Conspiracy (The Emperor's Edge Book 4)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “He was already familiar with it?” Yara suggested.

  Amaranthe nodded. Maybe the captain had been paid to look the other way. As discreet as the delivery team had been, and as well hidden as the manufacturing base was, it would be hard to keep such an outfit secret forever.

  “He just grunted and waved for me to take the stuff away,” Yara said. “His disinterest might have been an act. I don’t know.”

  “And there’s not much you could do,” Amaranthe said, giving her voice a sympathetic nuance. “It’s not as if enforcers are encouraged to question their superiors.” She smiled ruefully, remembering her own encounters with Chief Gunarth.

  “No.” Bitterness crept into Yara’s tone. “They’re not.”

  Amaranthe was searching for a way to switch to subtly probing for information about Yara’s last meeting with the emperor, when Yara spoke again.

  “What were you doing on the train?”

  Amaranthe should have been ready for the question, but it startled her. She hoped her pause to think of an answer wasn’t suspicious. “Practicing maneuvers in case we ever have a mission that takes place on a train.”

  “That sounds like something you’d only do if you had a mission on a train.”

  “Does it?” Amaranthe asked innocently.

  The hardness had returned to Yara’s voice. Maybe she thought Amaranthe was up to something illegal. Technically Amaranthe was up to something illegal. Even if Sespian had requested they kidnap him, that didn’t make it an act enforcers would sanction.

  Yara shifted, her broad shoulders tensing. “It’s convenient that your group happened across these men loading weapons in the middle of the night.”

  “It was luck.” Amaranthe wasn’t going to call it good luck, not when she didn’t know what the ramifications would be. “You seem to follow what’s going on in the city. Have you seen the newspapers lately? We’ve been mentioned a few times as people working for the good of the empire. We’re not colluding with Forge. They’re the villains.”

  “This Forge group is behind the creation of those weapons?” Yara asked.

  “It’s too soon to be positive, but we aim to find out.”

  “And your train mission has something to do with finding out?”

  “Not exactly.”

  A part of Amaranthe wanted to tell her about their scheme to kidnap the emperor, if only so someone somewhere could come forward as a witness to testify on her behalf should things go... badly. She was still carrying around the note Sespian had given to Basilard. Though it wasn’t signed, if she let Yara see it, she might believe it was authentic. But Amaranthe hadn’t even spoken of the mission or shown the note to her journalist acquaintance, Deret Mancrest, and he was far closer to qualifying as an ally. Yara had grudgingly admitted that Amaranthe might have helped the empire get rid of the makarovi in the dam, but that was it.

  Amaranthe wasn’t sure why she cared whether this woman might become an ally or not. Because they had similar backgrounds? Because she seemed to be in trouble with her superiors and might be open to stretching the rules of the law? Because Yara had an extra reason to feel loyal to the emperor too? Amaranthe wondered how much Yara had spoken to Sespian and how much he had looked into her record before promoting her. Had he simply been moved to encourage the satrapy’s female enforcers, or had he found something intriguing about her? Amaranthe wished she knew more about how Yara had first come to his awareness.

  She laughed inwardly. Why? It wasn’t as if she was going to set them up on a date.

  Her breath caught. Between one second and the next, an idea formed in her head. What if she could set Yara up with Sespian? Sure, emperors were supposed to marry warrior-caste women of suitable lineages, but Amaranthe had a feeling Sespian wasn’t the sort to fall for refined and sophisticated. Besides, anyone could look at Yara and see she had all the attributes imperial men supposedly wanted in the mothers of their children. Nobody would call her a beauty, but she could be considered handsome—when she wasn’t glowering—and with that height and brawn, she was sure to have strong children. Of course, Sespian would care more about love, but maybe they could have that too.

  And if Sespian fell in love with Yara, Amaranthe wouldn’t have to worry that maybe he still held a hint of his former interest in her. She doubted he did anyway, but this would put the whole notion to rest. For her, and for Sicarius as well, because he claimed his main reason for not wishing to pursue a relationship with Amaranthe was that he didn’t want to give Sespian another reason to hate him. But if Sespian was happily in love with someone else...

