“We saved each other’s lives once,” Starcrest said. “Long ago. I’m certain he wouldn’t betray his father or his people on my behalf, but this small favor?” Starcrest took the letter from his wife’s hand and smoothed it onto the table. “This makes sense. I don’t think it’s a trap.”
“Trap or not, love, that assassin is coming to kill you.”
Chapter 12
From a rooftop a block away, Sicarius stared at the familiar outline of the molasses factory, its high brick walls and flat roof, the pair of massive cylindrical holding tanks occupying a third of the lot. Had he known this was Starcrest’s hideout, he could have sent a note days ago. How had he found it? If Sespian, Maldynado, and Basilard had died at Fort Urgot, and Amaranthe, Books, and Akstyr had been killed in the fighting within the Behemoth, that didn’t leave any of the original team members who might have acted as a guide. Yara? Had she somehow chanced upon Starcrest? Sicarius reminded himself that he’d only seen Amaranthe’s body. Perhaps Books and Akstyr had escaped the crash and met up with Starcrest when the admiral was coming to investigate it. Yes, that made sense. Countless people, some curious and some opportunistic, would have visited that site, however gory it’d been. And Starcrest would have been troubled by, if not outright horrified at, the reappearance of that alien technology.
“We may be too late,” Kor Nas said from a meter away. They stood, their backs to the smokestacks of their own building, a refinery still filled with busy employees, as they studied the molasses factory. “It’s empty.”
“You can sense this?” Sicarius lowered a spyglass. Though there wasn’t any smoke coming from the factory’s stacks, that might be intentional. When Amaranthe had been leading, the team hadn’t laid fires in any of the furnaces for warmth and had used only personal lanterns for lighting. They had set a guard though, and Sicarius would have expected Starcrest to do the same. He didn’t spot anyone standing on the roof. Copious footprints trampled the snow on the sidewalks around the factory, and drifts had been cleared from the doors, but that might have happened at any point in the last few days.
“I do. There is no one inside.” Ice frosted the practitioner’s voice. “Starcrest and his men must have received your warning and moved on.”
Before Sicarius could decide if he wanted to respond to the statement, a blast of pain dropped him to his knees. It was as if a cannonball had struck the side of his head, blowing half of it away. Unprepared, it took him a moment to erect his mental barriers, to push aside the pain and bring his rational mind back to bear before his attack-or-flee instincts could take over. Teeth gritted, he staggered back to his feet. The pain hadn’t lessened, but he dealt with it. He forced his breathing to return to normal, his heartbeat to slow, and he faced his attacker.
Though he had one hand stretched out toward Sicarius, Kor Nas was barely paying attention to him. His gaze remained on the factory.
He’s distracted, Sicarius thought. Attack now!
He bunched his muscles to spring, but Kor Nas dropped his arm, and the pain vanished so quickly it startled Sicarius.
“Wait,” Kor Nas said, “there’s one person in there.”
“Starcrest?” Sicarius was still of a mind to spring, to attack, but when Kor Nas turned his gaze toward him, he felt the subtle presence of the opal again, soothing his muscles, not allowing him to prepare an attack, not at his good master.
Sicarius wanted to let his lips peel back in a snarl of rage—even that seemed too unsuitable a reaction to that much pain—but he found his mask again. Interesting, a detached part of his mind decided, that when the stone had been inflicting pain upon him, some of that control it had over his physical body had faded. Could he use that somehow?
“I cannot tell,” Kor Nas finally said. “Seeing was not my field of study. Is it possible he’s already laid a trap?”
Yes, Sicarius thought. “We’ll find out.”
Kor Nas considered him for a long moment. “You go find out.”
“You’re staying here?” Sicarius waved at the paraphernalia on the practitioner’s belt. “Didn’t you come for a fight?”
“I came to see Starcrest killed and his head removed. As a practitioner who has survived three wars, I’ve learned to use tools to handle such things whenever possible.” He extended a hand toward Sicarius.
