Sespian caught himself and lowered his voice. “Don’t you understand, assassin? If you must become a monster to defeat your enemies, then, even if you win, you lose.”
Sicarius’s gaze didn’t waver under Sespian’s criticism. “When leading human beings, virtue must be backed by steel, or someone will take advantage of you.” He thrust his hand toward the chamber.
Amaranthe hoped Sicarius wasn’t implying that Forge getting this far was due to some failing of Sespian’s. He’d had less than a year of truly being in power, and the inception of this plot seemed to be at least a decade old, if not more.
“Or, worse,” Sicarius continued, “you’ll end up with a dagger in your back. You needn’t bloody your own hands, Sire. This is why I was created.”
Amaranthe winced at his word choice. Created. As if he were some machine that had been assembled simply to kill.
Sespian unclenched his jaw to say, “I would never employ someone like you. Employing someone else to bloody their hands on your behalf is even more deplorable than doing it yourself.”
Amaranthe rubbed her face. They were supposed to be bonding, not sniping at each other. And this wasn’t the time or place for either act. She lifted her hand, patting the air in a placating gesture, but neither man was looking at her. Books was still listening to the oration below, but Basilard and Yara were eyeing Sicarius and Sespian uneasily. Yara pointed at the two men, met Amaranthe’s eyes, and lifted a finger to her lips.
“I know,” Amaranthe mouthed.
“We don’t need to resort to murder anyway,” Sespian said. “Now we know who’s involved and what they’re planning. We can outmaneuver them at their own game. We can—”
“What I want to know,” a man demanded from below, his voice echoing in the chamber, “is what you plan to do if Sespian Savarsin strolls back into the capital. Just because you’ve had him declared dead doesn’t mean that he is. Nobody’s found a body yet, have they?”
At the mention of the emperor’s name, Sespian and Sicarius released each other from their intense stares. Both men scooted back to the edge in time to hear Ms. Worgavic’s response.
“If he is still alive, it won’t matter for long. He is not the son of Raumesys.”
Sespian sucked in a startled breath, and he wasn’t the only one. Papers rustled, and murmurs broke out below.
“We have it from a reputable source,” Worgavic said, “and our people in the Imperial Barracks are collecting evidence as we speak. If Sespian appears in the capital again, we will publish everything.”
Reputable source? It was all Amaranthe could do not to sputter the words. Who would consider a tortured outlaw a reputable source?
Though she was afraid to look at Sicarius, and draw Sespian’s attention before facts had been stated, Amaranthe watched him out of the corner of her eye. He had grown corpse still. She flexed her fingers, ready to grab him if he decided to leap off the ledge and streak into the room, slaying people left and right to keep the rest of the secret from coming out.
“Who is his father then?” the man who’d brought it up asked.
“Yeah, who?” Sespian squeaked, his eyes so wide the whites gleamed around the irises.
Books looked at Amaranthe. Not only did his eyes lack surprise, but he glanced toward Sicarius. Numbly, Amaranthe wondered how long Books had known.
“His mother is from the Castlecrest line,” the man below continued. “If the father is warrior caste, Sespian might yet have a claim as good as Ravido’s.”
For whatever reason, Ms. Worgavic was hesitating. She must not know Sicarius’s lineage and couldn’t say for certain that her colleague’s point was moot. Or maybe she worried that Sicarius would somehow find out that she’d spread his secret to the world and come for revenge.
Ms. Worgavic’s back was toward the elevated shelf, and Amaranthe saw the moment when her old teacher firmed her spine and decided. Sicarius rose to a crouch. Amaranthe gripped his forearm.
“Don’t,” she whispered low enough that Sespian wouldn’t hear. “Not like this. He’ll never understand.”
Understand or forgive, she thought.
Ms. Worgavic spoke. “The father is—”
One of the massive double doors flew open. It smashed into the rock wall with so much force that it sounded like a gun being shot.
A blonde-haired woman ran inside with one of her shoes missing and the rest of her clothing saturated and clinging to her body.
“Oh, dear,” Books murmured.
Amaranthe winced. “Is that—”
“Our escaped prisoner,” Books said, “yes.”
