The Kraken King (12 page)

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Authors: Meljean Brook

Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Adult

BOOK: The Kraken King
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But she wasn’t crying over him. It was just all
so
disappointing. To be so utterly attracted to a man who wasn’t worth her interest—and who made her feel so low.
No more. On a deep breath, she caught up to Helene and the lieutenants. And—blast it all—Helene looked upset now, too. No doubt over something that the officers had said. This night would have been so much more pleasant if all the men had stopped talking.
Zenobia pasted on a smile. “I remember that your quarters were in the other direction, lieutenants? There is no need to trouble yourselves by seeing us home. We are well attended.”
Blanchett glanced back at Mara and Cooper, trailing a few yards behind. After seeing them in action aboard the airship, he couldn’t doubt Zenobia and Helene’s safety now.
“So you are.” He sounded relieved. Perhaps glad to get away from Helene’s distress. Probably thinking that the evening would have been more pleasant if all the women weren’t so emotionally overwrought. “We’ll bid you good night, then.”
After a final exchange of pleasantries, Zenobia tucked her arm through Helene’s and continued on toward the southern end of town, where their temporary residence overlooked the bay. One of the enormous kraken-structures rose on the right. Not a house or shop, as far as she could tell—and unlike some of the others, which had been plastered over and painted, the shell was still encrusted with dark barnacles. Tomorrow, perhaps she’d walk through town and see what she could learn about the kraken shells and their uses. Then visit the few shops and replace some of the items they’d lost on the airship—maybe even find a typesetting machine. The next month could be quite productive if she wasn’t bombarded with too many distractions.
And if Zenobia spent most of her time working, she could avoid any awkward encounters with the governor.
She couldn’t avoid him entirely, though. The town was far too small. Zenobia wouldn’t hide from him, in any case. She just wouldn’t explore the parts of town where he was most likely to be.
Perhaps she should also avoid the parts of town inhabited by giant spiders.
Her steps slowed. Disbelieving her eyes, she stared ahead. A rounded body with long legs approached along the shadowy street. She wasn’t imagining that.
Pulse racing, she glanced back. Mara and Cooper strolled together, hand in hand.
“It’s only a mountain walker,” Mara called ahead.
A machine. Yet she couldn’t hear an engine.
Fascinated, she pulled Helene to the side as it came closer, stepping into the faint spill of light from the nearby houses. The belly of the machine’s body stood taller than her head. From her angle, she couldn’t properly see the driver—she only had the impression of a dark figure sitting beneath the canvas canopy. A low thrum filled the air, so much quieter than any engine she’d heard before. A soft hiss accompanied every push of its hydraulic legs.
She would have to ask Archimedes if
he
had ever seen one.
They waited until it passed before starting off again. A few steps later, Helene gave a shuddering sigh. Since she had concealed her distress after the officers had left, Zenobia assumed the sound meant her friend was ready to talk about it now.
“Helene?”
“Oh, Geraldine. I asked again about leaving—and Lieutenant Blanchett is quite certain that we can’t go any farther until we are sent for.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “And I love my husband so.”
Stopping, Zenobia took her friend’s hands. As gently as possible, she asked, “Surely a few more weeks cannot make much of a difference.”
“It will make all the difference.” Tears slipped over her cheeks as she admitted, “I’ve been such a fool. I missed him so. And his family is . . . they do not like me well.”
And that was as close as Helene would ever come to saying why she’d gone to another man, Zenobia understood. “So you were alone at home.”
“Yes.” Pulling her hands free, Helene began walking again. “I must go before the month is out. Or there will be nothing for me at all.”
“No
one
at all?” Her friend hadn’t become pregnant alone.
Helene glanced at her, then looked away. “It’s not possible. And I love Basile. I do.”
And it wasn’t unheard of for a child to arrive early, and still be healthy. But not even the most besotted of men would believe that a child was his, if it was born six months after bedding his wife for the first time in a year. Even seven months strained credibility. “So you believe that if you arrive in the Red City soon, there will be no questions later.”
A fierce look from Helene faded into a sigh. She nodded. “It has already been six weeks.”
Not much time left. Two weeks at best. Even then, Basile Auger would have to be an idiot not to realize the truth.
The question was: What would her husband do when he learned it?
“Are you afraid of him?” Zenobia asked quietly.
“Not that he will hurt me. He is such a good man. Not like your father.”
As she spoke, Helene offered Zenobia an apologetic glance, but it wasn’t necessary. Zenobia knew exactly what her father had been—it was why she worried for her friend now.
“Good,” Zenobia said.
“I do fear Basile will cast me aside. Then what will I have? Nothing. And I won’t have him.” Tears thickened her voice again. “I considered consulting a surgeon. But then I remembered your mother and I . . . I was terrified.”
Of hoping for help, then finding a butcher.
The memory left Zenobia’s heart sick and heavy. “Perhaps we can ask here. Who are these women? Pirates, soldiers, and smugglers. I don’t think they have such difficulty finding help when they need it.
Good
help.”
“I would never find the courage.” She wiped her eyes, but more tears spilled. “I can still hear her screams.”
So could Zenobia. Throat hurting too much for words, she only held Helene’s hand. In silence they walked, but Zenobia found her voice again when they passed the large home near to their own. The governor’s house.
The Kraken King could not be so powerful a man if he was trapped in his own town. There had to be another way.
“We
will
travel to the Red City within the week.” Whatever it took, whatever danger they had to face. “I swear it to you.”
Helene’s face crumpled into sobs. “You are such a good friend, Geraldine.”
Not always. But she would be this time.
Part II
THE KRAKEN KING AND THE ABOMINABLE WORM

