The Forbidden City: Book Two of Rogue Elegance

by K A Dowling

  “Eliot Roberts,” the Lethal muses, still reading.

  “Aye, what about him?”

  “This is his journal. His name is on every page.”

  Evander’s response is wry. “What a profound observation.”

  The Lethal murmurs under his breath, ignoring Evander as he continues to read. One blackened fingernail traces the line of words across the page. Evander can feel himself prickling with impatience. His bones tremble with exhaustion and his head aches from a day in the jungles of Caira without water or food. All he wants is to sleep.

  His eyelids flutter, nearly closing, and he groans. “Are you going to make me try and guess what game you’re playing at, or are you going to let me in on it?”

  At that, the Lethal peers up at him. He looks far older than his years in the purpling shadows of the oncoming storm—ancient. The deep grooves of his face are pitted with black. He jabs a finger at the page before him.

  “You’re mentioned in this book quite a bit, boy,” he says.

  “Am I?”

  “Ye are, and ye know it, so let’s not pretend like we haven’t both read this thing through and through.”

  Evander shrugs. Uncrossing his arms, he slips his hands into the pockets of his breeches. “Fine,” he agrees. “I’ve read the journal. And read it, and read it. And it hasn’t told me a thing I don’t already know.”

  “Why’s it so important to ye, then?”

  “Who said it was?”

  The Lethal does not respond. A small smile curls in one corner of his mouth as he thumbs through another page. He reads on in silence for a moment, his lips fumbling over the words. Evander watches him carefully, studying his fingers as they tap at the cover.

  “Here,” he says. “And Emerala, too, that little sprite of a child—that wild, frightful thing—I wonder if she’ll be like her mother.” The Lethal looks up from the page, his eyes glittering.

  “Curious thing, en’t it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why didn’t ye tell the Rogue that it were her father being held prisoner by the Cairans?”

  Evander hesitates, his chest tightening. The ship lurches precariously to the side and he staggers, fighting to hold his balance against the tipping floor. There is the low rumble of creaking wood and a splintering crash as a barrel topples to the floor. The ship falls back upon the swell of the sea as the wave ebbs, sending the cask barreling noisily across the wood. Evander glares up at the Lethal, watching as the old man continues to read in silence.

  “What makes you think the debtor had any relation to her?” he asks.

  The Lethal looks up at that, his eyes gleaming. “I’ve read the journal. It en’t much of a leap to reach such a conclusion. That man on the island—the debtor—he’s her father. Eliot Roberts. There’s no doubt in my mind. What I’m not sure about is why ye didn’t tell her so.”

  Evander shrugs. “It makes no difference to me.”

  “Ah, quite the opposite,” says the Lethal with a dry laugh. “Quite the opposite.”

  He looks back down at the journal, chuckling aloud as he spits on his thumb and flips the page. Evander is silent before the murderer as he considers his options. He fingers the hilt of his cutlass. It will be a silent death—quick and easy—if he can move fast enough. His pulse quickens beneath his skin as he thinks of the blood seeping through his cot.

  He’s read the journal. He knows too much, he reasons silently. He is putting the pieces together too quickly.

  “I wouldn’t try and kill me,” says the Lethal, not bothering to look up from his reading.

  “Give me one reason why not,” Evander hisses.

  “Don’t be a fool, boy. Ye know who I am. Ye know what I am.” His demeanor is eerily placid against the crisp reek of the incoming storm. “Ye’d be dead sooner than ye can draw your weapon.”

  “I’m handier with a blade than you seem to think.”

  “Aye? Are ye willing to stake your life on that?”

  “I am.” Evander’s fingers close around the hilt. He draws the blade partially out of the scabbard, letting the bowed steel sing against the punctured leather at his belt. The Lethal continues to read, his eyes scanning the page at a leisurely pace as he takes in the text.

  “And Emerala the Rogue? Are ye willing to bet her life?”

  Evander pauses in the dimly lit expanse, his breath slowing. His fingers loosen about the hilt of his cutlass. The Lethal sets the journal down upon the cot and looks up, meeting Evander’s eyes across the dark.

  “Hit a nerve, have I, boy?”

