CHAPTER 11
C HAPTER 11
S ETH’S INSTINCTS TOOK OVER, and thank the gods—because his heart was in fucking shreds and all he wanted to do was hold onto Raider. But his instincts made him spin toward the cell door and sequence the multi tool’s harpoon. It fired across the cell, whooshing out its strong, thin line.
The barb thunked into the gold-filigreed breastplate of the female warrior, the freshly donned armor saying she was ready for a fight. Seth yanked her off her feet and into the cell, but she came in swinging. Her sword swiped at the line but tangled in it as the tension turned slack.
Seth charged into her, catching her around the middle and driving her back out of the cell to slam her into the hallway wall. She head butted him so hard that it sent him reeling back. Arcane light and pale stone walls spun. Then she kicked him full in the chest and sent him flying back into the cell.
As Seth rolled to his feet, he saw Raider, quicksilver gleaming down his left arm, leave the cell. The woman warrior had withdrawn down the hallway, and Raider turned in her direction.
By the time Seth got out into the hallway, Raider was halfway down it. A handful of figures had appeared at the end. It was more of the Hammer and also the black-robed arcanist that had interrogated Seth.
With Raider wearing only his silk pants, Seth saw clearly how the quicksilver speared from his right shoulder, cascading down his arm and extending from his hand like a sword. He let out a terrible sound. Rage. Horror. Pain.
As Raider charged toward the company gathered at the end of the hallway, something whistled through the air toward him.
Seth was racing after him, but when Raider stumbled then pitched sideways, it was the female warrior who reached him first. She caught Raider before he hit ground—and set a knife to his throat.
Seth skidded to a stop.
The quicksilver was retracting into Raider’s body with a soft shhhkkt . Seth couldn’t see his eyes because his head was flopped back, his throat exposed to the gleaming blade, but the limpness of his body said he was unconscious. A dart with a red-feathered end was sticking out of his neck.
Seth stood frozen. “If you hurt him,” he warned, “I will do everything I can to kill you before you kill me.” He barely recognized his own voice, shaky with fear.
“Perhaps we can talk instead.”
The words, delivered in a refined, unruffled voice, came from beyond the hallway turn. The empress emerged and walked past her Hammer and Hand. Like earlier, she wore her pronged golden headdress with its looped chains and gold fringe. Her dark blue gown was stiff with embroidery and rendered her small figure nearly shapeless. Diamond-crusted sandals flashed at the hem as she walked. She looked entirely out of place in the bleak, barren hallway with utilitarian arcane lights on one side and bars on the other.
She stopped beside the woman warrior, who held her knife steady at Raider’s throat. The warrior made a sharp contrast to the empress. She was taller than Zarina and though powerfully built, her shape was strongly feminine. Below the edge of the skirt of leather strips, her thighs and calves were curvy with muscle. Gold rings banded each leg below the knee. Her strong arms were a display of power and smooth, feminine brown skin. Her long dark hair was tightly and intricately braided.
Under different circumstances, Seth would respect two such powerful women, but with Raider at their mercy, threatened, Seth could only hate them.
The empress looked down at Raider’s limp form. She reached out a hand and ran her fingers through Raider’s hair.
When Seth growled at that, the empress looked up, but she didn’t remove her hand. “Nasrin, it seems, was right. With the tool we left at your disposal”—Seth’s breath caught—“you could have escaped. You went to him instead. You love him. You would die for him?”
“Yes.”
The empress looked thoughtful. “I wonder … what else might you do?”
“What the hell do you want from me?”
“Your skill, Curator, and your time. There’s something I want, and if anyone can find it for me, I think it’s you. You and him. The two of you are a unique combination of assets.” She stroked Raider’s hair again. “Let me tell you a story—”
“Stop touching him.”
“You’re very possessive.”
“Stop touching him and I’ll listen.”
“I think you’ll listen regardless, but …” The empress removed her hand from Raider’s hair and plucked the dart from his neck. “If it means so much to you.”
Seth didn’t feel relieved exactly, not with the warrior—Nasrin, yes, he’d heard the empress use the name earlier—holding Raider’s limp form with a knife at his throat, but at least he could focus now.
The empress fiddled with the dart. “I assume a Curator knows of the Alchemist’s Stone?”
Seth frowned, caught off guard by the unexpected topic. Few arcanists took it seriously anymore, though there were plenty of stories of arcanists who had wasted their lives trying to create the Alchemist’s Stone. The idea was that with the perfect formula, one could create a divine embodiment of the arcane, one with godlike power that could transform death into life.
“A myth,” Seth said. “A fool’s pursuit.”
“Only if that fool is pursing the creation of such a stone—rather than seeking the Stone that inspired the myth to begin with.”
“I’ve never heard of such a stone actually existing.”
“That is because you’re from the west, and no such thing has ever existed in Masir. You’re in the Gold now. The legend comes from here—because the Stone is here. It is lost, though, because the city of its origin is lost. That city is Ulam. Do you know the name?”
“No.”
“The sands swallowed Ulam ages ago, but it was real, and you will find it for me. There, you will find me the Alchemist’s Stone—you and Shashem and a company of my choosing.”
“And in return?”
“In return, you will both go free. The existing story will stand: that Kahzir murdered my father.”
Seth’s eyes darted to the knife yet at Raider’s throat. “And if I don’t do this, you’ll declare him guilty and execute him.”
“I can justly execute you both. You have aided him, obstructed justice. For all I know, you are also an agent of Kahzir. After all, you crossed the Sands on his orders to stop a man from reporting him to me.”
“That’s not what happened. I had an official assignment from the Arcanum. And Raider was never an agent of Kahzir. You have the book. You must know what Kahzir did to him—”
“The truth is often difficult to parse out from amid cluttered facts.”
“Easy to obscure, you mean.”
The empress’s mouth tightened. “Regardless, you will do this. And if you attempt to escape, to evade this assignment, the Arcanum will receive word of your treachery, and both your and Shashem’s guilt will be publicly declared. I will place a bounty on your heads so high that you will both be hunted across the Sands to the end of your days. Or … you can do this one thing for me, as my allies, as my valued guests. What do you say, Curator? Will you work for me, as you have so often done for your College?”
“You give me only one possible thing to say.”
Her lips quirked. “And yet you will not say it?”
“Fine. Yes. Of course I’ll do it. Just let him go—gods, please, just let me have him.”
The empress shared a look with Nasrin, and the warrior whisked her blade away from Raider’s throat. She let him slump to the floor and stepped back.
Seth ran to him. Raider’s eyelids fluttered as Seth gathered him close.
The empress turned to go. “Nasrin will show you to your room.”
“ Fuck you.” The words leaped out, unwise but irrepressible.
Snarling, Nasrin took a step toward Seth, but the empress, halting, held up a hand to stay her. The empress spoke over her shoulder.
“It is a rocky beginning, yes, but I think you’ll soon see how much better it is for us to be friends than enemies.”