“I cannot act as your bodyguard if we are separated,” Sicarius said and tried to keep himself from thinking the follow-up, and you cannot fall into Starcrest’s trap if you’re not there with me when he springs it.
“A risk I’m prepared to take.” The slight smile that curved Kor Nas’s lips said all too much, that he knew Sicarius’s thoughts.
Sicarius gazed again toward the dark factory. He’d hoped his scheme might result in the practitioner’s death as well as his own, thus insuring Starcrest’s safety, at least from the Nurians who so dearly wanted him dead, but his own death would have to be reward enough. A release from a captor who enjoyed living vicariously through his assassinations. He’d worked among those types of men for too long. He didn’t know when he’d gone from feeling apathy toward the duties they demanded of him to developing a distaste, but sometime in his last year, walking at Amaranthe’s side, it had happened. He wished they’d both lived long enough for him to tell her that.
“Go,” Kor Nas said. “He’s already had enough time to prepare. Don’t give him more.”
“I understand,” Sicarius said, not of his own accord, and his legs carried him to the side of the building. He climbed over the edge and descended into the darkening night.
• • •
Amaranthe walked through the dark factory, her lantern the only light. With the hundreds of soldiers about, the place had felt crowded and cramped. Now only their gear remained, most of it stacked out of the way near the walls, and she alone occupied the cavernous building. It was impressive how quickly an army could decamp if given the order. She didn’t know where Starcrest had moved them, but it didn’t matter. The only thing she had to worry about that night was delaying Sicarius so the rest of the team could search the surrounding area and deal with the wizard. Some of Ridgecrest’s stealthiest scouts had been sent to Flintcrest’s camp in case Kor Nas remained there, observing the planned assassination from afar. If he came in at Sicarius’s side, the task was to try and part them somehow, long enough to strike at the Nurian’s back. Either way, it was her job to distract Sicarius.
When they’d been discussing the note, Starcrest had originally placed himself in this role, but Amaranthe had pointed out that he, as the target, would be swiftly dispatched, perhaps without ever seeing the dagger coming. But she—seeing her alive—ought to muddle Sicarius’s clarity of purpose. Oh, it was possible the wizard would simply order him to kill her as soon as he spotted her, but she thought he’d fight it and that she’d have more time. Time in which she could… what? She hadn’t figured that out yet. And she didn’t know how much longer she had to plan.
She walked along the catwalks, pausing here and there to lean over a railing with her lantern and consider a vat or piece of machinery or some series of pipes snaking from the creation area to the holding tanks outside. Though she hoped Sicarius would fall to his knees and fight off any order to kill her, she couldn’t bet on it. Not after Darkcrest Isle. When she’d reluctantly spoken of that event to the others, Tikaya had pointed out that a living practitioner in the prime of his powers would be even harder to resist. So she needed to lay a trap for Sicarius, one that would delay him or separate him from the wizard.
Near the back of the factory, a row of grating traversed the cement floor, running from the vats to a larger square of grating in the corner.
“Must drain into the sewer system,” she murmured, “or maybe straight into the lake.” Amaranthe didn’t know much about how molasses was made, but figured there’d be a food-grade equivalent of slag, useless liquid or pulp that wasn’t employed in the final product.
She jogged down to the floor to investigate the drains further.
> A soft bang sounded somewhere above her.
Amaranthe jumped into the shadows beneath the stairs, putting her back to a wall. Ears straining, she listened for footsteps or a repeat of the noise.
Anxiety dampened her palms and quickened her heart. For all her calculating analysis of what Sicarius might and might not do, she couldn’t manage to push aside the knowledge that the most deadly assassin she’d ever heard of was now working for the other side, and he was coming to this building with the intent to kill. Kor Nas had no reason to spare her, and somehow she doubted that the Nurian would think kindly toward her because she meant something to Sicarius. Or had meant something when Sicarius had been… himself. What would he be like now, under the influence of the wizard’s magic? Would he possess his memories? His feelings?
“He must,” she whispered, for he’d thought to warn Starcrest.
