His jaw tightened, but he kept himself to a curt nod.
“ He saved my life,” Tikaya said, “so I could come back to help you.”
Rias grabbed a second rucksack and started filling it for her. She glanced at Sicarius.
“ He’s almost down,” she murmured. “If we want to take him out, this may be our last chance.” That weeks-long trek would be arduous enough without an assassin hounding them. “If he comes after us…after you… We can’t waste the gift Agarik gave us.”
Rias finished packing. “We won’t.”
Sicarius jumped the last ten feet, landing lightly. Even in defeat, that same stony mask hid his thoughts, his feelings.
Rias handed Tikaya her pack and a fresh quiver of arrows for her bow. He picked up a rifle but did not bother to load it.
“ Ready.” He pointed to a tunnel, a tunnel they would have to walk past the assassin to reach.
Metal rang softly as Sicarius pulled a dagger from his belt and stepped into their path.
Tikaya grabbed Rias’s elbow when he did not slow. “Are you mad?”
Rias removed her hand gently and strode toward the tunnel. Tikaya nocked an arrow, but did not fully draw the bow. Rias had to know what he was doing. Didn’t he? Shaking her head, she followed him.
Sicarius’s grip tightened around the dagger hilt. “You never intended to help. You had the chance to redeem yourself, but you betrayed the emperor again.”
Rias stopped a few feet from him. “Yes.”
Sweat dripped down the sides of Sicarius’s dust-streaked face and dampened his pale hair. For the first time, he seemed uncertain, frazzled. Young. “Why?”
“ I couldn’t let him have those weapons. There’s no honor in destroying one’s enemies like that. Nobody should have that kind of power.”
“ That wasn’t for you to decide.”
“ Yes, it was. Sometimes the only person capable of such a decision is someone who stands on the outside, someone who has nothing left to lose, nothing to gain, by the outcome.”
“ Nothing to gain?” Sicarius asked. “You could have had your life back, your lands.” The faintest hint of longing entered his voice. “You could have been a hero again.”
Tikaya lowered the bow as it dawned on her that Sicarius had yet to point the dagger at Rias. Not here and not at any point since he had shown up.
“ That’s never been a goal of mine,” Rias said. “The definition of a hero changes depending on the needs of the person with the dictionary. And of late I’ve become more aware how much being a hero to the empire means being a war criminal to the rest of the world.” Rias smiled sadly at Tikaya before turning back to Sicarius. “For twenty years, I served Turgonia. I think it’s time now to see if I can serve the world.”
“ I see,” Sicarius said, and Tikaya had a hard time telling if he truly did or not.
Rias unsheathed a dagger, flipped it in his hand, and held it hilt-first toward Sicarius. It was utterly black, one of the tools they had gathered for working on the cubes. The keen edge would probably never dull.
Sicarius considered it for a long moment before accepting it. Peace offering, Tikaya guessed.
“ Are you returning with Bocrest and the others?” Rias asked.
“ Yes,” Sicarius said.
“ Parkonis is no threat to the empire. Will you see to it that he escapes when the ship docks in Port Sakrent?”
Tikaya’s eyes widened, not in surprise that Rias would care enough to make the request, but that he was asking Sicarius for a favor. After they had defeated him.
“ If that is your wish,” Sicarius said, stunning Tikaya even more.
The kid was going to be in trouble already for not completing his mission, for letting Rias go. Earlier, she had been thinking of shooting him, but now she found herself hoping the emperor had invested too much in his education to dispose of him over a failure.
“ Thank you,” Rias said. “And one last request: will you relay a message to the emperor for me?”
Sicarius tilted his head.
“ Though I may never see them again, I have family and friends in Turgonia. It is not my intention to make trouble for the empire. But I want him to know that if he bothers them or-” Rias angled toward Tikaya, directing Sicarius’s eyes to her, “-if he sends anyone after her or her family, I will become trouble.”
Tikaya thought she detected bleakness in the assassin’s usual mask. Yes, all Fleet Admiral Starcrest would have to do to make the emperor’s life unpleasant would be to show up on the Nurian Chief’s threshold, offering to help war against his former nation.
“ I will tell him,” Sicarius said.
“ Thank you,” Rias said again, and he put a hand on Sicarius’s shoulder. “You would have made a good officer.”
“ Not the road fate paved for me,” Sicarius said, but something in the soft exhale that followed his words made Tikaya wonder if he wished things were different.
EPILOGUE
As the light faded from the mountains, Rias placed the last block of snow on the top of the igloo. There was no wood to make a fire, though a kerosene lantern provided a pool of light.
He stepped back, brushed off his gloves, and quirked an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
It had taken two days to find a “back door” out of the tunnels, and it had brought them out above the tree line with only a couple hours of daylight remaining. Icy wind gusted along the ridge, and the first stars glittered in the clear sky. The night would be long and cold, very cold. Though she had helped build it, Tikaya eyed the igloo dubiously.
“ You’re sure we won’t freeze to death?” she asked.
They had enough gear, Rias assured her, to make it out of the mountains and to the nearest town. Still, the lack of firewood and the plummeting temperature made her nervous for this first night.
Rias flattened his hand on his chest. “Are you questioning my engineering skills?”
“ No, I’m sure it’s structurally stable. I’m questioning the wisdom of sleeping inside a box of snow.”
He chuckled, ambled over, and kissed her on the forehead. “Snow is insulating, my dear. Once our body heat warms up the igloo, you’ll be able to sleep naked if you want.”
“ Sleep naked, huh?”
His eyes twinkled. “The sleeping part is optional.”
A distant boom echoed through the mountains. The marines had apparently found a different way out and were following their orders to seal the tunnels. She hoped they were treating Parkonis well. Leaving him felt like a betrayal, but the reality was he would probably make it home sooner and less eventfully than she. And though Sicarius ranked at the top of her list of People She Never Wanted to Meet Again, Rias trusted him to keep his word, and she trusted Rias.
She wished she had been able to keep her word to Agarik. Leaving him there to be incinerated by that machine… Another betrayal. She wondered what the marines would tell his family. If he even had family. It shamed her that a man had given his life to save hers and she knew so little about him.
Rias shoved their weapons and gear through the igloo’s low entrance, then belly-crawled after. Tikaya grabbed the lantern and managed to get snow down her pants following him. She hissed in frustration as she dug it out in the tiny confines. She could not wait to walk again on a tropical beach.
Inside, there was room enough to lie down if one did not straighten too many limbs. Rias shoved a rucksack in front of the tunnel, leaving them entombed with only a few air holes. The snowy walls gleamed next to the lantern. The single flame brightened the space surprisingly well.
Tikaya lay down, head propped against her pack. “Not bad.”
“ Easy,” Rias said, “your lavish praise will inflate my ego.”
Tikaya pulled him down beside her, hoping to shake the gloomy mood that shrouded her. “I’d rather inflate other things.”
“ I’m always amenable to that.”
She slid her arms inside his parka. If body heat was the way to warm up an igloo, then she was all for hastening that process along.