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# Titles by Meljean Brook

The Guardian Series

DEMON ANGEL

DEMON MOON

DEMON NIGHT

DEMON BOUND

DEMON FORGED

DEMON BLOOD

DEMON MARKED

GUARDIAN DEMON

Novels of the Iron Seas

THE IRON DUKE

HEART OF STEEL

RIVETED

MINA WENTWORTH AND THE INVISIBLE CITY

(A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)

TETHERED

(A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)

HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

(A Berkley Sensation Special Novella)

THE KRAKEN KING

Part I: The Kraken King and the Scribbling Spinster

Part II: The Kraken King and the Abominable Worm

Part III: The Kraken King and the Fox's Den

Part IV: The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction

Part V: The Kraken King and the Iron Heart

Part VI: The Kraken King and the Crumbling Walls

Part VII: The Kraken King and the Empress's Eyes

Part VIII: The Kraken King and the Greatest Adventure

Anthologies

HOT SPELL

(with Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Shiloh Walker)

WILD THING

(with Maggie Shayne, Marjorie M. Liu, and Alyssa Day)

FIRST BLOOD

(with Susan Sizemore, Erin McCarthy, and Chris Marie Green)

MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS

(with Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, and Ilona Andrews)

BURNING UP

(with Angela Knight, Nalini Singh, and Virginia Kantra)

ANGELS OF DARKNESS

(with Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, and Sharon Shinn)

ENTHRALLED

(with Lora Leigh, Alyssa Day, and Lucy Monroe)
The Kraken King

Part VIII

The Kraken King and the Greatest Adventure

Meljean Brook

InterMix Books, New York
**INTERMIX BOOKS**

**Published by the Penguin Group**

**Penguin Group (USA) LLC**

**375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA**

USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

penguin.com

A Penguin Random House Company

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

THE KRAKEN KING AND THE GREATEST ADVENTURE

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

InterMix eBook edition / June 2014

Copyright © 2014 by Meljean Brook.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

All rights reserved.

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For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63927-6

INTERMIX

InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group

and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

INTERMIX® and the "IM" design are registered trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Version_1

# Contents

Titles by Meljean Brook

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Letter

About the Author

# Chapter Twenty-nine

"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.

She smiled. "Then we know that about each other: We are both unreasonable and ready to ride our doubts all the way to the edge of a cliff when outside worries prod them along. But I still love you—so you don't have to doubt that."

"And I still won't let you go—so you should never doubt that."

A soft tap sounded at the door. With another kiss, he reluctantly released her.

Mara and Cooper entered, followed by Archimedes Fox. A girl entered, too, carrying a tray, and went about her work. Zenobia pressed tea into his hand. He would have put it aside except for the pleading expression in her eyes. He put his anger and fear aside, instead. They wouldn't do his people any good. There was still a battle coming; he had to prepare for it.

Tea in hand, he sat at the edge of the bed, because Zenobia looked so tired, and he knew she would sit with him. Her brother took a seat at the table, but Mara and Cooper stood before him, like soldiers waiting to report.

"What did you find?" Ariq asked.

"The general came into Krakentown shortly after Blanchett arrived. The Nipponese fleet showed up at the same time, under the command of Tatsukawa."

The back of Ariq's neck felt like a stone. "Was there fighting? Were there deaths?"

"No. The way it was told to me, the general simply arrived with his men. He took up residence at your house and his soldiers were quartered in many of the other homes. It was apparently all very polite."

A bloodless occupation. But almost everyone in Ariq's town would know a threat lay behind it. Most of Ariq's soldiers had taken orders from the general—and they knew what would happen if they put up any resistance.

So they must be waiting for Ariq. "How many men did he bring?"

"Almost two hundred by my estimate," Cooper said.

Mara nodded. "They patrol the streets and if they see more than three people talking together, the group is broken up. For everyone's safety, no gatherings are allowed."

Of course. The general wouldn't want the townspeople to conspire and rebel. "And Tatsukawa?"

"The admiral has established a blockade in the water," Mara said. "The fleet's airships are positioned around the town to intercept anyone coming in."

" _Around_ the town?" Ariq looked at her sharply. "Even in the east, beyond the town's boundaries?"

"Yes."

That was Wajarri territory. Fools. Hope clutched in Ariq's chest, but he put that aside, too. It would serve his town no better than anger would.

Mara continued, "When we first arrived, our hired airship was ordered to turn away—until we said we were coming at Ariq Noyan's behest. Then we were invited in, but they sent the airship away again. Ghazan Bator questioned our purpose, then told us that we couldn't leave. He said you would come when we didn't return."

In the chair beside the bed, Zenobia frowned. "But why not send you back? You could make sure Ariq came when you told him what was happening."

Ariq answered her. "Because Mara and Cooper would tell me what they're telling me now—the number of soldiers and ships, where they are positioned, how they've been deployed."

That information wasn't much of an advantage, though. The general had trained him and would know the tactics Ariq might use. So what wouldn't Ghazan Bator expect?

"Does it even matter now?" Zenobia asked. "Why not go into Krakentown and tell the general that the Nipponese empress has the machine? It's not yours to give anymore. It's over."

It wasn't over. "Lady Nagamochi is probably on her way to my town now—or will be soon, if she's heard of our escape."

The same device that had allowed the empress to speak through the automaton in the quarantine tower might allow Lady Nagamochi to stay in communication with the palace. If the captain of the imperial guard had that device on her airship, she would have already heard that Ariq and Zenobia were gone.

Confusion furrowed Zenobia's brow. "Why would she come?"

"Because the tattoo on my back only gave the location where the machine _used_ to be."

Her eyes widened. "Is it under Krakentown?"

Not directly under. But near enough. Ariq nodded.

"Ha!" With that burst of laughter, she shook her head. "I knew it! So you sent her to Old Nippon to give us time to escape?"

A knife seemed to stab through his chest. His wife looked at him with admiration now, but she'd suffered because of his strategy. She hadn't put that together yet. She would.

Mara broke in, "None of your townspeople have said where the machine is. I overheard the general questioning Tsetseg and the others. They all said they know nothing of it."

Of course they would. Even to the general. "Did he threaten them?"

"No. He is still waiting for you and intends to use your brother to persuade you to give up the machine."

Anger and worry dug in like claws. "Does my brother know?"

Taka would never allow himself to be used that way. He'd kill himself first—and he might not wait for Ariq to arrive before doing it.

"I don't know if he's aware," Mara said. "They've hidden him away in his chambers and keep him under guard."

Then Taka must at least suspect, and Ghazan Bator was making certain that his brother couldn't destroy the general's most powerful weapon against Ariq—Taka's life.

"How did you escape?"

"We were quartered in the same residence that we stayed in before with Zenobia and Helene." Mara glanced back at Archimedes. "He and Captain Corsair found us. We spoke to your soldiers before we left, to see if any wanted to come. They all chose to stay and wait for you, in case they were needed in town. They said to let you know that they won't fight unless Ghazan Bator or his soldiers begin hurting anyone."

Good. Their submission might put Ghazan Bator's men at ease, so that they could be taken unaware when Ariq's soldiers _did_ fight.

"So everyone waits," Archimedes said. "But what happens when you arrive? Can your machine stand against the fleet?"

Ariq nodded. One fleet, yes. But his town would still be destroyed in the battle.

Unless the general's and the admiral's carelessness brought their own destruction down on their heads. "Was Meeng still in the town?"

Cooper shook his head. "They said he slipped out when the general's men arrived."

As expected. The lease agreement between Ariq and the Wajarri had been specific. They would host Ariq's people and allow them to settle within the town's boundaries. But the Wajarri would not take part in any skirmishes between outsiders, so Meeng wouldn't stay and become involved in this one.

By setting up an airship blockade over Wajarri territory, however, the Nipponese fleet tested those boundaries—and this might not be just a skirmish between outsiders any longer.

Hope flared again. This time Ariq didn't put it aside. He looked to Archimedes. "I need to hire your skyrunner and your crew."

" _Lady Nergüi_ is not mine." Archimedes rose to his feet. "You'll need to speak with the captain."

***

Captain Corsair—the woman who'd killed Zenobia's father and inspired the character of Lady Lynx in Zenobia's serial adventures. When he'd read her story, Ariq had suspected that Zenobia had exaggerated her sister-in-law's abilities. But given what he'd seen of Captain Corsair when she'd helped rescue them from the quarantine tower, now he believed that Zenobia might have downplayed the woman's skills, instead—probably to make the fiction more believable.

Leaving their cabin, Ariq followed Zenobia and Mara along the narrow corridor toward the ladder that led to the upper decks. Zenobia's brown hair had been pinned into a messy coil at her nape. Like his shirt, her dress must have been borrowed; the sleeves were too short and her ankles peeked from beneath the hem. Neither of them had shoes.

But clothes weren't all that she'd lost. Ariq had left nothing he cared about behind in the quarantine. His wife had.

"You lost another manuscript," he said softly. The first one burned by Ghazan Bator. The second abandoned in their quarters.

She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder at him. "Only a few hours' work. I sent duplicate pages with Helene whenever she visited."

"She attempted to visit you again yesterday morning," Mara told her. "When we first returned from Krakentown, the imperial gunships turned _Lady Nergüi_ away from the quarantine tower. So we flew to the embassy and discovered that Helene and the ambassador had already tried to visit you; it was they who told us you were being held in the tower. She will be glad to know that you're safe now."

"I'll write to her as soon as possible, then," Zenobia said. She reached the companionway and hiked up her skirts before climbing the steep stairs. Her pale calves flashed with each quick step, and Ariq followed her up into the bright sun.

Steam billowed behind the airship in a dense cloud. Cold wind tore at his shirt. In the desert below, the day might have been a warm one, but on the skyrunner's deck the speed of their flight prickled a chill over his skin. Zenobia wrapped her arms around herself, her dress whipping behind her legs. He caught her close, sharing his warmth as they made their way past to the quarterdeck, where the captain waited behind the pilot's housing.

With a cigarillo between her lips and her short aviator's jacket buckled tight, Captain Corsair gestured for them to join her. By the time they reached the windbreak, one of the crew had come running with a jacket for Zenobia. The captain looked to Ariq as his wife gratefully tugged on the coat.

"We don't have an extra your size!" The captain shouted over the roar of the engines and the wind. "Finding that shirt was miracle enough."

He didn't care. "I need to hire your crew!"

The captain's grin exposed sharp teeth. Unease tightened the muscles along Ariq's spine. His gaze rose to the red kerchief tied over her dark braids—and which covered the tips of her ears. But he knew what lay beneath that cloth.

Tengri help him. No wonder Zenobia had downplayed this woman's skills. "My lady," he added in Mongolian.

Her eyes narrowed. "Prince Ariq."

A title that wasn't truly his. Perhaps she didn't use hers, either.

Zenobia looked from his face to Captain Corsair's. "You recognize her? Have you met before? Please don't say you were enemies."

"No." Ariq bent his head to her ear so that he didn't have to shout. Captain Corsair would hear him as well as Mara did, but without a device. "I didn't realize she is _gan tsetseg._ "

_"Gan tsetseg?"_

"A flower of steel," he told her. "Like my uncle's guard, Nasrin. A woman of loyalty and strength, altered by the spirit of a lynx, and with a body of mechanical flesh."

"I see," Zenobia said, wearing a wide grin, her emerald eyes bright and triumphant as she looked to the captain.

Confused, Ariq glanced at the other woman. Her narrowed gaze steadily held Zenobia's, but her dangerous expression had taken on an edge of dismay.

Suddenly laughing, Zenobia tugged him down to speak into his ear. "I pay twenty-five percent of my royalties to her in exchange for details of her travels, but she has been withholding that particular bit of information from me until I raise her portion to fifty percent. And to think, I was so very close to giving in."

Another of her negotiations. He had apparently just saved his wife's money, but by the look in the captain's eyes, hiring her crew might cost him more now than it would have before he'd undercut her position.

It didn't matter. Whatever her price, he would pay it.

