Alchemist of the Machines: Sun War Trilogy, #3

By Brien Feathers

The gods have placed their wager and now all bets are off.

When Alexander's seeker spell fails to find Marina, the tsar grows disheartened, believing that the princess may be lost at sea. To soften the blow he's afforded a little time with his beloved Sai. But the Akari prince must leave when bad news arrives from the Court of Lions.

Mistakenly, Marina lands at the western shore of Muscovy, deep into Red territory. Treachery runs among her company as Marina struggles to find her way back to the tsar, and her relationship with Yuri turns a page when hunters arrive looking for her.

War erupts between the Republic and the alchemists when the Federation attacks the Red Capital, but it's not a fight the mundane state can win alone.

The end of the long night has been told, but who lives to see the light is not yet known. In the final battle between the Alchemist Federation and the Court of White Rose, who will be victorious, and who will perish?

The death of the White Rose has been foreseen since the birth of the chosen, and that is the wager of the gods in the final chapter of the Sun War Trilogy. Is the fate of men set, or can the gods be challenged?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brien Feathers
• Release date: Jul 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9789919900144

Brien Feathers

Dark fantasy author, poet, screenwriter, and cat enthusiast living in the land of Mongols.

Book preview

Alchemist of the Machines

Sun War Trilogy Book 3

Brien Feathers

Brien Feathers

Copyright © 2023 by Brien Feathers

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover designed by JV ARTS.

Contents

1.Don’t Cry

2.Man’s Business

3.I Like You

4.No Drinks

5.Bad Friend

6.Never Mind

7.I’m Sorry

8.Don’t Go

9.Blizzard

10.Yule

11.Red Tsar

12.Let Him

13.White Sarafan

14.Wailing City

15.Real Family

16.Goodnight, Heart

17.Good Help

18.Backwater Magic

19.Our Cue

20.Her Father

21.I Love You, Alexander

22.No Republic

23.Solar Flare

24.White Rose

25.Choose You

26.Hearts of Men

27.Fates of Men

28.Wagers of the Gods

29.Flute and Jam

30.The Long Night

31.Idii Na Hui

Afterword

one

Don’t Cry

The seeker wisp circled over the dark ocean heaving and breaking at the shore, spraying the wooden pier along with Alexander standing on it. The tiny globe of light, twisting and turning but not flying off, dimmed, then fizzled out.

Naitii. Alexander released another seeker to watch it do the same.

Victor was behind him, head bent low and sad, and keeping his distance from his tsar’s wrath. Alexander wasn’t angry with the volg but himself, yet when he lashed out, it was at Victor. It was always toward others, and that was why he was Alexander the Cruel.

Naitii. Another wisp to stagger, lost like a drunken firefly, before dissipating into the night.

When Marina left home five years ago, he let her go because he hadn’t been at war. His girl had wanted to find her place in the world, and she deserved to. But this was different. An awful thought had begun stirring at the back creases of his mind.

Naitii.

Sai had brought him to shore unconscious and he spent weeks delirious, asking for Marina and being reassured that her boat was slower and that she’d arrive soon. A whole moon had passed since, and no Marina. If his seeker couldn’t sense her, his girl was… far, far away, nowhere near the eastern shore and not even sailing the East Ocean. The only other time his seeker wandered lost like now was two decades ago, when they told him Sai was dead and he stood night after night at his window asking the light to find his beloved.

Naitii.

Sai hadn’t been dead, just really far away which he hoped was the case with Marina. But where was she and why hadn’t she arrived? Tricksters scoured the East Ocean as birds and combed the woodlands as four-legged creatures. No Marina, no alchemist boat, and Sai asking Rainmaker confirmed there were no alchemist seafaring vessels on approach, not even hostile ones—which was why he was still in Muscovy, a gift Alexander thanked the gods for each time he saw him.

But where is my girl?

Tsar, Victor whispered from behind, his voice drowned in the hiss of the ocean. You’ll fall ill standing in the freezing weather, drenched and wet. Perhaps, tomorrow, we can try again?

"What do you mean we?" snapped Alexander. The volg shouldn’t have left his girl. There had been no need to accompany him back to Muscovy.

My foolishness has killed my child.

A familiar thing clawed at his throat, the darkness that cloaked his soul.

I’m sorry, muttered Victor.

