“Your reports from last year indicate there’s an uptick of revenants in northwest Solaria. You aren’t the only one to report such discrepancies, but you are the only one who drew the attention of someone in power,” Delani said.
Soren remained silent at that statement, thinking of Vanya and the promise he’d broken by not bringing the border reports to him last autumn. “I did my duty.”
“I’m not saying you failed in that regard. But the Imperial crown prince is, shall we say, persistent. He was displeased when I didn’t send you with the border reports last year.”
Having been the sole focus of Vanya’s attention before, Soren understood keenly what that was like. “I told him that wasn’t my job.”
“Unfortunately, the Poison Accords allow for heads of state to dictate how they receive the border reports we give them. The empress has yet to make her position known on the matter, but that might change soon, especially after what’s befallen the House of Sa’Liandel.”
Soren went still, a coldness he couldn’t blame on the weather settling in his gut. “What do you mean?”
Delani drummed her fingers against the desk, never looking away from him. “The Imperial crown princess died in childbirth recently. The infant survived, but the House of Kimathi has leveled accusations of murder at the House of Sa’Liandel.”
The news hit like a blow, and Soren was unprepared for the worry that suffused him. The medallion that hung around his neck, hidden by his uniform, felt like a noose right then.
He’d seen news of the Imperial wedding in the broadsheets while on the road, and months after, read the announcement the princess was with child. But he’d been too busy chasing down revenants in places they shouldn’t be to really care about the status of people who held a rank he never would.
Except right then, all he could think about was Vanya.
“The Houses live to kill for the throne,” Soren said after a pause.
Delani smiled thinly. “It’s a tradition I have never understood, but the Dawn Star allows it to continue, and so we must work around the power plays. Our duty is to Maricol, and it will remain so, no matter who wears what crown.”
Soren nodded jerkily. “Am I to stay out of Solaria?”
Delani flattened her hand against the desk and leaned back in her chair. “No. You’ll remain on the road in that country, but I don’t want you checking the borders in any land the House of Kimathi holds sway over. I don’t trust their intentions while they deal with the loss of their heir. Neither do I trust what they seem to allow to grow in the poison fields that have cropped up in theirvasilyet.”
“Ma’am?”
“You know the Wastelands in the south of Solaria are rife with revenants risen from wild beasts and the lost souls of spore-tainted frontier towns. Rixham was a garrison to keep the dead in check, but that city is lost to us by a decision made in grief. We learned too late what the empress decided about Rixham. We can’t afford that same mistake now.”
Soren didn’t know Vanya well enough to know what the prince would do if he lost his child to the murderous schemes of another House. But Soren could guess, and it would be bloody.
“Daijal has poison fields where none should be, and the northwest of Solaria as a whole is trending in that direction, to say nothing of other countries. Revenants walk where they shouldn’t, and the numbers aren’t natural. Wardens have done their job and done it well over the centuries. The walking dead shouldn’t be as numerous as they are,” Delani continued.
Soren grimaced. In the admittedly few years he’d been a full-fledged warden, even he could see the discrepancies on the road from what he knew should be there. “Will I take the Wastelands border come summer?”
Every warden guarded that southernmost border at one point in their lives, pressing deep into the poison fields to find the hordes and eradicate them when possible. The desert sun dried the walking dead into husks that roamed the Wastelands. Keeping them confined to that area was a nonstop operation tended to by wardens with the backing of the Solarian Legion when necessary.
Guarding that border was dangerous, a task given to wardens with at least five years on the road under their belt. Soren hadn’t reached that milestone yet, but if the governor sent him south, then he would go.
Delani shook her head. “You’ll take the spring border reports to the Imperial court and tend to the eastern borders in Solaria.”
Soren blinked. “You said last year I hadn’t earned that job.”
“That was before I became aware of what’s growing in the poison fields. While I can’t get anyone deep into the Daijal court to observe, you’ve given me an avenue into the Imperial one. I’ll take it if it means we can keep the borders safe and cleanse the land.”
“That sounds like you want me and others to spy. That isn’t our place as wardens.”
Delani grimaced, her mechanical eye rotating in its metal socket. “The numbers of revenants we’re seeing is concerning. People are generally good at obeying the laws of their countries and burning the dead, but not everyone is. This problem is growing, and we wardens need to eradicate the roots of it. Deliver the border reports to the Imperial throne this spring and see if you can’t find out something more than rumors when you do so.”
It wasn’t what Soren had expected to hear, but he’d do his duty as requested. And if doing so got him back within Vanya’s orbit after everything that had occurred while he was on the road, well, then so much the better.
Five
CARIS
The professor lecturing about clarion crystals and their use in airships mostly knew what he was talking about, though he was wrong about how many ways the crystals could be cut.
