The Forbidden City: Book Two of Rogue Elegance

by K A Dowling

  “Where is the Forbidden City? It’s a simple question. Tell me and this can be over. There’s no need for you to suffer.”

  She spits at his feet. Her saliva sits upon her lips, the taste acrid.

  “Is that your response?” He appears only mildly displeased.

  “Yes,” she says, her voice thin.

  He smirks, his dark eyes gleaming, and tightens the vice.

  “You might be surprised,” he says as her bones crunch beneath the unforgiving weight. He raises his voice to be heard over the blood-curdling cry that escapes her lips. “But this saddens me to do. I get no pleasure out of hurting you. I only want your honesty. Lying, you see, is a terrible crime.”

  She cannot hear him. She cannot see him. The white light has engulfed her vision. Her ears are filled with her thick screams, bubbling with sobs. She fights to gain control of herself—fights to be able to deprive him of the satisfaction he craves.

  “Corporal.”

  The sharp voice that emanates from the doorway is calm, authoritative. The pressure upon her finger stops. She nearly faints as she feels the blood in her hand go rushing back into the broken joints.

  The corporal jumps back immediately, allowing the device to clatter to the ground. Somewhere far, far away she can hear the sound of an iron screw rolling across stone. She lets out a long gasp and her vision swarms. The absence of the device brings no relief to her broken fingers. The pain is excruciating.

  “General.” The grin is gone from the corporal’s lips.

  Nerani can just make out the figure of General Byron standing in the narrow doorway, almost beyond the reach of the light. He does not look at her. His gaze is trained upon the Guardian before him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Interrogating the prisoner, of course, sir.”

  “I don’t recall giving you orders to do so.”

  At this, the corporal allows himself to smile again. Nerani watches as his lips peel back from his teeth. His eyes are dangerous. “With all due respect, these particular orders came directly from his Majesty.”

  “He would have given that command to me.”

  “You were nowhere to be found.”

  There is a moment of careful hesitation as the two Guardians study each other across the sputtering torchlight.

  “I’m here now,” General Byron says. “You’re dismissed. I’ll take it from here.”

  “General—”

  “You’re dismissed.” There is a sense of finality in his tone. The corporal leers vehemently towards Nerani for a moment before assenting. He gives an angry grunt and heads for the door. As he maneuvers past General Bryon his shoulder slams into his side, forcing him to fall back a step. In a flash, General Byron slams the corporal against the doorframe. They are nose to nose, his fist clutching at the collar of his uniform. The corporal blinks twice in surprise and says nothing.

  “You will give me the respect I am due as your superior officer,” seethes General Byron. His voice is low and controlled. The only betrayal of anger on his face is the slight flare of his nostrils.

  “Duly noted, sir.”

  “See to it that it is,” General Byron snarls. “Touch me again, and watch what happens to you.”

  Something in his eyes makes the corporal swallow, hard. A slow smile creeps into his lips.

  “Yes sir,” he says. General Byron releases him, shoving him back into the shadow of the hallway beyond. For a long moment, he stands idle in the dusky quiet, brushing at his shirtfront as though he is wiping away crumbs.

  And then he is gone.

  General Byron remains frozen in the doorway, his gaze burning. They listen in silence to the sound of the corporal’s footfalls receding upon the stone. Nerani forces herself to breathe deep, letting her eyes drop to examine her damaged fingers. She gasps audibly as she takes in the crushed bones, mangled with flesh and marrow. Her stomach heaves violently and she is nearly ill.

  Before her, General Byron is staring at the floor with frightening resolve. His gaze is dark and unreadable. His lips are pressed together in a white line.

  “I told you to go back to your city,” he says at last, and his voice is rife with barely concealed anger. She notes his fingers, trembling only slightly, balling into fists at his side before stretching wide and relaxing. His shoulders rise and fall. He does not meet her gaze. “Saints, I begged you to leave.”

  She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. The throb of her fingers has overtaken the rest of her body. Every fiber of her being pulsates with the pain. She is weak, she realizes. She is afraid.