  Evander swallows hard and says nothing.

  “Interesting development, I should think,” the old man comments. “I’d suppose, then, you haven’t told the Rogue about her father because ye somehow believe you’re protecting her from the truth.” He gives a callous laugh, his eyes catching in the grey light as he holds Evander in his gaze. “A hopeless romantic, Melena called ye. Maybe she was right.”

  Wrong, Evander thinks. He watches the pirate through stoic eyes, careful not to reveal his final card. Let him think the Rogue is nothing but an infatuation if it suits his feeble, old fancy. She has a part to play yet, murderer.

  “Put away your weapon and play a game with me,” the Lethal says.

  “What’s the game?”

  “It’s an easy one,” the Lethal says. “Ye answer my questions with the truth, or I slit the Rogue’s throat.”

  Evander pauses for the space of a heartbeat. “You’re bluffing.”

  The Lethal smiles, his scar wrinkling as grooves split his cheeks. “Ye can call my bluff. Or ye can play along.”

  Evander bites down hard against his tongue, his golden eyes blazing as hard as steel.

  “Good,” the Lethal says. He looks back down at the journal and continues thumbing through the pages, muttering beneath his breath. Evander catches fragments of familiar words and phrases as he listens closely. His blood boils beneath his skin and he fights to keep his temper in check.

  After a moment of disjointed mumbling, the Lethal pauses, his finger stopping on a line of text.

  “There. He flies under a black banner bearing a blood red cross.” His gaze rises from the page to meet Evander’s. “That’s that old mercenary bastard Randall Jameson, what he mentions there.”

  “I know who he’s mentioning,” Evander snaps, irate.

  “Aye, that’s right. Ye were there when Jameson took Eliot Roberts, were ye not? Drums in the dark, he said. I imagine ye heard them, too. I imagine ye even tried to save the poor bastard. Ye and the old Cap’n.”

  Evander frowns, thrust suddenly into an unwanted memory.

  He was a boy, then. No older than a teen. The night Jameson came for Eliot Roberts was the first time he had ever killed a man. He had been sleeping in the crow’s nest when they came—had fallen asleep on duty. The moon that night was black. Even the stars were sleeping. Jameson and his men crept aboard under the cover of darkness, robbing Eliot Roberts from his cot.

  Shortly after midnight, Evander had awoken to the sound of drums. He sidled down the yardarm in a panic, his cutlass drawn, but Jameson was already gone. So, too, was Eliot Roberts. The alarm had been sounded and there was a skirmish upon the deck. All around him was the coppery reek of blood and the metallic singing of blades upon the rippling night air. It was a wordless pandemonium—a perfectly orchestrated descant of carnage.

  There is a bitter taste upon his tongue as he remembers the ease with which his cutlass had slid through the pirate’s throat. The boy—and he was no older than a boy, a runaway perhaps, like him—had sunk to his knees with a quiet gurgle. It chilled him through the bone—to see those lifeless eyes accusing him in the darkness. He kicked the boy over with the toe of his boot, rifling in his pocket for something—anything—to cover that unblinking gaze.

  All that he had was a handful of copper coins.

  Before him, the Lethal is watching him with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. The night air sticks to Evander’s
skin, itching at his neck beneath his collar.

  “Harboring regrets, are ye, boy?”

  Evander ignores him. “What are you playing at?”

  “I’m only tryin’ to connect the pieces. Surely ye can’t begrudge a curious old man for that.” The Lethal returns his gaze to the page before him, scouring the text for a moment more.

  “Randall Jameson’s body was rotting in one of them gibbets back on the shore of Caira,” the Lethal comments. “I recognized the insignia on his jacket right away. But ye knew that, didn’t ye, boy?”

  Evander is silent.

  “Ye didn’t look at all surprised to see him there,” the Lethal continues. “Alexander told me he stole that map of his from Jameson back on Chancey. Ye knew Jameson took that map the day he took Eliot Roberts. Ye knew he’d go back to the start, didn’t ye? When a job goes wrong, ye always go back to the boss.”

  “You’re more observant than the Cap’n,” Evander says, relinquishing a bitter smile. “I didn’t know who hired Jameson—not until Cap’n unlocked the map in the Eisle. But aye, when a job goes wrong, you go back to the start. It’s code.”