  “Should I be concerned that you’re grinning?” Yara asked.

  “Yes,” Books said. He stood at the corner of the shed, and he had been staying out of the conversation, but that question apparently tempted him too much.

  Amaranthe dropped the smile. She hadn’t realized it had grown light enough to read expressions, but she ought to keep her scheming thoughts off her face anyway. Besides, the threat to the emperor was the paramount concern, not this relationship twaddle. “I was thinking that you might be the perfect person to help us.”

  Books sent a wary look in her direction. Amaranthe was glad Sicarius hadn’t reappeared. Telling an enforcer that her team planned to kidnap the emperor might not be a good idea, but if Amaranthe could enlist Yara’s help, it could be worth the risk.

  “How so?” Yara asked warily.

  “You know the emperor has been out inspecting the various forts around Turgonia?”

  “Yes... by train.”

  “Indeed so. We believe kidnappers are going to strike at him during the last leg of his journey.”

  Books made a choking sound. Amaranthe hoped the look she shot him said, “Sssshh,” sufficiently.

  “Kidnappers?” Yara asked. “Who?”

  “All we have is a note,” Amaranthe said, being careful not to lie outright. “But if he is in danger, we intend to help him. If you want, you could join us at Forkingrust Station. We intend to slip onto his train there and be ready in case something happens while he’s en route to Stumps. If you come, you could assist us if things get out of hand. Just to be honest with you, I wouldn’t mind having a third party along who, if things go wrong, knows our intent was to help the emperor. Perhaps we’re foolish to want to risk ourselves to help him, but, as I’ve told you, we’re trying to earn exoneration.”

  Amaranthe had been speaking rather rapidly, probably because she was afraid Yara would stop her with curses for her dead, deranged ancestors. She paused to collect her breath and wait for a response.

  “I have duties here,” Yara said.

  Amaranthe had expected a protest or a snort of disbelief. This response startled her. It was as if Yara was actually considering coming.

  “Surely you have some leave you could take?” Amaranthe figured she’d better press before the woman came to her senses. “One way or another, this will be wrapped up in a week.” Meaning her team would either be dead for their audacity to challenge a train full of soldiers, or they’d have the emperor with them and... well, she had little idea what would happen at that point. They would have to see what Sespian wanted from them. “You owe him your promotion, don’t you? And he’s your emperor. Can you stand back and let these Forge fiends threaten him?”

  “You believe that entity will be behind the kidnapping?” Yara asked.

  Careful, Amaranthe told herself. “I believe they’re the major threat to the emperor, and they may represent a threat to the entire empire with the changes they want.”

  “What do they want?”

  “From what we’ve gathered, power in the government, favorable economic laws for their businesses, and... possibly to get rid of Sespian and replace him with a more amenable figurehead.” Sometimes Amaranthe wondered why Forge hadn’t already made that last move, especially if they had people in the Imperial Barracks where they could strike at Sespian. Maybe they figured they had him sufficiently under control, or maybe they were biding ti
me until they could raise a private army to ensure they could come out on top in the civil war that would likely rise should Sespian die without an heir.

  Amaranthe swallowed. Maybe that was what the weapons were for. A private army.

  “I see,” Yara said, her tone neutral. “I’ll consider what you’ve told me. I must go to work. My shift starts shortly.”

  Her measured words drove a spike of worry into Amaranthe. Had she just made the biggest mistake of the year? What if Yara warned someone and arranged to have swarms of enforcers and soldiers at Forkingrust Station when Amaranthe and her team of outlaws arrived?

  Yara pulled her parka tight about her and strode up the street. Thoughts gibbered in Amaranthe’s head. Mistake, mistake, was the foremost cry among them. For a ludicrous moment, she thought of chasing after Yara, cracking her over the head, and kidnapping her, if only to detain her until the team had left for Forkingrust, and it was too late for Yara to do anything.

  A shadow stirred beside Amaranthe, and a hand clamped down on her elbow.

  “What were you thinking?” Sicarius asked.

