The Kraken King, Part 1

by Meljean Brook

  Using her breasts as a shelf was the most practical thing Helene had done all day.

  Zenobia opened her mouth to respond, then realized they weren’t alone. In the sitting area, her guard occupied the seat beside Helene’s abandoned one. Mara was stabbing a needle through a hem, and the lace cap over her black hair fluttered as she shook her head.

  Zenobia hadn’t even noticed that Mara had entered the cabin—which was yet another reason she needed the mercenary around while she was writing. It wouldn’t do at all for a pirate to prance up behind her and snatch her from her chair.

  On this voyage, however, Mara had been offering protection of another sort. She’d provided a buffer against Helene’s constant chatter, allowing Zenobia opportunity to work.

  Though, to be fair, Helene didn’t know that Zenobia wrote more than letters. To Helene, she wasn’t Zenobia Fox, the author of popular serial adventures and the oft-kidnapped sister to one of the wealthiest men who’d ever flung himself into danger. She was only Geraldine Gunther-Baptiste, who’d lived in the house next door to Helene until fourteen years before, when Geraldine’s mother had died. Since then, Zenobia’s letters to her friend had concealed much and lied often.

  Which meant that Zenobia hadn’t been a very good friend at all. She should try to be a better one. She owed that to Helene, who had been at Zenobia’s side through the worst of days—and a minor interruption did not count as the worst of anything.

  Determinedly, she pushed aside her irritation. “What does your book say?”

  “That we must bow upon meeting a Nipponese man and upon taking our leave.”

  Why did that warrant such urgency? Women and men curtsied and bowed everywhere. Half the people in the Americas and what was left of Europe bobbed up and down with regularity.

  Perplexed, Zenobia glanced at the title. Dancing Through the Red Wall: A Ladies’ Handbook of Nipponese Traditions and Customs.

  Zenobia couldn’t conceive why such a handbook would only be for ladies, but she wasn’t surprised to see it in Helene’s possession. Her friend had taken her role as an ambassador’s wife to heart, applying herself to learning as much of the language and the history as she could during their journey.

  Much of the information Helene had shared was fascinating, but Zenobia was skeptical of its accuracy. For centuries, almost from the date that the residents of the far-eastern islands had fled from the Mongol Horde and settled in northeastern Australia, Nippon’s borders had been closed to foreigners. Only recently had the empire begun to loosen those restrictions—probably not enough time for the author of the handbook to gain a comprehensive understanding of traditions and customs.

  After all, Zenobia had lived in Fladstrand for ten years, and she still sometimes felt like the odd duck. She didn’t expect to feel any different in the Red City, handbook or not.

  “What sort of bow?”

  Turning the book around, Helene tapped her finger alongside a drawing of a man bending over at the waist so far that his forehead was almost level with his feet.

  She was supposed to fold herself in half? “That’s not physically possible.”

  “It’s important,” Helene stressed, though when she glanced down at the figure, a little crease formed between her brows, as if she were also wondering how to attain the position without toppling over. “Failing to bow is a slap against his honor—and a man who is dishonored will kill himself.”

  “If someone doesn’t bow?” At Helene’s solemn nod, Zenobia stared at her in disbelief. This had to be utter nonsense. “Will he do it at that very moment?”

  “Yes.” Helene pinched the first fifty or sixty pages of the book between her fingers. “All of this explains how critical it is not to insult a man’s honor.”

  How unfortunate for any men who crossed paths with Zenobia, then. She sometimes gave offense when she didn’t mean to—though when she did give offense, she usually meant to. Upon reaching the Red City, however, she might inadvertently leave a trail of corpses in her wake.

  “That custom favors women, I think,” Zenobia said. “If a husband strays or if he proves a disappointment, the wife only has to refrain from bowing and she is quickly free of him.”

  Two spots of color appeared on Helene’s cheeks. “It is not well done to mock their customs. And I would never have imagined that you would make light of losing a husband.”

