Skies of Steel: The Ether Chronicles Read online

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  “SHE’S DISTURBING THE crew.”

  At Levkov’s complaint, Mikhail looked up from studying the charts spread across the table in his stateroom. The skies over the Mediterranean swarmed with airships from every nation, especially Russia. His own nature, combined with the telumium implants, made him want to head toward a fight, not away from one—even years after turning rogue—but intelligence had to override instinct. His goals now were based solely on profit, not glory.

  He’d have to be careful, very careful, getting his ship safely to Medinat al-Kadib.

  He also knew without asking which “she” Levkov referred to. Not Bonita Marlowe, the ship’s surgeon, not Rupa Patel, the carpenter’s assistant, or any of the other dozen females on board the Bielyi Voron.

  No, Levkov spoke of the only women on board Mikhail couldn’t stop thinking about, no matter how many maps he studied or evasive strategies he planned. How she watched the skies with fascination, how she moved with unexpected suppleness. How fear glinted in her eyes but she fought past that fear, and how he couldn’t help admiring that, damn it.

  “She’s just a wisp of an Englishwoman.” He used an aeroplotter to finish charting his course before turning to Levkov. “Every single member of this crew has been in blood-soaked battle. How could Daphne Carlisle disturb anyone?” He put this question more to himself than to his first mate.

  “Go and see,” Levkov said. “Right now, she’s topside.”

  Mikhail wanted to bark that he was busy, he had a damn ship to run—but if his crew was troubled by her, then they’d not perform their duties properly. Another voice whispered at the back of his mind: You just want to look at her again.

  Maybe he did. And maybe seeing that she was just an ordinary woman with no especially seductive charms would help him get the machinery of his brain back in working order.

  Stalking from his cabin, he headed above deck, with Levkov on his heels. As Mikhail walked, he felt the subtle pull of the batteries lining the bulkheads, a silver-edged awareness as his aurora vires was transformed into the energy powering the ship. Seldom did he notice the feeling. It had become an ingrained, automatic part of him, like breathing or flight. Yet he sensed it now, and it was a measure of how her presence on his airship threw him off balance.

  He emerged on the top deck and set his goggles into place. Man O’ War he might be, with sharper vision and greater strength than a normal man, but the wind from the airship’s velocity still pulled tears from his eyes.

  Late afternoon sun spilled sideways across the deck. They’d made good progress today, already nearing Crete. Within a day and a half, the ship would reach Medinat al-Kadib, and then he could receive the second half of his payment. Bid farewell to Daphne Carlisle, and then go back to his usual business.

  He saw her immediately. She sat upon a crate, a writing tablet across her lap. Struggling with the pages flapping wildly in the breeze, her hand sped across the paper as she wrote. Every now and then, she’d glance up and study the crew moving around her. Then she’d return to her notebook. The process repeated itself many times.

  His crew tried to give her a wide berth. They’d take the most circuitous route to avoid her as they went about their duties. A crewman crossed all the way to the other side of the ship, although the valve he needed to adjust was mere steps away if he’d walked right past her. A damned inefficient way to run a ship. He wasn’t in the navy anymore, but even rogue airships needed to function properly.

  He and Levkov approached, but she didn’t look up from her writing.

  “You see what I mean,” Levkov complained in Russian. “Sits there like a judging owl.”

  “Pretty owl, though,” Mikhail answered in the same language. “Got some surprisingly lush plumage on her, even if she is a pain in my arse.”

  “Owls have talons, too,” Daphne Carlisle said in Russian.

  He gave a soft snort. Of course the professorsha knew his native tongue. Likely she knew dozens of languages. He’d have to remain vigilant around her.

  He waved Levkov off, and the first mate seemed glad to put distance between himself and the Englishwoman.

  She glanced up with an annoyed frown when Mikhail’s shadow darkened the pages of her notebook, making it difficult to write. Straightening her shoulders, she tipped her head back to try to look him in the eye.

  “You’re bothering my crew,” he said.

  “I’m being perfectly unobtrusive,” she countered.

