Chapter 4

The start of Sixth Month brought clearer skies at the tail end of spring and a warmth that spoke of the oncoming summer. Soren was returning from the refractory for the second half of his shift at the telegraph machine when a warning siren cut through the air. The tone was pitched for revenants, but his head snapped up anyway, gaze skimming the partly cloudy blue sky for any oncoming airships. Soren didn't immediately see anything out of the ordinary, but he knew how quickly that could change.

Other wardens and tithes exited the surrounding buildings at a fast clip. Since the attack last summer, Delani had ordered all younger tithes to retreat to the laboratory entrance if they were within a certain range of it. Otherwise, they were supposed to find safety in several of the new bunkers that had been built at strategic points throughout the fort. The older tithes were assigned defense duties with wardens, and everyone knew the positions they needed to be at.

Soren sprinted across the grass for a narrow alley between two administrative buildings. That route took him to a street that had direct access to the wall. It was also where general-use velocycles were parked, and he wasn't the only warden flinging himself onto one of the two-wheeled vehicles. The length of the seat allowed for a passenger, and Soren only had to wait a handful of seconds before another warden vaulted up behind him.

"I'm heading to the western wall," Soren said as he kicked up the stand with his boot and revved the engine.

"I'm assigned to the north. I'll take the velocycle after you," she said.

Soren drove into the street, dirt churning beneath the velocycle's wheels. Other wardens fell in beside him as he drove toward the wall where automatons were already aiming Zip guns at the shoreline of the island. The deep sound of heavy-caliber bullets going off echoed in the air. The sirens kept sounding, but they never changed tone, which gave Soren hope the threat was only revenants and not Daijalan war machines.

Once they reached the wall, Soren braked to a halt by the stairs leading up to ramparts and one of the rebuilt defensive sentry towers. He pitched himself off the velocycle and let the other warden take over. She sped off before he even got his foot on the first step.

Soren took the stone steps up two at a time, coming up onto the ramparts just outside the tower with its grenade launcher. Spiderlike automatons clung to the ledge of the outer wall, their boxy bodies angled over the side to better aim the miniature Zip guns attached to their framework. When Soren looked down the length of the wall, he saw a sentinel-class automaton bracing itself, the warden inside the center space of its body manipulating the controls to raise its arms and aim two Zip guns at the shoreline.

Beyond the wall, revenants staggered out from the waters of the Celestial Lake and onto the blackened shore. The numbers were more than they'd normally see during the spring melt, and Soren wondered if any submersibles were in the water, waiting to attack. Turning away from the wall, he ducked into the sentry tower where the ranged defensive weaponry was kept. The tripod-mounted grenade launcher was manned by a warden who looked as if she might have been a tithe last season.

She grunted as she spun the handle to angle the grenade launcher at the beach, gears clanking together as she worked. "I'm Mara."

"Soren," he replied. "I'll load for you."

She jerked her head at the nearby crates filled with poison grenades. "Let's hit our targets."

Soren undid the latch with quick fingers. "Have you only seen revenants?"

"So far. That's not to say something worse isn't on the way."

Soren loaded grenades into the launcher while Mara adjusted the sights to aim at the shore. The release for the first volley was loud, the explosion that followed louder still. Soren didn't have any ear coverings, and the ringing that afflicted him after each launch was something he could only ignore. Right now, the defense of the island and the eradication of revenants was all that mattered.

The warning sirens never changed pitch, only sounding for revenants over the next hour as the wardens eradicated the threat with bullets, poison, and grenades. No return fire ever hit the fort's walls, and no airships or ground forces were ever seen in the sky or on the far shore. The threat this time around was normal in the grand scheme of things, even if the number of revenants blown to bits on the shore was double what they should be.

When the sirens blared the all clear, Soren rocked back on his heels where he crouched by the grenade launcher, eyeing the fully empty crate he'd kicked to the side and the one that was only half full. Mara had worked the grenade launcher with a deft hand, picking and choosing her targets to do the most damage.

Soren leaned toward the open window and peered out at the beach in the distance. The number of body parts strewn across the pockmarked sand was more than he could remember seeing in the past. "It's going to be a lot of bodies to burn."

