Infernal War Saga #2
Every heart is meant to break.
THE NAMELESS. As a warden, Soren’s duty is to guard against the dead, but he was never trained to guard against his heart. Drawn into a web of Solarian politics, Soren finds himself at the center of a storm of his own making, unwilling to break free if it means losing the man he loves. But even the darkest secrets cannot remain hidden forever, and when lies come to light, the price he pays for his silence may very well be his undoing.
THE EMPEROR. When his claim to the Imperial throne is challenged by a traitorous House, Vanya Sa’Liandel must adhere to the ancient tradition of the Conclave to stay in power. Refusing to face his peers alone, Vanya will stand before the Houses of Solaria with Soren by his side, a decision that risks his heart when an unspeakable betrayal threatens everything he’s fought for.
THE REBEL. With her entire world upended, Caris Dhemlan is on the run, struggling to come to terms with the truth of her heritage. As the Clockwork Brigade is targeted by Daijal, she must fight to save the people she cares about. Every rebellion needs a figurehead, but Caris is determined not to become a martyr.
THE QUEEN. With a crown claimed, Eimarille Rourke sets her sights on Ashion and the continent beyond her country’s borders. Promised a world by a star god, Eimarille sets into motion the gears of war and launches the opening salvo of a battle whose repercussions will ripple across the whole of Maricol.
From the author who brought you the Soulbound series comes a queer steampunk-inspired epic fantasy.
Divergence
936 A.O.P.
One
VANYA
Some roads would always be lonelier than others, but they all had to be walked beneath the stars.
Emperor Vanya Sa’Liandel, of the House of Sa’Liandel, holder of the Imperial throne and ruler of Solaria, arrived back in the capital city of Calhames in the early hours before dawn three days after the rionetka attack in Oeiras. The trade talks with the Tovan Isles ambassador had been hastily concluded, and he’d returned by way of airship to a city he couldn’t assume was safe and a palace that didn’t feel like home—not without Raiah and Soren by his side.
Stalking through the low-lit corridors of the Imperial palace, Vanya made his way toward his private office in the family wing. The praetoria legionnaires guarding the antechamber to it made Vanya want to flinch, but an emperor never took a step back. Besides, the ones guarding him were at least trustworthy.
Captain Javier Molina, in charge of the praetoria legionnaires who’d escorted Vanya to Oeiras, planted his feet before the antechamber doors, fists on his hips. “Step forward.”
The praetoria legionnaires standing at attention on either side of the entrance obeyed immediately, saluting the captain before bowing to the Imperial degree at Vanya’s presence. The ones surrounding Vanya kept their hands on their pistols, eyeing their fellow soldiers. If the pair on guard duty were uneasy at the distrust being shown them, they didn’t acknowledge it.
“Strip off your shirts and jackets,” Javier ordered.
One of the praetoria legionnaires seemed taken aback by the order. She hesitated a couple of seconds before obeying. In that time, Vanya noticed the way the praetoria legionnaires around him tightened their grips on their pistols. No weapon was unholstered, but the sentiment of being willing to shoot was there.
The pair stripped, baring their chests to Javier’s critical eye. Their skin was unmarked, carrying no vivisection scars, and the praetoria legionnaires around Vanya relaxed ever so slightly at the proof they weren’t facing off against rionetkas.
Javier nodded sharply. “You may dress.”
While the two hastily redonned their uniforms, Vanya swept past everyone into the antechamber and headed for his private office. “Work with Alida to clear my household, the praetoria legionnaires on duty, and the staff.”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Such an undertaking could not be done quietly. Whatever spies from other Houses might be in the palace would be put on notice, but it couldn’t be helped. Everyone who stayed within the palace walls would be required to prove they weren’t a rionetka before sunrise. All the rest would arrive at a security check Javier would oversee until the higher-ranking praetoria legionnaire officers could be cleared.
If any rionetkas were within the palace’s employ, Vanya hoped to ensnare them. It was why he hadn’t formally announced his return to Calhames. The flag indicating he was in residence would not be flown over the palace until after the sun broke the horizon.