  And it was fortunate that women weren’t so ready to kill themselves when offended, or Zenobia would be short one friend. But she bit her tongue. Helene desperately wanted to prove herself an asset to her husband, and she had more to lose when they arrived at the Red City than Zenobia did.

  But Zenobia couldn’t imagine that Helene would be an asset if she made a habit of greeting men with her bottom in the air and her head between her feet.

  She glanced at Mara. The other woman met her eyes and shook her head. So the book was nonsense. Several times, the mercenary had corrected Zenobia’s pronunciation of the Nipponese phrases Helene had taught her, but doing the same for her friend might have invited too many questions about how and where Mara had acquired her knowledge.

  The woman whom Helene knew as Geraldine could have no reason to keep two mercenaries in her employ. So on this journey, Mara posed as Zenobia’s lady’s maid—a role that didn’t sit easily. Zenobia’s brown hair had never looked more terrible than it had under Mara’s care, and her needle had tortured the hem of Zenobia’s favorite dress beyond repair. More than once, Helene had quietly suggested that Mara was unsuited to the position.

  More than once, Mara had quietly suggested stuffing a gag into Helene’s mouth until they reached the Red City.

  But although Mara was the sort who took pleasure in gagging people—or shooting them, if they attempted to kidnap Zenobia—she had a heart full of love for two things: her husband and money. If offered a bonus, Mara would help Helene.

  Zenobia raised her brows. Mara sighed before nodding.

  “Helene,” Zenobia said gently. The other woman’s color was still high and her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Mara worked within the Nipponese enclave in the Ivory Market for many years. She might be able to point to anything in your book that might have been exaggerated or misunderstood.”

  “In an enclave?”

  With a sweep of her blue skirt, Helene turned to study Mara, and in that moment Zenobia disliked her friend very much. The examination wasn’t the sort one person gave another when taking their measure. Instead, Helene looked upon Mara as if she were an unusual insect.

  Helene’s head tilted. “I thought you were Horde. Your eyes are slanted, so you are obviously from the Asian continent.”

  “My family fled the Golden Empire—what you call the Horde—before I was born, ma’am. We settled in the enclave with people from all regions of the empire.” Mara smiled sweetly and jabbed her needle through pale green cotton—nowhere near the hem. “Just as people in other enclaves fled their nations. Yet many of us retained our customs and languages.”

  “But the Ivory Market is in Africa,” Helene said, hefting the book. “This author lived in the Red City for more than a year. Much closer, you must agree, and the people he observed more genuinely Nipponese.”

  “If you say, ma’am,” Mara responded easily, and Zenobia decided to double that month’s pay.

  “And there is much the author was able to observe that a girl could not. He tells us how the women are kept hidden away, silenced and meek. Like maids, I suppose.” Helene sighed. “It’s unfortunate that all of those honorable women should live in such a way.”

  The needle stabbed through another virgin stretch of cotton. “I suppose that to avoid offending men who are accustomed to meek women, you would also have to be very quiet. Ma’am.”

  “Yes.” With a thoughtful frown, Helene stroked her fingers down the book’s spine. “Or perhaps my example will open their eyes to a more moder
n view of women and their roles.”

  Oh, dear. Mara’s sweet smile had begun to look more like a tiger’s, and Zenobia had never wished so hard for a kidnapping. The four times she’d been taken for ransom had not been so horrible, in retrospect. She’d been fed and treated with care. The pirates had only wanted money, and they wouldn’t have received a single coin if she was harmed. The hostility brewing in this cabin seemed far more dangerous.

  Then Helene set the book aside, as if signaling that she was finished with the topic for now, and Zenobia breathed again.

  She glanced down at her page. The scribble in the corner had been a brilliant quip, she remembered. Lady Lynx had been going to draw her gun and say . . . what?

  She couldn’t remember. And she couldn’t read the scribble.

  Blast. She dipped her pen and scratched out the useless note. It had been a foolish thought, anyway. Lady Lynx wouldn’t quip. She would simply shoot, and coldly watch the villain fall dead.

