Page 96 of A Monsoon Rising

Alaric was facing the broken windows. Over Talasyn’s head, he spotted one of Iantas’s smaller fighting craft, a crossbowladen sloop, gliding along the length of the castle, its square sails gleaming blue and gold against the black velvet sky.

Elagbi was at the wheel.

Talasyn followed Alaric’s line of sight. Her jaw dropped. “He’s supposed to be with his guards!”

Still wearing his crocodile costume from the masquerade, the Dominion prince fired the airship’s crossbows at something on the terrace.Severalsomethings. The resulting explosion was identical to what Alaric had seen when the amplifying configuration destabilized during the tests, and once more on the Night of the World-Eater. A plethora of fiery suns, flaring to life, and with them—

—the return of the Shadowgate.

Her husband’s eyes abruptly turning bright silver was all the warning Talasyn needed to cast a shield. The Lightweave poured out of her, hot and rich, and the golden shield that materialized in her hand trembled and sparked as waves of raw shadow magic crashed against it, flowing around her to engulf their nearest assailants. The screams of the dying mingled with the guttural shriek from aetherspace, a grating parody of an orchestra.

More assassins converged on Alaric and Talasyn’s location.

Neither light nor shadow magic could stop the Voidfell if there was no eclipse. But the attackers wielding the musketswere flesh and bone, and as such easily cut down with radiant javelins and inky throwing knives, easily hauled every which way by searing chains. As Talasyn exulted in the return of her aethermancy, she tried not to feel too much vindictive satisfaction, but as she thought about her frightened guests and how close her family had come to getting killed, and about poor old Ito Wempuq, the burning rose within her. Her rage fed the Lightweave, fashioning it into a sword in her hands as she and Alaric broke through the enemy ranks.

Talasyn was too caught up in the maelstrom of slashing and stabbing to notice that the last attacker flanking her position had succumbed. When she detected a dart of movement and a whirl of aether to her left, she automatically swung around to meet it. Caught up in her fury, she didn’t even realize it was Alaric until she was staring at him through the haze of their locked blades.

Perhaps the snarl on her lips should have faded away. Perhaps his fierce eyes should have softened in recognition at the sight of her.

But this, too, was memory. They were surrounded by the fallen, the floor a mess of bloodstains and broken glass, their clothes torn and their chests heaving, adrenaline pumping through their veins. Her instincts marked him as dangerous. Her body knew his from the Hurricane Wars.

In the mood they were both in, they could have easily slit each other’s throat.

But he leaned in, over the intersection of their blades, and pressed a hard and bruising kiss to her lips instead. Then another stream of void bolts flared out from the darkness and they separated.

As Talasyn scrambled from out in the open to take a more defensible position, she spotted Oryal on her knees, hunchedover Wempuq’s corpse. Oryal had broken away from the throng of nobles fleeing to safety, and she’d crossed an ocean of combat to reach her dead father’s side.

Something in Talasyn’s mind snapped, pulled to breaking point by the horror of the last several minutes. Of the last several years. Suddenly she was looking not at Oryal and Wempuq but at the past. At Khaede on the deck of theSummerwind, Sol’s head in her lap. Oryal’s praying mantis mask, discarded over the marble tiles, became the crossbow bolt, slick with Sol’s blood, rolling over teak boards and iron nails.

Everything ended, even pain, even empires. Everything but this.

War was the unchanging season, the eternal state. No matter what Talasyn did, no matter what crown she donned, no matter who she loved or didn’t love, someone was always going to die.

Oryal raised her head. Her eyes locked with Talasyn’s. And there was something—

For the barest split-second, there were white sparks in Oryal’s eyes, flashing through her tears. But Talasyn had to be imagining it, or it had to be a reflection of the moonlight—but in any case she couldn’t dwell on it. Several assassins had swarmed around her, all wielding blades rather than muskets. The void hearts had probably run out. This battle was almost over, even if war would never end. She conjured her golden daggers, slicing them through and across her assailants’ forms. They all fell, one after another, and when Talasyn finally surfaced—

Oryal was gone.

Talasyn looked around wildly, her heart racing. She had to get Oryal out of here. She’d lost sight of Khaede at Lasthaven, leaving her to an unknown fate. But she wouldn’t failthisperson, she wouldn’t let go of this one thing that could still be saved.

In the gloom, she spied a skirt of rose-colored wings disappear into the antechamber from which she and Alaric had emerged earlier. Talasyn ran for it, leaving the battle behind. Gao had mentioned that the assassins had surrounded the ballroom; they might be lurking outside the antechamber, too, ready to mow down whoever exited as ruthlessly as they’d mowed down Wempuq.

Right before she ducked into the little room, Talasyn chanced one last look at Alaric. His back was to her as he fought in formation alongside her guards. He had his aethermancy and he had help, while Oryal was alone. Talasyn had to go.

And yet, as she turned away, the oddest sensation rippled through the pit of her stomach. It was fleeting and illogical, but there all the same, briefly beneath her heart—the feeling that she was never going to see him again.

She’d felt this before, on too many occasions to count. It was a kind of paranoia rooted deep in her psyche. Back when an endless series of battles swept across the Continent, in the shadow of the stormships there was always a chance that you’d be looking at someone for the last time.

But that wasn’t going to happen here. She’d usher Oryal to safety, then return to Alaric’s side.

Talasyn rushed into the antechamber. It was empty, but the door leading to the hallway had been flung wide open. Bodies lay beyond the threshold—two of them, clad in assassin’s armor. She was rather shocked that Oryal had managedthat, but then again, even ladies fought when cornered.

As she stepped over the dead men, a vague suspicion gnawed at the back of her neck. The corpses were still holding their weapons. How had Oryal …?

Squinting down the deserted hallway, where all the fire lampshad been shot out of their sconces, Talasyn heard muffled crying from up ahead.

Ito Wempuq’s wife had passed away a long time ago. Now he, too, had set sail with the ancestors. His daughter was an orphan.

---