"I am not made of mechanical flesh," the captain finally said, and blew a long stream of smoke into the air. "And I'm not loyal to anything but the coin I earn. Your uncle is Temür Agha?"

"Yes," Ariq said. "My wife told me that you flew him out of Rabat after that city's revolution—that you left him in Europe, where he is gathering a rebel army from the outposts and marching east."

"I did. And we recently saw him again, not far from the Hapsburg Wall."

Near the eastern edge of the uninhabited territories of Europe. Soon his uncle would be marching through the empire itself.

"Is that what you wish to hire me for?" the captain asked. "A ride to the Hapsburg Wall?"

Ariq shook his head. "I need to speak to the Wajarri."

The captain looked at him blankly before glancing at Zenobia.

"The native tribe that is host to Krakentown," his wife said.

Captain Corsair nodded. "Where are they?"

"Almost two hundred miles east of my town." Meeng would have gone to consult with the council. "You have a map?"

"No good one depicting that area," she said. "Can you navigate for us when we're closer?"

"Yes." Ariq hadn't been to that city before, but he knew where it was. He would need more from her than transportation, though. "When we arrive, can you provide a meal?"

Her brows rose. "For how many?"

Ariq didn't know. "As many as possible."

"So you intend to entice them into joining your war with lamb and rice?" Her sharp grin appeared again. "I'll tell Cook. He'll have something for you."

"And the price?"

She glanced at Zenobia. "We'll discuss it later."

"When I am not here to talk your price down," his wife said.

"That is exactly why," her sister-in-law replied easily before looking to Ariq again. "Both food and the distance we must travel will take several hours. Until then, I suggest that you continue to rest and heal."

"I have slept enough," Ariq said.

"But your wife has not slept at all," she countered. "And I do not think she will without you."

It was decided, then.

# Chapter Thirty

Zenobia hadn't thought she would be able to sleep, but within minutes after lying down next to Ariq she slipped away. She woke later to the powerful thrum of the airship's engines and found Ariq propped up on his elbow, watching her. Hunger burned in his eyes—and although only hours before she'd never been so tired, now she'd never felt more alive. God, when she thought of all that they'd survived—

No, she wouldn't. She wouldn't think of that. Instead she surged up and kissed him, feeding the hunger until need was a sharp blade, but it was the tap at the cabin door that made her want to scream.

Still, she would have ignored it—until Mara called through the door that _Lady Nergüi_ was approaching Wajarri territory. So instead of ignoring the knock, she lay groaning pitifully in bed while Ariq dressed. He laughed at her, then kissed her again before leaving the stateroom. She readied more slowly and finally climbed to the upper decks.

Ariq stood near the bow—perhaps searching the territory ahead for landmarks. Zenobia stopped at the top of the companionway and simply watched him.

The white shirt looked odd on his big frame. So thin and flimsy, it provided no resistance against the wind. His tunics were more structured, seemed more contained.

More like Ariq.

Already he moved more easily than he had after waking earlier. Even the lingering bruises had faded almost to nothing, leaving only those shallow furrows beneath his skin. He healed extraordinarily fast. She should have remembered how fast. When he'd first rescued her from the marauders, he'd been shot in the arm—but within a few days, she'd seen him walking naked out of the sea, and not even a mark had remained.

She hadn't even thought of the bullet wound then, too distracted by all of the skin and muscle on display before her. Now, even though they were covered by the flimsy shirt, she couldn't stop seeing the beetles burrowing beneath his skin and the crossbow bolts that had slammed into his back when he'd used his body as her shield.

And she could see his worry now. He hadn't spoken of it. Like his wounds, if she hadn't known what to look for she might not have seen the traces of it. But she recognized the stillness in him, the tension.

She'd felt the same as she'd waited through the night in the quarantine while he'd "negotiated" with Lady Nagamochi. Helpless anxiety had been a cruel monster in her chest while she'd waited for him, wondering what was happening. Yet the reality had been more horrifying than anything she'd imagined.

She thought Ariq must be feeling the same now—wondering what was happening in his town, fearing the reality might be worse than he knew.

Unless he'd put the fear aside, just as he could put his anger and frustration aside. Zenobia had never been able to—except when she was writing.

She wished she had her notebook now. Snagging a pair of goggles from the store near the ladder, she joined him at the bow.

They weren't far from Krakentown—only a few hundred miles east—and so she had expected the same flat, arid scrublands surrounding that town. Though there were patches of similar brush and red dirt, this land was far more rugged. An irregular monolith lay to the north, and the landscape rose and fell into crags and ridges. Green trees grew in clumps along a swollen river the color of rust.

"Is that the same river that runs through your town?" The river that dried up every year, until the rains came again.

"No. Though this river feeds into that one."

And the Wajarri apparently used it to irrigate the land. There was no familiar patchwork of fields, yet signs of cultivation began to appear in circles of turned earth, though she didn't see any plantings.

And no farmers. A few tall walking machines stood near the river, the balloon heads distinct across the distance. "Where are the houses?"

Ariq pointed to a copse of trees. Frowning, Zenobia glanced at the spyglass in his hand, but he pulled it out of her reach before she could take it. "They would consider it rude," he said.

Anybody would. But despite her curiosity, they couldn't afford rudeness now, Zenobia understood. Not when the fate of Ariq's town might rest in their hands. So she squinted, then her lips parted on a gasp. "They're not trees!"

"Some of them are."

Some of them. And the rest were platforms and shelters and bridges. "Is it to avoid the boilerworms?"

Just as almost every building in the mining community of Altun stood on stilts.

"I think so," Ariq said. "But it might be for concealment, or so that the homes aren't damaged when the river floods. Maybe some other reason."

"Is it a full community?"

"Probably a family or a clan. But I don't know for certain."

Because the Wajarri preferred to conduct their business with outsiders through a liaison, such as Meeng. Ariq wouldn't have been invited to any of these communities. "Are we allowed to fly here?"

"Yes. But we would need permission to leave the airship or to hover for any length of time. They rarely give it."

"Will they give it to you?"

"I won't ask for it. Meeng would prefer to come up—and if he does, that will be permission enough."

"Would he— Oh!" She gripped his arm as they flew over another ridge, and suddenly hundreds more trees and walking machines dotted the long, shallow valley laid out before them.

The walking machines weren't the same as the Nyungar's, though the balloon head was similar. Shorter, they had sturdier frames—but were still taller than any of the surrounding trees.

She could see figures working the fields now, men or women wearing colorful wraps. Laboring alongside them was a smaller walking machine that resembled a man with a stick, which it pushed through the soil ahead like a plow. Pale dust rose over another field, though most of the ground looked heavy and wet with rain.

Not dust, she realized suddenly. Steam. And in the midst of it, a terrifyingly familiar shape erupted from the ground.

"A boilerworm," she said, and as another of the monsters appeared beside the first her tongue seemed to shrivel, the words thick. "Boilerworm _s_. Oh, God. Can we help?"

Ariq caught her wrist as she turned with the intention to find Yasmeen. "They don't need help."

"But—"

"Look."

He steered her back to the rail, where she watched with her heart pounding. The boilerworms circled . . . and circled . . . and circled. Not one of them started for any of the Wajarri working in the fields, and none of the Wajarri were running, though their human bodies must have been warmer than the ground or the air.

Zenobia shook her head. "I don't understand. Have the Wajarri domesticated them?"

"The worms haven't been tamed. The Wajarri remove part of the brains, then use the worms to dig. These are being used in the fields, and others to create underground water storage. See?" He traced a path through the air that encompassed an enormous portion of the valley, and she recognized a faint corresponding shape on the ground. "The stored water can be used in the dry seasons—and it keeps other boilerworms away, because the water underground stays cool. So the Wajarri can run the plows and walk safely without worrying that a boilerworm will come up from below."

At a loss for words, Zenobia could only shake her head again.

Ariq said, "The Wajarri dug out the Skybreaker's chamber for me in the same way."

"Using boilerworms?"

"Yes. It would have taken years for me to excavate a chamber of the same size."

Incredible. And she realized, "Then they already know about the machine?"

He nodded. "I couldn't have hidden it from Meeng even if I'd wanted to. And now we've been seen. I'll tell Captain Corsair to stop and wait for them."

How did he know they'd been seen? Zenobia remained at the bow, watching. After a few moments, she realized that many of the walking machines had turned in _Lady Nergüi_ 's direction. Others had begun striding toward them.

She needed to stop staring. Reluctantly, she stepped away from the rail and turned her back on the approaching machines.

The engines quieted. From below, she heard a bleating goat—and before long, the sound was drowned out by the heavy stomp of the walking machines.

***

Captain Corsair offered her quarters for the meeting with the Wajarri, and the cabin she shared with Zenobia's brother wouldn't have been out of place in a palace. Heavy curtains draped the walls and sleeping berth. Silk pillows in brilliant colors were piled around a low table weighed down by a feast. The air was laden with the scent of spiced roasted meats, saffron, and rice.

Meeng offered Ariq a small nod—not just in appreciation of the food, Ariq thought, but because he'd made sure it was available. His friend's face was otherwise unreadable, as were those of his companions. Two other men had accompanied Meeng aboard, but he hadn't told Ariq their names—he only called them "the older" and "the younger."

Only a few words passed between them as they settled around the table. Though at any other time, Meeng would have already been helping himself to a bowl or two, Ariq had expected this new formality. Meeng represented his people's interests, just as Ariq represented his.

He hadn't expected that they would eat before talking of anything at all. Never had it been so difficult to push his worry aside, but he forced down every bite, though his stomach seemed scoured raw. They followed with cigarillos, and each puff drew his lungs tighter and tighter.

Finally Meeng asked through a cloud of smoke, "Is the general still in your town?"

"Yes. You left as soon as his men arrived?"

Meeng nodded lazily, but his gaze was sharp. When he replied, he indicated the elder and the younger, though the two other men were not even looking at him or Ariq. "The general was not the man we'd made our agreement with, and I didn't want to be forced to make another agreement that wasn't as beneficial to us."

Because, as the liaison, he would have to honor it. "Thank you."

Meeng shrugged. "So I awaited your return. You _do_ intend to get rid of him?"

"As soon as I'm able. He wants the machine."

Meeng's eyes narrowed. "Do you intend to give it to him?"

"No." And here was another reason Ariq couldn't hand it over. The Wajarri knew what they'd allowed into their lands and what lay at their feet. Ariq had told them the machine would slumber, but he couldn't keep that promise now. "I might have to use it against a Nipponese fleet."

The other men still weren't watching them, but now they quit all pretense of paying attention to anything else. They listened intently as Meeng asked, "What will that mean?"

"War. So I have come for your help."

Meeng's lazy posture dropped away. He sat up, his back straight and his expression tight. "We will _not_ see our men die for you."

"The Nipponese airships are hovering over your territory at the eastern side of my town. Not only flying, but intercepting other ships and threatening them. In _your_ territory."

His friend's expression became grave. "If they encroach once, they might again—and the treaties with the Nipponese would be broken. Not only ours, but those of our brothers and sisters."

The other tribes and clans all considered their relationship with the Nipponese as one, so that the massacres and wars of centuries past wouldn't be repeated. In that respect, just one tribe was powerful enough that even the empress would step lightly in her dealings with them.

"I don't want you to fight," Ariq told him. "I don't believe the Nipponese would risk endangering the treaties, either—but they might risk it if you aren't there to see how they've stepped over your territory. They might believe there is no danger in what you don't know. Even _you_ cannot see an airship's footprint."

His friend appeared irritated by that observation, but he only grunted a response, indicating that Ariq should continue.

"Your presence should force them away from the eastern side of town. If it does, I'll only have to fight on one side."

Meeng nodded. "So that you do not have enemies at your back and your front."

"Yes."

"Then we will discuss it with the others and tell you of our decision." Abruptly he stood, followed by the younger and the elder.

"How long?" Ariq asked.

Meeng shrugged. His companions preceded him through the door. In the passageway, Ariq fell into step beside his friend and lowered his voice.

"Will you come?" Ariq thought that Meeng wanted to—he knew the man cared about the fate of the town—but it was not only Meeng's decision. He would have to persuade the others. Still, one walking machine standing over his town could make all the difference.

