“Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past Eimarille to release them in every neighborhood.”
Amari had restricted travel since last year while under occupation. The silence from people they’d left behind after the riot—most notably Meleri’s oldest daughter, Brielle, and her family—came with a waning hope they’d find anyone alive. Considering the accusations and executions Eimarille had indulged in for weeks while visiting the nobility in Ashion some months back, Nathaniel knew the odds weren’t good.
“Let’s get moving,” Maurus said, holding his long rifle up against his chest. “We have a ways to go before we reach the inner wall.”
The wardens were placed in the center of the formation Maurus ordered everyone into. It put everyone wearing a Daijalan military uniform on the outside of the group, giving the impression those in the center were prisoners being escorted somewhere, though Nathaniel didn’t know how anyone would miss the weapons on the wardens. Maurus had Nathaniel marching up front with him, as they would rely on the vivisection scars Nathaniel carried to hopefully get them past any checkpoints. If they were operating under orders of theKlovodand Eimarille through a supposedrionetka, then hopefully no one would question their passage.
“Don’t remove your gear or your veil,” Blaine told Caris.
She nodded. “I won’t.”
They left the alleyway at a quick march that Nathaniel struggled to match the first few steps, but he soon fell into the rhythm of it. No vehicles were on the main street, with many of the shop and apartment windows they passed boarded up. He couldn’t tell if they’d been abandoned or if it was in defense of the fighting going on. The capital was eerily empty where they were, with most of the soldiers likely assigned to the trenches outside the city or on the outer wall. That didn’t mean no one was patrolling the streets.
They turned a corner, coming upon a barricade of stone and barbed wire cutting across the street at the other end of the block. Iron caltrops designed large enough to stop a tank were scattered up and down the street. Their group wasn’t immediately fired upon, and Nathaniel wondered if it was due to the uniforms or because they were so blatantly walking where the enemy typically wouldn’t.
“Hold your position for identification,” someone called out through a bullhorn, the crackle of feedback loud in the air.
“I’ll do the talking, but be ready to act as arionetkaif needed,” Maurus muttered.
Nathaniel nodded and watched warily as two soldiers extracted themselves from behind the barricade and jogged toward their position. They wore helmets and brass goggles, but their gas masks were hooked to their belts rather than being worn. Their rifles were held across their chests, ready to bring up and shoot at a moment’s notice.
“What is your squad doing here? All soldiers not on barricade duty were told to report to the trenches,” the woman said, the chevron patch on her shoulder identifying her as a sergeant.
“We were sent back from the front by our captain,” Maurus replied. “These wardens defected, and we’re escorting them to their debrief.”
The sergeant didn’t seem convinced. “Prisoners that have some worth are to be remanded into custody at the jail. Debriefing is not part of the process right off the battlefield.”
“TheKlovodis expecting these wardens,” Nathaniel said, taking a risk to join the conversation. At the sergeant’s sharp look, Nathaniel slowly raised his hands toward his throat, undoing the buttons of his uniform jacket and the shirt beneath, pulling back the clothes to reveal the vivisection scars on his chest. “I have my orders, and the soldiers with me are helping me to complete them.”
“Rionetka. No better than the walking dead.” The sergeant spat on the cobblestones between them. “All right, then. We’ll escort you past the barricade.”
“The squadrons at the wall couldn’t spare a vehicle from the fight. Do you have one available?”
“There’s a truck you can use.”
She offered it up reluctantly, but requests from arionetkawere as good as one sent by their high command, it seemed. Nathaniel’s predicament got them past the barricade and into a troop transport truck that would cut their traveling time in half. He sat up front with Maurus while the rest took seats on the benches beneath the cloth canopy on the truck bed behind the cab.
They were barely around the corner of the block when the narrow window between the cab and the truck bed was pulled down. Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder at Caris as she leaned forward, clearly not buckled in. “We need to head for the jail.”
“That isn’t where the starfire throne is,” Maurus said, staring straight ahead.
“No, but it’s where the broadsheets said my parents were being kept.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Blaine said from deeper in the truck, his voice a little muffled. “Those stories are weeks old by now.”
“The jail, Maurus. Please don’t force me to make it an order.”
The desperate urgency in her voice made Nathaniel briefly close his eyes. “I could maybe talk our way inside?”
“We don’t know if that will work again,” Maurus argued.
“It’s worth trying.” Nathaniel opened his eyes and craned his head around, feeling the vivisection scars pull with the motion as he twisted in his seat. He reached for Caris’ hand where it was curled over the window edge, resting his on top of hers. “It has to be.”
“It will be a trap,” Blaine warned.
“Everything inside this city is a trap,” Caris said.
They’d spring every last one if it meant they got her on the starfire throne, but Nathaniel knew she’d hate the cost of it—that she already did.
