Page 78 of The Hurricane Wars

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.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

There was a saying in Kesath, one of the many that Alaric had committed to memory back in his schoolboy days because he’d practiced writing it over and over again in the High Calligraphic script of the imperial court:If you pluck the unripe balsam-pear, you must eat the bitterness.It meant reaping the consequences of bad decisions. It meant being careful what one wished for.

It was a saying that flashed across the surface of his mind in a censorious loop as he and Talasyn hiked up the Belian mountain range, bearing heavy packs filled with supplies. The airship that had borne them from Eskaya to Belian had been left behind at Kaptan Rapat’s garrison, along with their respective guards—although in Alaric’s case it wasguard, singular, in the form of Sevraim, and that had been the problem. The ruins of the Lightweaver shrine were too overgrown and fragile for any vessel to dock there, and Alaric had refused to be outnumbered by Dominion soldiers in the remote wilderness with no escape route. The Zahiya-lachis hadn’t been all too keen on entrusting her granddaughter to two Kesathese Shadowforged, either. As a compromise, only Alaric and Talasyn would set up camp at the shrine and train there andhopefullycatch the Light Sever discharging, so that she could commune with it.

The end result was this—Alaric alone in the Nenavarene jungle with his wartime enemy and political bride-to-be, who was clearly still irate with him because of the quarrel on board his stormshipandthe one on the rooftop in Eskaya.

In truth, his own anger was dulled by the undeniable confirmation that her former comrades weren’t sheltering in Nenavar, but the weather was most assuredly not improving his disposition one bit. Early mornings in Kesath were chilly gray affairs, breath curling through the air in garlands of silver vapor. Here in the Dominion, it was already as hot as a Kesathese noon in summer and infinitely more humid—even more so than the last time Alaric had trekked here, in secret, focused only on stopping the Lightweaver before she could get to the nexus point.

It was funny how life turned out, but he was in no mood to laugh. It was so verywarm.

And it didn’t help matters that Talasyn was wearing a sleeveless tunic and linen breeches that clung to her like a second skin, causing his thoughts to go down dangerous roads. He heartily blamed Sevraim for this, with all that talk of heir-making.

“Are you absolutely certain that we’re heading in the right direction?” Alaric had to raise his voice because Talasyn was several feet ahead of him, stomping amidst vines and shrubbery with a pointedness that drove home her low opinion of this little sojourn of theirs.

“Forgotten the way already?” she called back without so much as glancing over her shoulder.

He rolled his eyes even though she couldn’t see it. “I took a different route then.”

“And howisthe unconscionable bastard who gave you the map?”

“CommodoreDarius is enjoying the sweet taste of victory and the privileges of his new rank, I imagine.”

Why did he say things like this, things he knew would serve only to antagonize her further? She slowed her pace long enough to glower at him and he thought that he might have an answer in the way her brown eyes flashed in the sunlight, in the way her freckled olive skin was framed against all this jungle green and gold.

With a huff, she turned back to the path and continued stamping ahead, and he trailed after her, trying to derive some satisfaction from having gotten the last word.

Talasyn spent the entire morning wishing for a tree to fall on the Night Emperor.

She was alsounbelievablyexhausted. The trek to the ruins of the Lightweaver shrine would have been grueling even for someone who’d had a good night’s sleep, and she’d only managed four hours on her and Surakwel’s journey back to the Roof of Heaven. She was lightheaded as she hiked, the world around her taking on a parchment-thin quality.

But a curious thing happened as she and Alaric ventured deeper into the jungle, climbed further up the slope. Perhaps it was the fresh air seeping into her lungs, the smell of earth and nectar and damp leaves, the way that the physical exertion was making her heart race, or the verdant wilderness—whatever the case, Talasyn felt lighter than she had in ages. She hadn’t been able to appreciate it properly last night, pressed for time and urgency nipping at her heels as she crossed the mangrove swamps of the Storm God’s Eye, but here and now, with entire days stretching ahead, she realized how much she needed to get away from the stifling atmosphere of the Nenavarene court, even if it was just for a little while. Even if it was with Alaric Ossinast. Though she had no faith in her ability to not stab him before it was over.

Talasyn’s stomach began growling. “We’ll stop for lunch after we clear this pond,” she announced to the empty space in front of her. There was a grunt of agreement from behind, and she snickered as she pictured Alaric huffing and puffing in the sweltering tropical climate in his black clothes.

The pond was deep and muddy from recent rains and a narrow plank bridge had been built across it. It was half submerged, but it would do. Talasyn crossed without incident, careful not to slip on the slimy wood.

Alaric wasn’t so fortunate. A great splash echoed throughout the jungle stillness and she whirled around to see him disappearing beneath the brown water. She made to hurry back onto the bridge, but stopped when his head popped up again. He was sputtering, his drenched black hair clinging to a face coated in grime.

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