Once the Kesathese delegation had vanished from sight, it didn’t take long for the banquet hall to dissolve into chaos. While the healer summoned by Urduja tended to Talasyn’s wound, the Dominion nobles started talking all at once, some shouting, others gesticulating, all arguing with one another over whether Surakwel Mantes had been in the right to challenge the Night Emperor during a royal feast.
Meanwhile, the object of contention picked himself up off the floor and sidled closer to Talasyn. “Welcome home, Your Grace. It would appear that I owe you my life,” Surakwel remarked. “A debt of the self, as it were.”
“Debt of the self is based on the Nenavarene code of honor,” Talasyn pointed out, sucking in a sharp breath at the sting as the healer washed her wound with a tea of guava leaves boiled in palm liquor. “You reached for a crossbow during a sword fight. That doesn’t strike me as particularly honorable.”
Surakwel shrugged, unrepentant. “I saw a chance to save Nenavar and rescue you from your impending marriage in one fell swoop. My only regret is that it didn’t pay off.”
He had only just returned to the Dominion. He didn’t know yet that hopes were being staked on the combined magic of light and shadow overpowering the Voidfell. Talasyn decided to let Niamha be the one to fill him in; the daya was rushing over to her and Surakwel with a thunderous expression on her face.
As Niamha tore into Surakwel for being a rash buffoon who had put the Lachis’ka’s life in danger, the healer finished applying a poultice of garlic, honey, and camphor bark to the cut on Talasyn’s arm and took his leave. She turned the events over in her mind, a chill creeping down her spine as it finally sank in how close Alaric had been to getting shot with a crossbow.
That would have meant all-out war. That would have meant the World-Eater devouring Nenavar with nothing to stand in its way.
That would have meant Alaric dying, if the bolt had hit true.
It was that last part, more than anything, that elicited in her a most peculiar kind of ache. She needed to see him. She needed to make sure that he was all right.
But first—
Talasyn let her attention drift to the squabbling nobles. Queen Urduja’s close allies were angry that the future of Nenavar had been placed in jeopardy due to Surakwel’s actions, but quite a few lords and ladies were now taking the opportunity to air their grievances with the betrothal. This was not something that the Zahiya-lachis could talk her way out of, and it was becoming more and more apparent that she was losing control of the gathering.
Talasyn studied the sea of proud, belligerent faces, and a staggering epiphany hit her. She could have prevented this, or mitigated it somewhat. Every time she’d treated Alaric like dirt, every time she’d let the Nenavarene cast aspersions on his character, she’d been solidifying in their minds that she was some hapless martyr. This went against the very grain of their matriarchal culture. Prince Elagbi had been right when he said that the court would follow Talasyn’s lead, and her blatant aversion to her circumstances had spread through them.
She had let her emotions get the best of her, and in doing so had not only pushed the Dominion one step closer to a war they could not win, but also placed the Sardovian remnant at greater risk of discovery. And she was dooming everyone to the Voidfell.
Five months to the Moonless Dark.
Five months and it would all be over, if she didn’t rectify the situation.
“It’s not a forced marriage.” Talasyn’s words cut through the hubbub, and every eye in the room immediately swung to her. “I stand with the Zahiya-lachis. I accept the Night Emperor’s hand of my own free will.” Her voice felt as though it would crack at any moment, but she held fast, to her duty, to the part of herself that had always kept on moving, outrunning the storms and the shadow of death and whatever else the Hurricane Wars had thrown her way. “Have I not proven myself his equal in strength?” she asked, some instinct telling her that she should not let these nobles forget what they had witnessed tonight. Alaric was powerful but so was she. “There is no subjugation here. Tomorrow, when we’ve finalized the agreement, he will be my betrothed. And you will afford him all the respect that is his due as my future consort.”
How it grated at her to say that. But this, like so many other things, had to be done.
Once she was alone in her chambers, Talasyn darted out the side door leading to the orchid garden. Her silver heels clacked on the stone pathway leading to Alaric’s chambers. All the lights in the guest wing were out, but she took a chance and squared her shoulders and knocked. The determined rap of her knuckles elicited a flare of gold from one window as a lamp was ignited. The door swung open.
