Free The Assassin's Curse by Lindsay Buroker Page A

unlikely that it involves us. Your
brick.” He had not lowered his, of course.
    Amaranthe hid a grimace. Her shoulders ached
at the notion of holding that thing out of the water any longer.
After all, they had swum two miles before this. Thanks to a couple
of her men complaining about the difficulty of training due to the
heat, she had been inspired to suggest water workouts. Her
mistake.
    “It could involve us,” Amaranthe said,
smiling. “What if someone is in dire need of aid? Some
warrior-caste patron or soldier on an errand for the Imperial
Barracks? If we rushed to the assistance of someone like that, he
could put in a good word for us with the emperor, a word that might
help in our goals of exoneration. What do you think?”
    “I think you seek to cut out the last half
hour of your training.”
    “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking
about.” Amaranthe flipped onto her side and stroked toward the
mainland with the brick on her hip. She was tempted to drop the
thing, but he’d probably make her fetch it.
    A boom roared through the hills, its power so
great it sent ripples across the lake.
    Amaranthe gaped. Where a gray wisp had
floated into the blue sky before, great black plumes now wafted
upward.
    “That was more than a crash,” she said.
    “Catastrophic boiler failure,” Sicarius
said.
    Despite his indifference, he was swimming
after her. Good. If Amaranthe chanced upon a platoon of soldiers,
they might be less interested in the fact that she had good
intentions and more concerned about the fact that she was an outlaw
with a death mark on her head. Sicarius’s head was even more wanted
than hers—to the degree of a million ranmyas instead of ten
thousand—but he could handle a platoon of soldiers, probably
wearing nothing except his soggy trousers.
    When they reached the shore, Sicarius put on
his black boots and started strapping on his ample collection of
daggers and throwing knives. The small armory never left him
without the right tool for the job—a job that had been
assassinating people until Amaranthe recruited him for her team.
The dagger that rode on his right hip had a plain black handle and
a matching blade made from some alloy she’d never seen anywhere
else. He’d never told her the story of where he’d found it, but
she’d seen him cut through rock, bone, and even metal with it.
    Amaranthe stripped out of her smallclothes
and tugged on dry trousers and a sleeveless shirt she had left
folded on a rock. She didn’t worry about modesty. Sicarius had seen
her nude before, and unfortunately he never seemed inclined to ogle
her. She, on the other hand, had to make a point not to stare when
he was walking about shirtless, with water snaking down his lean,
muscled chest...
    Amaranthe realized he had finished donning
all of his gear and was waiting for her. Blushing, she stuffed her
feet into her boots, tugged her wet brown hair back into a
ponytail, belted on her short sword, and grabbed her repeating
crossbow.
    Sicarius took the lead, choosing a route that
wound through trees instead of following the path. They passed the
road, railway tracks, and the running trail that circled the lake
without seeing anyone. Perhaps because sane people didn’t wander
about in the late afternoon heat. Amaranthe was already sweating,
and she was glad they didn’t tramp uphill for long before Sicarius
raised a hand and dropped into a crouch behind a stout pine.
    Amaranthe knelt by a stump a couple of feet
away, crinkling her nose at the scent of scorched metal and burning
wood. Flames, visible through the trees ahead of them, licked at
branches and devoured brown needles carpeting the rocky
terrain.
    “We’d better not get too close,” Amaranthe
said. “A forest fire is a possibility this time of year.”
    Sicarius was gazing off to the left.
Amaranthe leaned around her stump and caught her breath. The
remains of a bipedal army steam tramper lay on its side, dwarfing
the surrounding ferns and