  She does not know real pain, for this to unravel her so completely. More than ever before, she wishes she could be as strong as Emerala. Tears pool in her lower lids and she tries in vain to blink them away. General Byron is watching her now, his brown eyes studying her face. He moves slowly across the room—cautiously—lowering himself to his knees before her chair and setting to untying the crude rope that binds her good hand to the armrest.

  “What was so important?” he asks as he works. She can hear the rage within his words, bubbling just beneath the surface of the question. “What is out here for you that was worth the risk? Because I can’t help you now, not anymore.”

  She begins to cry at this, the tears streaming freely down her cheeks. “I was looking for my cousin.”

  “Emerala the Rogue?” His brows furrow. “Your people have her.”

  “No.” She shakes her head, ignoring the locks of her hair that suction themselves to her face. Her fingers are sticky with blood. He finishes untying the rope and she watches as it falls to the ground at her feet. His fingers linger on hers just a moment too long. She tries to gather her thoughts through the pain—to remain coherent even as her vision washes with white.

  “The last time I saw her she was at the mercy of three Guardians, each with their swords held at her throat. My people believe her to be dead, but I know she’s still alive. I know she’s somewhere in the city.”

  The anger in General Bryon’s gaze softens. His brows pull together, casting a shadow across the bridge of his nose.

  “She’s not here,” he mutters. His hand rises tentatively to her face. Slowly—cautiously—he pushes several loose strands of hair behind her ears. His thumb wipes a salty droplet from her cheek. She does not have the coherence to question his familiarity, so muddled does she feel from the throbbing pain in her hand.

  “Those Guardians—the three you mentioned—they were found slaughtered in the streets, their throats cut.”

  “Who?” she asks, unable to form a more articulate thought. Her fingers are tingling now—a peculiar sensation. Her teeth chatter.

  “We thought it was your people,” General Byron says. “The Cairans.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Evidently.”

  Silence passes between them as he stares contemplatively at her mangled hand. She does not follow his gaze. She cannot bear to look and see the damage that has been done.

  When he looks at her again she can see turmoil in his guarded gaze. “You should have listened to me. I serve at the pleasure of his Majesty. Within these walls my hands are tied. To act against him would be treason.”

  “I don’t expect anything from you,” she snaps. “I landed myself in this situation. I will get myself out of it.”

  His expression darkens. “I don’t think you understand. This isn’t over. The Guardians are going to continue to torture you until you give them what they want.”

  “I won’t tell them anything.”

  The muscles in his jaw tighten as he grates his teeth together. “They’ll expect me to interrogate you.”

  “I won’t tell you anything either,” she spits.

  His hesitation leaves her aware of the uncomfortable closeness between them.

  “Silence is treason, here,” he says at last. His voice is tight. “They’ll call you a traitor and you’ll be hung for your crimes against the crown.”

/>   She turns her head away from him, furiously blinking away the flurry of tears that threaten to spill over. She knows that once she begins sobbing—once the tears begin— she will not be able to stop.

  “I’m prepared to die,” she lies.

  “Look at me,” he says, surprising her. He takes her face in his hands, guiding her eyes back to him. Anguish cuts through the usually blank veneer of his face—naked anguish, and, deeper still, a desperation that sets her pulse racing.

  “You may think you’re ready to die, but I’m not prepared to watch. Not when I’ve just found you again, do you hear me?”

  She is silent before him, her breathing hitching in her throat.

  I don’t love him, she had told Orianna, indignant at the very thought.

  But you will.

  And it will drown you both.

  “I’m going to untie your wrist,” he says, his fingers dancing lightly upon the twine that binds her mangled hand. “It’s not going to be pleasant. The rope is too tight. All of the blood will go rushing to your fingers.”

  She nods, steeling herself. She studies the clenched line of his jaw as he works, keeping her gaze away from the constant twitch of her poor, mangled fingers. His own fingers move delicately as he pries at the knot atop her wrist.

