C HAPTER T HIRTY -F OUR
When they rejoined the party, Talasyn was in the best mood Alaric had ever seen her in. She gave her smiles more freely to everyone and was even somewhat affectionate with him, leaning just the slightest bit into his side while they conversed with their guests and clutching at his sleeve whenever she addressed him. Before long he was emboldened to reciprocate, his hand resting on the small of her back as they moved from one group to the next.
I will have to do that again, Alaric thought, a smile of his own threatening to burst across his lips. Not only had the taste of her been incredible and addictive— the way sunlight felt —but he also couldn’t recall any other time he’d made someone so happy. It was intoxicating.
The masquerade didn’t start winding down until Queen Urduja had retired to one of the guest bedrooms upstairs in the early hours of the morning. Alaric and Talasyn positioned themselves near the ballroom’s main doors, accepting farewells from tired-looking nobles. A considerable number of guests were still dancing or consuming what remained of the food and drink.
Talasyn had been casting longing looks at those tables for the past several minutes. “I’m going to get something to eat,” she announced, and Alaric was not in the least bit shocked.
What did come as a surprise was seeing her peer up at him with those big brown eyes and add, “Do you want anything?”
“I’ve eaten my fill,” he drawled.
She blushed . Again, he had to bite back a smile as he watched her scurry off.
On her way to the refreshments, Talasyn came face to face with Ralya Musal once more. The hummingbird-beaked daya had Kai Gitab in tow, dressed as a porcupine. Poor eyesight had prevented the rajan from wearing a mask, but his spectacles had golden quills attached to their frames in honor of the occasion.
“Oh, Lachis’ka,” Ralya gushed, “Rajan Gitab and I were just discussing how brave you and His Majesty were on the Night of the World-Eater! You saved us all, and we really cannot thank you enough.”
“Indeed,” said Gitab. “My peers and I have long been at odds with the throne when it came to certain matters, but this near-catastrophe has highlighted what is truly important. From now on, all of my house’s resources are at your disposal.”
“As are mine,” said Ralya, not to be outdone. “Tepi Resok stands with you, Your Grace!” Her feathered earrings quivered with the strength of her enthusiasm.
Talasyn thanked them, somewhat shyly, but also feeling somewhat proud of herself. She was gathering allies from unlikely places. Gitab had privately sworn his loyalty months ago, in the hall of portraits at the Roof of Heaven; his public declaration now showed that he’d meant it.
It took some effort to politely extricate herself from the two nobles, but Talasyn eventually managed, her stomach rumbling. No sooner had she started digging into the food laid out on the moonlit tables by the ballroom’s large windows than another group accosted her—Jie, Niamha, and two of the other noblewomen who’d visited Iantas when Alaric first took up residence. They clustered around her excitedly.
“Lachis’ka, you and His Majesty have been particularly tender tonight!” Bairung Matono exclaimed. “I don’t think his hand left the small of your back for hours .”
“Attached, just simply attached,” said Oryal, with a dreamy sigh that seemed to flutter through the rose-colored praying mantis wings that adorned her from neck to toe. Beneath the matching eye-mask, tiny flowers glimmered on her cheeks, painted on with shimmery red pigment. “Like a quill to Rajan Gitab’s spectacles.”
The others laughed, but Talasyn was trying very hard not to go red in the face. “I sincerely hope you ladies have had time to enjoy the party on top of all your gawking,” she snapped, cheeks bulging with pork-stuffed mooncake.
“The gawking is part of the enjoyment,” said Bairung. “Tell us, did this romance begin when you were marooned in Chal?” Talasyn nearly spat out her mooncake. “I would be so sad if my rescue ship interrupted anything.”
Bairung could never know how close her teasing had hit the mark. Before Talasyn could cobble together a hasty reply, Jie suddenly elbowed Niamha. “The way His Majesty swooped in on Her Grace and Lord Surakwel! Were you very relieved, Daya Langsoune?”
“My relief stemmed more from the fact that Surakwel managed not to step on Her Grace’s toes even once,” said Niamha.
Oryal snorted. “Yes, I remember all those dancing lessons from when we were younger. He was the worst of us!”
Through the merriment, Niamha gave Talasyn a strange look; Talasyn didn’t know whether it was because of Niamha’s feelings for Surakwel or because she wasn’t supposed to have feelings for Alaric.