  The Lethal studies him through narrowed eyes. Evander can nearly hear the cogs turning behind his skull—can picture the pieces falling slowly into place. “Eliot Roberts spent the final entries of his journal wondering who paid off Jameson and Argot. The journal ends before he found out. But he did find out eventually, didn’t he?”

  “Seems that way,” Evander agrees. “I never saw him again.”

  “Domio hired a mercenary to abduct Eliot Roberts fourteen harvest cycles past. Why?”

  “Don’t know,” Evander says.

  “Careful boy,” the Lethal warns. “Don’t lie to me, now. If Domio hired Jameson, why’d he kill him and set the birds on him once he returned to Caira?”

  “Because he failed,” Evander says. “Eliot Roberts was never the intended target. He’s a mule—a vessel. Nothing more. Domio wanted the cargo Roberts carried. He wanted the map to stay out of the wrong hands. Once unlocked, the map would lead its owner directly to Caira, and to the object Domio worked so hard to steal.”

  “What object is that?” the Lethal asks.

  Evander’s lip twitches and he ignores the question. “Jameson never should have let Alexander Mathew get his hands on the map. An inexperienced pirate like him should have been easy pickings for an old mercenary like Jameson.”

  “But he wasn’t, because ye helped him get the map in Chancey.”

  Evander shakes his head. “I didn’t do a thing. Jameson was a sodding drunk. A child could have stolen the map. He failed at his job. He deserved what he got.”

  The Lethal peers at Evander through slitted eyes as he turns over what he has just heard. Evander stares back at him, waiting.

  “What I en’t able to figure is how Charles Argot ended up exiled on Caros?”

  Evander sniffs. “You work it out, old man. You seem clever enough.”

  The Lethal clucks his tongue reproachfully against the roof of his mouth. “Don’t get smart on me. That’s not how we play, boy. Ye answer my questions with the truth.”

  “These questions are getting a bit too invasive for my liking,” Evander retorts.

  “Perhaps ye forgot the stakes, then.” The Lethal snaps the book shut and hops down from the cot. His boots hit the ground with a thud that reverberates through the empty crew’s quarters. “I don’t know why, but I know that the Rogue is worth more to ye alive than dead. Whatever it is you’re doing, ye need that pretty little throat of hers to stay intact.”

  Outside, Evander can hear the shouting of the crew as they fight to secure the lines against the oncoming storm. He stares back at the old pirate and says nothing.

  “Aye, well if you’re going to make me work for it,” the Lethal growls. “I know that Argot took a hefty payout from Cap’n Samuel to make the map, but he took a bigger payout from Domio to deliver Jameson the map and Eliot’s location when it were done.”

  “Obvious.” Evander smirks. “Much of that was written in the journal.”

  “So what happened to Argot after he delivered the map to Domio?”

  Evander shrugs. “I don’t have a clue. Cap’n Sam and I found him three sheets to the wind in a Westerly port six harvests later. He’d gambled away all his earnings and was failing to win them back at a game of blackjack.”

  “Argot told me, once, that he ended up in Caros over a bad game of cards.” The Lethal scrunches his nose, recalling old conversations with men long since dead.

  At this, Evander allows a full smile to break out across his face.

  “Aye,” he says. “He did. He was betting money, then, but I upped the ante with my hand. I made him bet his freedom. He was so drunk he didn’t even recognize me until the game was over. By then he’d already lost.”

  “So it was you that left Argot marooned on Caros,” the Lethal concludes.

  “I did,” Evander admits. “I left him there until I needed him again.”

  “Needed him?” The Lethal frowns. “Ye went back eight harvests later and put a blade through his heart.”

  Evander locks his jaw and says nothing.

  “Ye needed him dead?”

  “Maybe I did,” Evander assents, studying the man before him.

  “Maybe ye did,” the Lethal repeats. The gold caps of his teeth catch upon the dwindling light. The patch of sky visible through the doorway capitulates to the skeletal clouds that spiral in from the west. An eerie green clings to the ship like a wet blanket. The air is electric.