A large, strong hand clamped long fingers around her uninjured arm and yanked her into the room, releasing her immediately once she was inside. Her squawk of outrage mingled with the slamming of the door.
“What did I say about manhandling me—how dare you—” Talasyn sputtered, only for the rest of the sentence to die on her tongue when Alaric finished sliding the bolt into place and whirled around to face her.
“You will forgive me for not granting your snipers the luxury of an easy target.” His tone could have frozen the waterfall in the garden. He had taken off his gloves and his coat. The ivory shirt clung loosely to his powerful frame, incapable of disguising how the lines of his upper body were utterly rigid with agitation. His gray eyes were so dark that they were almost black, glittering with barely contained menace against the paleness of his face as he glared down at her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Talasyn made an attempt at scoffing, but the effect was ruined by the fact that she knew she would likely be just as paranoid if she were in his place. “I’m here to apologize on behalf of the Dominion.”
“You,” Alaric said, “are a beautiful little idiot.” His gaze strayed to the treated wound on her arm and lingered a little too long before flicking back up to her face. “What possessed you to throw yourself in the Shadowgate’s path like that?”
Anger razed through her, a dark red pulse. “Who are you calling an idiot?”
He stalked closer. She automatically shuffled backward until her spine hit the wardrobe and there was nowhere left to go. He caged her in, planting a heavy hand beside each of her shoulders. There was but a sliver of space between their bodies, and the scent of him overwhelmed her senses, hot skin overlain with forest and juniper berry and myrrh. His hair was disheveled, as though he’d raked his fingers through the midnight waves in frustration before she came knocking. Those same fingers slid down the wardrobe until his palms drew level with her waist.
Talasyn’s hands moved as well. They slid across Alaric’s shirtfront to push him away but, for some reason, they didn’t. They just stayed there. She felt the warmth and hardness of his chest beneath a layer of ribbed silk, felt his heart racing in erratic beats against her fingertips. She was pinned in place by his scorching eyes, by the formidable maleness of him that surrounded her, by the static charges that skittered and sighed through this moment of lightning and glass.
“Answer me, Talasyn,” Alaric commanded in a harsh rasp. The syllables of her name rolled off his tongue, dripping in that deep, gravelly voice, the lush lips that had shaped them so dangerously near.
“What . . . what was your question?” she breathed out.
Gods.
Talasyn wanted nothing more than the ground to open up and swallow her whole. But she truly could not call to mind what he’d asked—all logic, all situational awareness had disappeared.
No one had ever stood this close to her before. Even in battle, no one else had ever gotten this close. It had always only been him. His lips were a breath away from hers, as they’d been in the plumeria grove. Would they be as soft as they looked? She longed to find out, so badly. To learn what it was like to touch, to feel.
Alaric blinked at her. A disbelieving look came over his face, slow to be replaced by the inscrutable mask he usually wore. He wrenched himself from her and sat down heavily on the edge of his mattress, all the while studying her the way a wolf studied a hunter’s trap.
“What,” he finally repeated in quieter but more guarded tones, “possessed you to throw yourself in the Shadowgate’s path? How could you have done something so utterly asinine?”
Now that they were apart, Talasyn could breathe easily again. Could summon the answer from the strange inertia that her brain had been trapped in scant seconds ago. “I was preventing a diplomatic incident. I don’t know what possessed you, continuing to advance on Surakwel after he lost his sword.”
“Surakwel,” Alaric jeered softly. “I’m glad that you and his seditious young lordship appear to have become such fast friends.”
Talasyn flushed with a renewed burst of temper. Over the months she’d improved at referring to people by their courtly address, but it wasn’t ingrained in her just yet. She tended to slip up when she was flustered. “Now is not the time to lecture me on etiquette.”
“I wasn’t—” Alaric broke off with an exasperated sigh. He looked away, his sharp jaw clenching, and Talasyn had the unsettling sensation that she’d missed something. That she’d misinterpreted what he’d been trying to imply.
