“Ah, no,” he said with as much polite blandness as he could muster.
“The ship-cities not tasked with breaking the blockade and getting Ashionen troops to the shores for the fight at New Haven are patrolling Solaria’s coast. I will take you to one, and they will bring you to shore. My sister wishes you back in Ashion to keep your queen from fretting,” Farren said.
Akeheni levered herself up off the pillows, leaning forward a little, her wound clearly paining her despite the healing done to it. “Our ship-city wasn’t the only one who suffered an attack fromrionetkas, and the same threat is happening on the continent. The Daijal army has split, sending half its force back to New Haven via steam trains, according to the allied command. Eimarille activated therionetkasbecause of that threat. You were the only one who did not succumb to the assassination order.”
Nathaniel’s mouth went desert dry at the implications. He craned his head around, unable to help meeting Farren’s gaze, the star god’s attention like a heavy weight. “Did any target Caris?”
Farren shrugged with one shoulder. “Aaralyn is not worried.”
Akeheni snorted at that, muttering something in Tovanian that made Farren laugh. The Eclipse Star stepped around Nathaniel’s armchair to approach her, leaning down to grasp her chin in their hand and bend their head. Farren pressed their nose to hers, foreheads touching, and Akeheni closed her eyes, shoulders slumping.
“The waves will guide you,” Farren promised when they straightened.
It felt like a blessing to Nathaniel, a promise, and Akeheni seemed at peace with it. Farren turned to face him, gesturing with one slim hand for him to rise. Nathaniel hastily stood, grabbing his rucksack and slinging it over one shoulder. Farren headed for the door, Binh at their heels, and Nathaniel would have followed, but he hesitated, feet rooted where he stood. He looked back at Akeheni, seeing theUri’kalooking back.
“Thank you,” he said. “For your people’s support. For the risks you’re taking. For all of us.”
He meant the words on behalf of himself as much as for Caris because he knew the war would be going differently without this second front the Tovanians were opening up.
“Maricol is meant for all of us, not ruled over by one person. We all owe it to each other to fight,” Akeheni said.
Nathaniel turned and bowed deeply to her, giving her respect in the way of an Ashionen. Then he left, following a star god and a warden down to the belly of the ship-city. Sound echoed oddly through layers of iron as they descended. No one questioned their presence, and those sailors they passed sketched absent nods in Farren’s direction, as if the star god was just another crew member rather than their nation’s guiding star.
Eventually, they ended up in the hold where the submersibles were kept in anchor bays, one already pulled out and ready to launch on the wide ramp that led to the sea. The deep thrum of the engines was loud, the heavy hit of the waves against the iron hull a counterpoint to it. The ship-city’s massive propellers churned the sea in the wake stretching behind it.
Sailors had readied the submersible for launch at the top of the ramp, a sleek vessel that didn’t look like anything Nathaniel had ever seen before. He desperately wished he could take a look at the engine, but he knew better than to ask. They were under a time crunch, so when Farren gestured for him to climb up to the top of the submersible to the open hatch there, he did so hurriedly.
Binh had gone down first, the space inside almost claustrophobic. If Nathaniel’s heart wasn’t made of clockwork gears, he rather thought it would be beating faster. Farren followed after him, pausing long enough to haul the hatch closed behind them and twist the wheel to lock and seal it. Then they slid down the ladder with a casual ease that spoke of doing it so many times it was second nature.
“We’ll dive after the launch, and it’ll be at least a day before we surface. My children packed supplies, and there’s a berth you can share in the rear for rest,” Farren said as they moved forward toward the pilot’s seat in front of the port window there.
“You take the berth. I’ll sleep near the controls that launch the torpedoes,” Binh said to Nathaniel.
Farren laughed, bright and amused as they flipped some toggles on the controls, one hand settled on a lever. “If you are worried about my brother’s children finding us in the deep, they will not.”
Binh ignored their words and got settled on the secondary seat behind the pilot’s and angled off to the side. Nathaniel stood in the space behind both seats, wrapping both hands around the handle welded into the top of her seat for support. He braced himself as Farren signaled a sailor in the hold through the port window and got an answering gesture back. A grating noise echoed through the hull, and the submersible jerked forward on the skids that led to the ramp. His stomach lurched as the submersible tipped over the edge and down the ramp, the water rushing up to meet them. They hit it with a splash that sent a wave over the port window, blinding them, but only for a moment.
The submersible sank beneath the waves, its engine humming to life as Farren maneuvered the levers in their hands to guide them into the deep.
Nine
SOREN
Getting out of Bellingham and through the poison fields surrounding the House of Kimathi’svasilyetwas a nightmare Soren never wanted to experience again. The only reason he and Lore made it out alive was due to starfire. It took a day to sneak out of Bellingham, the city falling after Joelle’s death—but to whose forces, he still couldn’t say for sure. Nor could he trust anyone in a uniform in a place that still held loyalty to a newly dead House.
Once he got them past the damaged city walls, Soren headed south, burning the expanse of the Southern Plains they traveled through as if he were the beating heart of a grass fire whenever revenants showed up. He had to be careful not to melt the tires off the motor carriage, one hand extended out the window at all times during the drive, starfire ever ready at his fingertips to attack.
He lacked his usual field gear, only having a very limited amount of bullets for the stolen pistol and enough stolen food and water to last just a few days. He had to stop in intervals to try to get Lore to take some water now that she was no longer hooked up to a drip, but she still hadn’t woken. It wasn’t anything he could fix, there in the back roads, so Soren merely kept driving.
A terrible headache clawed at his concentration over the next two days as he intermittently burned through hordes of revenants before the walking dead could reach them. Even without his maps, Soren remembered some of the back roads through thevasilyetand where a handful of way stations should be alongside trade roads. He drove until he found one before the needle on the fuel gauge dipped too low. The way station had been abandoned, the tanks almost empty, but enough was left for him to refuel, even if it wasn’t much.
On the fourth day of their escape, with the dark sky beginning to lighten in the east, the motor carriage finally ran out of fuel however many miles south of Bellingham. Soren set the brakes and closed his eyes against the throbbing of his skull. The nausea roiling in his stomach came from overuse of magic he’d never had to wield so desperately before as much as it came from the situation they’d found themselves in.
He let the flicker of starfire at his fingertips die down and opened his eyes, squinting at the flat plains that stretched before them. He saw no shelter, didn’t have his maps to figure out where exactly they were in the poison fields, and they hadn’t yet reached any squadrons of the Legion he could trust. Soren must have driven past their position, knowing they’d never be able to hold a solid line against the walking dead and Daijal war machines.
The throbbing in his head resonated, getting worse, before Soren realized it wasn’t the ache itself but the thrum of an approaching airship’s engine. He went still, knowing how badly they stood out against the plains, with no tarp for cover or camouflage. Swearing, Soren undid the lap belt and shoved open the door, getting out.
With nothing to impede his vision, Soren could see the airship coming in from the east, still high enough in the sky that he doubted starfire would make a difference. He still dragged starfire from the aether despite the stabbing pain that erupted behind one eye.
