Skies of Steel: The Ether Chronicles by Zoe Archer Read Free Book Online Page A

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 crew, 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