Forged in Blood II Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Lindsay Buroker
know they were up here and that they were… gifted enough to impact our, uhm, results.” Right, reminding them that she’d meant to take over the train probably wasn’t wise. She shifted to, “What the captain says about my comrades and me is true. We’re outlaws, but we’re wrongfully accused outlaws and seek to clear our names. We also seek to put the rightful emperor back on the throne, Sespian Savarsin.”
“You thought to do this by hijacking our train?” Starcrest asked, his voice mild. Deceptively so? There might have been an edge beneath it. Amaranthe had heard foreigners call the Turgonian language guttural and harsh, but his accent had been polished smooth by so many years away from the empire.
Books nudged her and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Sespian wasn’t born yet when he was last in the empire. He might not care about him.”
“It’s not a good idea to remind your captors of their advanced age when they’re holding firearms on you,” Starcrest told him.
Amaranthe thought it had been a joke, but Books’s eyes widened with concern. “Urp?” he announced.
Akstyr snorted. He was doing his best to look tough and surly, a hard image to convey when hunched in a ball on the floor. In addition, his sneer faded every time he glanced at the girl.
Amaranthe was on the verge of deciding Starcrest’s humor might be a sign that they weren’t in as much trouble as she’d thought, but his tone grew cooler for his next question, “Why did you seek to commandeer the train?”
“It wasn’t the original plan. We were…” Amaranthe tilted her chin skyward, then caught herself—explaining a flying lifeboat that traveled hundreds of miles in minutes seemed a daunting task—and shifted her chin tilt toward the back of the train, toward the mountains they were leaving. “We were stranded in the pass and needed to get back to the city as quickly as possible—Fort Urgot was under siege, and there may be full-on war in the streets by now.”
Starcrest’s jaw tightened, and he glanced at the children. As one, they blinked innocently, clasped their hands behind their backs, and pretended to study the ceiling. Amaranthe imagined some past argument about whether they should be allowed to come or not.
“Sespian needs us,” she continued. “We’ve been helping him with—I don’t know what you’ve heard, but there’s been a business coalition trying to control him from within the Imperial Barracks for the last year, and before that, Hollowcrest was drugging him, and… well, he hasn’t had a chance yet to prove what he can do for the empire. He hired us to help him.” Technically true, though he’d only wanted to be kidnapped, and they’d succeeded at that task several weeks earlier.
“Sespian is dead,” the colonel snapped. “My lord, you can’t accept any of this woman’s words as truth. She’s a criminal, and I sincerely doubt she’s ‘wrongfully accused.’ She runs with that assassin, Sicarius, after all.”
Starcrest’s face grew closed, masked. “Does she?” he said neutrally.
Cursed ancestors, of all the times for him to hide his thoughts… He and Sicarius had met in those tunnels, twenty years earlier, she knew that, but had they been working together? Or against each other? Sicarius would have been doing the emperor’s bidding—quite loyally at that age, she imagined—and Starcrest had gone his own way afterward. Had they parted as enemies? Allies? Agreed not to kill each other this time, but with no promises for the future? She knew Sicarius respected Starcrest—one might almost say idolized, though that was a strong word to attribute to someone so cool and aloof as he. What had Starcrest thought of
him
?
“Where is the assassin now?” Starcrest asked.
“I haven’t seen him in a couple of days,” Amaranthe said, “but I can take you to him once we return to the city if you want to talk to him. I understand you had an adventure together once.”
“You thought to do this by hijacking our train?” Starcrest asked, his voice mild. Deceptively so? There might have been an edge beneath it. Amaranthe had heard foreigners call the Turgonian language guttural and harsh, but his accent had been polished smooth by so many years away from the empire.
Books nudged her and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Sespian wasn’t born yet when he was last in the empire. He might not care about him.”
“It’s not a good idea to remind your captors of their advanced age when they’re holding firearms on you,” Starcrest told him.
Amaranthe thought it had been a joke, but Books’s eyes widened with concern. “Urp?” he announced.
Akstyr snorted. He was doing his best to look tough and surly, a hard image to convey when hunched in a ball on the floor. In addition, his sneer faded every time he glanced at the girl.
Amaranthe was on the verge of deciding Starcrest’s humor might be a sign that they weren’t in as much trouble as she’d thought, but his tone grew cooler for his next question, “Why did you seek to commandeer the train?”
“It wasn’t the original plan. We were…” Amaranthe tilted her chin skyward, then caught herself—explaining a flying lifeboat that traveled hundreds of miles in minutes seemed a daunting task—and shifted her chin tilt toward the back of the train, toward the mountains they were leaving. “We were stranded in the pass and needed to get back to the city as quickly as possible—Fort Urgot was under siege, and there may be full-on war in the streets by now.”
Starcrest’s jaw tightened, and he glanced at the children. As one, they blinked innocently, clasped their hands behind their backs, and pretended to study the ceiling. Amaranthe imagined some past argument about whether they should be allowed to come or not.
“Sespian needs us,” she continued. “We’ve been helping him with—I don’t know what you’ve heard, but there’s been a business coalition trying to control him from within the Imperial Barracks for the last year, and before that, Hollowcrest was drugging him, and… well, he hasn’t had a chance yet to prove what he can do for the empire. He hired us to help him.” Technically true, though he’d only wanted to be kidnapped, and they’d succeeded at that task several weeks earlier.
“Sespian is dead,” the colonel snapped. “My lord, you can’t accept any of this woman’s words as truth. She’s a criminal, and I sincerely doubt she’s ‘wrongfully accused.’ She runs with that assassin, Sicarius, after all.”
Starcrest’s face grew closed, masked. “Does she?” he said neutrally.
Cursed ancestors, of all the times for him to hide his thoughts… He and Sicarius had met in those tunnels, twenty years earlier, she knew that, but had they been working together? Or against each other? Sicarius would have been doing the emperor’s bidding—quite loyally at that age, she imagined—and Starcrest had gone his own way afterward. Had they parted as enemies? Allies? Agreed not to kill each other this time, but with no promises for the future? She knew Sicarius respected Starcrest—one might almost say idolized, though that was a strong word to attribute to someone so cool and aloof as he. What had Starcrest thought of
him
?
“Where is the assassin now?” Starcrest asked.
“I haven’t seen him in a couple of days,” Amaranthe said, “but I can take you to him once we return to the city if you want to talk to him. I understand you had an adventure together once.”