“He can’t,” Blaine said reluctantly. Caris arched one eyebrow in a silent question, to which Blaine answered with a faint sigh. “Alasandair Rourke was struck from the royal genealogies after the Inferno. Soren’s records were destroyed during the attack on the Warden’s Island. We can’t trace his lineage, not how we can with you if I stand witness.”
“Would you need to if he could cast starfire?”
Blaine picked at a tear in the soft work mat laid across the table, dodging the question. “If he could cast starfire, he’d be an asset on the front lines.”
Caris paused, drawing her hands apart so she didn’t accidentally nick the crystal. “You’d truly send him out to fight?”
“We can’t send you, though I know you wish you could be out there.”
Blaine had taken enough calls from Meleri over the winter about Caris’ wish to give aid to the soldiers dying in her name. As admirable as it was, they’d lose her if she tried. Already, the wardens and Royal Guards had quietly dispatched several attempts on Caris’ life from Blades sneaking past the city’s defenses. He didn’t know if she knew how close she’d come to an assassin’s blade, but the attempts were further proof that Eimarille considered Caris a threat like nothing else on the continent.
“Would he go?” Caris asked.
“Other wardens have.”
“None of them are supposedly a prince.”
“He is a warden. I don’t think a crown could ever change that.”
Caris repositioned her hands and elbows and started cutting again, head bent over her work. “If he helps, that’s more aid than others have given us.”
Blaine didn’t wince, but it was a near thing. “We’re trying to press your case, but theComhairle nan Cinnidheanis reluctant to commit our country’s air force to your cause.”
“You must realize it’s all our cause. Eimarille won’t stop at the Eastern Spine.”
She said it with a sureness that made Blaine want to duck his head in shame. “I know that. Honovi does, too. We’re working on convincing our people that we can’t stay isolated and neutral while the rest of the world goes to war.”
“Would a request directly from me move them to reconsider their position?”
“You can’t leave Cosian.”
“Then I’ll send a personal letter of entreaty when you fly home.”
She spoke as if she knew he wouldn’t stay, despite his promise to her and the Dusk Star. It shamed him to know that his country could give Ashion support and aid, but they weren’t. Swallowing, Blaine curled his hand over the stump of his arm, running his fingers over the scars there, barely feeling the touch in places. “How’s Nathaniel been?”
“Keeping busy. Meleri won’t let him be a cog again.”
“You know he?—”
“I know,” she said, cutting him off. “But he’s lost more than so many others, and I hate that his sacrifice isn’t worth the trust he deserves.”
“How’s his heart been?”
“It beats the same as always. The clarion crystal doesn’t sing like it did when he was arionetka.”
Blaine bit his tongue so he didn’t protest that Nathaniel stillwasarionetka. He knew that was an argument that would do nothing but give hurt. “I’m glad you have him.”
Caris glanced up from the work she was doing, a tentative, happy smile curving her lips. “Me, too. He’s a kind man, and I care for him dearly.”
And a danger, but Caris was stubborn in a way Blaine had only the vaguest recollections of how her birth mother, Queen Ophelia, had been. There would be no telling Caris to take the fork in her road if she wanted to walk it straight toward the unknown with Nathaniel by her side. He hoped Meleri was prepared for that.
Blaine returned the smile. “Catch me up on what’s going on?”
Caris kept cutting clarion crystal, but she pitched her voice louder than the noise from the cutting machine, talking about the war effort and the diplomats she kept sending to the east and south, never blaming him for his people’s failing. Ashion had been his people, once, years ago. Despite everything, Blaine wasn’t prepared to turn his back on the country he’d lost in order to survive.
Eight
HONOVI
