Chapter 7

The Celestial Sprite juddered as it settled into the anchor berth inside the hangar the colored smoke marker had guided them to. Blaine looked away from the engine readouts in the flight cabin, watching Honovi converse with air force Captain Caoimhe of Clan Sky. Honovi had flown them west over the Eastern Spine to Cosian, but since this was a military airship, Caoimhe was technically in charge.

Blaine flexed the fingers of his left hand, the sound of gears clicking softly as the mechanical prosthetic, powered by tiny clarion crystals and magic, moved with the intent buried in the remaining muscles of his left arm. He glanced down at the rods, plates, gears, and screws made from various kinds of metal that fit snugly around the stump of his forearm and the bend of his elbow, gripping his upper arm. It was a familiar sight these days.

He folded his fingers down one at a time against the metal cage of his palm, making a fist. Last autumn and winter had been a frustrating time for him as he came to terms with the torture he'd endured at the hands of Daijal soldiers and the recovery process once he'd been rescued. Losing part of his arm had shifted his worldview in terms of accessibility, but it hadn't deterred him from living his life how he had been.

Honovi had been there every step of the way as Blaine struggled through the learning curve of using the mechanical prosthetic and how it affected his role as an engineer. Honovi loved him just as he was, and for that, Blaine was grateful. Being here, back on an airship, was an important milestone for them both.

"We have clearance to disembark," Honovi said as he put down the radio.

Blaine nodded. "Let me log the numbers, and we can leave."

He did so quickly and then followed Honovi out of the flight deck. The flight leathers they wore had the plaid of their clan curving over their shoulders, with more embroidery than would be found in the uniforms the rest of the crew wore. In Cosian, he and Honovi would be treated not as aeronauts but as visiting foreign dignitaries.

Honovi, as jarl to Clan Storm, would one day take over his father's seat on the Comhairle nan Cinnidhean and aid in ruling E'ridia. He'd held many roles over the years, all of which served to make him a politician with a keen eye toward the future, not just for E'ridia but Maricol as a whole.

Blaine reached up to touch the gold marriage torc hanging around his throat. He'd missed it greatly during his time spent as a spy and a cog in Ashion. He'd meant to stay by Caris' side until he saw her claim the starfire throne, but the ties to the country that had become his home after escaping the Inferno had vied with his promise to stand witness to her. His recovery had been spent in Glencoe, and he'd only conversed with Caris through telegrams or telephone calls.

It felt as if he were letting her down, but she seemed safe enough tucked away in the eastern province of Ashion, where Cosian was located. The city was far from the front lines, but those lines were changing with every month that passed.

If Ashion fell to Daijal, only Solaria and E'ridia would remain on the continent to hold back Eimarille's desire to rule. E'ridia had no presence in Daijal, not after Blaine's kidnapping and the attack Honovi had led on Foxborough to rescue him. Trade had been embargoed with that country ever since Eimarille ordered the attack on the Warden's Island. The Tovan Isles claimed Maricol's seas, and despite Urova's submersibles, the Tovanian navy was the strongest in the world. But Blaine had a feeling that even Maricol's oceans wouldn't be enough to stop Eimarille. Only Caris could, and Blaine still had a duty to her despite his ties to E'ridia.

Honovi went down the gangplank first, with Blaine right behind him. The person who greeted them on the pier was a surprise, though Blaine should have known Caris would send the one closest to her these days if she herself could not come.

"Welcome to Cosian," Nathaniel said in Ashionen with a smile.

The last time Blaine had been in this part of the country, he'd been an orphaned boy, hidden away on an E'ridian airship while the Dusk Star carried Caris down her road. It would be nice to see the city she'd grown up in. "I wish it were under better circumstances. How have you been?"

Blaine's gaze lingered for a few seconds on the pair of Royal Guards standing behind Nathaniel who were clearly acting as his escort rather than peacekeepers, most likely at the behest of Caris. He wondered, though, if they had underlying orders to take out the threat Nathaniel represented and if Caris knew or not. Meleri had been in charge of resurrecting that vaunted military unit, so he rather thought she would have and kept Caris in the dark for her own safety.

