The assassin curse

Part II

Twilight bathed the lake, and shadows blurred the features of Darkcrest Isle. Though the sun had set, humidity thickened the air, and the temperature had dropped little. Amaranthe stroked toward the island, cool water lapping at her shoulders. She was too nervous to appreciate the reprieve from the heat that swimming offered. While she stroked, she held her shoes, sword, and crossbow overhead to keep them dry. Freshly applied poison darkened the tip of the loaded quarrel, and four more waited in the chamber.

Sicarius swam along at her side, but he had said little since he returned from the woods. What he had been doing up there, she could only guess, but he was more tight-lipped than ever.

They swam toward a snarl of fallen logs that would offer cover once they climbed out. One of Amaranthe’s kicks scraped the pebbly shallows, and she maneuvered her feet beneath her, staying low in case anyone was watching the beach.

A few steps took her to the end of the log snarl, and Amaranthe crouched there, eyes probing the darkness. At the head of the beach, evergreens rose, thick and densely packed trees that had never seen a logger’s axe. Two dark shapes lay side-by-side on the pebbles before the woods, and she squinted, trying to guess what they were. The odor of rotting meat lingered in the air. Just a dead fish washed up nearby, she told herself.

“See any sign of our thieves?” she asked when Sicarius crouched next to her.

He did not answer, or maybe he shook his head. It was hard to tell in the gloom. Amaranthe put on her shoes, grimacing at the sand stuck to her damp feet, then strapped on the sword. Lastly, she grabbed the crossbow, tucking it into the crook of her arm, so she would be ready to fire in an instant.

A muggy breeze whispered through, moaning softly as it passed the rocky ravine that framed the riverhead south of the island, like a breath blown over the lip of a bottle. The noise stirred the hair on the back of her neck, or perhaps it was simply the wildness of the island. The capital city, with its population of one million, lay only a few miles away, but here… It felt like they were hundreds of miles from civilization.

“Any thoughts on which way we should go?” Amaranthe asked.

Heartbeats thumped past while she waited for an answer. She touched Sicarius on the shoulder, and he stirred. He bent and tugged on his own soft boots.

“Are you all right?” Amaranthe whispered. “You’re even quieter than usual.”

“I must concentrate,” Sicarius said.

“On what?” She thought of the way Akstyr had to utterly focus to access his mental powers. But Sicarius had never trained in the Science, at least so far as she knew.

“I smell a campfire.” He pointed inland.

If there was smoke, the darkening sky hid it.

Amaranthe waited a moment to see if he would take the lead. He did not. Shrugging, she led the way up the beach, though she paused to take a closer look at the shapes. She soon wished she hadn’t.

Two human skeletons, meat long since picked from the bones, faced each other on the rocks. One’s arms were outstretched, hands locked around the other’s neck, or what remained of it. The other skeleton gripped a dagger, the blade thrust into his foe’s ribs.

“Fight to the death,” Amaranthe murmured. “It happened a while ago, though. I’m surprised the bones weren’t torn away by scavengers, but I suppose it’s mostly small game this close to the city. Rats and carrion birds perhaps.” Talking about it in that analytical tone helped to distance herself from the horror. She had seen plenty of dead bodies in her life, but it made her uneasy, wondering why these people might have killed each other. Why visit Darkcrest Isle for a duel to the death?

“ Adon tsk zeel tu,” Sicarius said.

“Uhm, what?” Amaranthe asked.

“What?”

“What did you just say?” Amaranthe asked.

“That we should get off the beach.”

“In what language?”

“Turgonian.” His voice rarely contained any nuances that would hint of his thoughts or emotions, but he said the word in a faintly puzzled tone, as if he thought she were the one who was crazy.

“Not unless it was some old dialect I’ve never heard,” Amaranthe said.

A long moment passed before he said, “We should complete this task and get off the island as soon as possible.”

“On that we can agree.”

Amaranthe led the way along the beach, looking for a place to turn inland. Bushes and brambles created dense undergrowth amongst the evergreens, and she did not like the idea of using her sword to hack a trail. That would be noisy going, and she had hopes of catching the thieves unaware.

Amaranthe caught sight of the boat the thieves had used and veered toward it. In the growing darkness, she struggled to see details and ended up patting around the inside. Maybe the thieves had left some of their purloined goods.

The bottom of the boat was mostly empty, but she found two items. One felt like a rifle bullet, though longer than she was familiar with. It must be one of the cartridges Sicarius mentioned. The second object had a similar shape, but it was bigger than her fist. Another cartridge but for a larger weapon, perhaps? She dumped both into a cargo pocket on the side of her trousers.

