Page 24 of A Monsoon Rising

“Amirante,” she began tentatively, “about Alaric …”

The way Vela’s right eye flashed would have made any soldier shake in their boots. But Talasyn was no longer a soldier—Vela had said so herself—and she plunged ahead. “He was about to kill Hiras, but I begged him not to, and he didn’t. And his father tortured him for it. With shadow magic.” She hadn’t told anyone else this. It felt wrong to reveal Alaric’s secret now. But Vela might have some insight. “His body was covered in wounds. Gaheris is cruel even to him, and …”

She trailed off, because the Amirante looked—unsurprised.

“I know what his father does to him,” said Vela, and Talasyn reeled. “Apart from the Severs, pain is how Kesath’s Shadowforged tap into their aethermancy and grow stronger. You asked me once why I didn’t join the Shadowforged Legion, and I told you that I didn’t want to be the person that it would have required me to become. So I kept my abilities a secret.” She heaved a sigh at Talasyn’s stunned nod. “Thewholetruth is this: I’d been a helmsman for about a year when the Shadowgate first poured forth from my fingertips. I went to the Citadel to inform the Legion, as Kesathese law required.

“Gaheris and Alaric were sparring in one of the courtyards, and I stopped to watch. This was several years before the Hurricane Wars, and Alaric couldn’t have been older than ten. A child facing the Night Emperor at the height of his power. I watched as Gaheris’s magic overwhelmed his son. I watched as he yelled at Alaric to get up and fight like a man. And the crown prince did. Blood was running down his shirt, and it looked like his arm was broken, but he wasn’t even crying. Just bracing for more.” Vela was speaking in a near-whisper now, as though still aghast at the memory even after all these years.

Talasyn could see it, a little boy who had not yet grown into his sharp features, relentlessly assaulted by his father again and again in the midst of that drab gray city of unforgiving stone. She thought about the person that boy had become—her husband, with his sullen silences and occasional wry remarks, with his moments of gentleness that Gaheris had failed to stamp out. She thought about his cold anger, how he never raised his voice even when he was frustrated—such a strange thing to her once, but now she understood why.

Be kind to me,Alaric had said. He’d been at her mercy, broken and bruised and the valerian ensuring that he had no defenses left, and that was what he’d asked of her.

Be kind to me.

“Right then and there, I decided that I wanted to be no part of that,” Vela solemnly concluded. “I left the Citadel and went back to my post, and I aethermanced only in secret, never revealing to anyone that I, too, was Shadowforged—until the day I defected and used my magic against the soldiers chasing us.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the whole story before?” Talasyn couldn’t quite keep the accusation out of her tone. She was reminded too much of Elagbi and Urduja withholding information about the Voidfell from her, a fresh cut over an old scar.

“What good would it have done?” Vela countered. “That boy grew up to become the Master of the Shadowforged Legion, defeating all the others in trials that lasted for days. He finished his father’s war—or so he thinks—with little remorse. Regardless of how horribly he is mistreated, he is what Gaheris has made him. What would be the use of having sympathy for—” Whatever she saw on Talasyn’s face made her abruptly break off. “Doyou have sympathy for him?” she demanded.

“N-no,” Talasyn stammered. An inner voice screamed at her for the lie that it was, hollowing her out from within. “But since he didn’t kill Hiras, and given how Gaheris treats him, I was thinking that maybe—maybe he could be brought over toourside.”

She had never really given any thought to how ludicrous such a statement would sound. It hung between her and Vela awkwardly, her secret hope laid bare. So secret that she hadn’t even been able to admit it to herself until now.

Vela stared at her with nothing short of horror. “Do you honestly believe that a moment of humanity can overcome a lifetime of conditioning? That the Night Emperor will chooseusover Kesath?”

Talasyn couldn’t bear to disappoint the Amirante. The woman who had taken her in, who had held Sardovia together for so long. Who was keeping the possibility of its continued survival alive still. The night in Alaric’s bedroom felt so far away, drowned out by harsh reality, by the burbling of the mangrove swamp and the aether flares.

But she had to at least try to make her case.

“He—he cares what I think,” she said. “He’s searching for Khaede at my request. He was telling me about his plans to … to improve the economy …” Oh, that was weak. Vela blinked, and Talasyn had never felt more stupid. “If I can just, I don’t know, convince him—”

“Listen to me.” Vela gripped Talasyn’s hand, tightly enough to hurt. “No matter what Alaric Ossinast says, no matter what understanding the two of you have reached, or might reach in the days to come, he will never go against his father’s wishes. His loyalty is to Kesath, as yours should be to Sardovia. Once he discovers that you—thatwe—have been playing him for a fool, he will not hesitate to kill you, as he tried to do the first time you met, and the next couple of times after. He can never find out, not until the final hour when it’s too late for him to do anything about it, or the consequences will be disastrous for all of us. Talasyn,pleasebe careful.”

CHAPTERTEN

One month later

“What are the chances,” Sevraim drawled, “that this is some kind of ambush in the making?”

He was lounging against the railings on the deck of a black Kesathese shallop gliding over the islands of Nenavar on fumes of emerald-green wind magic. He had threatened to throw a fit if Alaric made him wear his helm in this humid weather, and so his bare face was tipped up to the tropical sun, his eyes half shut in languid contentment.

From where he stood at the airship’s prow, Alaric shot Sevraim a glare that spoke warning in volumes, but the latter was undaunted. “Do think about it,” he went on. “We were supposed to meet the Lachis’ka in Iantas, but Dominion coracles intercepted us, and now we’re following them somewhere else, all while our stormship is at their mercy, docked attheirport. It’s suspicious.”

The legionnaire’s words were belied by his teasing grin. Alaric couldn’t resist pointing out, “It’s going to beyourproblem if your suspicions turn out to be correct, you know.”

“A bodyguard’s work is never done,” Sevraim agreed. “His Majesty ought to grant me a title.”

“On top of all the other names I already call you?”

Sevraim threw back his head and let out a guffaw that was even more spirited than usual. Alaric could blame neither him nor the shallop’s crew, who looked over in amusement, as they would never have done within the borders of the Night Empire. There was a certain lightness in being here in Nenavar—the crisp blue skies and balmy winds, the glowing sands and gilded cities and rainforests as thick as storm clouds—after the cold and damp of a Kesathese spring.

It would have been picturesque, if not for the …audience.

The previous times Alaric had sailed over this archipelago had either been at ungodly hours or when civilian airships were grounded for security reasons. It was afternoon now, however, and the Dominion had apparently come to the conclusion that Alaric wouldn’t do anything as gauche as shoot down random Nenavarene vessels when he was married to their Lachis’ka.

Granted, the Iantas squadron of moth coracles, with their opalescent hulls and winglike sails and bronze cannons, was sufficient to deter other airships from gliding too close. But it didn’t stop the people on the assortment of dugouts, pleasure yachts, and cargo freighters from gawking at Alaric even as they kept a wide berth. He could see a great number of them whispering among themselves as their ships, with sails in a rainbow of colors and emblems fluttering in the breeze, darted along hopelessly disorganized lanes, cutting one another off, racing forward with neither rhyme nor reason.

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