The Prophecy Con (Rogues of the Republic) (37 page)

Loch was in the Elflands. He had no way to get to her.

He figured he might know where she’d be going, though, and that was the next best thing.

He walked the dock at a casual, ground-eating pace, eyes wandering to the registry and listed destination of each airship. When he found a small cargo ship heading close to the Imperial border, he passed it, ducked back into an alley between two hangars, and waited.

Workers loaded the cargo ship and started boarding. Nystin was getting ready to make his move when a coach pulled up. An armored and helmeted man got out. Like Nystin, he wore a cloak that obscured his armor, but the helmet was golden and had a great dragon face.

Just like the Imperials, Nystin figured. Too proud of their armor to toss it.

The muscle headed to the airship and began what looked like a negotiation with the captain. Nystin ambled across the docks, casual and forgettable, and slipped into the coach.

“Don’t move,” he said to the Imperial woman sitting on the bench across from him. His dagger was out as he slid the door closed. “Stop. Make one sound, and I’ll kill you before your guard arrives.” She looked like she’d been sleeping, and was bundled in blankets that hid most of her, leaving only her delicate face visible. She looked at him wide-eyed as he continued. “Now listen carefully. You’re getting onto this airship, and you’re going to see to it that I come with you. If your guard gets any ideas, I kill you. If you try to escape, I kill you. If you do anything stupid at all, I kill you.” He smiled, letting the hardness show in his eyes. “None of that means I
want
to kill you. You let me get onto that ship, you play along like I’m your guest, and nobody has to get hurt.” His dagger was up, the silver catching the light to throw the glint into her eyes. That always made it scarier. “You hear me?”

“I hear you,” the Imperial woman said, and then a green-scaled tail slid from the blanket to coil around his wrist. “
Don’t move.”

“You’re certain?” Kail asked for the third time. He had
Iofegemet
sailing at full speed already, but he had never liked flying blind, least of all when magic was involved, even
more
least of all when he was
literally
flying.

“Heaven’s Spire casts magic like the sun casts light,” Desidora said. She was standing at the railing, staring off into what looked to Kail like empty space. Her auburn hair swayed as she looked back and forth. “It’s bright enough that most people who can see auras learn to tune it out, so as to
be able
to see anything else, but if I squint and focus, the wake is just barely visible.” She held up an arm. “A little more that way.”

Kail eased
Iofegemet
a bit to port, squinting off into empty space as though he’d be able to see auras if he just tried hard enough. Then he gave up and played with the airship’s controls a little, on the off chance that any of the diagnostic functions could pick up the trail. So far, both options worked equally well, in that neither had done anything worth a damn.

“
Besyn larveth’is,”
Ghylspwr said reassuringly, and Kail looked up at Desidora to see what the hammer was saying to her, only to realize that she was still looking over the railing, and the hammer was, in as much as Kail could tell, pointed at him.

“Yeah, we’re all good,” he said, and looked back down at his console.

“We’re not,” Desidora said, not turning back around. “A tiny bit to starboard, please.”

Kail edged
Iofegemet
over. “You’re supposed to say ‘right’, so that I can correct you irately like a good airship captain.”

“You need to do something to feel strong again,” she said quietly, “after having your soul trapped by Silestin, you need
something
that makes you remember who you are, something nobody else can touch.” She looked back at him. “That’s what I see when I look at you with the eyes of a love priestess.” Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “And I can’t give you that, because I’m part of the thing that hurt you.”

“Thanks, Diz. That helps a ton.” Kail kept working at the console.

“
Kun-kabynalti osu fuir’is,
” Ghylspwr chided.

“Hey, big guy, you can spit out those three lines as often as you like. You already did your big deal for your people, helping Dairy stop the Glimmering Folk and saving the world and everything.” Kail pointed. “You get to hit crap with no cares in the world and make Diz look good in fights. The rest of us are just trying to get by.”

“
Kutesosh gajair’is!”

“No, it’s all right.” Desidora patted the hammer and gave Kail a harder look. “It must seem awfully easy to have your destiny already fulfilled, looking at it from your side. Did you ever think about what it’s like afterward?” She turned all the way around, leaning back against the railing, her casual stance a deliberate challenge. “Knowing that you had one reason to live this life, and now that reason is done? Dairy feels it, now that his time as the Champion of Dawn is done. Ghylspwr feels it.
I
feel it. There’s no reason for us to be here anymore.”

“I’ve got two countries full of scared people who say otherwise.” Kail smiled. “That’s why Dairy has you two beat, even though he screwed up with the Knights of Gedesar. The kid never knew he had a destiny, so he just did the best
he could.
Same as Loch, same as me. And yeah.” He patted the console. “Maybe I started training with airships as a way to regain control. Maybe I’ve got some work left to do. But I’m working on it while saving the Republic with no fancy destiny or godly powers or any of that. Sit back and take notes if you like. Or better yet? Help.” He pointed at Ghylspwr. “Not because you’ve got some big magical destiny, but because it’s what needs doing.”

Desidora swallowed. “A bit to port.”

Kail nudged
Iofegemet
over. “Thanks.”

“I think I know where Heaven’s Spire went,” Pyvic said, headed over from where he and Icy had been charting their course on a map. “I initially thought they’d be trying to pull the city back somewhere safer, further from the fighting.”

