“You’ll set the Houses against each other over this. That will complicate things.”
“The Houses have always bought alliances with blood and lost them just as easily. This is no different. Callisto will have her hands full with the games the Houses play. She won’t bother chasing rumors into the poison fields.”
Eimarille nodded slowly, mind spinning fast, like gears in the secret war machines being built that she’d quietly backed at Kote’s urging. “We’ll need to tighten up the southern border with Solaria if we’re to collect more debt slaves. We must ensure the Clockwork Brigade has no easy passage south for those they seek to save. We’ll push them east and keep a heavy presence of debt collectors along the border there. Ashion will be no safe haven for them. Neither will Solaria.”
Innes took her hand in his again, thumb brushing over the back of it. She could feel the burn of starfire in his touch, the heat of magic seeping past the thin leather of her glove.
“Do not worry, my dear. Your place is upon the throne I seek to give you.”
Eimarille’s thoughts went unbidden to the throne in Ashion that burned with starfire not of the Twilight Star’s making. She’d walked over the bones and ash of the past in that public park there a handful of times before in the rare visits she’d taken to her birth city.
So many had tried to claim the right of rule by sitting in that seat of power, hoping their bloodline had enough connection to the Rourkes to put the starfire out. But the assassins during the Inferno had been thorough, as all Blades were. Eimarille knew no Rourke lived but herself, and she had not yet sat upon that vacant throne because Daijal was not yet hers.
One country at a time, she told herself as Innes left the office, the aether a swirl around him to distract others from his presence.
She would claim Maricol one country at a time.
Taking a breath, Eimarille smiled at Kote and retook her seat. “Let us discuss what needs to be done about the borders and when we can expect to expand them in the future.”
Three
EIMARILLE
Haven was built, like all of Maricol’s major cities, behind walls. When Daijal had split from Ashion after the civil war, New Haven had been designated the country’s capital in the aftermath of the armistice. Istal would forever be a frontier military city, but New Haven became the Daijal court’s home.
The innermost wall encircled Daijal’s government heart, with the palace an ornate centerpiece amongst all the civic buildings. It had been built larger and grander than the one that burned during the Inferno in Amari.
The palace in New Haven had been built after blocks of row houses were razed to the ground, making way for the newly royal bloodline. The royal genealogies in Daijal were slim compared to ones in other countries; new blood, without the history written through the Ages. Eimarille’s name had been added to them when she married Wesley, though she had kept the Rourke name instead of taking Iverson, as ordered by Innes.
It was atypical in Daijal, in a country with a heavy weight given to the male half of any bloodline. Ashion had been ruled by a queen through three Ages. Daijal’s first crowned royal was a king, and that had continued for generations. Few royal women had sat in the Cobalt Room, where representatives from parliament met with the king. Eimarille had been present within the deep blue walls since she was sixteen.
It had taken a decree from Innes to give her a seat at the table, and an immolated politician or two, but the seat to Bernard’s left had been hers since then. Wesley sat across from her, ever the king’s right hand despite his many absences, speaking his mind on subjects he knew little about. His favorite pastime wasn’t politics, but women, alcohol, and leisure activities with his fellow contemporaries, and it showed at times, when he opened his mouth.
Eimarille remembered her lessons in Ashion by Ophelia’s side. She’d learned new ones in Daijal at this table, picking out the spiderweb of power and blackmail that fluctuated beneath the glitter of the court. She knew when to speak, when to remain silent, and who to press in private to get what she wanted.
Her position was not always welcomed, but the support and favor she carried from a star god were more than enough to make the men around her think twice about what they said to her face these days. Behind her back was a different story, but Eimarille had spies in all sorts of households across Daijal. Secrets were expensive to buy, but she had a treasury at her fingertips she had no problem using under the guise of frivolous purchases.
“We have a problem in the clarion crystal mine in the north. It seems the Clockwork Brigade has stolen some of the more skilled debt slaves and incited a rebellion in the ones they left behind,” Lord Angus Blackstrom said, mustache twitching with the force of his words.
He was an older gentleman, rotund in a way that made his breathing loud in the room. Seated near the end of the long table, he had to raise his voice to be heard. Eimarille was grateful for the distance. Lord Blackstrom was known for his particular love of seafood at nearly every meal. As the head of a bloodline that owned one of the biggest banks in Daijal, he had the means to indulge.
“Then inform the bloodline that owns the Star Mining Company to clean up their mess,” Bernard said coolly, not taking his eyes off the memo in his hand. “This isn’t the first rebellion they’ve had to deal with. They should know by now how to handle their property.”
“The company executives have informed parliament they are short enough of the skilled workers needed for the mines that a crackdown would force the pushback of production with their business partners. Even with the new banking laws your majesty so thoughtfully signed off on after the prince’s wedding, it will take time to claim collateral on loans.”
Eimarille didn’t frown, though she wanted to. Clarion crystals were difficult to mine, and Daijal only had claim to one mine of the source. Urova and E’ridia each had control of far larger mines inside their borders, requiring delicate trade negotiations as Daijal’s slowly ran dry.
Mining was an expensive endeavor, and mining clarion crystals required a delicate touch. The great digging machines had to be used sparingly, as the veins of raw crystal would shatter if the wrong pressure was applied. Clarion crystals had to be extracted by hand, or one risked the raw, uncut crystals losing the song that helped to channel the aether.
Most magicians required clarion crystals for their wands, though she was not one of them. Eimarille had no need of a clarion crystal–tipped wand when starfire burned inside her. Other magicians could not function without that focus for their magic. Clarion crystals used to be a niche business, but their varied uses were becoming more apparent over time.
Some enterprising inventors were creating fantastical, if still experimental, devices powered by clarion crystals rather than steam. Eimarille was keenly interested in those, and had blanketed the New Haven University she was a patron of with grants to encourage the scientific advancement of such inventions.
Wesley thought it a waste of her time, but Eimarille knew otherwise, and she always kept an eye on the patents submitted to the Bureau of Patents. One invention in particular championed by the Fletcher bloodline, whose patents would never see the light of day, required a severe amount of clarion crystals to power the machinery.
Clarion crystal was the heir to steam power, though not yet widely accessible or accepted. Eimarille had always been a proponent of progress. She’d seen how stagnation could ravage a people and had no desire to find herself boxed into a corner as her mother had been. If she was to burn, it would be on her own terms.
“Were any of the damned cogs captured?” Lord Thomas Vaughn asked.
