Vanya shook his head. “I need to get back up there to burn the dead.”
He couldn’t see the starfire he’d cast, but he could sense it, a weight to his awareness beyond the wall. Leaving the area would mean having to withdraw it from the fight, allowing the revenant horde to claw at the walls. The Legion only had so many poison bombs and bullets to commit to each battle, and starfire was inexhaustible outside his own strength. Their best chance at clearing this portion of the horde was if he stayed put.
Javier didn’t argue, much as Vanya knew the major wanted to. Instead, Javier reached for the lever again and shoved it back up, starting the observation platform’s ascent all over again. Vanya steadied himself on the ride up, scanning the wall and the sky as he did so. A speck in the northwest caught his eye, too large to be any ash floating across the sky. He watched it for a few seconds, noticing how it grew larger.
“Javier, I thought you said we weren’t expecting any airships right now?” Vanya said.
Javier followed his gaze to the horizon. He swore softly before pulling out his televox, presumably to call whichever communications officer was on duty. Yadvir handed Vanya the spyglass, and he put it up against the lens of his brass goggles again. He turned the cylindrical plating a little to sharpen what he was looking at. The airship, while still far away, appeared larger in his eye, big enough that Vanya could see its make was Solarian. When he spied the edges of the Imperial seal painted on its hull, he swore his heart clenched.
“Communications was just notified of its arrival now that the airship is within range. It’s come from Oeiras,” Javier said.
“Myvalideand daughter?” Vanya asked sharply, fear the first thing to fill his mind.
“No. It carries reinforcements.”
Which would be sorely needed, but he couldn’t fathom how one airship could hold the number of soldiers they needed. Vanya passed back the spyglass as the airship rapidly closed the distance. The only realistic place for the airship to dock was in the middle of the town on a long anchor line like the other one. Except it didn’t head there, choosing instead to hover over the observation deck.
Vanya tilted his head back, watching as the airship descended, the thrum of its engine drowning out everyone’s voices. Crew came to the railing, and a rope ladder got tossed over the side. It was long enough the knotted ends thumped against the metal flooring of the observation deck. Javier and Yadvir immediately moved to hold and steady it.
High above, a familiar figure appeared at the railing and deftly flipped over it, grabbing at the rope ladder with sure hands. Vanya drew in a ragged breath, the gas mask filters crackling in his ears as he recognized who they were, forcing his knees to lock, lest he stumble.
“Soren.”
It was as if every prayer Vanya had ever uttered to the Dawn Star since Soren had been taken from him was answered in that moment. That fear he’d carried for weeks—of never knowing if he’d see Soren alive again—bled away, replaced by a joy so fierce it made Vanya’s heart skip a beat.
Soren climbed down without pause, though he never made it to the last rung. He jumped down to the observation deck before his feet even came level with Vanya’s head, finallythere, within reach, looking thinner than Vanya would have liked but blessedlyalive. And all Vanya could think about was holding the other man in his arms again after so long apart.
“Vanya,” Soren said, gray eyes bright with what Vanya now knew was love after all these years. He wore no gas mask, and Vanya wasted no time in tearing his own off, taking hiseffiyehwith it.
“Soren,” Vanya ground out, already reaching for him.
The space between them disappeared as Soren stepped in close, his arms going around Vanya’s neck to pull him down into a scorching kiss. It felt like a fever dream to hold him, almost too much after so many weeks of uncertainty—the taste of him, the feel of Soren in his arms—that Vanya couldn’t stop the shuddering gasp that escaped him when they finally broke apart.
“You’re here,” he rasped. “How are you here?”
Gloved fingers gently pressed against his lips, stilling his words. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else but here, princeling. I escaped Bellingham with Lore. Taisiya sent her and Nathaniel back to Ashion. You needed me more.”
Vanya grabbed his hand, pressing a hard kiss to leather-lined knuckles. The smell of ash in the air was brutally harsh, and he knew he’d have to put the gas mask back on soon, but Vanya stole another kiss first, then another.
“You should know Joelle is dead. Blades killed her in Bellingham,” Soren said.
Vanya’s lips curled upward. “Good. It means I don’t need to tell Raiah I had her mother’s House eradicated. Eimarille did it for me.”
Joelle hadlost. The House of Kimathi would be a threat to his House or his daughter no more. The cost to see Joelle dancing amongst the stars was so much, though. Her alliance with Daijal had nearly torn Solaria apart, and even now, what power Vanya held since the Conclave was questionable at best after Rixham’s walls fell.
But he was here, and she was not.
“Fight with me?”
Soren’s smile was small but filled with a warmth that was for Vanya alone. “Always, princeling.”
Two
CARIS
“Lore?” Caris shouted as she slammed her way into the small inn, leaving Blaine and Honovi behind on the street in her rush. The building had once been a bustling business in a midsized plains town south of Amari before the Daijalan army had rolled through and claimed it late last year. “Nathaniel?”
“Upstairs!” came Nathaniel’s muffled shout.