  “This is not being unobtrusive.” He gestured toward the crew, who continued to edge around the deck like deer avoiding a wolf. A daft notion. She was only one slim-boned English academic. He knew for a fact that more than half his crew had bounties on their heads. He could make a good fortune by turning them in, but if he did, there’d be no one to help run his ship.

  “This is precisely the same technique I use when making field notes.” She stood, but took several steps back to keep distance between them. “At first, the subjects are wary of my presence. In time, they grow acclimated to me, and return to their usual patterns of behavior.”

  “My crew aren’t subjects.”

  “But they’re fascinating.” She flipped through the pages of her writing tablet. “There’s enough material on this airship to write a three-volume study. The power dynamics. The societal structure. It’s an entirely new culture that hasn’t been investigated.”

  “With good reason.” He plucked the notebook from her arms. “We don’t want to be investigated.”

  He opened the writing tablet. Though she’d been on the ship for only a few hours, already she’d filled dozens of pages with her large but neat handwriting. He spoke English better than he read it, so figuring out exactly what she’d been documenting was a process that would take far too long. But he could identify the sketches of certain members of the crew. Diagrams also adorned the pages, but they were masses of lines, circles, and symbols as obscure as another language.

  She snatched the notebook back and stuffed it into a satchel by her feet. “By my last count, there were at least two dozen rogue Man O’ Wars. That certainly qualifies as a group large enough to warrant inquiry. Think of the benefit of such an analysis. It could shape national policy. For the better.”

  Her eyes shone behind the lenses of her goggles, and excitement chimed through her voice. A genuine smile formed at the corners of her mouth. With the low-hanging golden light tracing the curve of her cheek and the slim line of her neck, his annoyance sifted away, grain by grain.

  “We’ve the English and Italians on one side,” she continued, “the Hapsburgs and Russians on the other, plus all the other unallied nations like Brazil and China—every one of them vying for telumium and tetrol. It’s as if the whole world is at war. But the rogue Man O’ Wars make an already complex situation even more complicated with their own agendas. If governments had a better understanding of how rogue ships functioned, what their goals might be—”

  Anger returned on a hot tide. “Then rogue ships like mine are fucked.”

  She didn’t blink at his language.

  “What you’ve got there,” he said, nudging her satchel with the toe of his boot, “is a damned map to destroying rogues like me. Once governments know how we function, what our weaknesses might be, they’ll take us down like that.” He snapped his fingers an inch from her nose, and she recoiled. “Secrecy is what keeps us safe. As long as you’re on my ship, there’ll be no studies. No dissertations, or whatever the hell you call them.”

  Yet she held her ground. “It could be for my own edification. I’d make the findings available only to scholars and universities—”

  “So you’re forging a little knife instead of a scimitar.” He shook his head. “The notebook stays in the bag.”

  Her mouth opened, as if she planned on some retort, but then she seemed to think better of it. Instead, she grabbed her satchel, slung it over her shoulder, and stepped around him. Her stride was long-legged as she headed to the foredeck
. She stopped there, resting her arms on the railing, her legs braced wide on the deck.

  The smart thing to do was go back to his stateroom and continue going over the charts. Or attend to the scores of duties that occupied him at every hour of every day. Definitely, that would be the intelligent thing to do.

  His boots headed to the foredeck without thought. Maybe she had some kind of magnet sewn into her chemise that pulled him toward her.

  He stood beside her at the rail. Together, they watched the Mediterranean glide below, the seafaring boats dancing across the sea and the white and green islands speckling the water.

  “The boats will be coming in after a day fishing,” she said without looking at him.

  “They set out in the morning,” he added. “Follow the tides and the currents.”

  She pulled a spyglass from her satchel and trained it on the boats below. “Good to see they’re using nets to catch their fish.”

  “Instead of dynamite. Bad for the fish, bad for the coral.”

  Folding up her spyglass, she sent him a quick, surprised glance. “I didn’t know rogue Man O’ Wars noticed such things as the fishing practices near Crete.”

