Chapter 7

Caris resisted the urge to pinch her nose in frustration and grief as she stared at the tally of the dead and the list of cities and towns that had fallen to Daijal when the front lines had gained ground east. One of the cities had held a production plant, and now it was nothing but rubble, according to the tintype photograph someone had smuggled out with them during the retreat. She picked up the tintype, studying the smudge of shadows on it that had once been a building.

"We can't afford to lose another production line, to say nothing of the people who die for our cause," Caris said into the quiet that had settled over the table after General Clarence Votil finished delivering his report. "Have any of our envoys brought back news of an alliance?"

Meleri shook her head, expression rigidly neutral. "Unfortunately, no. Both E'ridia and Solaria have rebuffed our requests for an alliance or purchase of supplies."

Caris set aside the tintype photograph. "They won't take our aurons?"

"I believe the worry is they aren't sure where the funding would come from."

She could understand why another country would be concerned about how payment would be enacted. The Ashion banking system had gone through an upheaval at the start of the war, breaking away from the banks in Daijal and reallocating capital amongst them. Bloodlines and companies had helped set an example by not making a run on the banks, but there was only so much cash circulating at the moment.

The bloodlines themselves weren't exactly giving a full-throated defense of Caris' claimed position. She knew that calling herself Rourke without proof would only take her so far. Being able to cast starfire wasn't enough in the long run. The bloodlines of Ashion were split in their support, and the geographical lines weren't easily cut.

Some bloodlines in the eastern province had refused Caris' overtures, aligning themselves with Daijal. Other bloodlines in the western provinces had never taken to Daijal's propaganda and were steadfast in their support of Caris and Ashion. Knowing who was friend and who was foe was a delicate political dance Caris knew she'd made missteps in. Even with Meleri's teachings and backing, it was difficult for Caris to feel like she was a queen.

"Have our envoys keep asking to be heard," Caris said, looking up from the reports and maps scattered across the table. Too many eyes stared back at her as if she held all the answers, and she tried not to flinch at the attention. "Perhaps Solaria and E'ridia will come around in time."

"And if they don't?" Lore asked from her seat to Caris' right.

"I am not Eimarille. I won't interfere with another country's decisions."

Blaine and Honovi weren't sitting in on this meeting, though they were still present in Cosian. The pair had reported to her the sinister machinations Eimarille had employed to try to destabilize their government. Rionetkas in high political positions was a chilling threat E'ridia was already facing. News out of Solaria came through a chokehold these days, but Caris was certain the Imperial throne had faced the same enemy.

"We can't rely on others to give us aid. We must continue as if we are alone," Meleri said.

"Which we are," Clarence agreed grimly. "We have no allies, despite every overture we can think of. I don't know what good our diplomats can do if they keep getting the same answer with every request. Daijal keeps pushing the front line closer to us. If we can't keep our production up, if we can't recruit more soldiers, we'll be overrun before the end of summer."

"How is recruiting going? Is there anything I can do?" Caris asked.

Clarence smiled briefly at her, but it seemed strained. "You have done more than enough, Your Royal Majesty."

She'd sat for press interviews and photographs used in recruitment and propaganda posters that were put up in every city and town throughout Ashion. Her face was plastered everywhere, her words a rallying cry for her people, but it all seemed so meaningless in the face of the losses they were sustaining. Caris hated that so many people were willing to die in her name for a freedom that Daijal was trying to steal.

"We may need to rethink our objective. If our timeframe has shrunk, perhaps we shouldn't wait for the fight to come to us," Meleri said.

"We don't have the capacity to bring the fight to Daijal and win," Clarence reluctantly said. He wasn't one to provide false optimism, something Caris appreciated, but it was still disheartening to know the general was doing his best to win this war and it wasn't good enough.

"I'm not talking about Daijal." Meleri looked across the table at Caris. "I'm talking about Amari."

Caris stiffened even as others around the table muttered amongst themselves. She thought of the broadsheet she'd opened the other day with a photograph of her parents splashed across the front page. The news story had reported on their transfer back to Amari for an eventual trial that everyone knew would be a sham.

