A schedule was begrudgingly agreed upon. For the next fortnight, Alaric and Talasyn would attend marriage negotiations in the morning and practice aethermancy in the afternoon. If the negotiations wrapped up with plenty of time to spare before the eclipse, they’d then spend whole days training.
Because Talasyn was certainly in no mood to talk to her grandmother, it was Ishan Vaikar who prevailed upon Queen Urduja to have the sariman cages moved further away from the orchid garden that connected the Lachis’ka and the Night Emperor’s respective bedchambers. The atrium was too accessible to everyone, and Talasyn had no wish to be gawked at on a daily basis.
That first afternoon, the day following the monumental failure in front of the Ahimsan Enchanters, Talasyn arrived at the orchid garden before Alaric.
Why was she nervous? What was the reason for these butterflies rippling in the pit of her stomach? She thought about yesterday, his strong arms around her, his lush mouth at her cheek, his scent of spice and forest. She thought about how he’d scratched at his jaw in a rare, unguarded moment. It jarred her that the Night Emperor, the dark warrior she’d met on the ice, could be capable of such a human gesture. It set her to questioning whether he had more of that in him, beneath the trappings of office and his lethal precision in combat.
Talasyn thought of these things without knowing why she thought of them, why they gnawed at her so. If Khaede were here—
No. Khaede would castigate her for these odd reactions that she was having to Alaric Ossinast, as would Vela and all her other comrades. Still, Talasyn yearned to meet with the Sardovian remnant, not just to discuss her impeding marriage with Vela, but to check for herself that everyone was doing all right, there in the Storm God’s Eye.
And also to check if—and to hope against hope that—Khaede had made contact and reached them, and was safe along with her child.
Talasyn resolved to sail to the isles of Sigwad as soon as she could. From Eskaya, the journey took about six hours by airship, and crossing that windblown strait was perilous, especially with the ever-present threat of the Tempest Sever, but she had managed a handful of times in the past and she would again. She just had to seize the opportunity once it came.
In a bid to take her mind off things, even if only for a little while, Talasyn began feeding the fish that lived in the pool. The bright rays of early afternoon streamed into the orchid garden as Talasyn reached into the pouch that she’d brought with her when she’d changed out of her court attire and scrubbed her face bare. Retrieving a handful of pellets that she scattered across the surface of the water, which immediately clouded with flashing scales and fins that rippled like wisps of colored smoke, she smiled to herself. She could always count on the ikan’pla to cheer her up. They were pretty fish, with distinct individual personalities and quirks, and they knew her only as the one who fed them, not the one who would save them or who would one day rule. The lack of layers to her simple interaction with them was a balm to her soul.
There was a rustle of black at the corner of her eye as Alaric entered the garden. Talasyn paid him no mind at first, mulishly keeping her gaze fixed on the ikan’pla in the water. His steps were hesitant, almost as though he were being compelled to approach her even though he knew that it was a bad idea, and he sat down on the stone bench beside where she was kneeling on the grass with all the wariness of a man straying deep into enemy territory. Which wasn’t too far off base—she’d made it clear to him in no uncertain terms that this was her turf, after all.
“Your grandmother should have told you about the Voidfell right from the start,” he said after a long silence. “You deserved to know.”
Hearing that from someone was like finally being able to take a breath after days in an airless room. But to hear it from him—of all people—
“It’s nothing,” Talasyn muttered.
“It isn’t nothing. She didn’t trust you and she underestimated your capacity to deal with the new knowledge. That’s an untenable state of affairs, considering that you’re her heir.”
Talasyn hated that he had a point. But he had no idea, he could never have any idea, about the position that she was really in, this precarious balancing act that was contingent on remaining in Urduja Silim’s good graces.
She sniffed. “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself. This way of life is all still new to me and I’m only having to adapt to it because of Kesath’s actions. A Kesathese is the last person in the world who should be passing judgment on me and my family right now.”
“I was not passing judgment,” Alaric said with maddening calm, “merely trying to offer some advice.”
“I don’t need it.”
He gave a sigh that was frustrated and weary all at once, and she remembered how he’d called her difficult in this very same garden.
Good, she thought. She wasn’t here to make things easy for him.
“Shall we begin?” he said abruptly. It was a command rather than a question, and he joined her down on the grass without waiting for her response.
Irked, Talasyn swung to face him. Alaric had adopted a meditation pose, legs crossed and feet upturned and back ramrod-straight, gauntleted hands resting on bent knees. She followed suit with some reluctance. Beside them, the waterfall burbled and the pool splashed merrily against its banks.
“Lachis’ka.” Alaric’s tone was formal. “Tell me about your training.”
