CHAPTER 12

Tikaya sat cross-legged next to the rocket and finished copying the runes into her journal. Coldness seeped through her trousers to numb her backside, and shivers made her pencil hand shake. As if writing with gloves on was not bad enough. She ought to move somewhere warmer. But, oh, there was another symbol she recognized from the table of elements. And interesting how each grouping on the rocket held thirteen runes. Could the different prime clusters alter the meaning of—

Light splashed across her pages, and Tikaya dropped her pencil.

Agarik stood beside her, holding a lantern. Only then did she realize twilight had descended on the fort.

“Thank you,” she said. “When did you leave to get that? And where’d everyone else go?”

He stared. “You didn’t notice people coming and going, ma’am? Talking? Arguing?”

“Er.” She vaguely remembered Rias saying something about finding surveying tools. “Not really.”

“Half the men are retrieving corpses for a funeral pyre while half are off on a mission Five concocted. Looking for people who might have died outside the fort and searching for more cubes and recording where they landed. Seeing how it’s night, that sounds about as fun as hunting for a wrench in a scrapyard. He says he can figure out where the rocket was launched from, though, and Bocrest wants it done tonight, so he can take a team up there at first light.”

In case someone was up there preparing another weapon to launch at the fort. Yes, that seemed wise.

Tikaya rose, an awkward movement with her shoulder in a sling, and her injury twinged despite her care. A noisy yawn escaped her lips. She thought of her bed back home, though right now she would be tickled with a blanket in front of a fireplace.

Agarik’s jaw dropped in a noisy yawn of his own.

“Sorry,” Tikaya said. “Are you tasked with watching me again?”

“I don’t mind, ma’am. Of the jobs I could be assigned, it’s not a bad one.”

Men crossed a nearby courtyard, lantern light bobbing at their feet. They worked in grim silence, bringing wood for a fire. She looked away as others dragged a body from a building and laid it at the end of a grisly queue.

Though tempted to ask Agarik about sleeping arrangements, Tikaya wanted to search the fort for other language clues first. If the marines feared an attack imminent, they might march out at dawn. Somewhere, she hoped to find an artifact she could slip into her rucksack to take home for study—and to prove to her people this nightmare had been real.

“Mind if we find the fort commander’s office?” she asked.

“I don’t think the captain wants you wandering around.”

Tikaya started to object, but Agarik smirked and spoke first.

“But since you’ll doubtlessly make arguments until you get me to change my mind, we may as well go now.”

“Good man.”

Thousands of stars glittering like ice crystals blanketed the black sky above the fort. Tikaya almost felt she could reach up and stir them with her fingers. Here and there lanterns sputtered on lampposts or in sconces. Agarik hugged shadows barely dented by the flickering light as he led her beneath the ramparts and through an alley suffocated with piles of snow. They stopped at the back door of a two-story building. She had the feeling he was avoiding the other men and hoped he would not get in trouble for escorting her around. Her desire to poke through the commander’s office kept her from asking.

They slipped into an unlit kitchen where copper pots and steel counters gleamed, reflecting the lantern’s flame. Agarik led her around an island to avoid a body clad in bloodstained cook’s whites. Tikaya ripped her gaze from the melted flesh, glad the lighting did not illuminate too many details.

They passed through a mess hall lined with tables. Plates of bread, carrots, and now-frozen meat waited for someone to finish them. Bodies, some fallen across tables, some sprawled on the floor, matched the place settings. One man had died tending the coal stove in the corner, and the door stood open, ashes spilled onto the wood floor.

“Surprise attack,” Agarik said, disgust hardening his voice. “There’s no honor in killing like this.”

“I can’t believe how quickly the poison acts,” Tikaya said, chilled by the idea of something that could kill a man before he could even get out of his seat and wonder if something was wrong.

There were not any bodies at the tables nearest the far door, and wet footprints suggested the marines had started carting them out. Heavy footsteps sounded on the floor above. Tikaya doubted she would make it to the commander’s office without being spotted. She hoped no one would question her for snooping about.

They entered a corridor, and Agarik led her to a stairwell. Broad steps rose toward a second floor, while narrow ones turned a corner and dropped into darkness. That made her pause. A basement in a land where permafrost hardened the earth inches below the surface?

Agarik headed upstairs, but voices came from the lower level.

