Basilard gripped the sofa’s faded floralarmrest so tightly his fingers ached. She watched his hand warily,perhaps anticipating violence from a man such as he. Condemned ornot, he would not threaten an old woman. He forced his fingers toloosen. How would Amaranthe talk this lady into giving up theinformation? By giving her what she wanted? What did she want?
If he has wronged Mangdoria, he shouldbe…dealt with. Our people cannot do it without damningthemselves, correct? If I am already condemned, then I’m thelogical choice to avenge the tribes.
In truth, Basilard did not want to pick afight with Sicarius. For one thing, he doubted he could win. Foranother, he did not dislike Sicarius, not the way Akstyr and Booksdid. Sicarius was cold and impossible to know, and he expectedeveryone to train as stringently as he did, but Basilard had notfound him cruel or vindictive. Hard but fair, he would say. But,that moment in the shaman’s cave, when Sicarius had destroyed thatMangdorian message before Basilard or Books could read it…. Thathad raised Basilard’s suspicions. Since then, he had thought oftenof the moment and wondered what the assassin was hiding.
“You do not treat your soul with respect,”the priestess said.
If nothing I do matters… Basilardshrugged.
“Very well. The rumor is Sicarius killedChief Yull and his family.”
Basilard flopped back so hard the sofathumped against the wall. Crumbled dust from the herbs dryingoverhead sifted down to land in his eyes. He barely noticed it.Good-hearted Chief Yull, the man Basilard had dreamed of workingfor as a boy, back when he had thought to become a forage leaderand chef. Basilard’s gut twisted. And there had been sons.Young sons. Jast and Yuasmif.
He closed his eyes. Why had he snooped? Whyhad he asked for this information?
And, now that he had it, how could he doanything but kill Sicarius? Or die trying.
CHAPTER 2
Dawn had come, and Amaranthe felt conspicuousas she sidled up beside one of the enforcer vehicles. She could notcount on darkness to mask her wanted-poster features any longer,but she could not leave without knowing if something had happenedto Sicarius.
Several men stood between two lorries withsmoke drifting from the stacks. The enforcers spoke in hushedtones, and she struggled to eavesdrop over the hissing boilers andidling machinery.
“…Sicarius doing here?”
“…missing girls?”
“…men will catch… Already woundedhim.”
Wounded? Amaranthe’s jaw sagged open. Surelynot. Not by enforcers.
One of the men frowned in her direction, andshe knelt to tie a shoelace. She dared not linger. It sounded likeSicarius had not been caught yet. What stunned her was that he hadbeen seen at all. Though it was true he did not usually favorcostumes, he had a knack for remaining unseen, especially at night.It rattled her beliefs to think he could have stumbled into someonehe shouldn’t have-and reacted too slowly to keep that someone fromraising an alarm.
When Amaranthe had spent as long tying hershoe as she could without attracting attention, she jogged toward apair of oaks spreading shade over the men’s barracks. Not wantingto return to their hideout without knowing Sicarius was safe, shestopped where she could watch the enforcers.
Birds chirped overhead. The smell of cookingeggs wafted from a vendor’s nearby tent. Early morning sun slantedthrough the oak’s lower branches and warmed the back of her neck.It was not a sound but the disappearance of that warmth thatalerted Amaranthe to someone behind her.
She turned to find Sicarius, hands claspedbehind his back, the sunlight limning his short blond hair. Nosweat dampened that hair and no dust smudged his black clothes. Hecertainly did not look like a man who had been on the run.
“What’re you doing?” She glanced at theenforcers.
He had placed himself so a tree hid him fromtheir view, but the sunlight and the people walking all about madeAmaranthe feel exposed and vulnerable.
“Standing,” Sicarius said.
“Where have you been? Why did you letthe enforcers see you?”
“I did not.”
“You find him?” someone called near thevehicles.
Amaranthe grabbed Sicarius’s arm. “We have toget out of here. You can explain later.”
They jogged toward a swath of treesseparating the stadium and grounds from the main railway tracksthat ran alongside the lake and through the city’s waterfront.Amaranthe intended to push straight through and follow the rails totheir hideout, but Sicarius veered north as soon as they were undercover.
“This way.” He slipped down a narrow pathclogged with shrubs and brambles.
Amaranthe winced as enthusiastic thornssnagged at her togs and attempted to tug her stolen satchel fromher shoulder. “I hope you’re leading me to a place where answerswill present themselves.”
Not only did Sicarius not respond, hemaneuvered through the grasping foliage more deftly than she andsoon disappeared.
Amaranthe ducked a branch atpoke-her-in-the-eye height and, figuring Sicarius was out ofearshot, added, “This might be worth it if you were takingme to a secluded nook where a picnic basket, blanket, and jug offresh juice awaited.”
Black clothing appeared through the leavesahead. Amaranthe pushed past a rhododendron and stepped into aclaustrophobic clearing only a few feet wide. At first, she couldsee nothing beyond Sicarius’s back. When she realized he waspointing at the ground, she eased around him, almost stepping on aman’s hand.
“So…” she said, “no picnic basket.”
As usual, Sicarius ignored hernon-work-related comments. “While you were inside,” he said, “thisman ran out of the trees near the stadium, and someone shouted‘That’s Sicarius.’ The enforcers took off after him. He racedthrough a crowded area where a sergeant with a crossbow shot him inthe back. He evaded his pursuers and crashed through here, but thencollapsed.” Sicarius pointed at a crossbow quarrel protruding fromthe man’s back. “It pierced a lung.”
Amaranthe crouched, all thoughts of picnicsgone. The dead man wore black, had short blond hair, and wore abandana over his face. She touched a tuft of hair still damp withsweat. “This looks dyed.”
“My color, yes.”
“So, someone’s impersonating you. Someone whocouldn’t have known we’d be here at the same time. Is someonetrying to blame you for a crime? These kidnappings perhaps?”
“Unknown.”
She stood and frowned at Sicarius. “When Irecruited you for my team, I didn’t fully realize how many peoplethere were scheming up plots that involved you.”
“Regrets?” he asked.
Amaranthe almost said something flippant-howoften did he set himself up so nicely for teasing? — but a faintvariance to his usual monotone made her think the answer mightmatter. It seemed impossible. She always figured she needed him onher team far more than he needed her. Ancestors knew he had savedher life more times than she could count. But maybe he had come tocare about what she thought of him.
She sighed and patted him on the arm. “Nah,you know I like a challenge. Let’s get back to the hideout and seeif we can hunt down the others. I seem to have granted a vacationprematurely. I think we’re going to need everyone in on this.”
“Agreed,” Sicarius said.
Morning sun burned into the rusted hulls ofdecommissioned rail cars that filled the vast boneyard. Heatradiated from them, some as yet unscathed by the years and othersso rusted each wall was a see-through latticework. The occasionalshiny bits glinted, throwing rays into Amaranthe’s eyes as shepassed. Weeds rose from cracks between faded and broken bricks thatlined the ground, suggesting the area had once had a noblerpurpose.
Sicarius had disappeared as soon as theyneared the boneyard, and Amaranthe weaved through the aisles towardtheir hideout alone. Unfamiliar coughs and voices echoed fromdifferent parts of the field, a reminder that more groups than herscalled this place a home, however temporarily. Cigar stubs, somefilled with tobacco and some with more potent leaves, littered thebricks. Bloodstains were nearly as frequent. The boneyard had thebenefit of not being visited often by enforcers, but that also madeit a place Amaranthe would not have chosen to visit alone atnight.