“We’d best assume they have loaded firearms. Maybe cannons.” Amaranthe stood and turned, almost bumping into Sicarius who loomed dark and silent behind her. “Want to see if you can find their trail?”

He always seemed to have preternatural skills, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he could track people at night.

Without a word, he headed inland.

Crossbow in hand, Amaranthe followed. It bothered her to admit it, even if only to herself, but she was not certain she wanted him behind her at the moment. Something odd was going on.

Sicarius found a game trail between the trees and glided up a path. Bushes and branches choked it, but he maneuvered through it soundlessly while Amaranthe struggled to push through without making noise. It was almost as if he were an ancestor spirit himself tonight. Strange and inscrutable. More so than usual.

Amaranthe wiped sweat from her brow, and wished the breeze rustling through the undergrowth would bring cool air. It did not, but it did offer the scent of burning wood. The campfire Sicarius had mentioned. It seemed strange that those thieves would light a fire, something that could serve as a beacon. Maybe it was a trap.

“Should we be going straight up the trail to it?” Amaranthe whispered.

Only the wind answered her. She paused to listen for rustling on the trail ahead, but there was nothing.

“Impossible man,” she muttered. Maybe he intended to do the deed on his own. She was inclined to turn thieves over to the magistrate rather than kill them, but for spies stealing imperial technology, death would be the ultimate punishment regardless.

A crack sounded, and Amaranthe dropped to the ground. A gunshot? No, dozens of branches snapped and foliage rattled. Almost too late, she realized it was a tree falling. She scampered back as a breeze battered at her. The trunk crashed across her path, less than two feet from her.

Heart pounding against her ribs, she gaped at it. Only luck had kept one of its substantial branches from hitting her.

Amaranthe swallowed, remembering another time with Sicarius in the woods. A tree had nearly dropped on her, and he had pulled her to safety. That had been during a fierce wind-and-lightning storm though. This was a calm summer evening.

She tore her gaze from the log and looked for Sicarius. Surely he had heard that. Why hadn’t he come back to check on her?

Because he’s not himself, a voice in the back of her mind whispered.

Amaranthe put a foot on the log, intending to climb over it and continue on, but soft clacks reached her ear, and she paused. Now what?

“Sicarius?” she asked, then immediately felt foolish for doing so. First off, he didn’t make noise. Second, if he were going to make noise, it wouldn’t sound like a machine.

The clacks grew louder, rhythmic and determined. Amaranthe struggled to pinpoint the source. The noise seemed to come from the left and the right. Soft whirs joined the clacks.

“Lantern,” she muttered to herself. “Should have brought a lantern.”

A twig snapped to her left. Amaranthe hesitated, not certain if it would be better to return to the beach or continue forward. The fact that Sicarius should be up ahead somewhere made the decision for her, and she hopped over the fallen tree. The clacks faded as she pulled away from it, and she started to let out a relieved breath, but the reprieve was short-lived.

The clacks resumed, louder this time. Whatever was making them was on the trail now, following her.

A buzz sounded behind her, the sound reminiscent of a saw in a steam-powered mill. Amaranthe picked up the pace, twisting and weaving through the foliage, ducking branches and navigating roots that seemed to reach out of the ground, grasping at her feet. One snagged her, and she pitched forward, barely keeping from tumbling to the ground. Her crossbow smacked against a tree, and she winced at the noise, though the sound seemed insignificant next to the whirs and clacks coming from behind. She had little hope of sneaking up on the thieves now.

Amaranthe drew her sword and thought of stopping and making a stand against whatever machinery followed her, but she feared neither blade nor bow would be effective against metal. And what if it was some sentient magical construct? She had A crash sounded less than five feet behind her. Branches snapped, and gears whirred.

Amaranthe found a break between trees and darted off the path, hoping a machine would struggle to follow her through dense undergrowth.

Thorns scraped at her bare arms, and brambles sought to entangle her legs. A moon peeped over the rocky apex of the island, bathing the woods with its silvery light. The buzz sounded again, scarce meters behind Amaranthe.

If she had a moment to think, to see what she was dealing with, maybe she could come up with something more constructive than running. She strapped her crossbow over her shoulder, lunged for the nearest tree, and climbed.

Something slammed into the trunk below her. The tree trembled, its needles raining down upon Amaranthe.

Before she got a good look at her first attacker, a second shape rolled out of the undergrowth, a round bronze contraption that reminded her a giant ladybug. With pincers. And circular saws. Squat stacks sat on the backs of both, belching black smoke, and filling the air with the scent of burning wood. The things seemed Turgonian, but more than punchcards were instructing them if they had followed her off the trail and A saw buzzed, biting into the trunk of her tree. The force rattled her perch, and she dug her fingernails into the bark to keep from falling out. With the machines below her, she could see their metal carapaces more clearly. Black crests were painted on their backs, images of an oilcan over crossed swords, the symbol representing the army’s engineering division. So, Turgonian contraptions after all. More of the army’s latest technology. Unfortunately, she did not see how that information helped her.

