“I won’t agree to this.” There was a beast trying to claw its way out of Talasyn’s chest, some vile, ugly thing birthed from anger and disbelief, but she might as well have been the sea, crashing desperately against the insurmountable rock that was her grandmother’s iron will. She turned to Elagbi, who had also gotten to his feet at Urduja’s declaration but was otherwise not saying a word. “You can’t make me do this!” Talasyn snapped at him. “All your talk about wanting me to be happy, to have what you and Hanan had. I won’t find it with that—that monster—” Her voice broke. “Please—”
After Mathire’s aetherwave transmission, Talasyn had returned the dugout to its proprietor and then rushed back to the palace on foot. Common sense had kicked in long enough for her to pretend that she’d still been laid up in bed when Jie came knocking to say that the Zahiya-lachis had summoned her. She hadn’t been all that confident in her ability to act surprised as she sat in her grandmother’s salon and was told about the Kesathese flotilla and their weaponry, but then the offer had come up and there was no longer any need to feign shock and horror.
“Talasyn is correct, Harlikaan,” Elagbi told Urduja quietly. “She has already assumed her role at court under duress, and now you are offering her up like a sacrificial lamb to the Night Emperor.”
“The alternative is to fight a war that we cannot win,” said Urduja. “This is what is best for our people.”
“Then you marry him!” Talasyn spat.
The Dragon Queen raised an eyebrow. “I am not the one he chased over the Eversea, the one he crossed blades with and met his match in. Who better to keep a Shadowforged husband in line than a Lightweaver wife?”
“With what training?” Talasyn let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “I haven’t fought in months and I can’t even commune with the Belian Sever. Your terms made sure of that!”
“And you accepted those terms, did you not? To save your friends. Tell me, what do you think will happen to them if the Night Empire attacks us and finds out that they’re here?” Urduja asked pointedly. “With Alaric Ossinast as your consort, you will have greater control over where his forces may go. We will retain sovereignty of the archipelago and we will be able to keep the Night Empire away from Sigwad, where your comrades are hiding. If you won’t do this for Nenavar, then do this for Sardovia.”
“You have all the answers, don’t you?” Talasyn narrowed her eyes at the woman whom she just couldn’t bring herself to like, even as she’d come to grudgingly respect her power and political acumen. It was a sad thing to realize that the family she’d been searching for was a far cry from perfect—sadder still that one of them was actually capable of making her vision go dim with rage. “Did you know that this would happen? Were you plotting to use me as a bargaining chip right from the start? Did you anticipate that the Night Empire would come calling?”
“I suspected that it would be a possibility,” Urduja said with maddening calm. “New empires are always so eager to make their mark, and who could resist the siren song of the Dominion? A strategic halfway mark between Kesath and both the southern and eastern hemispheres, oozing with precious metals and fertile land and advanced technology . . . Yes, I suspected. And I planned accordingly, because that is what a leader does.”
“Leaders fight for their people!” Talasyn yelled. “They don’t unlock the gates and welcome the enemy with open arms!”
“You foolish child,” Urduja hissed. “Don’t you understand yet? This is how we fight. We give them the foothold that they’re after, but we dictate how they move.”
“You’re using we an awful lot, considering that I’m the only one who’s going to be a tyrant’s wife!” Talasyn’s gaze shot to Elagbi once more but he remained silent, the look on his face conflicted. Her shoulders slumped. Her father might profess to love her but, in the end, he would never go against his own mother, his queen. The Zahiya-lachis was as good as a goddess, her word law.
“You promised, Alunsina,” Urduja reminded her quietly. “You swore that you wouldn’t give me any trouble if I agreed to shelter you and your comrades. I am holding you to that now.”
In spite of her defiance, Talasyn knew that she again had no choice. This time, it wasn’t just the continued survival of the Sardovian remnant that was at stake, but all of Nenavar as well. Even if by some miracle she and her comrades managed to escape from the Dominion unscathed, she would be leaving an entire country at the mercy of the regime that had thought nothing of wiping entire cities from the map. She was well and truly ensnared.
“Take heart, my dear.” Urduja must have sensed Talasyn’s belligerent acceptance, because she now sounded marginally more sympathetic. “Many empires have come and gone since the first Zahiya-lachis took the throne. Nenavar has watched them rise and she has watched them fall, and she will outlast this one, too. The Night Empire will not destroy us, and neither will they destroy you, for you are of our blood. Now—save us all.”
Chapter Fifteen
Emerging from the depths of the Deliverance the next day, the Kesathese shallop drifted past the Nenavarene harbor, lugsails on its twin masts rippling black and silver in a breeze too warm for Alaric’s liking. It was surrounded by a formation of ghostly Dominion coracles steered by helmsmen who were not only guiding the outsiders to the capital city but also watching their every move like hawks.
Alaric entertained the possibility that this was a trap, that he and his retinue would be slaughtered upon landing at the Roof of Heaven. It was an unlikely prospect, but he found himself almost wishing for it. A swift, violent death seemed preferable to marrying a stranger, some coldly beautiful, viperous Nenavarene woman.
As he stood at the bow of the shallop while it cruised further inland, a lush paradise unfolded miles below his feet, a maze of winding roads and rivers embedded in an expanse of green jungle. He scarcely had eyes for any of it, however, because for some reason his thoughts had strayed to Talasyn.
As the months had worn on without any sign of her, the notion that she might be dead had begun to creep up on him. It bothered him more than he cared to admit that their paths might never cross again, that he might never again see her teeth clenched in a snarl and the wiry muscles of her arms straining with every pulse of the radiance that she spun from her fingers. Granted, if she were still alive, that would only be prolonging the inevitable, but . . .
But the last that Alaric had glimpsed of Talasyn was her unkempt braid tossing in the wind as he turned and walked away from her amidst a tangle of smoke and ruins. And that felt wrong, somehow. Unceremonious, and far too abrupt.
He wondered, without really meaning to, what she would think if she ever heard about his impending marriage. He wondered this while feeling a vague, dull ache that he didn’t understand.
Talasyn looked up as the door to her chambers swung open, puzzled that it was Elagbi who entered instead of Jie, who was supposed to prepare her for the initial meeting with the Kesathese delegation.
“What are you doing here?” Her tone was a little too sharp, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.