Or had he? Though Starcrest thought that Nurian prince might be on his side, how could he be certain? This could all be a trap, the other side trying to trap Starcrest even as her team tried to trap the wizard.
The bang sounded again, and she flinched.
“Stop it,” she told herself. “It’s the wind batting against some shutter or loose tile on the roof.” Hadn’t Basilard mentioned something about a warm front blowing in?
Besides, if she could rely on nothing else, she could be certain Sicarius wouldn’t make any noise when he entered.
Her thoughts so fortified, Amaranthe jogged to the drain system. She reached the three-foot-wide line and pried up one of the grates, revealing a shallow channel that stunk of… She crinkled her nose. She didn’t know what to call it. Could sugar turn into mold? If so, it’d probably smell like that, though this had a richer, earthier scent. Many things had probably been funneled down there over the years.
Amaranthe lowered the grate. She might trap a cat in the shallow channel, but not a man. She followed it to the larger square in the corner, one about six feet by six feet wide. Much deeper than the channel, its bottom wasn’t visible to her light. She fished out a tenth ranmya coin and dropped it. The copper fell about ten feet before clanging, then bouncing a few times, the echoes suggesting it’d slipped into a drain. Amaranthe winced at the chain of noises, alarmingly loud in the silent factory.
When she was peeking around to make sure nobody had heard and was rushing out of the darkness, her gaze caught on one of the tall upper windows. A spider web of cracks stretched out from a large hole in the bottom pane. A hole large enough to crawl through? She wasn’t sure. She also wasn’t sure if it’d been there all along—the abandoned factory wasn’t in the best state of repair—or if it might be a new hole, such as the sort a person who romped about on rooftops and entered through windows might make. Was it her imagination that she could feel the draft whistling through the gap, its icy fingers teasing her flesh?
Yes, she decided, and stop imagining. There was a trap to be laid.
Amaranthe found the latch for the grate. She had to drop into a crouch and lift with her whole body to raise the wrought iron lattice. Expecting a noisy groan of rusty hinges, she said a silent thank you to whatever janitor had kept them well greased when they opened with a soft whisper.
Too bad the grate lifted up instead of falling downward. She’d had a vague notion of tricking Sicarius into falling into it, but it’d be a rather obvious trap if the huge grate were leaning against the wall behind it, waiting to be dropped shut. Besides, how would she have gotten him to fall in? Throw a carpet over it and stand on the other side? That only worked in the old fables and to animals with the brightness of inebriated sloths.
A cold draft whispered across the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine. She lifted her head, eyeing that window again. Maybe the hole was new. Or maybe her senses were telling her something. That she wasn’t alone in the building any more.
She stood, ready to abandon her feeble trap idea for something else when a new idea popped into her mind. If delaying him was her main goal, and the way to do that was to keep him busy…
Amaranthe prodded her fingers into the fastening mechanism for the grate. There was a hole where one could fasten a padlock.
“Great, just need a padlock,” she whispered and nibbled on the edge of her nail, thinking.
She’d seen one somewhere around the building, hadn’t she? On a storage shed outside, yes, but that one was locked. She had a feeling she didn’t have time to pick locks.
Oh, there was an open one in her office, hanging on the big metal locker that had housed that horrible frilly dress she’d borrowed. As if something like that needed to be secured. The lock had been left open though. Even as the sequence of thoughts ran through her head, her feet were moving. She raced toward the stairs, running on her toes, trying to keep her steps soft in case her senses were correct and she wasn’t alone.
Taking the steps three at a time, she reached the office, rushed inside, and grabbed the padlock. It was still open. She had no idea where the key was, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t the one who was going to have to unlock it.
She lunged back through the doorway and spun toward the steps, but halted and, acting on instincts, cut out her lantern.
Blackness swallowed the factory.
She struggled to still her breathing so that its noise wouldn’t keep her from hearing what was happening around her—and also so that its noise didn’t lead someone straight to her. The light had already betrayed her, but she set the lantern down and backed away. He’d expect her to go down the stairs. She tiptoed in the other direction, into the maze of catwalks overlooking the factory floor.