  Amaranthe jumped. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d finished with the brother and joined them, but his appearance rattled her nonetheless. That she’d been thinking of setting his son up with a date was probably not the right thing to say.

  “That we could use another ally,” she said. Yes, that sounded safer. At least he wasn’t asking about her sudden interest in the shaman’s workshop.

  “We don’t need her. She hasn’t been training with the team. She’ll be like you were when we first met.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Amaranthe clasped Sicarius’s hand and attempted to pry his fingers loose. He wasn’t hurting her, but it was definitely a firm, you’ve-irritated-me-with-your-unpredictable-antics grip. “I want an outside witness in case something goes wrong. I don’t want to lose everything we’ve fought for because the papers assume we’re the villains again.”

  Sicarius released her with a swift motion. “It’s more likely that her reputation will be ruined because she associated with us. If she joins and doesn’t simply tell the authorities what you told her.”

  True. Amaranthe hated to admit it, but he was probably right. That had been impulsive and foolish of her. She forced herself to smile and say, “We’ll see.”

  Sicarius stalked away without a word. Amaranthe had learned nothing useful in regard to those under-skin devices, and her plan to win Sicarius for herself seemed less likely to work than ever. Right now, she’d be lucky if he didn’t strangle her on the way back to the city.

  Chapter 7

  Akstyr strolled down the street with his hands in his pockets, trying to look casual despite the sweat slithering down his spine. Affluent pedestrians meandered down the cobblestone lane, chatting with vendors selling everything from exotic spices and flavored honeys to engraved wooden swords and shields for children. Now and then, enforcers strode past the carts, batons and short swords dangling from their hips. Akstyr subtly avoided them, glad he had tied his hair back in a knot so his usual spiky tufts wouldn’t draw attention. It seemed a strange neighborhood for his contact to frequent, but then the man wasn’t a criminal himself, so he had no reason to avoid the law.

  A couple of thieves tried to “accidentally” bump Akstyr for a chance to fish in his pockets, making him feel a little more at home. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, he didn’t have any money for them to find. Amaranthe and the others weren’t back yet, so payday hadn’t come, and he’d spent his last fifty ranmyas to arrange a meeting with Khaalid, a sharpshooter and blade master who had, his reputation said, gotten wealthy by collecting bounties on gangsters and felons. His reputation also said the meaner the bastard he was hunting, the better. He might be crazy enough to want a stab at Sicarius and wealthy enough to pay for information on his whereabouts.

  A brass sign hanging above a doorway ahead of Akstyr read, Juiced. He weaved around vendor stalls, heading for the shop.

  To his side, someone darted out of sight, using a vegetable cart for cover. Akstyr paused. It probably had nothing to do with him, but nobody else was acting suspiciously in the neighborhood. He hadn’t had a good look, though he’d glimpsed long hair and a dress.

  He waited for a moment, but he didn’t spot the person again. After resolving to keep an eye out on the way back to the hideout, Akstyr slipped into Juiced.

  Warmth rolled from a furnace in the back where a boiler powered an engine driving a maze of moving pipes, gears, and levers that stretched along the walls and even across the ceiling. The complex apparatus smashed fruit and muddled the cafe’s “special blend of energizing herbs” before pouring the contents into giant glass carboys that filled shelves behind tables full of patrons. Some carboys were fermenting their concoctions, emitting a yeasty smell that competed with the fruity scents in the air, while other jars had spigots and simply held fresh juice.

  While Akstyr watched, a woman wearing a grass skirt filled a glass with a greenish liquid and delivered it to a table where a slender, fit man dressed in dark green sat alone. He handed the server a couple of coins and sipped his beverage. Couples and groups occupied the other tables, so Akstyr figured this lone figure was his contact. The bounty hunter lacked a Sicarius-like knife collection, but he did have a pair of long blades in a torso harness that he’d draped over the back of his chair. If he carried a pistol, it wasn’t visible—not surprising since firearms were outlawed in the city. A few scars chipped at his weathered features, giving him the experienced visage of a veteran, and Akstyr vowed to be careful dealing with him.

