The Kraken King (64 page)

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Authors: Meljean Brook

Tags: #Romance, #Fantasy, #Adult

BOOK: The Kraken King
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From beyond the screen, Mara’s familiar silhouette resolved out of the dark. “Ready?” she whispered.
He didn’t need to answer. Zenobia in his arms, he followed the mercenary to the balcony. With eyes that gleamed in the dark like a feline’s, another woman still stood in the chamber at the main doors—making certain that no one else came through yet.
Two more dead guards lay outside. Ariq scooped up one of their crossbows as he passed their bodies. Rain drenched them to the skin. Mara led them to a rope ladder hanging from the balcony above.
“Hurry,” she whispered. “We cleared the upper level but there are more guards making rounds. Cooper is waiting above. Our skyrunner is off the eastern terrace. We’ve taken one gunship but it can’t be long before we’re discovered by the others.”
Zenobia scrambled onto the ladder. Ariq asked quietly, “My town?”
“Ghazan Bator and his men have taken control,” Mara said, hauling herself up after Zenobia. “Tatsukawa has the fleet on your shore. They’re waiting for you.”
His heart was iron, a cannonball slamming into his ribs. “Are my people safe?”
“For now.” She tossed the whispered answer down to him. “Come. Don’t wait for Captain Corsair.”
The other woman. He looked for her, and found her almost at his side. Soft leather boots had concealed the sound of her steps. A scarf covered her dark braids. Another mercenary, but where Mara was like gunpowder, Captain Corsair seemed like the razored edge of a steel blade. Ariq gestured her ahead of him, but she flashed a sharp smile and vaulted onto the balcony rail before leaping up to catch the slippery coral ledge high over her head. She reached the upper balcony at the same moment Zenobia threw her leg over the rail, and he heard his wife’s astonished gasp when she spotted the woman. Ariq climbed, his arms and legs heavy and slow.
When he reached the top, Zenobia’s brilliant grin could have been a beacon through the dark, but Mara was frowning at him. “What happened to you?”
“Tortured and drugged,” Zenobia answered for him, taking his hand as they moved swiftly into the chamber. “Do we run directly to the airship?”
“I’ll make sure the courtyard is still clear first,” Cooper said, a crossbow in each hand.
“Wait.” Captain Corsair stopped him from opening the chamber doors, then tilted her head. “I hear my lady’s engines. The gunship must have come round the—”
A blinding orange flash burst against the night sky. The floor shuddered beneath Ariq’s bare feet. Zenobia cried out, then stumbled as a cracking
boom!
shook the tower. He caught her to him, looked down into her wide eyes.
Not a bomb. An airship had exploded. Shot out of the sky.
“Dear God,” Zenobia breathed. Her gaze shot to Captain Corsair. “
Lady Nergüi
?”
“No. But it will be my ship if we don’t run. Go!”
No time to check for guards. Cooper slammed through the doors, looked down the courtyard. “Clear!”
Fast and precise, Cooper and Mara took positions at the center of the corridor—protecting Zenobia’s back as she and Ariq followed Captain Corsair out of the chamber. The captain took the lead as they raced east. Ahead, the glow from the burning gunship lit the terrace, where armed crew members stood waiting. A sleek skyrunner hovered with its upper decks level with the terrace rail.
As soon as they emerged from the chamber, a blond man broke away from the crew to stand at the courtyard entrance, sweeping his arm as if urging them all to run faster. Zenobia huffed out a wild laugh and pulled Ariq along, their bare feet slapping the rough coral floor.
“Boots on the northern stairs!” Mara called the warning from behind them. “A dozen or more!”
Guards coming. Ariq slipped around to Zenobia’s left side. Captain Corsair caught up to the blond man—
Ariq knew that face, he knew that man
—and suddenly the grin the man had been wearing hardened. He drew a pair of pistols and moved to the northern side of the courtyard’s entrance, where the wall would protect his position. Captain Corsair knelt beside him, pistols in hand and her gaze fixed on the top of the stairs that opened onto the terrace.
Zenobia slowed. “Archimedes?”
“Get on board, Z,” her brother said. “We’ll cover you.”
She only hesitated a second, but it was too long. Ariq swept her up and tore across the terrace at a dead run.
Not fast enough. In the dim orange glow, he saw the crew members ahead diving behind potted palms and to the ground. At this distance, the guards’ swords couldn’t touch them; only their crossbows could. Behind him, boots pounded and pistols cracked. Bolts fired with taut
thwack
s. Mara screamed, “At your back, Kraken!” and Ariq dropped to a crouch, cradling Zenobia tightly against him.
My body is your shield.
