The Emperor's Edge 3: Deadly Games

The Emperor's Edge 3: Chapter 1 Part 1

He released her hand without a word and led the way down the steps. Amaranthe trailed him, wondering if she had imagined that pause. They followed a railing toward steps leading down from the elevated tiers of seating.

Sicarius stopped before he reached the stairs. A young woman climbed into view, blond hair and freckled skin illuminated by a pair of gas lamps burning on the landing. Though she wore the loose white togs of one of the athletes, she clenched a short bow in one hand and had an arrow nocked with the other. Her head turned from side to side, eyes searching the arena below.

A throwing knife appeared in Sicarius’s hand.

“Wait,” Amaranthe whispered, slipping past him.

Fear whitened the woman’s knuckles where she gripped the bow—this was no hardened bounty hunter.

Amaranthe held her hands out, palms up, and walked toward the landing. “Greetings.”

The bow jerked in her direction.

Amaranthe dropped to her belly, wincing as the hard edge of a travertine step rammed her chest. A clink sounded as the arrow skipped off the railing. Amaranthe sprang to her feet, hoping to reach the woman before she could reload.

Sicarius was already behind the woman, a knife pressed against her throat. The bow clattered to the stone floor.

Amaranthe flung her hand out, saying, “Don’t,” but Sicarius had already paused, waiting to see what she wanted to do. A few months ago, he would not have. He simply would have killed someone—anyone—who dared lift a weapon in his direction.

Amaranthe straightened her shirt and walked forward. “Care to explain why you’re shooting at the shadows? In particular, the portion of shadows I was occupying?”

Rings of white shown around the young woman’s blue irises. She opened her mouth a couple of times but did not manage to speak. She could not be more than eighteen or nineteen, and with that pale skin she was not likely a Turgonian.

Amaranthe waved a hand toward Sicarius to suggest he could loosen his grip. He did not.

“He’ll only kill you if you don’t talk,” Amaranthe said.

“Accident,” the woman whispered, a faint lilting accent marking the word. “I was tense. My sister...someone took her.”

“Oh? Like a kidnapping?” Eagerness thrummed through Amaranthe, revitalizing her tired limbs even more than being shot at had. Was there some trouble afoot? Something her team could handle? Something that could earn them attention—good attention?

“Kidnapping.” The woman started to nod but winced when the movement drew blood. Sicarius kept his knives sharp enough to split the hairs on a flea.

“Let her go, please,” Amaranthe told him. “I do believe that’s a client.”

Though Sicarius had drawn the woman back into the shadows, to stay out of the light on the landing, Amaranthe had no trouble reading the cool expression he leveled her way.

“What?” she asked him. “It’s not as if you were going to spend the week sunbathing at the beach.”

Sicarius released the woman, but he did not put away his dagger. As soon as she was free, the girl clasped a hand to her throat and lunged away from him.

“We might be able to help you,” Amaranthe said. “My name is Amaranthe. What’s yours?”

“Fasha,” she said, still holding her hand to her neck. She eased closer to Amaranthe while throwing uneasy glances at Sicarius. “Are you...athletes?”