The second machine rolled to the other side of her tree, not on wheels but on treads. It maneuvered easily over rocks and roots, and its saw came out as well. Twin buzzes filled the air, and Amaranthe tried not to feel like a raccoon treed by hounds-hounds that could cut down her safe haven.

She looked around, trying to find another tree she might jump to, but she had not chosen her perch well. It would take a miraculous leap to make it into the nearest branches.

Already her tree was wobbling beneath the double assault. Amaranthe touched her crossbow, but did not bother removing it. Poisoned tips or not, what could little quarrels do against these things?

“Got to try some thing,” she muttered.

Amaranthe studied the steam-powered machines, noting their boilers and-she craned her neck-yes, there were furnaces on the back ends of the carapaces. Would the doors be locked or could she open them?

With one arm wrapped about her tree, holding on for her life, she fished in her pocket and came up with the fist-sized cartridge from the boat. She hoped her guess as to its contents was right.

Amaranthe leaped out of the tree, twisting in the air to land facing the back of one of her metal attackers. She grabbed at the latch on the furnace door. Hot metal seared her hand, but she ripped the door open anyway.

The saw pulled away from the tree, and the machine started to turn. Amaranthe thrust the cartridge into the door and ran in the opposite direction. She only made it two steps before an explosion boomed into the night. She dove into the undergrowth and covered her head.

Shrapnel pelted the trees, and debris rained onto her back. Not daring to stay prone for long, Amaranthe scrambled to her feet. The explosion had destroyed the first machine, but the second was already recovering. A hitch in one of its treads made it wobble, but it still pursued her with determination.

When Amaranthe tried to back up, she smacked into a towering boulder. The machine drew near, and its circular saw extended, whirring closer.

She darted sideways, but her foot found a hole instead of solid earth, and she sank to her knee, nearly snapping her ankle as she pitched sideways. Growling, she tried to extract her foot, but roots like hands grasped at her.

“Curse this slagging island!” she snarled, no longer caring about the noise she made.

She finally yanked her foot free, but another root tripped her up, and she fell onto her back. Something snapped-her crossbow. It was the least of her worries.

The metal beast lunged forward like an attack dog. The spinning blade rose, the steel gleaming beneath the moonlight.

A dark form dropped out of the trees, landing on the machine’s carapace. A man. Sicarius?

He lifted his arms, and Amaranthe glimpsed his black dagger, the inky blade not reflecting the moonlight at all. He drove the weapon downward with all his power.

Before she could tell if it pierced the metal hull, he leaped over the spinning saw to land next to her. He grabbed her as if she were a toddler, hefting her from the ground, and jumped out of the machine’s way.

It did not veer to follow. It smashed into the boulder, and teeth from its saw flew off, pattering into the foliage about them.

Amaranthe found the ground with her feet, though Sicarius did not let her go. He faced her, gripping her by both arms, and she could feel the rise and fall of his chest, his rapid breathing. Strange. With all his training, he was never out of breath. Had he gotten so far ahead that he had to sprint all the way back when he realized she needed assistance?

“I appreciate the help,” she said quietly.

“I can’t stay here,” Sicarius whispered. “He’s too strong.”

The hairs stirred on Amaranthe’s neck again. “Who is?”

“Azon Amar.”

“The dead assassin.” Amaranthe did not know what else to say. She didn’t even know what he was saying.

“The dead warrior mage,” Sicarius said. “He was powerful in life, and some of that power lingers in death. His spirit is here, restless and angry.”

Amaranthe stared at him. That a dead Nurian was somehow reaching out from the afterlife to affect Sicarius seemed impossible. Though there were countless stories involving ancestor spirits in the empire, she’d never seen anything to prove that they truly existed. Of course, a year earlier, she hadn’t believed magic existed either, but she’d seen ample examples of the mental sciences in recent months.

“What does he want?” Amaranthe asked.

“For me to kill you.”

“Me?” she squeaked. She cleared her throat, fighting for a calm voice, but she was all too conscious of the fact that Sicarius still gripped her arms, and he continued to breathe hard, as if he was fighting against something. Something that was trying to compel him. “Why me? I’ve never even met-”

“You’re Turgonian.”

“So are you.”

“Yes,” Sicarius said, “and he already tried to get me to commit suicide.”

Amaranthe swallowed. When had that happened? When Sicarius was up ahead? Or back on the beach when they first came ashore?

