Lindsay Buroker - Conspiracy

Sespian snorted softly.

“I honestly believe you’re the open-minded, forward-thinking person we need in charge right now,” Amaranthe said. “We just need to make sure you survive and have the leeway to apply your vision.” It wouldn’t hurt if he had an older, experienced advisor he could trust either. She imagined Books or even Sicarius in that role. Maybe it was hubris, but she thought Sespian would benefit from having her whole team on board. If only she could get him to see that. “Don’t let anyone beat you down. This is worth fighting for.”

“Odd,” Sespian murmured.

That wasn’t quite the response Amaranthe had expected. “Me? Or my speech? Or both?”

“I get a lot flatterers telling me what they think I want to hear in order to get what they want. Why is it that I believe you when you do the same?”

Maybe Amaranthe should feel insulted-he’d just called her a flatterer who was angling for something, after all-but the puzzled crease to Sespian’s brow took the bite out of the words. “Because I don’t hide the fact that I want something? And I don’t think I want anything that’s particularly evil or would require you to compromise your integrity. I just want my name cleared.” All right, she wanted Sicarius’s name cleared, too, but that probably would compromise Sespian’s integrity, and she doubted Sicarius particularly cared about that aspect anyway. “There’s more to it than that, of course,” Amaranthe went on. “Me wanting to be someone who matters and to live up to the expectations of a dead father, for example. But my life story, dreams, fears, and so on can wait for when we have more time. Right now, I only wish to know what reassurances I can give you to get you to say yes to this surgery. There was a beacon of some sort left behind on that cliff, and I’m afraid that means the other craft will know we’re alive. They may already be looking for us. If someone on board that craft can trigger your implant… Well, I’d find it rather inconvenient to lose you so soon after retrieving you. I doubt Maldynado’s older brother would pardon me.” There, finish with a smile. What more could she do?

“I’d like to hear the life story sometime,” Sespian said, surprising Amaranthe. That wasn’t the part of her speech he was supposed to focus on. “If we survive the next few weeks, perhaps you’d like to have dinner with me? Some place quiet? And private?”

“I… uh…” Amaranthe felt like a deer caught on the railway with a train barreling out of the night toward it. Her mind wouldn’t come up with something useful to do, and she could only gape at Sespian. He wasn’t supposed to be interested in dinner with her any more. He was supposed to want to have dinner with Yara. “Sire, you’re…” The son of the man I love, she thought, but she couldn’t possibly say that. “Young. Yes, young to me. I don’t think we’d be a good…” Amaranthe trailed off when she realized Sespian was watching her intently. It wasn’t, she sensed, in hopes that she would agree to his proposition. A moment passed, and he said nothing. Finally, she asked, “Was that a test?”

Sespian smiled sadly. “If you’d said yes, it wouldn’t have necessarily proven or disproven anything, but because you said no… I suspect I can trust you.”

Amaranthe slumped back into the cushy chair. She wasn’t certain whether she was more relieved that Sespian had admitted to trusting her or that he hadn’t truly had his hopes pinned to her saying yes about the dinner proposition.

“As to conditions for the surgery,” Sespian said, “I want everything explained. It has to sound logical and there has to be a good probability of success. I don’t want Forge to be able to hold that power over me any more, but I also don’t want to commit suicide.”

“Of course, Sire.” Amaranthe stood up and headed for the door. “I’ll let Akstyr know.”

“Corporal Lokdon?” Sespian slipped off the bed and met her a couple steps from the door.

“Yes, Sire?”

“If we both survive this with our sanity intact, I hope you’ll reconsider the dinner offer. I won’t always be young. If it helps, I’ll probably be old and doddering before you, thanks to the drug that curmudgeon Hollowcrest used on me.”

Amaranthe gripped his hands. “Sire, I’m sure you’ll live a long and fulfilling life.” Except she wasn’t sure of that. Sicarius, she recalled, had been concerned when he learned the name of the drug Hollowcrest had used. That knowledge had fueled his cold fury when he broke the old general’s neck with his bare hands.

The door opened. Belatedly, Amaranthe remembered that she’d told Basilard to send Sicarius in.

She released Sespian’s hands and yanked hers behind her back, but not before Sicarius witnessed the handholding. His expression never changed, but he looked into her eyes for a heartbeat, and then he looked into Sespian’s for several more.

“Nothing’s going on,” Amaranthe said, though she promptly realized that made it sound as if there were something going on. “We were just-”

Without a word, Sicarius walked away.

Sun shown through the porthole in the tiny cabin, and Akstyr pulled his blanket over his head, trying to block it out. At Amaranthe’s insistence, he’d slept a couple of hours, and he wouldn’t have minded more, but the light was bugging him. Something else was bugging him, too, though he couldn’t put a finger on it. A nagging unease.

Akstyr stretched out with his senses and nearly fell out of the bunk when he felt someone in the cabin with him. A dark cool presence. He tore the blanket off his head, spotted Sicarius standing in the shadows by the door, and bolted to his feet. That was the goal anyway. The blanket tangled around his legs, and he tumbled to the floor in an ungainly heap. Certain Sicarius wasn’t there for any comradely reason, Akstyr rushed to untangle himself and find a standing position. He finally managed, but not without the help of a hand on the wall.

If Sicarius were the type to cackle diabolically before killing someone, he’d surely be doing so now. But he simply stood there, wearing all of his knives, his body unmoving, his face unreadable.

“What do you want?” Akstyr tried to sound gruff and unconcerned, though he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone. Also, it was hard to look tough standing barefoot with a blanket pooled at one’s feet.

The quietness of that Science-made dirigible engine meant there were no thrums or reverberations coursing through the craft, and Akstyr could feel his heart thumping against his ribs. Fast. He wondered if Sicarius could hear it too. He wasn’t saying or doing anything, but Akstyr had the impression that Sicarius might be debating whether to kill him.

Akstyr clenched a fist. Sicarius could try. Akstyr knew ways to defend himself that had nothing to do with physical contact.

“Well?” Akstyr demanded.

“You’ve been talking with bounty hunters,” Sicarius said. “I know you’ve thought often of having me killed.”

Akstyr tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. He wanted to say something valiant, but he couldn’t get any words out.

“You may have doomed us all by speaking of our plans to your mother.” Sicarius’s eyes bored into him, hard and unwavering.

“That was a mistake, I know. It won’t happen again.”

“I kill those who threaten me.” He wasn’t attempting to intimidate or posture; he was simply stating a fact. That made it worse.

“I saved Am’ranthe that one time. Amaranthe,” Akstyr added, thinking that it might be somehow important to pronounce each and every syllable in her name just then. Respectful-like. “I’m important to the team. She wouldn’t want you to kill anyone important to the team.”