  Zenobia sometimes wished that she could be as ruthless.

  “Are you well?” Helene softly touched her shoulder before sinking onto the nearby bed. “You look quite fierce.”

  “I’m frustrating myself, trying to think of a suitable word to describe the waters in this part of the ocean,” Zenobia lied. “What color would you call it?”

  “‘Blue,’” Helene offered. “You are penning another letter? It seems to me that there is only the horrid food and the rumbling of the engines to remark upon. And the seagulls. Never has there been such incessant cawing, or so much reason to wear a bonnet. It’s astonishing that you have so much to say.”

  Zenobia hadn’t had much to say at all—and had only managed to complete two chapters in the weeks aboard the airship. Perhaps she’d have made more progress if she hadn’t been writing by hand, but the clacking of her typesetting machine gave Helene headaches.

  “Are you writing to your brother again?”

  Though she loved Archimedes, Zenobia couldn’t pretend such fondness that she would write him every day. “This is to Grandmother Inkslinger.”

  Another lie, on top of an older one. Several years before, she’d described her living situation to Helene, and it had been simpler to claim she had been briefly married and widowed than to try convincing her friend that it was perfectly proper for a young woman to live alone. In Zenobia’s experience, admitting to spinsterhood only resulted in good-intentioned attempts to steer men in her direction. But a widow’s independence was rarely questioned.

  The lie served her well during this trip, too. She hadn’t wanted to travel as Zenobia Fox and make herself a target for every pirate and fortune hunter. Yet her maiden name, Gunther-Baptiste, might have brought as much attention in this part of the world. Her brother had smuggled weapons for Horde rebels under that name, until he’d run afoul of a powerful general. Archimedes had changed his name then; Zenobia had done the same, fearing that any assassins would come for him through her.

  Archimedes had recently paid his debt to the general, but Zenobia didn’t want to take the chance that someone who hadn’t heard the price on her brother’s head had been lifted might recognize her name. So she traveled as Geraldine Inkslinger, instead.

  “It’s wonderful that you still correspond with your late husband’s family.” A wistful note softened Helen’s voice. “You must have gotten on very well with them.”

  “Not at all. I continue writing to them so that they feel obligated to respond, even though they must hate that obligation.” Which was another lie. If Zenobia had possessed a dead husband and resentful relatives, however, she would have taken great pleasure in making it true. She glanced up with a smile, but it faded as she took in Helene’s pale face and compressed mouth. “Are you well?”

  Swallowing hard, Helene managed a sickly nod. Her hand pressed to her stomach. “It is the swaying again.”

  Perhaps. The motion of an airship did make some passengers nauseous.

  So did pregnancy.

  Helene had not yet confided whether she was, and her petite figure did not yet show evidence of it. But pregnancy would explain why she had arrived at Zenobia’s home so unexpectedly, without companions or a single word in advance, and why she’d wanted to immediately travel to Australia. She had been separated from her husband for the better part of a year. If Helene was with child, either Basile Auger had astonishing ejaculatory capabilities, impregnating her from halfway around the world, or she’d lain with another man.

  Zenobia had never met Helene’s husband and she didn’t know his temperament. She didn’t know whether the worry and strain she often glimpsed on Helene’s face came from the guilt of betrayal or fear of his reaction. But many years before, Helene had offered her support when Zenobia’s mother had worn the same worried look—worry that had become terror when her father returned home. So Zenobia would help her friend now, until she was certain Helene had nothing to fear. If that meant staying with her until the baby was born, she would. And if it meant using every resource she possessed to help Helene escape, she would.

  But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. Not all men were like her father.

  Zenobia glanced at the porthole. Bright sunshine streamed through the window and fell like a warm cape across her shoulders before spilling over Helene’s bed. “If you want to lie down, I can shutter the— Oh!”