“But you resisted,” she said.

“Yes.”

With more confidence than she felt, Amaranthe patted him on the side and said, “You’ll resist killing me too.”

For a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, and, through his grip, Amaranthe could almost sense the loathing of the dead sorcerer.

Then Sicarius released her. “Yes.”

The strain in his voice when he said that, as if he were speaking through clenched teeth, worried her. Everything here worried her, and she wondered if this good deed was worth it. She also regretted wishing Sicarius was less infallible. Resist, she silently urged him.

“You should leave the island,” Amaranthe said. “Get out of his range of power.”

“I won’t leave you here alone.”

“I can handle a couple of thieves on my own.” Or so she hoped. If the Nurians had sneaked into a heavily guarded army fort and stolen all that equipment, they certainly weren’t neophytes. Amaranthe shifted, and her ankle twinged. She couldn’t forget the roots, branches, and falling trees that seemed to want her dead too.

“You’ll have to,” Sicarius said. “I already tried to kill them, and he stopped me. He’s protecting his countrymen.”

“Why’s he only attempting to manipulate you and not me?” she asked. As far as she knew, no spirit was marauding through her head, trying to convince her to kill herself.

“Perhaps he can only control one person at a time.”

Sicarius left her side to jump on the back of the machine crumpled against the boulder. He yanked his dagger free with a grinding of metal. Amaranthe had seen his black blade in action numerous times, and it did not surprise her that it could pierce metal-it probably wouldn’t even be scratched.

Amaranthe picked up her crossbow and examined it, careful not to brush against the poisoned quarrel. “Why would he choose you over me? I haven’t had any training to resist magic, so I’d be easier to control.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized it might not be a good idea to announce such things to the malevolent island. “No, he must realize you’re the better tool.”

She dropped the crossbow. The firing mechanism was broken.

“Do you have any poison left?” Sicarius returned to her side. An owl hooted nearby.

“Yes,” Amaranthe said.

Sicarius pressed something cool into her palm-the handle of his dagger. She stared at the dark blade.

“Apply poison to the tip,” he said. “If I… bother you, use it.”

“Sicarius, this is ridiculous. Just swim back to shore.”

“I’m not sure he’ll let me,” he said softly.

“Try. You’re not getting yourself killed out here, and you’re certainly not killing me. I’ll just go take a look and see if there’s a way to talk these people out of leaving their ill-gotten plunder behind, and then I’ll meet you back at that dock.”

“Amaranthe…”

She planted her free hand on his chest. “Go, I’ll be fine without you. Trust me, you’re the biggest threat to me on this island.”

“Understood.” He turned his back and strode away, disappearing into the night.

After a moment of consideration, Amaranthe pulled her vial of poison from her ammo pouch and, by the light of the burning wreckage, brushed some of the clear liquid onto Sicarius’s blade. There was no way she would use it on him, but maybe it would come in handy against the thieves.

With his dagger in hand, she picked her way back to the path, but she stopped there. There was no campfire to check. She and Sicarius had smelled the wood burning in the machines’ furnaces. The thieves could be anywhere on the island. Or — her head jerked up-maybe they’d used the machines to distract her while they gathered their gear and prepared to leave the island. Maybe they were circling back to the boat to escape.

An owl hooted above Amaranthe’s head.

She jumped, then rolled her eyes at herself. This place had her on edge.

“A good reason to finish up and get off it,” she told herself.

Amaranthe hustled back down the trail toward the beach. This time, she worried more about speed and less about stealth.

As she was clambering over the fallen log, the first human sound came to her ear. Voices.

She could not understand what they were saying, but their voices were underlaid by urgency.

Amaranthe ran down the final fifty meters of trail as quickly as she could without making too much noise. When she reached the pebbles, she spotted the thieves. Too late.

They had already launched the boat and were paddling out so they could swing around the island’s contours and head for the river. Both were rowing with a huge bulky pile between them, its contents shrouded with a tarp.

Amaranthe clenched her fist. If she hadn’t broken her crossbow, she might have shot them. She could swim out to them, but they’d see her coming and simply shoot her with those prototype weapons. Even if she managed to hold her breath long enough to swim under water to their position, what then? Would she slither over the edge of the boat and try to cut their throats before they noticed her? Sicarius could manage that, but she had no idea as to the thieves’ degree of combat prowess. She was not sure she could assassinate someone in cold blood anyway, even someone stealing imperial secrets.

She couldn’t give up yet though. Amaranthe ran along the beach, hugging the shadows of the tree line for camouflage. Pebbles shifted beneath her feet, and she hoped the lapping waves hid the noise.

