I can’t believe you made me sleep on the floor, he thought darkly. It wasn’t that he hadn’t gotten what he deserved for taking liberties with her, but he’d had a rough night’s sleep and he wasn’t inclined to be charitable.
She ignored him, calling out something in Nenavarene to whoever had come knocking. The door creaked open and Jie entered, clearly trying to fight back a saucy leer at the sight of the imperial couple side by side on the canopy bed.
“If it pleases His Majesty,” Jie said, “the Lachis’ka has to get ready for breakfast now.”
As Jie ushered Talasyn into the bathroom, Alaric took great care to avoid looking either of them in the eye. Right before the door closed behind them, though, Jie erupted into rapid, excited chatter. There was no mistaking what that tone implied, even if he couldn’t parse the language, and regret and disbelief were sharp and heavy in the pit of his stomach as it all came rushing back to him. What he had done last night. With the Lightweaver. With the girl he’d met in battle whom he was now married to.
Why had she let him touch her? Why had she returned his kisses and touched him back?
She had called him Alaric. It was the first time he had ever heard his name in the shape of her voice. It had added to the blood pounding in his ears, to the fire in his soul. The memory of it now sent a pang through his chest.
He stared at his hand, holding it up to the early-morning light. The small shards of diamantine gemstones embedded into the wedding band on his ring finger sparkled.
This hand had been between his wife’s legs last night. The middle finger of this hand had been inside her.
She had fallen apart around him, and that fluttering of her inner walls as she clamped down had been the best thing he’d ever felt—perhaps even better than when he had come all over her lithe hand.
It haunted him: the sound of her soft cries, and the unexpected gentleness with which she’d stroked his hair as he lay slumped atop her, his world irrevocably changed.
But he was sailing home today, home to the nation that had caused her so much suffering. She wouldn’t be joining him for another fortnight. By that time, it would be too late to get those moments back.
Wasn’t that for the best, though?
Not long after Talasyn had finished dressing, an attendant knocked on the door with a summons from the Zahiya-lachis. Talasyn wondered what fault of hers had been unearthed by her grandmother this time, and then it struck her what a sad reaction that was to your own family wanting to speak with you.
Had she shared such a grievance with Urduja, the older woman would have scoffed. The Zahiya-lachis of the Nenavar Dominion had little patience for sentiment, and that was never more apparent as when she received Talasyn in her salon minutes later.
“Seeing as no corpses were discovered in your chambers this morning, I trust that you and the Night Emperor had an amicable night together.”
By some miracle, Talasyn was able to hold her grandmother’s gaze in a calm manner from across the table, even as her fingers twisted nervously into the fabric of her skirt. “It went fine.”
“I dearly hope that such a blissful state of affairs won’t prove to be the exception to the rule.” Urduja paused as though reconsidering her statement, then inclined her head in a thoughtful nod. “Well, up until the endgame, anyway.”
Talasyn’s heart dropped into her stomach. It wasn’t as though she’d forgotten . . .
No. That wasn’t true. There were moments on Belian when she had forgotten, however briefly. And last night she had definitely forgotten long enough to come. She’d let Alaric drive all logic from her mind.
“Things will only get more difficult from here, I’m afraid,” Urduja continued. “I will have my people meet with Vela and ask her what she plans to do. The Sardovian remnant cannot hide in Nenavar forever. It would be untenable. We need the alliance with Kesath up until the Night of the World-Eater. Afterwards, though, either the Allfold moves to reclaim the Northwest Continent within a year, or . . .” She paused again, drawing a measured breath.
“Or what?” Talasyn pressed. A horrible suspicion began to dawn in her mind, and it blossomed on her tongue. “Or they’ll need to find somewhere else to go?”
“We’ll discuss that, should it come to it,” Urduja said firmly. “But there is a limit to the amount of time that I can buy your friends, Alunsina.”
Talasyn began to shake with anger—and fear. “You told us that we could shelter here for as long as we needed to. You promised. We made a deal.” A horrifying thought occurred to her and she fired it off like a new arrow from her quiver. “But now the Dominion has a deal with Kesath, too, as well as a mutual defense treaty. So, when the Amirante finally makes her move, whose side will you be on, Harlikaan?”
Talasyn spat out the title as though it were an insult, but her grandmother didn’t even flinch. Urduja’s face betrayed nothing.
“You must learn when to keep your own counsel, Alunsina,” the Zahiya-lachis said after a while. “Never let the enemy know what you’re thinking. For our purposes, I am your enemy right now, am I not? You may continue to deem me as such. I can’t stop you. But I can tell you this: I account for everything and so I am caught unprepared by nothing, and I will never apologize for that. No treaty between nations is binding forever, especially once the other signatory is dust. Do I believe that such a fate will befall the Night Empire, that Vela’s fleet can defeat the Kesathese? Not at the moment, no—and that is why I, as I have said, am buying time.” Urduja lowered her voice even further. “Nenavarene shipwrights have completed the repairs on the Sardovian airships. These shipwrights will now work with our Enchanters to optimize the carracks and the frigates, as well as the two stormships that made it to Nenavar. The Allfold’s remaining vessels will be outfitted with as much magic as possible while Vela makes her plans. And, in the meantime, the Sardovians have food and shelter. These are things that I willingly grant. These are things that would normally be too much to ask of any queen, least of all one who took no part in the Hurricane Wars.”
Talasyn was silent. She had no comebacks. It felt as though her grandmother had spun a web of words from which there was no escape.