Chapter Twelve
C HAPTER T WELVE
Talasyn was awake. She knew that she was awake. Her eyes were open in the morning light that streamed into the bedroom.
But she couldn’t move. She was flat on her back on the mattress, her rigid limbs locked in place.
The chimeras were eating her alive.
Creatures of silver aether and midnight smoke gnawed at her flesh with inky teeth, their eel-like bodies wrapping around her arms and legs. They stripped her skin from her bones; they gulped her down, piece by piece.
Talasyn screamed—or tried to. Not a single drop of sound emerged from her bursting lungs, even as she strained with all her might. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t scream, she couldn’t aethermance.
There was a figure looming in the corner. The darkness emanated from him, in rivers, and her gaze traveled up to his face. She expected Gaheris’s wizened features, expected the Regent to have crept into her room under cover of night.
But the gray eyes that looked back at her were Alaric’s. He smiled as his magic devoured her whole.
She screamed again. It came out as a rattle of sound, pushed through a throat gone dry with fear. And suddenly she was bolting upright, freed from the shackles of paralysis, of that waking nightmare. There was no trace of the shadows that she’d seen and felt so vividly, or of the figure that had summoned them.
Through the pounding of her heart, through the horror falling away, she became aware of something else: her bladder clamored to be relieved.
It was a shock, her bare soles thudding against the cold floor. She stumbled to the bathroom on leaden legs. Her mind was all fogged up; that was her only justification, really, for not remembering that she was no longer alone in Iantas’s royal chambers until she walked in on Alaric in her— their —bathroom.
He was hunched over the sink, clad in nothing but a towel wrapped around his lean hips, his black hair damp and his jaw slathered in the creamy white suds of his shaving soap.
“Why didn’t you bolt the door?” Talasyn demanded, suddenly fully awake. For all her bluster, though, she couldn’t quite stop herself from gawking at his bare chest. At the beads of water pooled in the hollow of his collarbones, and the expanse of pale skin and chiseled musculature, riddled with silvery scars. At the smattering of dark hair that dusted a tantalizing path from his navel to what lay hidden under the towel.
“I forgot,” Alaric grunted, lowering the steel-bladed razor from his face. His expression was as cool and haughty as usual, but it carried shades of the ruthlessness from her nightmare, and she nearly shrank back.
Then his gaze flickered over her and darkened to soot, and it hit her that the fabric of her nightshirt was perhaps a little too thin. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to be casual, but it was too late, of course. Their shared embarrassment suffused the air.
“I—um—nature calls,” she faltered.
“By all means.” He was careful not to let their bodies touch as he skirted around her in the doorway. Some wicked part of her keened in regret.
Talasyn spent the whole morning with her father on a grassy hill that lay to the west of the castle. It overlooked the beach and had the added benefit of being nowhere near Alaric. In the dappled shade of leafy coconut palms, she and Elagbi picnicked and played casongka, a game of count-and-capture. It was played with tokens in the form of tiny cowrie shells and an elongated wooden board with two rows of cup-shaped holes called houses , bracketed by the larger holes that served as each player’s field . The objective was to plant more tokens in one’s field than the opponent did in his by scooping up all the cowrie shells in one house and distributing them piece by piece to the other houses in a clockwise direction, each player’s turn ending whenever the last shell landed in an empty hole. The game came to a close once all the houses were empty.
Casongka required precise calculation and careful observation—rather like dealing with the Dominion court, Talasyn thought. She was absolute rubbish at the game, and she was fairly certain that Elagbi was cheating on more than one occasion, but she was thankful for the opportunity to focus on something other than her shirtless husband, who didn’t even remember kissing her. Whose magic had devoured her in her nightmare earlier. When it came to him, her fear and her desire were tangled together, a vicious web.
Elagbi had just claimed another victory, Talasyn vehemently protesting all the while, when excited cries in the distance drew their attention. A dragon had broken the wave-tossed surface of the Eversea while several of the villagers’ children frolicked on the beach.
It was an old one, with clouded blue eyes set in a grizzled, horned head. Its fire-orange scales were crusted with barnacles and a multitude of scars, from centuries of battle against sawtoothed sharks and colossal squid and whatever else the ocean hid. As the children cheered and clapped their hands in delight, it waded into the turquoise shallows on clumsy reptilian forelimbs, chiropteran wings tucked against its slithering flanks like a ship’s sails, an eruption of sand and saltwater blossoming with every motion.
