The Scarlet Empress (15 page)

“Scottish and Korean, actually, with a smattering of nearly everything else.”

This time when silence returned, it was several degrees more companionable. It was a novel experience indeed, for he, lacking female siblings, couldn’t remember viewing a single interaction with a female as such. Many other things, certainly, but not companionable.

He had to say he quite liked it.

With the return of silence, though, the sadness was back in Cam’s expression. “You didn’t harm them,” she said after a while. “The people at the farm.”

“I scared them a little—I admit it freely. But then, they did break the law, after all.”

“They told me Rim Riders had roughed them up before.”

“What? When did this occur? What were their names?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Are you the head Rim Rider or something? Did they break the code of Rim Rider ethics?” She looked something between amused and concerned.

“Head Rim Rider . . .” He shook his head.

“I take it that’s a no?”

He set his mug in the dirt next to hers. “Rim Riders patrol the borderlands in the name of safety and security. At times we act as bounty hunters. But to hurt the locals . . . that is not tolerated—by Prince Kyber,” he added quickly. “The prince, the acting emperor, is a mostly benevolent monarch. Certainly some transgressions occur at the hands of his soldiers, but the incidents, I believe, are rare and punished if discovered. The emperor doesn’t want his legacy to be one of resentment and hatred. Such opinions can fester in the citizenry and grow over generations like a cancer, until they reach the level where they can destroy a very empire. Case in point—the UCE. Their bureaucrats mistreat the hands that feed them—their colonists—and now those hands have formed a hostile fist. There’s an important lesson there: Never underestimate the power of your people.”

The sorrow always visible to some degree in Cam’s eyes grew even more pronounced. “I wish they hadn’t felt compelled to lie to me,” she said without his having to ask. “That family I lived with.”

He regretted her pain. Yet he had to admit it helped his cause. Once he brought her to Beijing, he wanted her to stay there, not run off searching for rebel family members out of a misplaced sense of belonging. Fortunately, having wounded her with their lies, they’d all but solved that dilemma. “Betrayal never fails to taste bitter,” he said.

“It’s happened to you?”

“Regrettably, yes. I’ve experienced it on both sides.”

“You betrayed someone?”

“Yes. Through ignorance.”

She waited for him to explain. And, to his shock, he
did. “I have a brother. A half brother. He’s the bastard my mother bore her lover.”

Cam winced. “Sorry.”

“We didn’t know, growing up. We thought we were full brothers. My entire family did. Except for my mother, who held her secrets close. Of course, secrets die only when taken to the grave. My father learned of her infidelity and confronted her. To keep him from telling others, she paid someone who claimed to have invented a secret elixir that would excise my father’s memory, selectively.” An “elixir” created by a medicine salesman who turned up with links to various rebel groups and that joke of a leader, Beauchamp of the UCE, though the latter had never been proven to Kyber’s satisfaction. Palace security was thought to be impenetrable, but no one had anticipated a killer-for-hire waiting for the kind of opportunity that the queen had inadvertently provided.

“Thinking he was eating nothing more than breakfast one day, my father ingested a protein, an engineered prion, which brought on not the selective loss of memory, but irreversible disintegration of the brain.” Kyber looked into the dark woods. “It began as a vague sadness in a man who was nearly always happy. The lethal march continued over the weeks as his brain cells died by the millions. None of the physicians who examined him could find the cause of his symptoms. He began to hallucinate. He forgot things, had
difficulty making decisions. Muscles jerked in his arms and legs. And then one day he was gone.” Kyber took a breath. He still mourned the tragic loss of the man he had so admired, sometimes filled with doubts as to whether he’d ever live up to the man’s standard.

“I’m sorry,” Cam said.

“The elixir killed the man, but not his body.”

“He’s in a coma, then.”

“For years now, yes.”

Cam made a small sound that conveyed much. “How difficult that must be for your family.”

“You cannot imagine. My half brother emerged as the leading suspect.”

“Mercy . . .”

