The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) (37 page)

A giant yawn stretched his jaw as he slipped into the dark guest chambers and closed the door quietly behind him. He counted the lumpy shapes on the canopy beds, peeking into the adjacent room. Gideon’s distinctly large shape was missing from the collection, but he’d probably just gone to stretch his legs, like Reece had before Hannick had found him and insisted upon treating him to a night of Oceanun culture.

After rinsing down in the water closet, he heaved himself onto the last unmade bed, stuffed his face into the feather pillow, and abruptly fell asleep.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes before he was cruelly,
heartlessly
awoken by some sort of commotion. Hurried footfall in the corridor, raised voices, lights flickering under the foot of the door. He doubted that much would have been enough to rouse him from his coma, but in the beds next to him, Po and Hayden were talking in hushed voices about what was going on, and across the room, Gideon was growling death threats into his pillow. If Gid was back, it must have been more than five minutes after all. Reece was too disoriented to gather more than that.

“
What’s going on?” he slurred, trying to sit up. His head felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton. Or maybe something heavier. Like granite.

“
There’s been some sort of power outage in the city,” Hayden whispered.

Someone pounded on the suite door with what sounded to Reece’s muddled head like a battering ram. Po squeaked and pulled her blankets over her head like the ceiling was falling down while across the room, Gideon muttered murderously and from the sound of sharp, agitated clicking, started loading his revolver. Before someone could
really
overreact, Reece stumbled out of bed, tripped towards the door, and opened it before realizing he was missing one of his socks.

King Pryor, bedecked in all his ribbons, honors, and forbidding sternness, gave him an unimpressed once over while the half a dozen guards arranged behind him glared and hefted their clubs.

“Captain Sheppard,” he rumbled. “Might I have a word?”

Blinking blearily, Reece opened the door and waved him in.
“Be my guest, Your Highness.”

The king didn’t budge, leveling Reece with a flat look, chin tucked, hands folded.
“I prefer you accompany me, actually.” His eyes stayed on Reece, but something about him seemed to gesture to the guards leaning forward on either side of him like dogs straining at their leashes. This time when Reece blinked, he was coming to himself, realizing what this looked like. An arrest.

All at once, Gideon and Nivy were there, framing him between their shoulders as they stared down the guards in challenge. The king’s gaze darted to Gideon without flinching before moving on to study Nivy instead, settling on the band of black around her throat. Nivy seemed coolly unbothered by the attention, but Reece was less keen about it. There might not be much harm in Pryor learning what it was. But
might
had become an altogether tricky word of late.

“
I’d be glad to,” he said firmly, not for Pryor, but for Gideon and Nivy. Gideon sucked in an unhappy breath between his teeth and mutteringly marched back into the room. It wasn’t meek and mild obedience, but Reece would take it. Nivy gave him a frown and a good luck nod but didn’t go until Reece had been escorted by Pryor and his guards almost to the end of the torch-lit hall. Then she slammed the door behind her.

A long, silent, and by all means awkward walk through the dark city later, Pryor paused before a grandiose pair of oak doors carved with golden pictographs, swirls and bells and zigzags. The doors looked ancient; Reece would never have expected them to zip apart and retract into the walls as they did when the king placed his hand on the panel beside them.

“Have a seat, Captain Sheppard,” Pryor ordered as he led Reece into what must have been his personal study. The shelved walls of the room were stacked with trophies, draped with medals, and checkered with framed kinetic stills of achievements, memories, and black and white articles. A monstrous desk on feet shaped like clams had its back to a broad window overlooking an ocean garden of serpentine seaweed and red spiked flowers. Their lazily-waving shadows made dancing stripes on the carpeted floor.

“
I expect,” King Pryor began as he settled down into his high-backed desk chair, “you know why you’re here?”

Reece eyed the single stool that had been left for him before the desk. He’d rather stand, but the guards on his sides put hands on his shoulders and pressed till his knees buckled and down he sat. He scowled at the king, cranky now. He didn’t appreciate the suggestion he’d done something wrong, or the way this whole set up made him feel like a rotten kid caught stealing sweets.

“Not really, no. I didn’t park the ship too near the carriage lane, did I? I do that, sometimes,” he said.

Pryor’s eyes glinted in the watery blue light slanting through the window.
“Do not dance around the question. What do you know of the missing anai?”

Reece arched a brow.
“Someone’s missing an eye?”

Drawing a deep breath, Pryor leaned forward, steepling his hands on his desk so his fingers formed a gun.
“In all my time as king, in all my
father’s
time, no one has dared meddle with those stones, neither in Neserus nor any of the other cities.” When Reece smothered a yawn in his hand, he slapped a palm down on the desk, rattling a cup of quills. “Explain to me, Captain, why the very night your questionable-at-best crew arrives on Oceanus, one of our most precious resources goes missing!”

“
Easy. Bad timing.”

“
You would—”

“
Look,” Reece sighed impatiently, “you said it yourself, we only just arrived. What would we even
know
about your bleeding resources? I suspect you’ve had my ship looked over by now, so you know we’re pretty well cleaned out. We need to restock here, that’s it.”

With a growl, the king shot back,
“One of your shipmates was given an…
expanded
tour of the city, unbeknownst to me. Earlier this evening, my under delegate was foolishly forthcoming with your medic on the matter of the anai. He knows enough to know their value, at the very least.”

“
Hayden
?” Reece choked, then laughed, half in astonishment at Hayden’s pluck, half at the ludicrous idea of him stealing
anything
, let alone something that was apparently an important resource to the planet. “Sure, alright. Search him, if you want. Search us all. Then let us go back to bed.”

