They drove through two sections of the city, passing through one of the inner walls as they made their way to the main city gate in the outer wall that led to the airfield. When they approached it, Caris’ gaze lingered on the automatons standing guard on the wall over the gate, Zip gun arms bent and at the ready to fire on any threat. Other soldiers were up on the wall as well or posted at the gate proper, checking the arrival of everyone wanting to enter the city.
Physical checks forrionetkaswere still a requirement for everyone, no matter their status. It made the customs officers’ jobs harder and the lines to gain entry longer, but everyone grimly adhered to the requirements. Spell-detecting devices couldn’t be mass-produced and sometimes didn’t work well in crowds. False positives had resulted in incorrect detentions of people in the past in Cosian, but the devices were still in use at the city’s gates. Meleri had kept the ones installed in her temporary home, and the military command had kept theirs.
Caris had declined to have them put up in her home, for that was where Nathaniel stayed, and the spell-detecting devices would go off constantly if he were around. Besides, she could hear the distinctive song of the clarion crystals that powered a clockwork heart. Caris didn’t need a machine to tell her when arionetkawas nearby.
Their motor carriage drove through the gate and into the airfield. It was located south of the city, spread out with dozens of long piers and hangars to anchor airships. Mixed in with the airfield workers were wardens keeping watch.
The trucks and the motor carriages were directed to a set of berths in the middle of the airfield. The airships waiting there were owned by her bloodline’s company but hadn’t been used for merchant purposes since last summer. Maurus pulled off to the side, giving more room for the trucks to get unloaded, and set the brakes.
Maurus got out first, hand on the grip of his pistol and gaze sweeping the nearby area. Caris got out as well, ignoring the frown he sent her way. She rather thought he wanted to lecture her about making herself a target again, but this time, at least, he held his tongue.
Enmei jumped out of one of the trucks and strode over to them, giving Caris a quick nod. “The airfield workers on the drive over said they’re ready to start loading what we’ve brought.”
Caris squared her shoulders, looking up at where the sun burned bright in the sky, having cleared the distant peaks of the Eastern Spine some time ago. “Let’s get the machines onto the airships and pray they work.”
“I leave my faith to science, not the star gods.”
Caris cracked a smile. “Then I’ll pray for the both of us.”
Six
CARIS
The sky was streaked with rich oranges and reds, the east dark over the mountaintops and the sun touching the horizon in the west when they finally left the airfield. A cool breeze blew across the pier, making Caris glad for the fitted coat she wore over her long-sleeved blouse and corset belt.
“Mother promised to hold the evening meal until we arrived. It will only be family tonight,” Lore said.
Caris was looking forward to a meal where war wasn’t the topic of conversation. “Sounds lovely.”
They walked down the pier away from the last airship they’d overseen the loading of, flanked by Royal Guards. That airship was going to launch tomorrow morning rather than risk a night flight and landing. Cities and towns were much more strict about gate closures these days. Revenants were more numerous now than they had ever been before, their numbers helped along by the death-defying machines Daijal employed, fed by debt slaves and the dead left on the battlefields.
But no sirens wailed a warning, and no sense of urgency filled the air of everyone trekking back into Cosian. Most of the airfield workers had finished their shift, and the stragglers were making their way toward the safety of the gates and the soldiers manning it. The young woman with lieutenant pins on her uniform’s collars drew up smartly when Caris and Lore stepped into her queue. Her eyes widened a bit in the gas lamp light, and she snapped off a quick salute. “Your Royal Majesty.”
“Just Caris, if you please,” she said lightly, already shrugging one arm free of her coat to better tug aside the collar of her blouse. “How’s your shift been?”
“Well enough.”
The skin over Caris’ collarbone was unmarked, no vivisection scars to be seen and no hidden, sewn-on veil snagging on her nails when she dragged her fingers over her skin. The spell-detecting devices installed over the arched gates remained quiescent, the clarion crystals there a faint hum in her ears. The lieutenant nodded her approval for Caris to pass and put Lore through the same inspection.
Their motor carriages waited for them on the street beyond the gate. Maurus opened the door of one for her, and Caris climbed in with the aid of his hand. Lore followed after her, and Maurus shut the door before settling himself behind the steering wheel.
“The Auclair estate for us both,” Lore said.
Maurus nodded before undoing the brake and driving forward, gas lamp headlights shining the way over cobblestone streets. The ride was a little bumpy, as it always was, and Caris was tired from a long day of work. She didn’t mind the lack of conversation for the moment, knowing more would be had at the coming dinner table.
The Auclair bloodline’s ancestral home was to the southwest of Cosian, Veran currently a major launching point for the Ashion war effort despite the town’s small size. When Caris had decamped to Cosian last year, the Auclairs had followed. The duchess had spent her life being in the thick of politics, and her expertise was greatly needed when it came to diplomatic efforts. Once the old queen’s spymaster, Meleri had taken up the leadership role of Fulcrum in the Clockwork Brigade, working against Daijal’s permissive attitude toward debt bondage. Her seat in parliament had been filled by her oldest daughter, Lady Brielle Auclair, whom no one had heard from since last summer.
Politics was deeply entrenched in the Auclair bloodline, and people tended to listen to Meleri. Caris had learned much about politics and what it meant to be a lady as well as a cog when she’d been the duchess’ ward while attending Amari’s Aether School of Engineering. Despite the secrets Meleri had kept from her, Caris still respected the duchess. With her own parents prisoners of war, she had no family save that which she built, and she was reluctant to give up any of them.
Still, Cosian was a long way from the fashionable capital. The Auclairs had chosen to borrow an estate from another absent bloodline, the manor home nowhere close to the grand one in Amari or the one in Veran. Meleri’s servants hadn’t bothered changing up the décor, though they had flown their own heraldic flag displaying their bloodline’s coats of arms from the post on the roof.
Meleri had gifted Caris a heraldic flag when she’d settled in Cosian last year, the colors that of the Rourke bloodline rather than the Dhemlan bloodline. Caris had yet to fly any above the home she’d shared with her parents when she was younger and which now felt haunted with memories.
Soldiers guarded the Auclair home in Cosian the same way they guarded Caris’. A few of the soldiers on duty wore the uniform of the Royal Guard. All of them came to attention as the motor carriage rolled up the drive and stopped in front of the home’s entrance. The gas lamp on the porch flickered, casting a soft glow over the man who waited there.
Caris’ heart lightened at the sight of Nathaniel, a smile coming unbidden to her lips. She unbuckled her lap belt and exited the motor carriage without aid, hurrying to the porch. When she reached Nathaniel, he caught her up in his arms in an embrace that made all her tiredness and stress wash away.
“I missed you,” she said, holding him close and breathing in the scent of him.
