Third Daughter (The Dharian Affairs, Book One) (32 page)

She stepped into the relative light and warmth. Finely woven tapestries depicting rural Samir covered the walls and stone flooring, feeling at once warmer and more stifling than the open corridors of the prince’s palace. The warmth drew out the pulsing in her hands, now more a dull ache than actual pain. The air scented of dinner recently past, making Aniri’s stomach clench. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

The guard led her to a desk where a woman sat tensed on her chair. Her black uniform was similar to the guard’s, only more tightly wrapped, and her thin nose and dour expression were even more severe.

“A visitor,” the guard said, introducing her to the receptionist. “Claims an appointment with the ambassador. Says she has news from Sik province.”

The woman’s coal black eyes sparkled in the flickering low light of the lamps. Aniri feared her penetrating gaze would see right through her shadows and deception.

“I see,” she said, making Aniri twitch. Then the woman’s face transformed into a smile that seemed as practiced as her intense look before. She arose and pressed her hands together. “Arama. Welcome to the Samirian embassy. I’m sure the ambassador is eagerly awaiting your news. Please follow me.” She flicked her hand to dismiss the guard, who automatically took a step or two back as if the tiny motion had been a powerful physical force. He straightened and turned on his heel, retreating back to the entrance.

Aniri followed the woman down a hall, passing painted scenes of tinkers and Queens of Samirian past. Each Queen held a clockwork ship, the ocean-going kind, and a ceremonial sword—the twin symbols of Samirian power. The secretary led her deeper into the embassy, each turn more poorly lit than the last. Finally, she unlocked a carved wooden door with an elaborate key she pulled from deep within the bosom of her tightly-fitted jacket. The key had tiny wings at the tip that clicked and flared out as she pressed it into the keyhole. A mechanism whirred before she withdrew the key and pushed open the door.

Inside was a small waiting room with another door on the far side. Aniri stepped in, while the receptionist lingered by the threshold. When Aniri turned to her with a questioning look, the woman’s friendly demeanor vanished.

Aniri took a step toward her. “The ambassador—”

“Will let you know when she is ready to receive you.” Before Aniri could respond, the woman slipped out the doorway and pulled it closed. A mechanical whirring assured Aniri it was locked once more.

She pressed her lips together, hoping she hadn’t just made a tremendous mistake. She was here under false pretenses, without a guard. Once she explained to the ambassador that she only wanted to speak to Devesh…

Aniri swallowed. Devesh said she could trust the ambassador, but she didn’t know the beginning or end of his lies. What she really needed was to find Devesh
before
the ambassador discovered she had the Third Daughter of Dharia sitting in her waiting room.

The way into the room was locked for certain, but maybe there was another way out. Aniri approached the far door—there was no light coming from underneath, and when she tried the knob, it was locked. She knocked lightly, but there was no response. On closer examination, the lock was a simple one, not the elaborate clockwork that had just trapped her, but a regular keyhole… like the one Priya had so expertly picked on the train.

If only Aniri had a hairpin.

She searched her pockets, coming up with only the mechanical shashee the tinker had given her. However, its horns were quite sharp. She slid one into the keyhole and could feel some motion in there, but all her jiggling came to nothing. Priya had broken her pin in half, using two pieces to work the mechanism loose.
The clockwork key
.

Just as the tinker promised, a key was tucked in the belly of the beast. It was slender and fit in the keyhole but left room for the blade of the tusk. It took a minute of working the lock mechanism by feel, but to her surprise, she was able to nudge the pins inside and the knob finally turned.

She slowly eased open the door and slipped the shashee and its key back into her pocket.

The room beyond must be the ambassador’s office with its rich appointment of shelves, books, and mechanical trinkets. An enormous desk in the center held a couple of communiques, and closer examination showed them to have embassy letterhead. Another door stood off to one side, probably the ambassador’s private chamber. A quick check revealed its lock to be clockwork. She couldn’t begin to know how to pick that.

Aniri sighed, loosened her cloak, and threw back her hood, the warmth of the embassy starting to make her uncomfortably warm. She resigned herself to waiting, and prayed to her tiny shashee manifestation of Devpahar that meeting the ambassador first wouldn’t spell any more trouble. Aniri was about to retrace her steps, so as not to be found prying in the ambassador’s office, when a glint shined from the bookcase and froze her in place.

