The late evening found Talasyn tossing and turning in her bed in the Roof of Heaven, still in a snit.
She had to see her comrades. While the enemy was still unaware of Sigwad’s existence and had gotten nowhere near the strait, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d come very close to being found out. Harrowingly close. She was rattled, and it only compounded her doubt that she could see this terrifying long game through to the end. She was making mistakes, as she always did. She couldn’t do this alone. She desperately needed to talk to someone. She needed Ideth Vela in this moment, needed the Amirante’s resolute, no-nonsense leadership. They hadn’t spoken since the Kesathese ships had first been sighted on the horizon.
The residual wrath from her and Alaric’s vicious argument on the airship made Talasyn bold enough to take matters into her own hands for once. Kesath had come up short in their search—their guard was down more than ever now. Before she could second-guess herself, she stole out of bed and into her dressing room, changing into breeches and a tunic while mapping a mental exit route. Putting her predilection for gossip to good use, Jie had told Talasyn that Alaric had ordered the Nenavarene guards away from the guest wing after the altercation with Surakwel Mantes, so it would probably be best to creep along the battlements leading to his chambers and then drop down the palace walls from his balcony. Talasyn would just have to be as light on her feet as possible.
Then she could make her way into the city and find one of the seedier dugout proprietors who operated well into the night, who would lend her an airship without asking any questions. She would set course for Sigwad, and if all went well, she’d be back at the palace before early morning to catch up on lost sleep for the rest of the day while Alaric stewed over his reports.
Confident in her plan, she donned a pair of boots and a nondescript brown cloak, cinching her grappling hook around her waist. Excitement nipping at her heels, she hurried out into the orchid garden—
—only to collide with the broad chest of the tall figure standing just beyond her side door.
Talasyn released an outraged squeak, stepping back as quickly as though she’d been burned. Alaric’s gray eyes held hers captive in the moonlight, his pale face framed by waves of bed-rumpled black hair. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“That’s none of your concern,” she retorted through clenched teeth and a quickening pulse. She pushed aside her growing panic, forcing herself to remain calm as she searched for plausible excuses.
“On the contrary, Lachis’ka, I am well within my rights to wonder why my betrothed is sneaking out after I specifically ordered that she stay put.”
Color flooded her cheeks at the cavalier, offhand way that he referred to her as his betrothed. “Well, why were you standing outside my room?” she demanded, buying time.
“I was getting some fresh air.” He appeared disgruntled for a moment, as though the Nenavar Dominion was putting him to no small amount of inconvenience. “And you’re avoiding my question. How can I be sure that you’re not leaving in preparation for an attack?”
“You’re ridiculous.” She tossed him a look of utter contempt. “Are you my betrothed or my jailer?”
He lifted his shoulders. “You’re not exactly providing me with much incentive to see the difference between the two.”
Gods, she’d been so stupid, so reckless—but there was a way out of this. There had to be.
Think, think—
Inspiration struck.
Talasyn made a show of releasing an exasperated breath. “Fine. If you must know, I’m off to the night market. To get something to eat. I’m hungry and I don’t feel like interacting with anyone in the palace. I’ll be back before first light.”
She fell silent, praying to every Sardovian god she knew and every Nenavarene ancestor she didn’t that he would believe her.
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Alaric smirked, and, instead of being relieved, Talasyn saw red. Before she could formulate a comeback, he went on to say, “Very well, then. How are we to sneak out?”
She pointed a warning finger at him. “There is no we!”
“There is. It’s the only way I can confirm that you’re telling the truth. Besides, Your Grace”—his smirk widened—“I’m hungry, too.”
Shit.
Alaric rappelled down the battlements of the Roof of Heaven with climbing gear that he’d retrieved from his quarters along with a black hooded cloak. Talasyn was a speck dangling beneath him on her own fixed lines. There were certain stretches of the facade that lacked the structure or foliage to shield them from view, but she had timed their descent perfectly; the palace guards were changing shift, and no one noticed them.
