“He wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on you if I hadn’t distracted you.” Why was she arguing with him? Perhaps because some fury from him would make her feel better, would usher the two of them back to a place that she understood. Perhaps because nothing was worse than having gained his trust—at the expense of the Sardovian lives she’d taken.
Alaric shrugged. “You said it yourself—you knew them, you weren’t being rational. But it doesn’t change what today’s events showed us.” Earnestness was written all over his face. “We are stronger together, Talasyn.”
You shouldn’t trust me,she wanted to scream.
But if he didn’t, so many would have died for nothing.
And if he had been less quick on his feet, less adept withhis magic, even for just a second—if a lightning strike or a crossbow bolt had hit true, ifshehad been too slow in striking that sword-wielding rebel down—Alaric would have been one of the Shadowforged dead today. The near-miss made her confront a question she’d been avoiding.
If in the end he had to die so that the Allfold could triumph, could she let it happen? Could she be the one to land the killing blow if it came to that?
The answer should have been obvious. Ithadbeen obvious months ago, before everything that had happened since. But now, gazing down at her husband, the grime of battle clinging to his pale features, which were soft with the solemnity of his promise, Talasyn realized that she was no longer so sure. And she was running out of time to figure it out.
“Khaede.” She clung to the name as though it were a lifeline. It burned on her tongue like damnation. “Have you found her? Or was she—”On the stormship, or in one of the wasp coracles, or there on the ground—
“I’ll keep looking,” Alaric said.
It wasn’t until he was at the door, about to leave the room, that Talasyn managed to break out of her stupor somewhat. She hurried over to him, ignoring Jie’s and her family’s dumbfounded expressions. There was one question burning in her mind. She needed to know the answer.
“Alaric.” Talasyn caught his arm. He looked back at her blankly. “The rebel with the crossbow—why didn’t you kill him?”
His gray eyes lingered on her hand on his sleeve, then drifted to her face. “Because you told me not to.”
CHAPTERSIX
By nightfall, Talasyn’s shock had mostly worn off and the next steps that were within her capabilities had taken shape in her mind. She would learn where exactly Hiras and the other rebels were being held and what the security measures were. She would meet with Vela upon her return to Nenavar, armed with all the data needed to coordinate a rescue mission. Then she would camp out at the Belian shrine for as long as possible, missing no chance to commune with the Light Sever whenever it activated.
Her aethermancy was the only thing that had a hope of countering such a display of Shadowgate as had come from Gaheris. Talasyn had no idea how she would even begin learning an equivalent skill, but she would make do, she would blunder through, as she always had.
But first, she had to endure the gala.
Her coronation dress was a lost cause, so Jie had strapped her into another Nenavarene contraption of stiff ice-blue abaca fiber and embroidered silver trim, studded with pearls to match her dented crown. It dipped appallingly low in the back, but she found consolation in remembering that she would be seatedfor most of the event—even though she would be sitting beside Alaric, in the middle of one of the long banquet tables full of his officers.
The overall mood was festive. Or as festive as Kesath could get, anyway. The generals congratulated one another on successfully holding the plaza. They sang the Night Emperor’s praises and the Regent’s, proclaiming the might of shadow magic over and over. They toasted theChiton’s destruction. As Talasyn maintained the most neutral expression that she could muster, her insides turned over with bile, the food like cardboard in her mouth.
The Kesathese did not mourn their dead, she noticed. They seemed to accept that everyone who fell on the battlefield earlier had simply been doing their duty. Well, she couldn’t say that it wasn’t the same for the Allfold. They’d willingly sacrificed a stormship and everyone on board. And even before that, in the thick of the war …
Talasyn remembered Sol, the life gone from his blue-black eyes, theSummerwind’s deck spattered with his blood. There had been no time to mourn him as they fled, his death being just one of many, barely a footnote in the grand scheme of things.
And thinking about Sol naturally led her to think about Khaede, whom Alaric hadn’t been able to find, who was either dead or not. If not, then Khaede must have delivered her child, Sol’s child, by now, if she hadn’t miscarried. Khaede could be alive and well somewhere, with her baby, or she could be one of those crushed beneath today’s rubble. Or her ship could have been shot down during the Sardovians’ retreat from the Continent and her bones were being picked clean by the creatures of the deep. Talasyn didn’t know, and it was starting to look more and more likely that she would never know.
Khaede wasn’t a footnote; she was a story without an ending.
Talasyn tried to watch the evening’s entertainment, if only to distract herself from spiraling. At the northern end of the hall was an orchestra of bronze gongs and reed pipes and boat-shaped rosewood xylophones, and moving to the deep and rousing beat these instruments struck were dancers in chainlink attire, cavorting and cartwheeling along the aisles between the tables. They twirled burning staves through the air and breathed plumes of fire, a clever mimicry of aethermancy achieved by fuel mists and precision. Talasyn was struck by how ghastly it was, all this merrymaking in the same city where the Shadowgate had ripped an entire shipload of people to shreds that very afternoon.
Her gaze met Darius’s at another table. He inclined his head in a quick bow that contained a hint of apology. Her lips struggled not to twist into a scowl as she realized that he assumed they really were allies now. Now that the Sardovians had tried to kill her and the Kesathese had witnessed her killthem.
It was apparently a notion shared by the officers at Talasyn’s table. Commodore Mathire, who had only ever been stern or threatening during the marriage negotiations, was all deferential smiles as she encouraged Talasyn to try the fermented plums. When Talasyn ate only a spoonful—and only to be polite—the commodore clucked her tongue in sympathy. “I suppose these Sardovian rats can put a damper onanyone’sappetite. Have no fear, Empress. They’ll never bother you again.”
One of the generals chortled. “Even if they do, Her Majesty will easily put them in their place.”
“To be sure.” Mathire’s smile turned almost lupine in the glow of the flickering fires. “Shadow and light have long been at odds, and for good reason, but today has shown us that much can be achieved by working in concert.”
“Enough.” Alaric broke the gloomy silence he’d sunk into atTalasyn’s side. “My consort has had a long day. Let her dine in peace.” He was looking at Mathire with something like anger, an anger that puzzled Talasyn, that was quite disproportionate to the apparent cause—the commodore’s disruption of her meal.
“Of course, Emperor Alaric.” Mathire’s smile faded a little, but never truly left.
Before Talasyn could even wonder at this strange interaction, there was a swirl of black amidst the dancers and their red-gold streams of flame. One of the Shadowforged Legion had entered the hall, made his way to Alaric, and was murmuring in his ear. Talasyn was close enough to hear the man say, “Your Majesty, the Regent wishes to see you.”