The days flew by, everyone focused on the upcoming wedding. The remainder of the planning passed without incident, save for a minor wrinkle when the subject of the consummation night cropped up. Talasyn felt that she and Alaric would have handled it a lot worse if Prince Elagbi hadn’t warned them in advance that day on the stormship.
Of course, they would have handled it a lot better if they hadn’t gotten started on the consummation that day in the amphitheater on Belian.
“Our newlyweds will leave the feast first, and His Majesty will allot her sufficient time to prepare before following her to her chambers,” Lueve Rasmey was saying.
“Prepare,” Talasyn echoed blankly.
“Well, you will need your lady’s assistance, Lachis’ka,” Niamha Langsoune clarified, “for the fastenings of the wedding gown are difficult to navigate—”
“I get the picture,” Talasyn hastened to interrupt, willing herself not to flush scarlet. Alaric looked as though he’d been punched in the gut. “We can move on.” She didn’t say that they’d already agreed to share her quarters for the night and nothing more. Rajan Gitab was watching intently from behind his spectacles, and Talasyn didn’t want to give the opposition cause to question the validity of the marriage alliance.
Fortunately, at this point, Queen Urduja took over. “If His Majesty wishes to transfer any personal effects to Iantas, kindly inform Daya Rasmey, as she is in charge of coordinating with the steward there. We are almost done fixing up the place and it will be ready to move into after the nuptials.”
Iantas was Talasyn’s dowry, a sprawling castle on a small white-sand island. It had been ceded to Alaric as his permanent Nenavarene residence—and Talasyn’s as well, at least until she ascended to the throne and had to hold court at the Roof of Heaven.
“It will be good for Alunsina to have some experience in running a household,” Urduja continued. “Her upbringing certainly didn’t lend itself to that sort of skill. And she is the youngest Lachis’ka in our recent history to get married.”
Alaric worked a muscle in his jaw, and then he gave Urduja a stiff nod. He was taking great pains not to look in Talasyn’s direction, and that was fine by her. In fact, if they could just ignore each other until Gaheris was taken care of and the Night Empire fell, that would be wonderful.
Like all other major royal ceremonies, the wedding would take place at the Starlight Tower in the heart of Eskaya, and activity in the area increased as it was spruced up and its perimeters were secured. In much the same manner, a veritable army of decorators and cleaners descended upon the grand ballroom of the Roof of Heaven, where the reception would be held, to make sure that no two specks of color clashed and that no single ornament was out of place and that no inch of marble floor went unpolished.
Talasyn spent most of her time attending fittings for her dress when she and Alaric weren’t being walked through each step of the ceremony. Although she kept a composed facade in public, it was hard going as each sunrise brought her nearer and nearer to her marriage.
Marriage. Gods. Every once in a while, she pinched herself, hoping to wake up back in a Sardovian barracks room, but no such luck.
The day before the wedding, several Kesathese officers arrived in Eskaya to join Commodore Mathire and Sevraim in acting as witnesses to the ceremony. High up in a tower, Talasyn watched them disembark from their airships, unable to stop her hackles from rising. These people had been her enemies for five years and she instinctively categorized them as such. All it would take were a few well-placed ceramic shells to wipe out most of the Night Empire’s High Command. Hell, if Urduja gave her soldiers the order to attack right now—
No. It would be for nothing. Gaheris wasn’t here, apparently busy ruling in Alaric’s absence.
There were other ways to wage war.
Talasyn had to be patient.
She continued watching as Alaric strode out to greet his officers. He acknowledged their salutes with a nod and proceeded to talk to them. In their dark, austerely tailored clothing, the Kesathese stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the ornate armor of the palace guards and the glittering outfits of the Dominion nobles.
She would never know if it had been just a matter of horrid timing or if Alaric had felt the weight of her stare in the way that all warriors could tell that they were being observed. Whatever the case, her betrothed suddenly looked up.
Looked right at her.
Talasyn quickly backed away from the window, color flooding her cheeks. Why did you do that? she just as quickly chided herself. She should have held her ground—so what if he caught her staring? She lived here, she could stare at anything she liked . . .
Shoulders squared in resolve, Talasyn darted forward, determined to glare at Alaric until he slunk away with his tail between his legs. However, when she returned to her original spot by the window, the last of the Night Empire delegation was already disappearing into the palace.
Common sense filtered back in. What am I doing? she wondered, in both dismay and disbelief at her own actions. She couldn’t help but feel that she’d lost yet another round of this strange new battle that she and Alaric Ossinast had found themselves locked into. It didn’t bode well for what was to come.