She'd cried when she'd seen the photograph, Nathaniel barely able to console her. Her parents were alive but prisoners of war. Caris would always wonder if she'd made different choices, if she'd taken a different road, if her parents would be with her right now, seated at this table.

"Amari is a deathtrap. We'd have to push through the front, and our losses would be twice what they are now once Daijal realized our intention. Daijal would throw everything they had at our forces and decimate us. Amari is off the table right now," Clarence said.

"Amari holds the starfire throne. If we can get Caris inside the city, she could claim her birthright, and it would be enough to stop this war."

"You don't know that," Caris said, drawing everyone's attention. "Do you really think Eimarille will bow to me? She doesn't believe we're sisters or that my claim to the Rourke bloodline is valid."

Even with Blaine returned to her and his memories of carrying her out of Amari, Caris knew it still wouldn't be enough for those people who believed Eimarille's truth. Him standing as witness wouldn't change the minds of people who didn't see her as queen.

"My dear, if you put out the North Star's decree, then no one would have the right to question your claim to the throne."

"That's a fairly optimistic view, Mother," Lore said evenly. "We all know Eimarille would undermine Caris' rule. The Inferno happened because the Iverson bloodline sought to eradicate anyone who might have a single claim to royal power who wasn't Eimarille. Bernard knew what he was doing when he gained her as his ward in the aftermath of so much murder. Better every claimant dead than a country split between two queens. That's what Eimarille is trying to do here."

"All the more reason to try for Amari," Meleri persisted.

"You're asking to reset the battlefield. It's not that easy," Clarence argued.

"There won't be a battlefield left to worry about if we're all dead. If you're concerned about breaching the city walls, we can enter through the catacombs and bypass their defenses."

Clarence barked out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. "We'd need to fight our way for months through Daijalan forces and war machines to reach the capital. It'd be a suicide push."

"What if we split Eimarille's attention?" Caris asked.

Meleri snapped her teeth together on whatever she was going to say to the general. "Pardon?"

"Eimarille is pitting all her forces against us in Ashion. So, what if we attack somewhere else that isn't the front lines? Get her army to split their focus."

"We have no way to reposition our army and supply lines without them knowing and countering," Clarence said.

Caris shrugged, clutching her hands together on the table. "I wasn't talking about our land forces. What about asking the Tovan Isles for help? We haven't tried sending an envoy to that country yet."

"Because we haven't any ships and no ports to meet them at. Their ambassadors always came to us in our capital," Lore said.

"Surely we sent our own to Port Avi?"

"Not for a decade at least. The Ashion parliament ceded that right to Daijal."

"If we reached out to them through diplomatic channels via another country, it might buy us some time before Eimarille found out," Caris said.

Lore hummed thoughtfully. "As far as distractions would go, an attack on New Haven would certainly catch Eimarille's attention and split the Daijal army's focus."

Clarence stared at them in disbelief. "An attack on Daijal's capital would require far more coordination between countries than we currently have, not to mention the cost and logistics of such an endeavor."

Caris spread her hands. "But it would be a distraction."

"Of a magnitude that we would pay in blood with. I wouldn't even think about moving battalions unless ink was drying on an alliance treaty. Aside from that, we'd have to move our people through Solaria to reach the Gulf of Helia if we were to get land forces on the Tovanians' ship-cities. I am doubtful the Imperial emperor would approve of such staging, not to mention it would tip off Daijal as to what our plan was."

"It's a viable option," Meleri said.

"It's suicide without an alliance."

Caris listened to them argue back and forth for a moment before she raised a hand, catching their attention. "Attacking New Haven should be an option, and so should freeing Amari. If not right now, then later. It's something we should instruct our envoys in Solaria to ask about."

Clarence shook his head. "I would counsel against that."

"Then if we persist on trying to hold an ever-moving line, we need to have a backup plan."

"If you're worried about your extraction from Cosian in the event of a full-frontal attack?—"

"I'm not," Caris said sharply. "But my status is the issue I want to discuss. If you would be so kind as to assess who has the highest security classification for this conversation, then please do so."

