The Emperor's Edge 3: Deadly Games

The Emperor's Edge 3: Chapter 2 Part 1

Dawn had come, and Amaranthe felt conspicuous as she sidled up beside one of the enforcer vehicles. She could not count on darkness to mask her wanted-poster features any longer, but she could not leave without knowing if something had happened to Sicarius.

Several men stood between two lorries with smoke drifting from the stacks. The enforcers spoke in hushed tones, and she struggled to eavesdrop over the hissing boilers and idling machinery.

“...Sicarius doing here?”

“...missing girls?”

“...men will catch... Already wounded him.”

Wounded? Amaranthe’s jaw sagged open. Surely not. Not by enforcers.

One of the men frowned in her direction, and she knelt to tie a shoelace. She dared not linger. It sounded like Sicarius had not been caught yet. What stunned her was that he had been seen at all. Though it was true he did not usually favor costumes, he had a knack for remaining unseen, especially at night. It rattled her beliefs to think he could have stumbled into someone he shouldn’t have—and reacted too slowly to keep that someone from raising an alarm.

When Amaranthe had spent as long tying her shoe as she could without attracting attention, she jogged toward a pair of oaks spreading shade over the men’s barracks. Not wanting to return to their hideout without knowing Sicarius was safe, she stopped where she could watch the enforcers.

Birds chirped overhead. The smell of cooking eggs wafted from a vendor’s nearby tent. Early morning sun slanted through the oak’s lower branches and warmed the back of her neck. It was not a sound but the disappearance of that warmth that alerted Amaranthe to someone behind her.

She turned to find Sicarius, hands clasped behind his back, the sunlight limning his short blond hair. No sweat dampened that hair and no dust smudged his black clothes. He certainly did not look like a man who had been on the run.

“What’re you doing?” She glanced at the enforcers.

He had placed himself so a tree hid him from their view, but the sunlight and the people walking all about made Amaranthe feel exposed and vulnerable.

“Standing,” Sicarius said.

“Where have you been? Why did you let the enforcers see you?”

“I did not.”

“You find him?” someone called near the vehicles.

Amaranthe grabbed Sicarius’s arm. “We have to get out of here. You can explain later.”

They jogged toward a swath of trees separating the stadium and grounds from the main railway tracks that ran alongside the lake and through the city’s waterfront. Amaranthe intended to push straight through and follow the rails to their hideout, but Sicarius veered north as soon as they were under cover.

“This way.” He slipped down a narrow path clogged with shrubs and brambles.

Amaranthe winced as enthusiastic thorns snagged at her togs and attempted to tug her stolen satchel from her shoulder. “I hope you’re leading me to a place where answers will present themselves.”

Not only did Sicarius not respond, he maneuvered through the grasping foliage more deftly than she and soon disappeared.

Amaranthe ducked a branch at poke-her-in-the-eye height and, figuring Sicarius was out of earshot, added, “This might be worth it if you were taking me to a secluded nook where a picnic basket, blanket, and jug of fresh juice awaited.”

Black clothing appeared through the leaves ahead. Amaranthe pushed past a rhododendron and stepped into a claustrophobic clearing only a few feet wide. At first, she could see nothing beyond Sicarius’s back. When she realized he was pointing at the ground, she eased around him, almost stepping on a man’s hand.

“So...” she said, “no picnic basket.”

As usual, Sicarius ignored her non-work-related comments. “While you were inside,” he said, “this man ran out of the trees near the stadium, and someone shouted ‘That’s Sicarius.’ The enforcers took off after him. He raced through a crowded area where a sergeant with a crossbow shot him in the back. He evaded his pursuers and crashed through here, but then collapsed.” Sicarius pointed at a crossbow quarrel protruding from the man’s back. “It pierced a lung.”

Amaranthe crouched, all thoughts of picnics gone. The dead man wore black, had short blond hair, and wore a bandana over his face. She touched a tuft of hair still damp with sweat. “This looks dyed.”

“My color, yes.”

“So, someone’s impersonating you. Someone who couldn’t have known we’d be here at the same time. Is someone trying to blame you for a crime? These kidnappings perhaps?”

“Unknown.”

She stood and frowned at Sicarius. “When I recruited you for my team, I didn’t fully realize how many people there were scheming up plots that involved you.”

“Regrets?” he asked.

Amaranthe almost said something flippant—how often did he set himself up so nicely for teasing?—but a faint variance to his usual monotone made her think the answer might matter. It seemed impossible. She always figured she needed him on her team far more than he needed her. Ancestors knew he had saved her life more times than she could count. But maybe he had come to care about what she thought of him.

She sighed and patted him on the arm. “Nah, you know I like a challenge. Let’s get back to the hideout and see if we can hunt down the others. I seem to have granted a vacation prematurely. I think we’re going to need everyone in on this.”

“Agreed,” Sicarius said.