It was cause for concern that Talasyn was so good at sneaking around and that Dominion security was so lax, but Alaric couldn’t bring himself to care overly much. Not at the moment, anyway. After all the tense negotiations, he relished the physical exertion, the sense of adventure and open space. And he hadn’t been lying when he told Talasyn that he was hungry. His stomach complained as he followed her down the limestone bluffs.
“Keep your hood on,” she instructed once they had dropped into the city proper. Her own hood was drawn over her face, revealing only her pink lips pursed in annoyance and the stubborn set of her jaw.
He gave in to the temptation to rile her up further. “As you say, dearest,” he drawled, watching with some vague, secret glee as that mouth of hers curled into a snarl.
But Talasyn had clearly learned a thing or two from her time at her grandmother’s court. “That didn’t sound quite as sarcastic as you probably intended it to be,” she snapped, shouldering past him. “Keep it up and I might start to think that you actually like being my betrothed.”
Alaric scowled at her slender back as he trailed after her, grudgingly awarding her a point in his mental tally.
It was his first time walking through a Nenavarene city, and his initial impression was chaos. Despite the late hour, the streets were filled with people setting off firecrackers, drinking at tables set out on the sidewalks, and dancing to the beat of drummers stationed on nearly every block. The curved rooftops were ablaze with paper lanterns. Colorful banners were strung between lampposts and clotheslines, boldly inked with the Dominion’s wavelike script.
“They’re congratulating the Lachis’ka on her betrothal,” Talasyn reluctantly translated for him.
Alaric raised an eyebrow. “Just the Lachis’ka?”
“Yes,” she confirmed with an air of smug satisfaction. “They don’t mention you at all.”
Well, he couldn’t say that he was surprised. Urduja had done her best to paint the upcoming marriage as a happy event, but people would have seen the Kesathese warships amassed beyond Port Samout. They would have drawn their own conclusions.
The crowd thickened the closer to the night market they got, the masses of exuberant humanity increasing until Alaric was well and truly being jostled on all sides, sweat dripping down his brow in the warm tropical night. Not keen on letting Talasyn give him the slip, should she be so inclined, he grabbed her by the arm. She stiffened but didn’t shrug him off, instead guiding him into a maze of brightly lit food stalls, where the air was replete with smoke and various mouthwatering aromas.
His head was spinning. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in the midst of such a throng when he wasn’t cutting his way through them or leading a charge. They shuffled past stalls where there were platters of fresh fish and plump crustaceans on display, as well as fruits that he had never seen before: small round red ones with spikes that made them look like sea urchins; dark purple ones with thick clover-like leaves at the stem; and ones vaguely in the shape of human hearts that, when split open, revealed snowy white flesh speckled with black seeds. Merchants were tossing gelatinous noodles around in deep pots, cooking skewered meat on charcoal embers, frying dumplings and omelets in bubbling oil, and rolling up thin pastry sheets filled with cream ice and crushed peanuts. While they waited, the customers gathered around each stall to chat with one another, the usual singsong tones of the Nenavarene language strained as they all shouted to be heard over the drumbeats and the general roar that came with hundreds of people packed into a jumble of narrow streets.
Alaric received an elbow to the ribs no less than four times. His foot was trod on twice that number. At least three strangers shouted in his ear while hailing their acquaintances at the next stall or further up the street.
Indignation rose with every passing moment. If these people knew who he was—
But they didn’t. That was the thing. He wore neither crown nor wolf’s-snarl mask, and his hood hid the gray eyes of House Ossinast. Not that the commonfolk on this isolated archipelago knew anything about House Ossinast to begin with. It felt strange, to be this anonymous, to be treated just like everyone else.
Talasyn, on the other hand, seemed right at home. She led him to a stall that boasted its own collection of small round tables and stools spilling into an alleyway. “Stay here.” She indicated a vacant table, speaking almost under her breath. So that no one would overhear her using Sailor’s Common, he realized. While the soldiers and Dominion nobles that he’d dealt with thus far were fluent in the trade language, there was no reason for it to be widely spoken throughout these islands.