Again, she wasn’t certain her imagination wasn’t playing tricks on her, but she thought she’d caught a shadow moving down there, near the wall with all the rucksacks and bedrolls. It had been out of the corner of her eye, and when she’d turned her head to look full-on, it was gone. That was more of a warning than most people got when dealing with Sicarius though, and she’d be a fool to ignore it.
Thankful for the railing, she groped her way along the catwalk, choosing a route that would take her toward that grate. Wind gusted through the broken window, and the night sky and the dark silhouette of the building next door were visible through it. She didn’t think the wan illumination would be enough to make her outline visible to someone on the floor below, but she couldn’t be certain.
Once she reached the last section of railing, the closest she could get to the grate via the catwalks, she paused to listen. She doubted she could drop down without making a noise. If he didn’t know where she was already, he would soon. Did he know yet that it was she and not Starcrest? Did it matter? Did he have that soulless black knife out, ready to cut the first throat he came across?
Amaranthe climbed over the railing and crouched on the other side, her toes balanced on the edge of the catwalk, her arm hooked around the lower bar. Eyes straining, she tried to see into the inky darkness below. She should have put out that lantern far earlier so her vision would have had more time to adjust.
If he was down there, he’d have no trouble jumping up and grabbing her if she didn’t let go. With that encouraging thought, she lowered herself until only her fingers gripped the edge of the catwalk, then dropped the six or eight feet left to the floor.
She landed on hard cement. Without hesitating, she ran the last few meters to the drain hole, skirted the square blob on the floor—the hole was darker than the surrounding cement so she could make out that at least, and patted in the air by the wall. She frowned when her fingers didn’t brush against anything. The grate should have been leaning against the wall where she’d left it.
An ominous sinking sensation came over her. Swallowing, she crouched and patted the top of the hole. Cold wrought iron met her probing fingers.
She hadn’t shut it, and it hadn’t fallen shut—there was no way the window drafts were enough to cause that, nor could it have happened without her hearing a resounding clang. If she’d wanted proof that her mind wasn’
t tricking her and that she wasn’t alone… she had it.
Amaranthe eased the hatch open again, high enough that she would be able to slip through the gap. She clenched the padlock between her teeth, the metallic taste against her tongue reminding her unpleasantly of blood.
The plan was to secure herself inside the pit, forcing Sicarius to pick the lock from an awkward angle—she even imagined herself being audacious and knocking the picks out of his hand from beneath the safety of the grate—or find another way past the iron bars. If she was lucky, he might not have his lock picking set with him.
Poised to slip over the edge, she paused. What if he’d somehow guessed her intent and waited down there right now? Her death would be swift if she flung herself into his grip.
No, how could he have guessed such a suicidal plan? Who would lock themselves into a tiny space with an assassin stalking about? Anyone else would flee the building. Except she couldn’t do that. She had to keep him busy.
Hoping her logic proved sound, she slipped over the edge, letting the grate fall most of the way shut. Her feet didn’t come anywhere close to touching the bottom, so she hung there by her fingers, the weight of the iron on top of them. She shifted her grip until she hung from a bar and the grate was completely shut.
Letting go with one hand, Amaranthe pulled the padlock out of her mouth. With all of her weight dangling from those fingers, her shoulder cried out for her to hurry. She reached up, trying to hook the shackle into the latch hole, but it was a hard target to find from her awkward position. She tried to find purchase on the wall with her feet, but her boots slipped. There were no footholds. Whatever sludge came down this drain, it’d long since dried up, and the grimy residue was slick and frozen. Her fingers, still wrapped around the grating, slipped a few millimeters. A few more millimeters, and she’d drop, just like her coin.
The light level changed above, and her already rapid heartbeat jumped into triple-time. It wasn’t bright enough to suggest a lantern, but some faint variation had occurred up there, beyond the grate.
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