“Vanya didn’t know my past.”
“Most people don’t use a ruler’s name with such familiarity.”
“I’m a warden. We don’t care about titles.”
“You’re a prince. Perhaps you should remember that before we land.”
Soren decided the tea wasn’t worth the interrogation. “Perhaps you should let me do the talking when we land. Solarian politics aren’t yours.”
Even the crash course Lord Dariush had been giving everyone in Solarian politics wasn’t enough for Lore and the others to understand the nuances of the Houses and how they orbited the Imperial throne, vying for power.
Soren stood and left the table, heading for the exit. Belowdecks was accessible to the lounge without needing to go out onto the flight deck. Soren chose to spend the last hour of their flight west by himself, in the small cabin, staring at the vow and praying he wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
What Soren assumed was the call for landing came through the small speaker bolted above the door sometime later, the words garbled to his ears. Still, he could feel the change of altitude in his ears as the airship descended toward the airfield outside Oeiras. Soren’s room didn’t have a port window, so he couldn’t see the ground, but he felt it when the airship juddered into place in its berth.
He stripped out of his flight jacket and removed his altitude mask from his belt, tossing both on the bed. With practiced ease, he pulled on his pauldron and sheathed poison short sword, his nerves settling a little as he dressed the part of a warden rather than that of a prince. Everyone had protested when he’d refused the trunk of splendid clothes that would be fine for the Ashion nobles but would get them laughed out of the Imperial court. Soren would step foot in Solaria as himself, even if he wasn’t sure who that was these days.
A firm knock on his door had him shaking away such thoughts as someone called out in stilted trade tongue, “Your Royal Highness? We’re ready to disembark.”
Soren picked up his rucksack with the field supplies he never went without and opened the door, finding a military officer waiting for him in the hallway. “I’m ready.”
The officer gestured at the rucksack hanging off his shoulder. “The porters can take that for you. We’re to be housed in the diplomatic estate, and all the travel trunks will be transported there.”
“No, I’ll carry it.”
Soren slipped into the hallway and headed for the stairwell, taking the steps abovedeck. Heat greeted him, the thick humidity of the coastalvasilyetsomething he remembered from his time spent in Oeiras before.
Lore and the others milled about nearby, clearly waiting for him. Lord Dariush gave him a pleasant enough smile. “The Imperial estate sent an envoy to greet us. I’ve been told they’re led by the Chief Minister.”
Caelum had survived the attack on the palace and had never once steered Vanya wrong politically. Soren’s interaction with the man over the years had been polite enough, though he doubted that ease would be present today. “Does he know I’m coming?”
“He knows the queen sent a close emissary with a new request and that I am to help facilitate talks. We did not indicate you were on board, but the manifest will. Is there something we should be concerned about?”
“No.”
It tasted like a lie on his tongue, but none of the people on the flight deck could tell. Truthfully, Soren didn’t know how everyone would react to his appearance in Solaria as a prince rather than a warden, but there was only one way to find out.
He led the delegation off the Ashionen airship, attention on the group of officials in their summer robes waiting for them on the dock. He saw the moment Caelum recognized him, the way the Chief Minister’s eyes got fractionally wider once Soren stepped off the gangplank. The older man’s blue eyes flicked up and down Soren’s body, taking in his attire. But he was ever the politician and saw through the façade Soren was clinging to.
“Prince Alasandair Rourke,” Caelum said after a moment, dipping into a shallow bow. “This is a surprise.”
“I didn’t want it to be,” Soren said. “And that’s still not a name I go by.”
“It’s the one used in broadsheets coming out of Ashion.”
“I never claimed it.”
“Yet you travel with the Ashionen delegation, here on behalf of a supposed queen who claims kinship with you.”
“There’s a war going on, and I’m here to speak with Vanya about it.”
Caelum smiled politely, expression still that neutral mask Soren had seen the other man wear countless times before when dealing with strangers. “His Imperial Majesty has already advised the ambassador with you that Solaria has no intention of allying itself with the war efforts on either side in the countries north of us.”
“I still want to speak with Vanya.”
“The Ashionen delegation is welcome to the embassy set aside for their country, but His Imperial Majesty is unavailable for the business you seek.”
Soren hooked his thumb beneath his collar and snagged the gold chain, dragging the flat medallion from beneath his shirt. The vow glinted in the hot summer sun, the House of Sa’Liandel’s crest of a roaring lion in profile stamped clear in gold. “He’ll be available for me.”
