Alaric surged forward, driving Surakwel back until they were once more level with the banquet table. His next blow vibrated with so much raw power that Surakwel’s weapon was torn from his grasp. It skidded away, far from reach, and time seemed to slow as Alaric advanced, pulling his elbow back for another strike—
Surakwel dodged the other man’s wide-angle swing and retrieved his discarded crossbow. He raised his arm and fired, and Talasyn heard someone gasp—only to realize that it was she. She had made that sound.
Alaric automatically deflected the bolt. He wasn’t wielding a shadow-forged sword that could ward off projectiles, but the blade was Nenavarene steel nonetheless, and the bolt careened off it and into the wall and dislodged one of the sariman cages, which fell to the floor and rolled away with a thud.
Talasyn was too near another cage to benefit from the break in the nullification field, but she saw the exact moment that the Shadowgate came crashing over Alaric. She saw the triumph in his gray eyes before they turned a cold, glowing silver, the wildest and highest kind of exhilaration coursing through his broad frame. There was no more room for politics, no more room for diplomacy. He was a creature of instinct, ensnared in the nets of his magic.
He tossed the Nenavarene sword aside. A black spear took its place in his hand, the guttural shriek of the Shadowgate being opened rending the air. He hurled it at his foe as the spectators cried out, and Talasyn—
—Talasyn knew that, if Surakwel Mantes died tonight, the Dominion would be up in arms. Even though the alliance had been Queen Urduja’s idea, her people were more than capable of rebelling against her. They’d done it before.
With no thought for her own safety, Talasyn launched herself forward, into the field of combat. Her heels slipped and slid against the floor, but she managed to stay upright, darting between the two duelists. The Lightweave coursed back into her veins, golden and rich, as if some long-dormant pulse had been restarted. The crackling midnight haze of the oncoming shadow-spear filled her vision. She was panicking, she couldn’t think of a single weapon to spin that would block it, she didn’t know how to defend—
Talasyn held up a hand, unleashing a shapeless mass of radiant magic that flowed from her fingertips and collided with the spear. But Alaric had crafted his weapon with the intent to kill while she had no idea what she was doing, and shadow broke through light’s flimsy veil like a hunting knife through butter, continuing its lethal trajectory.
Beyond the darkness and the aether, she saw his silver eyes widen. She saw his arm shoot out to the side in a slashing motion, diverting the spear right before it could pierce her chest. It flew up, toward the ceiling, and there was a burst of burning pain when the edge of its blade grazed her right arm as it whizzed past her.
She sucked in a hiss of breath, but it was drowned out by the screams of the crowd and the crash of magic against marble as the shadow-spear chipped the ceiling and vanished, raining down a fine white dust.
An earth-shattering stillness fell over the hall. Talasyn lifted her chin, meeting Alaric’s gaze with a defiance that she didn’t quite feel, rattled as she was by what had just occurred. He was breathing hard and rough. His emotionless facade had cracked. Even though he was no longer channeling the Shadowgate, his eyes were bright with fury, and he had gone even paler. As he stalked over to her, she braced herself. This dress was not made for combat, but she could handle him as long as she steered clear of the other sariman cages.
Is this it? she wanted to ask. Do we fight, here and now? She tried to read his intent in the stiff set of his shoulders, in the heaving of his chest, in his every prowling step. Can I take you when you’re the angry one?
When he came to a halt right in front of her, she realized that his gaze was fixed on her injured arm. The spear had torn the sleeve a few inches above her elbow, revealing a wound that leaked crimson onto the iridescent teal fabric surrounding it.
“Get a healer to see to that at once,” he said through gritted teeth.
“It’s little more than a scratch,” she protested. “There’s no need—”
He interrupted her in an awful voice. “Don’t argue with me, Talasyn.”
The next time he moved, it was to turn to the stunned, deathly quiet nobles.
“Ever since my delegation and I arrived in Eskaya, we have made every effort to treat peaceably with the Dominion.” Alaric’s tone was cool, but Talasyn was close enough to glimpse the embers blazing in his gray irises. “Unfortunately, you have not seen fit to extend the same courtesy to us. All of you seem to be laboring under the delusion that we are pushovers. That ends now.” He turned a withering glare in Urduja’s direction. “Harlikaan, I have spent the last three afternoons training your heir, so that we can save your realm, and tonight she was injured because she still can’t make a shield. The Lachis’ka’s aethermancy will never improve as long as you keep denying her access to her nexus point. You are wasting my time and hers, and damning all of your subjects in the process—all because you are unwilling to cede control in this one matter. I will take her to Belian myself. You may no longer dictate where I can and cannot go.”
It was Talasyn’s first and most instinctive reaction to ask Alaric who he thought he was, interfering in this matter. However, just as she was about to open her mouth, he shot her a look of dark reproach. As though he knew that she was raring to pick a fight, and he was warning her to leave it.
Normally, this wouldn’t have stopped her—but, at the same time, Alaric’s choice of words leapt out at her like lightning.
He had called it her nexus point. Not Urduja’s, not the Dominion’s.
The Sever on the Belian range was made up of the same magic that flowed in her veins. It would answer to her and her alone.
“Additionally, you will no longer keep me and my Legion from the Shadowgate.” His tone had taken on a sinister bent. “Remove your precious cages—I never want to see them again. Tomorrow will be the last day of negotiations. If we have not finalized the agreement by then, consider our sides officially at war. And consider yourselves on your own in five months’ time, when the Voidfell rises.”
Talasyn braced herself, expecting the Zahiya-lachis to put up a fight. Instead, Urduja simply nodded, as if she, too, realized the peril that her entire realm was in.
Alaric returned the nod, although there was something vaguely mocking behind his gesture. Without another word, he strode out the doors, followed by Sevraim and Mathire. He was limping slightly from the cut in his thigh as Talasyn watched him go.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Once the Kesathese delegation had vanished from sight, it didn’t take long for the banquet hall to dissolve into chaos. While the healer summoned by Urduja tended to Talasyn’s wound, the Dominion nobles started talking all at once, some shouting, others gesticulating, all arguing with one another over whether Surakwel Mantes had been in the right to challenge the Night Emperor during a royal feast.
Meanwhile, the object of contention picked himself up off the floor and sidled closer to Talasyn. “Welcome home, Your Grace. It would appear that I owe you my life,” Surakwel remarked. “A debt of the self, as it were.”
“Debt of the self is based on the Nenavarene code of honor,” Talasyn pointed out, sucking in a sharp breath at the sting as the healer washed her wound with a tea of guava leaves boiled in palm liquor. “You reached for a crossbow during a sword fight. That doesn’t strike me as particularly honorable.”