On her way back to her chambers, Talasyn ran into Kai Gitab in the Queenswalk, a long, carpeted hall where the marble walls were lined with enormous oil portraits of every Zahiya-lachis known to history. In comparison to most other locations in the palace, it was shielded from the sun by heavy drapes over the windows, to preserve the delicate art. The only illumination was in the form of the odd fire lamp here and there, adding to the eerie feeling that the beautiful faces in the gilded frames were watching one’s every move.
Gitab was standing in front of the portrait of Magwayen Silim, Urduja’s mother. He bowed to Talasyn as she approached. “Your Grace.”
“Rajan Gitab,” Talasyn replied in kind. There were no guards in this hall and she’d given her Lachis-dalo the slip earlier. She was alone with him, alone with a Dominion noble opposed to the alliance with Kesath. She wondered how deep his dissent went, and if he would dare to try anything the way that Surakwel had, but she figured that it couldn’t hurt to be polite. “Thank you for all your hard work during the negotiations.”
Gitab flashed a cool smile. “The triumph belongs to Daya Rasmey and Daya Langsoune. You and I both know that Her Starlit Majesty only put me there so that I could report back to my fellow critics that nothing underhanded was in effect.”
None of you told me about the Night of the World-Eater. Seemed plenty underhanded to me, Talasyn groused to herself, but it must have shown on her face because Gitab’s dark eyes glinted behind his gold-rimmed spectacles as though he knew what she was thinking.
“Still,” she persevered, rather valiantly in her opinion, through this patch of small talk that she was starting to suspect might be a field of caltrops in disguise, “it’s over now.”
“It is,” said Gitab. “And thus a new age begins.” He returned his gaze to the portrait, Talasyn following his line of sight. The previous Zahiya-lachis stared fiercely down at them, brown-haired and umber-skinned; while Urduja’s crown appeared chiseled from ice, Magwayen’s crown was a massive, fearsome thing wrought from thorns of iron and dark opals.
“Your great-grandmother was, by all accounts, a strong and capable ruler,” Gitab told Talasyn. “Since she knew that the World-Eater would come during her daughter’s reign, she spent her later years preparing the realm for it, preparing Queen Urduja for it. If this solution that you and the Night Emperor will employ fails, Nenavar will still make it through Dead Season thanks in no small part to the protocols and countermeasures that Magwayen devised.”
“We won’t fail,” Talasyn assured him.
It will be all right, Alaric had said. Otherwise, we’re all dead.
She determinedly banished his annoying voice from her head, where it tended to pop up at the most inopportune moments.
“Yes, I suppose that anything is possible with your kind of aethermancy, Lachis’ka. We shall see.” If Gitab possessed any of the fear of the Lightweave and the Shadowgate that other Dominion nobles held, he didn’t show it. He continued gazing at the portrait of Magwayen while Talasyn debated just walking away, as the conversation seemed to be at an end.
Gitab spoke again, however. “The sun began to set on the Silim dynasty when Queen Urduja birthed a second son, her second and last child. The day she sets sail with the ancestors, Your Grace, a new house will rise. One with your mother’s name. Such is the way of our people.”
Talasyn was brought up short. This was the first time she’d heard any noble at court mention Hanan Ivralis. Her mother was a taboo subject, along with the would-be usurper Prince Sintan. Mindful not to step on Urduja’s toes, Talasyn only indulged her curiosity when she was alone with her father, and even then she never dug too deep, not wanting to cause Elagbi pain.
But her newly regained memory of Hanan singing a lullaby caused some rebellion to trickle in.
“Does it bother you?” she asked Gitab, hungry to know how he viewed Hanan, the woman whose actions had nearly toppled the Dragon Throne. “That it’s an outsider’s name?”
“I bear the late Lady Hanan no ill will and I am loyal to whom the ancestors bless,” Gitab said solemnly. “Your grandmother and I have our differences, to be sure, but my duty will always be to what’s best for Nenavar. And if there is a chance that Nenavar can be spared from Dead Season, then of course we must take it. But, after . . .” He lowered his voice. “You can count on me for after, Lachis’ka. I trust that we both have no wish to let the Shadow fall.”
There was something of Surakwel Mantes in Gitab’s face just then. The rajan was twice Surakwel’s age and infinitely more softly spoken, but there were the embers of that same fire. A love of country. A firm belief in what was right.
He has earned a name for himself as incorruptible and devoted to his ideals, Elagbi had said. With him on the panel, no one can accuse the Zahiya-lachis of selling out Nenavar.
Talasyn warmed slightly toward Gitab. She couldn’t trust him just yet, but it wasn’t a bad idea to start paving the way for her own alliances within the Dominion court.
“I’ll keep this in mind, my lord,” she told him. He nodded, and she took her leave, walking down the hallway of portraits as he remained where he was, gazing up at the Queen of Thorns.
