Page 32 of A Monsoon Rising

Talasyn’s own tears burned in her throat. Sintan had been crafty, making it appear as though Hanan Ivralis had acted on her own in sending the flotilla to the Continent. When no one from that flotilla returned, Sintan and his allies had used their deaths as a pretext to depose Urduja. Hanan had later succumbed to an illness, imprisoned in her room while the capital was under siege, and Talasyn had been spirited out of Nenavar three days later.

It was too late for Talasyn to seek vengeance for her mother. Elagbi had already done that when his sword plunged into Sintan’s heart on the limestone bluffs of the Roof of Heaven, in the final battle of the civil war. Elagbi had been doing his duty to the country and to the memory of his late wife, but keeping that portrait miniature against Urduja’s wishes meant that he’d loved his brother, too.

“What I can’t figure out,” Elagbi said once he’d regained some composure, “is how Sintan got to Indusa.” Talasyn gavehim a curious look and he bent over the casongkâ board, scooping cowrie shells from the fields and redistributing them to the houses, setting up the game anew. “The memory you saw in the Light Sever last month … I’ve been thinking about it ever since you told me. I believe that your nursemaid was sympathetic to Sintan’s cause and she found a way to give the Lachis-dalo escorts the slip and bring you to the Continent. It’s the only possible explanation as to why she left you at the orphanage. Left the Nenavar Dominion without an heir.”

“She could have just killed me. It would have been quicker for her.” At Talasyn’s curt statement, Elagbi froze and looked so much like he was about to burst into tears again that she hastily added, “I’m very glad she didn’t, though.”

“As am I.” The last token fell from Elagbi’s palm, shell clattering against wood. “I have tried discussing this with Queen Urduja, but she shut me down. According to Her Majesty, there’s no use troubling ourselves over the past—not when the people who have the answers are either dead or gone. I suspect that she would rather forget the whole affair if she could. I cannot find it in my heart to blame her for that.”

I can,Talasyn thought mutinously. While Urduja may have been wounded by her firstborn’s betrayal, she certainly felt no similar sorrow over her daughter-in-law’s passing. There had been no love lost between her and Hanan, as Kaptan Rapat had said at the Lightweaver shrine.

To her chagrin, though, Talasyn could see the wisdom in the Zahiya-lachis’s resolve to look only to the future. They all had quite enough on their plates when it came tothat.

“Ah,” Elagbi said after a while, “I see our dragon has garnered more curious spectators.”

“If you’re distracting me so you’ll win again …” Following his line of sight, Talasyn trailed off.

Alaric and Sevraim were on the beach, their gazes transfixed on the dragon even as they kept a wary distance. The children had long since scattered, probably spooked by the two Shadowforged’s presence.

In unspoken agreement, Elagbi and Talasyn abandoned their game and headed down to the beach. There was no telling how the dragon would react to these outsiders from a nation that had injured one of its brethren months ago.

Sevraim bounded up to them. “Your Highness! Care for a rematch?”

“There’s a board up on the hill,” said Elagbi. “But I wouldn’t want to tear you away from your sightseeing, Master Sevraim.”

Talasyn arched a brow at the legionnaire. “Youplay casongkâ?”

“Learned how after supper last night.” Sevraim pointed at Elagbi. “And soundly trounced this man, might I add.”

“Because you were making up your own rules!” the prince cried, aggrieved.

Elagbi and Sevraim started bickering, Talasyn all but forgotten. She left them to it and let herself be pulled into Alaric’s orbit.

Echoes of her nightmare crept up on her as she looked at him while he gazed at the dragon. There was something about the way his face was turned to her in profile. He had his father’s sharp cheekbones and long nose. The same haughty gray eyes. The resemblance was enough to bring her up short, to shackle her again in the paralysis of earlier that morning.

Suddenly, in a great upheaval of orange scales, the old dragon rolled onto its back. Mountains of wet sand rose and fell, and leathery wings stretched out through fleeting tidal waves of Eversea shallows that drenched the four people on the shore before receding.

It happened so fast. Before she knew it, Talasyn’s clothes were clinging to her skin and she was blinking at Alaric’s blurry form through wet, salt-stung eyes. Somewhere behind her, Sevraim and Elagbi were groaning with laughter, but she saw only Alaric as her vision cleared. His black hair was plastered to his forehead, the shock on his features softening them.

She remembered the mud, how it had flattened his hair in this same way, how offended he’d looked as he emerged from the pond, spitting out dirt. Right before the swamp buffalo chased them through the jungle.

The heaviness in her chest eased, the nightmare dissipating along the crest of the snicker that bubbled out of her throat. He shot her an admonishing glare, which only made her snicker harder.

“You don’t look any less comical right now, you know,” he informed her snippily.

“Trust me,” she said, “it’s funnier when it’s you.”

Alaric rolled his eyes. Then they strayed to the dragon again, as though directed there by some compulsion. The beast continued to doze, blissfully oblivious to its audience, the vast road of its underbelly soaking up the sun.

Talasyn belatedly realized that Alaric had never seen a dragon up close before. His expression was uncharacteristically open—with wonder, and a trace of regret.

“I didn’t give the order to fire that day,” he said quietly. “Mathire panicked.”

It hung between them, the memory of that copper dragon crashing into the Eversea below the Kesathese fleet, screaming in pain as the black rot of the Voidfell bloomed over its left wing. Talasyn felt that same old anger build inside her.

“I don’t know if it makes a difference, that I didn’t give the order,” Alaric continued, “but it won’t happen again. I swear it.”

If Mathire hadn’t fired the void cannon at the dragon, Talasyn thought, it was highly possible that there would have been a skirmish between the Kesathese fleet and the Dominion warships stationed at Port Samout. All the dragons would have risen from the ocean to defend the Nenavarene, and nothing could have stopped them, not until they’d taken down all the Night Empire’s vessels or they’d all died, whichever came first.

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