An owl hooted from a nearby tree, not a single call, but a string of insistent hoots. Amaranthe halted midstep. The thieves lowered their voices and looked in her direction. They shouldn’t be able to see her against the dark backdrop of the trees, but having their eyes turned toward her made her nervous. That owl couldn’t be calling attention to her on purpose, could it?

It hooted again from a closer perch. Amaranthe grabbed a pebble from the beach and flung it toward the noise. She didn’t expect to hit anything, but maybe the projectile would startle the owl to silence. It worked, for the moment. The thieves’ voices remained low, though, and they increased their rowing speed.

Amaranthe kept going too. Running was faster than rowing, so she soon pulled ahead of the boat, but to what end, she was not sure. Before long, she would run out of beach and island, and the thieves would be free to float down the river.

Sweat dribbled from her temples, courtesy of the humid evening. Her shirt, still damp from the previous swim, clung her to back, and her trousers chaffed her legs. Think, girl, she told herself. She needed to come up with a plan, not worry about the heat.

Amaranthe still held Sicarius’s dagger. She thought of him crunching through imperial steel with it and glanced over her shoulder toward the rowboat. Wood ought to be an easier barrier to pierce. A simple hole in the bottom of that boat, and the thieves wouldn’t make it more than a half a mile down the river before their cargo sank.

Her route took her into darker shadows, thanks to the peak of the island blocking the low moon, and she made her decision. Staying low, she scrambled to the water’s edge and removed her shoes and sword belt. Carrying only Sicarius’s black blade, she slipped into the lake.

The boat would pass through the island’s shadow, and they should have a hard time spotting her as long as she stayed still and made no splashes. Or so she hoped.

Holding the dagger made swimming awkward, but Amaranthe wasn’t about to clench it between her teeth, not with the poison on the blade. The boat drew closer, and she sank low in the water, letting only her nose and eyes stick out. Seaweed from the bottom curled around her leg, and she shook herself free while being careful not to break the surface or splash. Grimly, she wondered how far from the island that spirit’s influence extended.

Splashes and drips sounded as the boat approached, its oars dipping and rising in sync. Amaranthe waited until the thieves were twenty feet away. When she was about to submerge to swim underwater to the boat’s hull, that cursed owl hooted again. It flew overhead, a dark winged form gliding beneath the stars. It had to be warning the Nurians.

Amaranthe took a breath and submerged anyway, hoping the thieves could not understand the bird’s alert.

Darkness reigned below the surface, and she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. Only sounds guided her, the splash of the oars and scrapes as they bumped against the hull.

She swam toward the noises, hands outstretched. She needed to find the hull without bumping into the oars-that would give everything away too soon.

More seaweed grasped at her ankles. Amaranthe struggled for calm and tried to shake herself loose. When that failed, she used the dagger to cut herself free. The stuff was definitely trying to snare her. She had to keep moving. An image flashed through her mind, slimy tentacles wrapping about her whole body and pulling her to the bottom of the lake, never to let go…

Her hand brushed something. Wood. Yes, there was the hull.

Amaranthe found a grove and hung on as the thieves rowed, with luck unaware that they carried extra cargo now. Kicking softly, so they wouldn’t feel her weight dragging at the boat, she placed the tip of Sicarius’s dagger against the hull beneath the cargo. She pushed upward and wiggled the blade, trying to poke a hole without making noise.

Though the dagger cut through the wood easily, the going was slow and Amaranthe’s lungs were starting to burn. She might have to risk swimming away, catching her breath, and coming back to finish.

More seaweed curled about her ankle, and she jerked her leg free. Her knee bumped the bottom of the boat. The oars paused.

Amaranthe grew still and curled her legs beneath her to make sure they would not stick out to the sides of the boat. She doubted the thieves could see anything under the dark water, but…

One of the oars started probing about. It brushed her sleeve. Cursed ancestors.

Amaranthe jabbed the dagger into the bottom of the boat. No more time for stealth and finesse. The black blade bit through the wood as if it were soft cheese. She sawed a fist-size hole.

An oar angled in again, this time clipping her in the ribs. Her air escaped in a parade of bubbles. Another oar from the other side of the boat hammered against her shoulder. They weren’t probing any more but attacking.

Her hole would have to do. Using her feet, she pushed off the bottom of the boat. Her trajectory took her more downward than she would have liked, and tendrils of seaweed snaked about her from all sides. One piece clamped about her ankle, and another her wrist.

Fighting against panic, Amaranthe slashed with the dagger, keeping her cuts calm and precise. It was hard when her lungs were crying out for air and more seaweed clawed at her on all sides. She could see nothing in the dark water either, so everything was by touch. She cut the tendril restraining her wrist and twisted, lunging for the one at her ankle. A cold strand of seaweed slid beneath her shirt. She bucked away from the slimy intrusion.

