“He is a warden. His duty was never to me.”
Taisiya snorted at that. “His duty perhaps, but not his heart.”
She slid across the bench, and Vanya automatically stepped forward to offer his hand. She took it, and he helped her to her feet. Taisiya was shorter than him, thin and fragile-looking if one didn’t know her internal strength. Her hazel eyes were more green than brown, filled with a compassion he hadn’t seen directed his way since his mother was alive.
“Pretending Soren never existed in your life or Raiah’s does a disservice to the memories he built with you,” she said.
She didn’t know Soren had lied, that it had been one lie too many after the Imperial palace had burned. All Taisiya knew, like Raiah, was that Soren had returned to the wardens. For all of Soren’s betrayals, his secrets weren’t Vanya’s to tell.
“The Tovan Isle ambassador awaits us,” Vanya said.
Taisiya sighed. “Stubborn child. Very well, let us depart.”
He offered her his arm, and she curled her hand around the bend of his elbow. They left the courtyard and the unfinished meal behind them in favor of crossing the estate for the dignitary room used for trade talks with the Tovan Isles. Unlike other rooms in the estate, this one had a deep pool filled with salt water. Vanya could smell the sea before they reached the archway of open doors.
A servant announced his arrival with a voice that rang through the spacious room as he and Taisiya entered it. “May I present His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Vanya Sa’Liandel, of the House of Sa’Liandel, andvalideTaisiya.”
The Tovan Isles delegation stood on the elaborate floating cabana anchored to the edge of the pool. The thrum of the engines that kept it afloat was a soft hum at the edge of his hearing, and Vanya could feel the faint vibration of the mechanics filtering up through the floor. Ambassador Akeheni, of the ship-cityMatariki, bowed at his arrival, as did the others with her. Vanya’s advisors, political aides, and several high-ranking Legion officers who waited at the low table near the pool all bowed as well. A photographer waited nearby with their camera gear and an assistant, ready to document the meeting for the broadsheets.
Vanya escorted Taisiya to the pair of empty center seats meant for them and saw her settled in one before turning his attention to Akeheni. The ambassador stepped to the edge of the floating cabana and bowed to the Imperial degree. “Emperor.”
“Ambassador,” Vanya said. “Welcome. It is good to have you back with us.”
Akeheni smiled, the thin tattooed lines that arced away from the outer corners of her hazel eyes and which framed her chin and mouth elongating a bit with the motion. Those tattoos marked her as a ship’s captain, while the six-pointed star tattooed between her eyes marked her as a government official. She’d lived quite an illustrious life, something Vanya knew from their previous conversations. He found her stories of a life at sea interesting, her personality calming, even when they disagreed on particular points of diplomacy.
Typically, Vanya’s people handled the minute details of trade, and he was brought in at the end of negotiations. Today’s meeting was different—less about trade and more about the war creeping close to both their borders.
The photographer approached and bowed deeply. “If I might make a record of this meeting, Your Imperial Majesty?”
Vanya angled his body toward the camera, as did Akeheni. They composed themselves for the picture, the flash of the light almost blinding. He blinked spots out of his eyes and waited for an aide to escort the photographer out of the room before turning his attention back to Akeheni.
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Vanya said as he made his way to his seat.
Akeheni settled on the low chair screwed into the cabana’s floor, comfortable with the slow rocking motion from the machine-generated waves. Tovanians suffered from land sickness when they spent too long away from their ship-cities, a debilitating affliction that could be counteracted with potions, but it wasn’t a long-term solution. Hence, a room built to make them comfortable, which Vanya knew made negotiations easier.
“Your people are aware of the war happening between Daijal and Ashion, are they not?” Vanya asked.
“We know the Daijalan queen has much to answer for when it comes to the wardens. We know, too, she has an alliance with Urova. Their submersibles have traveled far from the icy north into the Gulf of Helia,” Akeheni said.
“Have they attacked your ship-cities?”
“No, but the sailing routes to Daijal have become tighter, which we don’t appreciate. We have no fear of Urova’s submersibles. We have our own, and our depth charges sink deep. Urovans are used to the icy deep, not the stormy open sea.”
The military officer on the other side of Taisiya leaned forward, gesturing with one hand. “Do you think Urova could become a problem for your people?”
“As much as any country. We have no quarrel with them—for now.”
“Neither do we, but the war in the north is a concern of ours,” Vanya said.
Akeheni nodded slowly. “I understand you fight against a House who seeks to break away.”
Vanya bit back the bitter sting of those words. She meant it as a statement, not an insult. “Daijal’s interference doesn’t stop at just the wardens.”
“We believe it won’t stop at Ashion’s borders either. We’ve our Legion in the north, but Solaria has more coastline than any other country,” Taisiya added.
Which was true, even if a third of it was buttressed by the Wastelands, a desert that had spawned spores and revenants for Ages and which wardens meticulously guarded, even now with their numbers depleted. The Legion had come into being as a defense against the threat of the walking dead in the south. But the Wastelands weren’t the only place in Solaria where revenants congregated.
Rixham was a dead city, one with its walls sealed off and citizens long since succumbed to spores, made that way by the decisions of his mother to keep Solaria whole when a House sought secession. Vanya knew he would have to make the same sort of decision with the House of Kimathi in Bellingham once the Legion fought its way through the numerous revenants in thatvasilyet’s poison fields.
