Talasyn quickly backed away from the window, color flooding her cheeks. Why did you do that? she just as quickly chided herself. She should have held her ground—so what if he caught her staring? She lived here, she could stare at anything she liked . . .
Shoulders squared in resolve, Talasyn darted forward, determined to glare at Alaric until he slunk away with his tail between his legs. However, when she returned to her original spot by the window, the last of the Night Empire delegation was already disappearing into the palace.
Common sense filtered back in. What am I doing? she wondered, in both dismay and disbelief at her own actions. She couldn’t help but feel that she’d lost yet another round of this strange new battle that she and Alaric Ossinast had found themselves locked into. It didn’t bode well for what was to come.
On her way back to her chambers, Talasyn ran into Kai Gitab in the Queenswalk, a long, carpeted hall where the marble walls were lined with enormous oil portraits of every Zahiya-lachis known to history. In comparison to most other locations in the palace, it was shielded from the sun by heavy drapes over the windows, to preserve the delicate art. The only illumination was in the form of the odd fire lamp here and there, adding to the eerie feeling that the beautiful faces in the gilded frames were watching one’s every move.
Gitab was standing in front of the portrait of Magwayen Silim, Urduja’s mother. He bowed to Talasyn as she approached. “Your Grace.”
“Rajan Gitab,” Talasyn replied in kind. There were no guards in this hall and she’d given her Lachis-dalo the slip earlier. She was alone with him, alone with a Dominion noble opposed to the alliance with Kesath. She wondered how deep his dissent went, and if he would dare to try anything the way that Surakwel had, but she figured that it couldn’t hurt to be polite. “Thank you for all your hard work during the negotiations.”
Gitab flashed a cool smile. “The triumph belongs to Daya Rasmey and Daya Langsoune. You and I both know that Her Starlit Majesty only put me there so that I could report back to my fellow critics that nothing underhanded was in effect.”
None of you told me about the Night of the World-Eater. Seemed plenty underhanded to me, Talasyn groused to herself, but it must have shown on her face because Gitab’s dark eyes glinted behind his gold-rimmed spectacles as though he knew what she was thinking.
“Still,” she persevered, rather valiantly in her opinion, through this patch of small talk that she was starting to suspect might be a field of caltrops in disguise, “it’s over now.”
“It is,” said Gitab. “And thus a new age begins.” He returned his gaze to the portrait, Talasyn following his line of sight. The previous Zahiya-lachis stared fiercely down at them, brown-haired and umber-skinned; while Urduja’s crown appeared chiseled from ice, Magwayen’s crown was a massive, fearsome thing wrought from thorns of iron and dark opals.
“Your great-grandmother was, by all accounts, a strong and capable ruler,” Gitab told Talasyn. “Since she knew that the World-Eater would come during her daughter’s reign, she spent her later years preparing the realm for it, preparing Queen Urduja for it. If this solution that you and the Night Emperor will employ fails, Nenavar will still make it through Dead Season thanks in no small part to the protocols and countermeasures that Magwayen devised.”
“We won’t fail,” Talasyn assured him.
It will be all right, Alaric had said. Otherwise, we’re all dead.
She determinedly banished his annoying voice from her head, where it tended to pop up at the most inopportune moments.
“Yes, I suppose that anything is possible with your kind of aethermancy, Lachis’ka. We shall see.” If Gitab possessed any of the fear of the Lightweave and the Shadowgate that other Dominion nobles held, he didn’t show it. He continued gazing at the portrait of Magwayen while Talasyn debated just walking away, as the conversation seemed to be at an end.
Gitab spoke again, however. “The sun began to set on the Silim dynasty when Queen Urduja birthed a second son, her second and last child. The day she sets sail with the ancestors, Your Grace, a new house will rise. One with your mother’s name. Such is the way of our people.”
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.