Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [82]
She continued down the passageway. The wardroom lay all the way aft, two decks above the engines. Already huffing along, it wouldn’t be long before Ceres arrived at Brenner’s Pass. She hoped Guillouet had experience with the mountain winds.
Before she had a chance to knock, Laurent opened the door, obviously on the way out. He stopped suddenly, brows lifting.
“Is Mr. Bigor in?”
Stepping back, he gave a little jerk of his chin, inviting her in. A man of few words, apparently. He held the door open for her, then Dubois followed him out.
A designated cabin for officers to dine and take their leisure—or on a private ship, the senior crew, purser, and surgeon—the wardroom was larger and better appointed than the berth deck and mess. A small shelf held a selection of leather-bound books. Several comfortable chairs and a writing desk sat on one side of the room; the dining table filled the other.
All of them had been pushed aside to make space for the marines’ equipment. Yasmeen’s throat tightened. Eleven, twelve years ago, Lady Corsair’s stateroom had often looked the same.
Though they’d been hired for defense on this expedition, mar-souin s had specialized in aerial and water infiltrations during the war. Brass diving suits were mounted along one wall. Collapsible gliders were folded next to them. Crates held other gear, weapons. They’d carried their own arsenal and equipment, not relying on the airship’s—apparently, that still held true.
Bigor sat at the table, a small chest open in front of him. He stood as she entered, gestured for her to sit.
A stack of personal effects lay next to the chest, and one by one, Bigor packed them inside. Letters, a rag doll, a ferrotype photograph of a woman and a baby . . . the chest was full of Durand’s belongings, she realized. Bigor was preparing to send them off—probably to the woman in the photograph.
“I’m sorry about your man,” she said softly.
Jaw hard, he nodded. “It’s not often we have a chance to say good-bye.”
“I know.” And that was better than nothing.
“We might have all been the same if not for your bullets. Thank you.”
She nodded her own acknowledgment. There was nothing to say. It hadn’t ended up being enough—but he was likely counting his every shot, too. Wondering if he’d just pulled the trigger one more time, maybe he’d have killed the zombie who bit Durand.
“Only one letter left to add now—mine.” He closed the chest, but didn’t lock it. “He has a wife in the Antilles.”
“You’ll send her a good story, I hope.”
“He has many worth telling. But today, I’ll probably put his name on a few of your bullets.”
So that his wife could hear that Durand had died after saving his comrades; that they only lived because of him. “That’s fine.”
He gave another sharp nod, but this time, it seemed rough around the edges. “You don’t expect it to be this. The war, yes. You fight for a reason and shoulder a burden of responsibility, duty—and of doing things I’d never want my wife and children to know. In the war, they send a letter home that only tells the family that he fought with honor, he fulfilled his duty—and it’s truth. But I’m still doing things I don’t want to describe in a letter, and when I go, a good story is all I can hope for. And like Durand’s, it will probably be sprinkled with lies.”
The lies didn’t matter to Yasmeen; she’d built her reputation on bits of truth she’d chosen other people to know, and that would be all anyone knew of her when she died. But responsibility and duty . . .
Only a few months ago, she’d looked at Nasrin and pitied the gan tsetseg for the chains that bound her. But Yasmeen had her own; her airship gave her freedom but had bound Yasmeen with duty and loyalty to the men and women that served it. She’d willingly borne those chains—and when the links snapped, it had been a physical pain.
Yet to never feel their burden again was unimaginable. To never feel the wind in her face, her wind. To never feel her engines beneath her feet.