The first bolt thumped into his left shoulder like a hot fist. His arm went numb. Another pounded into the middle of his back, followed by tearing pain that ripped through his left side. His chest tightened, his lungs suddenly clamped in an agonizing vise.
No more followed. Zenobia was crying, pushing at him, trying to make him let go of her. And her brother was suddenly beside him, his green eyes just like hers. “It’s done, Kraken. Yasmeen finished them but more are coming.”
“Help me, Archimedes.” His wife was sobbing again, terrified again as she braced her shoulder under his arm and attempted to push Ariq to his feet.
He tried to reassure her. His body was difficult to kill. But blood filled his mouth instead of the words, and as soon as he stood his knees gave out. More hands caught hold of him, but there was only one that he cared about, her fingers laced through his as they rushed him onto the skyrunner.
“Full steam!” Captain Corsair’s shout echoed in his head. “Into those clouds, now!”
Engines growled. The orange glow swam into darkness. A table lay under his stomach. He heard voices. Mara. The captain. One he didn’t know.
—
Jesus. We have to stop that bleeding or he’s gone.
—
Help me stitch this.
—
Quick now! Get those fucking splinters out.
—
Zenobia, sweet. Go outside and wait. You don’t need to see this.
Ariq knew that voice, though. Her brother. Who was coming in his airship and then she would go.
As if a thousand beetles burrowed along his spine, excruciating pain ripped up his back as he forced his head up. His bleary gaze found her, pale cheeks raw with tears, her expression bleak. She was still holding his hand, Ariq realized. He hadn’t been able to feel it.
He made the words come, though they emerged on a river of blood. “Don’t . . . leave.”
—
Fuck me. Get him down! Where’s the goddamn opium?
“I won’t. I swear I won’t.” More tears fell down her cheeks. “I love you. Just stay with me, too.”
“Always.” A sharp pain jabbed his neck and the light around her face seemed to darken. “My . . . wife.”
“My husband.” All at once she moved in close, and her fierce jade eyes filled his collapsing vision. “Don’t you dare let go, Ariq. Don’t you dare leave me, because I will follow you. I swear to God that if you let go, I will tear down the heavens and drag you back to my side.”
He wouldn’t let go. But he couldn’t tell her. His body was here, but the rest of him was slipping away, and the dark rushed in until only her voice remained.
Then even that faded into silence.
Part VIII
THE KRAKEN KING AND THE GREATEST ADVENTURE
XXIX
“My dearest Zenobia, you were supposed to be smiling.”
Spoken quietly from the stateroom’s entrance, Archimedes’ comment stirred Zenobia from her exhausted stupor. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting at Ariq’s bedside, watching his features for any sign of his awakening, but the dark sky outside the portholes had brightened to blue. Now she couldn’t even muster up the energy to respond to her brother—and she couldn’t imagine why she had ever wanted to smile.
His face etched with concern, Archimedes dragged a chair next to Zenobia’s and took her hand. “He’s healing quickly. He’ll be all right.”
“I know.” But it didn’t matter. Nothing would be all right until Ariq looked into her eyes again.
His fingers squeezed hers. “One of Yasmeen’s girls is coming with a breakfast tray. Will you eat?”
Just the thought made her stomach cramp. “I don’t think I can.”
“Tea, then? You need
something
, Z.”
She needed her husband. But she nodded, because her brother was right.
He wasn’t usually the sensible one.
So Zenobia drank the tea when it came, and was grateful for Archimedes’ silence all the while. He always milked his own emotions to the fullest, but as great as his worry and concern for her might be, he didn’t privilege them over her worry for Ariq.
After two cups, she finally roused her sluggish brain enough to ask, “Were we pursued?”
“Undoubtedly,” Archimedes said easily. “But either the storm or our speed hindered their chase. There is no one in sight behind us.”
Now there was no storm, either. Only a clear sky, and the empress’s forces weren’t after them.
Surely that was reason to smile—and now she realized why he’d mentioned smiling at all. Four days ago, she’d written of bridges, her love for Ariq, and of smiling when she saw her brother again. “Mara gave you my letter?”
“Yes.”
“You must have been astonished.” She had exposed her heart in that letter.
His eyebrows shot up. “‘Astonished’ is a mild word for it.”
“But you came—so you must have read the other letters. They should have prepared you a little.”
“I received no other letters. I had no idea you were in this part of the world.”
She shook her head in confusion. “Then how did you know to come?”
“Yasmeen and I were in New Eden again—I have written
that
story for you in another letter—when a supply ship arrived carrying the rumor that Zenobia Fox was under the protection of the Kraken King. Needless to say, we abandoned New Eden and flew to Krakentown at full steam.”
