Petra looked over her shoulder at him and then dropped her gaze to the clockwork cat beside her. She half-smiled, reaching out to pat the dull brass metal piece welded between the clockwork cat’s ears.
“A present from an old friend who never made it off the poison fields. Tock here is one of a kind,” Petra said.
The clockwork cat moved with a fluidity most clockwork devices and automatons didn’t have. Deep within the bulk of its gears and metal plates, flickering over every screw and gear teeth, was the glow of magic drawn from the aether.
Whatever spell animated the clockwork cat hadn’t faded with its caster’s death. The magic resonated with Soren in a way that made his skin itch beneath the leather of his uniform, the same way it always itched when a magician with particular strength was flinging spells about. The aether clawed at him, and he tried to ignore the metaphysical ache it left behind.
“How does it work?”
“My friend was a magician as well as a warden, and I’m only one of those. I never asked him, so I couldn’t tell you.”
Soren didn’t press the issue, but he steered clear of the clockwork cat and instead sat at the sturdy dining table tucked against the wall between two bookcases. The shelves were neatly organized, and there was a stack of broadsheets sitting haphazardly on top of one.
Jalissa came back with a small tray holding a couple of mugs and a teapot. Soren could smell the spice in the chai from halfway across the room. “Those broadsheets are old. You’ll want this one.”
She set the tray on the table and then handed him the broadsheet she’d had tucked beneath one arm. Soren took it with a nod and unfolded the paper. The date on it was from last week, which probably meant some other warden had stopped by with it. The articles were all in Solarian, but his grasp of the language as a whole had gotten better over the last few years.
Soren had made it a point to stop by Calhames whenever possible. He was obligated to show up twice a year to deliver the border reports, but he’d found it impossible to give up Vanya’s touch in between that. Wardens weren’t supposed to get involved with matters of state, but Delani had yet to rescind her order to use his connection to spy on the Imperial court.
So he stayed with Vanya for days, sometimes weeks at a time, watching Raiah grow up and reluctantly learning the ways of the Houses. More and more, Calhames—or whichever city Vanya stayed in—was becoming Soren’s home. He doubted that’s what Delani had meant when she asked him to spy, but Soren was reluctant to leave Vanya’s bed for anything but his duty.
That duty had become more difficult to complete in parts of Solaria. Too many revenants were crawling out of the poison fields in the northwest, and the House of Kimathi was territorial of itsvasilyet. The Poison Accords granted wardens passage along every border, but Soren wasn’t the only one who had been hounded away from towns and villages in that area of the country as of late.
The Imperial throne could have ordered the House of Kimathi to grant unhindered passage, but it was even odds if they’d have listened. Ever since Nicca had died, there’d been no peace between the House of Kimathi and the House of Sa’Liandel.
Soren’s chai grew cold as he read the articles in the broadsheet. In the end, it wasn’t the words that kept his attention, but the printed photograph of Vanya seated on the Imperial throne.
Petra came over and set a thick folio on the table. “I have the records for our Rixham patrols. Will you stay for lunch?”
There were no more trains that came to Rixham, and the ride north would take several days between stops at way stations. According to the broadsheet, the coronation was for this week, and he’d miss it if he stayed.
Soren picked up the chai and drained the mug in a couple of long swallows. “No, I need to get on the road.”
Petra nodded. “We’ll pack you a couple of sausage rolls and replenish your bullets. We had a supply run delivered last week, so we won’t be hurting. It’ll be better than the hard bread and jerky you’ve probably been eating while in the Wastelands.”
“My thanks.”
He folded up the broadsheet and would have put it back on the stack, but Petra shook her head. “Keep it.”
Soren tucked it away between the pages of the border report for Rixham. It only took a couple of minutes for Jalissa to scrounge up the promised food and just as long for Petra to procure a couple of boxes of ammunition.
The two wardens followed Soren outside to his velocycle. The strange clockwork cat crouched in the watchtower’s doorway, staring at him with those eerie glass-bottle eyes, still glowing with magic. Soren didn’t turn his back on it.
“Safe travels down your road,” Petra said.
Soren kicked the stand up and revved the engine of his velocycle, everything secured in the travel compartments. “May you ever keep the watch.”
They didn’t stay to see him leave, heading back inside, because they were all wardens, and they knew their duty. Soren turned his velocycle north down that cracked black road and headed toward his.
Two
SOREN
Calhames was draped in black-and-gold fabric, the sign of a city in mourning. The walls surrounding Solaria’s capital were covered in tapestries, and the line for travelers to get through the main city gate from the trade road looked to be hours long.
Soren bypassed it completely, weaving his velocycle through the traffic of motor carriages, larger trucks, and other velocycles. Calhames had two major train terminals, the northern one and the western one, with the main trade gate situated between the two. The airfield was to the east of the city, and Soren could see airships dotting the clear sky above as they came in to land.
“Halt and state your business,” a legionnaire ordered when Soren reached the gate.