Nathaniel shrugged, his smile becoming thin. "Well enough, these days."

Blaine nodded, willing his gaze not to drop lower than Nathaniel's face. For all that he'd suffered at the hands of Daijal, Nathaniel had endured worse. The merchant would always be a risk—to the war effort, to the secrets cogs needed to keep, and to Caris—but Caris wanted Nathaniel by her side. Blaine could understand that want, and while he'd counseled against it, there was no arguing with the stubbornness of someone in love.

Honovi wrapped his arm around Blaine's waist, giving Nathaniel a polite nod. "Shall we head into the city?"

Nathaniel gestured for them to follow him out of the hangar. "The ground crew know where to bring your travel trunks. We have motor carriages waiting past the gates. I'll take you there."

Blaine had traversed many airfields over the years, but he couldn't recall one in recent memory where the majority of the anchored airships were built for the military as opposed to trade and travel. The closer they got to the city walls, the more Blaine became aware of weaponry and automatons that cities rarely deployed in the form of defense.

City walls were meant to keep revenants out, and wardens had always been enough for that threat. Now, the threat of fighting against the living meant the city gates were guarded by automatons and heavy artillery, and some number of airships were always ready to launch. He even saw a few ornithopters at some piers, and they'd seen more than a dozen aeroplanes lined up at the far runway during their approach.

They went through the security protocol at the gates and made it inside the city. Nathaniel led them to a pair of motor carriages parked in the lot by the wall, drivers already behind the steering wheels.

"You'll be staying with us while you're here, but the duchess insisted on a dinner at her estate tonight. We'll head over later, but Caris wants to see you first," Nathaniel said.

"I didn't think the Auclair bloodline had property out this way," Blaine said.

"They followed Caris. Many people have."

Which was what they'd all hoped for over the months. But Ashion was a fractured country and had been ever since its civil war, whether historians liked to believe it or not. A country needed a government, and Meleri was struggling to build one around Caris. Blaine knew of their inability to gain allies and aid, and it was only a matter of time before the rebellion that had started with the Clockwork Brigade grew into something more burned out.

It wasn't a future Blaine wanted, wasn't a road he wanted to walk down.

The news he and Honovi were bringing out of Glencoe wasn't going to change things, though he wished it would. Ashion had been his country once before. He didn't want to see it wiped off the maps.

It wasn't as long of a drive to their destination as it would have been in Glencoe. Cosian was a frontier city housing the military command for the war. The people they passed on the street weren't dressed in the highest fashion, and he saw more people in uniform than anything else in the outer sections.

"Have there been any protests?" Honovi asked.

Nathaniel craned his head around to look at them from the front passenger seat. "No. If anything, Cosian is bursting at the walls with volunteers wishing to join the army."

"Where are you training them?"

"Here and elsewhere. The army had to recruit and train in secret since parliament ordered it to wind down years ago. It's why losing Haighmoor wasn't as terrible as it could have been."

That information had been gleaned last summer, so Blaine doubted it was something Nathaniel had learned recently. He knew from Meleri that Nathaniel was being kept out of all the high-level talks when it came to the war efforts. Caris might love the man, but no one trusted the clockwork metal heart beating in his chest. It wasn't through any fault of his own, but some part of Blaine would always distrust the magic, alchemy, and mechanics that kept Nathaniel alive.

Eventually, they turned down a street that had a security checkpoint at either end of the block and automatons guarding metal gates that barricaded the way through. The Royal Guards on duty nodded at Nathaniel but didn't let the motor carriage drive through until one of the Royal Guards in the other motor carriage handed over papers to the officer in charge.

"We've added you to the list of approved visitors to Caris' home. They're just confirming you have permission," Nathaniel said.

Honovi nodded approval. "That's good."

"We don't have a proper palace, so security has been an issue, but the Royal Guards have done exceptionally well in keeping her safe."