Now the astonishment was hers.
Zenobia Fox is under the protection of the Kraken King.
That was what Ariq had ordered the man who’d almost kidnapped her in the Fox Den to say to anyone he met. Ariq had intended the word to spread. Apparently, it had—just in time to save them.
Never had Zenobia thought she would be so grateful for a kidnapping attempt.
“What did you find in Krakentown?”
“A Nipponese naval blockade and the threat of annihilation if we attempted to enter the town. So of course we followed their orders to leave.” Some of his familiar humor returned, though with a dangerous edge. “We flew south and went in on foot to look for you. We found the Coopers, instead.”
“So they told you everything that has happened.”
“Mara told us some.” Archimedes’ gaze held hers. “But she said the rest was for you to tell.”
There was so much. Her heart clenched as she looked to Ariq again. So very much.
But until her husband woke, she had nowhere else to be. So she told Archimedes of the marauders’ attack on the French airship, of Mara and Cooper’s quick thinking as they all escaped on the flyers, and of Ariq pulling her from the water. She told him of the boilerworm, and the attempted kidnapping in the smugglers’ dens, and how Ariq had broken Polley in half. She told him of the Red City, of being gassed in her chambers; she told him of her marriage in the vault, of Ghazan Bator burning her letters and manuscript, and of the bludgeon she’d made. She told him of the jellyfish balloon, of the quarantine and the Empress’s Eyes, and of the tortures Ariq had endured while attempting to conceal the Skybreaker’s location.
“Then Lady Nagamochi threatened me, so he gave up the machine,” she finished softly. “And you know the rest. We were imprisoned in the tower and you rescued us.”
“I don’t know all of it.” His expression grave, Archimedes took her hand again. “He was afraid that you would leave him. So afraid that he woke up during his surgery to beg you not to go. Were you planning to?”
Her heart clenched. Even with crossbow bolts embedded in his back, Ariq had begged her not to leave. She wouldn’t. But he’d had reason to fear it. She’d exposed herself to her brother. She hadn’t been as open with her husband, concealing how much she loved him until it was almost too late.
“I wasn’t,” she said.
Archimedes didn’t appear convinced. “Because if you decided to go before he saved your life and now you’re only staying out of obligation—”
“I’m not.” Her voice thick, she stopped him. “What I told you in that letter was true. I love him. And I don’t need to be rescued from him.”
He patted her hand. “I needed to be sure.”
Of course he did, because he loved her—and he would never want to see her trapped as their mother had been.
For the same reason, her husband had offered to let her go, though it must have ripped him apart to even say it. Her throat felt raw when she looked to Ariq again. He lay so still. Bruises and shallow furrows under his skin marked where the beetles had dug through his flesh. She couldn’t see the wounds on his back where the bolts had punched though muscle and pierced his lung, but she didn’t need to; she’d felt each one hit while enfolded in his protective embrace. She would feel each one for the rest of her life.
She drew a shuddering breath. “Sometimes I wake up at night and see him, or I’ll be working and look up and he’s there, and I’m overcome by the sweetest ache. As if I can’t bear how much I feel for him. I never know what to do in those moments. I want to laugh. I want to cry. In all my life, I’ve never felt anything quite so wonderful—or so terrifying—as what I feel when I’m with him. And more than anything else, I just want to hold him
so
tight, because if he wasn’t here . . . if he wasn’t here . . .”
Clasping her fist to her heart, she shook her head. No words could finish the thought. They were unendurable. Unspeakable. And when he lay so still on the bed now, the ache wasn’t sweet at all. It was just painful.
Her brother nodded. “Wonderful and terrifying. I know the feeling well. I shake with fear and longing with every sneer that Yasmeen sends in my direction.” When she huffed a startled laugh, Archimedes narrowed his eyes at her—a signal that he was about to say something utterly absurd. “But I will warn you, my besotted sister, that in the moment your husband used himself as a shield to protect you, I loved him even more than you do.”
Impossible. But she apparently
could
still smile, even when her heart was an open wound.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she told him.
“I am, too. Finally, we will have adventure together. What should we call it?
Archimedes Fox and the Abducted Author
?”
Horrid. Absolutely horrid. She stared at him in wonder. Her brother could dig through dusty archives and interpret obscure clues that pointed him to long-lost treasures, then hunt them down while escaping the dangers of zombies and pirates, yet couldn’t imagine a more evocative title than
The Abducted Author
?
“
Archimedes Fox and the Waylaid Writer
? Or
The Stolen Scribe
? No?” With a grin, he held up his hands in surrender. “What would you call yourself?”
