“I think Meleri held out hope for a very long time and wanted to ensure there was a way to fight for her country. To fight for you.”
“I’m no Rourke,” Caris protested, giving her head a hard shake.
“Your name was never written down in the royal genealogies, but that doesn’t make you any less the daughter of a queen.”
“I have a mother and a father. They raised me in Cosian.Theyare my family.”
“No one will dispute that, not the way they’ll dispute your true heritage.”
Caris scowled, eyes narrowing. “I suppose that’s what you’re here for? As witness?”
“Queen Ophelia put you in my arms, and I carried you to safety because the North Star gave my father orders the night of the Inferno. The star gods present that night were meant to save Ophelia’s children. My understanding is they could only save two.”
“Eimarille seems to have thrived.”
“I didn’t mean her.”
Caris jolted a little, blinking rapidly. “The prince is dead.”
Blaine tipped his head in her direction. “Everyone was supposed to grieve as if he were, but I never have.”
“Then where is he? Did you leave him somewhere like you left me?”
“No. All I know is the Dawn Star took him from the queen and I never saw him again. He was not who I was tasked to bear witness for.”
“So for all you know, hecouldbe dead.”
Blaine grimaced, as if that thought pained him. “Yes, but the star gods built roads for you Rourkes that are meant to be walked. If I was a betting man, I’d bet in favor of him still being alive. Which means both you and he, wherever he is, are a threat to Eimarille’s rule.”
“She could sit on the starfire throne and take Ashion back. She needn’t resort to subterfuge and war.”
That was the only way to rule in Ashion these days. Everyone knew it. The North Star had set down that decree days after the Inferno. The broadsheets still occasionally ran stories about the people who tried to sit on it and ended up burned to ash—the occasional arrogant noble, the unfortunate drunks. The remnants of the once majestic throne room that was now a pavilion in a park were merely a reminder of loss.
“Eimarille has not attempted to test it,” Blaine said.
“Does she need to? The Twilight Star showed his own favor. Eimarille is Rourke. She has the right to the throne.”
“Would you see her on it and ruling both Daijal and Ashion? Would you see her encroach on Urova and Solaria? Perhaps E’ridia? The Tovan Isles would be the last, I think, to succumb to her desire to rule.”
Caris hunched her shoulders, watching as the colored smoke drifted ever closer to meet their forward momentum. “What makes you think she wants to rule the entire continent?”
“What makes you think she doesn’t?”
Caris bit her lip, chewing on the soft skin there. His words left a disquiet in her, like the discordant song of a badly cut clarion crystal. “I’m not what everyone thinks I am, even with you as witness.”
Blaine smiled crookedly, gaze filled with a tired, old sort of grief Caris had only ever seen in her mother’s eyes. She hadn’t understood it then but thought she did now. It made her ache for her mother, missing Portia like she missed a limb. She wanted her parents with her, wanted to know they were safe.
“I thought I could turn away from the road laid down before me. I tried, but it always led me back to you. I’ve learned not to regret that.” Blaine pushed away from the railing and tipped his head to the side. “Come, let’s find you a seat for landing before I get that veil for you.”
Caris would argue about many things with Blaine, but airships were his territory and not hers, for all their shared history at crossroads in their past. Caris followed Blaine past the flight deck for the covered crew staging cabin. A hard bench lined the wall there, lap belts interspersed down its length. One or two other crew members were already seated inside. They nodded a polite hello to Caris but gave a deeper, more respectful nod to Blaine.
Caris sat and buckled up. When she looked up again, Blaine had left the doorway, most likely gone to see about the engines. Caris curled her fingers over the belt, pressing the heels of her boots against the deck, listening to the shouts beyond the crew cabin. The thrum of the engine hummed with a song that pricked at her awareness, drawing her attention. It sang with a sweet, high tone that no one else seemed to hear. Whoever had carved the clarion crystals that helped power the airship had certainly excelled in the cut.
Caris closed her eyes and leaned her head back, resting it against the wall. She took in a steadying breath as the airship dropped through the air, feeling the quick change of atmosphere twist its way through her gut. Somehow, in the coming days, she would have to find the strength to refuse to be everyone’s pawn.
At the moment, she found herself bracing herself on the bench as the airship juddered in an unexpected way, suddenly changing directions and rising higher in the air. Shouts outside the crew cabin had her opening her eyes again. “What’s happening?”
The crew members were already undoing their safety belts, lips flattened into a determined line, and one of them said, “Revenants.”
