“Your Highness.” Vela’s usual flinty tone was somewhat more restrained. “We thank you for granting us an audience.”
Elagbi smiled and bowed, one leg drawn back across the ground, right hand pressed to his abdomen while the left swept out in an elegant flourish. “Amirante. It is my honor. I in turn thank you for taking my daughter in and treating her kindly all these years. Now, if you’ll please follow me . . .”
The Lachis-dalo swarmed around them as they filed into the castle. The winding hallways of the W’taida were every inch as opulent as its exterior suggested. The walls and floors were lined with gold-flecked marble in a muted bronze hue. The metalglass windows were paneled with dark ivory and offered panoramic views of the islands in their bed of turquoise waves, the dragons hovering watchfully above. Talasyn would have been hard-pressed to believe that she was on an airship, if not for the hum of aether hearts beneath her feet.
Elagbi and Vela engaged in quiet, somber conversation as they discussed what had happened, how Sardovia’s last bastions had fallen and why the survivors had set course for Nenavar. Talasyn was grateful that Vela had taken the reins. It felt as if there was no end to the castle and she didn’t think that she was ready to traverse its many long corridors while making small talk with the man she had only recently learned might be her father.
They came to a halt at a set of golden doors covered with intricate carvings. There were two guards stationed on either side and, while Elagbi spoke to them, Vela fell back to murmur to Talasyn, “If I may offer some counsel for our upcoming meeting with the Dragon Queen: it would be best if I do the talking. By which I mean to say—do not let your temper get the best of you. And don’t cuss.”
“I don’t cuss that much,” Talasyn retorted with no small amount of belligerence. “Why do we have to walk on eggshells, anyway?”
“Because, if the old stories are to be believed, it takes a certain kind of woman to hold on to power in the cutthroat nest of political intrigue that is Nenavarene society,” Vela replied. “Queen Urduja would be very much that kind of woman, given how long her house has reigned. We must proceed with care.”
The guards pushed open the doors, and Elagbi summarily ushered Vela and Talasyn into the presence of the Zahiya-lachis.
In contrast to the rest of the W’taida, where the dawn streamed in like rivers, the throne room’s floor-to-ceiling windows were shrouded by opaque drapes of rough navy silk—for privacy, Talasyn supposed. This would have made the large chamber impossibly dark if not for the presence of fire lamps, different from the ones of the Continent in that they gave off a pale and radiant light with a tinge of silver-blue, casting an ethereal gloss over the marble pillars and the celestial-patterned tapestries, over the unmoving silhouettes of the queen’s Lachis-dalo stationed at various ingress points, and over the dais at the end of the hall, upon which perched a stately white throne. The woman sitting on it was too far away for Talasyn to make out her features, but something about her posture called to mind the highly venomous adders that lurked in the grass of the Great Steppe. They would watch from atop gleaming coils when another life-form encroached on their territory and took their time deciding whether the intruder was worth the effort needed to strike.
“This place is normally bustling with courtiers,” Elagbi said as he led Vela and Talasyn deeper into the throne room. “However, due to the sensitive nature of this meeting, my mother and I thought it best to be discreet.”
“Seems to me they could’ve taken a smaller airship, then,” Talasyn mumbled to Vela.
“It’s a show of power,” Vela replied calmly, also keeping her voice low. “Of strength and grandeur. An intimidated opponent is much easier to negotiate with.”
Talasyn wondered at the Amirante’s use of the word opponent, but she couldn’t help agreeing that it was difficult not to feel cowed as they approached the dais and she got a closer look at the Dragon Queen.
Urduja of House Silim was old in the way that mountains were old—imposing and awe-inspiring, having transcended the ravages of time while other lesser entities had been destroyed. Her snow-white hair was gathered into a tight bun by chains of star-shaped crystals that trailed down to decorate her high forehead, underneath a crown that looked as if it had been carved from ice, twisting gracefully up toward the star-studded ceiling like many-pronged antlers. The tips of her long lashes were spiked with tiny fragments of diamonds that glittered over eyes the color of jet, and her lips were painted a shade of blue that was almost black, striking against her olive skin. She wore a long-sleeved dress of currant-red silk shot through with silver thread, its wide shoulders and the flared hem of its hourglass skirt embellished with a multitude of iridescent dragon scales and fiery agate beads. The column of her throat was encased in layers of fine silver bands flecked with rubies, and the fingernails of one hand, adorned with gem-encrusted silver cones as sharp as daggers, tapped idly on the armrest of the throne as she waited for the group to break their silence.
Elagbi cleared his throat. “Most Revered Zahiya—”
“Let us dispense with the formalities. My sycophants are not around to appreciate them.” Urduja spoke in flawless Sailor’s Common, her voice as cold as her crown. “Amirante Vela, after all these failed attempts on your part to rally the Dominion to your cause, I had hoped that you would get the message. Instead, you bring the Hurricane Wars to my borders.”
“It is a war that we can still win, Your Majesty,” Vela declared. “With your help.” At first glance she seemed every bit as confident as Urduja, holding her head up just as high, but Talasyn was close enough to notice the Amirante’s pallor and her clenched fists—no doubt from the strain of soldiering on through her injury.
The Zahiya-lachis arched one elegantly sculpted brow. “You are asking me to send my fleet into battle against the Night Empire on your behalf?”
“No,” said Vela, “I am asking you for sanctuary. I am asking you to open your borders to my fleet and allow us to shelter here while we regroup our forces once more.”
“Then I would be harboring Kesath’s most despised enemies,” Urduja drawled. “Gaheris has not yet turned his eye to Nenavar, but I highly doubt that he would be willing to let this lie.”
“He doesn’t have to find out—and, even if he does, what can he do?” Vela argued. “This archipelago cannot be breached by warships en masse, not with your dragons.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Outsiders are very unpredictable.” A trace of anger finally leached into Urduja’s frigid tone. “That general of yours—Bieshimma, if I recall—did a perfectly good job of trespassing not too long ago.”
“So did I,” Talasyn blurted out.
Everyone turned to look at her, but she only had eyes for Urduja, who stared down from the dais with a carefully blank expression. Talasyn’s common sense was screaming at her to be quiet and let Vela handle things, but she was tense and anxious from recent events, desperate to help her comrades who were scattered throughout Lir trying to evade Kesath’s wide nets. She had to do something.