Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [118]
“I know,” he said, and her chest squeezed almost to nothing.
Of course, he understood. Like her, he did not live in civilization, not truly. He did not live under the safety of rules and laws. No, the only rules and laws they lived by were their own.
But that also meant that when the seas ate up someone she loved, whether it was in lawless Port Fallow or the Ivory Market, whether it was aboard a ship on the ocean, that there was no one to seek justice. Murder was not illegal in a land without law, and so the only possible recourse for Yasmeen, the only loyalty she could show to her crew was to seek her own justice, to apply her own laws.
That didn’t mean they had to be his.
“I could have come later,” she said. “I didn’t have to risk you. I should have been patient. I understand the gan tsetseg now, Archimedes. If the man I need to protect is hurt, a part of me will also die. I don’t know if it is beautiful or barbaric, but I know it now.”
“Yasmeen.” Roughly, he took his face between her hands and kissed her—and kissed her again. “I will stand behind you. I will always stand behind you.”
But he wouldn’t, she knew. If anything ever threatened her, he would jump in front and take the first blow. Just as she would for him.
Hours passed. By the afternoon, they heard a growing commotion, of many voices shouting together. They had no view from their chamber, and so Yasmeen climbed quietly to the roof to look over, and saw the courtyard filled with men and women. Together, like this, the effects of the Horde occupation were still shouting as they did: almost every man and woman had been modified by the tools of the occupation. Legs had been altered into lifts or rollers, arms augmented with steel and iron or replaced altogether. But although they shouted, they did not seem angry. Determined, rather—and all of them seemed to be waiting, expectant.
Nasrin was waiting in their chambers when she climbed back down, her amusement plain. “We are sorry to have kept you here, but the talks were long, and the councilors have only just left.”
The talks with the French? But Nasrin didn’t say. She led them to a great columned hall that might have once held a throne, but now was only laid with a thick rug. Temür sat at the head, his legs folded beneath him. Hassan sat at his right side.
Temür gestured for them to sit on his left. Smaller than she’d always imagined, with shrewd eyes and iron gray hair gathered at the top of his head in a narrow tail, he was quiet, and still—much like Nasrin now, standing slightly behind him. He did not appear the clenched-teethed madman she had always pictured, ordering a city razed to the ground; nor did he appear the generous, impassioned man that had built another city up. He simply looked like a man, seated in front of a game of strategy—and she could not determine whether he was winning or losing.
“Our friend Hassan has told us of your journey, and all that you suspect of Kareem al-Amazigh.”
Archimedes nodded, obviously relieved by the “our friend.” “Yes.”
“He is aboard one of the French ships laying siege to us now. They demand entry for their soldiers, and to allow al-Amazigh to destroy the tower.”
He ought to have listened to Hassan, Yasmeen thought. Such an action might make him a hero, but he would lose the city to a foreign power.
Either way, he would not be a hero for long. Yasmeen pictured the line of ships. She would have to discover which he was on, and then fly Ceres close enough that she could infiltrate . . .
No. That wouldn’t do, not unless she flew her alone. She could not risk the crew with this. She would not risk Archimedes—though she didn’t know how she would stop him from risking himself.
“She is already determining how she will kill Kareem al-Amazigh,” Nasrin said. “You had best talk more quickly, my love.”
Yasmeen’s eyes locked on the man’s face. “You don’t want me to?”
“An assassination aboard the French ships would be akin to shooting a first bullet. My war machines will destroy the fleet, but that would also destroy many