  And then the rope is falling away. She feels a prickle of surging blood as far back as her elbow. Her fingers tingle for a shivering instant and then there is pain—piercing, pressing pain. It feels as though her fingers are being broken all over again. Fresh blood pushes into the purpling flesh and she wretches.

  A flash of white pulls across her retinas and her vision goes dark.

  Harvest Cycle 1511

  The Hawk suspects that the map does not lead to the Westerlies, but instead to some other location. Somewhere only Charles Argot knows. Somewhere he can collect later, once we have parted ways.

  He is a paranoid boy, the Hawk. He believes everyone in this world is duplicitous.

  Sam, however, believes everyone can be bought for the right price, duplicitous or not. We paid a hefty sum for Charles Argot’s loyalty. The map, when unlocked—if ever unlocked—will bring a ship into the Westerlies.

  I will believe that to be the truth. I will trust the mapmaker, if only because we have gone too far to turn back now.

  Eliot

  CHAPTER 25

  The Rebellion

  Someone is shouting.

  Emerala wakes in a start. She sits up too fast, drawing in her breath with a frantic pull of air. Her fingers claw at her throat. Her skin is clammy. Cold.

  She blinks rapidly, her eyes adjusting to the sunlight that falls across her gown in strips of pale yellow. She is lying in a cot, her shoulders wrapped in an itching wool blanket. Somewhere below she can hear the waves whispering against the hull of the ship. The light pulls, contorting, across the plum cotton of her gown as the galley rises and falls in rhythmic swells.

  “Damn it!” curses the voice a second time. The Hawk. “Damn it, this is all wrong.”

  Emerala paws at her eyes, willing her vision to clear. Her stomach churns. She is back on the ship, that much is clear. But how? How did she get here? Her heartbeat pulses behind her eyes. Her tongue feels like sandpaper in her mouth. She tries to remember leaving the Eisle and realizes she cannot. Her memory is fuzzy, slipping away from her like the remnants of a bad dream.

  A second voice joins the fray. This one is calmer than the first, but only just.

  “Maybe now is the time to fill me in, mate, don’t you think?” Alexander asks.

  The Hawk unleashes a laugh like bark. “You want me to fill you in, aye? I’ve already told you. This map is wrong.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I know where it’s meant to lead, and this isn’t it.”

  Emerala pulls the heels of her hands away from her eyes, rolling over in bed to try and get a better view of the room. The chandelier swings languidly overhead. Several bottles of rum clink in the wooden cellarette behind Alexander’s desk. At the desk stands Alexander and the Hawk, each of them bent low over an unfurled bit of parchment. Their figures dance on her vision, the lines of them blurring at the edges. She blinks slowly, feeling the room roll. They do not know she is awake—not yet.

  She closes her eyes in a futile effort to stop the room from spinning, and listens.

  “Are you finally ready to start answering my questions, then?” Alexander asks. His dark voice is heavy with implication.

  “I’ve always been willing to answer your questions, Cap’n.” The Hawk sounds weary. Tense.

  “Have you? It hasn’t felt that way.”

  “Aye? Maybe you’ve been asking the wrong questions.”

  There is a scuffle—the sound of boots rushing across the creaking floorboards. Someone grunts. Emerala opens one eye. Alexander is nose to nose with the Hawk, a pistol leveled at the bare skin of his heavily inked chest. Emerala notices that Alexander’s left hand is bound tightly with gauze, as if he’s recently been injured.

  “Don’t,” he snarls. “Do not play games with me. Not today.”

  “You don’t have the guts to kill me. You’re not a murderer.”

  “I’ve killed before.”

  “Not like this,” the Hawk disagrees. “Not up close. Not looking into the eyes of an old friend.”

  “You’re no friend of mine,” spits Alexander.

  “Oh, but I am. In fact, I’m your only friend. We want the same thing, you and I. That makes us allies.”