“Anyway,” she hastened to continue, belatedly recalling why she’d come here in the first place, “as I said, I want to apologize on behalf of the Dominion for what happened tonight. I know that the court hasn’t exactly been welcoming, but that changes now. I’m reaffirming Nenavar’s willingness to cooperate—”
“I’m familiar with how all of this goes, Lachis’ka,” Alaric interrupted, his gaze snapping back to meet hers. Somehow, he seemed more incensed than ever before. “If they sent you here to do nothing but parrot your grandmother’s words at me, then I believe that we can skip that part. Feel free to remove yourself from my disagreeable presence at any time.” He inclined his head toward the door. “The sooner the better for both of us, I think.”
Talasyn stayed rooted to the spot, hopelessly confused. She wanted to tell him that he’d gotten it wrong, that she was here of her own accord, that she’d slipped out of the banquet hall before Urduja had the chance to talk to her. But it was likely that he would never believe that, and her insistence would only make the situation worse.
Something nagged at her, forcing her to retrace the events leading up to this moment. The way that Alaric’s eyes had widened through the shadowy haze in the banquet hall, the way that he’d insisted she summon a healer.
Were you worried about me? Talasyn nearly asked Alaric point-blank, but she stopped herself in the nick of time. Any concern that he might have for her welfare hinged solely on the political alliance pushing through.
She was grasping at straws as usual, thinking she deserved better than she actually did.
Perhaps it was her pride that balked at scurrying from his room like a frightened mouse. Whatever the case, her mind was frantically casting around for a reason to stay, and it wasn’t long before her gaze fell to the slash in the fabric at his thigh.
“I thought that I’d help you with your wound,” she said. “If you need it bandaged, I can call for a healer.”
“It’s taken care of,” Alaric replied. “I patched myself up. Are you quite done playing the part of concerned nursemaid? You have my assurance that the Night Empire’s displeasure with how this evening turned out will not interfere with tomorrow’s negotiations, as long as they are concluded within the allotted time. That is why you came to my chambers, is it not?”
Talasyn bit down on the dozens of choice retorts that threatened to burst from her lips. Instead, she floundered, searching for something, anything, that could let her stay in this room. And in the process of letting her thoughts run rampant, she stumbled upon a realization that cut her to the quick.
It went beyond the imperative to mollify him. It went beyond her mission to ensure the continued safety of the Nenavarene and the Sardovians.
She didn’t want to leave.
She had no desire to go back to her chambers and spend what she already knew would be a sleepless night agonizing over everything in deafening and lonesome silence. She wanted to remain here, with Alaric—to let him annoy her and distract her from the complicated tangle that her life had become, even if he himself was the knot at the center of it. She wanted to bicker with him in a language she’d grown up speaking, free to use turns of phrase that only the people of the Northwest Continent would understand. She wanted to check the wound on his thigh that the old metal blade had wrought, to make sure that it didn’t fester. She wanted to tease another vague almost-smile out of him.
She wanted him to not be angry at her anymore.
Talasyn surveyed the imperious figure on the bed, with his messy black hair and his clenched jaw and the hunch of his shoulders, with his narrowed charcoal eyes and all his injured pride and simmering restraint, with that habit he had of drowning out the rest of her world. And she thought, I want so many things.
Impossible things.
Things that she couldn’t even begin to understand.
“And what, pray tell, are you still doing here?” Alaric inquired, like the complete and utter twat that he was.
Inspiration struck, and she countered his question with one of her own. “When are we going to Belian?”
“We’ll discuss that in council tomorrow. Get out.” When she continued to hesitate, he added, in the frayed tone of someone on the verge of losing all patience, “Now, Your Grace. If you please.”
While it would rankle that he’d gotten the last word, she really had to cut her losses. She couldn’t antagonize him any further.
She marched out of his quarters with her head held high, taking refuge in a dignity that no one else needed to know rang false within her. She forced herself not to look back even as she felt his eyes following her before she slammed his bedroom door between them, and she was halfway across the orchid garden when she realized something else. Something that had been lost in the heat of the moment but now made her stop in her tracks as she replayed their encounter.
Alaric Ossinast had called her beautiful.
Granted, he’d also called her an idiot in the same breath, but . . .
Talasyn turned around too late. Alaric’s wing of the palace was already silent and still in the moonlight, his chambers once more plunged in darkness.
