She tightened the blanket around her shoulders again and groped through the shadows for her bludgeon. Her fingers struck the gold bulging beneath the sleeve. The material was wet now. Hopefully all the knots down its length would prevent it from slipping from her grasp.
What had she tripped over?
Climbing to her feet, she shuffled forward until her toes hit the lump. She reached down. Her fingers met stiff wet leather and traced a familiar rectangular shape, then another. Armor. This was one of the guards’ cuirasses.
This was one of the guards. She’d tripped over a body.
Dear sweet Heaven. What had happened? Did he need help?
Her eyes were adjusting to the faint light. She couldn’t see anything clearly yet, but the shape of the body against the deck was a darker shadow than the darkness around it. Her hands searched upward. The skin was still warm. Had he simply fallen dead? Killed by exposure to the elements?
No. She froze as her fingers brushed his wet throat. A feathered wooden shaft protruded from it.
An arrow.
Heart bolting against her ribs, she scrambled back and glanced frantically around. Oh, dear God. Another shadowy lump lay at the port end of the command tower. The other guard. Someone was killing the people on this ship.
She’d apparently chosen a very, very fortunate time to escape.
Was anyone here now? She could only hear the engines and the rain, could only see the dark. The hangar lay ahead and up one ladder.
Gathering her courage, she sprinted for it—then cursed and splashed to a stop. Weapons. She needed to disable the other flyers or the general’s men could chase her down.
If any of them were still alive.
Better not to think of that. Whoever had done this had saved her from bashing the guards, but she didn’t want to be lying beside them.
She raced back to the guard’s body and stopped dead as a figure dropped into the shadows just ahead of her, landing with a heavy thunk against the iron deck. Not another body. A man—rising from a crouch. Huge, with the unmistakable silhouette of a bow slung across his back.
The killer.
A cry of terror jumped into her throat. Zenobia choked it back and swung.
The bludgeon hit with a solid thunk and the chink of gold. Not his head. His shoulder. Oh, God. He was so tall, she’d misjudged her aim. Panicked, she drew back for another swing.
A strong grip snagged her wrist, spun her around. A big hand over her mouth stifled her curse and easily pulled her back against a tautly muscled frame. No! His palm muffled her infuriated scream. Desperately she kicked and tried to swing her cosh again. Her struggles were nothing against his merciless strength.
The rain drummed. A familiar, deep voice sounded in her ear.
“Good evening, wife.”
Zenobia froze. Ariq?
Disbelieving, she stood trembling as he uncovered her mouth. She spun in his arms and looked up, trying to see him through the dark. The night was cruel, concealing his features, but his clothes smelled like stale seawater and fresh rain, and he was warm and solid and undeniably here.
Ariq had come for her.
His gentle fingers traced her jaw. “You’re all right?”
No. Something was building inside her, something big and indescribable that lodged in her chest and pumped it unbearably full, and she was a breath away from crying.
How could she be all right? Her heart had been shattered and healed in the same day. All right didn’t begin to describe her state of being now.
But it would have to do. They hadn’t escaped yet, so this wasn’t time to break down.
Her breath shuddered as she finally nodded. Taking his big hand in hers, she started for the hangar. “The flyers are this way.”
Ariq tugged her back against him. “Who has your pack? Your letters? I’ll find them for you.”
The tears were suddenly closer, her chest tighter. “They’re gone. Let’s go.”
“Gone?”
“The general burned them.” Her voice broke. “Please. Let’s go.”
A long second passed before Ariq asked, “What flyers?”
“The silver flyers. They used them to make everyone in the Red City believe the marauders had taken us from the embassy. But we can use them to get away.”
“Where are they?”
She pointed to the hangar.
“We’ll destroy them on our way, then.”
“We don’t need them?”
“I have a balloon.” Taking the bludgeon from her aching fingers, Ariq tucked a dagger into her tunic’s sash and led her to the platform ladder. “Go up to the suspended walkway. Be careful—the rungs are slick. I’ll be right behind.”
