Something to his left drew his gaze-Books returning with the requested items.
Sicarius hadn’t removed the arm he had wrapped around Amaranthe, and he took this last moment alone with her to rub her back. “You made that happen,” he said, trying to let his approval seep into his voice. “If you hadn’t cut that thing out of my head, he wouldn’t have cried out. They never would have found him.”
Though it remained dark at the bottom of the pit, he heard the grin in her voice. “Can we pretend it was some premeditated brilliance then and not utter desperation? Much like me shutting myself down here and crawling out the sewage hole?”
“Yes.” Sicarius levered himself into a sitting position and would have kissed her, Akstyr’s observing eyes be cursed, but several more figures stepped up to the ledge above them.
“Amaranthe!” Maldynado called.
Basilard raised a triumphant fist.
“Are you all right?” Yara asked. “We were afraid… it took so long, everyone was afraid we were too late.”
Sicarius heard and saw them, as well as Books, Deret Mancrest, and a handful of soldiers with ropes and grappling hooks, but it was the silver-haired man in insignia-less black fatigues onto whom his eyes locked. Fleet Admiral Sashka Federias Starcrest. The man he’d asked to come to the empire, and the man he’d come to the factory to kill that night. Aside from the hair color and deeper lines around the mouth and eyes, Starcrest hadn’t changed much. He’d gained a few pounds, but he’d been on the edge of gaunt at their last meeting, fresh off that time on Krychek Island. He appeared hale and fit, as befitting a warrior.
“Corporal Lokdon,” Starcrest said, his voice quiet but carrying to the bottom of the pit regardless. “I am relieved to see that your plan worked.” His gaze shifted, and he nodded once. “Sicarius.”
This wasn’t how Sicarius had envisioned them meeting again after twenty years. He’d wanted… what? To be able to march with pride at the head of an army he’d built? Perhaps not, but at least to be able to hold his head up and know he hadn’t spent the last few days as some wizard’s lickspittle.
At a wave from Starcrest, one of the soldiers dropped a rope down. Sicarius touched Amaranthe, indicating that she could go first. After she scrambled out of the pit, he marshaled his strength, crouched low, and leaped up, catching the lip. He pulled himself over the side. Who he meant to impress by ignoring the rope-Amaranthe? Starcrest? — he didn’t know, but he hadn’t wanted to appear weak. He already knew his appearance, with dried blood streaking his face and gore smashed beneath his fingernails, did not match the tidy one he preferred.
Of course, Amaranthe was equally blood- and gore-covered, but that did not keep her from greeting her comrades with hugs and offering Starcrest a firm handshake. He accepted it and added a comradely, or maybe fatherly, pat of approval to her shoulder.
Sicarius kept his face composed in his stoney mask, showing nothing of the chaos and pain that remained in his mind, nor the childish feeling that he’d like a pat of approval from the great admiral.
He noticed another man standing back from the gathering, and it took a great deal of effort to maintain the mask he’d so carefully reapplied. Sespian. Amaranthe had said he was alive, and he’d believed her, but it wasn’t the same as seeing his son with his own eyes.
Sicarius strode around the others and toward Sespian. For a moment, he had a notion of hugging him, but his approach evoked a look of hesitant wariness. Sespian glanced at his temple, as if he worried Sicarius might still be under someone’s control. Or maybe he was more aware than Amaranthe of what Sicarius had done in the last few days.
Instead of extending his arms for a hug, one he realized with lament he’d been far closer to receiving on that water tower, Sicarius stopped a pace away and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am pleased to see that you are alive and undamaged.”
“Uhm,” Sespian said, and Sicarius sensed his simple statement hadn’t been the correct one, or at least not the one Sespian expected. “Thanks.”
“I thought you’d died at Fort Urgot.”
Sespian winced. “I should have. I was lucky. Thousands of others weren’t.”
“So I understand.” The stiltedness of the conversation pained Sicarius, but he did not know how to smooth it out.
“Heroncrest’s army had tunneled under the walls. Maldynado, Basilard, and General Ridgecrest, and I were fighting the troops trying to enter that way.”
The tunnel borer, of course. Sicarius hadn’t thought to hope that it could have somehow come into play in saving Sespian. He was relieved the soul construct had interrupted their spy mission, for, given enough time, he might have thought to sabotage that equipment.
Sespian’s gaze shifted over his shoulder. Sicarius glanced back in time to catch Amaranthe mouthing something and making a gesture toward Sicarius. She caught him looking, shrugged, and returned to a conversation with Books and Deret.
Sespian cleared his throat. “I am… pleased to see that you are alive as well. And only… somewhat damaged.”
It wasn’t the hug Sicarius would have preferred, and Amaranthe had goaded the statement out, but it was better than stiff coldness.
Sicarius nodded once. “Good.”
“You’re supposed to say thank you to something like that.”
“An artificial social construct that is no more of an acknowledgment of your statement than my ‘good.’” It was an automatic response, not a well-thought out one, and, as soon as Sespian shook his head, Sicarius knew he should have simply voiced gratitude. This was why he didn’t get hugs…
Sicarius sighed to himself, wondering when he’d ever figure out how to interact with his son.
• • •
After washing and changing clothes, Amaranthe was on her way to join Starcrest and the others in a midnight planning meeting, but Deret Mancrest blocked her path. He stood at the base of the catwalk stairs, his swordstick in one hand and the other on the railing as he spoke with a blonde-haired woman in spectacles. Though Amaranthe had never seen her in person, she knew exactly who this was. The nose, in particular, was quite familiar, though the woman was a little stouter than she had been in her ten-year-old tintype. She was smiling as she spoke to Deret, a pleasant smile with dimples, but it disappeared when she spotted Amaranthe approaching.
The wry smile Deret issued suggested he’d intentionally put himself-and Suan Curlev-into Amaranthe’s path. Yes, he knew she’d been avoiding this chat for days. Suan was neither bound nor gagged, though enough soldiers guarded the factory perimeter that one might be deterred from escape attempts. Or perhaps she’d been given her parole in exchange for… what? Some promise from Deret? She was standing closer to him than one would expect from a pair of enemies, or rather, kidnapper and kidnap victim.
“Ms. Curlev,” Amaranthe said, and that’s as far as she got. How did one say, “I’m sorry I had you kidnapped and, oh, did I mention that I’m responsible for your sister’s death? No? Sorry about that too.”?
“Corporal Lokdon,” Suan said. “Lord Mancrest assures me that your assassin will not be knocking on my door tonight, but I would like to hear these assurances from your mouth. Does being imprisoned by you indeed grant protection?”