Letting out a prolonged exhale, Alexander drained his body of air. He turned and faced Victor, the volg’s grey eyes shifting with guilt. Reaching with his left hand, the right in a sling, Alexander cupped Victor’s nape and pulled him closer. You are my true brother and I’m not angry with you. I’m wrong for my temper, and I’m sorry. They stood like so for a handful of breaths, then Alexander said, Tomorrow, perhaps, nodding and letting go of Victor. She’s a bright girl, she’ll find her way home.

Walking had become cumbersome for Alexander. Although Muscovy steel was superior to Akari, their engineering was not. His finest smiths could not build a weight-bearing splint that also bent at the joint, never mind the silver tendons that moved his right arm. Dearly missing Bob’s contraptions, his left knee in a wooden splint that didn’t allow him to bend the joint, Alexander limped, dragging his left leg when he walked. The boot sole grated against the frozen earth, plowing through the snow as he stepped forward with his right. Even then, he preferred trudging as himself over turning into a creature. Whereas a Trickster’s shift was physical and a volg’s bloodline, Alexander’s was dark magic that altered his psyche. Heart always warned that dark witches had been lost that way—staying an animal for too long was to forget one’s human mind. When he cantered the port as a leopard, he often got distracted by the shine of the gold and silver ornaments on the Yule tree. A day and he’d hunger for raw flesh, and in three he’d have trouble forming coherent thoughts.

Victor led Widow by her reins, bringing Alexander’s mount closer so he wouldn’t labor the length of the pier. The mare’s hooves tapped the icy wooden boards, and she nickered as Alexander touched her nostril, her warm breath steaming into his gloved hand. Not a warhorse but a work mare from a port town, Widow was a calm and gentle creature. Victor boosted Alexander up to the stirrups as if he was a child, then walked alongside as Alexander turned the reins back to town.

They walked through the cold, dry night with a freezing chill and a bare sky, the snow on the ground shimmering in the moonlight, crunching under their steps.

You’re a good friend, Victor, said Alexander, the damp parts of his fur cloak freezing in clumped strands. I wouldn’t have survived puberty, never mind adulthood, without you.

My tsar exults me. The volg’s voice was gentle.

Is there anything you want that I can grant you? Freedom perhaps?

If I was to leave tonight, would you stop me? Victor asked.

No.

"Then, I am free, Tsar." The volg thought for a while, then added, A wife, perhaps. I’ve been thinking of little ones.

Mundane? asked Alexander.

No, a witch.

Then I can’t order her. You must woo her on your own merit.

I know, Tsar. I’m just musing out loud. Victor turned to Alexander with a grin. May I borrow some coins?

Is it to settle your debt at the whorehouse?

Whore is a harsh word, Tsar. He shrugged, the grin widening and his white fangs glowing pale. The ladies don’t fancy being called that.

Alexander tossed the volg the entirety of his coin purse. "Make your ladies happy then."

Harude—the eastern port Alexander rebuilt after Nikita and had guarded ever since, the lifeline of Akari trade, brimmed with life even at the midnight hour, merchant marine vessels coming and going, and the sailors enriching the taverns and the lady establishments. The night market was in full swing, vendors yelling about their candles, god figurines, Akari silk, novelty katana, amulets, potions, snake oil, deerskin, mink fur, liquor, and everything else that might lighten a sailor’s coin purse, including the ladies.

The Red had torn the Veil but hadn’t gained much ground in the tsardom. Alexander still had powerful boyars defending the throne, and most of all, it was winter in Muscovy. In eleven days it would be Winter Solstice, and Alexander would spend it with Sai. Had Marina not been missing, he would be delirious with joy. Even now, Alexander wondered if his mind had finally slipped and was imagining Sai. But others, including Victor, interacted with the Akari prince which helped convince him that the prince was indeed real.

Leave tomorrow? asked Victor, walking alongside Widow with his hands clasped at his back. The vendors, sailors, lumber workers, miners, and ladies, all parted for Alexander in a deep bow.

Long live the tsar, they whispered as Alexander rode past them.

I wish to visit the pier again in the morning. Perhaps I’ll have better luck with the wisp, then, said Alexander. "Then we’ll leave. I believe it’s about a week’s ride to Skyrise." Having lost his Winter Palace, he would host the Yule ball at Lord Donskoy’s fortress. His boyars would gather there, and he meant to discuss the possibility of two front wars. One the Reds, of course, the other surprisingly delayed as no alchemist ships were sighted in his waters.

Marina, his child’s wellbeing nagged him. If he just knew where she was, he could fully commit to the war and not linger at the port, waiting for a ghost of an alchemist boat.