Once the dragon reached the shore, it lay down and closed its eyes. Talasyn would have suspected that it had died, if not for its breath stirring nearby ribbons of water, bringing them to a boil. The lower half of its body curled and twitched in rhythm with the tide.
“They spend most of their time in the deeps, but they like to bask when the sun’s out,” said Elagbi. “It will probably sleep there for hours.”
“Even with those ruffians around?” Talasyn gestured to the children who had now swarmed the dragon and were clambering up its many coils and prodding at its folded wings.
Elagbi laughed. “What are mayflies to a leviathan? And the children are Nenavarene, so it will never harm them.”
Indeed, the dragon gave no indication that it was in the least bit bothered by the small humans’ antics. It slumbered on, and Talasyn was about to race down the hill for a closer look when her father gave a sigh.
“They all vanished during the civil war,” he said. “Retreated beneath the waves. In all those long months, not a single dragon was spotted basking on the shore or gliding through the heavens. Their disappearance was an ill omen. We thought they had left us forever, and it was no more than what we deserved for tearing the nation apart.”
In the past, Talasyn had refrained from asking too many questions about the Nenavarene civil war, mindful of Elagbi’s pain, careful not to stoke the flames of Urduja’s wrath. But there was freedom to be found here in Iantas, two hours away from the Roof of Heaven and the Zahiya-lachis’s watchful gaze, where brilliant sun on snow-white sand burned away all secrets, where fresh, salt-laced breezes softened the hurt.
Once the rebellion had surrendered after Elagbi killed their leader, his elder brother Sintan, Urduja had ordered all memory of her traitorous firstborn expunged. A sennight ago, however, while exploring Iantas’s library, Talasyn had stumbled upon a portrait miniature hidden in a drawer—Elagbi and Sintan as teenagers, in stiff poses and even stiffer formal attire. In contrast to the dark curls of the youthful Elagbi, Sintan’s hair had been a lighter shade of brown, and his eyes had been Urduja’s, jet-black and calculating.
Talasyn had felt a chilling sense of unease at the sight of this younger version of her uncle, a boy who had grown up to want her dead. And she had the sneaking suspicion that it was Elagbi who had stored the portrait miniature in the drawer, keeping it safe from Urduja’s purge.
“Amya.” Talasyn leaned forward, over the casongka board. “Why did Sintan do it?”
Elagbi’s features crumpled, and Talasyn regretted the question immediately. But it was too late to take it back. It hung heavy in the air.
“You must understand, my dear,” Elagbi said in a hoarse whisper, looking off into the distance, “my brother and I were very close when we were children. We had only each other. He was terribly intelligent, and possessed such a strong sense of righteousness—a bit aloof, but he always protected me and told me bedtime stories when we were children.
“He was, however, a completely different person in the end. There was a seed that took root in his mind as he grew older, as he learned about lands across the sea where men could rule. Sintan became convinced that he should be the rightful heir to the Dominion throne. He used that burning intellect of his to quietly amass supporters from the more power-hungry noble houses who felt they did not have Queen Urduja’s favor, and he plotted and schemed—”
“And manipulated my mother,” Talasyn said dully.
Tears leaked from the corners of Elagbi’s eyes. “My poor Hanan. What did she know of these kinds of games? Sintan told her about the plight of the Lightweavers on the Continent, and of course she agreed to help. I should—” He scrubbed at his wet cheeks with the back of a shaking hand. “I should never have brought her here. She wasn’t happy. She refused to be named the Lachis’ka because she had no interest in politics, and yet she became a pawn anyway.”
Talasyn’s own tears burned in her throat. Sintan had been crafty, making it appear as though Hanan Ivralis had acted on her own in sending the flotilla to the Continent. When no one from that flotilla returned, Sintan and his allies had used their deaths as a pretext to depose Urduja. Hanan had later succumbed to an illness, imprisoned in her room while the capital was under siege, and Talasyn had been spirited out of Nenavar three days later.
