Page 44 of The Hurricane Wars

Talasyn couldn’t think, couldn’tbreathe. It wasn’t that she feared drowning—she doubted that the pool even went up to her neck. No, it was the adrenaline rush, that knife’s edge between staying upright and falling into the cold water, the imposing heat of Alaric’s body against hers. It was the predatory glint in his silver eyes, his husky drawl, the seven moons and the countless stars that she saw over his head when she lifted her chin to glare at him in defiance, despite her precarious position.

“I respect my elders,” she gritted out, “when theyact their age—”

Her sentence cut off into a blistering expletive when he abruptly clampedbothhands around her waist, hauling her off her feet and then swinging her around to deposit her further away from the pool. The instant she was on solid ground once more, she automatically widened the distance between them, her heart racing at how effortlessly he’d lifted her, as if she weighed nothing more than a feather.

“What are we doing?” Talasyn demanded. “This whole—thing. Surely you’re aware that this is a horrible idea.”

“It is,” Alaric conceded, “but it prevents a war.”

“You know what else would prevent a war? If you left Nenavar alone!”

His jaw hardened. “I cannot do that.”

“The Night Empire already controls all of Sardovia,” she argued. “You have the entire Continent at your disposal—”

“And who on the Continent will respect the might of Kesath once word spreads that we took one look at Nenavar’s forcesand turned around?” He was so calm that it was infuriating. “We did not crush the Sardovian Allfold by doing things in half-measure. You should know. You were there.”

I’m going to kill him.She wasn’t so enraged by his flippant remark that some part of her couldn’t marvel at this epiphany.One of these days, I am actually going to kill him.“So you’re saying that it’s all worth marrying me for.Me, Ossinast. Think about it.” Perhaps she could prevail upon their mutual loathing to sway him from this course of action—and if that meant that she sounded as if she was disparaging herself, so be it. “You can’t tell me that I’m anywherenearthe kind of person you’d take for a spouse.”

Alaric’s gaze dropped to the pool that he’d almost dunked her in. “I came here to marry the Nenavarene Lachis’ka,” he said with hollow resolution. “That she happens to beyouis... immaterial. I suggest that you resign yourself to that fact.”

It was honestly a kind of talent, how he knew exactly what to say and how to say it in order to get a rise out of her. “On second thought, your lack of objection to this marriage makes sense,” she jeered. “We’ll finally have the opportunity tostudy together, as you seemed so keen on.”

Talasyn didn’t know what to expect when she threw Alaric’s words from their last battle in his face. She’d puzzled over that absurd and uncharacteristic offer all these months. She braced for his anger, or his annoyance. Perhaps even his embarrassment.

Instead, he flinched. Then a blank expression slammed over his features, as inscrutable as any mask. Talasyn recognized the reaction; it was the same prideful rigidity that she had once adopted whenever the orphanage keepers struck her, because she refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing how much it had hurt, how much her ears were ringing, even as the bruises blossomed across her skin.

Back in Lasthaven, hadn’t Alaric asked her to come withhim as part of some greater ploy? Why was he acting, now, almost as if—as if he’dmeantit? And why did she feel as though she’d crushed something fragile with a clumsy misstep, something that never stood a chance to begin with?

An uneasy silence descended. Her eyes tracked the jut in the elegant column of his throat as it bobbed.

“I was curious about how our magic fused together. Nothing more,” Alaric finally said, every word laced with a careful, steely precision that Talasyn could never hope to match. “You getting yourself killed before I got to the bottom of it—that was my sole concern. However, if you insist on continuing to be this difficult, then it’s not worth it. Moving forward, let us focus only on this”—his mouth twisted—“political alliance.”

It was a knife between her ribs, this reminder that she was about to wed someone who truly despised her. It wasn’t that she craved Alaric’s approval—no, his was the last in the world that she wanted—but a cavernous space had been hollowed out in her heart over the years, and his words echoed there beside older ones: that she wasn’t worth it; that she was too difficult for anyone to bother with. An orphan who was too mouthy. A soldier with only one friend. A Lightweaver who could barely master the basics. A Lachis’ka who was too coarse-mannered. And now a bride who would never be loved.

Talasyn once again sought refuge in the welcome and familiar surge of her fury, which was never far away when Alaric was concerned. “All right,” she snapped. “Keep this in mind, then,moving forward.” This time she was the one who stepped into his personal space, glaring daggers up at him. She couldn’t tell him to his face but she promised him silently, without him knowing it, with venom rising up her throat, that the Hurricane Wars weren’t over. That someday the Night Empire would fall.

“I was Sardovia’s Lightweaver,” Talasyn growled. “I have held my own against you and your Legion. I amalsoAlunsinaIvralis of the Nenavar Dominion, Elagbi’s daughter and the Dragon Queen’s heir. I am She Who Will Come After, andI have power here. The next time that you manhandle me,you will regret it. Do you understand?”

Alaric’s fingers twitched and then curled back into his palms. He was regarding her as if she were some wild creature, but also a cypher that he was trying to decode. The seven moons shone down upon them, and, as the silence stretched, the trickling of the water and the heady scent of orchids reached her awareness once more.

Finally, he offered her a stiff nod. “I understand.” The words should have been a surrender, but he delivered them more like a tactical retreat. “Until the morning, then, Your Grace.”

Talasyn did not give him the opportunity to leave first. She turned on her heel and stomped off to her chambers, fuming, struggling against the urge to turn her head even as she felt Alaric’s gaze on her back.

So much for regaining inner peace.

Chapter Eighteen

The days that followed were a whirl of bargains and compromises and concessions, interspersed with impasses and threats, all thinly veiled by a veneer of steel-laden courtesy. Queen Urduja preferred to play the role of observer as her advisers haggled in her name, but Alaric could afford no such luxury. Every lesson imparted by his father and the tutors of his boyhood, lessons in diplomacy and governance and economics, was now put to the test.

Talasyn had a habit of livening up these meetings whenever she interjected with a pointed remark, her tone laced with suspicion and contempt, and the Nenavarene negotiators scrambled to cover up her gaffe. Every morning, she arrived in another stunning dress and headpiece, her face an exquisite painting, but Alaric’s mind kept wandering to that night in the garden, when she had been in her smock and breeches and he had been able to see the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. How her dark eyes had blazed like a lit match when she cut him down to size. Something had seized within his chest that night, at the sight of the Talasyn that he remembered, except this time not on a battlefield, but standing amidst orchid blooms beneath a starry, amethyst-tinted sky.

He tried not to look at her from across the council room, because every time he did a ghostly echo of sensation followed—the dip of her waist and the curve of her slender spine pressing against his bare hands, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin fabric that had bunched up beneath the pressure of his fingertips. Before that night, it had been years since he’d touched another person without his leather gauntlets. His father always insisted that armor was crucial to realizing one’s full potential as a warrior; only by shutting out unnecessary external stimuli could he most effectively wield shadow magic.

But just one brush of bare skin had awakened some long-forgotten hunger. Now it was as if Alaric’s hands burned with need, even though they were safely encased in black leather once more.

When it almost became too much, when he began to fear that this odd yearning might actually drive him to act, Alaric was fortunate to have another memory to distract himself with. Namely, Talasyn jeering at his ill-advised slip of tongue, back when the Hurricane Wars were drawing to an end all around them. Her jibe had felt like a blade slipped between his ribs, swift and precise.

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