Sunday, October 20, 2024
👻🎃Sunday's Steampunk Spinner🎃👻: The Prince's Poisoned Vow by Hailey Turner
Summary:
Infernal War Saga #1
Every country is built on revolution.
THE WARDEN. Soren is a nameless, stateless man, tasked with keeping watch over Maricol’s borders. He isn’t meant for politics, only dealing with the dead. His past was buried in the poison fields, but after a fateful encounter with a prince, Soren comes to realize he can’t keep what magic burns inside him hidden forever.
THE PRINCE. Vanya Sa’Liandel was the spare who survived the Houses’ murderous games to become the Imperial crown prince of Solaria. He has a duty to his country, but he’ll owe his life to the wardens. Payment of any kind is costly, especially when he’s at risk of losing his heart to the man who saved his life.
THE COG. Caris Dhemlan hears the siren song of clarion crystals better than anyone in Ashion. That skill for inventing has enriched her bloodline, but it’s who she can become that will ultimately entangle her with the Clockwork Brigade.
THE PRINCESS. Eimarille Rourke should have been raised to be queen of one country; instead, she is prisoner of another. Guided by a star god, Eimarille bides her time in a gilded cage, spinning a political web to gain a throne and start a war the world isn’t ready for.
From the author who brought you the Soulbound series comes a queer steampunk-inspired epic fantasy.
Inferno
916 A.O.P.
One
BLAINE
Lord Blaine Westergard was ten years old when he carried the living heart of Ashion out of its capital city.
He didn’t know it at the time, because the less people knew of such things, the better.
Warning sirens rang through Amari’s air, the capital city awake when it should be sleeping, but it was difficult to sleep when smoke choked the streets. The sound of a scuffle past the pile of refuse Blaine knelt behind grew louder, and he chanced a look over the rancid mess that provided little in the way of cover.
The two men grappling with each other in the alleyway blocked the only way out, their movements quick and brutal. What light reached them from the gas lamps on the street was barely enough for Blaine to see his father’s face. Mal Westergard, Duke of Westergard and captain of the Royal Guard, wasn’t in uniform, while the other man was, and Blaine was too young to understand what betrayal meant.
Something skidded over the ground and came to a stop near Blaine. His father’s pistol, with its brass gears painted military black, was within reach. He snatched it up with one hand, the pistol almost heavier than the infant he carried close to his chest.
As the son of a duke whose duty was defined by service, Blaine had been around weapons all his life. He knew how to chamber a bullet into the barrel of a pistol or load a rifle, listening as the gears clicked and locked into place for firing. He knew how to aim at a practice target or an animal while on the hunt and pull the trigger.
He did not learn how to kill a man until that night.
Blaine laid the swaddled infant on the dirty ground behind a broken crate, tucked safely out of sight, before facing where his father fought one of his own men in a losing battle. Blaine breathed in like his mother had taught him, gaze steady even as his heart beat wildly against his ribs, waiting to take the shot.
The soldier knocked his father against the alley wall, the glint of light on sharp metal all the prompting Blaine needed to pull the trigger with a hard press of his finger. He wasn’t braced correctly, and the recoil almost toppled him over. Regaining his balance, Blaine stared wide-eyed at the body sprawled at his father’s feet.
“Blaine,” his father said hoarsely, limping toward him.
“Father,” Blaine replied, his hands shaking, voice cracking with shock.
Mal gently pried the pistol from his hands, and Blaine screwed up his face, trying not to cry. Then his father pulled him into a tight hug, one big hand smoothing over the back of Blaine’s head. “Hush, now. You’re all right.”
His father hugged him for a second longer before gently pushing him away. As much as he wanted the comfort, Blaine knew they still weren’t safe. They hadn’t been safe since fleeing the palace, a place he wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t stowed away in his father’s motor carriage when Mal had been summoned by the queen’s steward.
And if he hadn’t done that, he would surely be dead.
“Where is she?” Mal asked.