“But they are not,” said Icy, holding up the map so that Kail could see.

“You guys wrote all over my map!” Kail said, followed shortly by, “Why in Gedesar’s name would they take Heaven’s Spire to the Temple of Butterflies?”

“Good question.” Pyvic grimaced, then looked at Desidora. “Sister, the only thing we know about Shenziencis is that she has lived at the Temple of Butterflies for centuries. Could the temple be tied into her power?”

“If the temple is a legacy of the ancients,” she said slowly, “then yes.”

Kail grunted. “And if the four of us—”

“
Besyn larveth’is!”

“Sorry, if the
five
of us can figure it out, it stands to reason somebody up on the Spire could as well.” Kail nodded slowly. “So they’re going to fly Heaven’s Spire over to the temple and threaten to send down the giant beam of fire.”

“It stands to reason.” Pyvic nodded. “The Imperials are already worried enough about it to go to war. Might as well make use of it.”

“So they will make a show of force, hoping my people will back down,” Icy said. “But since my people are not in fact responsible for the attacks, the bluff will fail.”

“We had better
hope
it’s just a bluff,” Desidora said. Everyone looked at her. “You all saw what Heaven’s Spire did to the ground below.”

“Well, yeah.” Kail shrugged. “But the Temple of Butterflies is kind of an ugly temple, anyway. No offense, Icy.”

“None taken.”

“No,” Desidora said, “you don’t understand. The Temple of Butterflies is an artifact of the ancients, just like Heaven’s Spire. If we’re right, it has enough magical strength to augment the naga’s power and let her control a massive army of the dead from halfway across the Republic.”

“So you’re thinking it might be hard to attack?” Kail asked.

“I’m thinking,” Desidora said, “that attacking it with
another
artifact of the ancients might blow up a good chunk of both the Republic
and
the Empire.”

Loch played
suf-gesuf
as her father had taught her, getting out of bad hands with minimal losses and staying in enough of them to keep her chips up. Her luck was less than great, but good enough that she was ahead of the ever-increasing minimum ante.

The dwarf in the enormous hat came in too aggressively, staying in bad hands longer than he should have. He busted within the first hour and left swearing that the game was rigged. The elf in the feathered half-mask was holding back, her chips slowly dwindling as she folded each turn rather than take a risk on an uncertain hand. Loch figured she’d be out in a few more hours.

Veiled Lightning’s stack of chips was the largest at the table, and she looked over at Loch with a little smirk as the dealer flipped out the cards for the next hand. “I will stand on my cards and raise two hundred.” She looked at her hidden cards as Loch did the same. The flop showed a pair of eights, and Veiled Lightning had another eight in her open cards. By her smile, she was sitting on a fourth.

“Not for me,” Lechien said, sighing and tossing his cards away.

“I am interested in seeing what the young lady has,” said the Imperial, smiling affably from behind his spectacles and pushing a few chips forward.

“Draw one and one,” Loch said, pushing forward a hidden card and an open one, along with the chips to keep her in the hand.

“Two for the Urujar.” The dealer flicked two cards her way, flipping one of them open. “Possible straight, depending on what she’s got hidden. Ranger?” He looked to the elven woman in the feathered mask, who shook her head. “The ranger folds.”

“I will raise,” Veiled Lightning said, tossing in more chips.

“Hmm.” The Imperial hemmed and hawed for a moment, then checked as well.

“The Imperial evidently has something exciting that isn’t showing for the rest of us,” the dealer said, then looked at Loch. “Urujar?”

“Two,” Loch said, “and two more.”

Veiled Lightning slid her chips into the pot. “You don’t think I have the fourth eight.”

“Nobody thinks you have the fourth eight,” Loch said. “But by all means, call me.”

Veiled Lightning glared, and then shook her head sharply at the dealer.

“The princess folds,” he said. “Imperial?” The Imperial wiped his face and dropped his cards as well. “Hand goes to the Urujar. We’ll take a half-hour break, now. If you aren’t back in thirty, you forfeit.” The dealer gathered the cards in and shuffled them quickly enough that his fingers blurred.

Loch stood, stretching out tight muscles in the back of her neck. Dairy hurried to her side.

“Ma’am?”

“Drink,” she said, heading for the bar, “and report.”

“Nothing yet from Tern and the others,” Dairy said, pushing a drink of dwarven whiskey into her hands. “How did you know she didn’t have the last eight?”

“Because I was sitting on it myself. That wasn’t about winning.” Loch bolted the whiskey, winced, and handed Dairy the empty glass. “If it’d been about winning, I’d’ve drawn it out a bit more and lured her into raising.”

“What was it about, then?” Dairy asked.

“It was about the Imperial.” Loch saw Baron Lechien standing by the bar, playing with a cocktail sword while sipping a fruity drink Tern would have liked. “Give me a minute, Dairy.”

Lechien lifted his fruity drink in a toast as Loch came over. “You’ve had a good run so far.”

“As have you,” Loch said, smiling. It was a professional smile this time, not a flirty one. “You’re only a bit behind the princess at our table.”

“Yes.” Lechien sipped his drink. “About that.”