Blaine was glad to hear that. He watched as the Royal Guards handed back the paperwork and signaled to open the metal gates. Nathaniel drove forward, and it wasn't long before they pulled up in front of an estate Blaine knew the nobility back in Amari would describe as charming. Caris waited on the porch, flanked by yet more Royal Guards, offering a smile that Blaine found himself returning before he'd even left the motor carriage. He barely had both feet on the cobblestones before Caris clattered down the steps and threw herself at him.

"You're here," she got out in a muffled, hitching voice as Blaine swept her up in a hug. "You're okay."

Blaine held her close, carefully making a fist with his mechanical prosthetic hand against the curve of her lower back. "I'm here."

He hadn't realized he'd miss her so much; a voice on a telephone wasn't the same as seeing her in person. She'd been his focus for nearly half a decade at this point, ever since he'd learned she was the infant he'd carried out of Amari after the Inferno. Finding her again at the university had sparked so much of this. He was ten years her senior, and some days, that felt like a lifetime.

They held each other for a long moment before Caris finally pulled back, wiping discreetly at her eyes with the back of her hand rather than using a kerchief. Blaine thought about offering her one, but she'd moved on to hug Honovi hello, his husband nearly picking her up off her feet with his embrace. When they finally parted, Caris appeared more settled, and a brightness came to her gray eyes when her attention finally landed on his mechanical prosthetic.

"I hope you'll let me take a look at that today. I brought clarion crystals home from the laboratory in preparation for your arrival," she said.

Blaine glanced over at Honovi, raising an eyebrow. "Do you mind if we do some lab work first?"

Honovi snorted. "Nathaniel here can help me find a glass of whiskey."

Caris laughed, grabbing Blaine by his right hand and leading him into the home. "We'll be in the back garden."

The Royal Guards snapped to attention as she passed, but she paid them no mind. Blaine didn't bother digging in his heels at Caris' headlong rush, but he did say to those on duty, "Send your captain to me."

The soldier on his left nodded sharply, and Blaine knew his message would be passed along. While Meleri had handled the reactivation of the Royal Guard, the Westergard bloodline had led that military unit for centuries, ever guarding the Rourke bloodline. Blaine might have left the Westergard bloodline behind at the urging of the star gods, but he still knew his duty. His father had died for it long ago, and Blaine wouldn't dishonor that sacrifice by walking away from it. His road would always be intertwined with Caris'.

The hallways and rooms they passed were warmly decorated, lived-in, and cozy in a way that instantly made Blaine feel at ease. It reminded him of the shared clan home he and Honovi resided in back in Glencoe, a place filled with memories and people and meant to raise a family in. If this was where Caris had grown up, well loved and well guided, he couldn't be regretful that he hadn't tried to fight the Dusk Star to keep her.

Caris' personal laboratory was thankfully not in a basement but outside in the back garden, the little detached building cluttered and well used. It was a bit warm inside, and Blaine shrugged out of his leather flight jacket, hanging it over the back of a wooden chair. He watched as Caris flitted about, turning on the mechanical fans in the corner and switching on the gas lamps. The little lab had windows, but extra light was always welcomed when working.

When she finally came to a stop on the other side of the worktable, she rested her hands on top of the work mat, meeting Blaine's gaze. There was a gravitas to her gaze that hadn't been there even last summer, war and her new position weighing on her. "You look better. Your hair has gotten longer."

Blaine reached up to tug on the short braid that lacked the metal hair adornments he'd worn in E'ridia. They got in the way during a flight, but they were packed away in the truck for later, along with his formal kilt and plaid. It wouldn't do to present themselves before the Ashion dignitaries without being properly attired. "I promised Honovi I wouldn't cut it again."

E'ridians kept their hair long, braided in various ways to denote age and social status, the hair adornments hinting at clan affiliation and more. One could tell someone's rank and clan just as much from their hair as the plaid they wore. Cutting his hair several years ago had been excruciatingly difficult, but he'd done it.