• • •
“Go, go,” Amaranthe whispered, hustling the men toward the vent. If a general alarm hadn’t been issued yet, it would be soon. She didn’t know how many of those servants outside the door had weapons, but she doubted the Forge people had traveled down without numerous well-trained bodyguards.
Thanks to the low ceiling and awkward tightness of their hiding spot, the time it took the team to shuffle one-after-the-other into the vent seemed like hours. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but, as she maneuvered closer, Amaranthe heard all too much of Brynia’s rapid relaying of events. Before she reached the vent, shouts for guards and warnings of intruders echoed through the tunnels.
“Hurrying would be good,” Books whispered to whoever was ahead of him.
In the dim lighting, Amaranthe had lost track of the ordering. When Books’s feet disappeared ahead of her, she dove into the vent without hesitation. Going down was much faster than going up, and she slid more often than she crawled, suffering bumps and bruises from the rough rock walls.
Only after dropping ten or twenty feet did Amaranthe, with a sick feeling in her stomach, think to worry that Sicarius might not have followed her. She tried to peek over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see anything behind her, not when she was sliding, headfirst down a steep slope. Concerned that he’d chosen to go against her and Sespian’s wishes, and taken the other route off the shelf, Amaranthe scarcely noticed when the vent ended. She tumbled out in a pile, crashing into someone’s legs.
Basilard hoisted her to her feet. Clangs, like someone striking a massive gong, reverberated through the tunnels.
“Out the way we came?” Akstyr pointed in the direction of the underground pool. No one had raced down their tunnel, weapons waving, yet.
“Yes, be prepared to fight.” Amaranthe glanced around. Sicarius hadn’t come out of the vent yet.
“Where’s Maldynado?” Yara asked.
Akstyr was already running toward the exit with Basilard and Sespian charging after him. Yara, fists planted on her hips, had the stubborn immobility of a statue.
“Akstyr,” Amaranthe called, as loudly as she dared—shouting and telling Forge exactly where their intruders were probably wasn’t a good idea. “Where’s—”
“Back here.” Maldynado ran down the tunnel toward them from the opposite direction.
“How were you standing guard for us from back there?” Yara demanded.
“Not now.” Amaranthe tore her gaze from the vent—if Sicarius hadn’t appeared yet, he wasn’t going to—and waved for everyone to follow Akstyr.
Maldynado fell in beside Amaranthe and, as they ran, said, “I’ve got a steamroller running back there.”
“Why?” Amaranthe asked.
“In case we need to roll our way out of here. Over a few corpses of Forge people who stand in our way.”
“That’s macabre.”
“I thought you’d appreciate it given your recent experiences with them.”
Amaranthe hadn’t explained her recent experiences and didn’t want to, but she supposed the men could infer much from her bruises and bandages. “Let’s hope we don’t need—”
“Dead shriveled donkey balls!” came Akstyr’s voice from ahead. “Back, back!”
A scream of surprise—and pain—followed the order. Dread filled Amaranthe’s heart. Yara and Sespian were in front of
her, and she tried to push past them, to get to Akstyr, or at least see what was attacking him. But at the same time, Basilard pushed her backward. He had Akstyr slung over his shoulder, and Amaranthe’s feeling of dread increased.
Reading the warning in Basilard’s eyes, she scurried backward. On her way by, she grabbed Maldynado’s arm and propelled him around. “I think it’s time to visit your steamroller.”
“It’s the cubes,” Sespian said, his voice calm despite the chaos. “They shoot out rays of… fire,” he said, though his head shake suggested that wasn’t the right word. There probably wasn’t a right word to explain the technology.
Everyone was running now, save for Akstyr, who bumped and flopped on Basilard’s shoulder. His eyes were open, but pain contorted his face. His shoulder was smoking.
Tending to his wound would have to wait. Amaranthe urged the men to run faster and hoped they wouldn’t end up trapped in a dead-end. Sicarius’s terse warning about the black cubes raced through her head, and she feared that a steam-powered rolling machine wouldn’t be enough of a tool to harm them.
