Emperor's Edge Republic (17 page)

“Does that mean you’re going to take me aside to tell me what you were doing on top of the library shelves?”

“Yes, actually. I’d like your opinion on—”

Something banged against the wall, and glass rattled. Tikaya spun toward a bank of windows. None of the curtains had been drawn, and night pressed against the panes. But not
all
of the panes. One window had been thrown open, the frame still shuddering.

Amaranthe ran over and looked out.

“What happened?” Tikaya considered the size of the open window. This was the second floor, but a human could fit through it. “Did someone come in?”

“No, someone went out,” Sespian said. “Sicarius.”

It took Tikaya a moment to realize the assassin was gone.

“We saw someone outside, climbing past,” Amaranthe said. “He reacted much more quickly than I did.” She stuck her head outside, twisting it to look up.

“Did you see a face?” Tikaya wasn’t sure whether she should join her at the window or run off to find Rias.

“The person was wearing white and some kind of wrap that covered the face.”

“All white?” Sespian asked. “That’s the description Maldynado gave of the shooter in the baths.”

“I’m going to grab a sword and go out there to help hunt.” Amaranthe jogged for the door. “Sespian?”

“Do you think he’ll
want
our help?” Sespian waved toward the window. “I didn’t even see the climber.”

“I don’t care whether he wants help or not. If we’re interpreting your note correctly, he may be the target. And this all may be a trap.”

“Right.” Sespian ran after her.

They disappeared into the hallway.

“Mother,” Mahliki said, starting for the door, “I’m going to—”

“Stop right there,” Tikaya commanded in her firmest you’ll-be-in-trouble-if-you-don’t-listen tone. Her daughter could take care of herself in any ordinary situation and many extraordinary ones, but she was
not
trained to hunt assassins.

Mahliki halted so quickly the vials inside her jacket rattled. “But they may need—”

“You’re needed here. The plant, remember? You may very well be this city’s best chance at getting rid of it.” And so what if that was only an excuse for Tikaya to keep her daughter inside and safe?

Mahliki’s mouth opened and closed a few times, then her shoulders slumped. Good to know that she would still listen to her mother once in a while. At seventeen, she was a lot more headstrong than Tikaya had ever been.

“Come with me, please, so we can find Rias or Dak and warn them that—”

An ear-splitting boom shattered the night. The windows shuddered in their frames, doors banged open, and the floor heaved. Bookcases wobbled and tilted. Tikaya struggled to find her balance, to keep from wobbling and tilting herself. One of the massive bookcases toppled not ten feet away, hurling thick tomes to the floor.

“Mahliki.” She pointed toward the hallway. “Get to the doorway.”

Tikaya tried to follow her own advice but stumbled and flailed as she navigated falling shelves and a carpet littered with books. Mahliki ran toward her, took her arm, and helped her toward the exit.

They staggered into the hall together, almost crashing into soldiers and in-house staff, some uniformed and others in their bedclothes, who were racing about.

“Where to?” Mahliki asked, still gripping Tikaya’s arm.

“Upstairs. Your father’s office. That sounded like... I can’t tell, but we have to make sure he’s all right.” Tikaya was running as she talked, guiding Mahliki past soldiers who were all jogging toward the staircases. What did they know that she didn’t? She didn’t stop to ask.

“You don’t think... would Father be the target?” Mahliki asked.

Tikaya didn’t mention the previous assassination attempts, the ones she had only recently been made aware of. She had to appear strong for her daughter, unconcerned, though in her head, she couldn’t help but think how much she missed home where it had been a long time since anyone even glared at Rias. And where she had her friends and family for support. What am I doing here, she asked silently at least once a day. Her work was a continent and an ocean away. If anything happened to Rias...

They reached the top floor and ran along the landing to his office. The door stood open, but it had not, thank Akahe, been blown ajar. Her relief faded as she ran inside and spotted the missing window and blackened wall around it. Rias was kneeling beside a man in military blacks who was crumpled to the floor beside him, his arm raised while Rias held makeshift bandages to... the place where the soldier’s hand should have been. Rias was trying to stop the bleeding and—Tikaya gulped—reassure a man whose face had the pallor of a glacier.

