“Consider yourself lucky. Her favor isn’t easy.”
Nathaniel thought briefly of the Rourke children and the war spiraling out from their roads and barely contained a wince. “Yes, so I have seen.”
Farren studied him for a moment, the shouts of the dockworkers below drifting up to the deck. “Your clockwork metal heart isn’t the progress we’d hoped for this Age. I suppose Innes would find it acceptable, but he has always dreamed bigger than I.”
Nathaniel gave them a helpless look. “What do you want of me?”
“I wanted to see for myself the future Innes wants to build. It is one I do not approve of.”
“Will you help us fix it?”
“Televoxes don’t reach across the waves easily, but prayers do. I have been listening and guiding those who must be involved with agreeing to the alliance you seek. My children do not care for the sturdiness of land, but they know what is fought there will eventually spill into the sea.”
“The ship-cities are willing to fight,” Akeheni said, glancing at him.
Nathaniel, well aware of the intense negotiations that had been ongoing for the past few days, let out a shuddering breath. “Ambassador Zayed will be pleased to hear that.”
“Yes, and I will agree to such an effort, if only to stop my brother’s madness.” Farren tilted their head, gaze unblinking as they studied Nathaniel. “Xaxis might claim the depths under the ice, but the open sea has always been mine and my children’s domain. I’ll not give it to him or Innes simply for the sake of some long-forgotten dream that should never have been remembered.”
Nathaniel had no idea what the Eclipse Star meant by that and so remained silent.
“We have your blessing, then, my guiding star?” Akeheni asked.
Farren inclined their head. “Yes. All the other ship-cities are in agreement as well.”
Akeheni looked fiercely pleased about that as she hooked her thumbs over the top of her leather belt. “We shall do you proud.”
“And my waves will ever guide you.”
Nathaniel let out a careful breath, shoulders loosening a little. “On behalf of my queen and country, I thank you.”
“Oh, you’ll be coming with my children,” Farren said, almost cheerfully, nearly making Nathaniel choke on his breath. “You and all the other soldiers who will storm the shores of Daijal when the blockade is broken.”
“But I’m not a soldier,” Nathaniel protested weakly.
“You are not, but you must be kept safe long enough to get your queen to Amari.” Farren reached out and tapped his chest, their touch seemingly vibrating through his bones down to the metal he carried behind his ribs. “You’ll reach the shore again, but for now, let the waves cradle you.”
A loud clang startled Nathaniel, and he jerked his head to the side out of instinct to see a pair of deckhands arguing over a crate that had been dropped. When he turned his head around again, he found the space that Farren had occupied empty, but the weight of their touch lingered on him.
“Come,” Akeheni said, gesturing for Nathaniel to follow her across the deck once more. “Let us return to the Imperial estate and talk of war.”
Three
VANYA
“What is this?” Raiah asked, reaching across Vanya’s desk for a pile of reports that needed his attention. The open one was a brief memo updating him on the troop movement of the last company from Ashion’s army traveling through Solaria to Oeiras via steam train. They’d arrived at the port two days ago with supplies and war machines, taken by frigate to board the waiting Tovanian ship-city anchored offshore. If things were going as scheduled, the Tovanian navy was even now regrouping in the Gulf of Helia to begin the fight to break the Daijal navy’s blockade.
It was Tenth Month, three weeks since Nathaniel had signed the treaty with the Tovan Isles on behalf of Queen Caris. As far as Vanya knew, a battalion was all Ashion could spare to attack Daijal on the west coast. Their movement into Solaria had been done under the guise of assisting the Legion in the south against the revenant horde tearing through the countryside there. That lie would last until the first gun volley was issued by a Tovanian ship-city.
Vanya shifted Raiah on his lap and set the reports aside. “Work.”
Raiah pouted at him, tugging on the collar of his robe. “But you promised you would play in the gardens with me.”
“After the midday rest, yes, we shall go outside. But I do believe you have lessons this morning.”
“I will take her to her teachers,” Taisiya said from where she sat on the low sofa in his office, reading a broadsheet. The pair had joined him after their morning meal, Vanya in need of Taisiya’s guidance over the mess still making its way across the country from Rixham.
Raiah huffed out a heavy, performative sigh, and Vanya had to work to keep from smiling. He remembered being a child and wanting to be around his older brother and his mother when they’d been away working, and then he’d taken up the learning of it all and realized how exhausting it all was. Raiah was only five, but he hoped to spare her the heavy weight of learning to rule for another year or so.