Mara stood and placed her hands behind her hips, leaning backward to crack her spine. "If only we had that Ashion girl to burn them all for us."

Soren went still, gaze cutting back to Mara. "The one with starfire?"

Mara nodded, ignorant of the way Soren's heart rate sped up. "I was a tithe last year during the attack but old enough to get put on wall duty. Caris used starfire to incinerate all the revenants on the shore. It burned so hot some of the sand turned to glass. We're still finding pieces of it in the ground."

He turned away from the window in favor of completing inventory of their ordnance. "I heard she incinerated the entire beach."

"She casts starfire in a way I've heard people say hasn't been seen in generations outside Eimarille." Mara shrugged, cranking the grenade launcher back into its default position. "But I'm no magician, so who knows what's true in that regard? Still, having starfire to burn the dead would make cleanup go quicker."

Soren only nodded at that, fingers flexing as he sorted the crates and made a note on the logbook of what inventory was used. He'd complete the other column once he returned with the grenades to make the supply whole. He tried not to think about the casual way Mara spoke about starfire, skin prickling with a burn that he ruthlessly suppressed.

Wardens couldn't cast starfire, and Soren would always be a warden.

The aftermath of a revenant incursion on the island came with the interruption of regular tasks. Soren made his way to the underground munitions storage on the opposite side of the fort from the laboratories and then back to the sentry tower he'd stood guard duty at. He made the inventory whole for the next fight before leaving Mara to her watch duty for the rest of the afternoon. He joined other wardens past the walls on the shore to deal with what remained of the revenants.

The poison that had been used in defense of the fort wasn't dangerous to wardens who'd gone through the years of alchemy to gain immunity to the poisons and toxins native to Maricol. Tithes were restricted from the cleanup, none of them having made the full alchemic transition to the rank of warden.

Soren spent the afternoon with other wardens cleaning up their assigned segments of the shoreline, hauling the remains of revenants to the western burn pit for disposal. The smell of rotting bodies finally burning was the only reason he and other wardens put their gas masks on. The filters made the stench bearable as they canvassed the open areas of the island to ensure no bits of revenants remained.

By the time he and the other wardens re-entered the fort, the sun was low on the horizon, and everyone was hungry. They cleaned up at the public sinks near the gate before making their way to the refectory. Tithes had prepared a hearty meal of pan-fried noodles and beef, with a heaping of roasted bitter greens and slices of sourdough bread.

Soren carried his tray to a table in the middle of the large space, joining other wardens already there, all of them more focused on the food than conversation. He cleaned his plates and was nursing the dregs of his chai when the noise in the rectory faded to a murmur. Heads craned around to the door, and Soren looked that way as well, seeing Delani conversing with a knot of older wardens just past the entryway. She clasped a hand to one warden's shoulder before making her way to the nearest table to stand on the bench.

Every warden crammed together at the tables went silent without her needing to ask for their attention. Delani didn't need a voice amplifier to be heard in that quiet.

"A patrol around the Celestine Lake by boat and airship cleared the surrounding area of any enemy movement. Wherever these revenants came from, it was likely from a tributary, and they made their way to the island through the water since no one on watch duty saw movement on the shores," Delani said.

"Could they have been released by submersibles?" someone in the back called out.

"It's a possibility, but none of our depth charges were triggered, and our underwater patrols didn't see any. If they came from the rivers, we'll need to expand our patrols. With winter behind us, the land is more easily traversable now, and the revenants coming out of the war in Ashion will be more of a problem. Reports are coming back from the front line that the numbers of revenants are higher than they were last autumn."

"Both sides are taking losses, and dead soldiers are getting run through Daijal's death-defying machines before they can be burned. We need to put a stop to that," someone down Soren's table said loudly.

"Any news on the locations of the death-defying machines?" another warden asked.

"We're still hunting for them in Ashion's western provinces, but Daijal is targeting wardens now. Even traveling through the back roads is risky with the troop movement happening."

Wardens still had borders to guard, land to cleanse. Those wardens who'd been recalled from Daijal and Urova had been assigned duties in Ashion to assist that country's army when it came to handling revenants in the battlefield. Eimarille saw it as an alliance even if the wardens did not.

