In the moment, Talasyn had hoped that setting her anger loose on Alaric might provide some catharsis. But it had only done the opposite. She kept replaying their conversation in her mind, the reckless insults paired with hesitant confessions. She had come far too close to exposing the truths that lay at the center of her heart. Truths that protected not only herself, but the people she cared about. Alaric had a way of getting past her guard, even when she knew that one wrong step could prove fatal. Her determination to speak with Vela only became more urgent.
She hadn’t seen Alaric since they returned from the night market, but a steady stream of Kesathese officers had marched in and out of the guest wing well into the afternoon, wearing on Urduja’s last nerves. Talasyn knew that she couldn’t risk sneaking out via the garden path between her and Alaric’s rooms again—but, then, how—
She heard voices from around the corner. A man’s, light and teasing, mingled with a woman’s throaty murmur. Surreptitiously peeking into the corridor that ran perpendicular to the one she was in, Talasyn saw Surakwel Mantes and Niamha Langsoune in the act of bidding farewell to each other. He bowed and she curtsied, and he watched her walk away.
A new idea seized her. As Niamha disappeared around the opposite corner, Talasyn checked to ascertain that no guards were in sight. Then she hurried over to Surakwel.
He smiled when he noticed her approach, but it had a wary edge to it. “Your Grace,” he said with another quick bow. “As I understand it, congratulations are in order.”
“Spare me.” Talasyn had quite had her fill of sarcastic young men.
Surakwel quirked an eyebrow but wisely changed the subject. “I’m off to Viyayin. Queen Urduja has made it clear that I’ve outstayed my welcome—and that me being Lueve Rasmey’s nephew was the only thing that prevented her from chopping me up into tiny pieces and feeding me to the dragons. I suppose that the next time I see you will be at your wedding.”
Talasyn knew that all the noble houses had to send a representative, but she’d half expected him to boycott the event on principle. He must have deciphered the bemused look on her face because he went on to explain, “My mother is too ill. I must attend in her stead. I’ve already sworn to the Zahiya-lachis that I shall do nothing to disrupt the ceremony and I reiterate the same to you. You have my word.”
“And how good is your word?” Talasyn carefully asked. “How true is your honor?”
One could hardly be a Dominion aristocrat without the ability to recognize certain cues. Surakwel’s walnut-brown gaze assessed her shrewdly from beneath a mess of shaggy hair. “Is there something that you require of me, Lachis’ka?”
“Yes.” Talasyn’s heart was pounding. “I’m calling in your debt of the self. There are two parts of this payment. First, what I’m about to tell you . . . You can’t breathe a word of it to another living soul.”
“And the second part?”
“I need you to take me somewhere.”
Surakwel’s airship was a small pleasure yacht, customized to accommodate far more void cannons than such vessels usually possessed. The hull was painted a frosted green color, a white serpent emblazoned on the aft end—the insignia of Viyayin’s ruling house. It was docked on a grid outside the palace, with the vessels of other guests. Surakwel distracted the guards with meaningless chatter while Talasyn clambered out the window of an adjacent hallway and slipped up the ramp.
Even though she’d sworn Surakwel to secrecy under the terms of the debt of the self, she was all too aware that he was a wild card, reckless and unpredictable. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to be hell-bent on rallying the Sardovian remnant into an all-out attack on the Kesathese fleet, but he was excited. He’d quite lost his aristocratic poise earlier in the hallway, hissing, “The Sardovian Allfold is here?” with his eyes almost bugging out of his head. Talasyn had slapped him on the arm, warning him that he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that he knew. She doubted that Urduja would appreciate her making an ally out of this man.
“This is a nice ship,” Talasyn observed once he’d joined her and the yacht had launched into the air. She made herself comfortable in the open well on deck where the cockpit was located, leaning back against a frame of glossy wood. “What’s she called?”
Surakwel hesitated, one gauntleted hand hovering over the controls. “Serenity,” he replied at last, in an uncharacteristically soft voice.
“Oh,” was all that Talasyn could manage. Niamha’s name translated to the serene one. Talasyn had been aware that Surakwel and the daya were close, but . . .
The young lord gave every impression of not wanting to talk about it, so Talasyn fell silent. The late-night breeze tossed strands of her hair wildly about as she and Surakwel sailed beneath the stars.
“What exactly is the Allfold’s plan, Your Grace?” Surakwel asked. “I doubt that it entails hiding forever in the Storm God’s Eye.”
“All information will be dispensed on a need-to-know basis,” Talasyn said crisply. The truth was that she herself had only a vague idea of what was going on in Vela’s head. From previous visits, she’d surmised that her comrades had spent the last few months repairing their damaged vessels, gathering intelligence over the aetherwave, and learning how to survive in this foreign land.
The Serenity was fast despite its squadron’s worth of armaments, and they reached the strait in a little under five hours, when a voyage from Eskaya would normally have taken an airship of similar size almost six. Miles and miles off the coast of Lidagat, westernmost of the Dominion’s seven main islands, the ocean’s flat expanse was disrupted by two long rows of gargantuan, sheer-sloped basalt pillars. Legend had it that these were formed by the collision when the broken body of some nameless ancient god of storms came crashing down from the heavens during a great war among the members of his pantheon, his blood mingling with that of other slain deities to create the Eversea. Between the pillars was the strip of water that one had to traverse for another half-hour before reaching the isles of Sigwad, which were said to be his right eye.
Luck was on Talasyn and her eager companion’s side; there was no sign of the Tempest Sever that frequently blew through the strait. The storm god’s restless spirit is taking the night off, she thought wryly. Back on the Continent—in Sardovia, in Kesath—the Severs were manifestations of the gods, but here in Nenavar the gods were long dead. There was only the Zahiya-lachis.