“Wait,” Tikaya whispered, cocking her head to listen.

“I think...a Nurian,” someone said.

“...doing out here?”

They had found a Nurian? Had someone been caught nosing around in the carnage of the fort? Her breath hitched. What if it was the person who had fired the rocket? The person who knew enough of the language to know how to fire the rocket?

She edged closer to the stairs. The men were not whispering, so the discussion was probably not secret, and nobody had forbidden her from exploring.

Agarik gripped her forearm. “Tikaya...”

She frowned at him. “What do you know?”

“The cells and interrogation chamber will be down there. It’s not...a fitting place for a lady to visit.”

Tikaya almost laughed. Was he worried she would see something more macabre than the legions of bodies around the fort? She patted his hand before drawing her arm away. “I just want to see if they found someone who knows more about what’s going on than we do.”

If Agarik’s frown grew any deeper, he would pop the stitches out on that gash. Still, he followed with the lantern when she eased down the stairs.

She anticipated a pitted rusty iron door streaked with blood at the bottom, but the bland wood was no different from any other door they had passed. Beyond it, gray stone lined a narrow hallway. At the end, light seeped through the cracks of a partially open door. The voices had dropped to murmurs.

On the way down the hall, Tikaya checked a door to the side, expecting racks filled with torture implements. Instead, it was a supply closet loaded with brooms, lye soap, lanterns, kerosene tins, and painting supplies. So far, this dungeon was not living up to expectations.

Chains rattled in the room ahead.

“Where’s the slagging key?” a familiar voice growled.

Tikaya froze. Ottotark.

She started to turn, not wanting anything to do with him, interesting prisoners or not, but someone thrust the door open. Two marines tramped out, a body between them, but if it was Nurian she could not tell. It was as melted and featureless as the rest in the fort.

The marines halted.

“What’s she doing down here, Corporal?” one asked.

Agarik shrugged. “Looking for language clues.”

Ottotark leaned through the doorway, his eyes narrowing to slits when he spotted her. For a long speculative moment, he stared, and she fought the urge to race up the steps in retreat. He would not do anything with so many witnesses, and surely this was not the time regardless.

“Go on,” Ottotark told the marines, “take the body out. Agarik, come help me get the other one. I expect the captain will want to see the Nurian, so we’ll leave him here for now.”

Tikaya stood aside for the men to pass. Agarik headed for the chamber, and she almost bumped into his back when he stopped in the doorway.

“What is it?” she asked.

But Agarik had already moved to the side so she could see. She wished he had not. The amount of human carnage from the last couple days should have numbed her to it, but this dead man was different. The naked Nurian hung from shackles on the wall. His fingernails and toenails were ripped out, flesh mutilated with blades and brands. Someone had cut his genitals off and dug both eyeballs out. The removed organs lay in a tidy pile next to the dangling body, and Tikaya had to gulp several deep breaths to keep from vomiting. Thank Akahe the temperature kept everything frozen, and no odor accompanied the visual horror.

“By the book,” Agarik commented.

Ottotark nodded. “Professional job. I’ll bet two weeks pay one of our people ran the torture session, but who? This is recent work, done by somebody—to somebody—who showed up after everyone else got their faces slagged like ore in a smelter.”

“Unless...” Tikaya took one more deep breath to steady her gorge. “Unless the basement protected people here from the poison.”

“Look around, idiot woman.” Ottotark pointed past racks containing wicked metal instruments whose purpose she could only guess.

Steel bars in the shadows formed a pair of cells. A corpse in one had suffered from the same affliction as all those in the fort above. And, of course, she had seen the body those two marines had taken out.

“Sorry, yes, I’m not thinking.” Odd that this deliberate cruelty affected her more than the mysterious otherworldly deaths. The marines, even Agarik, seemed to find this torture commonplace. Just when she was thinking some Turgonians might be normal people. “You must be right. So, one or more of your people got here ahead of us. And this fellow, I wonder if he’s the one who launched the rocket. Or...” She looked past the damage to what remained of the man’s features, and her stomach did a little flip. “I recognize him.”

Ottotark stared at her. “What?”

“He’s the bodyguard of the practitioner who attacked me on the ship.”

“You sure?” Ottotark’s forehead scrunched. “He’s not looking too recognizable at the moment.” He threw back his head and laughed.