But not directly behind. He stopped at the hangar and urged her ahead. She climbed the smokestack’s ladder. From below came the distinctive clicking sound of a windup device.
He probably wasn’t winding a toy. She climbed faster.
Rain lashed her face when she reached the walkway. On the decks, she’d barely felt the motion of the heavy ironship, but up here the bridge seemed to sway and pitch. She clung to the rail and waited.
He was here. Ariq was here.
And her body was shaking. Giddiness? Fatigue? She didn’t know anymore. Suddenly, none of this felt real. Just a fantasy conjured out of her exhausted dreams. She was probably lying on the deck, bleeding to death with an arrow through her throat.
Only she wasn’t. Ariq appeared and took her hand, leading her quickly across the bridge.
“I set it for five minutes.”
She didn’t ask what he’d set. He’d already stopped and placed her fingers on a stiff rope.
A ladder. She looked up and got an eyeful of rain.
Ariq’s warm hand cupped her face. “It’s anchored to the ship now, but I’ll have to release the tether before I climb. The ladder will fall away. Just hold on tight and keep going up.”
Just keep going up. That had to be easier than bashing faces in. She nodded against his palm. “Five minutes?”
“Four minutes now.”
She gripped the ladder. His steadying hands remained on her waist until she’d climbed out of his reach. She glanced back. A few lanterns still glowed on the opposite side of the command tower. Dear God, the deck was so far down. She was high enough to see over the top of the wheelhouse—
How could the pilot not see her? There was always someone in that part of the tower.
Her gaze shot to the windows. Inside, a gas lamp cast a soft golden light that gleamed in a pool of blood.
Oh. Ariq hadn’t just been looking for her. He’d made certain that no one would interfere with their escape.
The sudden addition of his weight made the ladder lurch in her grip. She clutched it tighter, her heart pounding, then almost lost her stomach when the ladder swung free.
Smoke from the stacks billowed into her face before she swung into clean air again. The ironship steamed on—and she was hanging from a balloon over the sea.
Well. She had wanted adventure.
Steeling her nerves, she pulled herself up to the next rung. The swaying wasn’t so bad now. Worse were the little jolts that ran through the rope every time Ariq rose up another step. Each jolt threatened to tug the wet rope from her hands and slip the rungs from under her feet. She didn’t know how her heart wasn’t bursting.
How long did they have? Three minutes? And she still couldn’t see the balloon. She could barely even see the ladder she was climbing.
The jolts against her hands weren’t so terrible now, as if she was reaching the point where the ladder anchored to the balloon. The rain had stopped—and the air was warmer. A solid shape resolved against the dark sky. The balloon’s basket.
Gratefully, she gripped the side and dragged herself over. Ariq was there a second later, pulling up the ladder.
She looked out over the ironship. The glow of the deck lanterns was the only thing visible on the wide expanse of the sea. The rain hadn’t stopped, she
realized—it was just the balloon overhead acting as an umbrella. “How much time?”
“Another minute.” He moved past her. A soft metallic thunk sounded, as if he’d pulled a lever. “They’re only grenades—they’ll destroy the flyers, but won’t do much damage to the ship. They’ll start looking for us, though.”
“Can they see us up here?”
“No. And they’ll see even less when we’re up in the clouds. But sound carries on the open water, and we don’t want to give them anything to aim their rail cannons at.”
The ship’s engines concealed any noise they made now. But when the explosives went off, the general would order the engines stopped. She and Ariq would have to be utterly silent after that.
Ariq joined her. His arm circled her waist and he drew her back against his broad chest. Throat thick, she leaned into him.
She managed a husky whisper. “Thank you.”
His arm tightened. The lanterns below seemed to be drifting farther away—not just because the ironship was still underway, she realized, but because the balloon was rising.
“What is this?” His voice was a low rumble against her back. “Your gold?”