"If we arrive, you will know our answer," Meeng said, and left Ariq stewing in hot frustration.

But he had to accept that answer. It was Meeng's way. The man wouldn't make a promise now if he wasn't certain he could honor it.

Zenobia joined Ariq as he stood at the rail, watching the cargo lift carry the three men to the ground. Children played below, laughing and daring each other to race near the platform as it lowered.

By the time the lift began rising again, her brother had taken up the rail at her left side, with Mara, Cooper, and Captain Corsair nearby.

His wife's voice was quiet as she asked, "Do you think they will come?"

"I don't know." The admission was difficult, as if his throat and chest were caught in a vise. "I think he'll try to persuade them."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then I fight," he said bleakly. "I fight to the end."

Her brother pushed away from the rail, shaking his head. "This war machine—you can't give it up? We can find you another. We can have it brought to you."

Just as any former smuggler would say. But Archimedes Fox didn't know the Skybreaker wasn't just any war machine. If it was, Ariq could find another, too.

"Not like this one," Ariq said. "Ghazan Bator would use it to destroy the Khagan, but would also smash anyone caught in his path."

Mara glanced over the rail at the playing children and her lips tightened, as if she'd imagined the young of the Golden Empire caught in that path. "You fear the Nipponese empress would, too?"

"Not that she would use it against the Khagan," he said. "She would be less likely to use it at all. But I've seen how quickly she will strike against a threat, even if the evidence turns against it. Should I leave my town with no defense against that?" Ariq couldn't. "If I give up the Skybreaker, it is a choice between allowing the slaughter of the people I spent years fighting for, or to leave defenseless the people I fight for now. Which would you choose?"

Her face troubled, Mara shook her head. The silence from the others said they saw no good alternative, either.

And so this was what it felt like to be trapped. To have no options. To have worry and helpless frustration crawling through his chest like a cold, barbed worm.

"What next?" Captain Corsair said. "Do we wait here?"

Ariq couldn't. "We fly to my town. If the Wajarri decide to come, they will come—but if Ghazan Bator still occupies the town, even their presence might not be enough. The general cares nothing for the treaties between them and the Nipponese."

"Will the admiral?" Zenobia asked. "Tatsukawa is already going against the empress's wishes by pursuing this route. Will he care about the treaties?"

"He would. He wants to destroy the Khagan so that the Golden Empire won't be a threat to Nippon. Starting a war with the Wajarri or any of the other tribes would create a new threat. I think he'll try to avoid that."

"To Krakentown then," Captain Corsair said. "Quietly?"

"Yes," Ariq said. The general had to know he was coming, but Ariq didn't have to announce his arrival.

"Are you taking back your town?"

"I am. But I would like to hire your crew to help me."

"Then we'll go wherever you toss your gold." The captain glanced up at the sky. The sun hung low on the western horizon. "Travel will be a little over three hours, and we'll arrive under clear skies and a bright moon. Our balloon will be spotted on our approach."

"We have the autogyros we designed to infiltrate New Eden," Archimedes said. "They can carry eight of us and are quiet."

_Us._ Zenobia's brother was already including himself in this mission. All right. Ariq had worked with the man before. He would again.

"We can fly the machines in from the southeast," Ariq said. "There's a chamber underground. We'll use it as a tunnel to access the town. It opens up behind my residence."

The captain nodded. "You know the town and the general best. Can you sketch out a plan of attack?"

He'd already formed one. "Yes."

"Then we'll take this into my cabin and talk it out while we fly." Moving with purpose, the captain started across the decks. A moment later the quartermaster was shouting orders to the crew. The engines fired.

Her face pale, Zenobia waited as the others filed toward the companionway, briefly leaving her alone with Ariq at the rail. She'd caught her lower lip between her teeth and Ariq knew what she was stopping herself from asking. "You want to go," he said softly.

She sighed. "I know I can't. They already have your brother. I won't give them another weapon against you, so that you have to give up the Skybreaker to save us."

If Ghazan Bator used Taka to force Ariq into giving up the machine, making that trade wouldn't be saving his brother. It would destroy him, instead. But Ariq didn't say so. No matter what happened in his town, he didn't want his wife caught in the middle.

And she wouldn't be unprotected here. "Mara and Cooper will be staying with you."

Her sharp features instantly set into stubborn lines. "No. They can help you—"

"They could. But I hired this this crew because you once told me that Captain Corsair could help me, too. Now will you tell me this crew isn't good enough?"

"They are. But—"

"Even your brother? You called him an idiot."

She seemed to choke. Startled by the question, but laughing now. "As long as he doesn't wear his brightest yellow breeches and give away your position."

"Yes," Ariq agreed. Though his own white blousy shirt would compete for the attention.

With a heavy sigh, her laughter faded away. "Please be careful."

That he could do. Catching her hand, he kissed her ink-stained fingers and swore, "I will."

# Chapter Thirty-one

Ariq had never liked autogyros—they were too unstable and easy to tip—yet these maneuvered well. They could fly near enough to the ground to avoid attracting attention, and the quiet whirring of the blades overhead wouldn't be noticed by anyone aboard the Nipponese airships.

They approached the southeast entrance of the Skybreaker's chamber and he breathed deep of the cool air as soon as they sat the machines onto the ground. His town had its own smell, of ocean and baked earth and roasting kraken. Ariq hadn't realized how much he'd missed it until he'd filled his lungs with the scent again.

The entrance was little more than a hole in the ground marked by a tree and concealed by dirt. He uncovered the door and dialed the lock combination. On bare feet, he began to descend the ladder. The water was up to his shins when he reached the bottom; Taka hadn't been able to run the pumps with the general in town. It didn't matter. If Ariq was forced to use the Skybreaker, soon this chamber would be completely full of water.

It was an endless trek past the machine, all but invisible in the darkness overhead. Captain Corsair and her crew splashed behind him, led by the pinpoint lantern he carried for them to follow. After a few minutes, she caught up to him.

"I thought you were exaggerating the size," she said quietly.

"No." And he hadn't realized she could see in the dark.

"It could easily destroy a city."

It could destroy much more than that. But Ariq only said, "Yes."

Water splashed around their legs. The sound echoed from the sides of the chamber and the machine.

"I was raised in Constantinople," she said, and the words were heavy with meaning, like a dagger dripping with blood. "Do you know what your uncle did there?"

Ariq did. Twenty years before, a claimant to the Khagan's throne had been marching his way east toward the royal city, and Temür Agha—the Khagan's most feared general—had destroyed Constantinople to stop him.

"I know," he said softly.

"He would have used a machine like this if he'd had it. Now he marches east with his rebel army. Do you intend to let him use it now?"

"He wouldn't use it now," Ariq said. "He won't even ask for it."

And if his uncle ever did, all of Ariq's hope for the rebellion would vanish.

"You're so certain?"

"Yes." He stopped and faced her. She was hardly more than a tall shadow beside him. "You must hate him, yet you helped him escape Rabat when it fell."

She laughed a little. A moment later the flare of a spark lighter revealed the hardness of her expression. She lit a cigarillo before extinguishing the flame, and the glowing tip was all that he saw of her through the dark. "While I was there—just before the uprising—I spent every moment planning to kill him. I would have only needed to get past Nasrin long enough to twist his neck."

She might have been able to. Ariq didn't think many others would have stood a chance against his uncle's guard. This woman might have had a slim one.

"Why didn't you?"

She started forward again. "He freed everyone in Rabat years before that. All of those people were under the tower's control, yet even though he had been appointed governor by the Khagan, he freed them—and when they no longer accepted his governorship or Horde rule, he didn't crush them. He could have."

Easily. "That cannot atone for Constantinople."

"No. Nothing ever could." Her voice was bleak. "Not even killing him would. But now I wonder how _you_ support him. You don't want Ghazan Bator to have this machine because he would destroy innocents in his path. Yet your uncle already has."

"That is the difference. My uncle has known that weight, and he once told my mother that he would never bear it again, no matter what result might come of it." And through his mother's teachings, Ariq had learned that such a weight was never worth carrying. "My uncle is not an innocent man. If someone killed him for what he'd done in Constantinople, if you had killed him, it would have been a just death. But of all men who might end the Khagan's tyranny, he is the only one I trust not to trample his own people. And he is the only one I trust not to seek the throne for himself, or to control the next person who sits upon it."

By the bobbing of her cigarillo, he thought she nodded. "When I saw the machine," she said, "I feared I might have to slit your throat. I'm glad I won't have to."

So was Ariq. But he understood. The Skybreaker was too much power in the hands of anyone willing to use it—and right now, the machine was in Ariq's hands. "Why did you fear?"

"Zenobia would have hated me for it."

"You hesitated for her?"

"Yes. And because of the crossbow bolts you took to save her." The tip of her cigarillo glowed brighter as she inhaled. "Her trust is rarely given, so you must have earned it. So I will trust that you won't use this machine to create another Constantinople."

"I won't," Ariq said, even as a dreadful ache screwed deep into his chest. He knew exactly how precious Zenobia's trust was. Now he might lose it because he'd been an instrument of her terror. In the quarantine tower, he'd done to her what he'd sworn never to do with the machine: justify the route he'd taken with the result he hoped to achieve.

But he couldn't think of that now. He had to push the fear of losing her away, or risk losing everything—not just his wife, but the lives of everyone who depended on him.

Yet the fear still lingered, a dark ache beneath the calm when he reached the end of the chamber and began the long climb up the ladder. Once inside the pump house, Captain Corsair paused at the door, listening for movement outside. Unlike Mara, she didn't have a listening device. She didn't need one.

A moment later, she gave the signal and they slipped out into the dark behind his home.

Zenobia had been right about Captain Corsair's crew. They were well-trained and efficient. Ariq couldn't fault their silence or their swiftness as they fanned out, scouting for guards.

Captain Corsair and Ariq waited at the back wall of his exterior garden. Quietly, she said, "Something in the town is burning. It smells like dead flesh."

He knew the scent. "A beached kraken."

Roasting until the shell could be picked clean. Captain Corsair nodded, then glanced to the side as the first of her crew returned to report on the guards' positions.

Only a half dozen men within his home, with another four at the front gate. Two were stationed outside his brother's quarters, but the others on rotation within the residence. Still easy enough to ambush. Few of the rooms were connected, allowing them to slip between the buildings and attack all at once.

There might be other men within the living quarters—including Ghazan Bator. Mara had said the general had taken up residence in Ariq's home. But the night was still young, and the number of guards suggested that the general was elsewhere. He would have wanted more protection while sleeping.

"Quickly and silently," Captain Corsair told her crew when they'd assembled again. "After taking out the guards, check each chamber. No surprises. We don't want to alert the guards stationed at the front gates."

Ariq did. He wanted them to come running in so that he could smash them, too. But he settled for climbing over the garden wall and making his way around behind Taka's quarters, his bare feet silent on the ground.

Two guards flanked the entrance, alert but with their weapons sheathed. They might have had a chance if those blades had already been drawn.

The signal sounded—a soft trill that couldn't have belonged to any bird in this part of the world, but these guards didn't know that. That ignorance was their death.

Ariq slipped from the shadows and snapped the first guard's neck. The second guard died while pivoting to see what the movement had been. Around the courtyard, the thud of flesh and crack of bone joined the gurgle of blood as throats were sliced and the guards were silenced.

Taka's doors opened. His brother's face didn't show any surprise when he spotted Ariq standing before him. Taka's gaze took in the scene behind him before returning to Ariq.

"That was no night bird," he said softly.

Ariq grinned. "No."

His brother stepped into the courtyard—moving easily, Ariq was relieved to see. Whatever had happened here, and however Ghazan Bator had planned to use Taka against him, torture hadn't been part of it . . . yet.

"I hope these guards weren't rebels that you trained," Taka said. "I would doubt your leadership, brother."

So would Ariq. "If I'd trained them, they would already be living in my town. Where is Ghazan Bator?"

"In the soup house. He's taken to eating there with a full complement of men. Sometimes he invites one or two of your soldiers to dine with him."

