Chapter 7

Being a prisoner of war was not a title Soren had ever wanted, much like he'd never wanted to be a prince.

Vesper had left Calhames with them weeks ago, Soren bound by Lore's life to not retaliate as they were herded onto an airship that had flown them northwest. They'd been separated on that flight, both of them drugged, though it hadn't quite stuck for Soren. The alchemy that had turned him into a warden made him immune to many toxins and poisons and some sedatives as well. But waking up early didn't mean anything if Lore wasn't with him.

They'd remained separated during landing and their transportation through Bellingham, driving through streets Soren only vaguely recalled from the time he'd brought Vanya back seemingly from the dead after the train wreck. He wasn't taken to the Imperial estate but to the grand one that had been home to the House of Kimathi for Ages. The basement room he'd been deposited in was windowless, the floor black marble streaked with gold, a circle inlaid with opal carved with precision into the marble so that it touched each wall. A narrow cot, rudimentary toilet, and shallow sink were all the furnishings allowed.

Soren had felt the magic in that cell the moment he'd stepped foot in it, like a heaviness that weighed down the very air. If he'd been a magician, he rather thought it would be impossible to reach the aether for any spells, but he'd been able to summon a curl of starfire that first day, what little good it did him. Lore had not been placed with him, and he didn't know where she was or how she was doing. Breaking out would put her life in jeopardy, and he couldn't risk that.

So Soren stayed in that small, cool cell, given meals twice a day that were never laced with drugs and water that was. He drank it anyway, knowing he needed to keep up his strength, able to shake off its effects quicker than someone who wasn't a warden, even without his field kit.

On the third day, the door had opened, though vezir Joelle, of the House of Kimathi, had never stepped foot inside his cell. She'd been flanked by guards and the same magician who had transported them out of Calhames to Bellingham. Soren had stared at her for a moment before getting to his feet, calculating the odds of escape before deciding against it.

"So, you are the warden who has kept my great-granddaughter from me," Joelle had said.

Soren hadn't engaged, knowing well the power of silence. She'd looked at him as if he were some captive animal before letting the door close on him, locking him back inside.

Joelle had not returned since that first meeting, and Soren counted the days that passed by way of meals delivered. He couldn't even be sure the days were correct. Every demand to see Lore he gave the guards who delivered his food was rebuffed, and part of him wondered if she was even alive. Not knowing ate at him, stuck as he was in that cell by his own sense of honor.

At what felt like the two-week mark, perhaps a little more than that, the door to his basement cell opened sometime between his morning and evening meal. The strangeness had Soren rising to his feet, staring at where Joelle stood once again in the gas lamp–lit basement. The guards with her had their pistols drawn, barrels pointed at Soren. The magician with her this time was a young woman whose clarion crystal–tipped wand appeared made of bone and brass, her magic a soft violet as she called on the aether.

"Where is Lady Lore?" Soren demanded.

Joelle curled her hands over the top of her cane, the robes she wore not as elaborate as those meant for government. He wondered about her health, how months of war over secession might have whittled her down. She'd lost her son, her political power, and would have lost her vasilyet if she hadn't had Daijal's backing.

Soren knew she'd lose everything else left to her the moment Vanya knew he'd been taken by Joelle.

"Sleeping," Joelle said, a lightness to her tone that put Soren on edge.

"I want to see her."

"Oh, so untrusting for a warden." Joelle smiled, eyes shadows in her face. "My people know to kill her if you so much as summon a flicker of starfire. You will be bound, and you will obey."

As much as Soren didn't want to, he knew he had no choice but to obey if Lore was to live. So he held his hands behind his back when ordered to by the guards, let them place metal shackles around his wrists, and prod him out of the cell with a muzzle pressed to his back, over his spine. Joelle stepped aside so he could exit. Soren found himself looking down at her, the vezir so much smaller than he was and yet the cause of so much terror and heartache.

"Good to see you know your place," Joelle murmured.

Soren kept his expression as neutral as he could, refusing to give her the satisfaction of his emotional state. Joelle smirked at him before pointing with her cane, the silent gesture an order the guards immediately followed by shoving Soren forward.

The basement wasn't large, from what he remembered when he'd been dragged down into the dark. What storage it was used for weren't things people needed on a daily basis. The guards led him up a set of stairs into the round room of a star temple. Soren had only seen glimpses of it before when he'd arrived, still sluggish from the drugs in his system and not quite able to fully focus. But the statue of Callisto at the forefront was something he remembered, the eternal flame burning at her feet a flicker that caught his eye.

He was dragged away from the basement entrance, the metal door nothing as elaborate as the one that had closed up the royal crypts back in Calhames. A pair of handmaidens helped Joelle back up into the star temple, steadying her when the older woman's cane slipped a bit. Soren could only wish she'd lose her balance and fall back down into the basement and break her neck.

Joelle waved off her handmaidens and crossed over to a closed and guarded door on the other side of the star temple. The pistol at his back prodded Soren forward, and he went docilely enough, knowing it wasn't just his life on the line if he disobeyed.

And the life he was trying to protect was presented to him in that side room. Perhaps it had once been used as a place of private prayer, small and windowless as it was. Now, it served as a makeshift alchemist's lab, a metal worktable positioned in the center of the room, Lore laid across it like a dead thing.

They'd stripped her of her gown, leaving her only in her chemise, with a thin blanket drawn up to her breasts. Her arms were on top of the blanket, pale and uncuffed, a catheter resting in the crook of her right elbow. A metal stand was positioned beside the table, holding a large glass vial containing an unknown substance that dripped steadily through the tubing into her vein. That drug was clear, while the one in the vial hanging next to it was a poisonous-looking violet.