He held her bludgeon in his free hand. She touched the knotted sleeve. “Some of it.” The rest was still in her cabin. “I intended to bash the guards’ heads in and take a flyer.”
His body stiffened. “I vowed to return for you. Did you not believe it?”
“I believed you would try. I waited for you on the deck each night.” Below, a bright flash lit the ironship’s stern. A crack sounded, like the roll of thunder. “But we weren’t where you’d left us. I didn’t know if you could come. And I wasn’t going to let the general use me any longer. Not against you, not against your people, and not to hurt my friends.”
He didn’t respond. Mist swirled around them.
More lights appeared on the decks. The engines quieted. The mist thickened as shouts echoed from below.
Her heart seemed suddenly heavy, and her body so tired, as if every bit of the energy that had carried her to this point simply drained away. She whispered, “Am I an idiot for trying?”
Ariq gathered her closer and she felt the soft brush of his lips against her wet hair before he murmured, “No.”
Good. Zenobia laid her head back against his shoulder. Warm and solid, Ariq held her as the cloud swallowed them up, as she closed her eyes.
And he was still holding her when she floated away.
XIX
By dawn, the numbness in Ariq’s left shoulder had bloomed into a dull, throbbing ache, but he could finally raise his arm above chest-level again. He’d taken blows from soldiers in mechanical suits that did less damage than Zenobia’s bludgeon had. He was fortunate she’d hit muscle, not bone. Even he would have had to slow down for a shattered knee or a cracked skull.
Ariq had known Zenobia might destroy him. He just hadn’t thought she might literally pulverize him.
She wasn’t pulverizing anyone now. Sitting against the side of the basket, Ariq cradled her against his chest, her head pillowed on his right shoulder. She’d barely stirred through the night. Now he could see why. Gray light had begun filtering through the clouds, revealing her face, partially hidden beneath the fall of her tousled hair. The sight made his chest constrict. Even asleep, she looked exhausted. She’d said she’d waited up for him each night. Now he suspected she hadn’t slept at all. The darkness under her eyes looked like bruises. Her pale skin seemed tightly drawn.
How could he have ever told her she wasn’t beautiful? In all the world, there was nothing Ariq would rather look at than her face. That had to be beauty. Not the shape of a nose or the fullness of lips, but that she could draw his gaze so powerfully and fill his heart every time he saw her.
His wife. Ariq had expected to love her. He hadn’t known that simply holding her in his arms would feel like a gift.
Before, holding her had merely been something he’d wanted. It would have led to a kiss, a touch, her bed. He still wanted that. Needed that. Now he needed this just as much.
Unwilling to wake her, he traced the curve of her cheek with his fingers hovering just above her skin. Her steady breaths warmed his fingertips.
Her hand lay against his chest. Blue silk covered her wrist. She’d layered a sailor’s tunic over the one she’d been wearing the night they were abducted, but only the first layer still possessed a left sleeve. She’d made her bludgeon from the missing length—knotted and as dangerous as a mace.
So clever, his wife. She’d wondered if her plan had been foolish? It had been far less reckless than his own escape had been. Bash a few guards. Take a flyer. Simple.
Not so simple for her, though. It would have been easier for her to stay on the ironship. But she hadn’t.
Just thinking of the risk she’d taken made his heart swell and ache. When he’d promised to come, Ariq had humbled himself before her. He’d let her step on his hand to show everyone that there was nothing he would place above her. It was a gesture meant to show loyalty to a khagan, but by kneeling, by submitting to her foot upon his palm, he declared that she was his queen.
But until now, he hadn’t truly been humbled before her.
Fighting came easy to him. His body had been made to destroy his enemies. From almost the date of his birth, his mind had been filled with the fires of rebellion.
Yet it wasn’t so easy for others. And seeing her sleeve, Ariq felt as he often had while traveling through villages and cities back home, listening to the stories people told. There were always incredible tales from the battlefield, of great warriors whose legends were recounted through the centuries—but the tales that affected Ariq most were the ones often forgotten. Men who stood in front of their homes, protecting them from the Khagan’s armies until their last breaths. Women who cut out their own tongues rather than reveal the locations of families in hiding. Anyone who refused to be trampled beneath the Khagan’s feet.
