Chapter 8

"Nathaniel."

Nathaniel looked up from stirring jam into his tea, watching Caris enter the formal dining room. The sweetness from the berries went well with the floral notes of the drink, and using the jam helped stretch the household's sugar supplies. Sugar was rationed, and he, like Caris, had donated their additional shares to the nurses, doctors, and healers manning the pair of hospitals within Cosian.

"Is it time to depart?" Nathaniel asked, setting the teaspoon aside.

Caris quirked a smile at him, her dark hair loose and falling to her shoulders. It was short enough that she'd have no trouble tucking it under a leather flight helmet. Her trousers were tailored for a tighter fit, and her blouse was long-sleeved despite the warmth outside, corset belt cinched tight around her thin waist.

"Honovi said the Celestial Sprite will launch at noon. Maurus is seeing to our travel trunks and the motor carriages. He said he would retrieve us when they were ready."

"Where's Lore?"

"With the duchess. She left before breakfast but said she'll meet us at the airfield." Caris tilted her head a little, studying him. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know what good will come of me traveling with you to the Warden's Island. You can't speak of any strategy around me. I feel I would only be a threat."

He tried not to sound bitter, for he knew why the precautions were taken by everyone else where he was concerned. But Nathaniel wanted desperately to be of use, to fight, to be something more than the burden it felt like he was.

Caris came to him on quick feet, her boots making no sound on the soft rug spread beneath the dining table. The colors in the rug weren't as vibrant as they'd once been, but it still paired well with the orange and gold wallpaper accents of the room. It made the space feel warm and inviting, cozy for the small Dhemlan family that had lived here over the years.

Caris took the chair beside his at the table, angling it so she faced him rather than the empty room. "I want you with me, for however long I have you."

Nathaniel reached for her hand, fingers tightening around hers. He drew her hand to his mouth, pressing and holding a kiss to her fingers. She stared at him, her gray eyes wide and trusting, and the love in her gaze was something he didn't know if he deserved, not after what he'd done and what he'd become.

They both knew the clockwork metal heart that beat in his chest, powered by alchemy and magic, was the only reason he was alive. His mind couldn't be trusted, and Nathaniel woke up from nightmares every week about the potential treachery he could inflict on those he cared about.

"You have me," Nathaniel promised.

"Then never doubt you belong by my side." She tugged her hand free and pressed it against his chest, over his shirt and waistcoat, all his scars hidden by the clothes he wore. "You've suffered more than any of us, and I won't have anyone blaming you for something that was not your fault."

Nathaniel covered her hand with his, breathing in deeply. He'd lost his family, then his heart and his free will. He had no hope his parents and siblings were alive, not after the seizure of their company and their arrest by debt collectors for the crime of aiding and abetting the Clockwork Brigade. Last he'd heard, they'd been shipped west, and he knew what happened to prisoners of war.

"I can provide nothing to this war. I'm no soldier, and what aid my company once offered was stolen from us."

All the steam trains the Clementine Trading Company once owned and operated had been seized and repurposed for Daijal's needs. He couldn't even be sure any of their employees had escaped the punishment given his family. He hoped they had, for he wouldn't wish that horror on anyone. He knew what it was like to be a dead man walking.

Caris' expression softened, and she shifted on the chair, her knee brushing his. The closeness they indulged in certainly would not have been allowed under the norms of high society. If this war had never happened, Caris' parents would be seated at the table with them, and they wouldn't be so overtly affectionate.

Lore had long since allowed them their privacy, affecting the role of chaperone less and less these days. Caris was of majority age, and while she might be Rourke and Ashion's queen, Nathaniel had fallen for her when she'd been an engineering student with a bright future ahead of her with her bloodline's company, Six Point Mechanics. Her rank as a baroness had never bothered him, but her being queen made him question what he wanted for her own safety and not his own heart—what was left of it.

"Nathaniel," Caris said, never looking away. "You are important to me. I care about you dearly, and my love for you will never be in question."

"Some say it should be."

Her lips twisted sadly, grief flickering across her gray eyes. "Then they are wrong."

Some part of him would always believe the detractors who looked at him askance, who would never trust him with information much less Caris' life. Maurus had become resigned to letting him be in Caris' presence, but he knew the captain of the Royal Guard would put a bullet through his heart if he thought Nathaniel would harm Caris again.

Nathaniel would welcome it if that horror ever came to pass again.

He pulled her hand away from his chest and held it in both of his. Her fingers were bare of rings, and the only one he'd ever given her hung around her neck. Before everything that led up to the riot in Amari last summer and what came after, he'd held fast to the hope of one day offering her an engagement ring and taking her name.

But that was when he thought he'd be the man who could stand whole and devoted beside her, without questioning if his mind was his own or if the next breath he took would be his last.