Blaine sniffed hard before retrieving the baby, picking her up off the ground. She hadn’t cried when the pistol went off, the drop of sleeping draught administered by the star priest enough to keep her under before they’d been put into a motor carriage. His father had abandoned the vehicle by Hollows Bridge on the western side of the Serpentine River, the singular waterway that cut the capital in two. Blaine wondered if maybe they should’ve stayed in the vehicle after all.
“Hold her close for me. We’re almost there,” Mal said.
“Where are we going?” Blaine asked for what felt like the dozenth time that night.
His father didn’t answer, merely steered him around the man Blaine had killed, his footsteps uneven. Warm fingers touched Blaine’s jaw, keeping his face averted, and he tried not to think about what he left behind in that alleyway.
They weren’t the only ones on the cobblestone street when they emerged, curiosity and fear driving people out of their beds. Despite the gunshot, they weren’t looked at askance, because a limping man dressed in neat, dark clothing with two children in tow was less interesting than the ugly shine of fire that glowed against the sky.
Two turns later found them hurrying along the Western Promenade that followed the length of the Serpentine River. The crowd of people in their nightclothes was growing along the riverside, every face turned east and the horror unfolding there.
A deadly, bright orange glow haloed the night sky above where Amari’s civic and royal centers were located. Windblown smoke made Blaine’s eyes water, stinging his nose. When he glanced in the direction it came from, he saw several small, two-person ornithopters skimming low over burning buildings. The aeronauts aimed hoses attached to water tanks at the fire below in a desperate attempt to contain it.
The fire crews must have been called up, but Blaine hadn’t seen any of their larger trucks with the water tanks pass them by. The only thing out in force, it seemed, were the peacekeepers who had followed them from the palace.
“This way!” a voice cried out.
His father’s hand tightened on Blaine’s thin shoulder, urging him on. “Hurry, Blaine.”
He didn’t know why the peacekeepers were after them when his father outranked them all as captain of the Royal Guard, a position that reported to the queen herself. The Westergard bloodline might not be royalty, but they were nobility and had dedicated generations to the preservation of the throne. It had been their singular duty ever since the civil war that had split Ashion in two, and an armistice kept the border in place.
Blaine was too numb to realize that fleeing through the dark like criminals while the city burned was how his bloodline kept their oath.
Pistols going off set the small crowd of observers shrieking and running away in a panic. Someone screamed in pain, and Blaine looked back, seeing the peacekeepers a block behind them and gaining through the panicking crowd.
“Don’t look back,” his father said, steering him around a corner with a steady hand.
The building that loomed before them was a grand thing at six stories tall, with a curved metal roof and a multitude of arched windows lining its walls. Situated alongside the waterfront, the airship hangar was one of a select group allowed within the city’s borders.
Blaine knew where all the hangars designated for private and diplomatic use were in Amari, having been fascinated with airships since he was a small child after being gifted a windup toy of one by the queen herself. His governess used to take him on motor carriage rides to each location when he was younger, imparting history lessons with every trip. Which was how Blaine knew this hangar belonged to the E’ridian embassy and that the people inside had no obligation to allow them entry.
“Open up!” his father cried, pounding his fist against the smaller side door.
Blaine huddled close, staring back the way they’d come, knowing it wouldn’t take but seconds more for the peacekeepers to arrive. Then the click of a lock being undone reached his ears, and the door opened.
Blaine let out a soft gasp when he saw the pistol held level with his father’s face. The E’ridian’s dark eyes never looked away. “Who calls?”
“I’m here by order of the North Star,” Mal said, one hand gripping Blaine’s shoulder tightly. “Please, there isn’t much time.”
“We were told to expect only you.”
“I couldn’t leave my son behind.”
The pistol tilted up, and the safety was clicked back on. The E’ridian gestured for them to enter the hangar. The steel-lined brass door was yanked shut behind them and locked with a heavy dead bolt.
Footsteps pounded past the hangar’s entrance moments later, muffled shouts reaching his ears. Blaine didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he had to draw in air, lest he choke. He stared at the E’ridian who had saved them, the man dressed in the flight leathers and fur-lined jacket of a people who preferred the sky to the land, poisoned or otherwise, that everyone else walked on.
