amaranthe sat on the end of an upturned canoe. “I don’t know if you know this, but that day in Stumps when we first met, it brought me to Hollowcrest’s attention. I guess you mentioned me in a… romantic light.” She watched Sespian for a reaction, and thought there might have been a wince, but his face remained covered by his hands, and she couldn’t be certain. “Since he thought I would be an inappropriate choice, he figured he’d deal with the matter by having me killed. He created a ruse of an assignment, sending me off to kill this notorious assassin and promising me a promotion should I succeed. I was uncomfortable at the idea of assassinating anyone, wanted murderer or not, but I didn’t think I had a choice. Who refuses the Commander of the Armies?

“Well, I wasn’t as clever as I thought, and Sicarius saw me coming. He was a split second away from killing me. Literarily. He had his hands around my neck—but he stopped just shy of breaking it.”

Though Sespian didn’t lift his head, his fingers shifted, so he could see her.

“You see, this young man had given me a bracelet. For luck, he’d said. And luck caused that bracelet to slip free of my sleeve at that moment so that Sicarius saw it. That’s what made him pause. He knew it was something you’d created, and he figured I must mean something to you if you’d given it to me.”