Page 50 of A Monsoon Rising

A fresh torrent of water rushed into the grotto. The lake rippled and churned, and Alaric saw the wave form at the periphery of his vision. He clamped his arms around Talasyn, intending to roll to safety, but it was too late—the wave broke over the rock ledge. Drenching them both in the cold and the wet and the salt.

They sprang away from each other—rather, Talasyn thought sourly, like the tussling alley cats that the residents of Hornbill’s Head would dump buckets on from their windows. They pressed themselves against the grotto wall, warily watching the waterline. It stirred precariously for a few alarming beats but then went calm, having risen by only a couple of inches. The cascade at the mouth of the grotto ceased.

The chill set in again, now that she was drenched anew.

Talasyn attempted to make a fire.

Alaric had brought along some kindling and flint. Now Talasyn piled the kindling atop discarded banana leaves, to insulate it from the soaked ground, and struck the flint shards against each other with gusto. But with the leaky ceiling and the lapping ocean, it was too damp in the cavern. Whatever sparks were produced soon petered out, and before long the kindling was soaked, too.

Still, she persisted, because it was a suitable enough distraction from Alaric. He’d retreated to the opposite end of their campsite, but as far as Talasyn was concerned, no distance would be too great. Not after that near-miss, that near-kiss.

About half an hour passed before he called out, “Lachis’ka.”

She didn’t look up from her task. If anything, she bashed the stones together even harder.

“It’s not going to happen.” Alaric’s tone was stern. “You’ll only end up hurting yourself.”

And maybe that was true, maybe her pruned fingerswerestarting to ache, but there was something freeing about such a mindless task. She could channel all her frustrations into brute force. She could ask her stinging skin and each failed spark of resounding stone why she couldn’t control her reactions to her husband, why her will could not seem to surmount her craving for his touch. Why he made it so easy for her to throw everything else away.

The answer is simple, really,surfaced from the mire of her racing thoughts, like a rotting carcass dredged from the depths.The rebels were right about me. I’m a traitor.Once Sardovia claimed victory, she would probably be executed unless she hid behind her grandmother’s skirts.

Talasyn finally gave up on the fire, her hands scraped almost raw. She and Alaric sank into sullen silence, avoiding each other as best as they could in the narrow space.

When night fell, the grotto was plunged into total darkness, all seven of Lir’s moons unable to penetrate the thick clouds. The temperature dropped even further. Talasyn’s nose and the tips of her fingers felt as though they were made of ice.

She heard Alaric rooting around among his supplies, then the thud of something metallic on the rock shelf and the click of a lever. The grotto was illuminated in the warm, reddish glow of the Firewarren, emanating from a bronze lantern. The aether heart contained within its glass burned like a lone ember.

“You can see in the dark,” Talasyn said.

Or tried to say, anyway. She stammered out each word, herteeth rattling as she shook from the cold that she’d been enduring all this time.

“To an extent. It improves with more and more exposure to the Shadowgate’s nexus points.” Alaric laid out his bedroll. “We both need to warm up, so come here.”

His intent was obvious. Her response was immediate. “N-n-no. I’m f-f-ine.”

He pursed his lips. “Ineed to warm up, then.” When she didn’t say anything—when she continued staring mulishly at him while she shivered—he added, “Surely you won’t let me freeze to death before we can stop the Voidfell.”

It was a sham, but Talasyn was suffering too much to inspect his reasoning more closely. She went over to where he now lay on his side, holding the blanket open for her. She crawled under it, stretching out over the small bedroll, facing away from him. His arm draped across her midriff. They were in too much like the disastrous, compromising position they’d woken up in yesterday, but she was hungry for the warmth. She scooted back against him, soaking up the heat that emanated from his body, with the blanket drawn over her nose.

“Go to sleep,” he ordered. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Wake me up in four hours so I can take your place.”

“Six. I’m not tired.”

“Yes, you clearly have enough energy to argue.”

He squeezed her hip in warning. She made a face that he couldn’t see, then burrowed deeper into the shelter of him. She watched the lantern cast flickering patterns on the grotto walls as she began to drift off.

And in that split-second before oblivion, the crystal imbued with the light of the Firewarren became a red sun, and the limestone surroundings morphed into a brilliant sky, and the Eversea was gliding below her again, just as it had in that vision from a month ago. This time scaled coils pulsed with breath, revolvingover the blue waters, and that gnarled hand was reaching for the heavens as something roared like thunder—

“What’s wrong?” Alaric asked.

Talasyn realized that she’d gone stiff in his loose embrace. It was difficult to come back from the vision, from the images of air and sky and her soul racing toward some nebulous precipice, but eventually she scaled that cliff and she was in the real world again, the firelight chiseling at the sinews of Alaric’s forearm as he held her.

“Do you ever—see things?” She swallowed. “When you’re not communing with the Shadow Sever, I mean.”

“No,” he replied. “What kind of things do you see?”

---