Page 73 of A Monsoon Rising

While Alaric and Talasyn were sparring, the remaining denizens of Iantas had brought out a feast. Rabbitfish grilled in bamboo tubes, fermented crabs wrapped in silverleaf reeds, clay-pot chicken, balls of rice and pig’s blood—all laid out on trestle tables around the aforementioned pigs, which had been stuffed with lemongrass and roasted whole on spits. Everyone from the Lachis-dalo to the housemaids dug in with their fingers, making merry. As Alaric approached them, he was already resigned—for the chatter to stop and the staring to begin.

To his surprise, however, while therewerea few uneasy glances, the majority of the crowd called out greetings, inclining their heads respectfully. A couple of people he vaguely recognized from the village rushed forward, passing him a clay pot and a coconut half-shell brimming with the sweet, clear liquid.

It was several beats before Alaric remembered how to move his hands in order to take the proffered items. “Thank you.”

The villagers responded in Nenavarene. They didn’t sound angry, or as though they were trying to poison him, so he gave a tentative nod and they melted back into the crowd. And soon enough Elagbi and Talasyn were leading him to one of the tables.

Elagbi pointed to the nearby roast pig in its bed of banana leaves. “I recommend the belly, Emperor Alaric. It’s the best part.”

Alaric stared at the pig. Its body had been carved up, but the head was intact and it stared back at him, lips curled into a frozen grin.

“Just grab a piece,” Talasyn instructed under her breath.

“It’s looking at me,” Alaric replied in kind. “Why are we feasting, anyway? The world as we know it might end tonight. That’s hardly cause for celebration.”

“You should have realized by now that the typical Nenavarene response to anything is to throw a party,” said Talasyn. “Remember when the Zahiya-lachis announced our betrothal?”

“Fair point.”

His serving of the roast pig was a sumptuous chunk of crispy skin and sweet flesh that coated his tongue in a wash of fat. He enjoyed the other dishes as well, observing Elagbi and Talasyn out of the corner of his eye so he could mimic how they ate with their hands, food compressed in the palm, the thumb pushing it into the mouth. He could have done without the perennial breeze making a mess of his hair and the sand that stuck to his clothes, and some cynical part of him surmised that Iantas’s residents were merely using up everything in the larders before they all died. Still, there was something idyllic about this gathering. It was the calm before the oncoming storm.

As lunch came to a close, Talasyn drifted away from the crowd and nearer to the waterline, nursing a half-shell of coconut juice. Alaric followed her with the air of someone who didn’t know what else to do, and soon enough Elagbi joined them, good-naturedly bellyaching about having lost a casongkâ game to one of the castle gardeners. The heat had dissipated slightly as the sun sank lower in the sky. In a few more hours, the day would end, and then the night …

The night might be the last.

“Amya.” Talasyn turned to her father. The relaxed smile that he flashed at her was so gentle, so utterly at peace, that thefear of never seeing it again sank in like winter’s chill in this golden land. “You should have gone with the Zahiya-lachis. What if the shield doesn’t work, what if—”

“It will,” Elagbi said firmly. “I have faith in you.”

“Butifit doesn’t—”

“Then I will sail with the ancestors,” said Elagbi, “content in the knowledge that I didn’t leave my daughter alone at the very end.”

It was the same as it had been when he first saw her on her wedding day, when Talasyn was helpless, speechless, in the face of so much love. All their quarrels about this issue over the past sennight boiled down to this moment. She leaned into Elagbi’s space, resting her head on his shoulder, and he stroked her hair.

Alaric was gazing stoically into the distance, affording them what privacy he could. He was even more subdued than usual after they retreated into the castle. Talasyn’s own worries grew with the gathering dusk, restlessness haunting her every step, each fidgeting move. No one knew what would happen at midnight. They had all placed their faith in eclipse magic because hope was second nature, was the last good thing, but whether or not it would be successful, no one could actually say for sure.

Talasyn noticed a few of the servants hastily wiping away tears while they tidied up for the evening, and the sight brought her perilously close to the brink as well. Before Alaric could push open the door to their chambers all the way, she grabbed hold of the embroidered cuff of his sleeve, her fingers twisting into the skin-warmed silk.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” she blurted out. “A quick stop before the sevenfold eclipse?”

Gray eyes regarded her somberly. Glimmers of her own misgivings were reflected back at her, but she saw none ofthe wariness that she anticipated in response to her abrupt question.

Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who was changing.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

Talasyn wanted to visit Eskaya before they went to the Void Sever. Alaric agreed readily enough; there were still six hours to go before midnight and he was restless, too. It also struck him as oddly fitting, on what might be the final night, to go back to where this odd marriage began.

First things first, however. They had to prepare for battle.

In his dressing room, he donned his armor meditatively, clearing his mind the way he always did before an impending skirmish. The stakes were just as high.

He hadn’t been expecting his father to summon him, but there it was, the scrabbling at the edges, the thinning of the veil. Alaric entered the In-Between cautiously, wondering what Gaheris could possibly wish to see him about at this final hour. Silver eyes watched him from a throne of shadows, within walls of tremulous, staticky aether.

Gaheris seemed to be in no hurry to speak, so Alaric took it upon himself to break the silence. “You are well away from the Continent, Father?”

“We have sailed as far north as our ships would allow,” Gaheris replied. “The rest is in your hands, my boy.”

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