On the shelf sat a dull metal box which was unmistakably familiar: an aetheroceiver.

She paused and listened for anyone approaching. Hearing nothing, she hurried over and pulled the aetheroceiver from the shelf. It was crusted with coal dust, identical to the one Devesh had sent her. Was this its mate? It made sense, since Devesh had been working with the ambassador all along. Aniri searched for the three symbols Devesh had given her for a key: a tinker at work, the Samirian crown, and a ship from the Samirian navy. She pressed them and the box unfolded, revealing the same inner workings: a decryption wheel, a tiny crank to power it, and a dial to type the symbols for the message. There were no residual curls of paper lying inside, but a tiny notebook peeked from the back.

Aniri quickly plucked it out. A large sheet of parchment had been folded to precisely fit inside the confines of the notebook, and it sprung out once open. She spread it flat on the desk. Even in the dim light, it was obvious what it was.

A schematic of the skyship.

Complete with fin-like rudders protruding from the sides. The pencil drawing laid bare the inner workings that powered the ship, including engines in the aft section and the linkages to the steamworks. The butterfly was perched on top of the gasbag, just as she had seen in the airharbor. The wisps of charcoal lines didn’t do justice to the beauty of the actual device. Notes overlaid the wings, calling out the precise angles to which they were to be aligned. Lines focused on the crystal in the center, and a tube ran from there, deep through the ship, all the way to the bottom. The drawing didn’t state the butterfly’s purpose—the tinker who designed it surely knew and had no need for spelling it out in a mechanical sketch.

Below the ship was a map—at least Aniri thought it was a map. It had lines like mountain ridges, but instead of trees, it was covered with tiny arrows. She couldn’t make sense of it, so she peered closer at the notes, trying to decipher the miniscule print.

A door clicked.

Aniri’s heart stuttered. The sound came not from the entrance door, but from the ambassador’s private quarters. Before she could move, the door swung open, and her heart nearly leapt from her chest. She was caught, hunched over the ambassador’s private aetheroceiver device.

But that concern slipped away when she saw who walked through the door.

The ambassador strode in, her silk coat not quite buttoned up the full way, and Devesh stumbled in behind her, straightening the high collar of his jacket and hastening to button the top button. Aniri might have expected the ambassador to be half-dressed, given Aniri had roused her from bed. She didn’t expect Devesh to be in it as well.

An ice-cold chill burst from her heart and drenched the rest of her body. “Dev.” The word was soft on her lips, mostly a gasp spoken to herself. Devesh looked up from fussing with his clothing and saw her.

His mouth dropped open. “Aniri!” He threw a panicked look to the ambassador. “What... what are you doing here?”

The ambassador stumbled to a stop, just now seeing Aniri in the dim light. “Do not speak, Devesh!” she hissed at him. He cowed under her admonishment.

The cold seeped into Aniri’s bones. She didn’t want to see what was plain before her, but it was unavoidable. He had never loved her. Even when he was professing it in fevered kisses, he had always been a servant of the Samirian crown. And apparently in service in more ways than one to the ambassador as well.

The heat came back to her body and face all in a rush. She should have known better than to love a courtesan. Everyone knew they broke hearts. They were good only for dalliances and affairs. She had been foolish to think the Third Daughter of the Queen would somehow be different.

Devesh winced at the look on Aniri’s face, then hurried toward her. “It’s not what it seems, Aniri—”

She came around the desk and hit him with her bandaged hand, palm open. She was sure it hurt her more than him, but he cringed under it. She hit him again and again, slapping his face and shoulders, each sting in her hands beating back the tears in her eyes. Devesh finally caught her hands, holding them away from his face.

Aniri twisted out of his grasp and stumbled back. “Never touch me again.” Her voice was raspy with the tears choking her throat.

A gaslamp on the desk flicked on. “Princess Aniri,” the ambassador said coolly. She stood over the splayed-open aetheroceiver. “If you’re done assaulting my diplomat, perhaps you can tell me exactly what you know about our skyship.”

Aniri’s heart surged again, this time beating wild with fear. Devesh had deceived her. The ambassador knew about the skyship. Aniri had been caught spying in her office.

