Page 8 of The Hurricane Wars

“No, you’re right, Amirante,” Talasyn interrupted, shaking her head. “We don’t have time.”

After a decade of conflict, Sardovia had been whittled down to half of its former land area. Less than half, now that the Highlands were all but lost. There was no other option. This was their last hope.

“The girl can’t just sail into Dominion territory with no preparation.” Darius spoke up for the first time since Bieshimma joined them. “If she gets caught, if she can’t fight her way out—”

“Good point.” Vela mulled it over for a while, her gaze fixed on the map, on the miles that needed to be traversed before reaching the Light Sever. “In a fortnight, then. Talasyn, starting tomorrow, you will be training more intensively with me and with Blademaster Kasdar. We’ll send you off to Nenavar fully equipped to defend yourself.”

“That also gives me enough time to sketch out the overland route to the Light Sever in as much detail as possible,” said Bieshimma. “I’ll cross-reference with what few historical documents and intelligence reports we have as well. I’ll do my best.”

Rolling up the map, he tucked it under one arm and saluted Vela before leaving the office. Alone with Vela and Darius once more, Talasyn sensed that the Amirante seemed worried—an odd emotion in such a stoic, unflappable woman.

“A fortnight isn’t nearly enough time, but it’s all that we can afford to spare,” Vela muttered. “Alaric won’t forget that you bested him in combat, Talasyn. He was a haughty, tenacious boy who grew up to become a prideful, unforgiving young man. I don’t even dare imagine what he’ll do when you encounter each other again.”

“Perhaps I killed him,” Talasyn offered with a shred of optimism. “Y’know, when I stabbed him in the shoulder.”

Darius let out a mirthless chuckle. “That would solve so many of our problems, wouldn’t it?”

“It will take more than a light-woven dagger to the shoulder to kill Alaric,” Vela said. “He is the most powerful Shadowforged to exist in centuries. There’s a reason he became Master of the Legion back when he was barely eighteen. The next time you face him, Talasyn, you need to be ready.”

Her heart in her throat, Talasyn thought about the dark prince she’d met out on the drifting ice. The lethal dance that he’d drawn her into. She thought about the way his gray eyes had shone silver beneath the seven moons, regarding her as if she were his prey.

She shivered.

Chapter Four

Two sennights crawled by. After her failed attempt at persuading Khaede to let the Amirante know of her condition so that she could take leave until the baby came, it was ironic that Talasyn found herself the one pulled out of active duty so thatshecould focus on training. Khaede had a good chortle at that, and Talasyn couldn’t begrudge her. There were precious few reasons for Khaede to even so much as smile these days. Talasyn had to concede that, in a way, it was probably for the best that Khaede was being kept busy with airship battles.

Their regiment’s new base was in the Wildermarch, a deep, fertile canyon in the Sardovian Heartland. Winter here was not as harsh as it was on the mountains, and the grounds were still tinged in a rather glorious autumn. It was a world away from the dilapidated orphanage in Hornbill’s Head. That leaky-roofed, rammed-earth compound tucked into the slums of a drab brown city where no trees grew, with its mold-flecked straw pallets and overflowing latrines and apathetic caretakers who spent all the meager funds on women and dice and riesag, a potent cocktail of distilled barley and fermented musk-ox milk that was the cheapest and most effective way to stay warm on the Great Steppe. No matter where she went, it wasbetter than that, but Talasyn had scarce opportunity to appreciate the beauty of their new barracks.

Her every waking minute was spent aethermancing under Vela’s watchful instruction or sparring with Mara Kasdar.

The Lightweave could cut through physical weapons as though they were nothing, so Talasyn and the Blademaster fought with swords, daggers, spears, and flails. It was strenuous but, as the days passed, she noticed that she was getting quicker on her feet and more focused when it came to channeling her magic.

At least there was no longer any need to keep her abilities hidden from her regiment. There had been fears of espionage, or captured soldiers confessing that a Lightweaver walked among them. Since Kesath already knew, Talasyn could train in plain sight, frequently drawing crowds of amazed spectators.

Her aethermancy training had previously been limited to what few hours could be spared. There’d been no use sending her to the front in her capacity as a Lightweaver when there were hundreds of Shadowforged to reckon with. But now that Alaric Ossinast was aware of her existence, now that Gaheris would be even more determined to crush Sardovia because they harbored the last Lightweaver on the Continent—

Well. Talasyn had to start making sure that she was hard to kill.

She thought about Alaric a lot. It was never on purpose but, to her chagrin, he had the disturbing tendency to pop up in her mind when she least expected it. Alaric in all his height and armor, wielding his magic with a lethal confidence that was in such stark contrast to her own scattered, flailing attempts. Although the cuts on her arms had long since healed, she kept going over their duel. Kept pinpointing all the instances he could have easily hacked her head off but didn’t. Was she lucky to have survived? Or had he been holding back? But why would he?

Maybe he wasn’t as good a warrior as everyone said he was. Maybe his reputation lay mostly in his forbidding appearance. Those eyes—

Every time Talasyn thought about Alaric’s eyes, about the silver sheen to them set against a pale and half-shrouded face, about the way they had focused on her and only her, she was assailed by the oddest mixture of sensations. There was fear, yes, but there was also something magnetic. Something that insisted on hauling this memory of him into her orbit, so she could...

Couldwhat, exactly?

No matter. She would keep training and she would commune with the Light Sever, and the next time she saw Alaric she would be more than a match for him.Shewouldn’t hold back.

Meanwhile, the battle for the Highlands raged on. The bulk of reinforcements were sent from the Wildermarch a few days after they’d settled in, and so, in addition to fretting over her upcoming mission to Nenavar, Talasyn also spent her days fretting over Khaede and feeling powerless that she wasn’t there to help. Fortunately, Khaede returned safely the day before Talasyn was set to leave.Lessfortunately, she’d returned to wait for new orders, because most of the alpine cities had surrendered and the War Council had begun discussions on shifting all available resources to the Heartland and the Coast.

A strategic retreat,many called it. It seemed to Talasyn that the Hurricane Wars were one strategic retreat after another on Sardovia’s end, but she kept that to herself. Morale was low enough.

“Do you even knowhowto commune with a Light Sever?” Khaede challenged. “What is the process, specifically?”

They were sitting on the burnt umber grass and crisp fallen leaves outside the barracks, beneath a shedding but still exuberant coppery cypress. The sun was setting on theWildermarch, its crimson light rendering the canyon ablaze at the edges as a stiff wind rolled in from the north, carrying with it the glacial bite of faraway polar tundra. This particular spot overlooked a riverbed that would flush turquoise come the spring thaw, but for now it was just a wide ribbon of cracked earth, edged with gorse and sagebrush.

The riverbed would have been wholly unremarkable if not for the fact that it was the site of a Wind Sever, where the Squallfast sometimes bled through. A white-cloaked Sardovian Enchanter stood on the bank with a chest full of empty aether hearts at his feet, patiently waiting for the Wind Sever to discharge so that he could collect its magic.

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