Chapter Fifteen
C HAPTER F IFTEEN
He dreamed of her.
In truth, it could have been anyone because he couldn’t see a face, but all he could do was feel, and it felt like her, soft skin stretched over wiry muscles, molten sunlight in his arms. She was saying his name over and over again, her every touch as soothing as safe harbor in a storm, as gentle as forgiveness. She returned his kisses eagerly, as though they lived in a world where there had never been a war and he was wanted and adored—and that was how he realized he was dreaming.
Alaric opened his eyes to pale morning light filtering in through the gaps between the curtains. Reality settled over him in gradual splinters of sight and sensation that slowly coalesced into a complete picture. At some point during the night, or perhaps the early hours of dawn, he and Talasyn had met in the middle of the mattress. He had pulled her to him so that her back was against his chest and he was curled around her, one arm clamped around her waist while the other had slanted upward and his hand cupped her breast through her nightshirt. At some point, his dream had spilled over into the waking world and he was hard against her buttocks, thrusting haphazardly against her.
Alaric knew that he should stop. He should disentangle himself from Talasyn and flee to his side of the bed. But he was too groggy for common sense, too frustrated from his unfinished dream, too lost in the feeling.
And Talasyn was moving as well. Moving with him, shifting her hips for a better, more perfect angle. She let out a breathy little moan, murmured something nonsensical, and the sounds pierced his heart at the same time that they brought him back to sanity. This was wrong. She was clearly still asleep, tangled up in a dream of someone far kinder than he was. He made to release her, but the moment his grip around her waist loosened she clutched at his arm, her blunt nails digging into his bicep, holding him in place. She craned her neck to look at him, long enough for him to see that her eyes were open and her lips were parted, before she turned away to hide her face in the pillow as she rubbed herself all over him.
Caught in her spell, he dipped his head forward, his lips grazing the slope of her neck. She arched against his chest, one hand reaching back to tug at his hair. Her nipple peaked through the thin fabric beneath the pad of his thumb and blood roared in his ears. He had done that, she had let him, and the sun had fully risen now, panels of amber illuminating the curtains, shafts of bright gold streaming into the room and over the bed where he and Talasyn rocked together in this fumbling imitation of sex. But no matter how clumsy it was, no matter how that one lingering rational part of him screamed that he shouldn’t be doing this, it was still all so amazing and new and he was almost there —
Alaric lifted his hand from his wife’s waist and wrapped it loosely around the back of her neck. Her flushed skin warmed the cool metal of the wedding band on his finger. “Would that you were always this obedient,” he growled.
Talasyn elbowed him in the stomach. Hard. “Fuck you.”
Even though she’d quite literally knocked the breath out of his lungs, he couldn’t suppress a grin. He plucked at her breast in retaliation and she yelped, squirming against him in just the right way, just the best way. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the scent of mangoes and promise jasmines, his hips snapping against her, bringing him closer to the edge—
“Stop.” She moaned it into the pillow, ragged and overwhelmed. “Alaric, we have to stop.”
His hands fell away from her immediately. The rest of him was a little slower on the uptake, but eventually he sprang to the edge of the bed, the sudden loss of her bringing with it some semblance of wakefulness.
Talasyn shuddered and her back, still turned to him, twitched with heaving breaths. It almost sounded as though she was crying. Alaric could only stare at her dumbly until the fog of lust clouding his senses abated and cold realization set in.
His proud, strong wife, curled in on herself, looking so small and shattered over the sheets. The air rife with each panicked gasp that she took. Her confusion was almost tangible, cutting him as deeply as despair.
This was his fault. He was the one who’d been giving her his rage and the cold shoulder, only to not be able to keep his hands to himself in the end, even though he knew better. Even though the stolen sariman sang within the Citadel. Even as the Kesathese fleet prepared to invade Nenavar.
Talasyn had told him that she thought they could protect each other. She had said it so wide-eyed, in the moonlight. In reality, she should be protecting herself from him .
