Page 95 of A Monsoon Rising

“I’ll tell you later.”

They both peered out from behind the table. A large group of assassins was moving toward their hiding spot. She retrieved her musket and began to take aim.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” Alaric hissed. “If you fire now, they’llallknow where we are.”

“They’ll find out soon, anyway,” Talasyn argued. “Going on the offensive is our best option at this point.”

“I’d much prefer an offensive that doesn’t end in our current location getting surrounded,” he dryly remarked. “Here, I have a plan.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE

As their cohorts fanned out across the rest of the ballroom, the ten assassins searched the sitting area in tight formation, muskets at the ready.

A panicked figure emerged from behind one of the overturned tables and made a mad dash for the exit. One assassin reflexively pulled the trigger, and the ensuing bolt of void magic outlined the figure’s horned goat’s mask in violet light before he crumpled to the floor.

Behind the table where she and Alaric were hiding, Talasyn clapped a hand over her mouth, biting a scream into the mound of her palm.

“Moron!” someone snarled. “You just killed Rajan Wempuq!”

The words were in the Dominion language. Talasyn had known, of course, that the assassins had to be Nenavarene, given their void muskets and sariman cages, given that the dragons hadn’t risen from the sea, but the confirmation made her insides shrivel. And now Wempuq was dead, and there was no time to grieve. The people who had killed him were moving closer to the hideout where she and Alaric lurked.

Someonewasscreaming, though. From all the way across the ballroom, through the din of everything else. Broken wails ofNoandAmya, interspersed with wordless sobs.

Oryal. She had seen her father die.

“Now,” Alaric said.

The rounded table was small enough to carry, with some effort, and big enough to provide some cover. Alaric picked it up and held the tabletop in front of them as he and Talasyn ran at their foes while she reeled off one void bolt after another. The table served as both shield and battering ram right through the middle of the enemy formation, throwing the assassin ranks into disarray.

Alaric and Talasyn managed to overwhelm several of the attackers, but the rest rallied and soon the table had splintered into pieces under the onslaught of crossbow bolts, leaving the two of them no choice but to separate. She knew that they had no chance of winning; their aethermancy was gone and they were vastly outnumbered. But Alaric was as fierce and defiant as a caged tiger, and that inspired her to new heights. She ducked for cover behind pillars and slid under fallen chandeliers, and when the musket’s aether cores ran out, she didn’t shy away from using her fists, her elbows, herteeth. She left a trail of bodies in her wake, but soon two of the assassins managed to outflank her. She dropped to the floor the moment they opened fire, and one fell victim to his comrade’s void bolt. She wasted no time in tackling the other by the legs. They wrestled over the marble tiles, but he scrambled upright before she could and took aim—

Then he spasmed and went still, the musket slipping from his limp grasp, the tip of a sword protruding from his stomach. As the blade was retracted, the dead man fell away to reveal the kaptan of Talasyn’s royal guard.

“Where is my father?” Talasyn asked as Nalam Gao helped her to her feet. The rest of the assassins closing in from all corners of the ballroom had been intercepted by the rest of the Lachis-dalo, and the sounds of furious combat churned the air.

“Prince Elagbi was safely extracted by his own guards,” said Gao. “He is on his way to Eskaya, along with the Zahiyalachis. The castle’s soldiers have been poisoned, Your Grace. The attackers have surrounded the ballroom. We need to get you out of here—we’ll fight our way out.”

“Easier said than done,” Talasyn muttered. There were only ten Lachis-dalo and countless assassins. Most of the party guests were flooding through the exit, but several remained, cowering behind furniture or frozen in fear, in plain sight.

She came to a decision. “Jie and some others are hiding by the windows,” she told Gao. “Take them and the rest of the civilians somewhere safe.”

Gao blanched. “Lachis’ka, my duty is to you—”

“That’s anorder, kaptan.”

Talasyn sprang away from Gao before she could argue. She ran to Alaric, to fight by his side.

After the duel with Surakwel Mantes, Alaric hadn’t exactly been anxious to wield a Nenavarene sword again. But one of Talasyn’s guards had tossed him hers, and it was worlds more efficient than his bare hands.

A sword was also, in theory, more efficient than what Talasyn was currently using, but somehow that didn’t appear to be the case. She’d picked up a broken-off table leg and was now using it as a makeshift club, which would have given Alaric pause had he not been fighting for his life. She cracked skulls with it, swung it at stomachs and kneecaps, put enemies into strangleholds with it.

Without the benefit of aethermancy, his wifebrawled.

Alaric slammed his forehead into an assassin’s, breaking the death grip the other man had on him as they both recoiled from each other in pain. When the dark spots stopped swimming before his eyes, the first thing he saw was the amused look on Talasyn’s face.

“Where did you learnthat, I wonder?” she quipped.

He bared his teeth at her. “Only from the best.”

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