Vanya turned on the gas lamps once he entered his office, illuminating the space. The windows overlooking a narrow arcade and private inner courtyard were closed against the heat the flagstones hadn’t yet given up during the night. Vanya went to crank them open, the panes folding outward to settle flat against the exterior wall.
He drew in a breath, smelling the blooming flowers spilling over the edges of the pots scattered across the tiled floor outside in the courtyard. The riot of plants had been picked out by his mother, Empress Zakariya Sa’Liandel, and Vanya’s staff carefully tended the flowers she no longer got to enjoy. Oeiras had smelled of the sea, but here, in the private wing of the Imperial palace, it smelled like home.
The sound of raised voices in the antechamber caught his attention. Vanya stepped away from the window, moving to seat himself behind his wide wooden desk. Everything was exactly how he’d left it before departing for Oeiras weeks ago. His records of the newly signed treaty with the Tovan Isles would be presented to the Senate at some point, but for now, it would be delivered to the care of his chief minister.
Vanya reached for the framed tintype photograph of Raiah, her laughing face smiling up at him. He wondered where she was, if she and Soren had made it safely to Karnak yet. His televox hadn’t rung since Soren had driven out of Oeiras with Raiah in his care. The worry had not and would not leave him, not until he held his daughter in his arms again and Soren was back by his side.
“I find it insulting to strip in public when not in a bathhouse, Your Imperial Majesty,” Imperial General Chu Hua said irritably as she appeared in the doorway to his office.
Vanya set the tintype photograph aside. “There is a reason for that precaution.”
Chu Hua bowed to the Imperial degree, her uniform back in place after being required to prove she wasn’t a rionetka before allowed into his presence. Vanya eyed her, wondering about her loyalty after all that had happened in the last few days.
The crimson and white effiyeh she wore was edged in three gold lines, the mark of her high rank as the Imperial general. She’d spent the majority of her career rising through the ranks of the praetoria, the personal guard of the Imperial throne. She held no allegiance to any major or minor House. Her loyalty was to the Imperial throne and whoever sat upon it. The issue of the rionetkas was one she would find most distressing.
“You did not announce your return,” Chu Hua said as she straightened up.
Vanya waved her inside. “For good reason. The assassination attempt while I was in Oeiras wasn’t typical.”
Chu Hua raised an eyebrow, the faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening a little. Her hair was still nearly all black, but her age could be seen in the weathered lines gracing her face and the scattered strands of silver in her hair. “I heard they breached your sleeping chambers.”
“They would have killed me if Soren was not with me at the time.”
Chu Hua made a soft, considering sound as she closed the door behind her before sitting. She was armed, with both a pistol and a wand, and while she was a magician, her skill with the aether did not lend itself to magic other than shielding. Vanya’s attention lingered on the weapons for a second before he pushed aside his unease. If she’d had vivisection scars, the praetoria legionnaires would not have let her pass.
“Who were the perpetrators?”
Vanya never looked away from her face. “Praetoria legionnaires.”
Chu Hua stiffened in her seat, something like anger flashing across her brown eyes. “That goes against the duty to the Imperial throne the praetoria legionnaires are expected to adhere to.”
“Duty can be overridden.”
“If it were bribes—”
“It wasn’t.” Vanya stood. “Come with me. I will show you.”
Chu Hua silently followed him out of the office and through the halls of the Imperial palace. More and more people were coming awake as Javier and Alida worked to confirm the absence—or presence—of rionetkas.
The praetoria legionnaires guarding him remained those who had been with him in Oeiras. They followed Vanya and Chu Hua from the low-lit hallways of the Imperial palace to the coolness of a summer night, dawn closing in from the east.
The pathways to the private star temple on the palace grounds used by the Imperial family were lit by gas lamps. Typically guarded year-round, every hour of the day, the number of praetoria legionnaires on duty at the star temple had doubled since his arrival home. With them were spiderlike automatons patrolling in nonstop circles.
The reason for the heightened security lay within its walls, watched over not by a star priest but by a Legion magician, whose clarion crystal–tipped wand never left their hand.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” the praetoria legionnaire said, coming to attention at their arrival. “Imperial General.”