It was too late for Talasyn to seek vengeance for her mother. Elagbi had already done that when his sword plunged into Sintan’s heart on the limestone bluffs of the Roof of Heaven, in the final battle of the civil war. Elagbi had been doing his duty to the country and to the memory of his late wife, but keeping that portrait miniature against Urduja’s wishes meant that he’d loved his brother, too.
“What I can’t figure out,” Elagbi said once he’d regained some composure, “is how Sintan got to Indusa.” Talasyn gave him a curious look and he bent over the casongka board, scooping cowrie shells from the fields and redistributing them to the houses, setting up the game anew. “The memory you saw in the Light Sever last month … I’ve been thinking about it ever since you told me. I believe that your nursemaid was sympathetic to Sintan’s cause and she found a way to give the Lachis-dalo escorts the slip and bring you to the Continent. It’s the only possible explanation as to why she left you at the orphanage. Left the Nenavar Dominion without an heir.”
“She could have just killed me. It would have been quicker for her.” At Talasyn’s curt statement, Elagbi froze and looked so much like he was about to burst into tears again that she hastily added, “I’m very glad she didn’t, though.”
“As am I.” The last token fell from Elagbi’s palm, shell clattering against wood. “I have tried discussing this with Queen Urduja, but she shut me down. According to Her Majesty, there’s no use troubling ourselves over the past—not when the people who have the answers are either dead or gone. I suspect that she would rather forget the whole affair if she could. I cannot find it in my heart to blame her for that.”
I can, Talasyn thought mutinously. While Urduja may have been wounded by her firstborn’s betrayal, she certainly felt no similar sorrow over her daughter-in-law’s passing. There had been no love lost between her and Hanan, as Kaptan Rapat had said at the Lightweaver shrine.
To her chagrin, though, Talasyn could see the wisdom in the Zahiya-lachis’s resolve to look only to the future. They all had quite enough on their plates when it came to that .
“Ah,” Elagbi said after a while, “I see our dragon has garnered more curious spectators.”
“If you’re distracting me so you’ll win again …” Following his line of sight, Talasyn trailed off.
Alaric and Sevraim were on the beach, their gazes transfixed on the dragon even as they kept a wary distance. The children had long since scattered, probably spooked by the two Shadowforged’s presence.
In unspoken agreement, Elagbi and Talasyn abandoned their game and headed down to the beach. There was no telling how the dragon would react to these outsiders from a nation that had injured one of its brethren months ago.
Sevraim bounded up to them. “Your Highness! Care for a rematch?”
“There’s a board up on the hill,” said Elagbi. “But I wouldn’t want to tear you away from your sightseeing, Master Sevraim.”
Talasyn arched a brow at the legionnaire. “ You play casongka?”
“Learned how after supper last night.” Sevraim pointed at Elagbi. “And soundly trounced this man, might I add.”
“Because you were making up your own rules!” the prince cried, aggrieved.
Elagbi and Sevraim started bickering, Talasyn all but forgotten. She left them to it and let herself be pulled into Alaric’s orbit.
Echoes of her nightmare crept up on her as she looked at him while he gazed at the dragon. There was something about the way his face was turned to her in profile. He had his father’s sharp cheekbones and long nose. The same haughty gray eyes. The resemblance was enough to bring her up short, to shackle her again in the paralysis of earlier that morning.
Suddenly, in a great upheaval of orange scales, the old dragon rolled onto its back. Mountains of wet sand rose and fell, and leathery wings stretched out through fleeting tidal waves of Eversea shallows that drenched the four people on the shore before receding.
It happened so fast. Before she knew it, Talasyn’s clothes were clinging to her skin and she was blinking at Alaric’s blurry form through wet, salt-stung eyes. Somewhere behind her, Sevraim and Elagbi were groaning with laughter, but she saw only Alaric as her vision cleared. His black hair was plastered to his forehead, the shock on his features softening them.
She remembered the mud, how it had flattened his hair in this same way, how offended he’d looked as he emerged from the pond, spitting out dirt. Right before the swamp buffalo chased them through the jungle.
The heaviness in her chest eased, the nightmare dissipating along the crest of the snicker that bubbled out of her throat. He shot her an admonishing glare, which only made her snicker harder.
“You don’t look any less comical right now, you know,” he informed her snippily.
“Trust me,” she said, “it’s funnier when it’s you.”
