Dariush frowned. “The prince insists he has none.”
Vanya knew otherwise, but it wasn’t his truth to tell. “He gave up his weapons of his own free will, most likely to save Lady Lore. A warden’s first tenant is to protect Maricol’s children.”
It was so easy to see how Soren would have been manipulated in order to ensure his sister’s closest confidant remained alive. Joelle probably hoped such interference would blow back against the declaration of war and drive a rift between the two countries before the alliance was anything more than words. Perhaps she thought Vanya would focus on Soren and not the threat beyond Solaria’s borders.
But as much as he loved Soren, he had to love his country more, and Vanya knew the warden would understand, even as it made his heart ache with a grief he could not let himself feel.
“I need to speak with Queen Caris,” Vanya said.
“I can facilitate that,” Dariush said.
“I’ll send the order to the military to close the railway stations and airfields,” Caelum said, already gesturing at the military aide to follow him out of the Mosaic Room.
Vanya turned toward the doors. “Come with me, Ambassador.”
Dariush fell into step behind him, exactly where someone of high importance but not Imperial royalty would walk. Thepraetorialegionnaires waiting in the hallway fell in around them as Vanya led the way to his working office in the Senate building. He kept his expression bland as he went, aware of the whispers and curious glances thrown his way by the senatorial staff they passed.
Thepraetorialegionnaires cleared his office before allowing him to enter, the spell-detecting device hidden in the gas lamp chandelier above never activating. Vanya sat behind his desk while Dariush stood before it rather than sit, hands clasped together in front of him. Vanya picked up the telephone and put the receiver to his ear, pressing the button that would connect him to the Senate’s operator.
“I have a long-distance call to make,” Vanya said after the operator greeted him.
“Certainly, Your Imperial Majesty. May I have the number?” she asked.
“The Ashionen ambassador will tell you.”
He handed the receiver to Dariush, who hid his surprise at being given access to Vanya’s personal telephone line. But he rallied quickly enough, conversing with the operator as she connected him through to whoever handled such things on the Ashionen end. It took several minutes to reach someone who was within the queen’s employ and then longer before she could be found and brought on the line for Dariush to explain what was going on.
Eventually, Dariush handed the receiver back to Vanya. “Her Royal Majesty is ready to speak with you.”
Vanya took the receiver again, the long-distance call staticky in the silence that stretched between them over a thousand miles. Eventually, Queen Caris Rourke spoke, her voice young-sounding but quietly firm.
“I understand from my ambassador that my brother and Lady Lore Auclair are missing and that my diplomatic corps in Solaria have nearly all been murdered,” Caris said evenly in Ashionen.
Vanya let none of the anguish he felt at losing Soren once again seep into his voice as he conversed in the same language. “You have my sincerest apologies for the attack upon your people and territory within Solaria. Rest assured, it is not one I initiated.”
“Your people can’t have been best pleased about the debt owed to my brother that you are paying with the Legion.”
Young, Vanya decided, but quite astute when it came to the fallout of politics. “A common enemy remains even after the dead will be burned. I have no intention of reneging on my promise of aid and an alliance.”
“I am relieved to hear that, as we desperately need the support. But that still doesn’t tell me who took my people or why.”
Vanya quashed the knee-jerk retort that Soren wasn’t hers. “I have my suspicions on who but no proof. As to why? Solarians don’t see your war as theirs.”
Caris made a thoughtful noise that crackled in Vanya’s ear over the line. “But you do.”
“My country was not spared from the interference ofrionetkas, and I see Eimarille for the threat she is. She may claim Ashion is hers to rule, but that is not the only country she covets.”
“So you risked your people’s wrath to support mine.”
“I made a vow.”
“To my brother. My understanding is he could have asked for anything, and he never did until now.”
She didn’t need to know Soren’s reasoning behind that. Only Vanya knew his lover had kept the vow and never asked for anything before now so as to remain by Vanya’s side. “Soren never knew his past.”
Caris was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and wry. “He dislikes the name Alasandair Rourke.”
“He is a warden. It is what he was made to be. Soren can be nothing else, no matter the name your people would give him.”
