Page 11 of A Monsoon Rising

“Goodness, what was Ossinast thinking, leaving you in the lurch like that,” Prince Elagbi grumbled. “The least that he could have done was escort you to me or to your grandmother first. I suppose that you must introduce social graces to his court in addition to better cuisine.” He shot her a sideways glance of deep concern. “I hope that I didn’t overstep, my dear—you looked so uncomfortable chatting with that man. Who was he, by the by? Shall I call him out?”

“I’ll tell you everything later, Amya,” Talasyn assured him faintly.

Her Grace Alunsina Ivralis of the Nenavar Dominion was crowned the Night Empress of Kesath while a light spring rain fell from the skies above the capital. Sheltered from the drizzle by the roof that hung over the grand balcony of the Citadel, from which streamed black-and-silver banners bearing thechimera crest of House Ossinast, Talasyn knelt before her husband. The blood-and-midnight train of her dress was splayed across the polished obsidian tiles as he held up her crown.

The crown was another cause for anger. It had been hammered out of platinum mined from the former Sardovian Hinterland, where the only deposits on the Continent were found, and it was studded with pearls from the Coast, as well as with Heartland rubies. The crown was downrightplainby Nenavarene standards, but it was a powerful symbol of the Night Empire’s total conquest of this corner of Lir. A slender thing, it was dwarfed in Alaric’s black-gloved hands as he raised it above Talasyn’s head with everyone watching—from Kesathese High Command and the Dominion representatives on the balcony with them to the scores of soldiers and legionnaires spread throughout the vast plaza in precise rows, raindrops spattering their dress uniforms and black armor.

Her knees were starting to twinge. She silently urged Alaric to get on with it.

“Do you swear to govern the people of the Night Empire in accordance with our laws and customs and the tenets of our gods?” he asked, his stony eyes never leaving her face.

“I swear it.” Her declaration rang through the air, calm and steady despite the fact that she was speaking in front of those who numbered among her most despised foes. The Sardovian Amirante was alive and well in Nenavar, gathering allies. There was a way forward, and knowing that gave her composure. She would cooperate for now because one day Kesath would fall.

“Do you swear fealty to my crown and obedience to my will for as long as we are bound in matrimony?”

Thiswas the part that she especially didn’t like. “I swear it.” A vaguely belligerent note crept into her tone as she came dangerously close to rolling her eyes.Obedience to his will—she’d show him!

The line of Alaric’s mouth curved upward in a faint smirk, as though he knewexactlywhat she was thinking, and for the briefest second something companionable passed between them, as though their quarrel had never taken place. His voice was noticeably gentler as he segued into the final lines of the oath. “Will you stay by my side?” he asked. Framed by obsidian buildings and rain and silver chimeras on black banners blowing in the wind, he added, “Will you stand with me against my enemies and help me build my empire?”

“I will,” Talasyn said over a racing heartbeat, through the chill of the knowledge that she was lying.

He placed the crown on her head, released it, and let his hands drift down her face, his silk-clad fingers brushing against her cheekbones. Fleeting, soft, most probably accidental touches, but her pulse skipped all the same.

She was looking up at him, and so was one of the first to see it—in the heavens, over his shoulder, the stormship emerging from behind thick gray rainclouds. It plunged into a swift descent over the Citadel, lightning cannons extended outward in firing position to fringe its convex underbelly like hundreds of metallic limbs. Painted over a wide section of the translucent metalglass panels comprising its elliptical hull, shining bright orange even in the weak daylight, was the Sardovian phoenix.

To her shock, Talasyn recognized theChiton, one of the three Allfold stormships that had survived Lasthaven and the only one that hadn’t made it to the Storm God’s Eye in Nenavar. Like everybody else, she’d assumed that theChitonhad either been destroyed by Kesathese search parties or escaped to the other side of the world. But here it was now, a dread colossus above her, moving at reckless speed toward the coronation venue, which had devolved into roaring chaos.

Alaric hauled Talasyn to her feet and shoved her away from the balcony railing, toward the Nenavarene contingent.The lightning then came in waves, spilling from theChiton’s cannons in bluish-white streaks that swept through air and buildings and bodies with searing fury. As Alaric cast an inky shield to protect himself from the onslaught, Talasyn’s eyes met her father’s in the shadow of the stormship, and she broke into a run, no thought left to her but to get him and Jie and Urduja to safety. She had almost reached her delegation, she was only a few more steps away from the Lachis-dalo, who were reaching out to drag her into their protective circle and usher the Nenavarene nobles indoors, when the space in front of her erupted in a blinding barrage of lightning streams.

The floor disintegrated, and she was falling, along with a rain of broken stone that had once been the balcony.

A golden dagger appeared in Talasyn’s hand, and she plunged it into a crumbling column within her reach. The radiant blade sent up flecks of obsidian like black sparks as it gouged a deep path down the column, stopping her fall five feet above the ground, while she clung to the hilt for dear life.

Amidst the debris, a grappling hook summoned from the Shadowgate sank into the column next to hers. The crackling midnight rope it was attached to quickly shortened until Alaric was dangling on its length slightly below her.

“Jump!”

Alaric so rarely raised his voice that Talasyn immediately obeyed without thinking. She dropped to the plaza floor and he followed, landing beside her as another tidal wave of lightning bolts shattered the columns they’d been clinging to scant seconds ago.

Lying on her stomach, Talasyn looked around wildly. Wasp coracles were spewing out of the stormship’s hangars, firing crossbow bolts at anything that moved. Most of the plaza’s surrounding anti-aircraft towers had been obliterated by the initial lightning wave, and Kesathese soldiers and Shadowforgedlegionnaires alike were scrambling to take up defensive positions behind pillars and doorways and crumbled sections of roof.

A rebellion.Talasyn pieced her scattered thoughts together. There was a rebellion on the Continent. The Sardovians had not simply rolled over and accepted Kesath’s rule.

But it was a suicide mission. Once the Citadel rallied its own airships, its own stormships, which would be at any moment now, the Sardovians would be crushed—and with them theChiton, the most valuable weapon that they could ever have at their disposal. What was the objective here?

And was Khaede with them?

She sat up as Alaric scrambled to his knees. They’d both lost their crowns. “My family” was all that she could choke out over the din of battle.

“I saw them get indoors right before the balcony collapsed. My men will watch over them.” He wove a knife from the Shadowgate and brought it down over her skirts.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked as he slashed at the silken material, ripping off the underlayers, hacking at the edges, cutting away the voluminous train. She would have kicked him if not for the fact that she didnotwant to disrupt the delicate, perilous dance of the whispering blade gliding so close to her bare legs.

“Making it easier for you to run.” Satisfied with his handiwork, Alaric stood up—just in time to face the ground force of Sardovians swarming out of a battered shallop that had landed in the middle of the plaza under cover of theChiton’s lightning.

They were a ragtag bunch who wore no discernible uniform save for orange-and-yellow armbands. Some carried crossbows and others were armed with swords, but a good majority wielded only farming implements. Talasyn couldn’t save them all, but she had to try. If she could just find a way, without blowing her cover, to let them know that they had toretreat—if she could just tell them to not waste the stormship, to wait for the Amirante—

A ceramic object with rounded sides and a conical base was hurled into the space between her and Alaric. It was instinct, simple and unthinking, as though the war had never left her bones, that enabled Talasyn to fling herself away in the nick of time. The shell exploded as soon as it hit the ground, with a bang that thundered in her ears as the world dissolved into clay shards and quicklime and sulfur.

---