The trio of metal coffins taking up space near the star temple’s altar were locked, though not welded shut. Each coffin carried the corpse of a rionetka, the rest of the bodies having been burned in Oeiras. A much smaller box sat on top of the center coffin, carrying the remains of the clockwork metal hearts that had given corrupted life to the men and women who had once served Vanya and ultimately found a different master.
Vanya gestured at the coffin on the left. “Open it.”
The legionnaire kept her wand pointed at the coffin as she stepped forward, tracing the spell lines wrapped around the locks with her wand. Vanya could sense the flow of the aether through the clarion crystal, the element transmuted into magic. Her control was perfect, and the magical ties keeping the metal locks in place went dormant. The keys she carried on her hip undid the locks themselves, the sound of gears turning loud in the star temple.
It reminded Vanya of what lay below the tiled mosaic floor and the mechanism that kept the crypt sealed away from prying eyes. Tonight, they weren’t there to bury the dead, merely to bear witness.
Two other praetoria legionnaires on duty inside the star temple stepped forward to lift the lid off the coffin. A faint hint of decay drifted up from it. Vanya didn’t react, for he’d smelled worse things in his twenty-eight years of life.
Because of the way the Houses vied for power—through marriage, murder, and skirmishes along vasilyet borders—death was a way of life in Solaria and sanctioned by their guiding star. The Imperial family always traveled with a royal embalmer to ensure their bodies could be brought back to Calhames for proper mourning and, eventually, secret burial.
Vanya had instructed the embalmers to preserve the bodies of the rionetkas. They’d been stored in a massive ice box in Oeiras under heavy guard before being loaded onto the airship. They could not be stored anywhere else on the palace grounds. The dead had to be handled with care, and while Vanya doubted the rionetkas would rise as revenants, one could never be too careful.
Chu Hua stepped up to the coffin, nostrils flaring at the rancid smell. She gazed down at the mutilated body inside, expression unchanging. “Are these the kinds of scars you’re searching for? No one has been forthcoming on that bit.”
“Yes.” Vanya joined her by the coffin, peering down at the body with its sunken-in chest, vivisection lines cut through cold flesh. “We found clockwork metal hearts inside each of their chest cavities.”
She turned her head fractionally to look at him. “Similar to the one found in the assassin who attacked during your coronation a few years ago?”
Vanya nodded slowly. “I did not know what it meant then. I do now.”
He’d allowed Soren to carry that heart back to the Warden’s Island for further examination. The wardens hadn’t been able to decipher the spellwork on the metal clockwork heart back then. The self-destruct spell embedded in the metal meant the devices broke apart after a certain period of time once the host was dead, whether or not magic was involved. Vanya had hoped to retain them whole, but the pieces were in the box on top of the center coffin.
What Soren had uncovered back then in that assassin’s chest had been known by very few people in Solaria. Chu Hua was one of them, which was why Vanya was meeting with her here, at this hour, keeping secrets for just a little longer.
“Javier used mind magic to interrogate them before they died. Part of their memory was missing, and who they were was no longer a truth they lived. They called themselves rionetkas,” Vanya said.
Chu Hua made a moue of distaste. “Puppets.”
“Ones who were sent to kill me and take Raiah from Oeiras.”
“Did they succeed?”
For all that the broadsheets had reported on his survival, Raiah’s absence had been noted as well. Vanya stepped back from the coffin, nodding at the magician to close the lid and lock the dead away again. “My daughter is safe.”
“But she is not with you.” Chu Hua tipped her head to the side. “Neither is your warden.”
Chu Hua had no vivisection scars on her chest. She belonged to no House. Her loyalty was to the throne, but that meant her loyalty could change with whoever claimed that seat of power. Vanya trusted her with Solaria’s Imperial throne and his country’s security, but he did not trust her with his daughter.
They were not one and the same—yet.
“Any news from Bellingham?” Vanya asked, redirecting the conversation. He’d ordered her to send a platoon of praetoria legionnaires to the vasilyet governed by the House of Kimathi under the guise of field training. He hadn’t been informed of the results, too busy finalizing the trade talks and then trying to guard against the threat of rionetkas.
Chu Hua moved away from the coffins, clasping her hands behind her back as she turned to face him. “The House of Kimathi arrived in Calhames several days ago. As for the rest of it, do you wish to speak of such things here?”