A loud crack sounded overhead. A gunshot being fired.

They might not be able to see her, but they must be able to see evidence of her thrashing with the seaweed.

Amaranthe finally cut herself free and stroked away without any elegance. If she’d had any breath left, she would have gone dozens of meters before breaking the surface, but she had to come up long before then.

The squabble with the seaweed left her disoriented, and Amaranthe didn’t know where she was in relation to the boat and the island. As soon as she lifted a hand to dash water out of her eyes, something slammed into her from above.

The weight forced her several feet under, and she fumbled Sicarius’s knife, almost losing it. An arm snaked around her torso, a strong muscled arm. The male thief. He was in the water with her, on top of her.

Metal scraped against her cheek. He had a knife too.

Amaranthe ducked her head to protect her neck and slashed her blade into the arm restraining her. A yelp of pain sounded, the noise distorted by the water.

She twisted so she faced the man and stabbed again, trying to find his torso in the darkness.

Something brushed her foot. The cursed seaweed again. It probably wanted to hold her down so he could stick her like a pincushion.

Amaranthe yanked her foot free, and kicked hard with both legs, angling around the thief-or where she thought he would be-thinking to take him by surprise. He might think she’d flee and be chasing after her.

A current breezed past; the thief swimming by her?

Amaranthe took a chance and lashed out with Sicarius’s dagger. It slipped into flesh and muscle, far more easily than a normal blade would have. The man screamed, but he managed to grab her wrist as she was retracting the blade.

Knowing he had his own knife, Amaranthe pulled both legs up to her chest and kicked out. Her heels hammered into the man’s abdomen, and he released her with a grunt.

She ought to close and finish him, but she needed air. She clawed her way to the surface, though she tried to break the water carefully, so the woman would not hear if she were nearby. Maybe the thief would be busy with her sinking ship.

As soon as Amaranthe broke the surface, she inhaled a great gulp of air. A rifle cracked, and water splashed inches from her head.

Amaranthe ducked back below the surface and swam. She had not had a chance to get her bearings, and had no idea which way she was going, only that she needed to put a lot of meters between herself and the woman with the gun.

She stroked until her lungs burned for air, and then stroked farther. Only when her fingers scraped algae-slick rock did she come up. She had run out of room to run. In her heart, she hoped she had swum toward the mainland instead of the island, but her brain knew that was unlikely-she hadn’t traveled far enough for that.

When she broke the surface, she let only a couple inches of her face come out, just enough to breathe in several deep breaths. When a few seconds passed with no one shooting at her, she lifted her head farther.

She was indeed back on the island, kneeling in the shallows. The woman’s voice floated to her from twenty meters away. Her boat was sinking-only an inch or two remained above the water-and she had pulled the man to its side. She was repeating something over and over. His name? He floated in the water on his back, unmoving.

Amaranthe closed her eyes, grimly realizing that she’d killed the man. The poison. Even in the water, some of it must have remained on Sicarius’s knife.

When Amaranthe opened her eyes, the woman was looking in her direction. The darkness hid the thief’s features, but there was no mistaking the long gaze toward the beach. The woman grabbed a rifle and slid into the water, leaving the man and her sinking cargo behind. She stroked toward the beach.

Without turning her back on the woman, Amaranthe eased out of the water herself. She backed to the foliage and ducked behind a tree. She still had Sicarius’s knife, and she judged the distance to the beach where the woman would be wading out. The thief would be most vulnerable then, slogging out of hip-level water. Amaranthe flipped the blade and mentally steeled herself to make a throw. If she didn’t take her adversary out, the thief would blast those fancy new bullets into Amaranthe’s chest.

When she raised the blade to throw, a calloused hand grabbed her wrist.

She jumped to the side, trying to twist her arm and pull it free, but the steel grip held her firm. “Sicarius?” she whispered, not certain whether to hope it was him or not.

“ Muk derst.”

It was his voice, but she had a feeling it wasn’t him. On the beach, the thief was stepping out of the water, her rifle held before her, her gaze roving the tree line. All it would take was a shout from Sicarius, or this Nurian spirit possessing him, to alert the woman. She would come charging up the beach, shooting to kill.

A hand came to rest on the back of Amaranthe’s neck.

She swallowed. Or Sicarius could do the killing for the thief. A tremor went through the calloused hand, and she knew Sicarius was fighting this spirit, but if he had been unable to leave the island, what could he do now?

“ Muk derst,” he repeated, more insistently.

She took a guess and dropped the knife. He did not let go.

“Azon Amar?” Amaranthe breathed. “Do you understand me?”

