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“Whoa…serious?” Drayce exhaled.
“New Rosanthe attacked them, didn’t they?” Eno guessed.
Rayne walked over to one of the chairs arranged perpendicular to the sofa and sat, crossing his left leg over his right. “In a fashion as far as our intelligence can determine, but it’s more complicated than that. From what I’ve been able to glean from Queen Amara, Caspagir was attacked by Uris-Oladul. A small port town called Greymouth near Zastard.”
“Which is a protectorate of New Rosanthe,” Eno filled in.
“And has been for the past five years,” Drayce continued with a snort. He placed his hands behind his head and stretched out on the sofa again. “Everyone knows they wouldn’t do anything without the Empire’s approval first. This was clearly a strike by New Rosanthe.”
“Do you know what New Rosanthe has said about the attack?” Eno interjected.
Rayne shook his head. “News from Caspagir has been slow in coming, and I’m not privy to all the intelligence at this moment. It’s at the queen’s discretion what I know.”
This time it was Eno who snorted. So maybe Rayne had a few sources he’d worked over the years that got him interesting snippets of information that might be outside the queen’s approved sources, but when it came to the Caspagir situation, he was getting nothing useful.
“Do we know how the Caspagir government has responded to the attack?” Drayce inquired.
Rayne folded his hands in his lap and glared at the shiny tabletop in front of him as if it were supposed to have the answers and was failing him. It was rare that he didn’t have the information he needed when he needed it. This was unacceptable and it was threatening to make his temper short.
“There are whispers they are sending more troops to Greymouth as well as Caspagir’s border with the Empire, but we don’t know anything about the official communication between Caspagir and the Protectorate or even Caspagir and the Empire.”
Drayce groaned loudly, and Rayne chanced a look over at Eno. The man’s expression had darkened to a storm cloud, and the muscles in his arms jumped as if he were tensing even further as he contemplated what Rayne had revealed.
“What does Caspagir even want with Caelan, then?” Drayce demanded.
“They have quietly but officially requested a high-ranking diplomat be sent to discuss potential assistance in this developing matter,” Rayne recited almost word-for-word from the missive Queen Amara had shared with him from Queen Noemi of Caspagir.
“They didn’t request Caelan specifically?” Eno asked.
Rayne shook his head. “No, not officially. But considering the gravity of the matter and the lack of regular communication between our two countries, the queen is thinking it best if the prince is sent.”
“I don’t like this,” Eno grumbled.
“It sounds simple enough. Caelan pops over to the capital city of Sirelis for a quick chat and pops back. The Empire doesn’t even have to know about it,” Drayce stated.
“Unless the Empire does know,” Rayne interjected.
“What?” Drayce gasped, but Eno was already talking over him.
“You think it’s a trap.”
Rayne spread his hands. “It’s one of the options. Look at what we know. The Empire’s goal has always been Erya and the Godstone. They’ve ceaselessly spread the nonsense that Erya has been keeping the Ordas from being reborn into a paradise by keeping the Godstone for itself.”
He managed to keep an even, emotionless tone, but inside his stomach was roiling with the logic of it all. Would Queen Amara knowingly send her son into a trap? Sadly, his first thought was, Yes, if it meant gaining an edge over the Empire. Though he couldn’t imagine what advantage she hoped to gain in the end.
Drayce barked out a harsh laugh. “Even if that was possible, no one believes that the Empire wants to use the Godstone for anything but its own devices and power.”
Eno shook his head. “If the Empire gets its hands on the stone, it can’t use it. Not without the queen.”
“Or Caelan,” Rayne finished. He watched as both men paled a little bit, and Rayne didn’t much care for the clench of fear that wrapped around his heart. Caelan would never willingly use the stone to assist the Empire, but there was no telling what kind of torture their friend would have to first endure before he finally died or broke. It was a fate that Rayne would give his own life to prevent.
Rayne cleared his throat as he shoved that ugly thought aside. “We don’t know the plans of the Empire for the Godstone. We also don’t know what they’ve said or promised to Caspagir, let alone if they’ve made some deal with Caspagir. We do know they’ve conquered Damardor and Ursa-Oladul for their resources in order to wage a lengthy war. Thanks to the vast expanse of the Ordas between our two countries, New Rosanthe’s only option for attack is by sea, and they are no match for Queen Amara, our navy, and the Godstone. I believe the Empire has two options. The first is that they promise Caspagir the same illusion of autonomy they’ve given to Damardor if Caspagir agrees to capture Prince Caelan and hand him over to the Empire.”
