Page 87 of The Hurricane Wars

But there was such a thing as strikingtoohard.

Her dagger slammed into his shield and he stepped away faster than she expected. She’d put all of her strength into the blow and so she stumbled, one of her two blades disappearing at the loss in concentration. Alaric had stretched out his bladearm just behind her in preparation for his next attack, and she ended up turning into the crook of his elbow.

Talasyn’s waist was suddenly encased in the steely curve of Alaric’s arm, her side pressed up against his hard chest, her dagger humming at his neck, his sword almost cradling her chin. The two of them were flushed and panting. His skin was hot and sweat-damp against hers.This is what it’s like to burn,she thought, listening to the growl of the Shadowgate, the high hum of the Lightweave, the skittering rhythm of Alaric’s ragged breath above her ear.

“You’ve been fighting your whole life,” he rasped in a low, unsteady voice that sounded not quite like his own and also, somehow, like the truest version of him. “Your instinct is to strike first, before anyone can hurt you. But sometimes it’s the blow that molds us.” The words were traced in vibrations of air that fanned against her temple as his sword inched up, narrowing the distance between its serrated shadowy edge and the line of her jaw. “Taking it. Letting it ring against our defenses, until we are assured in the knowledge that, when it’s over, we will still be standing.”

Her toes curled. She shifted her dagger closer to his throat, the motion echoed by her hip sliding against his groin. The shield in his left hand disappeared—why, after all that talk of defenses?—and then he was touching her, the leather of his gauntlet splayed out on her stomach, his thumb grazing the edge of her breastband.

What if he removed his gauntlets?

How would his bare fingers feel, spanning her like this?

Talasyn couldn’t think clearly. The thrill of combat had morphed into something infinitely more dangerous. She was soawareof Alaric, of how his frame engulfed hers, of how tense his sinews were next to her own.

He exhaled. She turned her head to peer up at him, and the sight stopped her heart.

The look on his face was winter storm and wolf song.

“Your move, Lachis’ka,” he murmured, his silver eyes flickering to her mouth.

“You first, Your Majesty,” she whispered, without knowingwhyshe was whispering or even why she’d whisperedthat, and in the end—

In the end, it didn’t matter. They moved at the same time, her dagger sliding against the flat of his sword, sending up a spray of static and aether sparks. He leaned down and she surged up and their lips met, in the glow of light and darkness, over the keening of their crossed blades.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Alaric had never kissed anyone before and hecertainlyhadn’t planned on kissing Talasyn. There was an entire host of reasons not to.

But all logic, any reservations that he might have had—they vanished into the aether the moment that he slanted his mouth over hers. The shadow-sword in his hand was extinguished at the same time as her golden dagger, and she turned fully into his arms and he tugged her close.

He might not have planned on it, but he had wanted it. So badly. He could admit it to himself now, now that her skin was heated and slick against his, now that she was returning his kiss with a clumsy, untutored desperation that mirrored his own.

The sun bore down upon them. It burned against his lids, long after he had closed his eyes. In obeisance to some age-old impulse, his tongue lapped at the seam of her lips and they parted for him in a gasp, allowing him to slide further into her mouth.

This, to him, was a continuation of their duel. It felt the same—angry and frenetic, blood roaring in his ears, passion blotting out all else. Talasyn tasted like iris petals and gingertea. She was molten light in his hands, all slender planes and soft angles, her fingers tangling in his hair.

I never knew,Alaric thought, kissing her harder, holding her tighter.I never knew that it could feel like this.

It was not a sweet kiss. Talasyn would have been foolish to deem Alaric Ossinast capable of sweetness, but she’d heard that first kisses were supposed to be sweet.Thiswas violent, almost brutal. His lips were as soft as they looked, but they were relentless. Furious. And she couldn’t help but give as good as she got, just as she’d done her whole life.

It was sloppy at first, their teeth clacking together, leading her to suspect that he probably also hadn’t done much of this before, if at all. But eventually they fell into a rhythm, they let instinct be their guide. After all, this was just another kind of war. His tongue tangled with hers and he nibbled at her bottom lip and a pair of hands so much larger than her own were wandering down her torso, fumbling and exploring.

Take off your gauntlets,she wanted to command, because she needed more of this skin-to-skin feeling, she neededeverything, but words were impossible when his eager mouth was swallowing every sound she made. And perhaps therewassomething to be said for the leather, the roughness of it on her spine, on the jut of her hips. Another layer of sensation adding to the wicked onslaught. There was a dark thrill building up inside her; there was a dampness between her legs. His hand slid down her backside and cupped her there and shemoanedagainst his lips; in response, he kissed her so deeply that she could no longer tell where she ended and where he began, and her heart was unfurling in her chest, opening itself up to the high dive, the free fall—

A sound like rolling thunder broke the stillness of the mountaintop.

She wrenched her mouth from his. At first, Talasyn believedthat it was her pulse she was hearing, pounding in her ears as Alaric held her captive in his arms. But then she saw the splinters of gold reflected in the bright steel of his irises, and they both turned their heads in the direction of the cacophony.

From their campsite—from the courtyard—a pillar of molten radiance the color of the sun shot up to the azure heavens, gilding the treetops and the weathered stone. Filling the air with its raw hum for miles upon miles around.

The Light Sever was discharging.

Talasyn pulled away from him in an instant, and Alaric reeled at the sudden loss of her, his body impulsively bowing forward to find her again. But she was gone, racing back to the campsite, her eyes only on the soaring column of light. Alaric followed her on shaking legs that felt barely attached to his body. He felt as if he were floating—andnotin a good way. He was disoriented from how quickly his blood had flowed south.

When they stepped into the courtyard, the whole place was ablaze, the pillar of golden magic at its center so bright that it hurt to look at, so tall that it disappeared into the clouds. However, its width at the base was precisely contained within the fountain, bright fumes spilling like water from the stone jaws of the dragonhead spouts.

The fountain’s structure was completely undamaged by the magic. It was nothing short of an architectural feat. The ancient Lightweavers of Nenavar had to have painstakingly mapped out every inch of where aetherspace tore into the material world, crafting the stone around it. They were the same people who had covered this shrine in intricate reliefs, lovingly telling the stories of their land in joyful detail.

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