Talasyn was brought up short. This was the first time she’d heard any noble at court mention Hanan Ivralis. Her mother was a taboo subject, along with the would-be usurper Prince Sintan. Mindful not to step on Urduja’s toes, Talasyn only indulged her curiosity when she was alone with her father, and even then she never dug too deep, not wanting to cause Elagbi pain.
But her newly regained memory of Hanan singing a lullaby caused some rebellion to trickle in.
“Does it bother you?” she asked Gitab, hungry to know how he viewed Hanan, the woman whose actions had nearly toppled the Dragon Throne. “That it’s an outsider’s name?”
“I bear the late Lady Hanan no ill will and I am loyal to whom the ancestors bless,” Gitab said solemnly. “Your grandmother and I have our differences, to be sure, but my duty will always be to what’s best for Nenavar. And if there is a chance that Nenavar can be spared from Dead Season, then of course we must take it. But, after . . .” He lowered his voice. “You can count on me for after, Lachis’ka. I trust that we both have no wish to let the Shadow fall.”
There was something of Surakwel Mantes in Gitab’s face just then. The rajan was twice Surakwel’s age and infinitely more softly spoken, but there were the embers of that same fire. A love of country. A firm belief in what was right.
He has earned a name for himself as incorruptible and devoted to his ideals, Elagbi had said. With him on the panel, no one can accuse the Zahiya-lachis of selling out Nenavar.
Talasyn warmed slightly toward Gitab. She couldn’t trust him just yet, but it wasn’t a bad idea to start paving the way for her own alliances within the Dominion court.
“I’ll keep this in mind, my lord,” she told him. He nodded, and she took her leave, walking down the hallway of portraits as he remained where he was, gazing up at the Queen of Thorns.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The day of the royal wedding dawned bright and clear. Since the ceremony would be taking place at sunset, the guests started arriving shortly after the noon gongs struck. The skies above the Nenavar Dominion’s capital city swelled with all manner of luxurious airships that sported iridescent, multicolored sails in addition to the insignias of noble families from every corner of the archipelago.
These vessels were directed to the many docks strewn throughout Eskaya, their passengers ferried by a fleet of white-and-gold skiffs to the Starlight Tower: a building made almost entirely of emerald-green metalglass that jutted out like a thorny scepter from the rest of the skyline. As each guest disembarked, bedecked in furs and feathers and jewels and silks, they were escorted through the sparkling doorway and served refreshments while waiting for the ceremony to begin.
At least, that was what the bride assumed was currently happening. As for herself, she was in her chambers at the Roof of Heaven, trying not to puke.
“I can’t do this!” Talasyn all but yelled at Jie.
To her credit, the lady-in-waiting didn’t so much as flinch as she performed the delicate task of affixing tiny specks of diamonds to the tips of Talasyn’s eyelashes. They weren’t even her real lashes. She hadn’t even known that artificial ones existed until her arrival at court. They were unnaturally long and thick and she couldn’t see.
“You’re getting the wedding jitters, Lachis’ka, it’s completely normal,” Jie reassured her. “Why, my older brother climbed out the window the morning of his nuptials. When Mother’s guards apprehended him, he babbled some nonsense about embracing his true calling as a pirate— Your Grace, with all due respect, no,” she said firmly when she noticed that Talasyn was eyeing her bedroom window in desperation.
“Is Ossinast still here?” Talasyn asked. “Maybe I can talk to him and we can turn to a life of piracy instead.”
Jie grinned. “If elopement is more Her Grace’s style—”
“What?” Bile rose up Talasyn’s throat. “No. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Apparently sensing that Talasyn wasn’t in the mood for jokes, Jie adopted a more somber expression. “His Majesty has already left for the Starlight Tower. It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”
Considering that this whole affair is cursed from the start, that won’t make much difference, Talasyn thought darkly.
She was a mess of nerves and nausea by the time Jie finished pinning the tiara and veil. Talasyn rose to her feet, uncomfortable and overheated in her heavy dress. Jie stepped back in order to appreciate the full picture and broke out into a wide smile.
“Oh, Lachis’ka, you look positively dazzling,” Jie gushed. “His Majesty is a lucky man.”
Talasyn refused to dignify that with a response, and she fidgeted under Jie’s rapt scrutiny. It was, however, nothing compared to Prince Elagbi’s reaction. He was waiting for her in the solar and, as soon as he saw her, tears flooded his eyes.
“My child” was all that Elagbi could manage to say at first, the words choked with emotion, and Talasyn could only stand there and feel awkward and strange as he fished out a linen kerchief from the pocket of his formal blue tunic and dabbed at his cheeks. “Forgive me,” he said. “It’s just that—so much time was stolen from us, wasn’t it? I never got to see you grow up. And now here you are, as beautiful as your mother was when I married her. If only she could see you now. And if only—if only this was a wedding that you wanted. With someone that you cared for.”
Talasyn was helpless in the face of all this love. In the face of what had been found and what had been taken away. She didn’t know what to do with any of it.
So she just smiled tentatively at her father, and she let him take her by the arm and escort her out of the palace. Into the schooner that would bring them to her wedding.
Too many aethergraphs, Alaric grumbled to himself as he waited for the ceremony to begin. He was in a secluded alcove adjacent to the vast hall in the Starlight Tower where it would take place. He’d furtively poked his head out earlier to take the measure of the crowd, and behind the rows of guests was gathered a horde of correspondents with their aethermanced devices, bright-hot Firewarren-infused bulbs flashing with wild abandon.
When Gaheris swept through the Continent, the newssheets had been one of the first things to go in each nation that he conquered. Their sole function is instilling fear and panic among the masses, the former Night Emperor liked to say. They don’t understand what we’re trying to do. What we’re trying to build.
It seemed that Queen Urduja did not share this perspective. Of course, given the Dominion’s isolationism, whatever their newssheets wrote about the wedding would probably not trickle out to the rest of Lir. But the Night Empire would issue bulletins that were inevitably going to find their way to the trade ports. Their ambassadors would bear the news. It might even reach Sancia Ossinast, wherever she was. Assuming that she was still alive.
Alaric knew that he shouldn’t be thinking about that woman. She had left in the middle of the night. She was a traitor to Kesath. But it was hard to stop once he got started. Memories poured in, alive in the fiery light streaming in through the metalglass walls.
In Valisa, she had said to him once, her expression wistful, the way it always had been whenever she spoke of her parents’ homeland, when you wished to propose to the one you love, you’d take them somewhere with a lovely view, some place that has meaning. You’d hold their hands in yours and look upon their face, and you would tell them, “The stars guide me home to your heart.”