  His brow rose. “Think I’m too busy counting my plunder or plotting criminal schemes?” Resting his hands on the rail, he stared down at the water, but felt the few inches that separated his hand from the point of her elbow. “I was at sea in the Russian Navy for over a decade before I became a Man O’ War.”

  “Doesn’t mean you paid attention to anything beyond warfare. Or that you would care about preserving the health of the sea.”

  He shrugged, unsure where she was heading.

  “You notice things,” she said. “An observer, like me.”

  At this, he snorted. “A mercenary.”

  “Perhaps not always …” She sounded hopeful.

  He had to set her straight. “Always.” Fixing her gaze with his, he said flatly, “It’s your gold that has me flying to Arabia. That’s my only motivation.”

  She straightened. “And my only motivation is freeing my parents.”

  He tapped a finger against the satchel slung over her shoulder. “Not writing the first important study of rogue airships?”

  Her gaze dropped, but her expression was taut. “I have to do something to occupy my mind during the journey. Thinking about my parents being held captive …” She clenched her hands, the knuckles whitening. “Tribal leaders in that area pride themselves on their hospitality, even to their hostages. Al-Rahim must treat my parents with respect. But with the world gone so chaotic, I don’t know if there’s anything that can be relied upon. Including a warlord’s sense of honor.”

  Whether her parents were well treated—or even alive—shouldn’t matter to him. She was only a woman offering him gold in exchange for passage to Medinat al-Kadib. Yet the pain in her voice seemed to puncture the metal covering his heart.

  “Your parents are fine,” he found himself saying. “Things may have gone to hell in Arabia, but tribal custom won’t change just because some ferengi are fighting over telumium.”

  She took a breath. Her gaze became resolute. “You’re right. Despite the changes in the region, al-Rahim won’t risk his reputation just for my mother and father. He won’t abuse or mistreat them. Especially not with the promise of a ransom.”

  Unease slid coldly down his neck. He shouldn’t like seeing how she searched for—and found—courage and comfort from his words. No one relied on him for anything beyond his services as a mercenary. He’d proven a disappointment to far too many. Including himself.

  Better to focus on his most accomplished, reliable skill: greed.

  “Tell me about this ransom.”

  Her lips tightened. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “That’s between al-Rahim and myself.”

  He couldn’t blame her for being cagey. At least she didn’t simply blurt her secrets like some soft-brained innocent. One could be intelligent without being shrewd. Clearly, Daphne Carlisle was both.

  Respectable, that.

  “As you like.” He turned away. Dozens of things commanded his attention, and yet he stood here on the foredeck with her, as if this was a damned pleasure flight. They were speeding closer and closer to dangerous skies. Talking with her had made him forget that.

  Before he took more than two steps, her voice stopped him. “Captain Denisov?”

  He didn’t face her. “What?”

  “I’d read that you were a decorated member of the Russian Navy.”

  He’d once thought about throwing all his medals over the side of his ship, had pictured it many times: a ribboned and glittering tumble, and all those decorations lying at the bottom of the Black Sea. Had he done it, they’d be rusted or eaten away by now, lodged permanently in the belly of some fish. But something had compelled him to keep them, still pinned to their silk sash.

  She continued, “Yet I couldn’t find any records as to why you went rogue.”

  “Mother Russia doesn’t send out telegrams announcing her failures,” he said over his shoulder.

  “So, you won’t tell me, either,” she answered.

  “Nothing and no one on this ship goes into any essay or study.”

  “It’s not for a study.”

  Her footsteps were light as she approached him from behind. Still, he wouldn’t turn to look at her so she could see his face. He’d never made a good card player. A fact they’d teased him about in the naval academy.

  “I’m just …” She hesitated. “Interested in you. In who you are.”

  Something hard and edged lodged itself in his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had an interest in him beyond what he could do for them, as a sailor, a Man O’ War, or a mercenary. Untrue. He did remember someone who had once been as close as a brother. Yet it wasn’t brotherhood that man had finally offered. Only betrayal.