Agarik rolled his eyes.

“Come, Corporal,” Ottotark said. “Help me drag that other body up to the pyre. We’ll leave the librarian to clue hunt, though I don’t reckon this bloke was worrying overmuch about languages in the end.”

He laughed again, and the inappropriateness ground on Tikaya’s nerves.

“I’m supposed to stay with her,” Agarik said.

Ottotark’s humor evaporated. “That wasn’t a request, Corporal. I’m sure the captain didn’t mean for you to get out of all the physical labor with your special assignment. You can come back when we’re done hauling bodies.”

Agarik looked at Tikaya, and she gave him a quick nod. He had risked enough trouble for her, and she would give him up for a while if it would get Ottotark out of the room as well.

Though a troubled expression wrinkled his brow, Agarik helped Ottotark heft the other corpse, and they left. Tikaya did not wish to spend a lot of time alone down here, especially since the presence of the dead bodyguard implied the practitioner was around somewhere, probably alive, but she wanted a moment to think things through.

“So,” she said in Nurian, as if the man’s spirit might hear and help, “you’ve been following us all along, biding your time, is that it?” She thought of the hour or two she had spent alone in Wolfhump and shivered, for that could well have been an opportunity for the assassins, but perhaps they, too, had been affected by the gas. “You ran ahead here to lay an ambush for me? Or someone transported you here?” That was a hard skill to master, but not an impossible one. Someone familiar with the arrival area could have done it. “Either way, it seems you got here after the weapon struck, or you’d have been killed the same way as the others. Unless you launched the weapon yourself and came to check the effectiveness of your work. But, no, your people wanted nothing to do with these artifacts.” She took off her spectacles and rubbed her face. “But when you got here, someone was waiting. Was it a Turgonian, or the person or persons who figured this rocket out? Or both?”

Not surprisingly, the dead man was not talking. Likely he had given up all his secrets to his interrogator. Tikaya glanced around, noting that the pliers, knives, and other implements she could not name had been meticulously cleaned after use and returned to the storage rack. Little else caught her eye, though, and she decided it would be wise to finish up and find a spot with people around.

She headed back to the stairs. Someone had shut the door at the bottom. She tried the knob, but it did not turn.

A kernel of dread formed in her gut.

She tried the door again. It could just be a flaky knob, but no. It was locked. She pounded on the door. Maybe someone working upstairs would hear her and let her out.

“Is anybody out there? Hello?”

No one came.

Tikaya leaned her forehead against the cold wood. Ottotark must have locked the door on the way out without Agarik noticing. Maybe he had even ordered the men clearing bodies to work in a different building. She swallowed. Odds were Ottotark could make sure Agarik stayed busy for a while too.

The rack of torture implements flashed into her mind. “Dolt,” she cursed herself. Of all the places she could be trapped with that man, this had to be the worst.

She slipped the razor Agarik had given her out of her boot and unfolded the blade from the wooden handle. It seemed a puny tool compared to those in the other room. If Ottotark worried about her having weapons, he would not have chosen this spot. He obviously did not see her as a threat in close combat, and rightly so. This was no archery competition where she could stand back and plunk arrows into a target.

She needed to catch him by surprise. She hoped she had time to set one up.

Tikaya checked the supply closet. An idea came as soon as she saw the kerosene tins. Unlike the whale oil her people used, the vapors ought to be flammable. She grabbed a paint pan, a full tin of kerosene, and a box of friction matches. She would only have one chance. It had better work.

In the torture chamber, she closed the door part way. Footsteps thudded in the corridor on the floor above. She swallowed. If that was Ottotark, she did not have much time.

The safety lid of the unopened kerosene tin thwarted her fingernails, and her shoulder sent stabs of pain through her when she tried to brace the can with that hand. She huffed in frustration. Then she remembered the razor. Agarik’s tool would help after all.

She gouged a hole in the top of the tin and, careful not to spill any on herself, poured kerosene into the paint pan. The fumes stung her eyes, but she dared not slow down. Footsteps thudded on the stairs. For once, she had reason to thank her height. Though the doors had been made to accommodate the tall Turgonians, she reached the top without trouble and balanced the pan. The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs, and the lock clicked. The door creaked open.

Tikaya hopped into the shadows beside the door.