Soren tensed, recognizing that shade for the quick-acting poison it was. He eyed that tubing and the poison that was clamped off just before the catheter in Lore's left arm, a minuscule gap ready to be filled and poured into her veins.

A star priestess sat beside Lore, the woman's fingers resting lightly on the clamp that kept the poison at bay. She said nothing, merely stared serenely at all of them. Soren kept his eyes on Lore, watching as her chest rose and fell, eyes closed, lashes dark against the pallor of her cheeks.

"What have you done to her?" Soren demanded.

"Ensured your compliance through her predicament," Joelle said, stepping into the room.

Soren tried to follow her, but a hand fisted itself in his shirt, slamming him up against the side of the doorframe. He gritted his teeth against the pain that lanced down his arm, holding still as the muzzle of the pistol pressed against the side of his throat. He slid his gaze sideways, staring with unblinking eyes at the guard who was having none of it.

Joelle clicked her tongue at him. "You've a temper."

Soren snorted, turning his head with a dismissive motion, doing his best to ignore the guard and the cold metal against his skin. "You tell me how you'd feel if it was someone you knew lying on a table like that."

"I'd let them die if it meant I wouldn't." Joelle lifted her cane and waved the tip of it in his direction. "You, however, have a heart I would gladly replace with a rionetka's if the Klovod were still around."

The guard lifted the pistol and dragged Soren upright. Soren fought the urge to forcibly shove him off, knowing what it would cost him if he stepped out of line. He eyed the violet poison in the glass vial, needing to be sure.

"That's bittershade, isn't it?" he asked, thinking of the shrubs with their dangerously poisonous flowers that grew near the peaks of the Eastern Spine. It only bloomed the first few weeks of spring, after the snows melted. The leaves, petals, and pollen were deadly if it touched a person's skin or was ingested or inhaled. Harvesting it took an airship and a warden with skill enough to survive the environment and wandering revenants.

Joelle's lips quirked into a tiny smile. "You know your poisons."

Soren raised an eyebrow as condescendingly as he could. "I'm a warden."

Joelle outright chuckled at that before shifting on her feet to face Lore. "You're a prince."

"To some."

"Eimarille considers you a threat, the same way she considers Caris."

"I don't want the starfire throne."

She seemed surprised at the firmness of his denial. "You lack ambition. Such a stance would see you killed in Solaria."

"You haven't shot me yet."

"I know your worth, both to Eimarille and Vanya."

Soren's heart sank at the mention of Vanya. He'd left their bed with a promise he'd return and had that promise forcibly broken. Coming so close to having the one thing he'd ever wanted—Vanya in his arms again—only to have it snatched away from him was an ache that kept him company in the cell like a nightmare.

"Your honor collars you. All the starfire you possess, and you refuse to use it." Joelle shook her head at that, clear disgust in the gesture.

Soren's gaze flicked to Lore's unconscious form, then back to Joelle. "I put people first, unlike you."

If she thought it an insult, Joelle didn't let it show. "I have done nothing but put people first for the good of Solaria."

"You allied yourself with Eimarille, and look where that's got you." For some reason, that made her flinch ever so slightly around the eyes. Soren took notice, and he wondered what had transpired during the time he'd been a prisoner. "What did she promise you? The Imperial throne?"

"My dealings with Eimarille are of no importance to you."

"I've seen what she's done in Ashion and in the Warden's Island. Do you think she won't do worse to your country?"

At that, Joelle did laugh, a dry, disbelieving sound. "Ah, you don't know."

Soren stiffened. "I've been stuck in a cell. Of course I don't know what has happened outside it."

"Eimarille attacked E'ridia's largest air force base and downed the walls around Rixham in an effort to deprive Ashion of allies. You, Prince Alasandair, are my insurance to deny Eimarille the starfire throne after she kills Caris."

For a moment, the words didn't penetrate. When they did, nausea roiled in his gut so suddenly he had to take a deep breath to settle his stomach. It seemed unfathomable that Eimarille would target Rixham and release the massive horde of revenants trapped behind those city walls, but he didn't think Joelle had any reason to lie.

Joelle stepped closer to him, causing her guards to tense, worried, he supposed, about her safety. But Lore was one pinch away from an excruciatingly painful death, and Soren wouldn't let her die just so that he could save himself.

"Eimarille thinks to split the Legion's forces. She thinks the Houses will cave beneath her grand ambitions. She does not know us and our ways," Joelle said.

"Can you even call yourself Solarian after all you've done?" Soren asked.

Joelle lifted her chin, eyes glittering beneath the gas lamp light, determined to walk a road that would see his own destroyed. "All that I have done, I have done for my country."

"And how many Houses do you think would support you once word got out that your allegiance with Daijal was the cause of the horror crawling out of the south?"

Not even the House of Aetos would stand with her, he was certain. That House would be carved to pieces the same way Joelle's would the moment Soren made it back to Vanya and reported their betrayal. That nebulous future was what he clung to when Joelle had the guards return him to the cell.

After the shackles were removed and the door shut, leaving him in darkness, Soren called forth a flicker of starfire. The brilliant burn flared to life in the palm of one hand, warm and bright, like the eternal flame above.

With nothing else to lose, Soren prayed to the Dawn Star that had guided him down his road since the Inferno, hoping she would hear him.