As the team rounded a bend, a flash of crimson streaked out of the darkness. Fortunately, it struck the rock wall instead of hitting one of the men. Amaranthe hunched her shoulders, expecting a spray of shrapnel. But the beam burned into the wall and, instead of blowing away rock, it melted it somehow. When the crimson ray winked out, a gaping black hole remained.
Someone gave her a not-so-gentle shove from behind. Yes, not a good idea to stand and stare while the floating artillery boxes caught up with them.
Maldynado was leading the way now, and Amaranthe sprinted to catch up with him. When they passed the vent they’d used, she sent a scowl at the entrance, one meant for Sicarius, not only for disobeying Sespian’s order, but also for leaving them to deal with these ancestors-cursed cubes by themselves.
Up ahead, the tunnel opened into a chamber, and Maldynado veered to the left. Amaranthe ran in on his heels, the others pounding in after her. Maldynado climbed into the cabin of the steamroller and seemed surprised when Amaranthe popped in right after him.
“Scoot.” She shoved him to the side. There was a control wheel instead of levers. Good, that’d be easy. And the engine and boiler were in front, between the cab and the roller. Also good. So long as she and Maldynado could get out fast enough.
Amaranthe shoved the throttle lever and grabbed the wheel. The steamroller lurched forward more quickly than she expected.
“Emperor’s warts, boss,” Maldynado blurted. “What’re you doing?”
“Driving.” Amaranthe yanked the wheel as far left as it would go and cursed under her breath at how slowly the vehicle lumbered in the desired direction. “Clear the way,” she yelled to the others, though, given the wide-eyed way they were backing up, it might not have been necessary.
If she could reach the entrance with the steamroller before those cubes entered the chamber…
“They’re coming,” Akstyr yelled. “Where’s the back door?”
“There is no back door,” Yara said.
“Maldynado, you dolt,” Books yelled. “You led us into a dead-end!”
In front of the cab, gray plumes of steam escaped the stack. The vehicle picked up speed.
“If this works, be ready to jump out fast,” Amaranthe said.
“If what works?” Maldynado demanded, his hand clenched on the bar supporting the cab roof.
With her eyes focused on the tunnel entrance, Amaranthe didn’t answer. She held her breath, hoping…
They reached the tunnel and turned into it only to smack right into one of those cubes. Amaranthe flinched in surprise but didn’t release the wheel. The cube bounced off the massive roller without being harmed. It leveled itself, and a red hole on its nearest side flared with light. Four more cubes were lined up in the air behind it. Their holes burned with crimson energy as well.
“Get out,” Amaranthe cried. “Now!”
She coiled to jump out the side of the cab, but Maldynado grabbed her, throwing her under his arm like a toddler, and leaped over the seats and out the back of the vehicle.
Crimson beams lanced through the air. Before Maldynado’s feet hit the ground, one of the fiery rays struck the steamroller’s boiler. Even expecting it, Amaranthe was caught off guard by the power of the explosion. The shock wave hammered into her and Maldynado, tearing her away from his grip. She flew through the air and smashed into someone, taking the other person down with her. Locked in a tangle of limbs, they rolled several feet. She came out on top and grimaced when she realized Sespian was the one flattened beneath her.
“Apologies, Sire.” Amaranthe rolled off, hoping he’d spent enough time with the team now that he’d be used to being manhandled by commoners.
“Do many weeks pass without you blowing something up?” Sespian’s tone was light, though the joke didn’t reach his eyes. He was either worried about those cubes or what he’d heard in the meeting. Or both.
“Not many,” Books said, offering both Sespian and Amaranthe a hand up.
Amaranthe checked the tunnel entrance before accepting his help. Dust and smoke clogged the air, and the steamroller had disappeared beneath a pile of rubble. There was no sign of the cubes, but, given the hole she’d seen one incinerate in pure rock, she doubted it would take long for them to burn a way through.
Maldynado pointed at the blocked tunnel. “That was the only way out.”
A drop of water splashed onto Amaranthe’s nose. As she lifted her eyes toward the source, an ominous snap emanated from within the rock above them. A jagged crack ran across the chiseled ceiling from wall to wall. Beads of moisture kissed that jagged line.