Alaric sat down, careful to keep his hood drawn low over his features. Talasyn had deliberately chosen a secluded spot, and the people in their immediate vicinity seemed too drunk or too engrossed in their own conversations to notice him, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
She melted into the crowd, leaving him awkwardly sitting there by himself for what felt like ages. Just as he was starting to suspect that she’d abandoned him and this was all part of some nefarious Dominion ploy to get the Night Emperor to wind up dead in a ditch, she returned, gingerly carrying a bamboo tray laden with utensils, wooden bowls of fluffy white rice and some kind of grayish stew, and tankards filled with a mysterious saffron-colored liquid.
“What is this?” Alaric asked once she’d taken the seat across from him.
“Pork with peas and jackfruit. The drink is sugarcane juice,” she supplied. “This isn’t the best stall, but it’s quiet. If you want the best pork stew, you have to go a little further up the street, near the drummers.”
“You are a fixture, then, I take it?”
“Not as much as I would like to be.” She seemed somewhat regretful, and he arched a brow.
“Surely there is nothing stopping you from coming down here whenever the mood strikes.”
Talasyn mumbled something about lessons and duties before she dug into her bowl with a barely contained frenzy, chewing and swallowing nonstop while glaring a hole into the table. Alaric almost felt bad that he had forced his presence on her and it was no doubt sullying her enjoyment of the meal.
Eventually, he took his first tentative bite. And then another, and another. Perhaps he was just famished, but the soupy mess in his bowl was delicious, and the cold beverage that he washed it down with was sweet and refreshing.
Since his dining companion wasn’t in a particularly chatty mood, he let his attention drift to their surroundings. The table in front of theirs was especially lively, the burly men occupying it loud enough to be obnoxious, their ruddy faces flushed with alcohol. Alaric thought that he caught the word Kesath every once in a while.
“What are they saying?” he asked Talasyn, inclining his head toward the group.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m still learning Nenavarene, and they’re talking too fast.” She stabbed a chunk of meat with her fork and changed the subject. “You’re looking forward to sailing home after the wedding, I’ll wager.”
She sounded so especially prickly that Alaric gave in once again to the impulse to tease her. “Am I? We won’t see each other again until you come to Kesath for your coronation. Perhaps I shall miss you terribly.”
Talasyn rolled her eyes, a small quirk blossoming along one corner of her mouth. But then her expression flattened, reminding him of a shield being thrown up, and she ducked her head. “Let me finish my meal in peace,” she grunted.
Ever since she sat down to eat, the drunks at the next table had been planning to wage all-out war on the Night Empire. These plans had grown increasingly more outlandish, so much so that changing the subject with Alaric had no longer been enough. She’d had to stop talking to him altogether so that she could focus on keeping a straight face. It was almost worth her real plans for the evening being foiled.
Almost.
“Who does this bastard emperor think he is?” yelled the ringleader. “Waltzing in here, forcing our Lachis’ka to marry him—let’s storm the palace, I say! Let’s slaughter the Kesathese in their beds!”
Amidst impassioned rumblings of assent, a lone voice strove to get everyone to see reason. “We must trust in Queen Urduja’s judgment. She knows what’s best for Nenavar, and she’ll be furious if we storm her palace.”
“Not if it’s so we can rescue her granddaughter from the clutches of an outsider!” argued a third man. “Here’s what, some of us’ll take a bunch of firecrackers and sneak onboard that accursed lightning ship, blow it to smithereens, while the rest of us will lay siege to the Roof of Heaven—”
“And slaughter the Kesathese in their beds!” the group cheered, banging their tankards on the table.
“They’ll never know what hit ’em!”
“What’s an army to six determined patriots?”
“My hatchet thirsts for the Night Emperor’s blood!”
Talasyn fought down a snort, swallowing it along with her mouthful of rice and stew. She diligently avoided meeting Alaric’s gaze.
Then one of the men said, “Although—the Lachis’ka is an outsider, too, isn’t she? She didn’t grow up here, and Lady Hanan, rest her soul, was foreign.”
