Chapter 3

In the weeks since Soren's disappearance, Vanya spent most of his days trying to tire himself out so he wouldn't dream about the nightmarish possibilities of his lover's fate.

Taisiya had made it a habit to bully him out of his office on a nightly basis. On one such occasion, Vanya was having an after-dinner drink with Taisiya in the private inner courtyard of the Sa'Liandel estate in Calhames when Caelum interrupted them with a troubled look on his face. "Apologies, Your Imperial Majesty. Governor Delani is insistent that she speak with you."

Vanya frowned and set his glass of brandy down on the table, gesturing Caelum to come closer. "This late?"

"She informs me she tried to reach you at your desk, but when that failed, she called my personal line."

Vanya stood, a knot forming in his stomach, wondering if it was about Soren and, distantly, Lore. He'd had spies scouring Calhames and elsewhere for any hint of where Soren might have been taken, but still no leads had shown up. He hadn't yet dared to initiate communications with Joelle, not wanting to give her any leverage. Vanya had to believe that Soren wasn't dead somewhere, that he would come back to him, as he always did when he left for the poison fields.

Caelum approached, holding out his hand with the televox resting in his palm. Vanya took it and pressed the small device to his ear. "Delani? Did you find Soren?"

"I'm not calling about Soren," Delani said in a tight, raw voice. "I'm calling with a warning for Solaria. Someone attacked Rixham tonight. I got the call from those on duty at the watchtower."

Sound disappeared into a high-pitched ringing in Vanya's ears. He had to lock his knees so as not to stagger backward. "What?"

"Rixham has fallen. You need to warn your people."

Vanya opened his mouth to speak but couldn't find the words. Every sound was stuck in his throat like shards of glass, the horror of something he never thought would pass rising up to ruin him.

Rixham is a dead city. There is nothing living in Rixham.

The mantra was a warning his mother had given voice to in the wake of his older brother's murder decades ago. She'd fought to keep Solaria whole and left the traitorous city still standing but its people dead inside walls that kept them imprisoned. Every House knew what they risked if they targeted what was essentially a grave.

"Why didn't your wardens stop them?" Vanya finally got out.

"They tried and died for their efforts, but they got the warning out first. Make no mistake, this problem lies with your House. We wardens could have eradicated the threat if your mother had been willing, but she wasn't."

"You don't know that."

"I was there," Delani snarled, fury lacing every bitten-out word. "I warned Zakariya about the risks, even after she pulled back as some of the city burned. She would not heed any of them."

There'd been a warden at the front lines back then when Rixham fell, Vanya vaguely remembered. He'd never known her name, could not place her face these many years later, but to now know it was Delani underscored, perhaps, why she'd seemed to take news of the royal crypts with such anger.

"You changed the maps. You made Rixham a border. You never dealt with the city, proving my mother right—it was too risky to burn it to the ground."

"The spores would carry, and she would not see her people at risk like that, for all that she left them at risk for this very moment. It seems your House haunts everyone's road these days."

Vanya clenched his teeth, mind whirling at the implications of the attack and what it would mean to defend against it. The Legion, he realized with a sinking stomach, would need to be split. Half the forces would now have to be sent south to help protect the cities and towns across Solaria, while the rest kept the country's promise to Ashion.

"I'll summon my war council and reallocate the Legion. I'll make overtures to E'ridia for assistance from their air force and?—"

"E'ridia lost a base and a repair yard a couple of hours before Rixham fell," Delani interrupted. "You'll have no support from that quarter."

He closed his eyes, refusing to flinch at that news. "Eimarille planned this well."

For Vanya had no illusions about who was behind the coordinated attacks. He doubted there'd be proof left at Rixham, but Vanya knew what Eimarille stood to gain from crippling E'ridia's air force and diminishing Solaria's Legion. While the attacks hindered Solaria, he would not abandon Ashion, for that was what the Daijal queen hoped for in the wake of such horror.

More than anything, Solaria's alliance with Ashion must stand.

Delani drew in a breath that crackled in his ear. "I will need to send my most experienced wardens south. The ones on duty in the Wastelands are being warned as we speak to take cover and prepare for a long engagement. This is going to be a siege in some areas of your country. Your cleansed lands will be contaminated."

All the fields planted and growing would be worthless if revenants trampled everything and spread spores. His people risked starving, even with the supplies every city was required by law to have in storage for lean years. "What are the numbers?"

"Of revenants in Rixham? Several hundred thousand, easily, even with the passage of time."

Not even the Legion could stand against so many and come away alive and unharmed. An alliance with E'ridia for use of their airships would have been his country's best bet to stem the encroachment of so many revenants, but that was impossible now. The Legion's own war airships didn't have the higher capabilities E'ridia's had, but much of the ones he'd intended to send to Ashion would have to remain in Solaria.

Hordes could cover ground quickly. Revenants never needed sustenance to keep them going. The spores embedded in their bodies kept them walking, kept them searching for a victim to infect, and there were so many in Solaria for them to target.

"I'll call my war council together."

"You do that," Delani replied, judgment thick in her voice before she ended the call.

Vanya pulled the televox away from his ear, staring into the distance, not really seeing anything of the courtyard. Solaria had to come first, he knew that, but some desperate corner of his heart wished he could put more resources toward finding Soren. Only when Taisiya touched his arm and called to him did Vanya orient on the here and now rather than his missing heart.

"What happened?" Taisiya asked, a pleading look in her eyes, as if she already knew the answer and wished for him to lie to her.

Vanya pressed his hand over hers, wishing he could comfort her and knowing he couldn't. "Rixham was attacked and the walls destroyed, freeing the revenant horde."