Blaine was too numb to realize that fleeing through the dark like criminals while the city burned was how his bloodline kept their oath.
Pistols going off set the small crowd of observers shrieking and running away in a panic. Someone screamed in pain, and Blaine looked back, seeing the peacekeepers a block behind them and gaining through the panicking crowd.
“Don’t look back,” his father said, steering him around a corner with a steady hand.
The building that loomed before them was a grand thing at six stories tall, with a curved metal roof and a multitude of arched windows lining its walls. Situated alongside the waterfront, the airship hangar was one of a select group allowed within the city’s borders.
Blaine knew where all the hangars designated for private and diplomatic use were in Amari, having been fascinated with airships since he was a small child after being gifted a windup toy of one by the queen herself. His governess used to take him on motor carriage rides to each location when he was younger, imparting history lessons with every trip. Which was how Blaine knew this hangar belonged to the E’ridian embassy and that the people inside had no obligation to allow them entry.
“Open up!” his father cried, pounding his fist against the smaller side door.
Blaine huddled close, staring back the way they’d come, knowing it wouldn’t take but seconds more for the peacekeepers to arrive. Then the click of a lock being undone reached his ears, and the door opened.
Blaine let out a soft gasp when he saw the pistol held level with his father’s face. The E’ridian’s dark eyes never looked away. “Who calls?”
“I’m here by order of the North Star,” Mal said, one hand gripping Blaine’s shoulder tightly. “Please, there isn’t much time.”
“We were told to expect only you.”
“I couldn’t leave my son behind.”
The pistol tilted up, and the safety was clicked back on. The E’ridian gestured for them to enter the hangar. The steel-lined brass door was yanked shut behind them and locked with a heavy dead bolt.
Footsteps pounded past the hangar’s entrance moments later, muffled shouts reaching his ears. Blaine didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he had to draw in air, lest he choke. He stared at the E’ridian who had saved them, the man dressed in the flight leathers and fur-lined jacket of a people who preferred the sky to the land, poisoned or otherwise, that everyone else walked on.
Dark eyes flicked from one to the other before coming to rest on the baby Blaine carried. “This way.”
The hangar was half-lit and empty of people on the ground. They were led to the airship anchored to its dry dock by heavy ropes. The airship was on the small side, painted so dark a blue as to be almost black, with no other identifying marks on its hull. Its balloon was proportionate to the airship’s size, the make of the entire thing having all the hallmarks of E’ridian engineers, for they were the most skilled when it came to the mechanics of flying.
The airship was mostly enclosed save for a small section of the deck at the prow, which was open to the elements. A pair of E’ridians stood at the railing, looking down at them. Blaine blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, they’d been joined by a woman whose tanned face and braided black hair were drawn on the pages of scripture.
“You there,” the star god said.
Blaine knew his constellations, and he knew his prayers. He knew the Dusk Star watched over E’ridia the same way the North Star watched over Ashion. Nilsine was the goddess of the wind, carrying her blessing on the breeze to give her children flight. She was at once benevolent and wrathful, both the calm before the storm and the apex of it. She was a star fallen from the sky, but Blaine was too numb to make a wish.
As with all stories of the star gods, hers was an abstract tale Blaine had learned at the star temple during the Fourteen Month calendar’s main holidays, his parents never one to attend the weekly congregations. For a boy of ten, raised in a cosmopolitan city where the Inventor’s Guild held more clout than the Star Order, fun was had in science, not prayer.
Blaine didn’t know it yet, but he’d learn how to pray anew after that night.
Someone tossed a rope ladder over the railing, its knotted ends hitting the floor with a soft thump. The star god descended with sure hands, jumping the last few feet to solid ground.
As she turned to look at them, Blaine noticed her leather trousers were open along both sides at her hips and thighs, closing nearer to her knees. The purposefully parted seams showed off the gold lines and starbursts of the Eagle constellation tattoo on her right thigh, one of six designs found on every Star Order prayer book Blaine had ever opened.
“You’re late,” Nilsine said.
Mal’s voice cracked a little when he spoke, bowing deeply. “The queen is dead, my lady. We were pursued.”
The star god tilted her head, gaze settling on Blaine and the baby that slept in his arms. “Her death changes nothing.”
“Itshould.”
“Aaralyn told Ophelia what to expect if she raised import taxes on Daijal again and barred their debt slaves from her lands. Your queen sought to cripple that country and ended up crippling her own. You children never learn from your past mistakes.”
“It is the children I think of now.”
“As do I.” The star god stepped toward Blaine, and he felt very much like a beetle about to be crushed under someone’s heel just then. “Give her to me.”
Blaine’s father extended an arm between them, hand clenched into a fist. “This child is the only surviving Rourke. She is my duty.”