Dark eyes flicked from one to the other before coming to rest on the baby Blaine carried. “This way.”
The hangar was half-lit and empty of people on the ground. They were led to the airship anchored to its dry dock by heavy ropes. The airship was on the small side, painted so dark a blue as to be almost black, with no other identifying marks on its hull. Its balloon was proportionate to the airship’s size, the make of the entire thing having all the hallmarks of E’ridian engineers, for they were the most skilled when it came to the mechanics of flying.
The airship was mostly enclosed save for a small section of the deck at the prow, which was open to the elements. A pair of E’ridians stood at the railing, looking down at them. Blaine blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, they’d been joined by a woman whose tanned face and braided black hair were drawn on the pages of scripture.
“You there,” the star god said.
Blaine knew his constellations, and he knew his prayers. He knew the Dusk Star watched over E’ridia the same way the North Star watched over Ashion. Nilsine was the goddess of the wind, carrying her blessing on the breeze to give her children flight. She was at once benevolent and wrathful, both the calm before the storm and the apex of it. She was a star fallen from the sky, but Blaine was too numb to make a wish.
As with all stories of the star gods, hers was an abstract tale Blaine had learned at the star temple during the Fourteen Month calendar’s main holidays, his parents never one to attend the weekly congregations. For a boy of ten, raised in a cosmopolitan city where the Inventor’s Guild held more clout than the Star Order, fun was had in science, not prayer.
Blaine didn’t know it yet, but he’d learn how to pray anew after that night.
Someone tossed a rope ladder over the railing, its knotted ends hitting the floor with a soft thump. The star god descended with sure hands, jumping the last few feet to solid ground.
As she turned to look at them, Blaine noticed her leather trousers were open along both sides at her hips and thighs, closing nearer to her knees. The purposefully parted seams showed off the gold lines and starbursts of the Eagle constellation tattoo on her right thigh, one of six designs found on every Star Order prayer book Blaine had ever opened.
“You’re late,” Nilsine said.
Mal’s voice cracked a little when he spoke, bowing deeply. “The queen is dead, my lady. We were pursued.”
The star god tilted her head, gaze settling on Blaine and the baby that slept in his arms. “Her death changes nothing.”
“It should.”
“Aaralyn told Ophelia what to expect if she raised import taxes on Daijal again and barred their debt slaves from her lands. Your queen sought to cripple that country and ended up crippling her own. You children never learn from your past mistakes.”
“It is the children I think of now.”
“As do I.” The star god stepped toward Blaine, and he felt very much like a beetle about to be crushed under someone’s heel just then. “Give her to me.”
Blaine’s father extended an arm between them, hand clenched into a fist. “This child is the only surviving Rourke. She is my duty.”
“She is your failure, like the rest of her bloodline. Princess Eimarille lives, though not as Rourke for much longer, despite the name she carries. The prince survives but is to be grieved for as dead. No other mortal outside these walls knows about this child, so tell me, how can she be Rourke?”
Blaine’s father bowed his head, eyes squeezed shut, before lowering his arm and stepping aside. As she passed him, the star god touched his shoulder with one gloved hand, the same way star priests did when they gave benedictions in festival crowds.
“Daijal’s Blades were sent to all the cadet bloodlines back a dozen generations. You could not stand against them all, much less the ones who set upon the throne. You weren’t meant to,” she said quietly.
“I could have tried,” Mal said.
“You would have died. You still might.” Nilsine pulled her hand away, light glinting off the mirrored lenses of her goggles as she turned her head from him, gaze alighting on Blaine. “News of the queen’s death will reach every country by way of telegraph wires before morning. The blood kin of Ashion royals no longer live, no matter what the rulers of Daijal or the Twilight Star will claim.”
Nilsine reached for the baby Blaine carried, but he jerked away from her seeking hands.
“Father, this isn’t right,” Blaine said desperately. “We’re Westergards. We’re supposed to protect her.”
Mal went to him, kneeling with a pained grimace, wavering there for a moment. He placed his hands on Blaine’s shoulders and turned him around so they faced each other. “We are Westergards, and this is how we protect her. By letting the star gods guide her travels.”
