“Is that what the general did—sit down with you to negotiate? I will decline that offer.”
“Send Commander Saito with your demands, then. I will answer them. I cannot give over the machine’s location without some promise that there will be no retaliation, and we will not come to any agreement through a device.”
“I will send him,” the admiral agreed.
Good enough. Taka stopped cranking the device, and when Ariq was certain that the communication had stopped, asked him, “Will he give up?”
Taka shook his head. “This is all he has left—the hope that he might destroy the Khagan. He won’t give up.”
Ariq sighed. “Then we wait for Saito.”
“He is not you,” Taka warned him. “He won’t disobey the admiral’s orders.”
“What if those orders came from Lady Nagamochi? Would he favor those over the admiral’s?”
“Yes. She carries the voice of the empress.” Taka frowned. “Is she coming?”
“Most likely. She wants the machine, too.”
Taka stared at Ariq for a long moment before shaking his head. “I do not know how you will win. But I will stand beside you.”
Ariq hadn’t doubted it. “I married while I was away.”
“Married?” His brother blinked. “To whom?”
“The woman who was aboard the French airship. The companion to the ambassador’s wife.”
After a moment of confusion, Taka suddenly grinned. “Truly?”
Ariq couldn’t stop his own grin. “Yes.”
“Look at your face.” Suddenly laughing, Taka shook his head. “We are in the midst of all this and you look like that. I have not seen you so happy. You have all of my best wishes, brother.”
“Thank you.” He drew a deep breath. This was not something he wanted to say, but it needed to be said. “She overheard your comments about her appearance.”
The light in his brother’s eyes dimmed. “I am sorry for that. So very sorry.”
“I’m sorry that I stopped your apology to her. I won’t again.”
“Of course.” Shame filled his face and his voice. “I must have injured her.”
He had. But no worse than Ariq had done. “She is a sensible woman. She knows that it was said in bitterness and not meant for her.”
“That is not an excuse.”
“No,” Ariq agreed. “But there exists not one man who never errs. We would be gods.”
And gods didn’t apologize. Men did.
Taka nodded, but the torment in his expression didn’t ease. “Where is she?”
“An airship outside of town, where she’s safe. Your apology must wait for Saito.”
And hopefully, the commander’s arrival would be the beginning of the end of this.
***
One of the fleet’s airships brought the commander in. Ariq greeted him at the docks, but Saito declined his invitation to join him in the town. The commander appeared as tired and as worn as Ariq felt. His mustache only twitched once, when Taka told him how Ariq had finished Ghazan Bator.
“I will not trust the soup at that table anymore, then,” Saito said before his humor vanished again. “I am to tell you that you must give up the machine by midday, on the day after tomorrow. If not, we will firebomb your town.”
Two days. Heavy dread filled his chest. If Tatsukawa was already setting a deadline, he likely wouldn’t move it. “No negotiations?”
“No.” He bowed suddenly. “Now I must take my leave. My orders are to tell you this and go.”
Dregs and hell. “Your airships are over Wajarri territory. You should move them before it sparks a war between the tribes and your empress.”
Saito hesitated before nodding. “I will persuade him.” After another short hesitation, he said, “I speak as a friend when I urge you to give up the machine. The admiral will not be swayed.”
“And I will give him my answer the day after tomorrow,” Ariq said. “And I speak as a friend when I tell you to make certain your men are tethered to the deck of your ironship, as if they are weathering a storm.”
Saito’s eyes narrowed. “Any attack on the fleet an attack on the empress. You couldn’t choose a more foolish route.”
“It is not a choice,” Ariq said. “Tether your men.”
The commander nodded before bowing again. “I hope that we will soon meet as friends again.”
Ariq did, too. “We will.”
With Taka at his side, he watched Saito ride the platform up to his airship. Quietly, his brother said, “What do we do now?”
Bleakly, Ariq started back to his town. “We prepare for war.”
And pray that it didn’t come to that.
XXXII
So much needed to be done. Just after dawn, Lady Nergüi’s crew returned to the airship and they flew into town. Almost all of the townspeople were already hard at work carrying valuables from their homes to the shelter of the kraken shells.
The anxiety in Zenobia’s heart deepened and twisted. She knew Ariq hoped to resolve this without any blood being shed. But if these people were storing their belongings, then he must believe they might be firebombed.
Ariq was nowhere in sight. Archimedes met her at the airship’s ladder while his wife consulted with her crew. Along with Mara, Cooper, and her brother, Zenobia spent the rest of the day carrying and packing supplies. Most of Ariq’s soldiers were gone—preparing the machine, she assumed—but it wasn’t until the afternoon that Zenobia realized that some of the men helping were from Ghazan Bator’s ironship. Only a day earlier, they’d been occupying this town.
By this time, it probably shouldn’t have surprised her that Ariq was a man who could make an ally out of a former enemy, yet it did. But she didn’t think he would have as much luck with the fleet.
The ships and airships were never far from her thoughts. They couldn’t be, not when she labored so hard to protect Ariq’s town from them. And not when she only had to look to the west, and the heavy vessels commanded every view of the water and the sky.
