“You used your father’s death as an excuse to walk away from your education and the future he worked very hard to ensure you had. Why? Did you fear failure?” Worgavic shook her head again, a hint of disgust underlying her disappointment.
Amaranthe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Worgavic was stirring up old doubts that Amaranthe didn’t want to deal with, certainly not then and there. Nobody had a knife to her throat-yet. It was time to ask questions of her own. “What I chose to do was stay loyal to the empire and the emperor. My father would not fault me for that.” Even if he might fault her for spending time with assassins and taking the law into her own hands. “Why are you plotting against the throne? Why did you align with Forge?”
“Align with it, dear? I’m one of the founders.”
If not for the mechanical arms holding her down, Amaranthe would have fallen off the table. As it was, the blatant admission knocked her other questions off the tip of her tongue.
Somewhere behind Amaranthe, a soft rasping started up. The sound of a blade being sharpened.
Worgavic spread her fingers, laid her hands on the table, and leaned as close as she could without bumping into the metal arms pinning Amaranthe. “You do remember your history? Yes? Good. Name a powerful imperial woman for me, will you? One who was powerful in her own right, not because she married or birthed someone important.”
“Uhm, Lady Taloncrest supposedly ran twenty miles while eight months pregnant to warn Fort Darkling Spire of a Nurian invasion in 433.” A fact Amaranthe only knew because she’d competed in running events as a youth, and one of the distance races was named after the woman. “She was given an advisory position on the emperor’s staff.”
“An honorary seat with no real power. And, as you said, she was given the position. Power is taken or created from within. Try again. Someone important, someone of whom Major Pike over there would have heard.”
The rasp of the sharpening stone continued without pause.
“I’m unaware of the depths of his education. Was history a part of his Advanced Torture Techniques class?” As Amaranthe expected, that didn’t draw a laugh from anyone in the room. Given time, and less ominous background noise, she might have come up with more examples of relevant women from the past, but she doubted Worgavic truly wanted them. She wanted Amaranthe to admit that women had had little influence throughout the empire’s history. “Why don’t you let me go, and I’ll work on becoming someone important? I have plans, you know.”
Amaranthe wriggled her eyebrows and offered a conspiratorial wink, not at Worgavic-if she truly was one of the Forge founders, there was no way Amaranthe would be able to sway her-but at Retta. Despite the sneer, she seemed the most likely person in the room to be won over. Retta blinked in surprise, but the surprise turned into a scowl, one that deepened when Worgavic looked her way.
“Don’t include me in your plans,” Retta rushed to say, probably worried Worgavic would find that wink suspicious. “I don’t even like you.”
“Why not?” Amaranthe asked, wondering if she’d offended the girl irreparably at some point.
Retta only scowled.
Worgavic tapped a nail on the table. “Whatever your plans were, they’ve failed, child. Emperor Sespian is dead. We incinerated your dirigible and everyone on it. Whatever it is you hoped to gain from opposing us matters little now.”
Amaranthe’s stomach clenched, but she kept her face neutral. She had no reason to trust Worgavic’s words. “You wouldn’t be asking me about Sicarius if you thought everyone had died on that dirigible.”
Worgavic lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “It’s true. We’re not certain we got him. He’s tougher to exterminate than termites, and he’s ten times as annoying. Especially now that he has some vendetta against us.” She lifted her eyebrows, as if inviting Amaranthe to explain.
“Huh,” Amaranthe said, imitating one of Sicarius’s unhelpful grunts.
“I will retrieve the information from her,” Pike said.
“Yes, I imagine you’ll be most efficient.” For the first time, Worgavic’s gaze softened as she regarded Amaranthe. “You needn’t suffer through this. Just tell me why Sicarius has been protecting the emperor and if he’ll continue to be a pebble in our shoes once Sespian has been replaced.”
A pebble, right. A pebble that had killed thirty of her colleagues in a twenty-four-hour span. The rest of Forge had to be terrified that he’d come after them next. No matter how much security they’d set up, they must fear they couldn’t hide from him forever.
“And then what? I tell you what you want to know, and you’ll let me go?” After all the grief Amaranthe had given Forge, she couldn’t believe anybody in the coalition would do anything except kill her.
Worgavic nodded. “You may have your freedom.”
Amaranthe decided it might not be in her best interest to scoff openly, but Worgavic must have guessed at her skepticism. She leaned forward again, lowering her voice. “We aren’t evil, Amaranthe. We’re simply assuring our futures and the futures of our children. If Sespian had been amenable to working with us, he could have lived a long, healthy, and wealthy life. But since he was not, we’ve chosen another who’s willing to grant our modest requests.”
Maldynado’s brother. How much had he agreed to give away in exchange for the throne?
“What are your modest requests?” Amaranthe asked.
“You see,” Worgavic went on without acknowledging the question, “it matters little what man is in charge of the empire, so long as he works with us. Giving Sespian, or any other warrior-caste snob, your loyalty is pointless. And if it puts you on the wrong side, it’s worse than pointless. It’s to your detriment.” Worgavic waved to encompass the operating table. “You must put your emotions aside and weigh, with dispassionate calculation, each opportunity that comes your way. Everyone in Forge understands that you can either make the future or be subject to its whims. What I do today ensures a legacy for my children and their children, and for the descendants of all who ally with us.” Some vision only she could see filled her eyes. She and her Forge colleagues. “We have become a formidable force. Opposing us would be just as pointless as staying loyal to those who are destined to fall. Give me the information I seek, and you may walk away unharmed. I have no wish to see one of my former students, however misguided she may be, tortured.”
Those vision-filled eyes never wavered, and Amaranthe started to believe the offer might be sincere. It didn’t matter.
“You’re wrong, Ms. Worgavic.” Amaranthe turned her head away from the woman and stared up at the claw entrapping her. “Loyalty doesn’t begin to have a point until it puts you on the wrong side.”
Major Pike stepped into view, a three-bladed trench knife with a brass knuckle-guard in one hand and a rolled up canvas kit full of tools in the other. “Time to begin, eh?”
“Get the information,” Worgavic said, “nothing more.”
“Of course.” Pike’s smile was tight, his dark eyes gleaming. “Of course.”
Ms. Worgavic strode out of sight, disappearing through a door that opened automatically and closed behind her. Surprisingly, Retta didn’t follow her. Amaranthe wouldn’t have thought her the type of person who’d want to watch a torture session.
Pike nodded toward her.
Retta hesitated, but only for a heartbeat beneath Pike’s hard stare. She propped her monocle over her left eye and opened her book to the page she’d been holding. Her lips moved as she mouthed a few lines. After a moment, she closed the book, moved to the end of the table, and touched something on the side.
A click sounded, and pain slammed into Amaranthe from six directions. Her back arched, and she tried to buck off the table, but the claw held her fast. Something sharp-like swords being driven through her body-had sprung from the pincers, piercing her body at the thighs, wrists, and shoulders. Moving, what little she could budge, only increased the pain. Those blades had pierced straight through her body in each place, all the way to the table beneath her. She took short, quick breaths, trying to control the pain. It didn’t work.