He destroyed everything he touched.
Self-loathing ate at him. He got out of bed and holed up in the bathroom, both to collect himself and to give Talasyn what privacy he could. As he splashed cold water on his face, he contemplated how best to discuss with her what had happened. If they even should.
What would he tell her, though?
This was another mistake. We have to stop making those —possibly.
You took away the loneliness, even for just a little while —no.
This was why I didn’t want to share the bed. It’s really your fault for insisting —bad idea. He didn’t have a death wish.
The correct thing to say was still eluding him by the time he returned to their chambers. He would let Talasyn take the lead, he decided, and go from there.
It turned out, however, to be a moot point. Her side of the bed was empty. He couldn’t hear her moving around in her dressing room, but its door was open, as though she’d left in a rush.
Alaric didn’t think much of it at first, not even when Sevraim was the only one who broke fast with him in the dining room. It was understandable that Talasyn would want some space after what happened. But when he didn’t see her all morning and neither she nor her lady-in-waiting showed up for lunch, his restraint cracked.
“Where is your mistress?” he demanded of the blue-and-gold-liveried attendant serving him and Sevraim.
Starting at being addressed so suddenly, the man almost dropped a platter of omelets stuffed with goat meat and scallions. “I … don’t know, Your Majesty. Her Grace set sail shortly after sunrise.”
“She left ?”
The attendant gulped at the frost that had leached into the Night Emperor’s tone. “Lady Jie might have an inkling where the Lachis’ka went. I shall fetch her at once.”
Meanwhile, Sevraim was stuffing his face with freshly caught oysters on the half-shell, studded with flecks of the first shipment of Kesathese peppercorns. To Alaric’s great annoyance, he was still stuffing his face with them when Jie strolled in fifteen minutes later.
“Emperor Alaric.” The lady-in-waiting dipped into a perfunctory curtsy. “The Lachis’ka has departed for the Light-weaver shrine on Belian. She will return in a sennight, in time for the next eclipse.”
“And no one thought to inform me?” Alaric gritted out.
Sevraim stopped chewing, staring at him with wide eyes while Jie’s lowered to the floor. Not in deference, but petulance.
“I am informing His Majesty now,” she muttered.
No one in Kesath would have dared . Alaric had to take several deep breaths so that he could respond calmly. “Lady Jie, this castle was ceded to me as the Lachis’ka’s dowry, was it not?” This earned him a sullen nod. “It is therefore my household, despite being on Nenavarene soil, and it is only appropriate that I be informed of the comings and goings, especially when they pertain to my consort. Surely this is not too difficult a request.”
To his utter disbelief, the impertinent teenager took a deep breath of her own, as though she was the one who found him exasperating and was struggling to control her temper.
“I understand, Emperor Alaric,” she sang out, with a smile as chipper as it was false. “I shall endeavor to keep you up to date from now on.”
Then she flounced out of the room, her pert nose in the air.
Alaric picked up his fork and stabbed an omelet with it. “I long for the Continent.”
“ I don’t,” said Sevraim. “That was wildly entertaining.”
Alaric would have normally admonished Sevraim—or shot him a cutting glare, at the very least—but today his heart wasn’t in it. He ate slowly, all the while aware that Sevraim was watching him.
“If it’s hard that she left without telling you,” the legionnaire said at last, hesitantly, “if it reminds you of—”
“It’s not that.” The words settled like a lie on Alaric’s tongue even though the circumstances were different, far more so than anyone else could have ever imagined. No one—not Gaheris, not even Sevraim—knew that Alaric had spoken to his mother the night she fled Kesath. No one knew that Sancia Ossinast had begged him to come with her and he’d refused.
He’d refused and she’d left anyway. And although it wasn’t the same, Talasyn’s abrupt departure after he’d done something wrong in her eyes made him feel like that boy again, running after someone who would never look back, who would never return.