The king’s face purpled as he twisted a quill in his hands like he wished it was someone’s neck.
“We both know you could have stashed the anai anywhere in the city. That aside, it is not your medic I am interested in interrogating. The Pantedan was seen skulking around some three hours ago, shortly before the power outage alerted us to the theft.”

That brought Reece up short for a beat; he frowned at the king, disconcerted, before gathering his wits enough to retort,
“And he’s the only one in the whole of Neserus who doesn’t have a plausible alibi? That was fast work.”

“
It is not
every one else
whose motives are in question here, Captain! The Pantedan—”

“
—has a name,” Reece snapped, the last of his patience used up with that last stroke. “It’s Gideon.”

Pryor leaned back in his chair with a heavy
thump
, tanned fingers tapping out a tattoo on the carved armrest. For a long moment, he studied Reece through a glare as if trying to decide what to do with him, and Reece wondered if maybe he hadn’t been premature after all when he’d wondered if he was being arrested. Finally, Pryor sighed, and it had the sound of surrender to it, weary, vexed, but resigned. He’d taken a similar tone with Hannick earlier.

“
You realize,” he said at length, “that Oceanus was for Glaucus in the Eudoran War?”

Well, that explained a few things. If Oceanus had allied with Panteda’s enemies in the war that had wiped out their home world…no wonder her king was a little jumpy around two Pans as generally terrifying as Gid and his grandfather.

“So was Honora,” Reece pointed out a little stiffly. “That war is thirteen years gone. Your Majesty.”

“
And Panteda’s grudges? Your friend, this Gideon…he harbors no ill will towards those in part responsible for the tragedy that befell his home?”

Reece supposed it was good of Pryor not to deny that Oceanus’s inaction had contributed to Panteda’s destruction, but he was too troubled by the fact he couldn’t easily dismiss the king’s concerns to pay it much mind. The truth was, Gid
was
bitter, and even though no one could blame him for that, his bitterness made for an awfully good case against him. Reece grunted thoughtfully and stood to approach the king’s desk, ignoring the guards that started to loom up on either side of him until Pryor dismissed them with a curt nod.

“
It wasn’t Gideon,” he repeated. “On my honor as Captain, and Palatine First, I can promise it.”

“
But can you prove it?” Pryor wondered, spreading his empty hands. “I’m sorry, Captain, but you do understand that I cannot permit you or your ship to depart until the matter of the missing anai has been resolved?”

Reece braced his hands against the desk and leaned down to be at eye level with the king. It wasn’t much of a reach. Even sitting down, Pryor towered like a grim, forbidding tree, weathered and crooked but solid as stone.
“That could be weeks. I don’t have that kind of time.”

Pryor quirked an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t aware casual travelers such as yourselves cared much for deadlines.” He held Reece’s eyes for a long moment as Reece tried to think up something to say that wouldn’t sound like an excuse, but Pryor had him trapped, pinned under those shrewd, knowing eyes. He straightened behind his desk, pulled out a quill, and began scrawling on a sheet of parchment marked with a blot of wax. “An official notice,” he explained, “alerting my watchers you’re not to leave Neserus until I send the word. If you are in such a rush, perhaps you will assist me in solving this mystery. No ferries have left for Haldon, Lumiel, or Faldon since the theft occurred—I’ll make certain they stay put, at least for now. Our thief is most assuredly nearby.”

A frustrated growl burst out of Reece as he threw up his hands, alarming the guards, who started and touched their clubs. How was he supposed to help him find his thief when he didn’t even understand what an anai was, other than a bleeding pain in the—

The door to the study slammed open, and Reece twisted as Hannick marched in, expression indignant. “You must be
joking
,” he scoffed, striding right up the desk and crossing his arms. “You know I was mostly being ironic about you frightening off visitors, right? You
really
think they flew into port, paused for a nap, and then proceeded to steal an anai without further ado? I know what they say about Honorans, but that seems a little daft, even for them.”

He tossed Reece a short, apologetic look as Reece eyed him sideways. Reece wasn’t insulted so much as curious. What did Oceanuns say about Honorans, now?

“Hannick,” Pryor began in a longsuffering voice, but then the door, which a guard had just carefully closed, banged open again, and this time it was Talfryn who hurried in and anxiously rushed the desk.

“
Father, it wasn’t them, I know it! It can’t be—they didn’t even know of the anai before I spoke with Hayden!”

“
Yes,” Pryor interrupted, leveling her with a stern look. “I am keenly aware of that, Talfryn, thank you.”

“
But she’s right.” Hannick held up his two pointer fingers. “You can’t blame Reece and his crew for her impropriety.”

Talfryn’s mouth opened and closed, expression wavering between agreement and insult. Reece used the pause to speak for himself.
“Look, if it’s proof you want, it’s proof you’ll get. But you can’t limit my crew’s movements if you want us to turn up evidence for you.”

Hannick nodded and added,
“If you have to keep them at port in Neserus, so be it. But putting them under house arrest will serve no one.”

Reece shot him a questioning look that was ignored. He didn’t
want
to be kept at port, and Pryor had no right to ground him like the duke or Abigail had occasionally tried to do without great success. There had always been ways out of Emathia, back gates and fire escapes or servants’ tunnels. But there was only one way off Oceanus. Aurelia. And so long as she was stabled in the king’s city, Pryor more or less held her keys.

Massaging his temple with two fingers, King Pryor let out a huff of breath through his nostrils, eyes closed.
“Oh, very well,” he growled. When he reopened his eyes to find Reece, Hannick, and Talfryn standing there like a trio of numpties, blank-faced with surprise at having won him over, he curtly added, “You may go. For now.”

The conversation hardly felt over to Reece, but he let Talfryn and Hannick draw him towards the door, holding either of his arms like he couldn’t be trusted to walk on his own. There were worst places to be detained than Oceanus, but—