“I had him arrested, sent off to the dungeons.” He turned his hands over in his lap. “What choice did I have? Only my mother knew of my brother’s innocence, and yet she kept this to herself until it was announced he was to be executed for his crimes. The emperor eventually cleared my half brother of all charges at my mother’s behest, but the sad matter tore a rift in my relationship with my brother that has never been healed. Apparently he was beaten badly in custody. I . . . didn’t know this.”

“You wouldn’t have had the power to stop the beatings, even if you did know.”

The twist to Kyber’s mouth was both wry and remorseful.

If only she knew that you
did
have the authority.
Kyber wondered what his father would have done if placed in the same situation. Would he have been more conscious of the climate of brutality that existed in the prison? “My brother remains bitter, and I suppose I cannot blame him. I am just as embittered about his association with . . . certain shadowy groups that led to his being accused in the first place.”

Kyber fell silent. He’d actually told her about the near-assassination of his father, an event that affected him
still. What was the phrase he’d heard on the Interweb? Spilling one’s guts? Yes, that was precisely what had occurred just now. And it left him feeling rather spent. Aside from sporadic comments made during security-based discussions with Nikolai, he’d never confided to anyone his personal thoughts on his estrangement from D’ekkar. Kyber could not have done it. Kublai, it seemed, could.

He didn’t worry that what he’d revealed tonight would cause Cam to make the connection that he was, in fact, Prince Kyber. Only four souls knew of the events: himself, his mother, D’ekkar, and Nikolai. It was not public knowledge. Yes, the citizenry understood that there had been an assassination attempt, but they didn’t know why or how, and never would.

Kyber picked up his mug of coffee, sipping to settle himself, half wishing it were a glass of wine.

The hush continued as they brooded over their pasts and battled their demons.

“I heard the emperor eats peasants alive and makes overcoats from their dried flesh,” Cam said out of the blue.

Kyber choked on the coffee he sipped.

“That’s what I was told.” Cam shrugged, though he had the feeling she was far more serious than the casual gesture implied.

“By the same people who told you nuclear war destroyed the world?”

“So it’s not true.”

“Definitely not!”

From where he stood by the fire pit, Nikolai threw Kyber a questioning glance. Kyber lowered his voice.

“The emperor . . . he is actually a prince, acting as emperor in his father’s place.”

“And the father?”

“Incapacitated by an assassination attempt years ago.”

“Mmm,” she said. “I think they must have meant the prince, then.”

Kyber winced. “Is the rumor rampant in these parts?”

“I heard it from only one person.”

“Who?” he demanded.

Her lips compressed. She wasn’t going to tell him. And he knew better than to force it from her.

“Thanks, Kublai,” she said after a bit.

He shook his head. “For what?”

“For letting me vent. For answering my questions all day. For . . . being a friend.” She looked at him then, her open, welcoming expression bringing to mind the photo Nikolai had shown him of her standing in the middle of a dirt road, her head thrown back, her face directed at the sky. Now, as then, her blond hair fluttered around her face as light as air. And now, as then, it was what her eyes revealed of the woman within that made him catch his breath, not her more obvious physical attributes. “I guess I needed one tonight.”

“A friend . . .”

“Yeah. You’re a pretty good one to have, I’d say.”

Women had called him many things, but never
friend.
“Do you always say what you think?” he teased in a quiet voice.

“I take it that bothers you,” she guessed, knowing he referred to the conversation from the morning, after the springs. When he said nothing, she smiled at him from
behind her mug of coffee. “You’re supposed to say you don’t know me well enough to say.”

“I don’t know if that particular response still applies.”

They shared a look that was as surprising as it was arousing in its intensity. Then, as if succumbing to second thoughts, Cam took sudden interest in Nikolai’s dinner preparations.

If only Banzai Maguire had been as easy for him to read as Cam, he thought. She’d betrayed him, Banzai—quite shocked him with her departure, if the truth be told. He’d never thought she’d go. Perhaps she’d had her reasons: her inability to believe anything he told her, her obsessive patriotism for a nation long dead, and her infatuation with the UCE supreme commander’s son. Yet from the start he’d never been able to discern a true sense of her. Her deepest thoughts had been a mystery—and were still.