Nilsine hummed thoughtfully. “Yes, you are Westergards, are you not?”
His father’s shoulders stiffened as he turned his head to stare at her. “My lady?”
“The babe is not Rourke. Her name was never written down in the royal genealogies. Has your son been with you since you fled the palace?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will take him as witness.”
The hands on his shoulders tightened to the point of pain, but Blaine bit back a whimper that tried to escape. He stared wide-eyed at the star god, not realizing what she meant until his father smoothed back his hair and pressed a firm kiss to his forehead with trembling lips.
“Guard her well, Blaine,” Mal said in a ragged voice. He pulled the signet ring from his right index finger, tucking it into Blaine’s front pocket for safekeeping. Blaine opened his mouth to protest, because his father never removed that ring, but Mal shook his head. “It would’ve been yours when you came of age.”
Blaine blinked wetly, trying to steady his breathing. “Father.”
Mal smiled, a cracked, ragged thing that didn’t comfort Blaine at all. Then he stood and gently pushed Blaine toward the star god, who smiled in a way that made him flinch. He tightened his arms around the baby he carried, but this time, when Nilsine reached for the infant, he let the star god have her.
“Come, child. We must go,” Nilsine said.
Blaine was ushered to the rope ladder, and the E’ridian standing beside it held it steady as he reached for the first rung. He climbed up slowly, losing his footing every now and then as he tried not to look down. One of the E’ridians on the deck extended a hand toward him when he was almost at the railing.
“It’s all right,” the woman said in the trade tongue that crossed all six countries of Maricol.
Blaine was hauled on board with a firm grip, going to his knees on the decking. He was urged to his feet and tucked out of the way against the railing. He peered over the edge, watching as the star god deftly climbed the rope ladder while carrying the baby.
“The peacekeepers will double back and attempt to breach the hangar once they see us launch. They’ve been demanding entry everywhere since the fire started. I will open the roof and stay behind to ensure your escape,” the E’ridian on the ground said.
“Your sacrifice will be written in the stars,” Nilsine replied before swinging herself over the railing.
Blaine stared at where his father stood on the ground, looking back with as much love as grief on his face. “Father?”
“Remember this night, my son. Remember it for those of us who are gone,” Mal called out.
What happened next would come to Blaine in flashes when he was older: the sound of clockwork mechanisms grinding together as the roof cranked open; the rumble of the airship’s engine as it prepared for flight; the shouts from peacekeepers looking for a way in and finding it with the help of a magician’s clarion crystal–tipped wand.
The way Blaine’s father looked when he died beneath a hail of bullets as the airship cut loose its anchor and rose into the smoky night sky.
Blaine didn’t realize he was screaming until a hand clamped over his mouth and drew him back from the railing. Bullets peppered the air around them, pinging off the thin metal plating that shielded the belly of the airship’s balloon. He was dragged through a narrow doorway into the flight deck as they cleared the hangar for the sky.
“Hush,” Nilsine said as she knelt before him. She cradled the baby in one arm and raised her other hand to his eye level. Starfire shimmered at her fingertips, drawn from the aether, the same shade as the Eagle constellation tattoo branded into her skin. “This is your road now.”
Everything went soft and hazy, his vision going dark at the edges. A calm swept through him, foreign and cold, tucking the panic away. The wind howled outside the flight deck door while the creeping cold of altitude bit past his thin clothing.
When Nilsine removed her hand, Blaine kept the star god’s secret of a surviving bloodline behind closed white teeth.
Welcome to Maricol, where the land will kill you, kinship turns the gears of war,
and burning the dead lest they come back to life is the only way to survive.
Hailey Turner is big city girl who spoils her cats rotten and has a demanding day job that she loves, but not as much as she loves writing. She’s been writing since she was a young child and enjoys reading almost as much as creating a new story. Hailey loves stories with lots of action, gritty relationships, and an eventual HEA that satisfies the heart.
EMAIL: haileyturnerwriter@gmail.com
The Prince's Poisoned Vow #1
Series
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)