“I know you’re down here, bitch,” Ottotark said. “No point in hiding.”

Tikaya’s breathing sounded loud in her ears, and she tried to quiet it. She yanked her left arm out of the sling, ignoring the pain, and dug out a fistful of matches. In her right hand, she held a single one. The tremble to her fingers annoyed her. She eyed the pan atop the door, and doubts flooded her. It was too stupid, too obvious. Children did this as a prank; it was not a way to attack an enemy, a bigger stronger enemy who would probably only be angered by the attempt.

“I’m going to wipe that arrogant defiance off your face,” Ottotark growled. A door creaked. He was checking the closet.

She swallowed. Would he notice the missing kerosene? Or would he smell it before he entered her room?

“You don’t act like a prisoner, not like you should, and the captain’s too lenient. You screwed us during the war. You gave our secret orders to the Nurians. They knew just how to ambush the Crusher. All those men—my brother—didn’t have a chance.” The heavy footsteps thudded closer. “I’ve been waiting to avenge him since you came on board.”

Ottotark shoved the door so hard it cracked against the stone wall. Tikaya jumped back and almost didn’t see the trap spring. Kerosene drenched him, and the pan clattered to the floor.

“What the—” He stumbled into the room.

She slammed a boot into his backside with all her strength. He pitched forward, though he turned the fall into a graceful roll and came up facing her. She kicked the door shut and scraped a match against the stone wall. The scent of sulfur stung the air.

Ottotark snarled and started to lunge. She almost threw the flame then and there, but she kept herself to holding it out and shouting.

“That’s kerosene you’re covered in!”

Ottotark paused, just short of springing.

“Ever wanted to be a human torch?” Tikaya asked. “You could look just like all the dead soldiers here in about three seconds.”

He snorted. “You’ve not steel enough to kill anyone.” But his gaze stayed on that match, and he did not advance.

“I’ve killed more people than I can count since this nightmare started. First on the Nurian ship and then in Wolfhump.”

Ottotark’s eyes widened. “The captain was right. You killed Commander Okars!”

Admitting that might be stupid, but it might convince him she was a threat. She needed to resolve this before Ottotark realized she would run out of matches eventually. She had to gamble. “Yes, and I liked him a lot more than I like you.” She tried to put a manic expression on her face as she looked him up and down. “I can’t imagine anyone would even miss you. Maybe I should just—”

“Wait!” He licked his lips. “What do you want?”

“Your word that you won’t touch me ever again.” It was another gamble. Just because Rias’s word meant a lot to him did not mean every Turgonian shared that viewpoint. Still, there were several words for honor and promises in their language. Maybe it was not that big of a gamble.

And Ottotark winced. If his word meant nothing, he would have agreed quickly. He would not be thinking it over.

The first match was burning low. She lit a second from it, then tossed the discard into a puddle of kerosene at Ottotark’s feet. The vapors ignited and flames roared, hurling shadows from every corner of the chamber.

Ottotark leapt away, slamming his back against the dangling corpse. “Shit, woman!”

“Your word or you’re next.” The confident steely tone of her voice surprised her.

“Fine, fine. I won’t even touch you if you’re dangling on the edge of a cliff, begging me to pull you to safety.”

“Excellent.” Tikaya stepped to the side of the door. “You first. We’re going up to the others before I let you out of match range.”

Teeth bared, he edged past her and sprinted up the steps. Tikaya would not have kept up, but he crashed into someone in the hall upstairs.

“Sergeant Ottotark, what are you doing?” It was Bocrest.

Tikaya stepped out of the stairwell, and both men turned. Ottotark thrust an accusing finger.

“That crazy bitch doused me in kerosene and threatened to light me on fire!”

“Because you locked me in the dungeon so you could rape me, you sadistic prick.” The burning match had gone out, but she clutched the box in her hand, prepared to light another if need be. She eyed Bocrest, who lifted a lantern and eyed her back.

“Ms. Komitopis,” he said, “we call it an Interrogation Station, not a dungeon.”

Curse him, he sounded amused. At least he had used her name. That was a first.

“Ottotark, go get cleaned up and find a rack,” Bocrest said.

The sergeant slunk away, muttering under his breath.

“What were you doing in here?” Bocrest asked with no preamble, no apology for his loutish man.