Pebbles crunched on the beach, the thief walking slowly, her rifle turned inland. She glanced toward the lake where her boat and its cargo of stolen goods had succumbed to the leak and disappeared beneath the waves. The moonlight was not quite bright enough to illuminate the woman’s firm, determined chin, but Amaranthe had no trouble imaging it.

“Yes,” Sicarius whispered. The word came out, not in his usual monotone, but in an accent that put more emphasis on the vowel than was normal for a Turgonian.

“I don’t want to die out here,” Amaranthe said, wondering what type of bargain she could try to make that would entice a dead man. “Is there anything I can do to win my life?”

Sicarius’s hand tightened about her neck. “You already cost one of my people his life, his plan.” He spun her about so quickly and with such power that her toes dragged in the dirt. They bumped against a rock, almost knocking it from its resting place.

Sicarius did not lower her, and her feet dangled. Her neck protested the manhandling, but she bit back a moan of pain, not wanting to alert the thief to her position. Besides, her neck would hurt a lot more if he decided to break it…

“You see those ruins?” He pointed up the slope.

Trees choked the view, though she knew what he was talking about. The old Darkcrest homestead was on this end of the island, a sprawling stone structure choked with vegetation that was gradually taking back the land.

“I’ve seen them, yes,” Amaranthe whispered.

“They’ve been my home for decades now,” Sicarius whispered. “An abandoned haunt filled with spirits of people who loathe me and my kind. I’ve had to suffer their taunts, about how I failed my mission, about how Turgonia will wipe my people from the world and write them out of history. I’ve had to-”

“You think you failed?” Amaranthe asked.

Sicarius-no, Azon Amar, she reminded herself-had turned so Amaranthe’s back was to the beach, and she could see the thief out of the corner of her eye. The woman had stopped and turned in their direction. If Sicarius was fighting the Nurian spirit, might his reflexes be a touch slower than usual?

“Your general, Hollowcrest, said the emperor lived,” Azon Amar said.

A plan whispered into Amaranthe’s thoughts, a dangerous one, especially considering her foe was occupying her closest friend’s body. All she could hope was that the thief wouldn’t be a good shot.

“He lied to you,” Amaranthe said. “You succeeded in killing our old emperor.”

“I…” He shook her. “You would tell me anything to live.”

“You’re in my friend’s head. He knows the truth. Look around.”

“No. I will kill you now. With your friend’s hands.” He chuckled without mirth, and it was jarring coming out of Sicarius’s mouth. Sicarius never laughed.

His second hand came up next to the first, and his fingers tightened about Amaranthe’s throat.

She kicked the rock. It clunked and skidded into the undergrowth.

A shot fired.

Sicarius grunted and his grip loosened. Amaranthe rammed an elbow into his ribs and leapt free.

Not certain if he had been shot or simply surprised by the noise, she rushed to grab the knife on the ground and sprint into the brush. In the darkness, there was no way to run quietly. Leaves shook and branches snapped as she sprinted away, parallel to the beach.

She kept an eye toward the thief and ducked a heartbeat before the rifle fired again. A bullet thudded into a tree over her head.

Amaranthe popped up, steadied herself, and hurled the black knife. It was too dark to see it spinning through the air, but the thief reeled back and dropped her rifle.

Afraid Sicarius-Azon Amar-whoever-would recover quickly, Amaranthe abandoned the foliage and sprinted down the beach. The moon peering over the crest of the island illuminated her all too well, and she ran with her shoulders hunched, fearing a bullet or knife in her back at any second. She sprinted five hundred meters, pebbles shifting and flying beneath her feet, until she reached the side of the island closest to the mainland.

She chanced a glance back down the beach as she veered into the water. A black-clad figure was sprinting after her, closing the distance quickly.

Had she the breath to spare, Amaranthe would have cursed Sicarius’s athletically inclined ancestors. She high-stepped out as far as she could before diving into the water. She was paddling her arms and kicking before her belly splashed down.

Sicarius could easily overtake her before she reached the mainland. Her only hope was that Azon Amar’s reach ended before Sicarius caught up with her. And she had best move quickly enough that no blighted seaweed had time to stretch up and entangle her.

For the first thirty meters, Amaranthe did not even lift her head to breathe. Her legs burned from the effort of kicking, and her arms turned into lead weights. Finally she lifted her head for air and to get her bearings. Through the water streaming into her eyes, she spotted the dock where they had stopped earlier. She shifted her angle toward it, put her head back down, and kept swimming.

If Sicarius was right behind her… she didn’t want to know. She was out of weapons and out of tricks.