Why would Banzai have been any different from the other women you’ve encountered in your life?
he asked himself.

True. He loved women; he savored the time spent in their company. He collected beauties like flowers to sprinkle about the palace, and they often artfully arranged themselves here and there to surprise and delight him, winning, as he suspected was their motivation, a visit to his chambers. While he understood their bodies well, the workings of their minds was a different story altogether, a mystery he had to admit he’d had little desire to unravel. In a rare turnaround, he’d put in the extra effort with Banzai, and look where it had gotten him!

Yet now, in a single day in Cameron Tucker’s company,
he’d learned more about her than he had with Banzai in three months.

Or, with his mother in a lifetime.

Enough! Nothing can come of this! When the journey ends, so must your relationship with Cam.
Kyber’s mood darkened with the sudden return to reality. As soon as he delivered her to the palace, he’d have to walk away from Cam. What choice did he have? Seeing her as Kublai would put at risk the ruse he’d played for most of his adult life. Nor could he meet her face-to-face as the prince. The risk of her recognizing him was too great.
Is that not what you said you wanted, to stay well clear of her?

It was indeed.

“Dinner is nearly ready,” he grumbled rather abruptly. He pushed to his feet and offered Cam a hand for assistance up, releasing her as soon as she found her balance. He didn’t care to feel the heat of her palm pressed to his any longer than he had to. As quickly as he could, he left her side, exchanging her presence for that of the fire. Those flames, he knew, would be far more easily extinguished.

On the second full day of travel, they pushed the pace hard until well after dark. “We are behind,” was all Kublai would say. The worry in his manner was disturbing to Cam, but he wouldn’t go into detail. “You will be safe only within the walls of the city.”

There were those who wished to do her harm; that was all he would tell her. She was beginning to see him more as a bodyguard than anything else. And hearing that others were looking for her heightened her fears for Bree’s welfare. She’d wanted, so many times during the day while riding with Kublai, to bring up the subject of her friend’s possible whereabouts, but each time, her POW training reared its head and cautioned her into silence. Better to wait and see if the men mentioned Bree instead of the other way around. But the wait was killing her. It was hard not to think that Bree was either dead or in hiding. Why else would these two Rim Riders not have brought her up? Cam was prepared to accept either
circumstance; the not-knowing was what wore her down more than anything. That, she realized, and her body’s woes.

The pain meds Kublai gave her helped, but her muscles were trembling and cramping from the rigor of riding. By the time the men chose a campsite and stopped for the night, Cam was slumping in the saddle. She’d been strong and athletic all her life. Being this weak and not being able to do anything about it was embarrassing.

Kublai dismounted and led her on horseback into a clearing. The rocking of her horse lulled Cam half-asleep.

“Come.” A deep, rumbling voice roused her from her exhausted stupor. Strong hands reached for her and helped her down.

Dinner was a mostly silent affair—comfortable, companionable silence that came from two days spent traveling together. Cam scraped the last of some stew from the bottom of her bowl. “Delicious again, thank you.”

Feeling much like a wounded animal, inside and out, she shook out her bedroll and spread it on the ground. One of the travel bags served as a headboard. She leaned back, her legs sprawled out in front of her. Then she let go of a huge sigh.

“Hurting, eh?”

Her eyes opened halfway at the sound of the familiar sexy baritone. “A few hours off the back of a horse will do wonders, I’m sure.”

“Tomorrow, when we arrive at the capital, you’ll have access to the best medical care in the world. Before you know it, you’ll be completely well.”

“Can’t wait.” She winced at the spasms clenching the
length of her legs. “Mercy. I sure hope I don’t have to relieve myself again before bedtime, because I have the feeling I’ll have to crawl there.”

“I’d carry you.”

She smiled up at him. “You would, wouldn’t you? My mama would have liked you. She said that Southern men were the only true gentlemen. With you, I think she’d have made an exception.”

She felt rather than saw Kublai smile. The next thing she knew, something was tugging at her boots. She lifted her head. Kublai had crouched down in front of her, his broad shoulders blocking the firelight. He loomed above her, a black silhouette limned in orange. “What are you doing?”