Tikaya thought about lying, but reminded herself she wanted the captain to trust her. For now. And she did not think her true purpose that condemning. “Looking for the fort commander’s office. If anyone has more relics or rubbings, I figured it’d be him.”

“I just came from there. It’s been searched, probably by whomever tortured the Nurian. There’s nothing, not even Colonel Lancecrest’s orders.”

“Colonel...Lancecrest?” Tikaya asked.

“Yes, usually we’d have a general commanding a fort, but this is a small outpost.”

“It’s the name, not the rank, that surprised me,” she said. “There was a Turgonian named Lancecrest studying at the Polytechnic when I was a student.”

Bocrest shrugged. “Probably one of the younger ones. There are nine or ten kids, and they’ve had to make their own ways. The family’s poor as pond scum. Their lands were salted during the Border Wars, and you couldn’t grow a weed there now.”

“So, just a coincidence, you think?” As she recalled, that Lancecrest had been studying archaeology; he had shared a couple classes with Parkonis.

“The colonel’s body is up there in his office. If he was plotting with some relative, don’t you think he’d have figured himself up a better deal?” Bocrest headed for the stairs. “Get some sleep. I’ve got to look at this Nurian body. One cursed mystery after another up here.”

“Captain?” she called, halting him on the steps. “Why is your team here, with me and Rias, instead of hunting for whoever sent that box to your capital? It might have originated in the tunnels, but surely the people who found it didn’t stick around and post it from there.”

The flickering lantern played shadows across Bocrest’s face. Answering was probably a violation of orders, but he had already doled out some information when they discovered the cube. Maybe he would divulge more.

“Someone was sent to hunt down and kill the person who delivered the box,” he said. “We are here to seal the tunnels.”

“Oh?” Tikaya sensed a cover story. “Why would you need Rias or me if that’s all you’re planning to do?”

“We need to make sure we find all the possible entrances and exits. You two will ensure we don’t stumble into the kinds of traps that devastated the last group.”

The blasting sticks they were carrying were the only things that led credence to his story. Tikaya believed him about the attack on the university—something had started this wave crashing toward the beach—but, now that she’d glimpsed the potential for genocide these artifacts offered, she wagered sealing the tunnels was at the end of a list Bocrest received. Wouldn’t the Turgonian emperor love to have some of these weapons for his own use? With which to utterly destroy anyone who defied the empire? She swallowed. Like her people?

She should to talk to Rias, see what he thought about this. She blinked. Or should she? Whatever had happened, he seemed loyal to the empire through and through. What if he merely shrugged and went along with the mission?

Bocrest was watching her through narrowed eyes, and she feared too many of her thoughts traipsed across her face.

“I understand.” She smiled innocently. Nothing to worry about from her. “You mentioned something about sleep? Where would that be done here?”

“Officer billets are the single-story building across the courtyard, flag out front.” Expression unreadable, he turned and descended the stairs.

 

* * * * *

 

As Tikaya approached the billets, she yawned so widely tears sprang to her eyes. They froze in her lashes. The air smelled of burning coal, and light brightened the windows on an end room. A marine stood outside the door, rifle crooked in his arms.

She paused. Only Rias would be under guard. What would he think if she strolled into his room at night? Would he assume she wanted... No, surely not. Neither of them had slept the night before, and her shoulder nagged like a cranky child.

“Help you, ma’am?” the marine asked, no doubt wondering why she lurked in the shadows.

“Can I, uhm, er...” Tikaya pointed to the door before her linguistic skills could fail her further.

Lanterns burned so it was not likely Rias would be in bed naked, though that thought made her blush.

The marine sniggered. “Captain just said to keep him in. Didn’t say nothing about keeping anyone out.”

“Thank you.”

She slipped inside. A coal stove glowed cherry, spilling warmth into the room, and a narrow bunk piled with blankets awaited. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—Rias was not naked. He sat at a desk, still wearing those shackles, though a pencil tucked above his ear destroyed the felon look. She grinned at the papers scattered across the desk and on the floor all about his chair.

Weariness darkened the skin under his eyes, but he stood and smiled. “Tikaya.”

She strode to the desk, hardly noticing that her hip caught the corner, and wrapped him in a one-armed hug. Between her sling and his chains, it was an awkward embrace, but she did not care. After dealing with Ottotark and Bocrest, it felt wonderful to lean on someone pleasant.