  “Or maybe,” the Lethal muses, “maybe ye murdered Argot to keep Cap’n Mathew from findin’ out the truth.”

  “I’m on the Cap’n’s side,” Evander opposes. “We’re after the same thing.”

  The Lethal nods. “Aye, for now. But not forever.”

  “What are you, his protector?” Evander snaps. “You’ll do well to remember that Alexander wanted you dead from the very start. I’m his right hand man.”

  “A right hand man who almost left his captain for dead in a triggered booby trap,” the Lethal reminds him. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  “I’m still better than you,” Evander snarls. “You’re nothing. You’re an incompetent old man with a long list of sins. If it weren’t for me talking the Cap’n into trusting you, you’d have been left for dead at the Frost Forts.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving, as they say,” the Lethal says, eyes gleaming. He drops the book to the ground with a clatter just as a strip of lightning snaps across the purpling sky. For a moment, all Evander can see are the whites of his eyes and the glimmer of his blade as the room is captured in a white frame of light.

  And then they are cast again in the crisp darkness of the storm. The ship rocks to the side, barreling upon the waves as thunder rents apart the air. Evander freezes, a blade at his throat and a voice in his ear.

  “You’re a man with a plan, Hawk, and I en’t like to miss it. Ye can play your game, but mind ye don’t take any missteps. I like the Cap’n. He’s a good man with an unsullied heart—rare in these parts of the world. Ye so much as make a move that I don’t like, I’ll slit yer throat.”

  Evander swallows, his larynx pulling against the sliver of steel against his skin.

  “And the Rogue?” Evander asks.

  The blade slides away from him as the Lethal chuckles.

  “A bluff, for now,” the murderer whispers in the darkness. “But it’s good to know ye have a weakness should I need it.”

  Another flash of lightning streaks across the sky. The air crackles with electricity, causing the hair on Evander’s neck to stand upright. The light contorts into blackness and the Lethal is gone, leaving Evander alone to his thoughts among the rolling cots.

  CHAPTER 40

  The Rebellion

  Emerala stands in the dusty silver light that falls into the ship’s hold, listening to the rain that trickles intermittently through the open hatch above her head. The ship rises a
nd falls against the swollen sea and she stumbles, nearly losing her balance. Her slender fingers cling onto a barrel for support. She cannot shake the creeping feeling of disappointment that has taken root within her. After all this time, she was certain that the trip to Caira would provide her with the answers she so desperately sought. She frowns, kicking at the ground with her bare toe. She knows less now than she did before.

  My girl, the prisoner had called her. My girl.

  It’s impossible that the man at the center of the maze knew her. Surely she would have remembered him—surely she would have recognized something, anything, about him. A single deep groove forms between her eyebrows as her mouth drops into a sullen pout. The ravings of a madman, that’s all it was.

  “Blood of the three, queen you’ll be.” The nasal croak of the silver parrot to her right startles her. He has been watching her through silent black eyes as she paces back and forth, hopping to and fro on the wooden beam in his masterfully woven menagerie. All around him, six other identical silver parrots are napping, their heads tucked down beneath their wings. At the sound of his voice, the closest parrot startles awake, glaring out from beneath his wing.

  “Quiet,” he snaps in irritation. He flutters his feathers, his grey stomach puffing outward, and shuffles away from the other parrot. His black talons move one over the other in sluggish steps.

  Emerala frowns at the bird. He watches her silently, his black eyes full of watery understanding. She has been trying all morning to get him to mimic her, with no results. The parrot has been content to stare at her, his head cocked in confusion.

  “Sure, now you talk,” Emerala remarks in exasperation.

  “Ahoy there.” The parrot flutters his wings. “Ahoy.”

  “Yes, hello to you,” Emerala replies tersely.

  “Emerala the Rogue,” the bird sings. “Blood red ice for diamond wars.” He flaps his wings again. Emerala feels a chill go through her at his words. The dreams that have plagued her of late come rushing to the forefront of her memory. Overhead, there is a low rumble of thunder. Her hands drop to her sides as a chill grips her. She stares at the bird, remembering the sight of her blood spilled across the snow. She blinks and sees the Hawk, his golden eyes intent as they watch her through the dark.