Dochenka, where are you? Have I added to my sins by killing my daughter?

Elya, on the day she died, had said that the theme of his life was loss. Had he regained Sai only to lose Marina? Shutting the door to his darkness, albeit momentarily, Alexander laughed as Victor departed, taking his newfound wealth to the lady house, a two-story tall dacha spilling with music and laughter. Kashin and Nurzhan greeted Alexander, relieving Victor’s shift.

Nurzhan, a volg from his father’s time, was pushing fifty, and Kashin, son of the volg who assassinated the tsar, was a handful of years older than Marina. Alexander didn’t mention Kashin’s father and forbade the older volgs from speaking of it. The last words Ninel uttered had been, ‘It’s not his fault,’ and of course, it wasn’t. It was Nikita who killed their father.

Kashin helped Alexander dismount once they reached the cottage Alexander was staying at, a mile outside of the town center, and took Widow to be fed and groomed at a warm stable. Nurzhan remained. He opened the door for Alexander, then stayed outside. Grey smoke trailed from each chimney of the cluster of cottages inhabited by volgs.

When Alexander stepped in and Nurzhan closed the door behind him, the cottage was warm with the fire burning in the brick oven, its wrought iron door open and spilling light into the room. He took off his frozen cloak and hung on it the wall hook. Dragging his left heel, the sole scraping against the wooden floor, Alexander walked to the living room conjoined with the kitchen.

Sai was at the kitchen table, oiling a length of mulberry fiber paper. He was crafting the twin fans he used for flying and was using imported bamboo for the frame. He lifted his gaze at Alexander, the corners of his eyes creasing, radiating warmth as the prince smiled. The sight was almost enough to make Alexander forget Marina was missing, almost.

Cold out there? Sai put the fan aside and got up to help Alexander hobble to the wooden bench across the table from where the prince had been. Then he poured tea for Alexander, hooking a strainer on the rim of a porcelain cup, imported from Akari, and pouring hot water from the samovar, a Muscovy metal urn heated with coal.

You spoil me, Alexander whispered, blushing, as Sai knelt in front of him to pull off his boots, the snow melting into dirty water. Sai put the boots by the door and wiped the floor where Alexander had tracked mud in. I’m sorry, he said about the muck.

It’s fine, Sai said then narrowed his eyes to add, for now. He came over to ruffle Alexander’s hair. Did you eat? Your people brought… Bad with Muscovy meal names, he gestured at a clay pot on the stove.

Not hungry.

A drink?

No, said Alexander, and Sai flicked an eyebrow. We have to leave in the morning and it’s a long ride.

Sai shuddered, perhaps at the imagined cold. He was in the cotton garment, simple and blue, that Harude tailors fashioned for him. You get some sleep, he said, returning to his papercraft. I want to finish my fans in case we get into a scuffle. Also, I want to fly. It’s been some time since I felt the wind under my feet.

Please come to bed with me, Alexander begged like a boy, unashamed.

Sai glided his fingers along the long wooden frame of the fan, lifting his gaze playfully. Maybe, he whispered. I’ve missed you much.

He had no idea how Alexander had died over and over for each moment of the two decades they’d been apart.

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Does it hurt? Alexander ran his hand along the scar line on Sai’s back. He had many like a tiger’s stripes, but he didn’t before.

No, it’s just blisters from the heat healing poorly. He got up, picking up his cotton robe from the floor.

The cottage had a loft, but Alexander had the bed brought downstairs—climbing a flight of stairs wasn’t that difficult with a splinted knee, but going down was. Sai loosely tied the belt around his garment, then sat on the patterned carpet by the stove, returning to his fan making. Whether it was painting a fan or killing an Architect, when Sai said he was going to do something, he followed through.

Both the Heartbreaker and the Rainmaker were on a rack by the door. The swords were still on bad terms and challenging each other to a duel, which both Sai and Alexander ignored. All the windows of the cottage were frosted white, decorated with the weather, but it was warm inside with dry wood crackling in the stove, the orange light emitting through the square cast iron door left open.

Alexander was here, watching Sai mixing watercolor on wooden spoons splayed out on the floor, because of Marina. Had the girl not insisted on voyaging with him to the Federation, Alexander would be dead and Sai either dead or still jailed. But had he not allowed his daughter on a self-indulgent final journey of a broken old man, she would not be missing. Did her boat sink at sea? Had his girl, who couldn’t swim and was terrified of water, drowned?