Once upon a time, she’d been the scribbling spinster. It didn’t fit so well now.
“I’m still deciding,” she said softly.
“And I shall help you.
The Imperiled Inkslinger
?
The Seized Serialist
?”
Dear God. She had been saved from crossbow bolts only to be subjected to this? With a quiet groan, she leaned forward in her chair and gently thumped her forehead on the mattress next to Ariq’s shoulder. “Oh, please wake up,” she whispered. “I need you to rescue me again.”
She probably shouldn’t have been so surprised when Ariq opened his eyes and did.
***
If Ariq could have but one wish, it would be to never again be the reason for his wife’s tears. That was beyond his power, though—and at least these tears were joyous ones.
Joyous now. He could see how Zenobia had worried. Exhaustion had settled in heavy shadows beneath her red-rimmed eyes. Her hair hung limply around her pale face. He tucked the tangled strands behind her ears and gently cupped her jaw.
“My wife.” Sitting up and speaking was an effort that slipped like a serrated blade across his ribs and into his chest, but Ariq didn’t have the luxury of waiting until he fully healed. Zenobia’s tears fell for him, and Ghazan Bator threatened his town. Silence wouldn’t stop either one. “I’m well.”
That only made her cry harder. He pulled her shaking form close. Wearing clothes far less colorful than his usual, her brother sat gazing at the ceiling and looking everywhere but in Ariq and Zenobia’s direction.
The stateroom they were in was large for an airship. A skyrunner—
Lady Nergüi
. Ariq could feel her swiftness, the power of her engines. The skies outside the porthole were blue, and the angle of the shadows told him the sun was high. Late morning. “We’re traveling southwest?”
Her face wet, Zenobia lifted her head. “To the smugglers’ dens. I told them you intended to hire more men there.”
He
had
intended to. But it wouldn’t be long before Lady Nagamochi discovered his deception and came after him. The men he hired might help fight for his town, but in the end, it would only mean that more men died.
Maybe there was another way. Mara had said his people weren’t in danger yet. Admiral Tatsukawa had taken control of the Nipponese fleet—more than a dozen ironships and airships now surrounded Ariq’s territory, each one with the capability of destroying any settlement along the coast. Ghazan Bator and his forces occupied the town itself.
Had Ariq’s soldiers resisted the general’s forces when they’d marched in? It wouldn’t matter to Ghazan Bator that many of those soldiers had once fought under his command or that the rebellion still burned in their hearts. The general had one mission, to destroy the Khagan and to overthrow the corruption in the palace—and he would crush anyone who opposed that scheme.
Worry lay thick on Ariq’s chest. “Where are Mara and Cooper?”
Archimedes rose. “I will fetch them.”
So Ariq would have a few minutes alone with his wife, but she didn’t stay in his arms. Using her sleeves to wipe away her tears, she moved to the wardrobe. Slowly Ariq pulled on his trousers, then accepted the top she gave him to replace his ruined tunic—a blousy, western-style shirt that pulled over his head and seemed better suited to underclothes than a covering.
Zenobia’s face tightened as she watched him dress, and she bit her lips. Ariq glanced down. Though he couldn’t see his back, the front wasn’t so bad. Furrows still marked his flesh. The damage from the beetles had almost healed, but the path they’d dug remained. Aside from the furrows, however, there were just a few dark bruises and a deep ache.
But not all scars were easy to see—and the hidden ones often hurt the worst. His wife likely wore new scars. Shirt on, he cupped her face again, his gaze searching hers. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, her jade eyes glistening. “You?”
“Yes. You shouldn’t have feared for me.” Gently, he swept away the last of her tears with his thumbs. “I told you that my body was made to be harder to kill.”
“But not impossible. Your father was altered, too, and the Khagan still managed to assassinate him.”
So he had. And there was so much more to tell her about the torture and Lady Nagamochi’s threats. But they didn’t have much time. He kissed her, softly.
She clung to him when he lifted his head. “I love you, Ariq.”
His heart ached. The first time she’d told him, a sword had been poised above her wrist. “We need to speak of what happened in the tower. But I need to see to my town first. I’m not putting it above you.”
“I know. And how many times have you waited for me while I wrote in my notebook? If you can wait for that, I can wait for you to save thousands of lives.” Though her nose and eyes were still red, some of her humor had returned. Her brows arched. “And trying to talk with worry and frustration between us didn’t end so well the last time, did it?”
Before the empress’s guards had come, when he’d slammed out of their chambers. Not knowing what waited in his town, not knowing if his people were safe, his every fear and doubt had magnified.
“It didn’t,” he agreed.

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