Page 10 of A Monsoon Rising

“Perhaps not.” He scratched at his jaw, appearing a little self-conscious. “It’s something I’ve been working on. A robust national economy would necessitate diverting focus from the center instead of leaving other regions out in the cold. That, I believe, was one of the problems of the Sardovian Allfold: the majority of trade dealings benefited only the Heartland, while other states languished.”

Talasyn stayed quiet. Stricken. There hadn’t been much employment to be found in Hornbill’s Head, or elsewhere on the Great Steppe. Most people with skills and some education had made their way south, leaving those bleak grasslands behind forever.

“Things are going to change,” Alaric vowed, as though he’d correctly deciphered the look on her face. “I—wewill make it better. You’re my empress, and you’ll rule by my side.”

A chance to change things. To distribute what wealth there was and make sure that no child would have to grow up the way she did, that no one would have to suffer as she’d suffered. Alaric held it out to her so tentatively, this future. The ambient noises in the hall melted away and it was only the two of them on the verge of …something. Something that called to mind promise, and a far horizon.

But it all came crashing down quickly when she rememberedwhat it had cost. The future that Alaric envisioned—a Continent where Kesath was in full control—was only possible because of the war she and her comrades had lost. What so many of them had died for.

And now he was hiding something from her, something that potentially threatened Nenavar and the impending Sardovian attack that she was hiding fromhim.

They couldn’t trust each other. She would do well to never forget that. She had to put things back the way they used to be before the Belian amphitheater, before the wedding night.

“Is that before or after we murder every dissenter on the Continent?” Talasyn asked with false brightness. “Afterwould be more convenient, I think. That way, there’ll be no one to stop us from doing whatever we want. It’s for the greater good in any case, isn’t it?”

Alaric’s gray eyes turned as hard as flint. “The Nenavarene have certainly trained you in sarcasm. It doesn’t suit you, my lady.”

She met his gaze boldly.We are our nations’ blades.

“How unfortunate, seeing as I hold your opinion in the highest esteem,” she drawled, just to rile him up, and he … stormed off.

To an outside observer, it probably would have looked as though the Night Emperor had merely walked over to the entryway to greet the generals who had just arrived. Only Talasyn knew that she’d gotten under his skin and he’d seized the first convenient excuse to get as far away from her as possible.

She couldn’t exult in her petty triumph at his hasty retreat for too long—because now she was standing awkwardly by herself. Talasyn spun on her heel with the intent of finding either Elagbi or Jie, but she stopped short, her fingers tightening around the stem of her wineglass as she came face toface with the bushy-bearded Kesathese officer who had crept up behind her. The absolutelastperson she’d wanted to encounter in the Citadel.

“Lachis’ka,” greeted Commodore Darius, the former Sardovian coxswain who had betrayed the Allfold in the final months of the Hurricane Wars. “Or should I say—Empress.”

The last that Talasyn had heard of Darius, she and Alaric had been hiking up to the ruins of the Lightweaver shrine and he’d made some snippy reference to the man’s new rank. It was Darius’s reward for passing information to the Kesathese on the Sardovian Allfold’s defenses in the Heartland, as well as for telling them about Talasyn and providing the map to the Light Sever in Nenavar.

She could find no trace of the kindly coxswain who had led her fourteen-year-old self away from the rubble of Hornbill’s Head, the same person whom Ideth Vela had once trusted with her life. Neither was there even the slightest glimpse of the frightened, despairing veteran outside the Amirante’s office bringing news of the Highlands’ surrender and whispering that they were all going to die. Darius was wearing a spotless, smartly tailored dress uniform, his eyes cool and his manner professional, and it was as though he and Talasyn had never met before.

But that didn’t stop her from daydreaming about plunging a light-woven dagger into his chest. Or maybe chopping his head off with an axe …

She found her voice at last. “I guessEmpressis a step up from when you were addressing me ashelmsman,” Talasyn said, rather ungraciously, but she figured that she was entitled.

“Several steps up,” Darius agreed. “Although I never pegged you for the type to lord a new rank over others.”

“Indeed, there’s no telling what people can be capable of, Commodore.”

Darius beckoned a serving-girl over and plucked a goblet of plum brandy from her tray before sending her on her way. He peered into the depths of the goblet, swirling its contents around. “There’s no telling how the need to survive can change people, either,” he said solemnly. “Hate me all you like, but some of us don’t have a royal heritage in a far-off land to fall back on.”

“The Amirante would have died for you,” Talasyn hissed.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.” He let out a quiet, disparaging chuckle. “Ideth would have died for Sardovia, yes. She would have died to defeat the Night Empire. But not for me or for you. We were chess pieces in her war, purely expendable. Why else would she send a young girl across the sea to look for a Light Sever, all alone and in unfriendly territory? But”—and here he looked up at her and gave a shrug—“it all worked out in the end for the two of us, didn’t it?”

Talasyn wondered if she could get away with throwing her barely drunk wine in his face. One quick glance around the hall was enough to make her decide against it, though. A few Kesathese officers were avidly watching her and Darius; it was clear that they were anticipating a scene between their emperor’s new consort and the man who’d sold out her side of the war.

Like steppe vultures circling a sick muskox,she thought with disgust.

But the Nenavarene had prepared her for this. She had never been so grateful for her time in the Dominion court as she was now. Drawing herself up a little straighter, she offered Darius the frosty, enigmatic smile that Queen Urduja was so, so good at. “Iamrather content with my lot.”

Darius’s beard twitched, his upper lip curling. “And I suspect that Ideth Vela hasn’t died for Sardovia yet, for that matter.”

Talasyn kept utterly still and blank-faced. It was a sheer feat of self-control, hastily walled over the panic that unfurled from the depths of her soul and numbed every part of her being.Thiswas the greatest danger, what she and everyone else in on it had failed to account for in all their desperate grasping for a lifeline, for a way forward. Darius knew the Amirante well. He had been her right hand for a decade. He was well acquainted with her resourcefulness and determination, with every trick up her sleeve.

He knew that Vela would never have gone down easy.

Talasyn was overwhelmed by the urge to vomit up the few drops of wine that she’d been able to bring herself to sip thus far. She was spared from actually having to do so by her father swooping in, smoothly taking her by the arm, and leading her away from Darius.