Caris smiled, her gray eyes crinkling at the corners. The shadows underneath them were like tiny bruises, and he wondered about the stress she must be under right now. She gathered up her shoulder-length dark curls and tied them back in a queue as best she could. "Let's have a look at your arm, shall we? I want to check the settings of your clarion crystals."

"I did incorporate some of your design suggestions into it."

"Yes, but I didn't build it with you."

"Some of the best E'ridian engineers did."

"Good."

Caris came around the table to stand beside him and waited until Blaine placed his mechanical prosthetic hand in hers. She explored it with sure fingers, and Blaine tracked the shape of where she touched.

When he'd first woken up in Glencoe after being held prisoner and could think without the potions or drugs keeping the pain at bay, he'd been terrified at not being able to live his life how he once had. No more engineering work, no more flying, not with the loss of his hand and forearm—grounded in a way he never thought he would be. But the absence of part of his limb didn't define him, and Honovi had reinforced that belief until Blaine actually believed it.

He'd learned he wasn't the only aeronaut crewing an airship who had a missing limb. Granted, there were certain aspects of his job as a flight engineer that required additional help—fine motor control was still something he was working on—but the loss hadn't affected his dominant arm, and he didn't need the mechanical prosthetic to feel whole. As Honovi was always reminding him, Blaine was still himself, with or without two flesh-and-bone hands.

As for the mechanical prosthetic itself, he was proud of the design he'd created with Caris' input. The engineers who'd helped him build it to his exact specifications had done a fine job, but it wasn't going to be the final version he wore. Even with magic to ease along the healing, it would be months more until the shape of the stump of his arm settled into its final form. Once the healing was complete, then he could work on the permanent fitting.

"Have you thought about adding a mini Zip gun to it?" Caris asked, tapping at a brass plate on the outside of the metal forearm.

Blaine laughed. "I heard about the weaponry addition you gave that racing carriage when you rescued me from Foxborough. I don't think Honovi would approve, and it would be a danger on an airship. What if it accidentally discharged?"

Caris wrinkled her nose and let his arm go, nodding at the worktable. "I'm sure a magician could work a spell on the switch so it wouldn't fire unless you intended it to. Sit, please. The crystals are good, but their song is off. You have a gear that catches sometimes in the elbow joint, don't you?"

He eyed the metal prosthetic, the shape of it larger around his elbow for stability purposes. "It does sometimes. How did you know?"

"Discordant notes. I can fix it today, if you like."

Which was how Blaine found himself sitting at the worktable, mechanical prosthetic removed and in Caris' capable hands. She had a pair of magnifying goggles on as she worked within the casing of the forearm, the gears, springs and clarion crystals on full display beneath her tools.

"The spells in the gears are still learning how I move," Blaine said.

"Replacing the crystals will help with that. The shapes are correct. Whoever cut them just cut wrong across the crystal rod they used. The crystal didn't quite like that."

"Are the ones you have from E'ridia?"

Caris nodded, never taking her eyes off her work. "We received them in a shipment during winter. Urova has blocked all clarion crystal trade with Ashion since the start of the war."

"How is the war effort going?"

They could speak freely there in her small laboratory, without Nathaniel to overhear what he shouldn't. Caris didn't immediately pick up the conversation, and Blaine patiently waited for her to find her voice.

"Badly now, I think," she admitted softly. "We're doing the best we can, but I don't think it will be enough, despite the wardens helping. Daijal has war automatons they stole from Solaria, but that's not enough for the Imperial emperor to give us aid. Even with the new alchemy bombs the wardens have cooked up, it's not enough to keep the amount of revenants at bay. Daijal is taking the fallen in skirmishes off the battlefield and sending them through their death-defying machines. And E'ridia?—"

She broke off with a sigh. When she didn't immediately continue, Blaine picked up where she'd left off. "E'ridia is reluctant to get involved."