It was dark when Mara finally pulled her away and to the baths, where Zenobia quickly washed and rinsed away the dirt and sweat. A long soak would have done her sore muscles well, but was impossible; the cramping that had plagued her stomach the past few days had not just been from anxiety. At least Mara had been able to procure a new tunic and trousers for her. As Zenobia dressed, it struck her that she had brought nothing at all from the tower—and she didn’t possess a single item that she’d brought with her from her home in Fladstrand. No gold. No clothes. Not even a hairpin.
But she still had Mara and Cooper. She still had her brother and his wife. She still had her life—and her good sense.
That sense fled when she emerged from the bathing house. Ariq was waiting for her, his hair wet and his eyes dark. “Good evening, wife.”
“Good evening.” Though Zenobia wanted to throw herself against him, she stopped at arm’s length. She didn’t know if word of their marriage had spread, and even if it had, whether touching him was out of place.
It must have been. Though his gaze devoured her, he only turned to the side, inviting her to walk with him. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes. All day we’ve had food shoved into our hands. Everyone we helped gave us something, and the last woman made us sit for a full meal.” A forceful old woman named Aisha, whom Mara told her later had once been a pirate queen. Her lively eyes had followed Zenobia’s every move.
Word of Ariq’s marriage had spread, she suspected. But no one in town would speak of Ariq’s business with strangers—even if one of those strangers was his wife. Zenobia wasn’t one of the townspeople.
Yet.
“How went your preparations?” The underground pumps had rumbled beneath her feet a good portion of the day.
“Everything is in order.”
So he could use the machine, if he had to. But Zenobia knew he didn’t want to. “What will happen?”
“I don’t know yet.” Though hi
s face was calm as he replied, his shoulders were rigid. “Captain Corsair scouted to the northwest. More airships are coming. They’ll arrive by tomorrow morning.”
Her stomach tightened. “Lady Nagamochi?”
“Yes.” He stopped. “I will attempt to negotiate.”
Negotiate. That was what he’d said last time, and he’d been tortured. “After everything that happened, you’ll try again?”
“Yes.”
“How can you forgive what she did to you? What the empress did?” Zenobia never would.
“I don’t forgive.” As he faced her, she saw the rage that still burned in him, barely contained by the clench of his fists and the taut set of his jaw. “I don’t forgive. But I will put my anger aside.”
Of course he would. For his town he would. She wished he didn’t have to.
Quietly he added, “But I will not put yours aside.”
She frowned up at him. “Mine?”
His anger seemed colder now, and his eyes took on an icy glaze as he stepped closer and said, “I will not put Lady Nagamochi’s threat to you aside. There is nothing above you. Nothing. Say the word to me and I will avenge every pain she and the empress have visited upon you.”
Her heart clenched. He hadn’t even avenged his mother for fear of losing his brother. Now he risked losing his town. Yet he would take that risk if she wanted revenge?
She did. And if not revenge, at least justice. But not at this price.
“No,” she said softly. “Don’t.”
Though a part of him must have been relieved by her response, he shook his head and insisted, “The terror you suffered must be answered.”
“Then I’ll answer it my way. I’ll take my own vengeance.” She wouldn’t allow him to jeopardize his people for her. “Do not take it from me, Ariq.”
His jaw clenched, but he nodded. “There is more that you should seek vengeance for.”
Something terrible, by the look of him. “Then we will say it at home.” She continued on and waited until he walked beside her again. “I have more to tell you, too. I am not with child.”
Silence was his only response.
She stared blindly down the street ahead, afraid to glance up and see his expression. “Are you disappointed?”
Zenobia had been, though only fleetingly. This was only their first month together. This was only the beginning. They had years ahead of them and time enough for children.
“No. We will have time.” His reply echoed her thoughts. A deep breath lifted his broad chest as he admitted, “My silence wasn’t disappointment, but fear. There is a part of me that still believes you are more likely to stay if you are pregnant.”
The same part of him that had been hurt so badly during their argument in the tower, before Lady Nagamochi had come. The part of him that couldn’t have been hurt if she’d been more open with him.
She couldn’t change the past. But she could be more open with him now. “I wouldn’t be more likely. That probability is already one hundred percent; it cannot be any greater. You don’t have to doubt.”
“You don’t make it easy, wife,” he said.
“I suppose not.” She glanced at him with a smile. Amusement has softened his expression, and she thanked God that he didn’t mind having married a difficult woman. “I am disappointed, but also glad. I would like to have a blacksmith infect me with nanoagents before I become pregnant.”
The amusement vanished, leaving his face utterly still. “Nanoagents,” he echoed flatly.
“Yes.” She’d considered it before, but had always put it off. If infected, she couldn’t visit or return to the Americas. She hadn’t planned to, but it had seemed foolish to erase the option.
But Ariq’s response had nothing to do with the same fears that made the cities in the Americas close their borders to the infected. They feared zombies; Ariq feared how the nanoagents might leave her vulnerable to the Khagan’s radio towers. The Horde had used the nanoagents to control laboring populations, to restrict their emotions and their free will. Though the tiny machines could have made every rebel soldier’s body stronger and heal more quickly, the infection would have been the end of the rebellion. The Khagan could have simply smothered their resistance from within their own bodies.
