“Do not hurt her,” Cade whispered as the edges of his vision darkened.
“Her? You can’t mean your lady dressed as a stable lad, can you? Or, perhaps the little girl from your old professor’s house? Well, we shall talk more about them later. Both of them. For now, my guards will take you to my place of business.”
Cade barely held back a howl when two guards lifted him to his feet. He kicked out, but one of the guards slammed his fist into Cade’s wound. His legs buckled beneath him, and in the twilight of consciousness, he heard Luke’s voice.
“I’ve done what you wanted. What of my son? My family?”
“You will be delighted to know,” Mr. Starling replied, “that we haven’t taken any more of your son’s fingers. However, there is a price every conspirator must pay for betraying the emperor.”
“I don’t care. Kill me. As long as they’re all right, I don’t care.”
“Very noble sentiments,” Mr. Starling said. “Very noble, indeed, but I’m afraid you misunderstand.”
Through the haze of pain, Cade saw Mr. Starling signal a guard over, who bore a wooden coffer. Mr. Starling lifted the lid so Luke could view what lay within. Cade strained to see, and when he did, he was so revolted he thrashed in the grip of his captors. A man’s head . . .
Nightmare, he thought. It was all a nightmare.
Luke staggered back, his body convulsing. “No, no. Not my son.” Then he lunged at Mr. Starling, a rising cry of grief and rage issuing from his mouth, his hands reaching out like claws. The report of shots battered Cade’s ears, and the next thing he knew, Luke lay sprawled on the floor in a widening puddle of blood. Mr. Starling, wreathed in gunsmoke, stood over Luke’s body shaking his head.
“A pity,” the Inquisitor said, clucking his tongue. “A pity I never got to tell him what we did to his wife and daughters.”
The guards jostled Cade from the room, smoke burning his eyes.
Karigan waited. No one gave her a second look as they passed by. No one questioned her presence. It must mean that all was going well in the palace. Luke and Cade were playing their parts, so she must play hers no matter how marginal it felt. It was difficult to note anything exceptional here in the courtyard, but if she started exploring, she would be noticed, and by the look of the guards, they were apt to kill on the slightest provocation and not worry about a reason.
She brushed flies away from Raven’s eyes, and on inspiration, started walking him in circles. I can do this. One of the duties of a Green Rider was scouting. This should be second nature to her, but standing right beneath the nose of the enemy, on his own ground, and against weapons she had never before faced, was daunting. Walking Raven in circles, she hoped, would be construed as keeping her master’s fine beast limber. She would gradually widen the circle to see what she could—
“Now there is a first-rate horse, Admiral,” a man said, breaking into her thoughts. “Boy, trot him. Let me see him move.”
Though startled, Karigan had the presence of mind to keep playing her role and obeyed at once. She did not dare look directly at the man, but a sideways glance revealed he wore a suit and was accompanied by several people. Some scout she was—she hadn’t noticed their approach. She ran alongside Raven so she could show off his stride at a trot. Always a performer, he arched his neck and gave her his fancy high-stepping gait, which made him look like he was trotting on air. The man and his attendants were a blur as she ran by.
After several circles, the man called for her to halt, and he came forward to inspect Raven more closely. Karigan kept her head bowed as a meek servant would. Raven side-stepped and snorted when the man reached out to touch him.
“Shhh . . .” was all she dared tell Raven. He tensed, but did not act out.
The man ran his hands up and down Raven’s legs and along his back. It was as he stroked Raven’s neck that light glanced off his ruby ring and into her eye. She couldn’t help but stare as the ring went back and forth in a mesmerizing fashion with the stroking. She had seen it before. It had belonged to Lord Amberhill.
“Give me a yacht or ship any day,” said a man in a fancy white military uniform. “Horses? Too unpredictable.”
“But, Admiral, I know our little lake is predictable, but you cannot tell me the sea is. It is the never knowing what to expect that I find so challenging and intriguing.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
“Boy,” said Xandis Pierce Amberhill, emperor of the Serpentine Empire, “to whom does this horse belong?”
Karigan stood frozen. She held her gaze to the ground and fought the urge to scream at him and demand why he had done what he had done, why he had destroyed the realm of his birth, how he’d become such a monster. She fought for control, dared not speak knowing it would give her away immediately, and more importantly, endanger Cade and Luke. A guard in leather and light armor, enameled in red, closed in. Armor? Here? It was the first she had seen, and she assumed it was ornamental since the projectiles of firearms could punch through it, rendering it useless. It was not entirely like the armor she was accustomed to seeing back home, but had gears and pivots at the joints, and copper tubes fed from narrow cylinders behind the shoulders into the bevor concealing his lower face.
“Idiot,” the admiral said. “Your emperor has asked you a simple question. Now answer.”
She pointed at her throat to indicate a problem with speaking, and then in a harsh whisper, said, “Mr. Mayforte.” Then remembered to add a quick, “Your Eminence,” and bob her head.