Soren cursed, priming the pistol and eyeing the holes in the glass windows of the motor carriage. The angle meant he had the frame of the motor carriage between him and whoever was shooting, but Lore was in the back seat, and he couldn’t see if she’d been hit or not.
“I’ve been told you’re quite a thorn in my queen’s side,” a voice called out in heavily accented Solarian. “It seems we should have murdered you first.”
Queen had to mean Eimarille, not Joelle, and Soren spared half a thought to wonder if thevezirwas even alive anymore. He crouched lower, peering beneath the undercarriage at the three pairs of legs he could see walking toward him down the stone pathway. “Who are you?”
“Believers.”
“More like fanatics.”
They had to be Blades, which meant the attack on the estate was Eimarille’s doing, even if the rest of Bellingham was the Legion’s. Soren dropped flat to the ground at the next volley of gunfire, stretching his arm out beneath the motor carriage. He splayed his fingers wide, pushing starfire at the enemy in a ribbon of flame that turned into a wall of heat on the other side of the motor carriage. It forced them to quit shooting and change tactics.
Soren scrambled to his feet, pistol in hand and searching for a target. He kept the wall of starfire burning, knowing it was the best defense he had to keep Lore safe. Movement out of the corner of his eyes had him reacting without thinking, arm swinging around as he aimed and fired in seconds at the man coming around behind him past the edge of starfire.
They wore Solarian robes to blend in, but he doubted they were Solarian. With the way the man moved—speed Soren attributed to an assassin—they could only be Blades. Soren only had so many bullets to spare, and when his first two didn’t find their target, he sent the wall of starfire streaking after the Blade. It moved like a snake in prairie grass, a threat the Blade couldn’t escape. The starfire swallowed him up whole in a column of flame, his scream a sharp-pitched thing that rang louder than the warning sirens for a brief moment.
Soren turned his attention to the remaining two Blades, not bothering with bullets, instead leaning into his birthright. He didn’t have to hide it any longer, and it was the one weapon that could save them, even if it was something a warden should never have. He manipulated the starfire into something that might resemble a wildfire there in the estate. It flared like an explosion before dying down, leaving behind charred plants, scorched stone, and a target for any other soldiers to aim at.
The Blades were nothing but ash in the aftermath, and that was all Soren cared about. His head throbbed from casting starfire, and he couldn’t tell if it was because he’d overextended himself after being drugged for so long or if he just didn’t have the stamina yet. But he hadn’t passed out like he had after that time in the quarry, which meant he could still drive them out of the estate. Getting past the walls was going to be a different problem entirely.
Soren stared down at his hand and the starfire that curled around his fingers like a living thing. In most countries on Maricol, it was a sign of royalty. For Soren, it was nothing but a tool now, and he’d use it however he could to make it back to Vanya.
If he had to burn a city down to escape, then so be it.
Soren breathed out to center himself before letting the starfire fade away. He returned to the motor carriage, where Lore remained unconscious and unharmed from the firefight in the back seat. Getting in the driver’s seat, the engine still running, Soren set his pistol beside him on the front bench and undid the brakes.
“I’m coming home, Vanya,” Soren murmured as he stepped on the gas pedal and drove forward into a city still under attack, the warning sirens a constant drone in his ears.
Six
EIMARILLE
Eimarille roused from sleep by a gentle hand on her shoulder. She blinked open her eyes, squinting up at Terilyn’s face in the early light of dawn seeping past the edges of the curtains in their room. “Darling?”
Terilyn stroked the back of her knuckles over Eimarille’s cheeks before slipping her fingers through Eimarille’s loose hair to tuck it behind her ear. “I’m sorry to wake you, but Kote called. The operator has him holding for you.”
Eimarille sat up, letting the thin, soft blankets they slept in during the summer months slide off her. “I’ll take it in my office.”
She’d gone to bed with a headache last night, and the taste of the potion she’d drunk to get rid of it lingered on her tongue. Terilyn must have handled whichever servant had knocked on their door before sunrise regarding the call. She still wore her sleep clothes, though she’d thrown a dressing gown over them, the silky fabric belted tight around her thin waist. Terilyn held up the same sort of garment for Eimarille, deftly helping her into it and tying the belt for her.
Eimarille bent her head and pressed a soft kiss to the side of Terilyn’s throat. “Bad news?”
“I don’t know,” Terilyn admitted.
A pair of slippers were on the rug beside the bed; Eimarille slid her feet into them. She waved off the servant hovering in the doorway, the woman clearly eyeing the closet and wondering about the time it would take to get Eimarille dressed. While she rarely left the royal wing of the palace without being ready for the Daijal court, some moments necessitated speed over anything else.
The royal guard standing at attention in the hallway outside her private quarters paid her no mind as she and Terilyn left her private suite and hurried toward Eimarille’s office. It took some minutes to reach it, but few people were around other than a handful of servants and the posted guards to see them pass. When they reached her office, Terilyn pulled out a key from the pocket of her dressing gown and let them inside. Eimarille switched on the gas lamp lights but left the fans alone. The end of Tenth Month was trending cooler, autumn soon to arrive, and she’d needed the fans less and less lately.
“I requested us some tea. It should be here shortly,” Terilyn said as Eimarille went around her wide desk and sat on the leather chair behind it. “The operator is holding on your private line.”
“Thank you,” Eimarille said and picked up the receiver. She pressed the cold metal to her ears and pushed the button that would bring the operator onto the line. “Put the High General through.”
The operator said nothing, but a faint clicking sound filled Eimarille’s ear for a moment, and then the line hummed with a solid connection. She could hear voices in the background on Kote’s side of the call, but his voice came through the loudest. “Your Royal Majesty, I’m sorry to wake you. I know it’s early there in New Haven.”
“It’s not a hardship. I know you wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important. What news have you from Ashion?”
“It’s not Ashion I bring news about.” Kote’s tone was harsh and grim, making Eimarille sit up straighter, one hand curling into a fist over the cleared-off desk. She never left reports lying around. “It’s the Gulf of Helia.”
“What?”