“That doesn’t mean that Alunsina isn’t ours!” gasped the voice of reason. “She is Elagbi’s daughter. She is She Who Will Come After.”
“Maybe it is for the best that Her Grace will marry the Night Emperor,” slurred the drunkest of the lot. “Outsiders deserve each other.”
Talasyn pushed her mostly empty bowl away. She no longer felt like laughing and she no longer wished to overhear another word of the men’s conversation. She grabbed Alaric by the arm and dragged him out of the alley. “Time to be heading back,” she said, in response to his quizzical look.
But they didn’t head back right away. Instead, once they left the marketplace, Talasyn took a circuitous route for reasons that weren’t entirely clear even to herself. She and Alaric wound up in the side street of a quiet residential neighborhood, where the festive drumbeats rolled only like distant thunder.
Unfortunately, Alaric’s sarcastic tones were not as far away. “Is this the part where you stick a knife into my ribs and dispose of my body?”
“You’re so paranoid.” And you should be, she fervently, if silently, conceded.
She realized that she was still holding on to his arm, her fingers digging into an unfathomably solid bicep, and she let go at once and widened the distance between them. He’d latched on to her like this earlier and she’d allowed it, not keen on explaining losing him to her grandmother. It had been a matter of practicality. But now she wondered if her touch burned into his skin like his did hers—if he, too, was befuddled by any form of physical contact between them that didn’t end in grievous bodily harm.
The memories of the plumeria grove and up against his wardrobe surged through her in a flash of white heat and phantom sensations. His soft lips all that she could see, his large hands all over her form.
Talasyn fled. That was the simplest way to describe what she did next—aiming her grappling hook at an upper railing on the nearest structure, embarking on the climb once it caught. Below her she heard metal clacking against brickwork and the stretch of rope as Alaric gave chase, but she didn’t look back, she didn’t stop until she’d scaled all six levels and hauled herself onto the rooftop.
She sat down, balancing precariously on one of the inclines, her legs dangling off the edge. From this vantage point the city was a tangled net of red and yellow lantern-light, glimmering against the dark, beneath the seven moons.
I don’t belong here. The thought pierced her in all its bleakness. I don’t belong anywhere.
Back in Sardovia, she’d grown up waiting for her family to come back. Now that she had found her family, it consisted of a grandmother who thought nothing of using her as a bargaining chip and a father who would never side with her over his queen, in a homeland where she was an outsider.
And, as a final insult to injury, she was getting married to someone who hated her—someone whom she would one day betray, for the sake of everyone else.
It was too much. Everything was too much. It all weighed down on her like a stone.
Talasyn furiously blinked away the tears that were threatening to spill. Not a moment too soon, as it turned out, because a shadow fell over her and she looked up to see Alaric’s sullen features, stark and pale in the moonlight. For such a tall, wide bulwark of a man, he stood on the precarious rooftop ledge with minimal effort, studying her quietly.
When he spoke, it was in a tone that carried a trace of unease. “Is something the matter?”
She wanted to laugh. Where should she start?
“Why didn’t you kill me when we first met?” Talasyn burst out, because it was what she’d always wondered, because there was no better time to ask it than here and now, when the moonlight could hold secrets and it was just the two of them above the city, amidst the rooftops, in a sea of weathervanes. “That night on the frozen lake outside Frostplum, before we knew I was the Nenavarene Lachis’ka, before we knew we could merge our magic. I’ve replayed that battle over and over. You could have easily killed me then. Why didn’t you? You even parted the Shadowgate barriers so that I wouldn’t run into them. And you shielded me from the falling column and you let me go the day the Heartland fell. Why did you do all of that?”
“Why are you bringing it up now?” he countered, looking defensive.
Her temper spiked. She didn’t know, either. She had no idea what she’d been hoping to find.
Several flares of light shot up from the streets to the north of the rooftop. They exploded at their zenith in whorls of green and violet and pink and copper, exhaling wisps of potassium smoke as they blossomed against the starry sky. Talasyn stared numbly at the conflagration that was meant to celebrate her betrothal, and she thought about how much she longed to scream. To let all of her fears and frustrations be swept into the light and noise.