Hoping to work on them, most likely—so that they would either give up the location of the machine or expose any brewing resistance.

"Then I'll be his guest tonight," Ariq said.

But not in a blousy white shirt and bare feet. Quickly he entered his own quarters and changed his clothing. Taka and most of Captain Corsair's crew had gone when he emerged—already leaving to quietly spread the word of his return. The captain and Archimedes Fox waited for him in the courtyard, their dark clothes splattered with blood.

Zenobia's brother looked him over. "What do you expect now?"

"To have a crowd behind me by the time I reach the soup house," he said. "I don't believe that his men will attempt to stop me."

"If they do?"

"I will stop," Ariq said simply. Better that than have Ghazan Bator's soldiers using force against his people. "They will take me to him, anyway."

"Where do you want us?" Captain Corsair asked.

"Behind me." Just in case events didn't proceed as Ariq thought they would. "I'll need you to help protect anyone who joins us."

But it wasn't necessary. The general's men must have been told to stand down if Ariq arrived, because although far more than three people gathered behind him, Ghazan Bator's rebels didn't attempt to stop them. They should have. Because with every step Ariq took, every relieved face that he saw, his purpose and resolve only grew. Ghazan Bator had brought into his town the same quiet fear and oppression that so many of Ariq's people had tried to escape. He would _not_ fail them.

Word of his return had spread through the town. Others townspeople already waited at the soup house gate, along with Taka and Ariq's soldiers—all of them quiet while the guards watched uneasily. They'd have known what to do against a mob, Ariq thought. This silent resistance unnerved them.

Ariq only took Taka and Tsetseg with him up the path to the soup house entrance. He would have liked to have them all beside him, but better that the others remain behind to reassure the crowd.

More of Ghazan Bator's soldiers sat at every table, but although food waited in their bowls, none of them were eating. They'd known he was coming.

All rebels, but Ariq didn't know any of them. Most were young. Many were frightened. He didn't know if Ghazan Bator had persuaded them that this course—first hiring marauders to fire on airships, then occupying a town—would benefit the rebellion or if they simply followed orders. He hoped it was the first. He knew how persuasive the general could be, and how he fed the fires of rebellion within his men until it burned away every other care.

But care could be taught; courage could not. And as much as they respected him, Ariq's own soldiers would have rebelled against _him_ if he'd sacrificed innocents in the name of the rebellion.

The general sat at Ariq's table, in Ariq's spot, with Vasili beside him. The blond soldier didn't hesitate before rising to his feet and making room for Ariq.

Ariq took his place. Ghazan Bator sipped his tea, as if this were all exactly what he'd expected.

Perhaps it was. The general glanced across the courtyard toward the soup house entrance, where Captain Corsair and Archimedes Fox stood quietly, watching. "Did you find mercenaries in the dens?"

"No. Only friends," Ariq said. "But your presence here makes this town no different from the dens. You are the strongest; you have more men and a fleet at your side. So you have taken control."

Like the twins and almost every other den lord would have.

The general seemed amused by the comparison. "Some would look to your strength and disagree that I am the stronger."

"A man is only as strong as the weapons he possesses." And Ariq had an iron heart. A steel will. A mind like a blade and words like arrows. Even a war machine was not more powerful than those.

But Ghazan Bator had forgotten that. "The rebellion could be stronger," the general said. "The Skybreaker could change everything."

Ariq shook his head. "It would be exactly the same. The Khagan doesn't care who he destroys with his power; if you use the Skybreaker, nothing would change. Power would be in the hands of someone willing to destroy anyone who stands in the way of victory."

The general's mouth flattened. "You think Temür Agha will be different?"

He hoped so. "I think the difference is not in the man, but how many stand behind him. I think that change will truly come when their combined fists are bigger than a single mighty one."

With a heavy sigh, the other man shook his head. "You ask those who are weak to fight; we should fight for them."

Ariq _was_ fighting for them. But now he saw that he and the general would never agree about what the meant.

Ghazan Bator must have realized it, too. "Where is the machine? And do not tell me that the map is on your back."

"It is," Ariq said. "Just as I have told the Nipponese. The empress's guard is flying to the location now."

"And I have already been there. I knew what that tattoo was—but I didn't know what it was for. Your mother said that it pointed to her home island, so that you would always have your history on your back. You had your father's body and face, but would have her history on you, too. I believed it, until I heard rumors of the machine. I went there to look for it before I came to see you last year."

But it had already been moved—and Ghazan Bator would not be fooled as Lady Nagamochi had been. Now only one course remained. It was not the route Ariq preferred, but it was the one he would take.

Ghazan Bator must have recognized the resignation that filled him, but he mistook the reason for it. "I know you well, boy," the general said. "And your mother made you too soft. You have this machine, and so much strength, but you don't have the heart to do what must be done."

His mother had taught him exactly that: To do what must be done. But she had taught him to do it while having a heart. Not heartlessly.

"I won't give it up," Ariq said.

Nodding, as if he'd expected that answer, the general called out, "Bring her in!"

_Her._ For an instant, terrible fear seized Ariq's heart—that the general's men had found the airship. That they had Zenobia. If they harmed her at all, Ariq would tear the world apart.

But when the soldiers brought in Yesui, instead, his anger didn't abate. Only his fear did.

"Brother," Taka said softly behind him, and the sound was joined by a hiss of breath from Tsetseg. Both of them, ready to fight.

Ariq held up his hand, stopping them. He knew exactly what had to be done now. He was only sorry that Yesui's boy was with her, clinging to her hand. No one so young should have to see this.

"She was one of your favorites, wasn't she?" the general said as Yesui was led to the center of the soup house. "You trained her yourself."

"Yes." And now Ariq met her eyes. The archer was prepared to die, and he didn't see any panic within her—only the same rage that filled him. He raised his voice so that everyone in the soup house could hear. "Her husband was one of the first men your marauders murdered. He was a merchant, not a soldier, and they blew his airship out of the sky."

A few of Ghazan Bator's men looked away from him—and away from Yesui. Ashamed. As they should be.

Ariq looked to the general again. "She is a soldier. And she will sacrifice her life so that you never possess the Skybreaker. Is that true, Yesui?"

Proudly, she lifted her chin. Her voice was strong. "Yes."

"I have sent many soldiers under my command to die. You have seen this, Yesui? And will you give up your life so that the Skybreaker won't be used to crush the people in the Golden Empire?"

"Yes, Noyan."

"So I will let her die," Ariq said. "And you will have murdered a woman who dedicated years to fighting against the Khagan. This is your rebellion? This is how you will bring change? By murdering that boy's father and his mother?"

Ghazan Bator smiled, as if amused. "You were so angry at me for not saving your mother, though she died for the rebellion. Should I believe that you would sacrifice this woman now? You are only testing to see if I will follow through on my threats—and I assure you that I will."

No. Ariq was just waiting for the general's arrogance to overcome his sense. Ghazan Bator still saw Ariq as a soldier under his command. He wasn't—and the general should never have looked away from him.

Ghazan Bator glanced to the soldiers flanking Yesui. Ariq's arm shot out. He gripped the back of the general's head and slammed his face into the table.

Heavy wood cracked. Bone shattered against his palm. Fleshy pulp and tea splattered the nearby bowls. The general's body jerked and spasmed, his brain crushed within his skull.

Silence fell—until Ariq stood. Soldiers scrambled up, some reaching for their weapons, others starting for the doors.

"Stop!"

His command froze them in place. Ariq looked them over. Some were prepared to fight, to die. Some weren't. It didn't matter. They would all have one choice.

"Put down your weapons and you will live," he said. "But you will not live here. When the Nipponese have gone, you will be taken to the western front to march with Temür Agha. If you believe in the rebellion, then you will have your opportunity to fight with him there. Or you will die here."

Slowly, the first few did. Others followed, until each one had laid down his sword.

Satisfied, Ariq looked to Vasili. "Let his men take the body and prepare it with as much honor as they feel it deserves. Have them take it now. There are still other soldiers outside—if they see that these men aren't fighting and that the general is gone, they will be more likely to give up, as well—especially when they learn they will be fighting under Temür Agha." His uncle's name could inspire any rebel. When Vasili nodded, Ariq went to Yesui, who was holding her boy tight. "I am sorry. I know you would have liked to put arrows through him."

"No death would be good enough," she said quietly, stroking her son's hair. "So I thank you for this one."

There might be more deaths to come, but he hoped that the number wouldn't be many. "How has the general been contacting the fleet?"

Taka answered him. "There is a device in his quarters."

Ariq nodded. "Show me."

***

Though not exactly like the empress's automaton—a simple box instead of a human shape—the device seemed to work in a similar way. When a lever on the side was cranked, he could speak into it and hear voices from the connecting device.

He spoke into it while Taka cranked. "Admiral Tatsukawa. I have taken back my town. Your ally is gone, and your empress is aware of your plot. Withdraw from my shore."

A long pause followed before the response came. "I will have the machine first."

Taka's face tightened. Ariq didn't know when he'd last heard his father's voice—before his torture, most likely. He couldn't imagine what his brother felt now.

Suddenly tired, Ariq shook his head. "You will still pursue the machine? Ghazan Bator could not take it from me."

"I will not take it from you. You will give it to me to save your people."

So the admiral planned to firebomb his town. And even though he'd gone against the wishes of the empress, if Lady Nagamochi arrived, she probably wouldn't halt the attack. Not when it would offer the same result that she wanted: the Skybreaker. She had held a sword over Zenobia's arm in order to get it; no doubt she would also hold a fleet over his town.

Tiredly, Ariq rubbed his face, glad that the admiral couldn't see him now—and see how many doubts plagued him. "Will you come here to negotiate?"

"Is that what the general did—sit down with you to negotiate? I will decline that offer."

"Send Commander Saito with your demands, then. I will answer them. I cannot give over the machine's location without some promise that there will be no retaliation, and we will not come to any agreement through a device."

"I will send him," the admiral agreed.

Good enough. Taka stopped cranking the device, and when Ariq was certain that the communication had stopped, asked him, "Will he give up?"

Taka shook his head. "This is all he has left—the hope that he might destroy the Khagan. He won't give up."

Ariq sighed. "Then we wait for Saito."

"He is not you," Taka warned him. "He won't disobey the admiral's orders."

"What if those orders came from Lady Nagamochi? Would he favor those over the admiral's?"

"Yes. She carries the voice of the empress." Taka frowned. "Is she coming?"

"Most likely. She wants the machine, too."

Taka stared at Ariq for a long moment before shaking his head. "I do not know how you will win. But I will stand beside you."

Ariq hadn't doubted it. "I married while I was away."

"Married?" His brother blinked. "To whom?"

"The woman who was aboard the French airship. The companion to the ambassador's wife."

After a moment of confusion, Taka suddenly grinned. "Truly?"

Ariq couldn't stop his own grin. "Yes."

"Look at your face." Suddenly laughing, Taka shook his head. "We are in the midst of all this and you look like that. I have not seen you so happy. You have all of my best wishes, brother."

"Thank you." He drew a deep breath. This was not something he wanted to say, but it needed to be said. "She overheard your comments about her appearance."

The light in his brother's eyes dimmed. "I am sorry for that. So very sorry."

"I'm sorry that I stopped your apology to her. I won't again."

"Of course." Shame filled his face and his voice. "I must have injured her."

He had. But no worse than Ariq had done. "She is a sensible woman. She knows that it was said in bitterness and not meant for her."

"That is not an excuse."

"No," Ariq agreed. "But there exists not one man who never errs. We would be gods."

And gods didn't apologize. Men did.

Taka nodded, but the torment in his expression didn't ease. "Where is she?"

"An airship outside of town, where she's safe. Your apology must wait for Saito."

And hopefully, the commander's arrival would be the beginning of the end of this.

***

One of the fleet's airships brought the commander in. Ariq greeted him at the docks, but Saito declined his invitation to join him in the town. The commander appeared as tired and as worn as Ariq felt. His mustache only twitched once, when Taka told him how Ariq had finished Ghazan Bator.

