Eimarille stayed there for a little longer before finally heading inside, where it was warmer, and servants had prepared a bath for her. She washed and was dressed afterward in a deep blue gown with a high neck and long sleeves, the incorporated cape falling gently around her shoulders and upper arms to the floor. She requested and was brought her crown, which she placed on her head with sure hands, the gold and diamonds glittering in the gas lamp light.
She held court in the morning in a throne room that was more subdued than the one she’d left behind in New Haven. The courtiers were nervous, hiding their fear behind silk fans and strained smiles. Eimarille remained serene in the face of their skittishness, projecting a quiet strength that did little to calm everyone. Only when she saw Terilyn quietly enter the throne room did Eimarille call for everyone’s attention.
Eimarille watched from the gilded throne as Terilyn led the shackled Dhemlans into the throne room, her Blade dressed in unremarkable trousers and day jacket, her hair secured in a knot with plain pins. Terilyn had dressed for the task at hand, and when she pushed the baron and his wife to their knees before her, Eimarille rather thought the pair knew what that task was.
Baron Emmitt Dhemlan and Baroness Portia Dhemlan were thinner than they had been when Eimarille last saw them in Istal. Their drab clothes hung badly on their frames, cheeks hollowed out from stress and poor rations. Criminals weren’t entitled to comfort, and they’d had little of it since their capture last year. Despite their predicament, they still raised their chins to her with defiance in their tired eyes.
“You were tried by a jury of your peers and found guilty,” Eimarille said, not needing to project her voice to fill the throne room. The courtiers surrounding them were all deathly silent.
“A farce of a trial. Everyone knows it was a lie,” Portia said tremulously.
The broadsheets had extensively covered the trial for the handful of days it’d been ongoing in the courtroom. It hadn’t been enough to lure their daughter to Amari, but now it didn’t matter. “You were still found guilty, and it’s past time for your sentencing.”
Before she’d even finished speaking, Terilyn was already slitting their throats. Emmitt died first, Terilyn’s dagger flashing in her hand as she drew it across his throat with a sureness that spilled blood all down his front and over the marble floor. Portia let out a strangled cry full of grief before her voice was taken from her, along with her life. She struggled, because the dying always did, but Terilyn’s dagger kissed her throat as it had her husband’s.
Eimarille watched them bleed out at the foot of her throne, the pool of blood steadily growing around where they lay. It didn’t take long before they stopped moving, eyes going distant and sightless. Terilyn spent that time cleaning her dagger. “What would you like done with them?”
Eimarille stood and stepped down from the dais, careful to steer clear of the blood, as the courtiers bowed or curtsied to her on shaking legs. “Deliver the bodies to the death-defying machine. I’ll want them ready to greet their daughter when she arrives.”
There was no doubt Caris would find her way inside Amari. When she did, Eimarille would show her the cost of defiance.
Four
SOREN
Soren stared through the spyglass at the scorched earth surrounding yet another southern frontier town, seeing nothing but ash where revenants once stood. It hadn’t been his doing this time, but Vanya’s. Soren had been well east of this location yesterday, burning his way through revenants intent on harassing the coastal towns that dotted the hill country on that side of the continent. He’d taken an airship on a night flight to Vanya, knowing he could no longer stay in Solaria but reluctant to leave all the same.
“Do you doubt my ability to handle revenants with starfire?” Vanya asked from beside him on the town wall, voice dry.
Soren pulled the spyglass away from his eye and adjusted it down to its smaller size before handing it back to the legionnaire who’d offered it to him. “I doubt your ability to be subtle, but I see nothing in the ashes I need to fix.”
Vanya chuckled, the sound tired. He looked it, too, with dark circles under his expressive eyes, lines pressed into his face from the constant use of brass goggles and a gas mask.
Soren reached out to touch his thumb to one such lingering indentation, the shadow there turning out to be a faint bruise. “I should have let them take Seaville.”
“Most of the citizens there do not deserve that, and the House of Aetos is being seen to.”
Neither he nor Vanya had set foot in Seaville, butpraetorialegionnaires had. The House of Aetos had been arrested for treason for their alliance with the House of Kimathi and, through them, Daijal, as well as the murder of a foreign diplomatic corps and the kidnapping of a foreign prince and noble lady. The charges were ones even the Senate couldn’t argue against, not with Soren’s own testimony along with Lady Lore Auclair’s—their memories attested to by star priest magicians well-versed in mind magic—underpinning it all.
Considering Soren’s dual standing as a prince and a warden, the Senate had only been able to stand aside and allow thepraetorialegionnaires to arrest and detain the House of Aetos for their betrayal to the Imperial throne and, by extension, Solaria. It wasn’t even about the House of Sa’Liandel, but the future of their country, and for that reason, the House of Aetos had found no support amongst the major or minor Houses.
They hadn’t gone quietly, from what Soren knew.
Thevezirand Vesper, along with everyone down to the cadet branches of the House of Aetos, were imprisoned in Calhames. Vanya had spared no one listed in the nobility genealogies, and every member of that House would pay for the choice to pit themselves against Solaria.
“Will you execute them?” Soren asked.
Vanya caught his hand and turned to press a kiss to Soren’s knuckles. “Eventually. They’ll have a trial, because I’ll not have anyone say I did it out of spite over you.”
He had, Soren knew.Everyoneknew. But politically speaking, the accusations wouldn’t stem from targeting Soren but Prince Alasandair of Ashion. The distinction would save the House of Sa’Liandel from further recriminations—publicly, at least.
“Delani is sending more wardens. She wants me to head north.”
“I know.”
Vanya didn’t appear happy about that, but he hadn’t protested the order when it’d been received. Soren had been working to shore up the Legion as they fought to push back the Rixham horde for the past two weeks. He’d have preferred to stay in Solaria, but the allied forces in Ashion were closing in on Amari, and he was needed for that final fight. Delani needed him to be a warden just a little while longer before he could lay down that mantle, as much as it would ache to do so.
Vanya reached up and lifted free of his uniform the medallion he’d given to Soren all those years ago and recently accepted back. Now, he pressed it once more into Soren’s hand, the vow warm from resting against skin, the chain dangling in the air between them.
