Page 36 of A Monsoon Rising

“An understatement—”

“—but it affectedmyaethermancy as well. We have to keep on going. It’s still our best chance at stopping the Voidfell.”

“Weare the best chance to stop the Voidfell,” he said. “That’s why we can’t risk our own lives before the time comes.”

“It was temporary. We’re both fine,” she argued. Then she noticed the shadow-gouged cracks in the banister, and her hands clenched into fists. “You can’t just go around demolishing things! Someone will have to fix that—”

Alaric was torn between a bitter laugh and a disbelieving groan.Never runs out of fight, this one.No matter the situation, his wife’s claws always came out eventually.

But maybe that was what he needed right now.

He needed to quell the anxiety and frustration building up inside him, and he needed to check that his magic had not been compromised.

For what was he without the Shadowgate? How could he lead and protect the Night Empire without it?

You’re not just a weapon.Talasyn had told him that. He hazily remembered her words, spoken softly in the lamplight while she held him.You could be more.

He fought back a shiver that had nothing to do with that strange chill from before. New wisps of shadow magic leaked from his fingers clutching the banister. The marble splintered at the onslaught.

“What are you going to do about it?” Alaric asked quietly.

Talasyn’s eyes narrowed. In recognition, and in challenge.

“I,” Sevraim announced, “am too drunk for this.” He kicked at the moonlit sand. “Much too drunk.”

“Shut up, Sevraim,” Alaric and Talasyn chorused. They’d taken up position a few feet from each other, shielded from prying eyes by a thick wall of coconut palms. The lunar eclipse was over and the other residents of Iantas had retreated indoors. The castle’s spiny silhouette was riddled with dark windows.

“The Lachis’ka needs to improve her focus,” Alaric drawled.“She’s still so easily distracted. No amount of amplifying configurations can fixthat.”

“And the Night Emperor needs to be knocked down a peg or two,” Talasyn spat.

“It’s very confusing because you both sound like you’re talking to me, but you just keep staring at each other,” Sevraim said mournfully, shuffling to Alaric’s side.

It wasn’t long before the night air blazed with magic. An ever-transmuting assortment of shadow-spun weapons crashed into a light-woven shield in rapid succession and with startling ferocity, the three combatants’ complicated footwork kicking up clouds of white sand with each sinking step.

Talasyn was fairly certain that things would be going better for her if she were to fight back. But she wasn’tallowedto. The point was to keep up her shield, come what may.

Which meant that Alaric and Sevraim were attacking her one after the other, using a different weapon each time, and she could do nothing but dig her bare soles into the sand and do her very best to not let her only defense falter even as her teeth rang with the force of their blows.

“Good show, Lachis’ka!” Sevraim called out with a grin after Talasyn had fended off his shadow-sword. “His Majesty is simply too much of a worrywart, if you ask me.”

“No one asked you,” Alaric snapped. “No talking.” He flung a dark spear at Talasyn, who ducked behind her shield easily enough, shadow vanishing the moment it hit the golden barrier, but then Alaric was suddenly to her left, conjuring a second spear and hurling it at her unguarded flank.

She twisted in the nick of time, her shield intercepting the new projectile before it could run her through, but thenbothher opponents charged, from opposite directions. Talasyn instinctively pushed back against Sevraim and his axe, causing him to stumble, but doing so left her with no opportunity tobrace herself for Alaric’s strike. Her shield flickered out of existence as it caught the brunt of his double-edged, wavelike kalis blade. His silver eyes widened and he scrambled to draw his arm back, but it was too late. She yelped at the kalis’s icy bite on her hip bone, cold enough to burn.

Alaric banished his weapon, his gaze fixed on the blood welling up on the strip of skin between Talasyn’s breastband and breeches. He stepped forward as though to reach for her, but then appeared to think better of it, swallowing.

“Get a healer,” he told Sevraim.

“It’s not that bad,” Talasyn protested, stopping the legionnaire before he could dutifully make his way back to the castle. “If we stop for every little scrape, we’ll never get anything done.”

Alaric glared at her, and she at him in abject puzzlement. They’d fought against each other during awar, both of them inflicting their fair share of cuts and bruises. How was this any different? And it had beenhisidea to spar in the first place.

“Fine,” he bit out. “Next time let your aethermancy do the work for you. When in a tight spot, modify your shield rather than physically dodge or block.”

She nodded. She could do that. They resumed training, with the two Shadowforged’s attacks more simultaneous than not, and she focused on altering her shield whenever necessary—from the teardrop-shaped war shields of the Continent to the forked rectangles of Nenavar, adjusting for different weapons, different angles. It was a bit of an excruciating process, Alaric and Sevraim showing her no mercy, but she gradually found her rhythm beneath the seven moons.

And there was relief, too—relief that her aethermancy still worked as it should. Relief that was mirrored on Alaric’s face.

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