"I will not trust the soup at that table anymore, then," Saito said before his humor vanished again. "I am to tell you that you must give up the machine by midday, on the day after tomorrow. If not, we will firebomb your town."

Two days. Heavy dread filled his chest. If Tatsukawa was already setting a deadline, he likely wouldn't move it. "No negotiations?"

"No." He bowed suddenly. "Now I must take my leave. My orders are to tell you this and go."

Dregs and hell. "Your airships are over Wajarri territory. You should move them before it sparks a war between the tribes and your empress."

Saito hesitated before nodding. "I will persuade him." After another short hesitation, he said, "I speak as a friend when I urge you to give up the machine. The admiral will not be swayed."

"And I will give him my answer the day after tomorrow," Ariq said. "And I speak as a friend when I tell you to make certain your men are tethered to the deck of your ironship, as if they are weathering a storm."

Saito's eyes narrowed. "Any attack on the fleet an attack on the empress. You couldn't choose a more foolish route."

"It is not a choice," Ariq said. "Tether your men."

The commander nodded before bowing again. "I hope that we will soon meet as friends again."

Ariq did, too. "We will."

With Taka at his side, he watched Saito ride the platform up to his airship. Quietly, his brother said, "What do we do now?"

Bleakly, Ariq started back to his town. "We prepare for war."

And pray that it didn't come to that.

# Chapter Thirty-two

So much needed to be done. Just after dawn, _Lady Nergüi_ 's crew returned to the airship and they flew into town. Almost all of the townspeople were already hard at work carrying valuables from their homes to the shelter of the kraken shells.

The anxiety in Zenobia's heart deepened and twisted. She knew Ariq hoped to resolve this without any blood being shed. But if these people were storing their belongings, then he must believe they might be firebombed.

Ariq was nowhere in sight. Archimedes met her at the airship's ladder while his wife consulted with her crew. Along with Mara, Cooper, and her brother, Zenobia spent the rest of the day carrying and packing supplies. Most of Ariq's soldiers were gone—preparing the machine, she assumed—but it wasn't until the afternoon that Zenobia realized that some of the men helping were from Ghazan Bator's ironship. Only a day earlier, they'd been occupying this town.

By this time, it probably shouldn't have surprised her that Ariq was a man who could make an ally out of a former enemy, yet it did. But she didn't think he would have as much luck with the fleet.

The ships and airships were never far from her thoughts. They couldn't be, not when she labored so hard to protect Ariq's town from them. And not when she only had to look to the west, and the heavy vessels commanded every view of the water and the sky.

It was dark when Mara finally pulled her away and to the baths, where Zenobia quickly washed and rinsed away the dirt and sweat. A long soak would have done her sore muscles well, but was impossible; the cramping that had plagued her stomach the past few days had not just been from anxiety. At least Mara had been able to procure a new tunic and trousers for her. As Zenobia dressed, it struck her that she had brought nothing at all from the tower—and she didn't possess a single item that she'd brought with her from her home in Fladstrand. No gold. No clothes. Not even a hairpin.

But she still had Mara and Cooper. She still had her brother and his wife. She still had her life—and her good sense.

That sense fled when she emerged from the bathing house. Ariq was waiting for her, his hair wet and his eyes dark. "Good evening, wife."

"Good evening." Though Zenobia wanted to throw herself against him, she stopped at arm's length. She didn't know if word of their marriage had spread, and even if it had, whether touching him was out of place.

It must have been. Though his gaze devoured her, he only turned to the side, inviting her to walk with him. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes. All day we've had food shoved into our hands. Everyone we helped gave us something, and the last woman made us sit for a full meal." A forceful old woman named Aisha, whom Mara told her later had once been a pirate queen. Her lively eyes had followed Zenobia's every move.

Word of Ariq's marriage _had_ spread, she suspected. But no one in town would speak of Ariq's business with strangers—even if one of those strangers was his wife. Zenobia wasn't one of the townspeople.

Yet.

"How went your preparations?" The underground pumps had rumbled beneath her feet a good portion of the day.

"Everything is in order."

So he could use the machine, if he had to. But Zenobia knew he didn't want to. "What will happen?"

"I don't know yet." Though his face was calm as he replied, his shoulders were rigid. "Captain Corsair scouted to the northwest. More airships are coming. They'll arrive by tomorrow morning."

Her stomach tightened. "Lady Nagamochi?"

"Yes." He stopped. "I will attempt to negotiate."

_Negotiate._ That was what he'd said last time, and he'd been tortured. "After everything that happened, you'll try again?"

"Yes."

"How can you forgive what she did to you? What the empress did?" Zenobia never would.

"I don't forgive." As he faced her, she saw the rage that still burned in him, barely contained by the clench of his fists and the taut set of his jaw. "I don't forgive. But I will put my anger aside."

Of course he would. For his town he would. She wished he didn't have to.

Quietly he added, "But I will not put yours aside."

She frowned up at him. "Mine?"

His anger seemed colder now, and his eyes took on an icy glaze as he stepped closer and said, "I will not put Lady Nagamochi's threat to you aside. There is nothing above you. _Nothing._ Say the word to me and I will avenge every pain she and the empress have visited upon you."

Her heart clenched. He hadn't even avenged his mother for fear of losing his brother. Now he risked losing his town. Yet he would take that risk if she wanted revenge?

She did. And if not revenge, at least justice. But not at this price.

"No," she said softly. "Don't."

Though a part of him must have been relieved by her response, he shook his head and insisted, "The terror you suffered _must_ be answered."

"Then I'll answer it my way. I'll take my own vengeance." She wouldn't allow him to jeopardize his people for her. "Do not take it from me, Ariq."

His jaw clenched, but he nodded. "There is more that you should seek vengeance for."

Something terrible, by the look of him. "Then we will say it at home." She continued on and waited until he walked beside her again. "I have more to tell you, too. I am not with child."

Silence was his only response.

She stared blindly down the street ahead, afraid to glance up and see his expression. "Are you disappointed?"

Zenobia had been, though only fleetingly. This was only their first month together. This was only the beginning. They had years ahead of them and time enough for children.

"No. We will have time." His reply echoed her thoughts. A deep breath lifted his broad chest as he admitted, "My silence wasn't disappointment, but fear. There is a part of me that still believes you are more likely to stay if you are pregnant."

The same part of him that had been hurt so badly during their argument in the tower, before Lady Nagamochi had come. The part of him that couldn't have been hurt if she'd been more open with him.

She couldn't change the past. But she could be more open with him now. "I wouldn't be _more_ likely. That probability is already one hundred percent; it cannot be any greater. You don't have to doubt."

"You don't make it easy, wife," he said.

"I suppose not." She glanced at him with a smile. Amusement has softened his expression, and she thanked God that he didn't mind having married a difficult woman. "I am disappointed, but also glad. I would like to have a blacksmith infect me with nanoagents before I become pregnant."

The amusement vanished, leaving his face utterly still. "Nanoagents," he echoed flatly.

"Yes." She'd considered it before, but had always put it off. If infected, she couldn't visit or return to the Americas. She hadn't planned to, but it had seemed foolish to erase the option.

But Ariq's response had nothing to do with the same fears that made the cities in the Americas close their borders to the infected. They feared zombies; Ariq feared how the nanoagents might leave her vulnerable to the Khagan's radio towers. The Horde had used the nanoagents to control laboring populations, to restrict their emotions and their free will. Though the tiny machines could have made every rebel soldier's body stronger and heal more quickly, the infection would have been the end of the rebellion. The Khagan could have simply smothered their resistance from within their own bodies.

Zenobia had different fears. "I have never heard of anyone who was infected dying while in childbirth. Have you?"

His expression suddenly stricken, Ariq closed his eyes. "No."

"Our children will not be infected. That is a decision we can make together—or we could leave it up to them." If a boy or a girl inherited his strength, the nanoagents might not even be necessary.

He nodded. Though his voice was strained, he said, "I only care for your safety."

She could not love this man more; her chest seemed overfilled with it. He would accept the choice she made, even if it terrified him. But perhaps she could reassure him a little. "I'll use my brother's blood to do it. His nanoagents are only susceptible to the tower in Rabat, and your uncle destroyed it years ago."

There were smaller devices smuggled out of the Horde empire that might affect her, but they were hard to find and even more difficult to afford. Ariq had to know that, too—and she thought that soon he would be contacting everyone in the smugglers' dens to make sure that any such devices were sent to him, so he could destroy them.

His chest rose on another deep breath as they neared his gate. "We have not spoken of my brother, and of what he said about you on the night we met."

Her stomach twisted. When Taka had said she was a pale, ugly ghost. "That's all in the past."

"Between us." Ariq stopped inside his garden wall and took her hands. "Not between him and you."

He was right. And though she always wanted to run from any confrontation, she couldn't run from this. "I cannot pretend that I will never think of it. Probably when I do not want to. I will not forget it, because that is beyond my power. But I can forgive it."

"Even if you do, I suspect he will apologize for a very long time." He sighed and drew her close. "I wouldn't burden you with that pain, my wife. But I cannot put him aside."

"I'd never ask you to. I couldn't put aside my brother, either." She smiled up at him. "It might be awkward, but we will manage. And it will probably help that we don't speak any of the same languages. If ever a silence falls between us, it cannot be _only_ that awkwardness."

"Yes," he said, but the relief that accompanied his reply was brief, and his tension seemed to increase.

"Was that what you wanted to talk about—your brother? Was that what you said I should seek vengeance for?"

"No."

What else could there be? Now her worry ate at her gut and her tension matched his. They entered the reception hall where, so long ago, she'd persuaded him to take her and Helene to the smugglers' dens. She removed her borrowed boots, but had no slippers to replace them with. It didn't matter. Ariq swept her up into his arms and carried her into the courtyard.

"You shall have your pick of the chambers for your personal use," he said.

"Will we sleep together?"

"Yes."

Good. "I have maids and a cook who care for my home in Fladstrand. I'll send for my things, but I don't think the maids will want to come. They have family there."

"I have a few attendants now. We will hire more."

He opened the door to his chambers and set her down. The smooth wooden floor was cool beneath her bare feet. She hadn't known what to expect. The decorations in the reception hall were sparse, so she'd thought his chambers would be ascetic, too. The furniture was just a low table and tall cupboard, and a bed that was half the width of the one they'd shared in Nippon. Yet the room didn't lack beauty or color; the glow of a lamp revealed the most incredible silk paintings hanging on the walls. Lips parted in wonder, she followed the path the images made—from yellow sands to snowcapped mountains, to endless plains with rivers curling across them in swirling blue. Smaller painted figures worked the fields, and soldiers rode on horses in long columns. There were temples and cities and people of every race, each one depicted with the greatest care.

"The Golden Empire," Ariq said softly, watching from beside the door as she circled the room. "From west to east. My mother's work."

His mother? "Are there any hidden messages?"

"Nothing hidden. Everything in this one is clear to see—so it only says that she loved our home as much as I do. It only shows why she fought so hard and was willing to give up her life for it."

"You, too."

"Yes."

"Will you ever return to live there?" Would _she_ want to live there?

"No. This is the home I've made. My responsibility now is to those who've come with me."

And those were the people he would fight for tomorrow.

"Perhaps one day we will visit, though," he said.

She smiled. "I would like that."

As if her response broke something within him, he suddenly crossed the space between them. His lips were hard, his kiss desperate, and his voice was rough when he finally lifted his head. "I cannot lose you, Zenobia."

She gripped his tunic and said fiercely, "You _won't_."

His broad chest shuddered as he drew ragged breaths. He was fighting for calm, she realized—and not finding it.

Hoarsely he said, "I broke my vow to you."

He had? "When?"

"I swore to you that I would never have hidden purposes. But I did. I knew the only chance I might misdirect Lady Nagamochi was by holding on through the torture and giving in when your life was threatened."

"I know this." She caught his face between her hands. The bleak despair in his eyes ripped at her chest, and she couldn't allow it to stay. "I _know_ this. And I know that if you had given in earlier she would have _still_ threatened me to make sure you told the truth."

"You didn't know then."