Rias laid his forehead on her shoulder. “I’ve been tasked with pinpointing the origins of the rocket and estimating the area that was affected by the cubes. I figured you’d be too busy puzzling over those runes and I wouldn’t see you for the rest of the night.”

“Actually, I was busy almost turning Ottotark into a human torch.”

His muscles tensed beneath her arm. He drew back to meet her eyes. “What happened?”

Tikaya shared the story, deliberately putting more emphasis on the mystery of the tortured Nurian than the sergeant’s actions. She probably should not have mentioned Ottotark at all—no doubt Rias would worry about her—but she admitted to a little pride that she had handled the odious man herself instead of falling apart. Maybe Rias would be proud of her too. Dumping kerosene on someone was no feat of brilliance, but a month ago, she probably would not have had the wherewithal to think of anything while locked in a dungeon with a rapist on his way. A month ago, she had been hiding from the world because she was too much the coward to go back to work—to her passion—because she associated it so much with Parkonis and lost dreams.

“Ahh,” Rias rumbled when she finished the story, and his muscles relaxed. “I feel remiss that I wasn’t there to demonstrate the use of those torture implements on Ottotark. But you’re clever and capable, and, alas for my ego, I don’t think you need my help in these matters.”

She absorbed his praise; it warmed her more than the heat radiating from the stove. “Don’t worry. I need your help in other matters.”

“Oh?”

“Someone has to catch me when I trip.”

His eyes crinkled. “That has been a daily occurrence.”

He held her gaze, and Tikaya was suddenly aware of the heat of his body. If not for the chains keeping his wrists close and his arms between them, she could have leaned against his chest and...

Rias cleared his throat and stepped back. “I need to finish those calculations. If there’s someone out there with another rocket—”

“Of course,” Tikaya said. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. I can—”

“No!” Rias seemed to realize his objection too loud, for he shrugged sheepishly. “I’d like you to stay. I promised you dinner, remember? And...” He dragged a second chair to the opposite side of the desk and cleared a space. “You can work with me, or you can sleep of course too.” He waved toward the bunk. “You must be tired.”

Tikaya dug into the big pocket on the side of her trousers and pulled out the journal. “I wouldn’t dream of sleeping before sampling a Turgonian dinner.”

“Excellent. I’ve got a treat.” Rias sauntered to a credenza. He slid a parcel wrapped in brown paper off the top, plopped it on the desk, then knelt before a cabinet. “I found the colonel’s personal stash.”

She unwrapped the parcel and crinkled her nose. “Salty fish? I don’t wish to sound ungrateful, but isn’t this from the same provisions we’ve been eating all week?”

“Yes. That’s not the treat.” He laughed and pulled out two small glasses and a bottle filled with amber liquid. “This is.”

Reverently, he carried the bottle over and set it before her. Applejack.

“That’s a thirty-year-old label.” He uncorked the bottle and poured two glasses. “Since you’re from the land of rum, I thought you’d like to sample a good Turgonian alternative.”

Tikaya sniffed the subtle apple aroma and found it pleasant. She expected the applejack to burn her throat, but the liquid slid down smoothly, like her father’s finest barrel-aged rum. “Nice.”

Rias beamed, took a conservative sip from his own glass, and returned to his work. Though her eyes were gritty, and her muscles ached, Tikaya opened the journal to study the runes. More than once, she paused to watch him zip through calculations without the benefit of a slide rule. Despite the horrors all around them, she enjoyed the companionable moment, sitting there with Rias, him with his work, she with hers.

It occurred to her that this was an opportunity to ask him his real name, to find out who he had been during the war and what he had done. Except the very fact that he had not told her made her hesitate. Would the truth create an insurmountable obstacle between them? Maybe she should wait. It seemed a shame to ruin this first peaceful time together.

Maybe she was still a coward, after all. She sipped her drink. No, she would ask. Just not tonight. Tomorrow night. She would find a time tomorrow night and ask then. No matter what.

Comfortable with the decision, she leaned back in her chair. The applejack left her with a warm muzzy feeling. Her gaze drifted to the sleeping area where the furry blankets and pillows appeared far more comfortable than anything on the ship. It was not a big bed, but she supposed a couple of creative types would have no trouble...