At dusk a skua flew in through the window of Alaric’s study with a message from his stormship at the Nenavarene harbor: Lisu’s frigate had made port and he was on his way to Iantas.
Alaric received the commodore in his study, taking a twisted satisfaction in how badly the tropical heat had affected the other man during the shallop journey from Port Samout and the short walk from Iantas’s docks to the castle. There were beads of sweat in Lisu’s spiked hair and damp patches all over his travel attire, and not even his perpetually urbane expression could disguise his discomfort as he saluted.
“At ease, Commodore,” Alaric drawled. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’m here to escort a Nenavarene trade shipment to Kesath, Your Majesty. In case of pirates, you know. The Regent bid me drop by your lovely home away from home and send his regards.”
So you’re here to snoop on my father’s behalf, Alaric thought with disgust. “Remind me—do we have so little faith in Nenavar’s ability to defend her own cargo freighters?”
“It’s more that we wish to leave nothing up to chance when it comes to fresh aether hearts for the Night Empire,” said Lisu. “And mangoes, of course. Our people simply can’t get enough of those .”
Urduja had sent Alaric her numbers a few days ago. She’d been far more generous with the mangoes than the aether crystals, and he wasn’t sure how that made him feel. On the one hand, Kesath needed more crystals to protect itself. On the other, a lack of crystals would delay his father’s plans for Nenavar.
“I have also come by knowledge,” Lisu continued, “of your interest in a certain Sardovian helmsman, Emperor Alaric. A friend of your wife’s, no doubt.”
Alaric’s jaw clenched. Lisu had many informants and it had only been a matter of time. “It was one of the things I promised in exchange for her cooperation—to learn if this rebel was in our prisons. But my men couldn’t find anything in our records.”
“Because this Khaede escaped before she could be processed,” said Lisu. “She and a handful of other Allfold soldiers broke out of their internment camp in the hours following the battle of Lasthaven. They were able to commandeer some coracles, but she was separated from them during the chase, and that was the last her companions saw of her.
“The other escapees eventually made their way to the mountains and found what at the time was the fledgling resistance. Someone who was aware of the story participated in the attack on the Citadel and was captured.” Lisu flashed a thin smile. “You see, Your Majesty, when you set sail for Nenavar a fortnight ago, I thought I’d try my hand at interrogation. I already knew that you were looking for someone, and I earnestly wished to help. How fortunate that I managed to acquire this information.”
“Thank you for your assistance,” Alaric said through gritted teeth. “Is it too much to assume that you will rest content in having provided an invaluable service to the throne?”
“It is my honor, of course,” Lisu replied without missing a beat, “but I believe that I would be of even more invaluable service to His Majesty should I be given command of a void ironclad once we have more of those in production.”
In other words, once the Night Empire had seized control of the Void Sever. Once Talasyn had been stripped of her powers and the Shadow had fallen on the Nenavar Dominion.
Alaric fought to not let a sudden burst of nausea get the best of him. “Very well,” he told Lisu. “The next void ironclad to be manufactured is yours.”
The commodore had the nerve to look grateful rather than triumphant. “A wise decision, Your Majesty, I assure you.”
“We can hope.” Alaric glanced out the window, beyond which the moons had risen and the stars glimmered over the dark Eversea. “Shall I have the servants prepare a room for you?”
Lisu shook his head. “I’ll retire to port, Emperor Alaric. I don’t wish to trouble your household any further.”
Thank the gods for small mercies.
Alaric couldn’t dismiss Lisu fast enough. However, once he was alone again in his study, neither could he sit still or focus on work or reading.
Talasyn wouldn’t be back for six more days. He could use that time to get his head on straight and figure out next steps, but he also needed to not be here , where her absence haunted the hallways. Where he wouldn’t be consumed by the feeling of being left.
Alaric set down the stylus that had been hovering aimlessly over a pile of documents for the last several minutes as an idea occurred to him.
He knew where to go. Where to find the strength, peace, and resolve that he had been missing of late.
He needed a Shadow Sever.