"When would you have told me of your plan? Ariq. _Ariq._ I understand that keeping this vow matters to you. Perhaps you won't forgive yourself. But you don't need to seek forgiveness from me. If you're afraid I'll walk away because you had to create a strategy that would allow us to escape and then had to keep it a secret from me, I assure you I won't."

"You should."

Her heart caught in her throat. "Why?"

"I knew you would be afraid." Each word was scraped raw by the broken gravel in his voice. "You didn't know what I'd planned. And because of that, you were so—"

"Terrified?" Hysterical and sobbing.

"And it is what _I_ did to you. Though you have been afraid all of your life and I should have been the last to ever add to your fears. You are my heart, my life. I am your sword and shield. Above all others, my purpose is to protect you. In that moment, I was not worthy of the name husband. Of all men, that _I_ should be the one to arrange for your terror. That I should be the one to—to—" The words stuttered to an end, as if he couldn't bear to continue. Abruptly he fell to his knees, head bowed and his voice shattered by despair. "I am nothing before you, my wife."

Her heart shredded. He truly believed this. And it was not the vow that mattered to him, not truly. It was that she'd been so terrified and that he'd played a part in that terror.

Throat aching, she sank to her knees in front of him and tilted forward until she could see up into his downturned face. "You are _everything_ to me, Ariq."

His jaw clenched. He looked at her, his face pale and his eyes like fire. Just as he'd appeared when he'd looked at her across the table, with Lady Nagamochi's sword rising above her wrist. Maybe he was seeing it again now. Maybe he would always see it.

Zenobia saw it differently. "Until that moment, I didn't know myself. I didn't know all that I could be. I was so terrified, perhaps more than I've ever been— No, _look at me_ ," she said when his eyes closed, as if in agony. She wanted him to see her as she was now, not the memory of how she'd appeared then. Holding his tormented gaze, she continued, "I was more terrified than I've ever been. Even more than when my mother died, because I was so young, and didn't know what was happening, and didn't know what it was to lose her. But this time, I knew. I knew everything I would lose. Yet I still chose to stand by you. To hold my silence. In that moment, I knew how strong I was. How much I could take and still not break. So I might be afraid again, but I will _never_ be made small. I might be kidnapped and locked away, but I will _never_ be trapped. I am not sorry to have learned that—and I love you."

His eyes closed, but because moisture glistened on his short eyelashes, this time she didn't make him look at her again. And though his voice was still rough, some of the tension and despair had eased from his frame. "I do not deserve you, Zenobia."

"Probably not." Smiling, she rocked forward and kissed him. "Today, I am too wonderful. Next week, you might be asking the heavens why you've been plagued with a stubborn, selfish woman, and what you've done to deserve _that_."

Shaking his head, he hauled her against his chest and held her close. "Do you still wonder if I love the spy I thought you were instead of this woman you are?"

Her heart ached. How could she have ever worried? "No."

"Good." His mouth claimed hers. Surging to his feet, he carried her to the bed.

Desperately she kissed him, letting him feel every emotion swelling through her. The love. The need. Desire burned hot, a deepening ache between her legs and—

Oh, dear God. She stilled, wanting to cry.

"What is it?" His body taut, Ariq looked into her face, then around the chamber, as if seeking the source of her distress.

Her face flamed. "I can't. With you. Tonight. Or for two more nights, most likely."

His brows drew together in a frown as he studied her.

Her cheeks would certainly combust. "You had best get used to it. It will happen every month."

His expression suddenly lightened. His hands cupped her bottom and he lifted her against him again. "Are you sure you can't?"

As if he didn't care. Aghast, she shook her head.

He lowered his head to kiss the side of her neck, her ear. "But a sword is meant to be bloo—"

"Do not finish that!" Laughing, she pushed against his chest. "Dear God."

Grinning, he only pulled her closer again. "It doesn't matter, my wife. I don't need to sheathe myself inside you."

"No?" The hard length pressing against her belly made her doubt his claim.

Ariq sucked in a breath when she bumped against him. He lifted her again and carried her down to the bed, so that she lay against his chest and her thighs cradled his erection. "Even if I didn't have a cock, you would still be the most well-pleasured wife on this earth."

"Probably. You only have to take off your shirt and I am enraptured."

His laugh rumbled through his chest, then he unclipped his tunic and bared all that broad, glorious muscle. "Now yours," he said.

Sitting up, she straddled his hips and slowly peeled away her tunic. Her heart pounded and her nipples tightened to aching points as he gazed at her.

Hunger darkened his eyes. "My beautiful wife," he said softly.

She did feel beautiful when he looked at her like that. "My husband," she whispered, and the sweetest ache rushed over her. With her hands braced on his powerful arms, she simply stared down at him, wondering how she could survive loving him so much.

His smile faded. "What is it?"

Only days ago, she would have hidden this. Not now. "I feel like my heart will burst."

He rocked up and caught her mouth in a warm, slow kiss, and the ache inside her grew sweeter, tighter.

And he was right. They didn't need anything else.

Just by being here in his arms, she was the most well-pleasured wife in the world.

***

This time Ariq didn't need to wonder what had awakened him. Though Zenobia lay quietly against him, he knew by her careful stillness that she was awake and staring into the dark. With no paper or pencil beside their bed.

"We will find another notebook for you tomorrow," he said quietly.

She turned toward him. "My brother probably has one. But that is the least of our worries."

Yes, it was. He held her closer.

Her fingers tangled in his hair. "What is your plan?"

No misdirection this time. He would simply lay out the options. "We will fight. Or they will decide fighting isn't worth it."

"Can your machine truly destroy a fleet?"

"Yes."

"And will the empress sacrifice so many?"

Of her sailors? "Yes."

"Will you have to use it, then?"

"If I do, it is the end. They would consider using the machine against the fleet a declaration of war." And even if Ariq won tomorrow, the empress would send more. And more. By then, even with the Skybreaker at his command, there would be no town left.

Zenobia came up on her elbow. "That is a declaration of war? But you would be defending yourself against _their_ aggression."

"It doesn't matter. After it is over, they will say we were the threat, and the empress was only defending her people. I will be the dishonorable rebel who attacked her forces with my machine."

Zenobia shook against him, as if she wanted to refute that, but knew she couldn't. Histories were always written by the people who won.

Her voice was thick as she asked, "Is there any hope?"

"The town might burn. But the people will be safe. You helped see to that today."

Zenobia would be safe, too. Knowing that would always give him hope.

Her fingers traced his jaw. "And you?"

He caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips. "I cannot make promises. But I'll fight until my last breath to return to you."

A soft sob wracked her slim frame. She immediately attempted to stifle it, burying her face against his shoulder, but her tears burned against his skin.

His throat thick, he held her. And didn't sleep again.

# Chapter Thirty-three

It was still dark when Ariq rose from bed. Zenobia rose with him. He dressed carefully, knowing that his appearance would matter almost as much as his words. Both had to be respectful but strong. If this battle was won or lost, it would not be by his fists or his weapons. It would be easier to fight if it was.

He'd already arranged for a breakfast at the soup house, where he would meet with his soldiers before they began taking everyone who wouldn't be in the machine to the town's eastern border.

The chilled morning air smelled heavy with recent rain. He'd given Zenobia an extra tunic to use as a coat, and she wrapped it tightly around herself as they passed through his gate and onto the street. A borrowed tunic. Borrowed boots. She'd lost everything—and all of it because of what others wanted from _him_. If Ariq had never shown interest in her, she would have still possessed her belongings, her gold, her letters and her manuscript. Yet despite all of the danger that being with him had added to her life, she was still here.

And slowing as she walked. He glanced ahead. Other townspeople were gathering in the streets, all of them gazing east.

Zenobia tugged on his sleeve. "Ariq. Look at that."

Against the eastern night sky, hundreds of lights bobbed in the distance like fireflies. Ariq stared, not daring to believe. The darkness hid too much and his town couldn't afford for him to be wrong.

Ariq watched until he was certain the bobbing pattern could only mean one thing. The lights weren't from fireflies—they were lanterns suspended on walking machines.

The laugh that burst through him then was propelled by sheer relief. Grabbing Zenobia's waist, he swept her up and kissed her full on the mouth.

She was smiling when he raised his head. "What is it?"

A little more hope. "The Wajarri," he said.

***

Ariq was obviously grateful for the support of Meeng's tribe. So was Zenobia. But as the sun rose over nearly three hundred walking machines forming a wall of steel on the eastern side of the town, she didn't see how they would make any difference. They were an awesome sight, but the thin metal frames provided the Wajarri little protection, and the fleet's firebombs would surely destroy them. Looking from the line of giant walking machines to the fleet and their airships in the west, Zenobia didn't know how this still wouldn't end with the town completely destroyed and most of its people dead.

Yet she wasn't afraid. What she felt now was beyond fear. This was dread that settled in her bones, dug icy claws into her gut, and seemed to rip a new doubt and worry from her brain with every second that passed and the admiral's midday deadline drew closer.

The only relief came from keeping busy, helping to load steamcoaches and wagons, and assisting those who couldn't easily walk to the outskirts of town under their own power. Soon the walking machines' wall of steel had a shorter wall of humans at its base, and Zenobia could hardly bear to see the fear and hope that many wore so nakedly on their faces.

The town was all but empty when she and Mara returned for the final time, searching for Archimedes. They found him standing with Cooper beneath _Lady Nergüi_ 's shadow and apart from a larger group of Ariq's soldiers. The only sound was Ariq's voice as he spoke to them in Mongolian. Giving them their final instructions, she assumed—which meant it was almost time for her to go, too.

Quietly, she asked her brother, "Is there anything else that needs to be done before I board _Lady Nergüi_?"

"You're not boarding her." When she looked at him in surprise, Archimedes said, "Yasmeen and I are flying your husband out to speak with Lady Nagamochi."

"She's here?" Zenobia looked to the western sky, searching for a new airship. But there wasn't just one. There were several new vessels—all in the red and gold that indicated the presence of the imperial guard. "When did she arrive?"

"Only a few minutes ago."

Her heart thudded sickly against her ribs. "And you're taking Ariq out there?"

Though she'd tried to keep the sudden panic out of her voice, she hadn't concealed it well enough to fool her brother. Archimedes caught her face between his hands, made her look into eyes so similar to her own. "It will be all right, Z."

Would it? The three people she loved the most in the world would be on an airship that was heading straight into an enemy's line of fire. "You will all be so vulnerable."

"We'll be all right," he said. "His soldiers will be bringing out the machine—not to attack, but just as a warning that any aggression will be answered."

Why wasn't Ariq going to be in the machine? But she knew. He could hardly negotiate from inside it.

Though her stomach roiled, she swallowed down the sick fear. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Be safe, so we don't worry about you."

God. She didn't exactly have a talent for staying safe.

No . . . her talent was a different one.

Abruptly she turned to Mara. "We need to talk to Tsetseg as soon as Ariq is finished speaking to his soldiers. And find a notebook," she said urgently. "And that pirate queen."

***

The calm that Ariq carefully fought for as he rode the cargo lift up to _Lady Nergüi_ 's decks vanished the moment he saw Zenobia rushing across the boards toward him, a notebook clutched to her chest.

Tengri help him. He couldn't fight her on this now, but she absolutely could _not_ be on this airship. "Why aren't you at the eastern boundary?"

"I was going to be." She slipped past him and onto the cargo lift, where she struck the chains, signaling for the crew to lower it to the ground again. "But I'm going to be in the Skybreaker, instead. I've already asked Tsetseg and she said I won't be in the way."

In the _machine_? He slammed the lift's lever back, stopping its descent. The platform halted a few feet below the deck. "Tell me why." His wife was sensible. She had to have a reason. "Is this for the adventure?"

"No." Her jade eyes were serious as she looked up at him. "Mara and Cooper will be with me. I'll be safe."

That was true. The machine was probably the safest place to be right now. "But tell me why."