Clarence narrowed his eyes while Meleri looked slightly alarmed. Caris ignored the duchess' attempts to catch her eye, turning her head to watch as Clarence ordered officers away from the table with a sharp wave of his hand. They filed out, some appearing disgruntled by the order. By the time the door closed, the only ones at the table with her were the Auclairs, Clarence, and Colonel Taiwo Esina, recently back from the front bearing many of the reports scattered on the table between them.

"We are doing everything in our power to keep you safe, Caris," Meleri said.

Caris tried not to hunch her shoulders. "Yes, by keeping me in Cosian."

"It's for your own protection."

"It makes me feel like a prisoner and a sitting target." Caris drew in a deep breath and lifted her chin, meeting Meleri's gaze. "I think it's time I met my brother."

"No." Meleri's refusal was automatic and fierce.

"Yes." When Meleri opened her mouth to argue, Caris cut her off. "This isn't up for discussion. I am going to the Warden's Island. If anything happens to me, Ashion will need someone else to take up the claim to the Rourke bloodline and the starfire throne and fight against Eimarille."

"He is a warden. My understanding is he refuses to be anything else. Trying to convince him otherwise is a wasted effort. It will only make him and the wardens a target, and they have suffered enough."

"Are you worried for the wardens or worried about Alasandair having a right to the starfire throne that supersedes mine?"

Meleri pressed her lips into a thin line before raising her chin. "There is no witness to his claim."

"Blaine says the resemblance to me is uncanny. We take after our birth father that way, while Eimarille looks like Ophelia."

Caris had never quite looked like Portia or Emmitt, but their coloring was close enough no one ever questioned it as she grew up. They'd loved her so much, doted on her without question, that she had never thought differently.

"Appearances are meaningless. He can say he's Prince Alasandair Rourke all he likes, but he has no claim to it, not like you."

"Some say I don't have any claim."

"Caris—"

"You want to put me on the throne by risking the lives of every soldier in our army. You want to lay siege to a city that Daijal has controlled for my entire life. All that risk just to put me on a throne you don't know if I can take. How many have tried to sit on the starfire throne and died for it?"

"None of them were Rourke."

"And if I die, you still need one." Caris leaned forward, pressing her hands flat against the table as she stared Meleri down, Lore and the officers quiet and still in their seats. "Am I to be your queen or your puppet? Would you have me be nothing better than a rionetka for your dreams?"

Meleri flinched, the flush of angry determination washing out to a sickly white. "Caris, I never meant?—"

"You never meant a lot of things while I was your ward and your cog, and I have forgiven you for that. But if you want me as your queen, then you need to treat me as such. I am the age of majority in Ashion, and I am tired of people trying to bend my road to theirs."

Silence settled between them, and Caris pushed her fingertips against the wooden tabletop to keep her hands from shaking. Meleri looked away, gaze momentarily downcast, something like shame in her voice when she finally spoke. "I only want you safe, my queen."

Caris briefly closed her eyes at the honorific before opening them again. "We're at war for our country, not for me. If Ashion is to survive, then we must bring Alasandair on board."

Meleri bowed her head at that and said nothing, but she didn't argue Caris' point again. Letting out a soft breath, Caris looked at Clarence, who gave her a slow nod back.

"If you need an airship, the army will provide you with one," he said.

"You need those airships for the war. Blaine and Honovi have agreed to fly me to the Warden's Island."

"I'll be going with you," Lore said.

Caris managed a smile for the other woman. "I would expect nothing else."

Meleri cleared her throat, drawing Caris' attention. "We'll need to prepare an announcement, then. I'll work on that while you're traveling."

It was a peace offering of sorts, an acknowledgment that Meleri would follow Caris' commands in this moment. "Thank you."

Clarence tapped his finger against the table. "With this sorted, let's bring in the others again and continue our work."

Caris didn't argue that request and settled back in her seat, getting as comfortable as she could for the work ahead.