“Lieutenant Pustvan,” Mahliki blurted.

Rias’s eyes swelled with emotion when he saw them run in. Tikaya would have dropped to her knees and thrown her arms around him, but she dared not interrupt his ministrations.

“You’re all right, thank our ancestors,” Rias said, his voice oddly loud in the quiet that had befallen after the explosion. “I wanted to run and find you, but—”

“No, that’s...” Tikaya stopped herself from saying something as mediocre as understandable and waved bleakly at the injured officer.

After a stunned moment, Mahliki walked around them and knelt in front of the man. She hesitated, then took his other hand. He blinked a few times—poor man, he had lost so much blood, why couldn’t he fall unconscious and save himself some pain?—and focused on her. Though Mahliki didn’t say anything, the soldier seemed to find her face more encouraging than Rias’s.

“What happened?” Tikaya whispered, eyeing the office more closely now that she had examined Rias and found him uninjured. The furniture wasn’t damaged, but many of the gifts on his shelves had toppled to the floor, and papers had flown everywhere.

He shook his head. “What? My ears are still ringing.”

“What happened?” she asked more loudly.

“I was doing some final work for the night when the window shattered. A homemade explosive device dropped onto the floor. Pustvan and I both lunged for it, to throw it back outside before it blew up, but I was behind my desk, and he got there first. He made it to the window, but... that’s it.”

Tikaya reached over and gripped his shoulder, though she was careful not to jostle his hands or the lieutenant. A moment later, soldiers charged inside with a doctor clutching a medicine kit and wearing bed slippers.

“Here, bring in that stretcher,” the doctor ordered.

Tikaya backed away as he and the soldiers worked to transport the injured soldier out of the office. As soon as Rias let someone else take his spot holding the bandage, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his shoulder. “This place is turning into a nightmare,” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

“I’m sorry.” He returned the embrace. “I’d like to think it will calm down in a few more months, but if you... want to take Mahliki and go back home—”

Tikaya’s grip tightened. “You want me to lie awake in my bed every night wondering if you’re all right way over here? No, I won’t leave you.” She swallowed. “But I can’t lose you. Not to this. Haven’t you... suffered enough for these people during your lifetime?”

Rias sighed and didn’t respond.

“They’re coming,” Mahliki said from the window—from the place where the window had been. Cool night air gusted in through the gaping hole in the wall. “Sicarius and Dak, and they’ve got somebody.”

“My would-be assassin?” Rias wondered.

“What’s the punishment for trying to kill the president?” Tikaya asked numbly.

“It’s been death thus far, I understand. Dak is... Turgonian through and through.”

“Would you have it otherwise for someone who tried to take your life?” Tikaya had never condoned killing or wanted to be a part of it, but she couldn’t feel remorse for the person who had tried to blow up Rias, whoever he was.

“I don’t know. To order people killed for attacking me seems as much a failing on my part as on theirs. I—” Rias winced and touched a finger to his temple.

“Was the explosion ear-splitting?”

“I... perhaps. My head hurt before this started, but it’s hardly worth complaining about. Compared to Pustvan...”

“Has Dak shared his theory with you?” Tikaya wondered if she should have mentioned his name; he had confided in her, and though he hadn’t demanded a promise of silence, he clearly hadn’t been comfortable suggesting a mental deficiency to Rias’s face.

“That I was a lunatic to accept this position?”

“No, that...” Tikaya hesitated. Maybe she shouldn’t say anything until she had proof. What if it had simply been the stress of the job that was getting to him? With her toe, she nudged a leather pouch wrapped with green silk twine that had fallen on the floor. “Have you opened all of these gifts?”

“Few. I suspect most are bribes rather than gifts.”

“Well, one might be responsible for your... headaches.” She left out the absentmindedness that others had noticed.

“Hm, you don’t think having explosives hurled through my window might be causing that?”

“I’m sure that doesn’t help, but you’ve been rubbing your temples all winter,” Tikaya said.

“Oh,” Mahliki said from the window, “I was wondering—I mean, there’s one in the corner with leopard-print wrapping that I thought might be from his first wife. She seemed shifty.”

