The Kraken King, Part 7 by Meljean Brook Page A

when the machine is no longer a danger to us.”
    â€œIt isn’t a danger to you now.”
    â€œHer majesty doesn’t agree.” With bare fingers, she gently pinched a beetle’s rounded back and lifted it from the box, turning its spiraling jaws toward Ariq. “They’re odd creatures. The mandibles are sharp but the beetle won’t chew through the skin. They’ll search for a softer point of entry—the eye, or the mouth, or any other orifice. But if they take that route their path is difficult to follow, and if they converge on the internal organs death is usually inevitable. We prefer to make an incision in the skin, so that they’ll burrow through the muscle and we can easily monitor their progress. It
is
extraordinarily painful. I have undergone it myself so that I would know how those people on whom I used the beetles were feeling.”
    She raised her sleeve to show him the thin scar on her forearm—the incision point, he realized—and the scarring and pitted depression near her inner elbow.
    â€œThat is where I cut it out,” she said softly. “I lasted longer than most.”
    Ariq only had to last as long as it took for them to believe the answer he finally gave.
My heart is iron.
    Lady Nagamochi’s eyes were dark with sympathy as she withdrew a small blade. “Where is the machine’s location, Governor?”
    My will is steel.
    His response was silence.

Chapter Twenty-eight
    For the first time since discovering that she’d been married, Zenobia watched the sunrise alone. It didn’t matter. Heavy gray clouds shrouded the horizon and there wasn’t much of a sunrise to see. So she stared blindly out over the dull water, her body sick and heavy from the fatigue of a sleepless night.
    No word from Ariq. More than twelve hours had passed since Lady Nagamochi had arrived. A full night of discussions, yet they still hadn’t reached a compromise? Gunships still hovered around the quarantine. Submersibles waited below. Guards stood at the entrances to every room and the courtyard, and she could see more moving on the lower balconies. The imperial guard hadn’t just taken over their quarters but the entire tower. What was happening?
    She didn’t know. The guards at the chamber doors had blocked her entry and refused to honor her requests to see her husband. They wouldn’t even deliver a message, and her worry had slowly escalated to terror.
    But it would be all right. Ariq had said it would be all right.
    Unless he’d just been telling her what he thought she needed to hear again.
    â€œMadame Fox?”
    Startled, Zenobia spun to find one of the female guards who’d been standing in front of Ariq’s chamber—one of the same guards who had denied her entry before. “Yes?”
    â€œThe captain requests your presence.”
    Finally. But if the negotiations were over, why hadn’t Ariq come for her himself? She hurried down the courtyard, dread and relief pounding through her with every slam of her heart against her ribs.
    The doors stood partially open, with two guards just inside. She pushed past them, her gaze sweeping the chamber. After the dreary gray outside, the lamps seemed to bathe the room in a soft golden glow. The automaton was still on its throne. Lady Nagamochi was turning away from it, as if she’d just finished speaking to the empress. Ariq sat at the table with his back to her, his head bowed and a teacup in front of him. And—
    Blood stained the mat around him. So much blood.
    Oh, dear God.
Zenobia froze. He wasn’t even wearing his tunic. Instead it had been draped over his shoulders as if to cover him. Which meant it had been off at some point.
    What had they done?
    The guards caught her as she bolted forward. She cried out, struggling against their grip.
    Ariq’s head shot up.
“Don’t . . . hurt . . . her.”
    Each word had been slow and