His desire for intimacy in the bedroom had fallen by the wayside, unwilling to show the scars he now lived with to anyone, even himself. Nathaniel could not look at his reflection in a mirror and refused for a valet to aid him in dressing until his shirt was buttoned up first.

Caris had never seemed to mind that they did nothing more than kiss, enjoying simply being with him, which was a grace Nathaniel hadn't expected. But Caris never initiated anything more than the kisses they shared or the quiet moments when they held each other. She'd confessed, once, that she'd never desired what came with the marriage bed, but she desired him, loved him, even, in her own way, and Nathaniel could not deny her his heart.

"You are the kindest person I know," Nathaniel said, voice a little rough.

She framed his face with her hands, leaning in to kiss him softly on the mouth. "You flatter me."

"I speak nothing but the truth."

She smiled, gaze softening. "So that means you'll not argue about joining me for the journey to the Warden's Island?"

"So long as you keep me ignorant of any information I should not be privy to. I know I'm not the only reason why you want to return there."

"Ksenia made it clear during our last communications that she wants to run further tests on you, but no, you aren't the only reason I'm going."

"Don't tell me secrets that will endanger you," he warned.

She reached up to tug on one of her curls before resting her elbow on the table and slouching a little. "I never wanted to be queen. That's not a secret. I wanted to be an engineer."

"You still are."

"Yes, but now I'm this living banner for Ashion to rally behind, and I hate that people are dying for me. I don't want their deaths to be wasted if something happens to me."

He knew of the assassination attempts directed at him, of the Blades stopped by soldiers and magicians, sometimes at great cost to the Royal Guard. The home they shared was heavily guarded, the streets surrounding their block restricted. Caris' survival was integral to Ashion remaining an independent country. Without her, the push for freedom from Daijal and that country's terrible laws that favored debt bondage would crumble. "The people would fight in your memory."

Her mouth drew down at the corners, something bitter in the twist of her lips. "I won't be a martyr. If Eimarille's Blades ever do reach me, I don't want people to fight for a memory when there is a perfectly acceptable Rourke waiting in the shadows."

Nathaniel shook his head, staring at her beseechingly. "My darling, you shouldn't speak of such things to me."

"I won't treat you as other," she replied fiercely. "I won't treat you as less or be fearful of some what-if scenario. People will find out soon enough that Eimarille and I have a brother. It makes no sense to keep you in the dark when that is the whole reason I'm flying to the Warden's Island."

He opened his mouth but couldn't quite find the words. After a moment, he reached for his teacup and took a hefty swallow of the cooling liquid. "Prince Alasandair is alive?"

"The star gods gave us all different roads to walk." She looked away, a pensive expression in her eyes. "I always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling when I was growing up."

Nathaniel set his teacup aside and covered her hand on the table with his. He was fearful of the information she'd revealed somehow being used wrongly by him. If she was certain the news wouldn't be a secret for much longer, Nathaniel was glad to know it so he could be there for her. "I'm certain he must be far kinder than Eimarille."

Caris shrugged one shoulder, gaze cutting back to him. "Alasandair is a warden. He goes by a different name and refuses to claim the Rourke bloodline."

"So you're flying there to try to convince him to join your cause?"

"I can be persuasive."

It was a trait she was becoming more deft at, but Nathaniel hoped she never lost her kindness to the pitfalls of politics. "If he wanted to rule, would you cede him the crown?"

"If I thought he would be better for Ashion than me, I wouldn't hesitate to step aside. I…" She trailed off, pressing her lips together. When she spoke again, her voice came out a little rough, as if she were trying to hold back tears. "I wanted a life with you that wasn't this, but I have you, and I will not regret that. I just hope that if I must take the throne, you will stand with me."

Nathaniel pushed his chair back away from the table and knelt before her, taking both her hands in his again. He looked up at Caris, knowing that the love he felt for her was something that could never be carved out of him the way his heart had been.

"I will walk your road with you until the end. Even if there are days I'm not with you, know that it is not because I refused to be but because I couldn't be. My darling Caris, I promised to love you until my heart breaks, and this life with you is the only one I have ever wanted."

Caris blinked, tears falling from her eyes that she didn't bother to wipe away. "I'll fix your heart first."

He laughed, rising up to kiss her. "You already have. I would be so much less a man without you."

Someone cleared their throat, and Nathaniel broke the kiss, straightening up. Maurus stood in the entryway to the dining room, a politely indifferent expression on his face. "The motor carriages await."

Caris discreetly wiped the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand. "We're ready."

Nathaniel drew her to her feet and offered his arm, which she gracefully accepted. Maurus led the way out of the estate, and Nathaniel kept Caris tucked close to him, knowing better than to take her love for granted.