  The gun remains positioned at the Hawk’s chest, but Emerala sees Alexander’s finger relax at the trigger. He leans back, a scowl pressed into his lips.

  “Allies share information,” he says.

  “I’ve shared with you what I know. This map was made to lead to a spot somewhere in the great Westerlies. You’ve studied it. It’s filled with riddles and dead ends. Does that map bring us anywhere near the mainland?”

  “No,” Alexander admits.

  “No,” the Hawk repeats. “We’ve been played, Cap’n. Played for fools. And I knew it. I told your father not to trust the man who made the map—”

  Alexander cuts him off. “You knew the mapmaker?”

  The Hawk falls silent, his features hardening to stone.

  “You knew the mapmaker?” Alexander repeats.

  “You’re asking the wrong questions again, Cap’n,” the Hawk warns.

  “Right.” Alexander scoffs. “You’re quite the ally, Evander.”

  The Hawk smirks and says nothing. The feathered down of Emerala’s pillow tickles her nose and she fights back a sneeze, scrunching up her face with all of her might.

  “It must be difficult to keep track of all of your lies,” Alexander observes. “Perhaps you’re finally starting to slip.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps I should kill you now, if you’re determined to be useless to me. The map is unbound. Wrong or not, I’m going where it leads.”

  “You may not like what you find.”

  Alexander smiles a humorless smile. “You have no—”

  Emerala sneezes loudly, launching herself upright upon the cot. Her matted curls fly forward into her face. Wiping her nose, she turns sheepishly toward the desk. The two pirates stare at her, the pistol still leveled at the Hawk’s tattooed chest. He laughs, his golden eyes crinkling as Alexander retracts his weapon and holsters it at his waist.

  “She lives,” the Hawk crows. Emerala scowls up at him.

  “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” Alexander says. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been hit over the head with a rock,” Emerala gripes, sniffling. “What happened to me?”

  Alexander pulls at the golden scruff on his chin. “We were hoping you could tell us. Thom and the Hawk found you half buried under a snowdrift a few miles inland. You must have been separated from the rest of the group during the race back to the ship.”

  “I don’t—I can’t remember.”

  �
��We think you might have been poisoned.”

  She sputters, choking on the word. “Poisoned?”

  Alexander nods, a strip of yellow sunlight falling across his face. The light of it sets the golden scruff of his jaw ablaze.

  “Are you certain the last thing you can remember is the dining hall?” the Hawk asks. His golden eyes on hers are making her skin crawl. She feels unnaturally cold in the heat.

  “Yes,” she says, not without a hint of agitation. There is a distinct buzzing noise deep inside her skull—an angry hornet lodged between her ears. She remembers the warm, hazy glow of the dining hall—can hear the discordant hum of dining patrons.

  “Think,” Alexander urges.

  “I am thinking,” she retorts. Her voice is thick.

  “Did you eat or drink anything while we were there?”

  “No,” she says and hesitates. “I-I don’t remember.”

  “Which is it? No, you didn’t, or you don’t remember?”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t eat any of the meat,” she snaps, feeling nauseous at the thought of it. “At least, I don’t think I did, but I’m having a hard time recalling anything at all.”

  “You should have stayed with the Hawk,” Alexander says. “Going off on your own out there was foolish.”

  “I—” Emerala starts and stops, a sudden shred of memory coming back to her. She feels the cadence of a gallop beneath her, hears the whinny of a horse, high and clear. And Evander the Hawk’s voice in her ear, keep quiet, Rogue. She glances up at him, peering at him carefully across the late afternoon sun that sweeps across the floors in dusty shafts of gold. He stares back at her, unruffled, calm.

  “I’m sorry,” Emerala whispers.

  A throat clearing in the background causes all three of them to turn their attention toward the door. Lachlan the Lethal stands perched in the doorway, the yellow light of the sun turned deep red at his back. His small, stocky frame is shrouded in a halo of glistening crimson, pitting the deep grooves of his face into pockets of shadow.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “Thought ye’d like to know there’s a stranger onboard the ship.”