How on earth would she get out of this with her head still attached to her body?

“I know you’re no friend of Dharia,” Aniri said, summoning as much royal presence to her voice as she could. “I know you’re planning war, and this weapon will be used against the Dharian state. I’ve informed the Queen. She knows everything and is already on high alert. She will be waiting for you. And she knows I am here, so if any harm comes to me, she will consider that an act of war.”

She hadn’t had time to message her mother about the skyship. She hadn’t even told Janak about it in her fight with him. She had simply fled, feeling sorry for herself and seeking out her lover.

She was the worst kind of fool.

The ambassador studied her. “I think not, Princess Aniri. I think you came here hoping to meet your lover.” She glanced at Devesh, and the coldness of her look angered Aniri. Even if Devesh had clearly used Aniri, even if he never loved her, it was obvious the ambassador held nothing but contempt for him. She had used him with more cruel intent than Devesh was ever capable of having. His face flushed, turning darker in the dim light.

The ambassador drew her attention back by speaking again. “Maybe you were even considering taking Devesh up on his offer of running away to Samir.” She glanced at the schematic. “How unfortunate you stumbled upon the truth first.”

The door to the outside waiting room flung open, and Garesh marched in, trailed by four guards clad in black Samirian military uniforms. He exchanged a quick look with the ambassador as he entered her office. Devesh stepped hastily back from Aniri, as if she had suddenly burst into flame.

Panic ramped up through Aniri’s body. She struggled to remain still, not giving in to the impulse to attempt to flee, even though it would be useless. Garesh stopped a few feet in front of her and appraised her.

“Princess Aniri of Dharia,” he said. “So nice of you pay us a visit.”

The ambassador tapped twice on her desk, rustling the schematic as she did so. “She knows, Garesh.”

“Oh yes, I’m quite aware of that,” Garesh said, not looking at the ambassador, but boring a look into Aniri instead. “She knows quite a lot. Tell us, Princess Aniri, what did you think of Sik province? Did you enjoy the weather? I can’t imagine a pampered royal from the plains would last long in the cold embrace of our mountains, but tell me: did you find the view stunning?”

Aniri curled her fists, mostly to keep herself from slapping Garesh. Her mind whirled. He knew she’d broken into the airharbor. How? Not that it mattered. She would be lucky if Garesh would only take her prisoner as a traitor. More likely, her body would be found at the bottom of the ravine, the victim of an unknown assassin. She mentally cursed that she had left her saber back at the palace. But she still had her dagger. If they were going to kill her, she would take at least one of them with her. She quickly pulled it from its sheath at the small of her back and held it in front of her.

Garesh looked unimpressed. He drew a pistol from within his dark coat and cocked it back. It contained a single shot, but it was aimed for Aniri’s head. She glanced at Devesh, but he wasn’t looking at her, his horrified gaze fixed on the gleaming barrel of Garesh’s gun.

She looked back to Garesh. “You won’t get away with this. You can’t simply kill a royal from Dharia and expect no repercussions.” Of course, that wasn’t true either. At most, her mother would go to war with Samir or Jungali or both. But they had the skyship; her mother wouldn’t know what had happened to her until long after it mattered.

“And why not?” Garesh said with a smirk. “I’ve done it before.”

Aniri frowned, her hand with the dagger wavering in front of her. What was he talking about? Did he mean her father? Was he truly dead after all, and Garesh was somehow involved? He made a motion with his head, and before Aniri knew what it meant, Devesh had grabbed her knife hand. She struggled, but she was no match for his strength. And he was being none too gentle.

His voice whispered in her ear. “I’m sorry, Aniri. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.” He wrenched her wrist, painfully making her drop the dagger, which thumped weakly on the tapestry that carpeted the floor. He moved behind her and held her securely with his arms wrapped around her, trapping her arms at her sides.

Garesh returned his pistol to its holster under his jacket and leisurely strolled until he was just out of her arm’s reach. Had hers been free, she would have lunged for his throat. It would have been worth choking him for a moment, even if it had no chance of success. He kicked her dagger, and it tumbled away from her. His entourage of guards must not consider her a threat because they remained by the door.