Caris' mouth twisted, eyes on the clarion crystal she was extracting from his mechanical prosthetic with thin tweezers. "I gave E'ridia permission to use our airspace to rescue you. I wanted you back, that was never in question, but I thought the situation would be enough to get the Comhairle nan Cinnidhean to see the threat Eimarille represents. My ambassadors tell me nothing comes of their requests to your ruling body."

Blaine knew the cinn-chinnidh who made up the Comhairle nan Cinnidhean were focused on quietly rooting out rionetkas from the government. Even with the wardens having found a way to push aside the compulsion to give rionetkas back their own minds, they couldn't remove the intricate spell completely without risking the destruction of the clockwork metal hearts. It meant his country's Seneschal could no longer hold that office, and an election for the clans to choose a new one had been handled carefully over winter.

While everyone believed rionetkas were created by Daijal to infiltrate the political spheres of foreign countries, they didn't have any proof. Without proof, Eimarille would deny to her last breath that she had anything to do with the destruction of so many lives and the interference of a sovereign nation's right to rule.

"Taking the starfire throne would go a long way toward breaking Eimarille's propaganda," Blaine said.

"It wouldn't stop the war."

"Wouldn't it?"

Caris set her tools down with a sigh, lifting her gaze from Blaine's mechanical prosthetic. "Amari is occupied by Daijal. Eimarille hasn't been to that city since last year, and we don't know why. But trying to take the capital would decimate the army that we have, and we don't have allies to fall back on. Sitting on the starfire throne to put out the North Star's decree won't end what she started."

"Then perhaps it is the North Star keeping it safe."

He'd never seen Ashion's guiding star; the Dusk Star had been the one to help him flee the Inferno and the ravages that coup had produced. But Aaralyn was the star god that Ashion prayed to, and if anyone would have a say in who claimed the starfire throne, he rather thought it would be the North Star. Though it wasn't only Caris and Eimarille who had the right to it these days.

"Have you spoken to Alasandair yet?" Blaine asked.

Caris picked up the rod of clarion crystal and the cutting tool resting near her elbow, not meeting his gaze. "Meleri doesn't think it would be a good idea to reach out to him."

"But do you want to?"

"I don't know him, the same way I don't know Eimarille. I was a Dhemlan before I was a Rourke and had no siblings until recently, and then in name only. Claiming a bloodline doesn't make a family."

She sounded frustrated, as if she'd had this argument before, though Blaine's intention wasn't to argue. He rested the stump of his left arm on the worktable and leaned forward. "Meleri believes him to be a risk to your right to rule."

"She believes much is a risk to my right to rule, including the decisions I make."

The bitterness he could hear was a keen identifier of her state of mind, something anyone could pick up on. For all that Meleri had taught her spywork over the years in the Clockwork Brigade, Caris' political savviness when it came to court and keeping one's opinion veiled was not the best.

He could understand, too, Meleri's desire to keep the siblings apart. If Blaine hadn't seen for his own eyes the shocking similarities in looks between the warden who went by Soren and Caris, he never would have known. But he'd seen the same gray eyes Caris had in the warden's face, the same dark hair, and the same missing road beneath their feet.

Soren had denied being a Rourke when he'd met with Blaine, Honovi, and the wardens' governor that day in Glencoe. But Delani had seen what he had, and she'd moved to keep Soren's identity a secret going forward for as long as possible. Because if Soren was a Rourke, then the possibility he could cast starfire was high, no matter his denials, and that meant the wardens had broken the Poison Accords of their own volition in the past. They were meant to be neutral, and the only way to truly be was to never take those whose names were written in the royal genealogies as tithes.

The wardens didn't know which of their governors had made that decision, as Soren's records had been destroyed—along with so many others—during the attack on the Warden's Island. Unlike with Caris, Blaine couldn't stand witness for the prince, if he ever even reclaimed that title. Soren, Blaine had come to learn, was very much a warden, and he didn't know how the nobility would react to Ophelia's only son having been remade through alchemy into someone who spent more time outside city walls in the poison fields than anywhere else.

"Perhaps he is, or perhaps he can be an ally," Blaine said.

