Merrick was standing there, knuckles raised, deciding whether to give another knock. The two men stared at each other for a second, caught in an embarrassing moment that would have made a good story at any inn. However, it was the young Deacon who blushed, a deep, deep red. Surely the young pup wasn’t a prude. “What is it, Merrick?” Raed grinned.
The Deacon looked up at him but his eyes refused to meet the Pretender’s. “We’ve got lucky, caught some good winds, and the Captain says we should be descending to Vermillion in about an hour or so.”
Raed’s stomach contracted as if they had just dropped from the sky. He cleared his throat. “Thank you . . . We’ll . . . I’ll . . .” He stopped. “Meet you by the helm?”
Closing the door, he heard Sorcha stirring, and when he turned around he saw the same disappointment on her face that he could feel upon his. Her blue eyes, which had only recently been clouded with pleasure, were now as sharp as beams of light. He could begin to see the Deacon take hold in her once more.
She scrambled out of the swaying bed and smiled widely at him. Even as tired as he was, Raed still wanted her, and if Merrick and his ill news had not intruded, they would have spent another day in each other’s arms.
Sorcha did not move to cover her nakedness, as if to do so was to spell the end. She crossed to him and embraced him with a little sigh. He hugged her tight, stooping slightly to press as much of her against himself as possible. He didn’t know what to say to her. Neither of them wanted to step outside and face the real world; a world where he was a fugitive and she was a married Deacon of the Order, but there was no other choice.
It was the Deacon who spoke first. “Thank you,” she whispered into his ear.
They dressed in silence. Raed shared a pitcher of water and a cloth with her, taking the opportunity to memorize the planes and curves of her body while he still could. There was no tension—just sadness. Then he held the door open and let her go out first. Raed wanted to say something, but he knew she was not the type of woman to take comfort in empty promises.
Merrick was not outside, but the slender form of Nynnia was waiting on the promenade, lightly holding on to one of the guy ropes. She turned, and it was as if a different creature was looking out at them. Raed was suddenly constricted with tension. He’d seen such expressions on assassins’ faces more than once. His mind flashed with how little they knew about this woman. She’d charmed Merrick and wound Sorcha up so tightly that she was effectively blinded. Deep down, the Beast stirred slightly, recognizing something about her.
“I believe Merrick is waiting for you in the helm. I must attend to my father.” She turned on her heel and stalked off. The farther she got away from them, Raed noticed, the more her walk altered from an aggressive stride to the gentle scamper he had observed in her previously. It was as if she was adjusting a mask back into place.
Sorcha must have noticed something as well. “Do you really think we can trust her?” she asked. “These last two weeks have been so beyond my training, I wonder if my judgment is impaired.”
Raed considered the question. The Beast was not waking within him. Whatever lurked behind Nynnia’s sweet face was not a geist—powerful yes, but not one of their kind. “She did save Merrick’s life.” It was a platitude; he had plenty of experience to tell him that preserving a life was not always done out of love or concern.
Sorcha appeared not to detect his lie, perhaps too deep in her own concerns. Stroking his fingertips, she nodded. “I hope so. We have enough troubles ahead without adding to them.” He knew she was not just referring to the Murashev. They walked together to the tiny command deck. It seemed ridiculous, but Raed felt a little of his queasiness return. Sorcha might have managed to distract him from it for a good few days, but standing in the exposed cabin brought back his nervousness. Most especially because the vast spread of the City of Vermillion was laid out before them like an intricate map. The buffeting didn’t help either.
Two chairs outfitted the tiny cabin, and Merrick was standing behind the Captain’s, bracing himself against an abrupt onslaught of wind that shifted and shook the airship. The young man was actually grinning. “We’ve hit a bit of—what did you call it, Captain?”
“Turbulence and crosswinds,” Revele replied distractedly as she worked the levers set in a gleaming wooden console before her. With the other hand, she held the small wheel as easily as if it were a child’s toy and not the only means of direction for a vast, fragile vessel.
“Turbulence.” Merrick laughed. “Isn’t that just like your swells in the ocean, Raed?”
“No,” he grumbled. “It is absolutely nothing like it.” His insides were still churning from the unnatural motion of this vessel—but he was not about to tell anyone that. He’d already suffered enough ribbing about that particular issue.
Revele let out a muffled snort, spinning the wheel about and turning the nose of the ship into the wind. It was an enviable maneuver; the weirstone propulsion system allowed the dirigible to navigate against the vagaries of the weather. For a moment Raed forgot his own tumbling stomach, his sea captain’s mind wondering if the same methods could be provided for proper ships. As soon as he had the thought, he realized that the Emperor must have considered the possibility. Who knew what projects the nimble mind of his pursuer was having constructed in his naval bases. The idea of a fleet of Imperial ships powered with the speed and maneuverability of a dirigible made him shudder.
“You all right?” Sorcha touched the back of his hand, murmuring her concern under her breath.
He looked down at the center of Vermillion. The city was laid out in a star formation, with all the spokes of the main street draining into the Civic Center and eventually the palace, while a crosshatch of side streets filled out the spaces between. “This is the city where my father was born; now the city of my enemy. How should I be feeling?”
“Concerned?” she ventured.
He squeezed her fingertips and laughed. “Exhilarated. I plan on seeing the sights.” Both of the Deacons looked at him in horror, and he laughed. “Oh, well, if you think it is a bad plan . . .”
“There’s the repair facility.” Revele pointed out the window to the right. Unlike the majority of the Imperial forces, the air fleet was not housed in the neat lines of streets that made up the center. Instead, the fleet and the combustible gases needed for the dirigibles were housed on the outskirts of the great city.
Raed might never have been to Vermillion, but that did not mean he was unfamiliar with it. When his father had decided he would never seek to reclaim his throne, all the attention of his advisors had fallen on the Young Pretender. Raed knew every curve of the city by heart; the town houses of the nobility, the public fountains, the marketplaces, every statue on every corner and the history to go with them all. He was, however, not so familiar with the Edge.
The area that had not been built on top of the shallow lagoon, but instead on the soft marshes of the mainland, was called the Edge. It had been so named after one particularly jocular ancestor of Raed’s had referred to it as “the edge of humanity.” It was also much larger than the center, and was separated from it by a circle of canals.
Now, looking over it in the gathering evening, he realized his training wouldn’t help him there. The streets were narrow, some disappearing almost completely under the eaves of houses from up here, and they meandered around on themselves. City planning had long ago given up on the Edge.
As they dropped lower, following the edge of the lagoon, he gestured out to an area that was not covered with houses. Certainly there were signs of rebuilding, but it looked as if fire had swept through the area.
He was just about to ask, when Revele cut him off. “That,” she said grimly, “was our depot up until three months ago.”
“A geist attack?” he asked.