Talasyn didn’t want to share that part of her life with someone who had helped bring about its destruction. She most especially didn’t want to talk about the Sardovians when they were here, unbeknownst to him. But she had to cooperate if they were ever going to get anywhere. “It wasn’t rigorous. The Amirante was the only one who could teach me, and she already had her hands full. I picked up on how to aethermance weapons right away, but as for shields or anything else . . .” She shrugged.
“Weaponry is the first and most instinctive skill for the Shadowforged. I suppose that it must be the same for Lightweavers.” Alaric scratched at his jaw again, the sign that he was deep in thought. “According to Darius, your magic awakened when you were fifteen?”
Talasyn’s fists clenched at the mention of Darius. “Yes. In Hornbill’s Head—or what was left of it.” Her ears rang with echoes of the dying Kesathese soldier’s screams as the shapeless light that roared forth from her fingertips consumed him.
Alaric’s expression grew even blanker, as though he was covering something up. She dearly hoped it was guilt. “Aethermancers usually come into their magic at a younger age,” he continued. “I was three, myself.”
He was matter-of-fact rather than smug, but it infuriated her nonetheless. “Well, I didn’t grow up around other aethermancers of my kind and my magic didn’t have nexus points everywhere I turned. I was also much more concerned with how to get my next meal and where to sleep for the night.”
Alaric frowned. “I thought that you were raised in an orphanage.”
“I left when I was ten. The streets were better—any place was better.” She lifted her chin, proud, defiant. “They were cruel.”
She wouldn’t go as far as to presume that his features softened, but he was silent for a while. Then he looked at her as though a new facet of hers had been held up to the light and he understood it for what it was.
But how could he understand? The man had been born a prince.
“I hadn’t considered that,” he eventually said. “I apologize.”
She nearly fell over. Never in a million Moonless Darks would she have expected to hear those words from his lips. Her first instinct was to be sharp, to be as ungracious as he deserved, to goad him about how he should also apologize for everything that his empire had done.
But what would be the point? He was never going to be sorry, and working with him was the only hope she had of saving Nenavar and its secret trove of Sardovian refugees. And this was also her chance to talk to someone who understood combat magic more than Vela did.
“I think that my aethermancy was also protecting me in its own way,” Talasyn heard herself confess. “I think it hid because it knew that the architects of the Nenavarene civil war wanted me dead, even if I didn’t. Even if I was too young to remember.”
“It’s not impossible,” said Alaric. “There’s a lot that has yet to be learned regarding aetherspace, but we are aware that it holds connections to time and memory. When the Shadowforged commune with our Severs, it’s also like unlocking events from our pasts, in addition to refining our magic. Enchanters seem to be immune from this effect, as they have no Sever to call their own, but myself and the other legionnaires, for example—our childhood recollections are far more vivid than those non-Shadowforged can manage, going back to an earlier age than most.”
“I can’t imagine you as a child,” Talasyn couldn’t resist quipping.
“It was several years ago.”
“Right.” She couldn’t tell where her next question came from. She couldn’t tell why it suddenly mattered. “And what do you remember, from several years ago?”
An icy look slammed over Alaric’s face. Whatever friendliness had overlain this moment, or at least lack of antagonism—maybe the very same thing that had inspired her to ask about his childhood in the first place—fizzled out, just like that. “Perhaps if you can commune with the Light Sever on Belian, you’ll be able to regain more memories of your own instead of asking for mine.”
She bit the tongue that she was tempted to stick out at him. “Daya Vaikar has already proposed to the Zahiya-lachis that you and I train at the shrine, so that I can access the Light Sever when it discharges. Queen Urduja won’t allow it, as she prefers to keep an eye on you and your contingent.” And on me.
“Hasn’t she allowed you, though?” Alaric shot back. “You have been here four months. If you’d had regular access to the Light Sever, you would probably be able to craft something as simple as a shield by now.”
Talasyn looked away. “I have lessons. And duties, as her heir.”
He made an impatient noise under his breath; then he changed the subject. “Let us try to get you to weave a shield, then. If you can.”
Talasyn was experiencing a fair bit of whiplash from the abrupt shifts in the cantankerous Night Emperor’s mood, but she decided that it wasn’t her problem. She settled for rolling her eyes at him as she waited for what his idea of a lesson had in store.
What do you remember, from several years ago?
It was a loaded question. Alaric remembered a lot of things.
The Lightweavers’ attack on the Citadel in the middle of the night. How there had been nothing but a bolted door and his mother’s embrace between him and the screaming and all the awful, blazing magic of Sunstead, until the Shadowforged Legion rallied and was able to repel the assault.
In the aftermath, he remembered the weeping that swept through the fortress as news spread that his grandfather had been slain at the gates. He remembered his father being crowned in the middle of the battlefield, in armor drenched with the old king’s blood, the promise of vengeance burning in his gray eyes, reflecting the myriad fires around him.