Krakentown, Western Australia

May 17
My dear brother, 
I’m sorry to send a dashed-off note, but when I have told you all that has happened you will understand my haste. Helene and I have not yet reached the Red City. Our naval escort came under attack by marauders and our airship was destroyed.     Don’t be alarmed; we are both well. We were rescued from the water and taken to a nearby settlement named Krakentown. It’s a well-named town. The first thing we saw was a kraken—fortunately, the creature was dead on the beach rather than attacking our boat. It is a small town, and rough, but we’ve been treated well by the residents. One could never say that our lodgings were fit for a king—but they suit Helene and me perfectly. The good Lieutenant Blanchett suspects—though he has not yet convinced me—that we will have to wait a full month here before word of our predicament reaches Helene’s husband in the Red City. My intention is to find another route that will allow us to leave before the week is out. If I don’t—or if, before that time, the French hear of the attack and come—I’ll let you know that my plans have changed. I must have this letter in the lieutenant’s hands by morning, so please forgive the rushed adieu. Don’t respond to me here—we should shortly be traveling to the Red City. Direct any correspondence there, instead, and give my love and assurances of my safety to everyone at home. 
With warmest affection, 
Geraldine
IV
The French lieutenants didn’t recognize the two dead men Meeng had brought up from the cliffs to the town’s icehouse.
After the attack on their airship, Commander Saito’s men had dragged the bodies of three marauders from the sea around the burning wreckage. They lay alongside the other two now. The officers didn’t recognize those men, either.
Ariq sent the lieutenants on. Surrounded by stacks of pale kraken meat, his breath billowing in the chill, he crouched beside the five bodies for another half hour, grimly searching for identifying marks. One had a mechanical foot, crudely built and grafted to his ankle; he’d have limped. Two could have been Nipponese or from the eastern end of the Golden Empire. The remaining three were either westerners or from the Cossack territories within the empire. They each wore rough tunics and trousers, but their helmets were of good quality and a design similar to the aviators who guarded the Great Khagan’s royal palace in Shangdu. The balloon flyers they’d used were Nipponese.
Nothing here told Ariq where they’d come from. But whoever had recruited them had access to a Nipponese supplier. The Red Wall had only recently been opened and foreign trade with Nippon was still strictly monitored. Whether the flyers were smuggled or purchased, he should be able to trace how they had ended up in the marauders’ hands.
Not much to pursue. But long years fighting in the rebellion against the Great Khagan had taught him to follow trails, and
not
finding one didn’t mean an enemy hadn’t been through the region. Sometimes it meant the trail had been erased. Nothing about these men pointed him in any one direction. Maybe that only indicated that their recruiter had a wide range of resources available to him. But it might be a deliberate attempt to conceal the recruiter’s identity.
Whatever the truth, Ariq wouldn’t find the answers here. If these marauders had been recruited to a cause, they would be more difficult to trace. But if they’d been hired, someone would have employed them before.
So Ariq would soon be visiting the smugglers’ dens with photographs of these men in hand.
He tossed a canvas sheet over the bodies and stood. Only one person in town possessed a ferrotype camera, but the old pirate queen would be asleep by now. These could wait until morning.
Wooden steps led to the heavy door. Built from a kraken shell and buried underground, the icehouse opened directly into the northern heart of the town. Outside, the heat and humidity closed around him. The moon struggled to peek through the mounting clouds.
Ariq started toward the bridge that would take him to the south side of town. A somber group of French aviators walked west along the street—to the tavern by the docks, most likely. At this time of night, there were few other places to go, and nowhere else to lift a glass to the men who’d fallen that day.
Did they have money? The French airship had come under sudden attack. The airmen wouldn’t have had time to collect their possessions before escaping to the lifeboats. Some might have had a few coins stashed in pockets. Not all of them, though—but it wouldn’t be the first time people had come to his town with nothing and needed help until they could support themselves. He’d have to speak to the lieutenants again in the morning. He wouldn’t allow the townspeople to be stretched thin trying to quarter a few dozen aviators. Ariq would cover their expenses, as long as the town saw something in return.
There was always work to be done. A beached kraken brought more work. The tentacles still needed to be skinned. The meat in the icehouse needed to be preserved. And if that labor didn’t suit any of them, farms and gardens could always use extra hands for a month.
A month. Then they’d be gone. As would the women who’d traveled with them.
It didn’t matter. Whether she left a month from now or tomorrow, Zenobia was already out of Ariq’s reach. She’d made that clear.
But her decision not to visit his bed was the only thing that was clear. Because she’d lied to him. She’d said nothing had changed. It
had
changed, though. He’d watched it happen. Zenobia had left to speak with her guard and when she’d returned, her expression had been a shield and a sword, concealing her thoughts and keeping Ariq at bay.
He didn’t know what Mara Cooper had told her. He’d thought the mercenary had discovered who Ariq was and that his reputation had frightened her. But Zenobia had said she wasn’t afraid of him.
Ariq had believed that, even if he couldn’t trust anything else she said.
Whatever the reason, she’d made her decision, and little remained of the hope and anticipation that had burned in his chest almost from the moment he’d plucked her out of the sea.
A loss wasn’t always a defeat, but Ariq couldn’t fight for her heart—no matter how much he wanted to. No matter how much he wanted
her
.
Battles had to be chosen, and Ariq didn’t have time to engage in this one. He needed to find whoever had ordered the attacks on the airships. If they continued, the Nipponese empress wouldn’t attempt to locate one band of marauders in settlements along the western coast; she’d simply destroy them all.

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