Miserably, he sighed, and Sai shot him a look. She’s fine, he said. She broke out of a Federation compound, a thing I couldn’t figure out for all the time I had. That girl won’t die from bad weather. Besides, the weather over the East Sea is calm in the winter.

But what was taking her so long? Did she get lost and go to another court? Yet Muscovy was an enormous landmass, hard to miss in the East Sea, and although Marina had never been to Harude, it was the tsardom’s only harbor in the winter where the ocean didn’t freeze over. So, where was she?

Did they hurt you? Alexander asked, moving his right arm like a thing he picked up and set down, so he wouldn’t pin it under himself when he rolled to the side. It was the first time he was daring to ask about Sai’s imprisonment.

Sai arched an eyebrow, not understanding the question.

The Einharts, did they hurt you?

An obnoxious smirk from his beloved eased the weight that had been heavy on Alexander’s soul. He hadn’t allowed himself to imagine what they might do to him, but Sai was sane and himself which had been hopeful.

The human body is mostly water, said Sai, painting pink petals on his fan. They learned that the hard way. They even had to strip the latrine system from the compound because I kept freezing the water in the pipe, drowning them in literal shit.

That was good to know. Alexander exhaled, tired all of a sudden, and as he drifted asleep to the sound of Sai humming, he dreamed that Marina was crying, tears running the length of her face smeared with soot. She was holding a dying white rose, the last petal flaking off the flower, ash raining from the grey skies.

Don’t cry, Dochenka, I will find you.

two

Man’s Business

Sai disappeared into the loft with a single jump when the wooden crane, the flying royal carrier of Akari, landed outside the cottage—the front door had been open. Alexander hadn’t notified the empress that Sai was alive, and they thought to have a little time together till the war inevitably tore them apart. The alchemists would come for their retribution, both Alexander and Sai expected it, but they’d wanted to be together for as long as they could. Once the iron fleet was sighted in the East Ocean Sai would have to leave—but not before. Or so had been the plan.

Till Alexander ruined it.

You threw my daughter into the ocean! Alexander roared, blasting Rei with enertsi that sent the girl crashing through the crane, breaking its wings. You tried to kill her!

Impressively, the girl blocked the worst of it—with an alchemy shield. Now everyone was outside Alexander’s door, a town meeting of sorts, if such gatherings hosted sorceresses, volkhv, volgs, Tricksters, and so forth.

The initial enertsi wasn’t meant to harm her, only a stern warning, but the girl opening a transmutation circle changed his intentions. Turning into a leopard, he tore into the little woman and was shaking her like a ragdoll when he saw Sai frowning.

Lexi, let her go. She’s Akari.

He dropped Rei but the woman wasn’t moving. He dispelled the dark change but tasted her blood in his mouth and spat. She opened a transmutation. She is an alchemist.

She’s also Akari. Sai went to Rei, bent over to check her pulse, then rattled off curses in Akari. She’s also dead, Lexi. Then he turned to the two other girls from the Odd Place hiding in the crane with the broken wings. I’m Prince Saito of House of Dragon. What is your business here? he asked in Akari, and just like that, the plan was ruined.

The empress heard that King Alexander lives and sent him a gift. Although the girls questioned Sai’s claim, they both climbed out of the crane and bowed because they’d been formally addressed by an older Akari.

Kill them, Alexander. They’re going to tell the empress what you’ve done, said Heart as Alexander was considering the same. Had Sai not been there, he would have done it already with or without Heart chiming it.

But Sai seemed to be handling it. To thank the empress for her gracious gift, King Alexander has found and slain the Federation saboteur in her court. He sends the enemy head as proof. He turned to Alexander and said in Muscovy, Cut off the head and return in the box of whatever bullshit the empress has sent. I’ll write her a letter.

The girls from the Odd Place were confused, their eyes wide and blinking, but Saito had claimed royalty and they couldn’t dispute him. For one, it would be rude, and two, they weren’t certain that it wasn’t true.

The empress thanks you for your kindness, King Alexander. One of them finally bowed to Alexander as he was cleaning the blood taste from his mouth still, rinsing with a cup of water Victor had brought him, and spitting it on the snow.

Finally got her, eh? said the volg.

What’s wrong with them? Yanni asked, appalled by the scene.

They are Akari, answered Alexander and walked into the cottage to find a chair to sit on so the gift-giving ceremony could commence.