Neighbors sometimes called those people reckless and foolish, too.
Ariq would never blame those who chose safety over rebellion. He didn’t know what it was to live in fear, so he couldn’t know how difficult it was to stand against the terror. But he knew those who stood risked more than he ever had.
So had Zenobia. No wonder she held his heart in her hand.
Her ink-stained hand.
Remembering his earlier assumptions, Ariq grinned against her hair. Not a spy. His wife was a writer.
A popular writer of fanciful rubbish, according to the twins.
The twins’ judgments meant nothing. Any story that didn’t include the torture of innocents would likely be rubbish to them. But fanciful? They probably weren’t mistaken in that.
He wouldn’t have guessed. Zenobia seemed so practical. Yet if she had written so many of these stories, something of the fanciful must appeal to her.
The twins had given him one of her stories—the one that had been called seditious in the imperial city. Ariq wished he’d read it. He wished he had it now. They had been drifting with the clouds throughout the night, putting distance between their balloon and the ironship. Ariq should be getting up, setting the course back to the Red City. But he didn’t want to wake her, so, if necessary, he would sit here for the next few hours. A story would have passed the time. He couldn’t remember ever reading any fanciful tales before, though he’d heard his share in the soldiers’ tents. He’d only read histories, some poetry, descriptions of battles—nothing fictional. So his wife’s would be the first fanciful adventures he read.
He looked forward to them. He looked forward to discovering everything about her—and to the day when she loved him in return.
Maybe she already did. If so, Ariq didn’t think she would let him know yet. Her walls were too high, too strong.
He looked forward to breaking through them. Whatever it took.
His gaze fell to her soft lips. Whatever it took—but he hoped it required using his mouth over every inch of her body.
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br /> Her eyelids suddenly squeezed tighter. She frowned in her sleep and shifted in his lap, wriggling closer and turning her face against his shoulder. Her hip nudged the hardening length of his cock. Ariq stifled a groan, then tugged the edge of her blanket up, shielding her eyes from the early morning light. She needed to rest.
A balloon basket was no place to bed his wife for the first time, anyway.
And he would continue reminding himself of that. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back.
Almost six days had passed since they’d left the smugglers’ dens. Meeng, Tsetseg, and the others should have returned to Ariq’s town by now. They’d have carried the news that the rebellion was responsible for the marauders’ attacks. Ariq had told them to prepare the town’s defenses.
They wouldn’t need those defenses against the marauders. Lord Jochi had sold about two dozen of the silver flyers. Most of them were destroyed now. If Ghazan Bator wanted to continue attacking airships, he would have to procure more flyers. No doubt he could, but Ariq would hear about it. And now Ariq knew what to look for. The ironship had most likely served as the marauders’ base. Before the attacks, they’d made temporary camps inland to launch from, but Ariq probably hadn’t found any other sign of them on the ground because there wasn’t any sign. Commander Saito could hunt the waters if the attacks resumed.
Unless Saito received orders to fire on Ariq’s town, instead.
It shouldn’t happen that quickly. Saito believed the empress would order a fleet to the western coast as a deterrent first. Only after another attack would she send men to each of the settlements to search out the marauders. If they found nothing and the attacks continued, firing on the towns would be her final order. But if Ghazan Bator used the flyers to suggest the marauders had abducted Ariq and Zenobia from the embassy, that might have changed everything.
Instinct railed at him to return home, to defend. But he couldn’t do anything there that his brother and his soldiers wouldn’t do just as well. He had to stop this at the source. Not Ghazan Bator or Admiral Tatsukawa. He knew the general too well. If Ariq killed him, Ghazan Bator would have another plan in place, and Ariq wouldn’t be prepared for it. Better to face the enemy he knew.
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