From the air, Sigwad was a roughly circular smattering of coral islands. Surakwel landed the yacht at its center, on a tranquil stretch of shoreline that glittered in the copious moonlight.
“Wait here,” Talasyn instructed as she disembarked. She didn’t want to waste valuable time convincing Ideth Vela that this new Dominion noble could be trusted.
“But—”
“Debt of the self, remember?”
Surakwel sighed. “Fine.”
Talasyn shot him her fiercest, haughtiest glare and he lapsed into a grudging silence, glowering at her retreating back when she turned to make for the nearby swamp on foot. If only it were this easy to shut Alaric Ossinast up—the ass.
She disappeared into the mangrove trees, forging a radiant blade to illuminate her path. The damp smell of brackish water rushed up her nose as she plodded through the wilderness, over mangrove roots tangled together so densely that they formed forest floor, quivering with a variety of soft amphibious things that slithered and slimed and croaked in the gloom.
“Talasyn?”
The whisper cut through the dark swamp. She nearly hurled her light-spun sword at the treetops, but common sense kicked in at the last second and she squinted at the canopy above her. The round face of a young boy squinted back.
“I’ll tell the Amirante that you’re on your way.” He scampered off, hopping from branch to branch until he disappeared in a rustle of leaves.
Talasyn ventured on, over mud and twisted roots and shallow water. The Nautilus and the camp that had sprung up around it were on a natural embankment, while the Summerwind and the other airships were docked a short hike away. Talasyn saw the stormship first, the curve of it glistening in the seven-mooned night like the carcass of a whale that had beached itself within the mangroves. Surrounding it was a collection of bamboo huts on stilts.
As soon as she stepped onto the embankment, Vela came striding out to greet her. Sometimes it was a bit of an event when Talasyn visited, everyone hungry for news from the capital, but sometimes, like now, it was just her and the Amirante, speaking quietly in the evening gloom.
The first time Talasyn visited this hideout in the mangroves, she’d been shocked by the remnant’s collective appearance. Sigwad fell under Niamha’s domain and the Sardovians wore clothes provided to them by House Langsoune, all light cotton tunics and brightly colored breeches and striped wraparound skirts. Including Vela, they looked more Nenavarene than Allfold.
The Amirante had been informed of the marriage treaty and the threat of the Voidfell by the Dominion envoys who brought over the spectral configurations as a precautionary measure. She had either gotten all the upset out of her system or was doing a spectacular job of keeping it under control; the gaze that she fixed on Talasyn was remarkably composed.
“Enough is enough, Talasyn. You have to learn how to stand up for yourself. I know that you think that you’ll be endangering us by doing so, but you don’t have to be a witless pawn in the Dragon Queen’s games. Believe me, she needs your goodwill as much as you need hers. The Dominion has no qualms about deposing an heirless monarch—in fact, they were on the verge of doing so before you showed up. Without you, she risks losing everything. It is time that you remind her. Do you think that you can do that?”
“I don’t know,” Talasyn mumbled. “Everyone’s afraid of her, even my father. I’m alone—”
“You aren’t alone,” said Vela. “You have Ossinast.”
Talasyn blinked, uncomprehending. The ambient sounds of the swamp filled the tense space between words and Vela leaned in closer. “Power is a fluid, ever-shifting thing, dictated by alliances. Right now, it seems that Urduja Silim holds all the cards because she is the Zahiya-lachis. But . . . once you marry the Night Emperor, what does that make you?”
“The Night Empress,” Talasyn whispered.
Vela nodded. “While I can’t say that I’m delighted by it, Alaric being your consort buys us time. And it gives you—opportunities.”
“To spy on Kesath,” Talasyn heard herself saying, despite the odd jitters that coursed through her at Alaric being referred to as her consort. Not only was it easier for her to shift into battle mode now that she was in the company of her commanding officer, but the conversation had also unlocked an epiphany that had been waiting for the right nudge to blossom into wildfire. “To learn their weaknesses. To . . .” She trailed off, hardly daring to give voice to such a thing.
Vela finished the sentence for her. “To find the way to Gaheris.”
“We can cut off the serpent’s head, like we always planned,” Talasyn continued slowly. “Gaheris is the real power behind the Night Empire. We kill him, and it will all come crumbling down. And then we’ll figure out what to do with—”
The name caught in her throat.
“The man who will by then be your husband,” Vela muttered.
Talasyn swallowed. “A minor detail,” she said with rather more confidence than she actually felt.
“We can also learn how they’re making their void cannons,” Vela added. “Alaric brought only one moth coracle back to Kesath. The magic inside it shouldn’t have been enough to power entire ironclads. You have to figure out how they did it, and if there’s any way to take those armaments out of the equation.”
“All right. I will,” Talasyn was quick to say. It was a momentuous undertaking, but she felt better now that there was an actual plan.
Vela rubbed a weary hand over her face. “You’re going to be in so much danger. You have to promise us that you’ll call for an extraction if things go south.”
“I will.” Talasyn thought of Surakwel Mantes. “I know someone I can send if I need help—and when I have important information and can’t meet you myself.”
“You have a difficult road ahead of you,” Vela said gravely. “Right now, there seems to be no alternative other than for you to walk it. Do you think that you are strong enough?”
Talasyn lifted her chin. “I have to be.”
“Very well. Hurry back to Eskaya before your grandmother realizes that you aren’t there.”
Talasyn watched the Amirante walk back to her hut. She couldn’t deny there was a part of her that wished Vela had shown more indignation on her behalf, but it wasn’t Vela’s responsibility to coddle her and Talasyn had to do her duty, just as Vela had to do hers. The future was uncertain; it spread before her like the yawning mouth of some dark cave. And she would face it, the way she had faced everything else thus far.
Keep moving forward.
