“The Fisherman’s Warning,” Talasyn abruptly supplied. “That’s what the people of the Sardovian Coast called it—the amethyst light on the horizon.”
“Here, it is known as Dead Season,” said Urduja. “It takes the work of generations to rebuild in the aftermath of the Voidfell’s fury. By conducting mass evacuations and storing all the seeds and livestock that we can, Nenavar gets better at mitigating the effects of the disaster each time. But it is only now that we may have found a solution to avoid it altogether.” She gestured first to a stunned Talasyn, then to Alaric, who tensed in his seat as it finally dawned on him that this was what the Zahiya-lachis had been after all along, what she’d so easily traded her granddaughter’s hand for. “At the Belian garrison, the two of you created a kind of shield that disrupted a void blast. Such magic has never been observed before in our history. We believe that this combination of the Lightweave and the Shadowgate could be the key to preventing the catastrophe. If Kesath wishes to be granted access to the Voidfell and to benefit from everything else that this treaty with Nenavar offers, then Your Majesty must work together with Her Grace and learn to replicate and refine the barrier until our Enchanters can determine how to magnify its effects and encompass the whole Void Sever on the night of reckoning.”
Urduja stared at Alaric impassively, waiting for his response, but his thoughts were moving at a glacial pace as he processed all that had been said. At the corner of his eye, on the other side of the table, Talasyn was slack-jawed and trembling faintly with that anger of hers, which always seemed too big for her slight frame to contain. The Nenavarene had lied to her; that much was clear. She’d asked about the Void Sever’s behavior and she had either been brushed off or promised that there was no cause for concern.
Why hadn’t her grandmother wanted her to know until today?
“If memory serves,” said Commodore Mathire, “the next sevenfold lunar eclipse, which we on the Continent refer to as the Moonless Dark, isn’t for another five months. Emperor Alaric cannot be expected to neglect his duties in Kesath for so long. What if we refuse?”
“Then we will have wasted our time with these negotiations.” Alaric took it upon himself to respond, because he would not give Urduja the satisfaction of being the one to say it. “And five months from now we will have lost all the resources that this alliance has only just made us privy to.”
The resources that we badly need, he thought. Crops and livestock and aether hearts and other raw materials, to offset the infrastructural damage and agricultural losses that the Continent had sustained after a decade of warfare.
The Dragon Queen smiled as though she’d read his mind. The trap was sprung. “Full marks, Your Majesty.”
“There are other nations,” Mathire argued. “Friendlier ones and just as wealthy that we can form alliances with. Ones whose heirs presumptive are not former enemies of Kesath.” Her voice rose as she warmed to her topic. “If Nenavar is going to be taken out of the equation in five months’ time anyway, why should His Imperial Majesty even lift a finger to help?”
The aforementioned Imperial Majesty unleashed a slew of curses in the privacy of his own head. Alaric had known that Mathire was an aggressive negotiator, as all of his father’s old guard were, but he had never expected her to be so rash. With him and Sevraim cut off from the Shadowgate, they were going to be slaughtered in this very council room.
But Urduja didn’t immediately start calling for Kesathese heads. She leaned back, her jewel-coned fingers steepled together. “You could let us fend for ourselves,” she said contemplatively, “but any treaties you’ll draft with other nations won’t be much good in the long run, I fear. We have exhaustively detailed records from all other Dead Seasons in the past. A pattern has emerged. Every time the Void Sever erupts on the night of the sevenfold eclipse, it has a wider and wider area of effect. Last time, the magic crossed the Eversea—into the far waters of the Northwest Continent.”
“That’s why the Sardovian Coast called the amethyst light a warning.” Talasyn’s tone was one of horrified revelation. “It heralded rough seas and months of meager catch. The Voidfell killed most marine life in the fishing holds.”
“Precisely,” said Urduja. “This year promises to be the worst one yet. We’ve calculated that the Voidfell’s flare will wash over the Northwest Continent.”
Mathire sucked in a shocked breath. At the periphery of Alaric’s vision, Sevraim fidgeted; in contrast, he himself had gone still and tense.
“I could be lying, of course.” Urduja leveled an inscrutable gaze at Alaric. “Would you rather find out for yourself? Nenavar knows how to survive such a catastrophe, as we have been doing this for a very long time. The same cannot be said of Kesath.”
We won’t survive it. The realization sank deep into Alaric’s being, turning him cold all over. There was no choice. The Night Empire was doomed if they didn’t cooperate with the Dominion.
Everything that he had fought for nearly all his life was in danger of being wiped away. Swept into oblivion by a tide of amethyst, of rot.
“Wait.” Talasyn’s brow wrinkled beneath her golden crown. “The nursery rhyme—the one about Bakun—this is what it’s referencing, isn’t it? All moons die, Bakun rises to eat the world above. It’s about the Moonless Dark and the Voidfell.”
Urduja pursed her darkly painted lips and nodded, but didn’t say anything else. It was Prince Elagbi who elaborated, leaning toward Talasyn to speak in a gentle tone. “The myth of Bakun is commonly accepted to be the ancient Nenavarene’s explanation for the sevenfold eclipse and the void storm, yes. What the Northwest Continent calls the Moonless Dark, we call his time. The Night of the World-Eater.”
Alaric wanted to cut in and ask Talasyn for the specifics of the Bakun myth. But he suddenly felt like an intruder as father and daughter fixed their gazes upon each other. Talasyn looked bewildered and betrayed, and Elagbi contrite.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him, speaking more softly now. “This was clearly the plan from the start—the very reason for this marriage alliance. How could you keep this from me?”
Elagbi’s features crumpled with obvious shame at having disappointed her.