“Maybe you’re getting older and less appealing,” Amaranthe said as she dug through lockers, hoping to find useful equipment that had come with the craft.
Maldynado sniffed. “We’re about to face death together. Do you really think this is the time to insult me?”
“Sorry, you’re right. Insults after battles. Come help me with this, will you?” Amaranthe waved to a locker where she’d found long, wide strips of canvas-like fabric and buckets of a black tarry goo. “Repair supplies for the balloon, I’d guess, though maybe we can-” A shudder ran through the floor. “Actually, why don’t you check on navigation?” Amaranthe might tease Maldynado about his proclivity for crashing vehicles, but most of those crashes had been a result of her orders. In truth, she’d always found him competent at working machinery. She knew less about Basilard and Yara’s capabilities. “Send Basilard back to help.”
“You got it, boss.” Maldynado jogged for the corridor.
“And keep this boat as steady as you can,” she called after him. “That’s a delicate surgery they’re performing on the emperor in there.”
Amaranthe eyed the cargo bay door, wondering if they could open it while flying.
Maldynado paused inside the corridor. “Maybe we should put off the surgery. What if those blokes start attacking us?”
Amaranthe frowned. She trusted Maldynado, she did, but now that Books had brought up his suspicions, she couldn’t help but think there might be a reason Maldynado didn’t want that device out of Sespian’s neck. If his family was angling for the throne and was in position to seize it if Sespian disappeared…
She shook her head. “If that’s their plan, Sespian will want that thing out of his neck before we crash and get captured by someone who can make it kill him at any time.”
“That’s not a very optimistic thought.”
“Sorry, we haven’t had much sleep, and I’m finding it hard to remain hopeful about the future.” Amaranthe pulled out one of the fabric strips and tugged at it experimentally. No stretchiness, hm. Maybe she could find some rubber.
Maldynado muttered something in parting, but she was too focused on her new plan to hear the words. By the time Basilard joined her, Amaranthe had buckets, fabric strips, and rubber cords strewn across the deck in front of the cargo door.
Basilard signed, What are we making?
“Slingshot,” Amaranthe said. “I could use some help.”
Basilard’s eyebrows rose. That probably meant she should be worried about her plan, but there wasn’t time for self-doubt. She peeked through the porthole. Its massive size might mean the black ship was farther back than it appeared, but either way it had halved the distance between them. The sun’s light glinted off the snowcaps on the last of the mountains, but its rays failed to reflect off of that craft. It almost looked like a black hole in the sky, coming to swallow them.
“I’m going to fly lower,” Maldynado called down the corridor. “Maybe we can lose them in the wetlands.”
That other craft could likely do anything the dirigible could do when it came to navigating, but Amaranthe kept the thought to herself and simply pointed for Basilard to come help her. She hoped her slingshot idea wouldn’t end up being laughable to the enemy. Whatever that craft had fired at the cliff to collapse the railway tunnel could doubtlessly pulverize the dirigible, perhaps from a great distance. It might never need to get within range of Amaranthe’s weapon-and calling the clunky slingshot a weapon was surely delusional. She kept working anyway.
Akstyr sat next to the bed, his hands clasped in his lap, his eyes half closed. He could see the faint bulge at the side of the emperor’s throat, but he needed to sense it as well. Unfortunately, he was having a hard time concentrating. Sicarius stood on the opposite side of the emperor’s bed, his black dagger in hand. His role might be to cut out the implant, but Akstyr couldn’t help but remember his earlier words and wonder if Sicarius might cut his neck, should he fail here.
“No pressure,” he murmured.
“Should I be worried that you look more nervous than I do?” the emperor asked. He was lying on the bed, his hands folded over his belly, as if in relaxed repose, but tension tightened his interlaced fingers.
“Nah, I’m not nervous,” Akstyr said out of some notion that doctors should be brave for their patients. “Just…”
“Pensive?”
“Right.”
“There may be little time,” Sicarius said, his tone hard, the words clipped.
“Right,” Akstyr repeated.
Sespian sighed, lay his head back, and closed his eyes. The tension didn’t ebb from his fingers.
“Is there anything I can do?” Books asked softly from behind Akstyr.
“No,” Akstyr said. “I’ve memorized everything you’ve translated for me. I just need quiet.”
He took a deep breath and closed his own eyes. He stretched out, trying to sense the artifact without letting it sense him.
Since Akstyr knew what the devices looked like, he was able to picture the buried one in his mind. He imagined it nestled beneath the skin, a knot burrowed into the muscle, and slowly the made-up picture in his head coalesced into the real one. It had life of a sort. An awareness. It emitted… a question or perhaps a probe, as if it knew something, or someone, was there.
Akstyr fought for calmness. It wasn’t certain yet, or it would have already moved. He summoned energy in his mind, like coiling one’s body before springing into the air. He was about to unleash the energy, to attempt to stun the device, when the floor tilted. It nearly threw him from his seat, and he only caught himself by grabbing the emperor’s footboard. The dirigible groaned and tilted back the other way.
“Check on it,” Sicarius said.
At first, Akstyr thought Sicarius was talking to him, but the door slammed, and he realized Books had left. Akstyr shifted on his seat, not thrilled at being left alone with Sicarius. Well, Sicarius and the emperor, who was sitting up, frowning.
“Lie down, Sire,” Sicarius said. There was no deference in the way he said sire, and it was clearly an order. “Continue,” he told Akstyr in the same tone.
“Maybe,” Akstyr said, directing his words to the emperor instead of Sicarius, “we should wait until-”
The floor titled again, this time toward the nose of the craft. Akstyr’s heart jumped. They weren’t heading toward a crash, were they?
“-someone besides Maldynado is driving,” he finished. Nobody smiled at his attempt at humor. It didn’t amuse him much either. He wanted to lunge to his feet and run up to the navigation cabin to check on what was happening.
“Continue,” Sicarius repeated. The way he said it made Akstyr suspect he didn’t have the option to leave. “Before this gets worse,” Sicarius added.
Sespian nodded grimly. “Do it,” he told Akstyr and lay back down.
As if it was so easy. Akstyr closed his eyes again and struggled to regain his focus. He probed the area beneath the scar tissue, trying to find the device. He frowned. It wasn’t there.
Chapter 21
Amaranthe, using clamps she had scrounged, fastened one end of the slingshot to a vertical strut to the left of the cargo door. Basilard was doing the same on the other side. The already tilted floor angled more steeply toward the nose of the craft, and Amaranthe found herself hanging onto the strut as her feet threatened to skid out from beneath her.
“I didn’t think a dirigible could tilt that much,” she said.
Though Basilard was struggling to hold on as well, he managed to one-handedly sign, Maldynado’s driving.
“Good point.”
Something scraped behind them. The box of blasting sticks sliding across the floor toward the corridor. Amaranthe’s heart leaped. Those should have been secured when the men first came on board.
“What’s going on back here?” Books clawed his way out of the emperor’s suite and into the corridor.
“Grab that box,” Amaranthe shouted.