  A hard jolt tossed her forward against the writing desk. Her inkwell skidded across the surface and tipped. Zenobia wildly grabbed at it, black ink splattering over her fingers. Her pen clattered to the boards.

  Then all was still.

  On the bed, Helene stared at her, wide-eyed. “What was that?”

  She had no idea. Zenobia looked to the seating area. Mara was already on her feet, the needle and hem dropped to the floor. Despite Mara’s black dress and lace cap, there was nothing of a lady’s maid about the mercenary now. A pistol was in her hand; Zenobia didn’t know where it had come from—under Mara’s skirts, beneath the chair, out of thin air. Anything seemed possible.

  The mercenary tilted her head and flexed her jaw, activating the listening device grafted into her ear. But if Mara heard anything to indicate what had happened, she didn’t say.

  Her flat gaze swept the cabin before landing on Zenobia. “I’ll return shortly.”

  Zenobia nodded. Unspoken was the command that Mara and her husband Cooper had given to her every time a would-be abductor had broken into her home: Don’t leave this room unless you have absolutely no other choice.

  Shouts and the pounding of boots filled the quiet as Mara slipped into the corridor, and were muffled again when she closed the door.

  Zenobia stood, wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs where she’d struck the edge of the writing desk. Likely nothing cracked or broken, but she could expect a nasty bruise.

  It wouldn’t be her first bruise, however. She couldn’t let it slow her down now. She sank to her knees, reaching past the trunks stored beneath the bed. Her fingers hooked around the leather straps of her glider and she dragged the folded contraption out.

  As she returned to the desk, running footsteps sounded along the corridor. Four or five men by the sound of it. The copper pipes overhead began to ring as someone on the deck above struck a warning, signaling everyone in the airship. Zenobia didn’t know what that particular pattern of rings meant, but it didn’t matter. A warning could never be a good sign.

  She shoved her pages into the glider’s waterproof satchel. Only two chapters, but she didn’t want to lose nearly a month’s work. What else would she need?

  Money. Papers.

  She hauled out her trunk from beneath the bed and tossed out the clothes and books. The combination lock to the false bottom was hidden beneath the handle. She peeled away the cover and twisted the number dial.

  The bottom compartment popped open. She grabbed her identifying documents and the packet of letters from
Archimedes that she’d been using as the basis of her story.

  Helene watched her in confusion. “What are you doing? It’s likely only a problem with the engine.”

  Which was still huffing away, the ever-present rumble in their ears and the vibration through the boards. If the boiler had blown, causing that jolt, the engineers would have already stopped the engine.

  “It’s best to be prepared, don’t you think?” Zenobia needed the strength of both hands to lift out the bag of gold—enough coins to convince anyone that there would be a hefty ransom available if she and Helene were kept alive. “Where are your travel papers?”

  Her friend’s face cleared. “In my trunk.”

  While she retrieved them, Zenobia looked out the porthole. Only a cloudless sky above and turquoise water below. If they were under attack, it was not coming from this side of the ship.

  She crossed the cabin and peeked out. They’d been quartered on the officers’ deck, toward the front of the airship. The door across the passageway was closed, blocking a view of the opposite porthole. The corridor was empty—except for the companionways. Aviators rushed up and down the ladders. Her heart racing, Zenobia withdrew into the cabin and shut the door.

  A terrible rumble came from the rear of the airship, rattling the wardrobe against the bulkhead. An explosion? Standing absolutely still, Zenobia strained to listen. In the center of the cabin, Helene did the same, her face white and her eyes wide.

  Then the floor fell out from under her feet.

  Chapter 2

  Zenobia slammed into the deck. The impact knocked the breath from her chest, cutting short her terrified cry. Black spots swam in front of her eyes, but the airship seemed to have steadied. Zenobia hadn’t. She wobbled onto her knees as Helene retched her lunch onto the bed. Pregnancy or fear. It didn’t matter.

  Desperately swallowing down her own panic, Zenobia buckled the glider straps over her chest and shoulders. Unfolded, the contraption could carry two. They’d be all right.