Portia couldn’t hide the flinch those words caused, mind spinning back to one horrible afternoon last year shortly after they’d been put under house arrest. A man dressed like a warden had arrived at their Amari home, wand in hand, commanding insidious magic that carved its way through her thoughts. He’d dredged up every moment of Caris’ life from the recess of Portia’s mind, from infancy to the last sight of her at the start of the riot.
Portia hadn’t been able to feel clean for weeks after that visit. Whatever he’d been searching for, he hadn’t found it, his magic incapable of breaking through the hidden, fuzzy memory of the night Caris had come to them. Even now, it was like a distant dream, and the words to describe that moment were impossible to speak, held back by the power of a star god, so she didn’t even try.
“She has always been with us.”
“You did not give birth to her. Someone brought her to you. I want to know who.”
“We have only ever known our daughter. Her name was written in the nobility genealogies.”
“I am aware of that record. What is strange is that you have no memory of how she came to you. Few magicians are that skilled, and I know all of those weren’t in your province during the Inferno. Outside of magicians, only star gods have that skill.”
Portia didn’t flinch this time. Perhaps some leftover bit of manipulation in her mind from so long ago allowed her body to remain truthful. “We are not favored by the star gods.”
“I think you are, as is your daughter.” Eimarille sipped her tea and was quiet for a moment before she resumed speaking. “Caris claims the Rourke bloodline, but her name was never written down in the royal genealogies. The ability to cast starfire doesn’t give her the right to claim the starfire throne. Ashion is not like Solaria. We are not the Houses. My understanding from all the cogs we’ve uncovered is that she has been a figurehead for years, whether she knew it or not.”
Portia dropped her gaze to the table and the food she had yet to touch. The magician who’d scoured their minds for memories of Caris had also pulled forth their status as cogs in the Clockwork Brigade. That alone should have been a death sentence in Daijal, but their association to Caris had spared them.
Their chain hadn’t been high up, and they’d lived too far east to be of any political use—or so she’d thought. Portia hadn’t known the leaders of the Clockwork Brigade until one afternoon years ago when the Duchess Auclair had voiced that critical secret. Now, those memories and their ties to Caris had turned them into pawns.
“What will you do with us?” Emmitt asked.
“Use you, of course,” Eimarille said with a lightness that wasn’t promising. “Caris won’t be able to save you, but I want her to think that is still an option as the war claims Ashion’s eastern provinces. You will be the reason she dies.”
Portia opened her mouth to protest, but the words died on her lips in favor of begging. “Please don’t kill her.”
Eimarille leaned forward slightly, the layers of necklaces hanging from her throat swaying a little. “I despise martyrs, and the only way to eradicate one is to burn the foundation that upholds them.”
Portia’s lips trembled when she pressed them together, blinking back tears. She knew nothing would change Eimarille’s mind, that the Daijal queen who wanted Ashion and the rest of Maricol beyond those borders had engineered this war with the deft touch of a master manipulator. Begging wouldn’t change her intentions.
Eimarille’s mercy was cruelty. It wasn’t an accident or a secret; it was the point.
“You will be your daughter’s downfall,” Eimarille promised before nodding at Terilyn. “See that their transport back to Amari happens this week. We’ll have the stories printed as we discussed.”
“Of course,” Terilyn murmured.
Terilyn stood with a smooth grace, gesturing at Portia and Emmitt to stand as well. She led them out of the room and back into the hands of their jailers. They changed out of the clothes that had been given to them to shape the propaganda Eimarille needed in favor of the ones they’d worn to Istal.
On the drive back to the POW camp, Portia couldn’t stop crying, salty teardrops stinging her dry lips. The chain connecting the shackles around her wrists clanked against Emmitt’s when he took her hands in his and held on, neither of them giving voice to the prayers in their thoughts.
Portia only hoped the North Star heard them.
Five
CARIS
Fifth Month in the Eastern Basin of Ashion came with cool winds blowing off the Eastern Spine, rolling down over frontier cities and towns scattered at the base of the mountains. The spring winds brought with them the insidious risk of poison and threat of spores all citizens of Maricol had learned to live with over time.
Growing up, the former Honorable Caris Dhemlan never went anywhere in the frontier city of Cosian without a gas mask hooked to her belt or strapped over her face. Now, carrying the name Rourke and the shadow of a crown she had never wanted, her old habits refused to break.
Some of the people who now called Cosian home weren’t used to such habits, but they learned, as did the soldiers trying to hold their defenses on the front line stretched through the eastern provinces. Fighting past the safety of a city’s thick outer walls was a frightening prospect that had become all too real. Nine months since the first illegal border crossing by Daijal, and many citizens in Ashion’s eastern provinces were learning how to survive in places where only wardens once walked.
All because of Caris.
She might be considered queen to the half of Ashion who backed her, but the employees of the Six Point Mechanics Company she’d retaken control of last year knew her as an exacting supervisor these days. In the quiet hours of the night, when no one could see her uncertainty, Caris wished her family’s company was all she had to worry about. War wasn’t anything she’d been raised for, but then, neither had she been raised to be queen.
A familiar figure took up the empty space next to her at the long table in the meeting room typically used to present new engineering designs for them to be picked apart and reworked. Lately, it was used to discuss weapons. Lady Lore Auclair graced Caris with a tired smile. “It won’t be much longer. We’re waiting on one more officer.”
She spoke with a cut-glass accent favored by the nobility in Amari, but Caris had heard her affect various others over the years. Lore could become anyone when wearing a veil, as Caris well knew. No matter the identity, Lore carried herself differently when undercover, using her entire body to become someone else.
