Talasyn wondered at the Amirante’s use of the word opponent, but she couldn’t help agreeing that it was difficult not to feel cowed as they approached the dais and she got a closer look at the Dragon Queen.
Urduja of House Silim was old in the way that mountains were old—imposing and awe-inspiring, having transcended the ravages of time while other lesser entities had been destroyed. Her snow-white hair was gathered into a tight bun by chains of star-shaped crystals that trailed down to decorate her high forehead, underneath a crown that looked as if it had been carved from ice, twisting gracefully up toward the star-studded ceiling like many-pronged antlers. The tips of her long lashes were spiked with tiny fragments of diamonds that glittered over eyes the color of jet, and her lips were painted a shade of blue that was almost black, striking against her olive skin. She wore a long-sleeved dress of currant-red silk shot through with silver thread, its wide shoulders and the flared hem of its hourglass skirt embellished with a multitude of iridescent dragon scales and fiery agate beads. The column of her throat was encased in layers of fine silver bands flecked with rubies, and the fingernails of one hand, adorned with gem-encrusted silver cones as sharp as daggers, tapped idly on the armrest of the throne as she waited for the group to break their silence.
Elagbi cleared his throat. “Most Revered Zahiya—”
“Let us dispense with the formalities. My sycophants are not around to appreciate them.” Urduja spoke in flawless Sailor’s Common, her voice as cold as her crown. “Amirante Vela, after all these failed attempts on your part to rally the Dominion to your cause, I had hoped that you would get the message. Instead, you bring the Hurricane Wars to my borders.”
“It is a war that we can still win, Your Majesty,” Vela declared. “With your help.” At first glance she seemed every bit as confident as Urduja, holding her head up just as high, but Talasyn was close enough to notice the Amirante’s pallor and her clenched fists—no doubt from the strain of soldiering on through her injury.
The Zahiya-lachis arched one elegantly sculpted brow. “You are asking me to send my fleet into battle against the Night Empire on your behalf?”
“No,” said Vela, “I am asking you for sanctuary. I am asking you to open your borders to my fleet and allow us to shelter here while we regroup our forces once more.”
“Then I would be harboring Kesath’s most despised enemies,” Urduja drawled. “Gaheris has not yet turned his eye to Nenavar, but I highly doubt that he would be willing to let this lie.”
“He doesn’t have to find out—and, even if he does, what can he do?” Vela argued. “This archipelago cannot be breached by warships en masse, not with your dragons.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Outsiders are very unpredictable.” A trace of anger finally leached into Urduja’s frigid tone. “That general of yours—Bieshimma, if I recall—did a perfectly good job of trespassing not too long ago.”
“So did I,” Talasyn blurted out.
Everyone turned to look at her, but she only had eyes for Urduja, who stared down from the dais with a carefully blank expression. Talasyn’s common sense was screaming at her to be quiet and let Vela handle things, but she was tense and anxious from recent events, desperate to help her comrades who were scattered throughout Lir trying to evade Kesath’s wide nets. She had to do something.
“I trespassed, too,” she continued, willing her voice not to crack. “That’s how your son found me.” Was she talking too loudly? She couldn’t accurately gauge her volume over the adrenaline pounding in her ears. “If Prince Elagbi is right, that means that I’m your granddaughter. That means I can ask you to at least hear us out.”
Urduja studied her for several long moments. There was something in the Dragon Queen’s eyes that Talasyn didn’t like—a certain shrewdness, a certain glint of triumph that made her feel as though she’d walked into some sort of trap. Vela reached out and gripped her arm, a gesture that elicited a lump in Talasyn’s throat from how protective it was, even though she didn’t understand the reason behind it.
“You’re right, she does look like your dead wife,” Urduja said to Elagbi after a while. “More than that, I recognize the backbone. Perhaps it is Hanan’s, perhaps it is even mine. I believe that she is Alunsina Ivralis. But, tell me”—she cocked her head—“why should I listen to the daughter of the woman who instigated the Nenavarene civil war?”
The blood froze in Talasyn’s veins. Her stomach hollowed out. At first, she thought that she’d misheard, but the seconds continued to tick by and the Zahiya-lachis continued to wait for her answer. Silent and deadly. The serpent about to strike.
Talasyn remembered asking Elagbi how the civil war had started, how he hadn’t been able to respond before the alarm for Alaric’s escape went up. She looked at the man who was her father, and he had turned pale; she looked at Vela, and the Amirante had retracted her hand from Talasyn’s arm, clenching it into a fist even though she remained stone-faced upon being confronted with this unexpected information.
“Well.” Urduja’s cold drawl was initially addressed to Elagbi. “I see that you haven’t told her everything.” To Talasyn she said, “Not only did your mother, Hanan, cause turmoil by refusing to be proclaimed my Lachis’ka after this son of mine brought her here and married her, but she also went behind my back to send a flotilla to the Northwest Continent, to help Sunstead in their conflict with Kesath. The sole reason being that the people of Sunstead were Lightweavers like her. Not a single outrigger from that flotilla made it back home, thanks to Kesath’s stormship. My other son”—and here her nostrils flared with a trace of anger—“used that catastrophe to further his own ends. He blamed me for it, he said that I was weak, and he led hundreds of islands in a bid to oust me from the throne so that he could take it for himself. Half a year of bloodshed that pushed a millennia-old civilization to the brink of ruin, and it can all be traced back to the outsider, Hanan Ivralis. You are of my blood, true, but you are of her blood as well. How can I trust you, Lightweaver?”
Urduja spat the name as though it was a curse. Talasyn was stunned, unable to come up with a way to salvage the situation, her thoughts somehow racing while at the same time contained in sluggish patterns.