Alaric rolled his eyes. Then they strayed to the dragon again, as though directed there by some compulsion. The beast continued to doze, blissfully oblivious to its audience, the vast road of its underbelly soaking up the sun.
Talasyn belatedly realized that Alaric had never seen a dragon up close before. His expression was uncharacteristically open—with wonder, and a trace of regret.
“I didn’t give the order to fire that day,” he said quietly. “Mathire panicked.”
It hung between them, the memory of that copper dragon crashing into the Eversea below the Kesathese fleet, screaming in pain as the black rot of the Voidfell bloomed over its left wing. Talasyn felt that same old anger build inside her.
“I don’t know if it makes a difference, that I didn’t give the order,” Alaric continued, “but it won’t happen again. I swear it.”
If Mathire hadn’t fired the void cannon at the dragon, Talasyn thought, it was highly possible that there would have been a skirmish between the Kesathese fleet and the Dominion warships stationed at Port Samout. All the dragons would have risen from the ocean to defend the Nenavarene, and nothing could have stopped them, not until they’d taken down all the Night Empire’s vessels or they’d all died, whichever came first.
It would have been a bloodbath.
Better that things had turned out like this, with the rest of the dragons unscathed, with Kesath oblivious, thinking they had the upper hand.
Talasyn had to learn to look at the bigger picture, as Vela and Urduja did. She took a deep breath and let her anger go.
Alaric seemed to be waiting for some kind of response from her. She couldn’t offer forgiveness, and she truly had no idea if it made a difference whether he’d ordered Mathire to fire or not—but she could change the subject.
“Would you like to pet it?” she asked, gesturing to the dragon.
His reply was immediate. “No, thank you.”
“Scared?” she goaded him.
“Smart,” he tersely corrected.
She smirked. “What if I dared you?”
He exhaled. The wrinkle between his brows suggested that she was about to give him a migraine, if she hadn’t already.
Undeterred, Talasyn grabbed her husband’s arm with both hands and tugged him toward the dragon. In truth, this had the potential to be the worst idea she’d ever had, but she wanted to rattle him, in some petty approximation of vengeance. And she was also curious as to what would happen. If the Ahimsan Enchanters could experiment on the Night Emperor, surely so could his wife.
Still …
“I’d better go first,” she declared.
The wrinkle in his brow deepening, Alaric’s lips twisted into a scowl. “Talasyn, if anything happens to you—”
Her hand came to rest on the beast’s flank.
There were no two ways about it: dragons stank . They smelled of what they ate—fish and squid, blubber and carrion, with pungent notes of decomposing seaweed and the musk of burning fields. Up close, it would have been enough to make Talasyn gag if not for the feel of the creature against her palm grounding her.
The hard orange scales were surprisingly smooth to the touch, except for the ridge in the middle of each one and the triangular seams where they overlapped one another. The heat given off by the scales was just shy of unbearable; that split-second before one snatched one’s fingers back from a boiling pot, spun out into forever. The dragon seemed to almost lean into Talasyn’s touch as it slept, its hide swelling and contracting against her with every somnolent breath. Aether flowed from its form and into hers, then looped back, a pulsating, endless tide of magic. Fire that gave off light, the sun’s light that stoked a brushfire.
With her free hand, Talasyn wordlessly urged Alaric’s wrist toward the dragon. His palm flattened beside hers on the scaled reptilian flank, their fingers brushing. And aether flowed from him and into him as well. The shadows cast by the sun, the volcanic fire raging in the dark beneath the earth.
Everything was connected. Their hearts and the leviathan’s beat together with the waves. The same light of eternal summer that bent off the edge of Alaric’s slight smile poured into Talasyn’s eyes.
The dragon snored , long and low, the barbels on its snout twitching.
Talasyn laughed. Alaric’s gaze warmed.
“Almost as loud as you,” he remarked.
“How dare you, I do not snore—”
“Tell that to my sleepless nights.”
He said it so dryly that she laughed again. There it was once more, that cautious hope, stirring beneath the sun, reveling in the one difference that she was certain of. He wasn’t his father.
Alaric reached out to brush some sand off her shoulder. Talasyn made a pretense of batting his hand away, but her fingers lingered over his. She glanced up the shore, where Elagbi was hanging back with Sevraim.
Elagbi was staring at her and Alaric. He looked— worried .