Every war in Maricol's history always involved wardens. They were the ones to ensure the dead were burned, that every genealogy tag taken from a body was sent back to the cities and towns the fallen had once hailed from. Wardens might not have experience with fighting a war, but they certainly had experience with the aftermath.

"Because we anticipate the war escalating over summer, we're reassessing borders in Ashion around the poison fields. I know most of you have been waiting for your assignments, and I promise you'll get them in the next few days."

"What about Rixham and the Wastelands?" a young-sounding warden asked, most likely newly made within the last few months.

"Rixham's guard was doubled last year, and we've had no warnings from them about that border being at issue. The Wastelands remain as they always are, and the wardens on border duty there say they can handle what is being spawned in the red sands by the spores."

Delani stepped down from the bench. They all knew their duty, and Soren wanted to do his. He picked up his tray and returned it to the kitchen before hurrying to catch up with Delani. He wasn't the only one wanting to speak with her, but their conversation needed to be held in private. Delani must have agreed because as soon as she finished with the other wardens, she gestured at Soren. "Walk with me."

The breeze blowing through the air was cool but not cold, and Soren's field uniform kept him warm enough. The gas lamp lights scattered in intervals down the street hadn't been switched on yet, but the setting sun still provided enough light to see by. Their boots crunched over gravel as Delani headed back to the cluster of administrative buildings rather than the barracks.

"Will you give me a border?" Soren asked after they'd put several buildings behind them on their way back to the governor's office.

"No," Delani said.

"Governor—"

She rounded on him, stepping close, single eye narrowing. "I need wardens here to protect the island and rebuild as much as I need them in the field. You've proven your priorities are not as strictly aligned as they need to be."

Soren's mouth went dry. "I am loyal."

"You interfered with a government when that is not our way," Delani said, voice low and hard. "I will not overlook your indiscretions nor your decisions."

"We wouldn't know about the death-defying machines or the rionetkas if I hadn't."

Delani stepped back, lips flattening in a hard line. "I'm sure the information would have come to light eventually, but that is beside the point."

"It is the point. Governor, I'm an able-bodied warden, and I want to be on the road."

"And I can't disregard the broken one behind you."

Soren lifted his chin, refusing to back down. "We all come from broken roads to be a warden."

Delani was quiet for a few seconds, taking his measure, and she must have still found him wanting, for she shook her head and turned away. "My previous order stands for you. As a warden, you will obey it."

Soren watched her leave, hands clenched into fists, feeling as if the fort was a prison he'd never be free of. Taking a breath, he spun on his feet and made his way back to the barracks. His shift at the telegraph machine had been interrupted by the incursion, but the hour meant the next shift would be taking over.

His room was only large enough to fit a narrow bed and a small dresser, with a weapons rack and a single shelf screwed to the wall. He undid his gun belt with its double holsters and hung it from a peg. The knife strapped to his thigh and the poison short sword secured over one shoulder soon followed.

Soren sat on the bed, the thin mattress sinking beneath his weight. After a moment, he pulled the vow from beneath his shirt and leather vest, staring down at the roaring lion head in profile pressed into the gold. He pressed the tiny button at the top, the face sliding open. Hidden inside was a smear of dried blood, Vanya's vow a promise Soren had carried for years.

He slipped his fingers beneath the top of his vest, sliding them into the inside pocket there and pulling out a folded piece of paper he went nowhere without. When he unfolded it, the ink and seal on the Imperial writ that acted as the Imperial emperor of Solaria's voice was as crisp and bright as when it had first been printed and signed.

Soren might not ever see Vanya again, but the pieces the other man had left behind were ones that Soren could never let go of. Perhaps things would be different if he could, if he'd never known Vanya's affection. But he had, and Soren couldn't pretend they didn't exist the same way he couldn't pretend his heart didn't hurt from Vanya's absence.

Being a warden meant being nameless and stateless, with no stars to guide them down a road that only followed Maricol's borders. Sitting there, holding memories in his hands, all Soren could think about was how much he missed Vanya's touch and how lonely this road was without him.