"Because I can't fight. I can't shoot a gun, and I'm useless with a sword. But I have this." She held up her pencil. "And you told me that if the worst happens, you'll be painted as a threat and as the aggressor. But I can paint a different story. Because no matter what happens, Mara and Cooper will see that I make it out of here alive. I can make certain that _everyone_ knows the truth of what occurred, because I will have heard every order issued in that machine—and I've asked Aisha to take photographs from the edge of town with her tintype camera. If we need to, we will stand witness that you only tried to defend them all."

He could not love her more. "My wife," he said roughly, then leaned over the rail and palmed the back of her head. She rose up and met his kiss, her lips sweet and soft.

"Be safe," she whispered when he let go, and her voice was clogged with tears. "Because I don't want to write that story. I like happier endings."

So did Ariq. But he wouldn't make promises he couldn't keep. He kissed her again, then pulled back the lever. The platform lowered on rattling chains, and he held her gaze all the way down. He couldn't love her more.

But he already did.

# Chapter Thirty-four

With Mara and Cooper at her sides, Zenobia raced with them down the streets to Ariq's home, and to the pump house behind it that served as the entrance to the Skybreaker's chamber.

The mercenaries were barely winded when they caught up to the soldiers descending the narrow stairs, but Zenobia gasped for air like a cheap steamcart. Her heart pounded and her lungs burned. God, she should have infected herself with nanoagents first. Sprinting long distances would be so much easier.

They rushed past a machine that filled most of the chamber with pipes and pistons—the actual pumps, Zenobia realized. Ahead, Tsetseg vanished behind a holding tank. The other soldiers followed her.

A hidden entrance. Little more than a hole cut in the floor, it could be covered with a pipe when they'd passed through. Chilled air swept Zenobia's face as she looked in. A ladder led down into darkness. Tsetseg had gone through first, holding a lantern, and she had not even reached the bottom yet. Even the light didn't touch the floor, and there was nothing to see but the ladder and the soldiers descending it. Just endless dark.

Cooper slipped past her and started down. God. He was so _high_ above the ground . . . wherever that was.

Mara touched her shoulder. "Are you all right? Can you do this?"

Zenobia tucked her notebook into her tunic and gathered her courage. "I can."

***

From the airship's deck, Ariq could follow Zenobia's path to the entrance of the pump house, battling his every instinct to go after her. It might be the only battle he won that day—and he didn't know if that victory would be worth it.

The sun rose higher. Almost midday. He hadn't seen any contact between the imperial guard and the admiral's ironship, but they might have a communicating device that allowed them to speak from ship to ship.

_Lady Nergüi_ 's engines fired. He glanced back. Captain Corsair waited on the quarterdeck, Archimedes Fox at her side.

"All ready, Prince Ariq?" she called in Mongolian.

Ariq nodded.

She gave the order to her quartermaster. The decks rumbled beneath Ariq's feet, and he rocked with the skyrunner's motion as the propellers began to spin.

As the town passed below him and the skyrunner gained speed, Taka joined him at the rail. His brother's gaze was fixed on the imperial guard's airship ahead. "You should have asked me to serve you on the machine instead of here. My presence might be seen as an insult."

Once, Ariq would have responded with anger and frustration. But his brother wasn't devaluing himself; he was only stating a fact as he saw it.

"I am proud to have you by my side," he said. His brother always fought as hard as he could. He only needed a purpose. For now, that purpose was Ariq's town. But after this was over, Ariq could give him another until his brother found his own. "Come."

They joined the captain and Archimedes Fox on the quarterdeck. Zenobia's brother grinned at him. "You have a few minutes left to change your mind."

Ariq wouldn't. "I have another job for you, if you will take it."

"We probably will," the captain said. "What did you have in mind?"

"When this is done, I need you to ferry Ghazan Bator's soldiers to my uncle's location."

Her brows arched. "All two hundred of them on this ship?"

"We will hire more airships. But I want _Lady Nergüi_ to lead them, because he will trust you when you bring the men to him."

"We can do that."

Good. He looked to Taka. "I hope that you will go with them and explain to our uncle all that has happened. And he will be glad to greet family; our mother told me she regretted never being able to introduce you to him."

Surprise flitted across his brother's face before he nodded. "I will."

_"Two minutes!"_

The call came from the pilot's station. Two minutes remained until they reached the imperial airship. "Have him hold here," Ariq said. "We'll wait."

Taka looked to the red and gold airships ahead. "Do we want them to come to us?"

"No." Such arrogance wouldn't be well received. Ariq only wanted Lady Nagamochi and the empress to see exactly what they intended to sacrifice everyone for. "We're waiting for the Skybreaker."

***

By the time she reached the ladder's bottom, Zenobia was certain that she would only have to take another step down and she would emerge on the opposite side of the world. Her hands ached from gripping the metal rungs. Her arms and legs still shook—not from exhaustion, but from the stress of clinging so tightly and not knowing how far she would plunge if she slipped.

Probably only a few feet, because Cooper would have caught her. But still. Sometimes her imagination did her no favors.

Beside her, Mara splashed down into the knee-deep water. The soldiers were already wading through the chamber, Tsetseg's lantern illuminating a few paces ahead.

A click sounded from above, and a faint glow suddenly flooded the darkness around them—electric lights, Zenobia realized with astonishment. Blinking, she looked at a buzzing light hanging far overhead, its filament glowing white. Likely powered by a generator in the pump room, or by the same engines that drove the machine. When it wasn't grafted to a human body, mechanical flesh had to be powered by electrical pulses.

She looked away from the light and her heart stopped.

Ariq had said the machine was big. But her husband apparently didn't know the meaning of that word.

And she was at a loss for _all_ words. She had simply nothing in her experience to compare the machine to. In the Americas, many of the coastal cities were guarded by giant mechanical sentinels. She had thought those were big. While flying over Europe, she'd seen the Horde's war machines. She had thought those were big. Some had even been enormous. But even those were dwarfed by the thing standing before her now.

Except it wasn't even _standing_. Her head seemed suddenly light as her gaze followed the machine's lines, trying to make sense of its design. Unlike the sentinels, it wasn't shaped like a human. There were too many parts, some coiled and some rigid, and all of it too big to wrap her head around, but one thing was clear: It wasn't standing. The machine had been stored on its side, with its head near the ladder—as if even this chamber couldn't contain its height, and the Wajarri hadn't dared to dig any deeper, choosing to lengthen the space, instead.

She looked for the far end of the chamber and suddenly felt dizzy again. It couldn't be real. She had to be dreaming. Heart pounding, Zenobia grasped for sanity. Mara was no help. Her face utterly blank, the mercenary stood beside her, staring. Cooper appeared just as astonished.

Ahead, Tsetseg turned and waved them closer. Another ladder waited. The entrance.

On leaden legs, Zenobia waded forward. The mechanical flesh gleamed under the lights like sleek gray skin. "Where is the front?"

Mara translated her question and Tsetseg's quick answer. "There is no front. It is equally equipped on every side."

Good news for them. Terrible to anyone who faced it. Zenobia climbed up into the hatch after Tsetseg, into a tunnel of mechanical flesh. Gray surrounded them on all sides, the texture odd—though she knew the material was almost indestructible, the surface gave a little beneath her touch. Slick and oily, it stank of hot metal, but was cool beneath her skin. She trailed her fingers along the tunnel wall, fascinated and nauseated in equal parts. It was almost too easy to imagine this mechanical flesh belonged to a living creature and that they were crawling up into its head.

Then, abruptly, they were in a steel chamber—normal steel, not mechanical flesh—with a grate beneath her boots and a ceiling overhead. Ariq's soldiers were already at their stations, some standing and other seated. Dials and levers filled consoles built into the walls. Tsetseg pointed to a seat at the center. "That is Ariq Noyan's. Today it is yours."

"What of Mara and Cooper?"

"They will have to stand behind you and hold on."

Mara nodded as soon as she finished the translation. So the mercenaries didn't mind. Zenobia didn't think she would have, either. Just being here was incredible. She didn't even feel the urge to complain when Mara untied the sash of Zenobia's extra tunic and used it to strap her to the seat.

"Start," Tsetseg said.

A shudder ran through the machine. A low rumble began—either a very quiet engine or one far from this chamber. The hanging lanterns swung on their chains. More light was shining faintly through the walls—from outside, she realized. They weren't walls at all, but glass reinforced with mechanical flesh. She was looking into the dimly lit chamber surrounding the machine.

But that didn't make any sense. "Why aren't we tipped over? The machine is on its side."

"This room moves." Tsetseg cupped her hand and rotated her wrist, as if in demonstration. "The flesh turns us so that we are always up. There is no side. This is the swimming position."

"Swimming?" Zenobia gripped the arms of the chair. "It swims?"

"Better than it walks." The woman glanced away from her and issued another order that Mara quickly translated. "Flood the chamber."

Outside, the electric lights darkened. _Flood the chamber._ And the machine swam.

So that was how they would be getting out. Zenobia didn't know what she'd imagined—that the machine would erupt out of the ground and destroy the chamber that contained it, along with the pump house above?

No. And this chamber must be longer than she'd realized, stretching all the way to the bay, maybe—or even the ocean beyond it.

Tiny air bubbles formed on the walls. No, not the walls. The _windows_. It was too dark to see the water rising around them but the light from inside glinted off the bubbles trapped against the glass. The bubbles reached the tops of the windows.

Dear God. They were _under_ the water.

Tsetseg spoke again, and Mara had barely translated her "Go" before the machine shot ahead, with enough speed that Cooper stumbled back before catching himself, and Zenobia's weight pressed heavily into the seat. Swimming. Through some dark tunnel, and her stomach swooped as the machine dove before rising again.

"Where are we?"

"Almost to the ocean gate." Tsetseg had braced herself against one of the soldier's chairs. "Ariq Noyan wants us to emerge from the deep instead of the shallows."

Abruptly their passage smoothed out. Zenobia's ears popped. Sand swirled against the windows. Faint light filtered from somewhere above.

The sun. And the sea surrounded them. The cloud of sand cleared and a shadow darted by. A fish. Many fish.

Awestruck, Zenobia untied the sash binding her to the chair. On unsteady legs, she walked to the window.

Though in the water, she didn't think they were in the swimming position any longer. Instead they were rising through the water. Above, the Nipponese ironships formed long dark shadows on the surface. When she looked down, the machine's bulk stretched endlessly below. Long arms splayed out in front of them.

Not just in front of them. There was no front. So those arms were on every side.

Of course. She gasped in realization, then choked on her laugh, and thunked her forehead on the glass. Eyes watering, she looked to Mara. "It's a kraken!"

Apparently that was a word that needed no translation. Tsetseg shook her head and replied. "Only a nightmare could contain a kraken like this."

Zenobia looked up at the shadows of the ironships. "Let us be a nightmare, then."

***

Ariq saw the machine come—but he knew what to look for. The displaced water near the shore. The rolling swell as it neared the surface before the sudden eruption out of the sea. Water cascaded from the Skybreaker's frame in a deluge, concealing its shape until the last moment. The falling mountain of water pounded the ocean's surface and the resulting surge slammed into the ironships like waves churned by a powerful cyclone.

He hoped that Commander Saito had heeded his warning and ordered his men to tether themselves to his ship. If he hadn't, Saito would be giving that order now. The ironships nearest to the Skybreaker were already firing their engines, putting distance between their vessels and the machine.

Silence fell on the skyrunner. Coming closer for a better look, Captain Corsair and Zenobia's brother joined him at the rail, their heads tilting back as their gazes followed it to the top, where the enormous bulk towered over the fleet and the airships' balloons. The captain lit a cigarillo and drew a shaky breath before passing it to Archimedes.

"I should have gone with Zenobia," her brother said faintly.

The captain shook her head—not in disagreement, but wonder. She glanced at Ariq. "We'll do this all for free if you let us see inside that thing."

Ariq grinned. The Skybreaker wasn't even all the way out of the water yet—not even close to it. And it hadn't extended its arms. Too many ironships were within its reach and the display might too easily read as a threat, so it simply stood without moving. Tsetseg would be watching these airships, waiting for another command.

"Let's speak with Lady Nagamochi now," Ariq said.

***

As he'd hoped, on the deck of Lady Nagamochi's airship, one of the empress's automatons sat upon a throne. So the empress had probably already seen the machine.

