Page 1 of A Monsoon Rising

CHAPTERONE

A breeze that spoke of snowmelt in the Highlands tumbled across the barren plains and came whistling in through the lone window of the Regent’s private hall. It crashed against the swirling plumes of shadow magic that drifted from stone to stone and was swallowed up by them, vanishing along with the daylight—everywhere save for one bright corner, where the sariman lay in a pool of sunbeams, pinned to the table by leather-gloved hands.

The bird struggled fitfully in the grip of its three captors, issuing a plaintive warble from its twisted golden beak. Its eyes went as round as copper pieces when a fourth Enchanter approached with a glass-barreled syringe, the cold glint of the hollow steel needle emerging from the darkness as its wielder walked into the nullification field.

Gaheris’s Enchanters looked even more distressed than the sariman. It was no easy thing to feel one’s magic drain away, to suddenly have a gap in the soul where the aether used to be. Even from where he stood at a safe distance, before his father’s throne, Alaric’s veins crawled with a memory so visceral thathis gauntleted fingers twitched against the urge to open the Shadowgate, just to check if he still could.

“Cursed beast spends its every waking moment singing.” The growl from the dagger-shaped throne threaded through the sariman’s melodious wails. “Even if your time in Nenavar provided no clues as to how its traits can be utilized, did you at least learn how to make it shut up?”

Alaric thought of the amplifying configuration, the circle of wires and metalglass jars laid out on the Roof of Heaven’s marble tiles. The molten cores of ruby blood suspended in sapphire rain magic.

He shook his head.

“Why did I even bother to ask?” The bitter disappointment on Gaheris’s face, riddled with lines and scars and fissures, was much too clear. “You sailed southeast and discovered nothing. What is thepointof you, Emperor?”

The sariman’s song took on a higher pitch as the needle plunged into its jugular. It was a sound like a fistful of iron nails raked along porcelain, magnified seven times over, clawing at the pit of Alaric’s stomach. But he couldn’t let on that it affected him. Not in front of Gaheris.

The Regent looked like he’d aged a decade in the ten days since Kesath’s imperial delegation returned from Nenavar and the bird was brought to him by Commodore Mathire. He was thinner and more haggard, deep circles carved into the weathered skin under the gray eyes that were so much like Alaric’s own.

“Father, if the bird’s singing keeps you up,” Alaric ventured, aware that Gaheris took the sariman everywhere he went, “perhaps it can stay in this hall when you retire for the night.”

“So that every loose-lipped scullery maid and dim-witted stable boy in the Citadel can blather on about this pricelessadvantage that we now possess?” Gaheris struck the armrest of his throne, and the tendrils of shadow surrounding him flared ever higher, fueled by his wrath. His paranoia. “You spout nonsense about my health when we should be discussingyour wife.”

Spooked by the Regent’s outburst, the Enchanters hurried through the rest of their task, transferring the syringeful of sariman blood into a corked vial, applying herbal disinfectant to the extraction site, and ushering the beast back into its ornamental brass cage. They bowed to Gaheris, and then to Alaric, before fleeing the hall, the Shadowgate nipping at their heels.

“Attend to me, my son,” Gaheris rumbled once he and Alaric were alone. “After the Moonless Dark, the Lightweaver’s magic will have served its purpose. There will likewise be no further need for this pretense at peace with Nenavar. We must strike quickly to bring those islands into the Night Empire’s fold. Therefore, once you and your wife have stopped the Void Sever, you will bring her here—under the guise of the provision in your marriage treaty stating that she must hold court at the Citadel from time to time.”

“What if you haven’t found a way to remove her magic by then?”

“There’s still the sariman to keep her in check.”

“You wish to hold her hostage,” Alaric said dully.

“The Nenavarene will be more obliging with their Lachis’ka at our mercy, don’t you think?” Gaheris smiled, a humorless stretch of parchment-thin lips. “If not, well, then we’ll remind them how their dragons fared against our void cannons.”

The ghastly images roiled through Alaric’s mind. Talasyn stripped of the Lightweave, dragons dropping from the sky, their rot-covered corpses sinking beneath the Eversea.The Shadow falling over the Dominion, Kesathese stormships turning a proud, millennia-old civilization into rubble, as they had all the Sardovian states.

“We wounded one dragon, and there are hundreds more.” Alaric forced the words out through the taste of bile. “I’m not sure our Voidfell supply can—”

“You leave that to me and my Enchanters,” Gaheris snapped. “Should we use it all up in the assault, there is more for the taking, alongside fresh aether crystals and Nenavar’s other riches. Your only job,Emperor, is to bring your wife here.” Then he paused, his mouth curling into a sneer. “Do not worry. She is of more use to us alive than dead, especially once I can better stomach her presence when she’s not a Lightweaver anymore. I won’t kill her.” His next statement dripped with scorn. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“You were the one who insisted upon the marriage,” Alaric replied, careful to show no emotion. No sign of faltering. “She means nothing to me.”

“I should hope so,” Gaheris said wryly. “She grew up on the Continent. She fought for Sardovia. There are deep ties there, and youcannottrust her.”

Alaric had always known that. But to hear his father say it … It tore at something in his chest. He kept silent, enduring the ache.

“When she arrives for her coronation in a few days,” Gaheris continued, “keep her under lock and key. We can’t have her running around and finding out about the recent unrest. Inform the generals not to breathe a word, or their tongues will be nailed to the city gates.”

The “recent unrest,” as Gaheris called it, was a string of uprisings that had taken place in several towns across former Allfold territory. The Regent had been busy putting out those fires while Alaric was in Nenavar, his son’s absence no doubtcontributing to the Regent’s annoyance. They’d been local revolts, though—too small in scale, too scattered, to amount to much.

“The Lightweaver won’t risk breaking the peace on account of a few resistance fighters,” Alaric protested. “She understands what’s at stake.”

The Void Sever was to be unleashed in a little under four months’ time, spreading death, amethyst and roaring, all over this corner of Lir. A merging of light and shadow was the only way to stop it. Talasyn had promised to cooperate. She wouldn’t …

“You told me once,” said Gaheris, “that it was inadvisable to wager the future on a woman’s heart. Neither will I hinge the safety of our people on such a capricious thing.”

Alaric drew a breath and Gaheris slumped, infinitesimally, as though the weight of his own declaration was settling over him. As though a string stretched between them in that moment, pulled taut by years past. Father and son entangled.

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