Amaranthe could only stare. In the back of her mind, she calculated that, based on the height of that window-ceiling above the crater and the length of the vent they’d crawled down, there had to be thirty or forty feet of rock above them. She hadn’t been thinking of the roof when she’d blocked the tunnel—there hadn’t been time for that.
“Dear ancestors,” Books whispered. He’d noticed the drip and the crack too.
Everyone had noticed, and everyone was staring at the ceiling in as dumbfounded a manner as Amaranthe. More beads were forming and dripping now. No escape, her mind whispered. After all they’d survived, after all her crazy schemes, this was going to be the one that killed them all.
“Get in the vehicles,” Amaranthe said. It was stupid advice. As if the metal roof of some steam wagon could protect them from thousands of tons of rock caving in on their heads.
“In or under?” Maldynado asked.
“It’s not going to matter,” Books said, but, like everyone else, he ran to jump into one of the cabs.
Another crack sounded in the earth above them. The drips turned to a steady stream pouring onto the stone floor.
“Maybe the cave-in will take out our enemies too,” Yara said.
She, Amaranthe, Sespian, and Basilard had climbed into one lorry while the others had leaped into the second. Nobody responded to her comment. It wasn’t much of a consolation. Even if they buried Forge with them, they’d be taking out Sespian too. Who’d be left to spearhead the next iteration of the empire? Some backstabbing relative of Maldynado’s? Amaranthe shook her head. What had she done?
“My shoulder feels like it’s been dipped in acid,” Akstyr growled. At least he’d revived enough to stand. Not that it’d matter in a moment.
“We have another problem,” Yara said.
“Oh, good.” Amaranthe couldn’t hide the high-pitched squeak to her voice. “We didn’t have enough to worry about.”
Yara pointed at the tunnel entrance.
Beyond the water pouring from the ceiling crack, smoke was rising from somewhere. At first, Amaranthe thought it was from the buried vehicle, but it couldn’t be. It had to be those cubes, burning their way through that rubble. In a few seconds, they’d be inside.
A slab of rock snapped away from the ceiling crack and crashed to the floor. W
ater poured through the gap.
“Maybe those cubes aren’t waterproof,” Amaranthe said bleakly. She doubted it.
“Maybe the chamber will flood,” Books said from the other lorry, “and we’ll drown before they incinerate us.” Indeed, thanks to the increased flow, water smothered the floor and was creeping up the walls of the chamber. In another foot, it’d reach the bottom of the cabs.
“Better than being smashed by the roof collapsing,” Maldynado said.
Sespian cleared his throat. “Can’t we just swim out?”
Amaranthe blinked. He was right. Right now, there was no way anyone could fight the current of the descending water, but once the chamber filled, everything ought to equalize. Shouldn’t it? She looked at Books.
He lifted a shoulder. “If those cubes don’t break in first. And if the route isn’t too twisty and narrow for human bodies to pass through. And if the surface isn’t too far up.”
“Don’t overwhelm us with your optimism, Booksie,” Maldynado said.
Basilard tapped Amaranthe. If necessary, I will distract the cubes so the team can escape.
“Noble, Basilard,” Amaranthe said, “but I’d prefer it if we all lived.” She’d prefer it if Sicarius were there too. She wanted to kick him for abandoning them. Not that she wanted him to die with them, but he knew more about those cubes than anyone.
Water crept higher, flooding the cab. The cold currents tugged at Amaranthe’s legs.
Across the chamber, a fist-sized piece of rock tumbled down the cave-in hill and splashed into the water. More smoke wafted from the hole.
“That’s it,” Amaranthe said, certain the cubes were about to burst through. Running away from them would have been hard enough, but swimming?
Another thunderous crack came from above. This time, the boulder that dropped away was the size of a steam vehicle. The lake gushed in. Before Amaranthe could do more than suck in a gulp of air, tepid water engulfed her. It extinguished the lanterns, and blackness swallowed the cave.
Fear surged through her limbs. All she could think to do was push away from the lorry and swim in the direction she thought was the hole. She bumped someone’s leg, or arm, or who knew what? So long as it wasn’t one of those cubes.