The Emperor's Edge 3: Deadly Games

The Emperor's Edge 3: Chapter 7 Part 2

Amaranthe stood on top of the rail car, her back to the rising sun. A thousand metallic objects in the boneyard reflected its rays, and her eyes already ached from staring across the expanse.

Clanks sounded below her—one of the men climbing up. The others spoke in low tones around the fire pit below. Basilard was cooking eggs, and the appealing scent wafting up should have pleased Amaranthe, but she was busy worrying.

Books’s head poked over the top of the ladder. “Breakfast is almost ready. A particularly fine one. The men are in a celebratory mood because they got to sleep in and nobody dragged us off to exercise before dawn.”

Great. Sicarius was missing, and that caused a celebratory mood. Maybe Amaranthe should have led an exercise session, despite his absence.

Books clambered up beside her. “No sign of him yet?” He nodded toward the metal-filled vista.

Amaranthe shook her head once.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Books said. “He’s always disappearing to do...whatever it is he does when he disappears.”

“Not when he’s on an assignment for the team.” Amaranthe sat down on one of the crates Maldynado had dragged up while claiming that a person could stand watch just as well sitting down as he could fully upright.

“He’s probably trying to fulfill his assignment then. Perhaps he’s chanced onto something good and needs to observe it before reporting back.”

“Perhaps.” Amaranthe rubbed her eyes. She had lain awake most of the night, waiting for Sicarius’s return, and, as the hours had dwindled on, she had begun to question herself for sending him after the miners. They had seemed innocuous enough, but that was before she read the note with his name on it. And before the family had disappeared, leaving her with no link to the miners. “I should have let him do it his way, Books.”

“Would that be a way that involved killing, torturing, or otherwise maiming people?”

“I bet he could have gotten the answers we needed by applying force that didn’t do permanent damage.” She poked at a splinter of wood sticking out of the crate. “Instead I got sanctimonious and said it would be better to fool the miners into talking to us by dressing up as enforcers. If we’d done it his way, we’d probably have been finished in ten minutes, and we’d know who we were up against by now.”

“I’d be uncomfortable working for you if you chose his way very often,” Books said.

“Well, my way isn’t getting the sword polished.”

“Why do you say that? We’ve accomplished noteworthy tasks under your leadership.”

“Because we’ve been lucky. No because he’s gotten me out of trouble. My crazy ideas have almost gotten me killed a half a dozen times now, and I’ve landed the whole group in dire situations more than once. My schemes seem so tantalizing and shiny when they first come to mind, and then I jump off the dock without checking to see if the lake’s gone dry. I should stop and get Sicarius’s opinion first—and listen to it and think about it. I should get all of your opinions. What good is a group if you don’t utilize everyone to his fullest?”

Books grunted and sat on a crate opposite from hers.

She eyed him. “This would be the appropriate time for you to say something like, ‘Amaranthe, you’re being too hard on yourself....’”

 “Oh? I thought we’d had a conversation like this before, and you told me the woman wants to rant while the man nods and grunts in agreement.”