Talasyn caught herself. I don’t —I can’t —have feelings for him.
There was an attraction, and that was all it was. All it could ever be.
Especially now that Vela had given her a new mission, one that would bring the secret continuation of the Hurricane Wars closer to an end.
At that moment, there was an almost imperceptible flickering over the noblewomen’s costumes, a rain of tiny shadows, blocking out the moonlight. Talasyn turned to the windows with a puzzled frown.
Prince Elagbi and Rajan Wempuq had wandered over after Talasyn left Alaric’s side. Alaric found that he couldn’t quite look his father-in-law in the eye, given what he’d done to his daughter so recently, but the Dominion prince seemed determined to make Wempuq warm up to Alaric. The copious amounts of wine that the two older men had been imbibing all night served to grease the wheels, and the conversation was not as stilted as it could have been.
In the midst of Elagbi and Wempuq regaling him with a wild tale from their youth, Alaric noticed two masked figures slip into the ballroom.
Figures who shouldn’t have been there at all.
He excused himself from Elagbi and Wempuq and strode over to the new arrivals, who swiftly turned at his approach and led the way to a secluded alcove in the corner.
“What are you doing here?” Alaric demanded without preamble.
“What are you doing,” Sevraim countered, “in that ?” He pointed at Alaric’s shimmering gold-and-green getup with an air of utter bewilderment.
“Focus,” Ileis snapped at Sevraim. To Alaric, she said, “We bear urgent news, Your Majesty. Regent Gaheris tasked us to bring you back to the Continent as soon as possible. He insisted we personally see to it that you sail home.”
Gaheris could have summoned Alaric to the In-Between. All the legionnaires knew that. The fact that he had not—the fact that he’d acknowledged, even in this small way, that his son might need a more pressing incentive than his word—spoke volumes about the seriousness of whatever was unfolding.
Alaric’s pulse raced. “What happened?”
“There was a prison breakout during the Moonless Dark,” said Ileis. “The Sardovian guerrillas snuck into the Citadel, slit the guards’ throats, and freed their comrades. All of them.”
In hindsight, Alaric understood that had been no better time for the rebels to attack than on a night when there was only a skeleton force in the Citadel. And no Gaheris.
“What about the legionnaires who stayed behind?” he asked. “Why couldn’t they stop it?”
“The Sardovians caused a diversion that drew the legionnaires further away,” Sevraim said. “All the way to the other end of the Citadel. The rebels were informed of the prison layout, Emperor Alaric. Someone told them that their comrades were being held in the eastern wing. Commodores Darius and Mathire are currently rooting out the informant, while Nisene is leading the hunt for the escapees, but you need to be there. We need to leave now .”
The one good thing about this directive, Alaric thought numbly, was that he didn’t have to bring Talasyn to his father. He could use this emergency as an excuse for not having had time to convince her to come with him.
“Tell the shallop crew to prepare to set sail,” Alaric ordered his two legionnaires. “And have a message sent to my stormship to expect us. I’ll meet you on the docks. Let me just say goodbye to my—to the Night Empress.”
Sevraim saluted. “Yes, Your Glittering Majesty! At once, my shimmering master!”
“I have one more instruction, Ileis.” Alaric nodded toward Sevraim. “Throw this one into the ocean.”
After Ileis dragged a cackling Sevraim away, Alaric looked around the ballroom until his gaze landed on Talasyn. She and her friends were gathered at the refreshment tables. Behind her were flickers of movement against the ballroom’s moonlit windows that faced out to sea—a scattering of stones falling from the sky.
A hailstorm? In Nenavar?
That was odd. Alaric squinted.
The stones grew in size—they weren’t falling from the sky, they were being hurled at the windows by unseen hands—
—and they were all uniformly rounded at the sides and conical at the base—
Shells.
Alaric broke into a run, making for the tables. Talasyn and her friends were too near the windows, too far from him. He couldn’t move fast enough. The ceramic shells hit their marks and the vast chamber rocked with myriad explosions as every single pane of glass disintegrated, the shards raining down on the crowd.