Tikaya frowned. “From who?”

“She was here tonight and once last week,” Rias said. “And she sent an inauguration gift. I never opened it. Most of them, I just had the secretary stack up in... well, that’s not much of a stack any more.” He nodded toward the scattered gifts, some as charred as the wall around the window.

After twenty years of marriage, Tikaya wasn’t worried about Rias’s relationship with his former wife, but she couldn’t help but feel miffed at having not been informed—and at the woman’s presence here in the first place. What could she want after all this time? “It could be something more inimical.”

“I don’t think she wishes me ill any more,” Rias said.

Mahliki walked to a particular corner and pushed gifts off the pile, clearly hunting for one in particular.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. A man with a soot-stained shirt and a face almost as dirty was thrust inside, his face twisted into a rictus of pain. Sicarius gripped him from behind, pinning his captive’s arms behind his back. The prisoner wore flamboyant yellow and red robes that were shredded in spots and as soot-caked as his face. Wolf-head pins held a crimson cloak back from his shoulders. Those wolf heads... they were a symbol of Nuria. Odd, this man appeared all Turgonian in height and skin-coloring.

Dak and a couple of soldiers clomped in behind them.

“This is the man who threw the explosive,” Sicarius said.

“Is he the person you saw climbing outside the library window?” Tikaya asked. There was nothing white about the man’s clothing.

“No,” Sicarius said. “I chased that person onto the roof, but saw two other men, dragging guards into the bushes along the inside of the courtyard walls. I ran to capture them.”

Dak’s face flushed with anger or disappointment at this lapse. He was in charge of gathering intelligence, wasn’t he? Not running security. Still, he must take the failures of soldiers personally.

“This man was on the opposite side of the building,” Sicarius said. “I didn’t see him until after he had hurled the explosive and was running.”

“I should take him to a separate room for questioning,” Dak said, giving Tikaya and Mahliki a pointed looked.

Yes... no torturing people in front of the women. Tikaya trusted her pursed lips would express disapproval on all levels. But could she truly object to force being used on someone who had tried to kill her husband? And who had succeeded in blowing that young officer’s hand off? She massaged the back of her neck. What had made her think Turgonia would be a better—more peaceful and less violent—place if Rias took charge?

Time. This would take time. Entire cultures were not changed over night. She had promised him five years of love and support here. She could make it through.

“Agreed,” Rias said. “Take him to a room that hasn’t been damaged. I’ll follow shortly.” As soon as Dak had led the prisoner out, Rias took Sicarius aside. “I know you’re not under my employ, but would you go along and watch while Dak questions him? I don’t want to start this new nation off by torturing people, but that man doesn’t need to know about our new progressive policies, eh? Perhaps you could touch your knife from time to time and glare at him from the doorway and let your reputation do the rest.”

Sicarius glanced at Tikaya. Wondering if she was the one responsible for Rias’s un-Turgonian-like lenience? She lifted her chin and met his gaze.

“Menacingly,” Sicarius said.

“Pardon?” Rias asked.

“Glaring menacingly. That’s what Amaranthe calls it. She has similarly progressive policies.”

Rias gave him a tired half-smile. “Ah, yes, that will do.”

The exchange surprised Tikaya. It had almost been... a joke. She wouldn’t have believed the assassin possessed a sense of humor beneath all his somber black and those, yes,
menacing
glares.

Rias shooed away a few security men who had meandered into the room, their faces distressed as they regarded the hole in the wall, until he and Tikaya were alone, save for Mahliki digging gifts out from beneath a bookcase that had fallen over in the corner. Rias hugged Tikaya again, the gesture less about reassuring her and more about reassuring himself, she sensed. He would never admit to fear or uncertainty before his men, but with her, he had grown more open over the years. She doubted he feared for his own life, though he might regret passing before he had effected the changes he hoped for, but he must worry about having her and Mahliki here in the same building as he.

After a long moment, Rias stepped back, though he did not yet let go of her arms. “When you and those architects were judging the entries, you didn’t happen to notice if Sespian’s design had fewer windows, did you? In particular, I believe I would like an interior office at this point.”