EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (252 page)

“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 XVII

W
ATER
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—”