Over the years he’d dealt with the empress quite a few times and had grown to resent the insufferable hag, but she was Sai’s mother, and he would protect her and Akari the same as he would Muscovy. But hearing from Victor about the empress’s scheme that burned down the Red city of Volosk, killing thousands of Muscovites, and the woman Rei tossing his daughter overboard to conceal the dead made him furious.

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Although they had been late leaving Harude, the seven day ride to Skyrise had taken them six.

The sun was dipping into the horizon, the light dimming with each breath, as Alexander arrived with his entourage at the base of Mount Sergio where Skyrise was perched. A narrow path wrapping around a steep cliff, the climb would be perilous after dark. Alexander carried Heartbreaker suspended from his saddle whereas Sai just pulled up Rainmaker higher into his belt as they rode side by side. Victor and Kashin rode up front. Yanni and Vasilisa were behind Alexander and Sai, and thirty volgs followed. An eagle circled overhead, saw his banner of White Rose, then flew off.

Skyrise was a Donskoy fortress—an oryol bloodline of boyars—and an eastern stronghold of the tsardom. Their sigil was the white-tailed eagle, but the oryols the Donskoy shifted into were larger than a warhorse with immense wingspan. Akin to volgs, they could not shift during daylight hours, but the day had fallen enough for them to be circling overhead. The oryol magic allowed the Donskoys to claim the bloodline of Perun because according to the lore, the god of gods sometimes traveled as an eagle. It also made them purists, a thing Alexander wasn’t fond of, but he’d deal with it once he got there—the Donskoy had always been loyal supporters of the Razumovs.

The trail was broken in parts where the earth had eroded from the weather and been repaired with flimsy wooden bridges that swayed wildly in the high-altitude wind. In other parts, the path became a trench inside the mountain, squeezed between the jagged natural wall of the cliffs, narrow enough for a single rider to pass through. When the road widened again, it was night and volgs had lit torches.

Sai. Alexander twisted on his saddle, his breath steaming into the night. He was blindly following Victor’s torch. Volgs had nocturnal sight and Alexander had a single eye that needed reading glasses.

Yes. Sai caught up and rode alongside him.

I thought all alchemists were male. He patted Widow’s neck when a shadow spooked his mare and she whinnied. We’re almost there, girl, he whispered to the horse.

Thinking about the woman you killed? asked Sai.

Yes. I shouldn’t have done that. My temper gets away from me sometimes. I’m sorry.

I can see that, said Sai, silent a while, then he added, Well, what is done is done. She had no business making an attempt on your daughter’s life, just as the empress had no business collecting on a vow you made to me. In life, we reap what we sow. You plant bad faith, you harvest it as well.

She was an invaluable Akari asset, I’m sorry, said Alexander, frowning. But I’ve never seen a woman perform transmutation. She wasn’t any good at it, but still.

No idea, Lexi. Perhaps their magic alters when merged with different bloodlines. That blonde girl, your daughter’s friend, was an alchemist.

Alexander's frown deepened because he couldn’t recall much of the journey. She’s not dangerous?

They appeared friendly with Marina, other than that, I have no idea. I was concerned that you were dying, that’s all.

Alexander didn’t like it—Marina alone with a foreign witch and an alchemist. How were you captured? he asked suddenly. Although he was infinitely grateful that Sai was alive, surrendering was not an Akari trait.

Stun gun, they call it, said Sai. They have a weapon that shoots lightning. It completely fucks with my ability to bend water. I can deflect a blast from heavy artillery. I can freeze an open transmutation circle. But that forsaken gun debilitates me.

Ha! Gun that shoots lightning? challenged Yanni from behind who’d apparently been eavesdropping. I’d like to see that.

He shoots lightning, Alexander clarified for Sai.

He summons lightning, corrected Yanni. Father Might Perun is my patron god.

A high-pitched shrill came from the night sky, and Alexander saw the two torches of Victor and Kashin up ahead had stopped moving.

Trouble? he asked.

No, Tsar, Victor’s voice reassured. "We have arrived at Skyrise."

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But there was trouble.

Despite being in the sky, the fortress had a formidable wall and a gatehouse defended by bogatyrs in iron helmets and chainmail—four centuries outdated—and they were not letting the royal entourage through and arguing with Victor.

You can’t carry that in, the Donskoy guard was saying about Victor’s pistol. All volgs carried firearms.

"I’m a volg, son, I’ll carry in whatever I want," said Victor still