Ambush situations were nothing new to the Shadowforged Legion. Years of training and the long war with Sardovia had equipped Alaric to deal with such crises, but in that moment it seemed that all his wits had fled. He was consumed only by one thought. By one name. A name that he shouted over and over again as he pushed his way through the frenzied mass of screaming nobles. Figures clambered in through the broken windows, shooting crossbow bolts at the ceiling and the walls. The great chandeliers came crashing down and the fire lamps were snuffed out, plunging the ballroom into darkness, but Alaric barely paid any mind to the chaos. He thought only of getting to Talasyn.
It was an uphill battle. The Nenavarene jostled and shoved and stumbled, their cries drowning out Alaric’s voice as sheer instinct repeatedly tore Talasyn’s name from his lips. He removed his unwieldy golden mask, letting it fall to the floor, strewn with the bodies of all those who had tripped or been knocked over in the stampede.
Talasyn had vanished. He scanned the ballroom frantically—and something in his soul snapped in half. The Shadowgate left him, leaving nothing in its place but an aching void. Alaric had felt this before and knew at once what it was: a sariman nullification field.
He’d ordered Nenavar to remove those cages from his presence a long time ago, and there weren’t any in sight now, but still the effect set in harshly, causing him to stagger against a nearby pillar. Clutching it for support, he looked around in a belated attempt to make sense of the situation.
The horde of assailants moved purposefully through all the chaos. They were in leather helms and armor, and several carried void muskets in addition to hand crossbows. They weren’t shooting indiscriminately into the crowd, a sure sign that this was no mere attack on the Dominion. Rather, they appeared to be looking for someone.
And it didn’t take Alaric long to figure out who. Bolts of amethyst light zipped toward him.
“Stay here,” Talasyn hissed. “Don’t make a sound.”
Jie, Niamha, Oryal, and Bairung nodded, arms around one another, eyes wide.
Talasyn had herded the four noblewomen under a table as soon as the windows shattered. Now she crawled out from under it and threw herself into the commotion, searching for Alaric and Elagbi.
The Lightweave vanished then.
Sariman , she realized with a sickening clench that made her freeze—for just a moment, but long enough for the stampeding guests to knock her to the ground. Someone started running across her torso as though she were the floor, and she reared up, knocking the other person off her before their weight cracked her ribs. Sorry, whoever you are, she thought with a twinge of guilt, kicking off her shoes and scrambling to her feet, upright again—
—and staring down the barrel of a Nenavarene musket, gleaming bronze in the moonlight.
Talasyn yanked off her mask and hurled it at the assailant. The man yelped as the large, jewel-encrusted butterfly hit him in the face, and she made a grab for the musket, twisting it around in his hands and firing it into his chest. The sound was echoed by several more in the distance, violet magic illuminating the gloom.
She liberated her new weapon from the man’s corpse and charged toward the light.
Alaric ducked behind the pillar in the nick of time. The granite reverberated with the fury of a dozen void bolts, and then he was off, disappearing into the mass of bodies scrambling for the exit. Common sense dictated that he head there as well, but he wasn’t leaving. Not without Talasyn.
More shots rang out behind him. Alaric used the shifting crowd to his advantage, going wherever it was thickest and most chaotic. Two of the flowering marble pedestals had been knocked over; as he neared, they reflected the Voidfell’s amethyst glow and he dove behind them, lying flat on his stomach. The pedestals trembled as the magic made contact, and the sickly sweet smell of decaying roses filled the air.
Alaric crawled forward on his elbows until he reached the sitting area at the edge of the dance floor, where most of the tables and chairs had been overturned in the havoc. One such table was lying on its side, and a slim arm shot out from behind it and hauled Alaric close with surprising strength.
“Are you—are you okay?” Talasyn whispered.
“Yes.” He ran his hands over her body in the dark, hardly daring to believe that she was alive, and with him. “You?”
“I can’t aethermance,” she said. “How are they doing this?”
Alaric went through the layout of Iantas in his head. “There’s a terrace wrapped around the ballroom. If they put the sariman cages there …” He trailed off. Each sariman could project its nullification field only within a seven-foot radius. The attackers wouldn’t be able to cover the whole ballroom, unless—
“They’re amplifying it somehow,” Talasyn finished his thought for him.
He sighed. “Hopefully Sevraim and Ileis are all right.”
Despite the circumstances they were in, there was something oddly charming about the way she wrinkled her nose at the mention of his legionnaires. Or perhaps just Ileis. “Why are they here?”
“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’ll all know 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.”