Page 34 of A Monsoon Rising

In Kesath, outdoor aethermancy training tended to garner its fair share of spectators, all of whom afforded the Shadowforged Legion the respect that was their due by observing quietly, careful to keep an appropriate distance and to refrain from doing anything that could be considered a distraction.

As Alaric found out, much to his displeasure, that wasnotthe case in Iantas. The villagers and the castle staff had trooped out to the beach in full force. There was a bonfire. People passed around bottles of distilled coconut liquor and, for the younger ones and the teetotalers, the coconuts themselves, the tops lopped off to reveal creamy white flesh and sweet, clear juice to be imbibed through bamboo straws.

At first, the intrigued crowd gathered closely around theAhimsan Enchanters, who were arranging the jars and wires on the moonlit sands, but they good-naturedly retreated further up the shore after some words from an amused-sounding Talasyn. It was a far cry from the Dominion court’s fear of only months ago—the gazes straying every so often to the sariman cages as though they were protective talismans, the panicked screams when Alaric channeled the Shadowgate at the banquet.

“People are afraid of what they don’t know,” Talasyn said, noticing his bewilderment. “They know us now. They know that our magic will stop the Voidfell. So they’ve come to accept us, I think.”

Alaric had a feeling that it went beyond that. It was plain to him, in the light of the flickering fire and the seven moons, that the Nenavarene regarded their Lachis’ka with fondness. And for good reason. Not only had Talasyn opened her home to those in need without hesitation, but the two days that Alaric had spent on this island thus far had been enough for him to see that she treated the servants kindly and as equals. It was no difficult thing to accept someone like her.

“Your Majesties!” Sevraim wandered over to them with a somewhat unsteady gait, holding out a bottle. “May I tempt you?”

“Why are you drinking on duty?” Alaric growled.

The legionnaire pouted. “There’s nothing to protect you from here, and it’s an insult to the Lachis’ka’s hospitality to assume otherwise.” He waved the bottle under the aforementioned Lachis’ka’s nose in offering, and even Alaric could smell the potent burn of fermented coconut sap from where he stood.

Talasyn paled slightly and took a step back. Not sparing a second thought for the oddness of her reaction, reacting purely on some nebulous primal instinct, Alaric darted between her and Sevraim, baring his teeth at the other man.

Sevraim fled. Perhaps he was drunk, or perhaps it was the first time in a long while that Alaric had responded to his antics with anything more than grudging tolerance; whatever the case, the legionnaire beat a hasty retreat toward the safety of the bonfire, stumbling all the while.

When Alaric turned to his wife, whatever anxiety had gripped her appeared to have passed, but he still needed to check. “Is everything—”

“I’m fine,” Talasyn interrupted. “It’s—I just don’t like the smell of that particular liquor.”

While her reasoning made sense, it was starting to occur to Alaric that he had never actually seen her take anything more than sparing sips of wine, not once finishing a glass. At supper last night she’d drunk only water. Before he could delve into the matter, though, Ishan Vaikar beckoned them over to the amplifying configuration.

“I’m really rather pleased with this!” True to her word, the daya was practically bouncing up and down in glee, as much as her prosthetic leg would allow her to on the soft sand. “We had the idea to increase the area of effect by adding a few strands of the Tempestroad to the aether cores. It’s produced promising results, thanks to the ability of lightning and thunder to travel. If we are successful, Their Majesties’ eclipse magic should be able to wholly surround the chasm from which the Voidfell springs! But,” she said, beaming at them, “let’s start with this strip of beach first.”

Alaric eyed the jars dubiously. They held the shining, molten combinations of sariman blood and rain magic that he had first seen in the Roof of Heaven’s atrium. This time, however, something was different. This time the ruby-flecked sapphire cores were marbled with the white heat of the Tempestroad, and they crackled unnervingly within the crystalline walls that caged them.

Talasyn’s thoughts were clearly running along a similar vein to his. “Is it safe?” she asked Ishan.

“It wasn’t initially,” Ishan replied with great cheer. “Almost blew my assistant’s fingers off. Worse than firecrackers! However, I believe we’ve figured out the proper dilution.”

Talasyn glanced at Alaric with a small, wry smile. “It was nice knowing you.”

“Likewise,” he quipped.

The Ahimsan Enchanters first wanted to test if Talasyn could cast eclipse magic with another Shadowforged. Thus, as Lir’s seventh moon turned blood-red, Sevraim gamely threw a knife at her.

It was a shadow-smithed knife. Slender and deadly, weightless like the air through which it sliced. It spun toward Talasyn, its path erratic, the edge of its dark blade rippling with the silver threads of aetherspace.

Instead of shielding, she conjured a blazing sword and slashed at the knife as it spiraled within inches of her chest. Shadow split into two at the onslaught of light and then vanished. Rather than being enveloped by a black-and-gold sphere of combined magic, Talasyn was left holding her radiant blade, meeting Sevraim’s gaze over the fiery haze of it.

No barrier. Not even beneath the eclipse.

The legionnaire threw up his hands good-naturedly. “Looks like your wife only knows how to cast the light-and-shadow shield withyou,” he told an intently watching Alaric.

“Very curious indeed,” muttered Ishan. “Something in the blood, no doubt. Though whether House Ossinast or Ivralis, I couldn’t say.”

Talasyn couldn’t say, either. But as Alaric stepped forward and faced her within the amplifying configuration, she was alltoo aware of the odd sense of relief running through her. Relief that the shield remained something that was theirs alone.

Afterwards, Talasyn would wonder what it had looked like from afar, that veil of Lightweave and Shadowgate unfurling from the water’s edge, stretching and arching until it contained the beach and everyone on it within its shimmering sphere. The aether cores blazed and crackled within their jars, and Lir’s moons danced on in the heavens above, their seventh sister half shrouded in crimson.

“Wonderful, wonderful!” Ishan had her arms outstretched along with the other Enchanters, carefully controlling the energy that surged through the incandescent wires linking one jar to the next. “Let’s see how long we can keep this up!”

It was the first time that people other than Alaric were inside the light-and-shadow sphere with Talasyn. Ishan was close enough for her instructions to be heard over the roar of magic, but it was impossible to make out what the spectators further away from the waterline were saying. With the barrier dulling the moon’s rays, with ribbons of Shadowgate obfuscating the bonfire, she could see the other Nenavarene only in brief flashes of aether as they looked around in awe. She caught a glimpse of the boyish fascination on Elagbi’s face before the Lightweave shifted and he was gone from her sight.

Alaric, though, was right beside her. She saw him all too clearly, his eyes gleaming an ice-bright silver, his form tangled in nets of chiaroscuro, as ethereal as a dream that she might have once had.

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