  “Just a machine,” he answered. “A machine that runs solely on profit.”

  He left her before either of them could say any more.

  DAPHNE SAT ON the cot in her cabin, a tray balanced across her knees. A bowl of stew, a wedge of fine-crumbed bread, and a mug of what she assumed was beer comprised her dinner. As she dipped her spoon into the stew, she caught the scents of cinnamon, pepper, and lamb. A taste revealed the dish to be quite good—rich and warming, vaguely sensual.

  It oughtn’t come as a surprise that the food aboard the Bielyi Voron would be appetizing. It wasn’t a naval ship any longer, and without the impetus of enforced order, the best way to keep a crew loyal was to treat them well. Empty or poorly fed bellies bred sedition.

  More notes she couldn’t put down in her notebook. Denisov had made himself clear on that. Risking his displeasure was dangerous. They had miles to go before reaching Medinat al-Kadib, so she had to stay as inconspicuous as possible. Avoiding him seemed the best policy.

  They appeared to be in agreement on that point. Thus, she took her supper alone in her cabin rather than join the crew or even take a meal at the captain’s table. Though, did mercenary airship captains maintain such regimented protocol? There weren’t exactly senior officers aboard the ship, and though there was a hierarchy, distinctions such as rank didn’t seem to matter as much as in the navy. For all she knew, Denisov ate with the rest of the crew. Or he dined alone in his stateroom.

  As Daphne took a sip of her beer—it had the distinct malty flavor of a Belgian Trappist ale—she pictured him in his cabin. She hadn’t actually seen it, but she could well imagine what it looked like. He’d have charts and maps, the furniture bolted to the floor so it wouldn’t slide around. Would he have books? What sort of books? Curios from years of traveling or prizes taken from piracy?

  She forced herself to concentrate on eating her meal, but her thoughts kept returning to Denisov. Every time they spoke, small fragments of his history and who he truly was emerged, sparking her interest—beyond the academic.

  He likely did eat alone. For all the rough camaraderie he shared with his cre
w, there was something very … isolated about him. He was the only Man O’ War on the airship, a fact that automatically made him different from everyone else. Yet, more than that, in his terse words, he revealed a greater separation. Almost a sense of loss.

  A failure, he’d called himself. A failure to Russia. His words had been bitter, sharp. Revealing a wound that hadn’t fully healed. What had happened? What had driven him to turn rogue and live as a perennial outcast, always hunted, always solitary.

  Oh, for God’s sake. He’s a smuggler, a soldier of fortune. Not an exiled prince with a tragic history.

  That had always been her weakness: ascribing nobler motivations to those who didn’t merit them. Her anthropological work was a deliberate antidote. Seeing people for who they really were, all the good and all the bad. No one was a paragon. And, with a few exceptions, no one was a true villain, either.

  And when they practice deliberate deception? What are they then?

  She pushed the thought from her head, and concentrated on finishing her supper. Despite the quality of the food, it was a grim affair. A single gas lamp shed jaundiced light over the jumble of debris littering her tiny cabin, and turned the miniscule porthole into a yellow mirror reflecting the cramped little chamber.

  With the last of her meal consumed, restlessness surged through her. She couldn’t spend the whole of the evening trapped in here. She’d grown up at dig sites, and as an adult she was more often doing fieldwork than sitting in her office at the Accademia. Even in Florence, she had a habit of taking long rambles in the evening, crossing over the Ponte alle Grazie and heading up into the hills surrounding the city.

  The Bielyi Voron wasn’t a sizeable ship, but it was certainly big enough that she could avoid Denisov. Besides, the man was massive. He couldn’t sneak up on her. The planks beneath his feet shook with each step, as though he were some massive god from the beginning of time, building mountains and scooping out oceans with his bare hands.

  Grabbing her tray, she walked it back to the galley. It took several tries for her to find it, but at last she did, and a wary-eyed boy took the tray from her. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen. The impulse to ask him about his history felt like an itch beneath her skin, so she quickly left the galley.