No, that she would certainly not do without knowing who Rias was. “It’s too bad. I’ve finally got you in a private room with a bed and—”

The pencil in his hand snapped, and he gawked at her.

Erp, had she said that out loud? Tikaya stared at the amber liquid, feeling betrayed.

“I didn’t realize that was a goal of yours.” Rias smoothed his face and slid out of his seat to pick up the pencil ends. One had flown all the way to the door. Impressive velocity. “If I had, I would have taken it upon myself to escape my cell and call upon you. In a gentlemanly manner, of course.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to get in trouble.” Dear, Akahe, how was she supposed to explain the context of her comment?

“Oh, but I’m willing to make great personal sacrifices to help people achieve their goals.”

Rias squeezed her shoulder, and a delightful shiver ran through her when his fingers brushed her neck. She sighed in disappointment when he returned to his seat without presuming to do more.

Tikaya set her glass down and pushed it to the side.

Rias chuckled and slid the backup pencil out from behind his ear. “It’s a potent drink.”

“You wouldn’t think apples could get you caned.”

“Apples are the Turgonian fruit. We make them into everything. I think I mentioned my family’s orchard.” Rias continued to work as he spoke. “I loved the trees as a kid. I was scrawny, so I’d climb them to hide from my older brothers. They loved to beat on me almost as much as I loved getting them in trouble.”

Tikaya eyed him skeptically. “I can imagine you as young, but...scrawny? You’re, what, six and a half feet? And broad.”

“Oh, I was always scrawny because I was always the youngest. I was the youngest child in my family, and then I went to the university four years early, so I was the youngest there. I got smashed whenever I tried to join the sports teams, and I couldn’t attract girls, because I was fourteen and they were at least eighteen and only interested in older men. Though I did finally bribe one gal to kiss me by volunteering to do her homework.”

Tikaya smiled. So, he had also been the youth who did not fit in. Maybe more so than she, since it sounded as if there was less educational infrastructure for precocious children in the empire.

“Surely, you’ve long since outgrown those troubles.” She yawned, folded her arms over her journal, and pillowed her chin. “I’m sure you could entice women of any age now.”

The pencil paused, and he bent down to peer into her eyes. “Hm, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. How old are you?”

“Thirty. Does it matter?”

Humor glinted in his brown eyes. “Just wondering if my fantasies have been downright scandalous or merely lacking in propriety.”

If Tikaya had been less tired, she would have laughed at the idea of being someone’s fantasy, but she smiled blearily, her eyelids half shut. The thought, like the applejack, left her with a warm contentedness.

“How old are you?” she murmured.

“Forty-three.”

“As far as my people are concerned, it’d be more scandalous that you were a Turgonian military officer than that you’re older than I am.”

He had never told her he was an officer, but he did not deny it now. Glum acknowledgment replaced the humor on his face, and Tikaya wished she could retract the comment.

A knock sounded at the door, and the guard walked in. He blinked in surprise at Tikaya, probably expecting her to be naked, then focused on Rias.

“Skeldar’s team checked that mining camp like you asked,” the marine said. “It’s ten miles out. The men there were dead, same as everyone here. Same time ago. And the lookout tower at the bottom of the pass seems the same. The scouts saw no fire, no one moving.”

Rias scribbled a note. “Distance to the tower?”

“Fifteen miles.”

“Thank you, private. Dismissed.”

Grimness hooded his eyes, and he did not watch as the marine walked out. Tikaya shifted in her seat, waiting for him to finish, or waiting for an opportunity to ask him his thoughts. But she already sensed the problem. If people fifteen miles away had been killed by the same rocket...

“Ancestors help us.” Rias sat back, eyes closed.

“What?”

“The rocket detonated in the air over the fort, sending those cubes in all directions where they opened of their own volition to release their contents. I can only guess at the exact nature of the substance, but based on all the data points I’ve received, we’re looking at a weapon that can kill everyone within twenty miles of the detonation point. That’s more than twelve hundred and fifty square miles.” He stared at her. “Can you imagine what would happen if a weapon like this was launched in a populated area? Our capital city has more than a million people.”

“Ninety percent of the Kyattese population lives on our main island, and it’s smaller than that.” Tikaya thought of such a weapon in the Turgonian emperor’s hands. Why worry about subjugating her people when one could just kill them all and claim the deserted island for colonization?