Alliances
937 A.O.P.
One
VANYA
A Solarian spy came to Oeiras in Seventh Month, when the summer heat had long since burned away the spring coolness. Vanya wasn’t aware of the spy’s presence on the Imperial estate until Caelum—who had traveled with him from Calhames back to Oeiras—interrupted Vanya’s afternoon of reviewing military updates on the Legion’s efforts to fight through another wave of revenants in the House of Kimathivasilyet. The walking dead seemed to outnumber the living these days, which made gaining ground difficult.
“Your Imperial Majesty?” Caelum said from the doorway to the vast office that Vanya felt he lived in more than his bedroom these days.
“Yes?” Vanya replied, not looking up.
“You have a particular guest who wishes an audience.”
Vanya paused in his perusal of a rather dense briefing before setting it aside. He looked up and met Caelum’s eyes. Someone stood farther back in the antechamber, hispraetorialegionnaires having not yet let them come forward. Caelum’s turn of phrase was one used when a spy had returned to the fold, and Vanya was never one to make them wait.
“The audience is granted,” Vanya said as he leaned back in his comfortable chair, the leather warm from how long he’d been sitting there.
Caelum half turned and gestured with his free hand. The person in the antechamber came forward into the office, bowing deeply to Vanya. The pale yellow robe she wore over loose white trousers was neatly embroidered at the edges with green thread. Her blonde hair was tied back in a single thick braid that was twisted around her head and pinned in place like a crown. The gold bangles around her wrists and the few heavy rings she wore indicated a good career as a Solarian merchant but not one well-off enough to earn her name being written in the nobility genealogies.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” the spy said.
Caelum closed the door behind them for privacy, though he didn’t lock it. The windows that overlooked the private inner courtyard were open, but no one was outside save for discreetly placedpraetorialegionnaires. None of those guards were within hearing distance.
“Your name?” Vanya asked.
“Bellanca, of no House. I hail from Karnak and was stationed in Ashion for business reasons over the last few weeks. Specifically, Cosian.”
Vanya rubbed at his chin, studying her. “My understanding is that Cosian is a restricted city these days. It’s Ashion’s disputed capital, where their self-claimed queen holds court. It’s been bombed several times over since last year.”
She dipped her head in a shallow nod. “Yes, I’m well aware of the attacks. I and my company’s airship survived the last two attempts. But my company exports durable cloth favored for uniforms, and we were cleared to remain in Cosian. The Ashionen military aides I did business with were desperate to buy.”
“And what did you uncover while there?”
Caelum opened the folio he held and pulled out a folded broadsheet, which he set on Vanya’s desk. It contained only the front page of an Ashion broadsheet, the language one Vanya was near fluent in. What caught his eye more than the neatly typed words and made his heart skip a beat was the photograph printed large, filling up a good section of the top page. In it, Queen Caris Rourke posed on a porch in a neat blouse, corset belt, and dark trousers, wearing no crown, a slight smile fixed on her face. Standing beside her was a man Vanya would recognize in any clothing, though he much preferred it when he could coax Soren out of them.
He carefully touched his fingers to the imprint of Soren’s familiar face on the paper, the warden’s expression giving nothing away in the glare of camera lights. The Ashionen suit Soren wore in the photograph lacked the leather he knew the warden preferred. Missing as well were the weapons he knew Soren never went anywhere without, even while walking the halls of the old Imperial palace.
“I know we received news last week of the third Rourke child returning from the dead. While all the broadsheets are referring to him as Prince Alasandair Rourke, there hasn’t been a single photograph taken of him until this one shot for the Ashion press two days ago. Bellanca is aware of your warden and decided the news was worth flying back to Solaria for,” Caelum said quietly.
“I was in Bellingham when he brought you home some years ago, Your Imperial Majesty,” Bellanca added. “That is how I recognized him.”
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” Vanya said, managing to keep his voice steady through a lifetime of practice.
Bellanca glanced at Caelum before bowing and seeing herself out of the office. Caelum went to the side table and poured a glass of the sweet red wine one of the servants had brought in earlier, the carafe damp from condensation. He set the wineglass on the desk and nudged it toward Vanya. “Drink.”
Vanya reached for it, taking a sip and thinking about that moment in the train so long ago, when he’d been poisoned with quiet killer and Soren had saved his life in the aftermath of the crash. He crunched a berry between his teeth, swallowing the taste but unable to swallow the hurt and grief that clawed at him as he stared at the Ashion broadsheet.
Caelum sat in front of the desk, adjusting his robes. Gone were the heavier ones of winter, the lighter one today a concession to the heat beyond the office. The mechanical fans that whirred away in the corners above provided enough relief, though that might change the longer summer wore on.
“Did he ever tell you that he was a prince?” Caelum asked.
Vanya had to stop himself from crumpling the broadsheet into a ball and tossing it in the bin. “No. He is a warden.”
“Wardens are made from tithes. Before they go to the Warden’s Island, they are someone.”
I’m a warden, and that’s all I’ll ever be. Wherever I came from, I can’t go back. I can never go home.