Her knuckles grazed the bottom, and she scrambled out of the water. Fear-charged limbs propelled her up the slope and to the cabin. She tried the door but found it locked. She spun about, putting her back to the wood, and scanned the lake, searching for blond hair made silvery by the moonlight. He wasn’t there. Had he already climbed out?

The logical part of her brain insisted that Sicarius would be himself if he reached this shore again, that the Nurian’s curse would have faded. The panicked tired-of-being-shot-at-and-tormented-by-that-island part of her brain had trouble believing it.

Time limped past, and Sicarius did not appear.

Amaranthe walked back down to the dock, a new fear worming its way into her mind. What if Azon Amar had summoned Sicarius back before he could swim away from the island? What if the Nurian spirit meant to keep Sicarius there as a prisoner for the rest of his life?

Amaranthe lifted her chin. That would not happen. If she had to, she would return to the city and collect the rest of her team to rescue him. They could drug him if needed and carry him Someone touched her shoulder, and Amaranthe jumped and whirled about.

Sicarius stood there, damp hair sticking up in tufts, his face hidden by the night.

Amaranthe skittered back until her heel found the edge of the dock. He did not move.

“Are you… you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

The accent had disappeared, and the monosyllabic answers had returned, so she supposed that meant it was him, but she had a hard time relaxing. She would not soon forget the memory of those fingers wrapped around her neck.

“You sure?” she asked.

He extended a hand, palm up. Amaranthe hesitated before stepping closer and accepting it. Gently and slowly, he pulled her into a hug. It surprised her, and she did not know what to say. The closest he usually came to hugging people was grappling with them in wrestling practice-the “hug” tended to end with one being hurled head-over-heels onto one’s back. He held the embrace for a long moment, and she found herself wondering just how close he had come to killing her. Had he been aware of everything he had been doing while under the spirit’s influence?

She did not want to dwell upon that, so she kept her tone light when she said, “Is this supposed to convince me that you’re telling the truth? The real Sicarius doesn’t hug me often.” Despite her words, she slid her arms around him, intending to appreciate the gesture of camaraderie. Her hands encountered dampness, not dripping water from the swim but sticky warm dampness. “You’re bleeding,” she blurted, pulling her arms away lest she hurt him further.

“You did arrange to have me shot,” Sicarius said dryly.

“I didn’t think she’d luck into actually hitting you,” Amaranthe said. “I’m sorry. I needed a distraction to-”

“I know,” Sicarius said grimly. “I should never have gone over there with you. I’d heard the story, of a team of soldiers sent to plant a box of blasting sticks and blow up the island, and of the warrior mage’s spirit taking over one of the strongest and using him to kill many of the others.”

Amaranthe thought of the skeletons on the beach. How many more dotted the island?

“I thought I was mentally strong enough to resist the spirit.” Sicarius rolled his head back to stare at the heavens before lowering it again to add, “Hubris.”

Amaranthe bit her lip. She shouldn’t feel tickled by his admission, especially when he was standing there, bleeding on the dock, but Sicarius so rarely gave away his feelings that she had to admit pleasure at hearing him so clearly disgusted with himself. “Hubris is a common flaw amongst imperial men.” She had more than her share of it herself.

“Yes.”

“A very human flaw as well.”

“You sound pleased.” A hint of puzzlement infused his tone.

“It’s just that between your athletic prowess and your dedication to your training… Well, it’s like I said earlier. Sometimes you don’t seem human.”

“There are other people like me in the world.”

Yes, that Nurian warrior mage certainly must have been one, but Amaranthe had never met anyone else of Sicarius’s caliber. “Oh?” she asked, seeing a chance to tease him-they could use a little lightness after that adventure. “How many? Twenty? Thirty?”

“Five.”

Amaranthe smiled, wondering if he knew them by name. “Do you know if the female thief made it?”

She touched the sheath on his waist that usually held his black knife and found it there once again. He had gone to retrieve it.

“She did not. Your aim was accurate.”

He sounded faintly proud. Amaranthe couldn’t help but remember that her intent had been to take the thieves to the magistrate, or at least tie them up somewhere the army could find them.

“I wonder if they were in it for the money or if their government sent them,” she said, hoping for the former. If she had to kill people, she wanted them to be people who… well, people who deserved it, though she admitted she wasn’t someone who could fairly judge that.

“I heard them speaking,” Sicarius said.

“And?” Amaranthe prompted when he did not volunteer more.

“They were brother and sister, seeking to regain their family’s honor after a disgrace. They would have been heroes, had they returned home with that much Turgonian technology.”

“I see.” Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. It disheartened her to realize those two had been on a mission not so dissimilar to her own. “We better tend to your wound and head back to the city. We’ll have to take a break from training while you recover.”

“We?”

“You don’t expect me to tread water while holding a brick over my head by myself, do you?”