“Your country’s Legion has not fought against the new war machines that have been designed and built specifically for the oncoming war.” He smiled gently at her as he guided her toward the main temple doors. “I hear your prayers, and they will be answered. They arebeinganswered.”
“Did you hear Artyom’s?” she asked harshly, unable to swallow back the words.
“I hear all who pray to me.”
Hearing prayers was one thing; granting them was entirely different. She knew Artyom must have prayed when Vanya executed him—to Innes, and not Callisto. But there was no aid the star god had given him. If Innes had, then perhaps her son would have lived. If he’d granted her own, perhaps her House would have come out of the Conclave victorious. Too many forks in the road to be certain which path was the right one to take.
“Solaria needs new leadership,” Joelle said as Innes led her out of the star temple into the warm night air. Her household had retreated back into the estate an hour ago, leaving her alone to pray.
“It does.” Innes looked up at the dark sky above and all the stars strewn across it. “Your road is not over yet. The fight ahead will be a long one, but you are not yet destined to dance amongst the stars.”
He pulled away from her, taking warmth with him, stepping out of her sight in the way only star gods could. Joelle swallowed her grief and headed down the stone pathway toward the estate, gaslights glowing through the windows. There was much to do, much to plan for, and she could not change the past.
She could only hope to change the future.
Eight
VANYA
Near the end of Eleventh Month, almost twenty days since the Imperial palace went up in flames, Vanya left his House’s estate in the middle of the night. He refused a motorcade, allowing only a pair of velocycles to escort the motor carriage that drove him into the outer neighborhoods of Calhames.
In the hours after midnight, the city was quiet in a way it never was during the day. Gas lamps lined every street, lighting the way to the warden resupply station he knew Soren was staying at. Vanya hadn’t seen the warden since that morning in the Senate, though hispraetorialegionnaires dutifully reported back to him on Soren’s movements. Soren hadn’t yet left Calhames, even if it felt as if he’d left Vanya.
The motor carriage braked to a halt outside the resupply station, engine idling as Vanya opened the rear passenger door himself. He waved at thepraetorialegionnaires to remain where they were on the street before stepping onto the pavement. Two strides brought him to the door, and he tested the knob, finding it locked. He pressed a finger to the doorbell without hesitation and impatiently waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
A quiet click indicated the lock being undone. The door was opened, Soren’s familiar face coming into view. The warden had hastily dressed, his shirt not even tucked in. His expression was impossible to read when once Vanya thought himself familiar with the range of Soren’s emotions. Here, with everything between them hanging heavy like a shroud, Vanya found himself second-guessing everything.
“You haven’t come by,” Vanya said, breaking the silence between them.
“I didn’t think I would be welcomed,” Soren replied after a moment, voice quiet and careful. “I leave for Glencoe in the morning.”
Vanya stared at him, words trapped in his throat like clarion crystal shards. Finally, he took a step back and gestured at the motor carriage. “Get in.”
Soren hesitated before nodding. “Let me get my gear.”
He disappeared, returning several minutes later looking far more put together. Vanya wouldn’t begrudge him the weapons he carried, not when he’d seen firsthand Soren’s skill with them. Soren closed the door behind him, the locks clicking into place, and joined Vanya in the motor carriage. The drive back was made in tense silence, the space between them in the rear seat mere inches, but it felt like a chasm Vanya couldn’t begin to know how to bridge.
That searing sense of betrayal still burned inside him, but letting Soren go wasn’t an option. It couldn’t be, not with a vow hanging around the warden’s throat—a broad promise ofanythingthat, in hindsight, was so devastating considering what Vanya now knew. No matter what happened, they were tied together as long as Soren carried it.
The motor carriage drove past the sentinel-class automatons on duty at the end of the street before turning into the estate drive and pulling up to the front entrance. A servant waited on the porch to let them inside. Soren followed Vanya into the place his House now called home for the moment while the palace was rebuilt. And it would be rebuilt. Already architects were drawing out a new design, and engineers were gathering materials to use.
It was easy to rebuild the palace, far less easy to rebuild a home.
He watched as Soren paused in the foyer, looking up at the grand chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Light reflected off the blue mosaic tiles lining the walls and high ceiling, making it seem as if they were surrounded by the sky.
“This way,” Vanya said, because while Soren had known the palace, he didn’t know this estate.
Vanya wasn’t sure he ever would.
He led the way through dimly lit hallways, rooms decorated by a different generation of his bloodline—none of it in a style he liked. Some part of him still ached for who he’d thought Alida had once been, for she would have taken charge and redone everything to match the tastes of his household.
Except all of her smiles, all of her aid, all of her quiet moments of friendship had been a lie.
Much how it was with Soren.
Vanya cut through a drawing room with an overwhelming amount of gold décor, but the arched glass doors on the other side opened up into a guest courtyard. The private one used for family was on the other side of the mansion, where Raiah slept with Taisiya down the hall.