  The man nodded in his direction, and Akstyr joined him. The bounty hunter had taken a chair that put his back to a corner, and Akstyr grimaced at the only other option, a seat on the opposite side. After seeing that person darting out of his path, he didn’t want his back to the door either.

  He dragged the free chair about so that the back faced a clanking, hissing tangle of pipes and sat down. He promptly felt silly since the position put him less than a foot away from the man’s arm.

  “Khaalid.” The bounty hunter inclined his head in a nod, all business, but then a smirk teased his lips. “Do you find me attractive, or do you always sit this close to people you’ve just met?”

  Akstyr’s instinct was to scowl and scoot the chair away, but it might be better to act as if the comment didn’t bother him. He wasn’t some young rube. He was calm and unflappable. “Enh, you’re decent.”

  “Quite true, yes.” Khaalid eyed him up and down, and Akstyr struggled not to panic. He hadn’t offered some sort of flirtation, had he? “You’re either fearless or stupid to want a meeting with me,” Khaalid said. “Care to opine on which it might be?”

  Relief washed over Akstyr when the bounty hunter switched to business, but he stiffened as soon as the man finished speaking. “Why do you say that?” Akstyr asked, figuring that sounded better than confessing to either of the two options.

  Khaalid slipped a hand into his pocket. Akstyr tensed, thinking the man might pull out a weapon, but he removed a piece of paper. Rather leisurely, he unfolded it and held it up for Akstyr’s perusal.

  On the paper was a clumsy sketch of himself. He wouldn’t have recognized it except for the spiky hair and an inset image of an oversized hand with a Black Arrow brand clearly displayed. Words under the drawing read, “Wanted dead: Akstyr, former Black Arrow and wizard. 5,000 ranmyas. To be paid upon proof of death by Trevast the Terror, the Madcats.”

  It was the first Akstyr had heard of the bounty. It probably should have scared him, but mostly it irritated the piss out of him. Trevast was buddies with Tuskar, the Black Arrows’ leader and Akstyr’s old boss. Amaranthe had sweet-talked Tuskar into leaving Akstyr alone—there’d been an implied threat that Sicarius wouldn’t stand for an attack on Akstyr—but Tuskar was afraid of magic and had never liked Akstyr, so he’d probably talked Trevast into putting the bounty out. Too much of a coward to do it himself and risk Sicarius’s ir
e.

  “Fresh news to you?” Khaalid returned the poster to his pocket.

  Akstyr shrugged. “Only bounties put out by enforcers are legal. As far as I know, they don’t particularly want me.” Only because they didn’t know that he practiced the mental sciences, but he wasn’t about to bring that up. “From what I hear, you kill gangsters and are on good terms with the enforcers. You won’t turn me over to some street thug.”

  “But you run with people who the enforcers do want. The emperor too for that matter.”

  “Yes, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “I’m listening,” Khaalid said.

  “They say you’re good, but you’re not nearly as well known as Sicarius.”

  “Irrelevant,” Khaalid said, his eyebrows descending. “I hunt villains. I don’t assassinate honorable citizens.”

  “He’s a villain, right? Why don’t you hunt him?”

  Khaalid’s lips thinned.

  “The villains you’re hunting would fear you more if you could say you’d taken him down,” Akstyr pointed out. “Think what it would do for your reputation. Think of the prices you could command then.”

  Khaalid leaned back in his chair. “I’ve decided. You’re fearless and stupid. You’d betray someone you run with, someone exceedingly dangerous, and for what? You want me to kill him and give you a cut of the money?”

  “Look, he’s as mean and cruel as they get.” Not really, Akstyr thought, but he did catch himself rubbing his neck and remembering the time Sicarius had threatened him if he didn’t do what Amaranthe said. “Somebody’s got to rid the world of him.”

  “And you want it to be somebody else, somebody who will take the risk and share the bounty with you.”

  “I don’t want a share of the bounty, and I wouldn’t openly go against him. But someone like you... If you’re as good as they say, maybe you could do it. All I’m asking is a finder’s fee for pointing you in the right direction. I’ll tell you where he is and what I know about him. Including... his one weakness.”