Wait, she told herself, wait to mourn until you know for certain. Maybe he was just… missing. Maybe nobody knew for sure.
Thumps and grunts came from the bottom of the stairs. Maldynado, with Yara still latched to him, was fumbling his way up the steps at the same time as he accepted a barrage of kisses. How he reached the top when he couldn’t see where he was going, Amaranthe didn’t know. She said nothing, having a hard time finding joy in her heart for their reunion. Not when…
Well, she hadn’t spoken to anyone yet. Maybe she could find hope in Basilard or Sespian’s news.
“Hullo, boss,” Maldynado managed when his lips were free. “Good to see-oooph.”
Yara had grabbed his cheeks with her hands and kissed him. Maldynado turned a quick wave into a grab for the doorknob of the room he and Yara had been sharing.
Amaranthe lifted a hand, intending to warn them that it was occupied, but neither Maldynado nor Yara was paying attention to her. They barreled into the office, and voices inside halted.
Basilard and Sespian were halfway up the stairs, and Sespian smiled and lifted a hand toward her. He opened his mouth, but Maldynado and Yara stumbled out again before he could speak. Surely they’d find it easier to get from one place to the next if she put her legs down and walked of her own volition…
Maldynado peered about, wearing a bewildered expression, perhaps noticing all those soldiers for the first time. “Who are all these people?” he blurted.
“Admiral Starcrest and his advisers,” Amaranthe said.
“Admiral Star…” Maldynado stared into the office.
From her position, Amaranthe couldn’t tell if Starcrest or any of the others were staring back, but she imagined that’d be the case after having entwined lovers barge into their meeting.
“Erp?” Maldynado said.
“Downstairs,” Yara said. She dropped her legs so she could stand, though she didn’t let go of Maldynado’s arms. She dragged him down the stairs, past Basilard and Sespian who parted for their speedy retreat. Amaranthe didn’t know if the haste of that retreat was entirely due to sexual urgency.
“Admiral Starcrest is here?” Sespian asked when he reached the top of the landing.
Amaranthe extended a hand toward the open office door. “We ran into him west of the city and brought him back here.”
“That’s amazing.” Sespian rushed forward and gripped her shoulders, glancing at the doorway on the way by. “How did you find him? What did you-”
“It was Sicarius’s doing,” Amaranthe rushed to say. She didn’t want credit for any of this. It surely hadn’t been any brilliance on her part that had resulted in Starcrest’s arrival.
At the name, Sespian lowered his hands, the animation draining from his face. Amaranthe feared she wasn’t going to get any good news. “I’m glad you’re well,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to us.”
Amaranthe had no trouble believing. She would have said as much, but Sespian’s gaze had been drawn to the doorway again. He seemed torn between wanting to check in with her and wanting to check in with Starcrest.
“I’m sure they’ve been waiting for you,” Amaranthe said, making the decision for him.
Sespian squeezed her arm. “I’ll talk to you later. I want to know everything that’s happened.”
Amaranthe wanted to know, too, but she merely nodded and waved for him to go inside. Someone shut the door as soon as he did.
“Basilard.” Amaranthe gripped his arm even though he stood in front of her, and appeared ready to answer all of her questions. “How did you survive that… catastrophe? And Sicarius? Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say dead.
Basilard lifted his shoulders. He was out hunting the soul construct. Nobody’s seen him since he left.
A wave of relief almost bore Amaranthe to her knees. She caught herself on the railing. He could still be dead, especially if he hadn’t made it back yet, but for now, he was simply missing. He’d been missing before. He was the sort to stick to a mission until he completed it. She wouldn’t give up on him.
“How did you, Sespian, and Maldynado escape?” Amaranthe asked.
We were in the tunnels. General Ridgecrest, too, though his family was inside when the Behemoth crashed. Basilard grimaced. He’s in shock. Only two hundred of his men made it out with us. Did you see the… site?
Did she see? She’d caused it. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the admission. “I saw.” Amaranthe clawed her stray hair back into a fresh bun and tried to straighten her thoughts as well. She ought to see what Starcrest and all these soldiers were planning to do. After all this… anything except a solution that was truly good for the empire would be unacceptable. She still wanted to curl up into a ball, luxuriating in self-pity, but she drew strength from Basilard’s presence. At least her men had made it out. It would have been beyond horror if they’d given her their hard work and cooperation-and trust-this last year, only to die because of her negligence. “What tunnels are under Fort Urgot?”
Heroncrest’s army brought tunnel-boring machines. While the surface troops distracted us, they were digging routes through the earth to come up in the housing section of the fort. About a half hour before the… crash, they broke through and soldiers ran out. It wasn’t far from Ridgecrest’s section of the wall, and he leaped down, personally leading the charge to kill them or drive them back. Maldynado, Sespian, and I followed him. We collapsed one of the tunnels, but were down in the other one, fighting our way to the borers. Sespian had an idea to destroy the machines so more passages couldn’t be made. We were in the middle somewhere, between the fort and the camp, when… it felt like the world ended. Basilard rubbed his hand over the three days of growth on his head. With all the scars, it had come in patchy. So much dirt and rubble poured down. We were buried and had to dig our way out. Down there, we couldn’t tell what had happened, except that all of the sudden there was utter silence. The opposition disappeared. The tunnel exit wasn’t guarded. We came out and saw… we saw it all.
“Yes.” What else was there to say?
Are Books and Akstyr all right? I haven’t seen them.
“We’re battered from our adventure, but we all escaped,” Amaranthe said. “Akstyr has grown useful of late. We wouldn’t have made it without him.”
“Oh?” came Maldynado’s voice from the stairs. “Maybe I should take him to the Pirate’s Plunder as a reward. Do you think Yara would-” He glanced back down the stairs, but she wasn’t in sight. Amaranthe was surprised she’d released him so soon.
“Yes, she’d mind if you went to a brothel,” Amaranthe said. “Where’d she go?”
“To find soap and to heat water. After her initial pleasure at seeing me wore off-” he smiled at this memory, “-she insisted on bathing me before engaging in more amorous activities. Oh, and I wasn’t going to ask if she minded if I went to a brothel. I was going to ask if you thought she’d like to come along.”
“She’d mind that even more. I’m sure Akstyr would be fine with a celebratory pie.” Though now that she knew of Curi’s questionable allegiance, Amaranthe wouldn’t be shopping for sweets there.
“Pie. Just when I think you know men fairly well, you say something like that.” He met Basilard’s eyes, giving him a women-are-surely-odd look.
Amaranthe tried to smile, but her soul felt so weary, so pitted and ravaged by guilt, she didn’t manage it.
I should also seek a bath, Basilard signed.
“I wasn’t going to comment on the matter,” Maldynado said, crinkling his nose, “but, yes. Yes, you should.”