Vanya had spent a lifetime learning how not to react to terrible news. He kept his displeasure about the House of Kimathi off his face out of habit. “Let us return to my office.”
They left the star temple behind, taking the path back to the palace proper, praetoria legionnaires always within arm’s reach. The palace was far more active now than it had been at his early arrival. He’d yet to receive an update from Javier or Alida, which made Vanya hope they would come up empty with their task of searching for rionetkas.
When they reached his office again, he discovered Alida waiting there, carrying a tray with a small plate of finger food and drinks. She inclined her head at his arrival. “I thought you might like some chai, Your Imperial Majesty. I oversaw the making of it myself.”
“Thank you,” Vanya said.
Alida set the tray on his desk and deftly poured two cups of chai before setting the teapot down and leaving, closing the door behind her. Vanya retook his seat and picked up the cup, breathing in deep the scent of spices. The drink would give him some energy for the long day ahead. What little sleep he’d had on the flight to Calhames would have to be enough when he faced the Senate and the Houses.
“What of the quarry?” he asked.
Chu Hua picked up her glass and sipped at the piping hot chai. “Burned, with nothing left except the remnants of foundations. Everything was ash. If there were survivors, which I highly doubt, they were no longer there. Odds favor the House of Kimathi taking custody of them if that were the case. I have tintype photographs for you. I will have an aide courier them over once the sun rises.”
Vanya frowned, thinking of what Soren had told him days ago in Oeiras. “The entire quarry was burned?”
“According to the report flown back to me, some areas of the ground appeared melted, like a lightning strike. We’ve no record of a weapon that can slag land like that save starfire.”
“The warden who stumbled across the quarry escaped being put into a death-defying machine by use of a bomb.”
Chu Hua tapped her fingers in a slow, steady rhythm against the armrest of her chair. “I know my weapons, Your Imperial Majesty. The pictures do not show the wreckage from a bombing, but perhaps the wardens have a weapon that could scar the land so. Their alchemy is far more advanced than any country’s on Maricol.”
Vanya was doubtful starfire was the cause of whatever had been done at the quarry. Soren was a warden, and the wardens took in no one whose name was written down in the royal genealogies. But no evidence meant a weaker argument. The bodies in the star temple would have to be enough, along with the tintype photographs. His mother had done enough with less information than he currently had. He could only hope to emulate her.
“Recall the platoon you sent into the House of Kimathi vasilyet. I want them checked over for vivisection scars, but do so quietly.”
Chu Hua inclined her head. “Identifying these rionetkas in the Legion ranks will take weeks. It will be impossible to keep secret why we are inspecting everyone, and the targets may slip away. We’ll make note of any defectors and investigate accordingly.”
“I plan to meet with the Senate about this threat. I need the reason behind our search to stay quiet until then. If we find any rionetkas, I want them taken alive if possible. The ones who attacked me had no choice in doing so. Finding out who is targeting our people for this depravity is a top priority.”
Vanya had his suspicions, and judging by the look Chu Hua leveled him from across the desk, she had the same. “Do you know what magic binds them? Is the spell traceable?”
He shook his head. “No. We’re still researching it.”
“Then it may be prudent to install some spell-detecting security devices here in the palace. They could prove useful in specific areas.” She glanced up at the ceiling before shrugging. “Here would be a good location, though I would counsel you not to inform anyone in your House or household that it is present if you agree to its placement. The less people know, the less chance of tampering.”
“How would it work?”
“The device’s range can be adjusted. The clarion crystals are cut in such a way so as to detect most types of spellwork. We typically set them for military spells, but we can adjust the parameters for a broader range.”
“If you think it’s worth doing, then make it happen. I’ll block out a time to meet with you tomorrow to set everything up in here.”
“At your will, Your Imperial Majesty.”
They finished their chai in silence before Chu Hua left, bowing her way out of the office. In her wake, Vanya sent a prayer to the Dawn Star, hoping she would hear him. “I cannot walk this road alone, Callisto. For the good of Solaria, guide me true.”
Hailey Turner
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 Emperor's Bone Palace #2
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