Caris didn't look away from the clarion crystal as she started cutting the rod. The deep violet color was different from the aquamarine ones currently powering his mechanical prosthetic. "And if he wanted the throne? He could claim it, you know. He is older than I am."

By five years, if Blaine recalled correctly. He wondered if Soren remembered how he had escaped the Inferno, if there had been someone to carry him out of that city the way Blaine had with Caris. "He hasn't claimed anything."

Caris' mouth twisted as she delicately changed the cutting angle on the clarion crystal, hands moving with a deftness Blaine missed. "He could, and what then?"

"He can't," Blaine said reluctantly. Caris arched one eyebrow in a silent question, to which Blaine answered with a faint sigh. "Alasandair Rourke was struck from the royal genealogies after the Inferno. Soren's records were destroyed during the attack on the Warden's Island. We can't trace his lineage, not how we can with you if I stand witness."

"Would you need to if he could cast starfire?"

Blaine picked at a tear in the soft work mat laid across the table, dodging the question. "If he could cast starfire, he'd be an asset on the front lines."

Caris paused, drawing her hands apart so she didn't accidentally nick the crystal. "You'd truly send him out to fight?"

"We can't send you, though I know you wish you could be out there."

Blaine had taken enough calls from Meleri over the winter about Caris' wish to give aid to the soldiers dying in her name. As admirable as it was, they'd lose her if she tried. Already, the wardens and Royal Guards had quietly dispatched several attempts on Caris' life from Blades sneaking past the city's defenses. He didn't know if she knew how close she'd come to an assassin's blade, but the attempts were further proof that Eimarille considered Caris a threat like nothing else on the continent.

"Would he go?" Caris asked.

"Other wardens have."

"None of them are supposedly a prince."

"He is a warden. I don't think a crown could ever change that."

Caris repositioned her hands and elbows and started cutting again, head bent over her work. "If he helps, that's more aid than others have given us."

Blaine didn't wince, but it was a near thing. "We're trying to press your case, but the Comhairle nan Cinnidhean is reluctant to commit our country's air force to your cause."

"You must realize it's all our cause. Eimarille won't stop at the Eastern Spine."

She said it with a sureness that made Blaine want to duck his head in shame. "I know that. Honovi does, too. We're working on convincing our people that we can't stay isolated and neutral while the rest of the world goes to war."

"Would a request directly from me move them to reconsider their position?"

"You can't leave Cosian."

"Then I'll send a personal letter of entreaty when you fly home."

She spoke as if she knew he wouldn't stay, despite his promise to her and the Dusk Star. It shamed him to know that his country could give Ashion support and aid, but they weren't. Swallowing, Blaine curled his hand over the stump of his arm, running his fingers over the scars there, barely feeling the touch in places. "How's Nathaniel been?"

"Keeping busy. Meleri won't let him be a cog again."

"You know he?—"

"I know," she said, cutting him off. "But he's lost more than so many others, and I hate that his sacrifice isn't worth the trust he deserves."

"How's his heart been?"

"It beats the same as always. The clarion crystal doesn't sing like it did when he was a rionetka."

Blaine bit his tongue so he didn't protest that Nathaniel still was a rionetka. He knew that was an argument that would do nothing but give hurt. "I'm glad you have him."

Caris glanced up from the work she was doing, a tentative, happy smile curving her lips. "Me, too. He's a kind man, and I care for him dearly."

And a danger, but Caris was stubborn in a way Blaine had only the vaguest recollections of how her birth mother, Queen Ophelia, had been. There would be no telling Caris to take the fork in her road if she wanted to walk it straight toward the unknown with Nathaniel by her side. He hoped Meleri was prepared for that.

Blaine returned the smile. "Catch me up on what's going on?"

Caris kept cutting clarion crystal, but she pitched her voice louder than the noise from the cutting machine, talking about the war effort and the diplomats she kept sending to the east and south, never blaming him for his people's failing. Ashion had been his people, once, years ago. Despite everything, Blaine wasn't prepared to turn his back on the country he'd lost in order to survive.