Alaric remembered how that night had marked a change in Gaheris, manifesting in little cruelties and obsessions that piled up over the years until Sancia Ossinast finally fled under cover of darkness . . .
Come with me. Please.
In the midst of the perfumed orchids, under the hot sunlight and blue sky of the here and now, Alaric sucked in a hiss of breath, letting it fan over the fresh ache of an old wound in his chest. He chastised himself for letting his thoughts stray into the musings of a weak fool once more. His father had done what needed to be done. His mother had not been strong enough to face it.
And he had allowed an offhand question from his inquisitive little betrothed to rattle him.
At least she hadn’t noticed.
Talasyn’s eyes were squeezed shut, her brow furrowed as she pictured a shield as Alaric had instructed her to. She had been at it for a good few minutes, which was about as long as he’d spent staring off into the distance while the past dragged him down into its mire.
“Can you see it?” he pressed. “Is it solid in your mind?” She gave a slow nod. “Now, summon it into existence just as you would a dagger or a spear.” She held up one hand in front of her. “Open the Lightweave and let it flow through you—”
A shapeless flare of golden radiance burst from Talasyn’s fingertips. Alaric leaned to the side as it rushed past him, its haze warm against his cheek. It collided with a pillar at the opposite end of the garden and knocked off a good-sized chunk of marble, eliciting a tremor in the air and clouds of pale dust.
Talasyn went as red as a beet. She ducked her head, her chestnut braid spilling over one slim shoulder as she hunched in on herself as though bracing for his derision.
It was a familiar posture. It brought him back to the early stages of his own training.
What do you remember? she had asked.
If you stay, his mother had whispered, there will be nothing left of you.
“It’s all right, Lachis’ka.” The gentleness that he heard in his voice surprised him. It was a gentleness that had no place in this situation, but it was too late to take it back. “We’ll try again. Close your eyes.”
“What was the first weapon you ever made?”
In the darkness behind Talasyn’s shut lids, the hoarse richness of Alaric’s voice was amplified. She fidgeted, trying not to be distracted by it.
“A knife,” she said. “It took me only a few hours to perfect one that looked like the knife I stole from the kitchens when I left the orphanage. I knew that I’d need something to defend myself with, living on the streets.”
There was no response for such a long time that she would have assumed he’d gotten up and left, if not for the familiar scent of sandalwood water lingering in the air. He must splash that on after shaving in the mornings, she thought idly.
And then it hit her—the only possible explanation as to why he was so quiet—and her natural defensiveness reared its head. “Are you pitying me?”
“No.”
Alaric paused, as though weighing his next words, and Talasyn’s hands curled into loose fists as she waited for the inevitable. She’d hardly gone around flaunting her past among the Sardovian regiments, but whenever people had asked and she told them, the first reaction had unfailingly been pity, followed by a pretty speech exalting her resilience.
“Going to talk about how strong I must have been, to bear all that?” she muttered, eyes still shut, that old bitterness rising. It fed on her defensiveness, and her defensiveness fed on it. An endless loop of the scars left by a small, ground-down life. “If so, don’t bother. I’ve heard it all before. It’s absurd, to be cold and half starved for fifteen years and then be praised for that suffering. As though—as though it’s admirable that I fought other bottom-dwellers for space at the watering troughs where the horses drank.”
Her tone had warped at the edges, becoming raw and ugly with all the things that she had never managed to outgrow. She labored to get her breathing back under control, to meditate, as she was supposed to be doing—why was he distracting her with this, anyway?
“You shouldn’t have had to live like that,” Alaric said quietly, and it was as though time itself stood still. “It’s not pity for you that I feel; rather, anger on your behalf. The city leaders failed you. The Allfold failed you. It’s reprehensible to expect people to endure their suffering when you have the means to put an end to it.”
It was just like when she’d been reeling from her family’s subterfuge regarding the Voidfell and he’d told her that she had deserved to know. It was the second time that he had said words that she needed to hear. She nearly opened her eyes, the desire to look upon his face as bright as burning, but at the last possible minute she kept them squeezed shut, her chest tight with some vague fear at what she might see.
She agreed with him. That was the horrific, maddening truth. She had recognized what he was pointing out long ago, but she’d buried it deep. She never would have made it through the war otherwise.
How could she fight for something she didn’t believe in? How could she not fight, when the alternative was bowing to the Night Empire?
“The Allfold wasn’t perfect, but it’s not like Kesath is any better,” Talasyn said stiffly. Before he could argue, she added, “Let’s just get on with things. We’re supposed to have declared a truce.”
Alaric said something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like Could have fooled me. But then he was clearing his throat and they were back to training, the time constraint hanging over their heads.
