Lindsay Buroker - Conspiracy

Sespian lay back on the bed, and Amaranthe wondered if he was thinking it’d be better to take his chances and leave the implant in there. If he decided that, she’d have to try and talk him out of it. With the shaman gone, there wasn’t likely anyone better around than her team for this surgery.

“All right,” Sespian said. “Let’s do it. I’m going after Forge people, so it’d be better if they didn’t have this control over me, or the ability to see me coming.”

That hint of what his mission was made Amaranthe want to grab his arm and wheedle details out of him, but the surgery had to be the first priority. Afterward, she could-

“Company’s coming,” Maldynado bellowed from the cargo hold.

Amaranthe groaned. What was he doing in there? Maldynado should be in the navigation room with Yara. Books, after grudgingly acknowledging that his expertise might be needed for translations during the surgery, had given them a flying lesson.

When Amaranthe opened the door, Sicarius lifted his head, a question in his eyes.

“You, Akstyr, and Books have a job to do,” Amaranthe told him. “Stay here. The rest of us will buy you the time you need.” She hoped that sounded half as confident as she meant for it to sound.

“Understood,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe slipped into the corridor and trotted to the cargo hold. Maldynado had both hands pressed against the exterior hatch, his face close to the porthole in the center. When he saw Amaranthe, he stepped back and pointed. A dark dome was flying above the mountains behind them. Though daylight had come, it did nothing to alleviate the inky blackness of the craft.

“How far until we get out of the mountains?” Amaranthe asked.

“We’ve been cruising along to the northwest all night,” Maldynado said, “and we’re almost out, but we have sixty miles of lakes and wetlands to cross before we reach Sunders City.”

“If we can make it to the populated areas on the outskirts of town, they might veer off. You’d think that monstrosity would be something they’d want to keep a secret from people.”

“That’d still be fifty miles.” Maldynado stabbed a finger at the porthole. “They’ve gotten closer, just while we’ve been talking. There’s no way they won’t catch up with us.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a chance they’re just flying in the same direction as we are and haven’t seen us yet?” Amaranthe murmured.

“About as much chance as there is of Sicarius joining us for drinks, whoring, and bouts of unbridled laughter after the mission is over.”

“Us?” Amaranthe asked. “You think there’s a chance of me joining you for that?”

“You’d be more likely to do it than him.”

“I… think it’s safer if I neither agree nor disagree with that.” Convinced the trailing craft was only going to get bigger instead of smaller, Amaranthe spun a slow circle, taking in everything in the cargo bay. “We still have half a box of blasting sticks,” she mused.

“Unfortunately, they’re in here and the enemy is way out there. Not only did Lady Buckingcrest betray us by sending along ambushers, but she gave us a tub with no weapons. Unbelievable. Pleasuring a woman all night doesn’t count for as much as it used to.”

Amaranthe hadn’t mentioned Books’s hypothesis that Maldynado might somehow be behind the stowaways and the fact that this black craft had found them in the first place. She trusted Maldynado and couldn’t believe he would betray her. Besides, if by some remote chance he was a spy, wouldn’t he have arranged things so that he wouldn’t be on the dirigible when it was attacked?

“Maybe you’re getting older and less appealing,” Amaranthe said as she dug through lockers, hoping to find useful equipment that had come with the craft.

Maldynado sniffed. “We’re about to face death together. Do you really think this is the time to insult me?”

“Sorry, you’re right. Insults after battles. Come help me with this, will you?” Amaranthe waved to a locker where she’d found long, wide strips of canvas-like fabric and buckets of a black tarry goo. “Repair supplies for the balloon, I’d guess, though maybe we can-” A shudder ran through the floor. “Actually, why don’t you check on navigation?” Amaranthe might tease Maldynado about his proclivity for crashing vehicles, but most of those crashes had been a result of her orders. In truth, she’d always found him competent at working machinery. She knew less about Basilard and Yara’s capabilities. “Send Basilard back to help.”

“You got it, boss.” Maldynado jogged for the corridor.

“And keep this boat as steady as you can,” she called after him. “That’s a delicate surgery they’re performing on the emperor in there.”

Amaranthe eyed the cargo bay door, wondering if they could open it while flying.

Maldynado paused inside the corridor. “Maybe we should put off the surgery. What if those blokes start attacking us?”

Amaranthe frowned. She trusted Maldynado, she did, but now that Books had brought up his suspicions, she couldn’t help but think there might be a reason Maldynado didn’t want that device out of Sespian’s neck. If his family was angling for the throne and was in position to seize it if Sespian disappeared…

She shook her head. “If that’s their plan, Sespian will want that thing out of his neck before we crash and get captured by someone who can make it kill him at any time.”

“That’s not a very optimistic thought.”

“Sorry, we haven’t had much sleep, and I’m finding it hard to remain hopeful about the future.” Amaranthe pulled out one of the fabric strips and tugged at it experimentally. No stretchiness, hm. Maybe she could find some rubber.

Maldynado muttered something in parting, but she was too focused on her new plan to hear the words. By the time Basilard joined her, Amaranthe had buckets, fabric strips, and rubber cords strewn across the deck in front of the cargo door.

Basilard signed, What are we making?

“Slingshot,” Amaranthe said. “I could use some help.”

Basilard’s eyebrows rose. That probably meant she should be worried about her plan, but there wasn’t time for self-doubt. She peeked through the porthole. Its massive size might mean the black ship was farther back than it appeared, but either way it had halved the distance between them. The sun’s light glinted off the snowcaps on the last of the mountains, but its rays failed to reflect off of that craft. It almost looked like a black hole in the sky, coming to swallow them.

“I’m going to fly lower,” Maldynado called down the corridor. “Maybe we can lose them in the wetlands.”

That other craft could likely do anything the dirigible could do when it came to navigating, but Amaranthe kept the thought to herself and simply pointed for Basilard to come help her. She hoped her slingshot idea wouldn’t end up being laughable to the enemy. Whatever that craft had fired at the cliff to collapse the railway tunnel could doubtlessly pulverize the dirigible, perhaps from a great distance. It might never need to get within range of Amaranthe’s weapon-and calling the clunky slingshot a weapon was surely delusional. She kept working anyway.

Akstyr sat next to the bed, his hands clasped in his lap, his eyes half closed. He could see the faint bulge at the side of the emperor’s throat, but he needed to sense it as well. Unfortunately, he was having a hard time concentrating. Sicarius stood on the opposite side of the emperor’s bed, his black dagger in hand. His role might be to cut out the implant, but Akstyr couldn’t help but remember his earlier words and wonder if Sicarius might cut his neck, should he fail here.

“No pressure,” he murmured.