"Good evening, Governor." The captain of the guard greeted Ariq as he crossed the gangway stretching between the two airships. Cables tethered the two airships together, side by side; neither would have an advantage of position over the other. She inclined her head again as Taka crossed over behind him. "You have recovered well."

She wasn't only referring to the torture, Ariq understood, but to this display of strength. But the Skybreaker was only that—a display. Any real power he brought onto this airship stood in a line on the eastern edge of his town.

He greeted her in return and bowed to the empress when the shivering white light filled the automaton's eyes. "I hope that this time, we can come to an agreement more suitable to us both."

Lady Nagamochi smiled. "Perhaps we will. What are your terms?"

"Her majesty recalls her fleet. I keep the Skybreaker and never use the machine except to defend my home."

"Those are not new terms, Governor."

"But now you see her size. And you see how many people will die if you pursue this." He stepped aside, making certain the empress had an unobstructed view of the machine. "My people and yours would all die without reason. I am not your enemy."

"Her majesty is not your enemy, either—but there are many who will be. We only seek to help you, Governor. How many will come now that it is known that you have this machine? What warlord would not seek to take it from you by any means?"

Help him? He shook his head. "No one knows I have it. Aside from the Wajarri, who have known I've possessed it from the date I built my town here, only you and your sailors have seen it. To everyone else the Skybreaker is still only a rumor—if they have heard of it at all. I have kept it a secret these many years and it will remain one."

"What it will remain is a threat to her majesty's people."

Fighting his frustration, Ariq looked out over the water. "What terms do you propose, then? If I won't give it over, what will you threaten? My brother's life? My town?"

"We don't wish to do either," Lady Nagamochi said. "But it is true that our fleet is prepared to act in any way necessary to persuade you."

With firebombs. "Do you see what stands at the eastern side of my town?"

"Her majesty and I have both seen. The Wajarri will not interfere. They will not help you."

"Unless you attack them or endanger their territory. Are you so certain that not one of your firebombs will damage a walking machine? Are you so certain that none of the sparks from the burning homes will alight on a bush and burn through their lands?" When she didn't immediately respond, but studied the line of walking machines again, he pressed, "My town and Nippon are not enemies. The Wajarri and Nippon are not enemies. But that can quickly change, because the Wajarri are friends to the people of my town. They are a friend to _me_ , because my interests serve theirs. And they are here to make certain that the interests I share with them are not threatened."

Lady Nagamochi looked to the empress's automaton. It didn't speak.

Ariq filled the silence, instead. "Ask her majesty if that machine is worth a war with every tribe that is friend to the Wajarri."

The captain of the guard didn't ask. The automaton remained quiet—the empress was apparently still weighing her options.

He would offer a heavier weight. "I am not your enemy," he said again. "This misunderstanding began with the marauders' attacks. I have already made Ghazan Bator pay for what he has done. In the hope of friendship between our peoples, I will give his conspirator, Admiral Tatsukawa, over into your custody."

Her brow creasing, Lady Nagamochi glanced over the side of the airship, to where the admiral's ironship floated in the water below. "He is in your custody?"

Not yet. At his side, Taka signaled to Captain Corsair. Though Ariq didn't look behind him, he knew that one of her crew would be waving a flag—signaling the Skybreaker.

It moved quietly. Though powered by enormous engines, the surrounding mechanical flesh and water muffled most of the sound. Even the hum from the empress's automaton sounded louder than the machine.

Lady Nagamochi sucked in a sharp breath as it came toward them. "Governor? Do you threaten us?"

"No. I am offering my help," he said quietly. "Do you see how slowly it moves? That is because I told my soldiers not to use its full speed, because the machine's wake would overturn every ship in your fleet."

As it was, swells were battering the sides of the heavy ships. When it passed by one of the hovering airships, the disturbance in the air sent the vessel into a slow spin. As if realizing what she'd done, Tsetseg lifted one of the tentacles and gently stopped the airship's rotation before moving closer, until the machine's broad side filled the sky ahead.

"I believe that is demonstration enough, Governor."

"This isn't a demonstration," he said. "As I told you, I am delivering Tatsukawa into your custody."

One long arm reached for the ironship, the mechanical flesh glistening under the midday sun. The tentacle curled beneath the heavy ship and lifted it out of the sea as easily as Ariq might lift a peapod from a bowl of soup.

Metal shrieked. The ironship's hull popped and groaned. Water rained from its sides as the arm swung up toward the pair of tethered airships, and stopped when the upper deck was level with theirs. Ariq could have fit fifty of Lady Nagamochi's imperial airships on that ironship's deck, yet the tentacle was thicker than the ship was wide.

"I believe Tatsukawa is aboard," Ariq said. "So I have delivered him to you."

The captain of the guard exhaled a shaky breath. "Thank you, Governor."

With a flick of her fingers, she sent her guards forward. Without hesitation, they slid a gangway over to the ironship's deck and rushed across.

"Captain." The empress's metallic voice suddenly projected from the automaton. "It seems that the information we gathered regarding the governor and his town was incomplete."

Immediately Lady Nagamochi's attention fixed on the empress. "Yes, your majesty?"

"We were led to believe that he was a threat," the empress continued. "But a friend to the Wajarri is also a friend to my people. We do not have to fear our friends—especially one whose interests so closely align with ours. Neither of us wishes to see any bloodshed."

The other woman bowed. "Yes, your majesty."

"See to Admiral Tatsukawa before you return, Captain."

"I will, your majesty."

The empress's eyes went dark. Lady Nagamochi stared at her for a long moment before looking to Ariq. She bowed. "I am glad you are a friend, Governor."

So was Ariq. He tried to speak, but everything inside him seemed to tremble, like a muscle held taut for too long before letting go. His people were safe. His town was safe.

He'd _won_.

Perhaps embarrassed by Ariq's stunned immobility, Taka returned her bow. "We are grateful to you, Captain."

_Grateful._ No, they weren't. The empress and the captain had forced him to this point. He shouldn't have to be grateful when they finally acted as they should have from the beginning.

But Ariq would not say so. Instead he said, "My brother believes that you still suspect him of treason."

And he wished that Taka didn't care what they suspected him of. His brother had been innocent, yet he'd still been stripped of his honor. But Ariq could not give it back to him.

Lady Nagamochi could—and did, when she looked to Taka and said, "Of course I do not. And her majesty also knows that you weren't aware of your mother's activities or assisting her. It was only misfortune that you suffered while the guards at the prison discovered that truth."

"Misfortune, yes." Ariq nodded. "Just as it would be misfortune if the fleet lingered too long near my shores and was accidentally swept away in the Skybreaker's wake."

Lady Nagamochi grinned and inclined her head. "Yes, it would. So I will wish you well, Governor."

He bowed and started back to the gangway—stopping only when the imperial guards suddenly appeared on the ironship's deck again. Admiral Tatsukawa wasn't with them.

Ariq frowned, but Taka only said, "Come," and led the way over to _Lady Nergüi_. One of the guards spoke quietly to Lady Nagamochi. Without a change of expression, she nodded, then glanced at Ariq.

"When they found him, my father was already dead," Taka said beside him. "I do not need her to tell me that. He would die with whatever honor he had left."

Not the justice Ariq would have preferred, but good enough. "Tell Captain Corsair's crew to wave the flag, then," he said. "And let our people know we've won."

Won without a drop of bloodshed. His mother had been right. That truly was the best victory.

But it would be even better when he shared it with his wife.

***

He waited for her in the Skybreaker's chamber. Almost three hours had passed while enough water was pumped from the cavern for them to exit, and everyone inside would still have to swim from the machine to the ladder. Ariq swam out to the machine, instead, waiting near the entrance as Tsetseg emerged, then Cooper, and finally his heart appeared in the entrance tunnel, surrounded by mechanical flesh.

With wide emerald eyes, she looked up at him. "Did you see what we did?"

Crouching, Ariq grinned. "I did."

"Did you see how _high_ we were?"

He reached in for her hands. "I did."

"And we lifted that ship right up out of the—Oh!" She gasped and laughed as he hauled her up. Her arms circled his neck. "Did you see the fleet run?"

All but Commander Saito, who would continue patrolling these waters. "I did," he said before kissing her.

And finally felt that he'd won.

# Chapter Thirty-five

By that evening, Zenobia had never danced so much in her life. She had never laughed so hard or so long. She had never been surrounded by so many friends.

She had never been so in love and so unafraid.

The kraken still roasted on the beach, and the townspeople had built a bonfire nearby, the flames leaping into the sky. Never had she seen such a celebration. She'd eaten until she was about to burst, and drank sour arkhi until her head swam, then cheered Ariq on when he stripped off his tunic and handily defeated opponent after opponent in a wrestling pit—even after his soldiers began rushing him in groups.

When Ariq finally withdrew from the competition and started toward her across the sand, the sweet ache in her chest almost undid her. Oh, but he was _such_ a man.

Taking her hand, he pulled her out of sight behind the kraken shell, and kissed her until her knees gave out. He caught her against him, and his grin was amazing, terrible. Beautiful.

"Happy, my wife?"

There were no words to describe how happy. So she kissed him again, loving his warmth and his smell and the feel of him. Here they were, in almost the same place as when he'd first said that he wanted her in his bed, yet everything was so different. She was his. He was hers. And what had begun as a simple journey had become so much more.

"I love you," she told him. "More than I ever dreamed. You are the adventure I never expected. And I hope it never ends."

"It won't," he said. "I swear it."

She believed him. But he seemed already determined to prove it, sweeping her up against his chest and trudging across the sand.

Laughing, she looped her arms around his neck. "Where are you taking me?"

"I'm abducting you."

"Truly?" With a grin, she laid her cheek on his shoulder. "And what will my ransom be?"

"Your heart."

"But I can't give it to you," she said.

He frowned down at her. "Why?"

"Because you already have it." When he smiled, she let go a heavy sigh. "I suppose if I can't pay the ransom, that means you'll never let me go."

"I won't."

"Then take me home . . . oh, wait. Wait. You can't. Take me to _Lady Nergüi_ , instead."

He didn't change his course. "Why?"

"Because Yasmeen can officiate a marriage aboard her ship," she said. "And I need to make you my husband."

He abruptly stopped. Carefully, he set her on her feet and cupped her face in his big hands. His dark gaze searched hers. "You're certain?"

She'd never been more sure of anything. "Yes. Absolutely certain."

"You still have walls."

"And those will probably never fall," she told him. "But you, Ariq—I will _always_ let you in."

His eyes closed. "My wife. I could not love you more."

She would make sure that he did. Taking his hand, she tugged him toward the docks where _Lady Nergüi_ hovered. "Come, my husband. You and I cannot board an airship without some excitement befalling us. So let's see what awaits us this time."

And even if the only excitement came from the vows they spoke, no doubt their marriage would be its own adventure. The greatest one.

Ariq swept her up and carried her toward it.
Krakentown, Western Australia

August 21

My dearest brother,

I've enclosed a duplicate of my latest serial adventure. As you can see by the pages, you no longer need to send me a new typesetting machine. Helene recently sent to me everything that I'd left behind in the quarantine, and I've been writing like a madwoman ever since. The story line is a departure from my usual tale, and features a tinker instead of an adventurer, but I believe you will enjoy it. And if you don't, I will know you for a complete idiot and never speak to you again.

Oh! but my silence would only last until you come and visit me. You will find me much changed since you saw me last. I was in love then, and happy, but the size of that love and happiness is nothing compared to what they are now. My husband is like the most wonderful story I've ever read. Every part contains something new, and even when I think I know a passage by heart, I inevitably discover something that I hadn't noticed before when I read it again. I keep turning the pages, and turning the pages, wanting to learn everything about him, yet so grateful I will never reach the end, and that there will always be another page to turn.

But I must get back to it now. Another story awaits—one from my pen, and the amazing one that is my life. And this time, if I were to give my adventure a title, I will know exactly what to call myself.

With all of my love,

The Kraken Queen
**Meljean Brook** lives near Portland, Oregon, with her family.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaBook