The prince shifted his weight. Sicarius took a chance and leaned away from him, letting him turn around. He still blocked the exit, standing so he could keep an eye on the prince and an eye on the camp outside, and also so he could stop his prisoner from escaping if need be. But when the Nurian sat on one of the benches, Sicarius allowed it.
“What do you want, assassin?” the prince asked. “Why risk punishment-” he waved toward Sicarius’s temple, “-by dragging me from my cot?”
“Kor Nas will send me to kill Starcrest as soon as his location is determined. You know this. You were there, arguing against this act. I heard you.”
“Did you.” It wasn’t a question. The prince rested his elbows on his knees and considered his hands. There wasn’t any light nearby to judge the expression on his face.
“If I’m sent after him and cannot control my actions-” Now Sicarius was the one to wave at the artifact, “-I will kill him. He is a brilliant man and a capable fighter, but he is not my equal with a weapon.”
“No,” the prince whispered, still studying his hands, “I saw you practicing today.”
“I would try to warn him, but I cannot leave this camp. If he were warned, I believe he could figure out a way to avoid me.” Sicarius did not voice his true thoughts. He didn’t know why this man wanted to protect Starcrest, but he highly doubted those feelings would transfer to betraying his people. Even if he had no fondness for Kor Nas, he must have been trained to be loyal to Nuria and to his family, much as Sicarius had once been trained to be loyal to Hollowcrest and the emperor.
The prince snorted. “I believe he could figure a way to defeat you.”
Sicarius said nothing. In truth, he was pleased to see that Starcrest had admirers, even amongst his enemies, but he did not want to lead this man to suspect the depths of his plans. “He means something to you,” Sicarius said by way of diversion, and also because he was curious how it could be. He judged the prince to be in his early thirties, too young to have battled against Starcrest in the Western Sea Conflict. Had he been to the Kyatt Islands at some point in his life?
“We’ve met,” the prince said, “when I was a foolish boy. He saved my life. I had the opportunity to repay the debt not long after, but… I would still not raise a hand against him, unless given no choice.”
Good. This might work out yet, if Sicarius could keep Kor Nas from discovering his thoughts. What sort of punishment might the prince receive for helping protect Starcrest? Would he be immune from his father’s wrath? Or might Kor Nas retaliate by arranging some… earlier punishment? Sicarius imagined himself forced to kill the prince and the wily practitioner proclaiming that it’d been accident, that his “pet” hadn’t been monitored and had found a way around the device. Indeed, the opal hadn’t tried to stop him or even sent a warning stab of pain into his mind when he’d dragged Zirabo from his cot.
“Do you know where he is?” The Nurian sat up, considering him. “No, you mustn’t, else Kor Nas would have dragged the information out of your head. Telepathy wasn’t his primary mode of study, but he’s competent enough at it. In the morning, he’ll know of this meeting.”
“No, I can keep it a secret. I had training from one of your wizard hunters as a boy.”
Training that hadn’t done much good against Kor Nas yet.
“Hm,” was all Zirabo said, though he managed to convey a lot of doubt in that one syllable. “What do you want of me? If you don’t have any better an idea of where he is than I, then I could no more warn him than you could.”
“Your comrade is a seer.”
“Yes… but, if you were trained in our ways, you should know this: a seer must have an item that belongs to the person they seek. It’s like a hound following a trail after sniffing a scrap of clothing that carries the owner’s scent.”
“I know,” Sicarius said. “I thought it might be possible…” He unsheathed his black dagger and held the weapon up to the back of the wagon, so the prince might see its dark outline against the white snow of the forest. “Starcrest gave this knife to me twenty years ago.”
“That’s a long time. I doubt there’d be any residue. Did he have it for many years before that?”
“No, he only handled it for a short time.” Sicarius had feared nothing would come of the idea, but he’d had to try.
“May I see it?” the prince asked. “That’s one of those… it’s from that strange ancient technology, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Ji Hoc may be able to See using the technology itself. Aside from that rather ill-placed… thing that landed on the north end of the lake, it’s quite rare, isn’t it? Would Starcrest have any of it? I understand he and his wife have studied it and were on the original mission that first discovered it.”
The depth of the prince’s knowledge wasn’t surprising-surely, spies would have uncovered any number of truths, given twenty years-but it certainly would have flummoxed Raumesys, were he still alive. “At one point, he had a knife similar to this. I do not know if he carries it with him.” As an assassin, Sicarius had had no end of uses for the blade over the years, but, for all he knew, Starcrest used it for a letter opener in his office back on Kyatt.
“May I borrow this to let him use?” the prince asked.
“Is he loyal to you? Or to Kor Nas?”
“He better be loyal to me.”
That did not answer Sicarius’s question. He stared at the prince, hoping for a more compelling affirmative.
But the Nurian only spread his palm and said, “I’ll tell him to give me the information on Starcrest’s whereabouts first.”
A risk. Sicarius had no other choice but to take it. He placed the dagger in the prince’s hand, and he also withdrew a folded note. “My warning for Starcrest.”
“May I read it?” The question was asked casually, but the prince probably didn’t trust Sicarius entirely yet. Why would he? Sicarius might be here on Kor Nas’s behalf in some attempt to entrap him, or to distract Starcrest from the real attack.
“Yes. But it’s encrypted with an old military cipher.”
“I… see. Will he be able to read it? In time?”
Time, yes, there was that. How long until Kor Nas learned what was going on around him? Even if Sicarius could successfully hide his thoughts, could the prince? Or the seer? On the Kyatt Islands, there were legislative and social rules against telepaths delving into the minds of others, but he’d heard the Nurians were less restrained. Those who commanded the mental sciences ruled over there, and they were rarely questioned.
“He may remember the key,” Sicarius said. “If not, his wife will. They presumably decrypted my last message, since they are here.”
The prince accepted the folded note. “Then we better hope Starcrest is in a bunker somewhere with his wife, not out planning mayhem to trouble the troops.”
• • •
Amaranthe shook her hand, trying to alleviate a writing cramp. Her notebook was jammed with hastily sketched maps, troop numbers and movements, incoming weather fronts, and everything else they’d been able to discover that she deemed worthwhile. She hoped Starcrest would have a good use for the information. In the short time they’d watched, the fighting around the Barracks had escalated, and she’d witnessed skirmishes around the river and railroad checkpoints too. Of course, Amaranthe’s mind kept drifting to Flintcrest’s camp and the image of Sicarius sparring while that cursed stone glowed cheerfully in his head. She wanted to stalk straight to the Preserve and rescue him, but destroying this ship had to be the priority. Besides, she didn’t know how she could rescue him. After they returned to the factory, she would gather the others for a planning session.