Zenobia had different fears. “I have never heard of anyone who was infected dying while in childbirth. Have you?”
His expression suddenly stricken, Ariq closed his eyes. “No.”
“Our children will not be infected. That is a decision we can make together—or we could leave it up to them.” If a boy or a girl inherited his strength, the nanoagents might not even be necessary.
He nodded. Though his voice was strained, he said, “I only care for your safety.”
She could not love this man more; her chest seemed overfilled with it. He would accept the choice she made, even if it terrified him. But perhaps she could reassure him a little. “I’ll use my brother’s blood to do it. His nanoagents are only susceptible to the tower in Rabat, and your uncle destroyed it years ago.”
There were smaller devices smuggled out of the Horde empire that might affect her, but they were hard to find and even more difficult to afford. Ariq had to know that, too—and she thought that soon he would be contacting everyone in the smugglers’ dens to make sure that any such devices were sent to him, so he could destroy them.
His chest rose on another deep breath as they neared his gate. “We have not spoken of my brother, and of what he said about you on the night we met.”
Her stomach twisted. When Taka had said she was a pale, ugly ghost. “That’s all in the past.”
“Between us.” Ariq stopped inside his garden wall and took her hands. “Not between him and you.”
He was right. And though she always wanted to run from any confrontation, she couldn’t run from this. “I cannot pretend that I will never think of it. Probably when I do not want to. I will not forget it, because that is beyond my power. But I can forgive it.”
“Even if you do, I suspect he will apologize for a very long time.” He sighed and drew her close. “I wouldn’t burden you with that pain, my wife. But I cannot put him aside.”
“I’d never ask you to. I couldn’t put aside my brother, either.” She smiled up at him. “It might be awkward, but we will manage. And it will probably help that we don’t speak any of the same languages. If ever a silence falls between us, it cannot be only that awkwardness.”
“Yes,” he said, but the relief that accompanied his reply was brief, and his tension seemed to increase.
“Was that what you wanted to talk about—your brother? Was that what you said I should seek vengeance for?”
“No.”
What else could there be? Now her worry ate at her gut and her tension matched his. They entered the reception hall where, so long ago, she’d persuaded him to take her and Helene to the smugglers’ dens. She removed her borrowed boots, but had no slippers to replace them with. It didn’t matter. Ariq swept her up into his arms and carried her into the courtyard.
“You shall have your pick of the chambers for your personal use,” he said.
“Will we sleep together?”
“Yes.”
Good. “I have maids and a cook who care for my home in Fladstrand. I’ll send for my things, but I don’t think the maids will want to come. They have family there.”
“I have a few attendants now. We will hire more.”
He opened the door to his chambers and set her down. The smooth wooden floor was cool beneath her bare feet. She hadn’t known what to expect. The decorations in the reception hall were sparse, so she’d thought his chambers would be ascetic, too. The furniture was just a low table and tall cupboard, and a bed that was half the width of the one they’d shared in Nippon. Yet the room didn’t lack beauty or color; the glow of a lamp revealed the most incredible silk paintings hanging on the walls. Lips parted in wonder, she followed the path the images made—from yellow sands to snowcapped mountains,
to endless plains with rivers curling across them in swirling blue. Smaller painted figures worked the fields, and soldiers rode on horses in long columns. There were temples and cities and people of every race, each one depicted with the greatest care.
“The Golden Empire,” Ariq said softly, watching from beside the door as she circled the room. “From west to east. My mother’s work.”
His mother? “Are there any hidden messages?”
“Nothing hidden. Everything in this one is clear to see—so it only says that she loved our home as much as I do. It only shows why she fought so hard and was willing to give up her life for it.”
“You, too.”
“Yes.”
“Will you ever return to live there?” Would she want to live there?
“No. This is the home I’ve made. My responsibility now is to those who’ve come with me.”
And those were the people he would fight for tomorrow.
“Perhaps one day we will visit, though,” he said.
She smiled. “I would like that.”
As if her response broke something within him, he suddenly crossed the space between them. His lips were hard, his kiss desperate, and his voice was rough when he finally lifted his head. “I cannot lose you, Zenobia.”
She gripped his tunic and said fiercely, “You won’t.”
His broad chest shuddered as he drew ragged breaths. He was fighting for calm, she realized—and not finding it.
Hoarsely he said, “I broke my vow to you.”
He had? “When?”
“I swore to you that I would never have hidden purposes. But I did. I knew the only chance I might misdirect Lady Nagamochi was by holding on through the torture and giving in when your life was threatened.”
“I know this.” She caught his face between her hands. The bleak despair in his eyes ripped at her chest, and she couldn’t allow it to stay. “I know this. And I know that if you had given in earlier she would have still threatened me to make sure you told the truth.”
“You didn’t know then.”
“When would you have told me of your plan? Ariq. Ariq. I understand that keeping this vow matters to you. Perhaps you won’t forgive yourself. But you don’t need to seek forgiveness from me. If you’re afraid I’ll walk away because you had to create a strategy that would allow us to escape and then had to keep it a secret from me, I assure you I won’t.”
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