It was a petty remark, and not all that accurate considering that Kesath would have needed to neutralize the Dominion anyway, aether hearts or not, but Alaric had no regrets. Talasyn looked as though she was seconds from launching herself across the table at him. It was the most entertained he’d ever been inside this council room.
“In any event,” he continued, “Kesath is not begging. We will be happy to pay a fair price for Nenavarene crystals, should Her Starlit Majesty allow it.”
All eyes darted to Urduja, who gracefully inclined her silver-crowned head. “As with all other goods, we shall discuss a price, Emperor Alaric. Is that the extent of your trade interests, then?”
It was a perfect segue, too freely given. Vague suspicions tugged yet again at the back of Alaric’s mind, but he pressed on. There wouldn’t be a more opportune moment than this. “Just one more thing, Harlikaan. We formally request that Kesathese Enchanters be granted access to what you call the Void Sever, in the interest of expanding aethermancy knowledge and in exchange, of course, for trade concessions that we will be happy to grant—”
“Absolutely not!” Talasyn interrupted him. Again. This time, though, one of the Dominion advisers, the Rajan Gitab, nodded in agreement with her, so fervently that his spectacles were in danger of slipping down his nose. “The Night Empire cannot be allowed anywhere near the Voidfell’s nexus point!” Talasyn continued. “They created the stormships with the Tempestroad—who knows what fresh hell they’ll come up with if provided with a reservoir of death magic? If we willingly hand it over to them?”
Alaric had been anticipating such a reaction, but Mathire waded into the fray before he could get a word in. “We created the stormships to keep our nation safe. We unleashed them only when a Nenavarene flotilla made to attack us unprovoked,” she pointed out. The Dominion nobles all collectively stiffened. “But Emperor Alaric has already promised that Nenavar won’t suffer Sardovia’s fate if no terms are violated. You have nothing to worry about, unless you’re thinking of making such an unwise move again.”
“Well, forgive me, Commodore,” Talasyn snarled at Mathire, and Alaric could only sit there and marvel at how his bride-to-be was ready and willing to fight with anyone, at any time, “if I don’t set much store by the word of invaders—”
Urduja held up a hand, her fingers glittering with long jewel-studded nail cones and a multitude of rings. Talasyn’s lips clamped together and her whole demeanor changed, slinking into a mutinous silence. It put Alaric rather in mind of a cat who’d been told to go away.
“While it would be an honor to contribute to the advancement of aethermancy throughout the Northwest Continent,” Urduja said in such a way that there was only the implication of sarcasm, not the presence of it, “the Voidfell is currently . . . volatile. We ceased our own extractions the previous month, and as such we cannot in good conscience let Kesath destabilize the nexus point any further.”
“What do you mean by volatile?” Talasyn demanded just as Alaric was about to ask the same thing.
Urduja exchanged glances with the other Dominion nobles. Glances that spoke volumes, that made it clear Talasyn had been left out of the loop regarding a critical piece of information.
“You were not told, Alunsina, because it is among other things a delicate matter pertaining to national security,” said the Zahiya-lachis. “However, we are telling you now. So please listen.” She then addressed the Kesathese delegation. “The Voidfell is indispensable to Nenavar. Legend has it that it was the first nexus point to break through the veil of aetherspace on our shores. Over the centuries it has provided us with a means to defend ourselves. However, there is a price—one that the Dominion pays every thousand years.” Urduja looked at Talasyn. “You have wondered why the Void Sever flares so brightly. Your instincts were correct; this is not normal. Usually, it behaves like any other nexus point. However, as the sevenfold lunar eclipse draws near, the Void Sever has begun to rage within its banks. On the night all seven moons vanish, it will break free and wash over Nenavar. It will wither the fields and jungles that are in its path, killing all life. Not even fish and coral will be safe. Since they can manipulate void magic in its extracted form, our Enchanters have experimented with pushing back the Voidfell whenever it discharges in its usual manner. But for years, all attempts have been unsuccessful.”
Alaric fought to maintain a blank expression. He had never before heard of any type of Sever being capable of destroying an entire country when left to its own devices. In his life so far, all the chaos that magic could wreak had been when it was shaped by human hands.
“The Fisherman’s Warning,” Talasyn abruptly supplied. “That’s what the people of the Sardovian Coast called it—the amethyst light on the horizon.”
“Here, it is known as Dead Season,” said Urduja. “It takes the work of generations to rebuild in the aftermath of the Voidfell’s fury. By conducting mass evacuations and storing all the seeds and livestock that we can, Nenavar gets better at mitigating the effects of the disaster each time. But it is only now that we may have found a solution to avoid it altogether.” She gestured first to a stunned Talasyn, then to Alaric, who tensed in his seat as it finally dawned on him that this was what the Zahiya-lachis had been after all along, what she’d so easily traded her granddaughter’s hand for. “At the Belian garrison, the two of you created a kind of shield that disrupted a void blast. Such magic has never been observed before in our history. We believe that this combination of the Lightweave and the Shadowgate could be the key to preventing the catastrophe. If Kesath wishes to be granted access to the Voidfell and to benefit from everything else that this treaty with Nenavar offers, then Your Majesty must work together with Her Grace and learn to replicate and refine the barrier until our Enchanters can determine how to magnify its effects and encompass the whole Void Sever on the night of reckoning.”
Urduja stared at Alaric impassively, waiting for his response, but his thoughts were moving at a glacial pace as he processed all that had been said. At the corner of his eye, on the other side of the table, Talasyn was slack-jawed and trembling faintly with that anger of hers, which always seemed too big for her slight frame to contain. The Nenavarene had lied to her; that much was clear. She’d asked about the Void Sever’s behavior and she had either been brushed off or promised that there was no cause for concern.
Why hadn’t her grandmother wanted her to know until today?
“If memory serves,” said Commodore Mathire, “the next sevenfold lunar eclipse, which we on the Continent refer to as the Moonless Dark, isn’t for another five months. Emperor Alaric cannot be expected to neglect his duties in Kesath for so long. What if we refuse?”
“Then we will have wasted our time with these negotiations.” Alaric took it upon himself to respond, because he would not give Urduja the satisfaction of being the one to say it. “And five months from now we will have lost all the resources that this alliance has only just made us privy to.”
The resources that we badly need, he thought. Crops and livestock and aether hearts and other raw materials, to offset the infrastructural damage and agricultural losses that the Continent had sustained after a decade of warfare.