She gave a start when Alaric spoke into the stillness that ensued after the fireworks had died down. “I think that I was curious, the night we met,” he admitted. His voice cut through the gloom behind her in a low rasp. “I’d never encountered a Lightweaver before. I wanted to see what you were made of.”
“And at Lasthaven?”
“I rather felt that it would have been—unceremonious. If you’d died like that.”
Strangely enough, she understood. Nothing less than a well-earned ending, by his blade or hers, would suffice. It wasn’t as disconcerting a realization as it should have been. At the very least, it was something to belong to, something that was just theirs. Even if there was no other way for it to end but in blood and a fallen empire.
She gazed out over joyous, gilded Eskaya. With their fireworks and their feasting, it was so different from what she’d known back then.
“All the cities on the Continent will look like this one day,” Alaric said quietly, as though reading her thoughts. He, too, was studying the scene below them, and she thought about the pudding, how he’d finished every last drop, something as simple as soybeans and sugar a revelation. “I will see it done.”
“The cities of the Allfold could be well on their way to looking like this, if Kesath hadn’t invaded,” Talasyn muttered.
He regarded her with disbelief. “You speak so highly of Sardovia.”
“It was my home.”
“No homeland should allow its people to drink in the troughs with the horses,” Alaric said coldly. “The Allfold did not deserve your loyalty, nor anyone else’s.”
Talasyn stood up and took the couple of steps that would bring her toe to toe with him, walking swiftly and surely over the rooftop tiles, too preoccupied with ridding him of his self-righteousness to worry about falling. And maybe there was a part of her that was scared, too, to let his words sink in too deep.
“If I could go anywhere in the world right now,” Talasyn told Alaric, looking up at him with narrowed eyes, her voice low and deadly, “I would take you to the Wildermarch, where we buried everyone who died at Frostplum. I would take you to every battlefield where I saw my comrades fall. I would take you to every village flattened by Kesathese stormships, to every town ransacked by your legionnaires. That was where my loyalties lay. That was why I fought for as long as I did.”
That’s why I’m still fighting. That’s why one day I will see Sardovian banners fly over the Continent once more, and I will gaze down on your father’s corpse and smile.
Alaric’s hands dropped onto her shoulders. It was a gentle pressure, but it went through her heart like a shockwave. He leaned in, so close that their foreheads were almost touching. “I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—” He took a deep breath. He looked, she thought, very tired. It had been a long day for them, and the ones that would follow promised to be just as grueling.
“My allegiance is to my nation,” Alaric finally said, “and I also dislike thinking about what you went through. Surely those two things can both be true at the same time.”
“They can be, but I’m allowed to call you a hypocrite,” Talasyn retorted, even as some tiny corner of her soul reached out with greedy arms to the siren song of someone being angry on her behalf, angry about what she’d suffered. The people in her life who actually gave a damn about her—Vela and Khaede and Elagbi—had been spared the gritty details.
Why had she told Alaric about the troughs, about the knife? In the end, he’d only used it as ammunition against her, provoking her to question the acceptance with which she’d played her part in the war.
His jaw clenched. His hands slid from the tops of her shoulders to curl around her upper arms in a loose grip. “It was for nothing, then. The accord that we found over the last few days, while aethermancing.”
“I will still work with you,” Talasyn said, hating how she couldn’t bring herself to so much as squirm away from his grasp. “But you won’t ever convince me that the Night Empire saved Sardovia from itself. I told you once that vengeance isn’t justice, and I hold to that. Whatever better world you think you’ll build, it will always be built on blood.”
His hands fell to his sides, and every inch of her that he had touched cried out at the loss. Fuming, she made her way back down the building while he followed without another word. She navigated a moonlit path to the limestone bluffs of the Roof of Heaven, and he trailed after her in silence, through city streets that resounded with a merry mood that neither of them could take part in.
