Alaric gestured to Commodore Mathire, who proceeded to elaborate with a smug briskness that grated on Talasyn’s nerves. “As we will be searching primarily for stormships and Sardovian airships, we will focus on aerial reconnaissance, sending ground troops only in areas of poor visibility from above. There is no need for us to go through anyone’s cellars. With multiple teams sent out, I believe that we can be done in two days, more or less, and take a third day to collate all our reports. The Night Emperor and the Lachis’ka can then head to Belian the morning after.”
“To minimize the possibility of collusion, I must also insist that the Lachis’ka stays put here in the palace, where I can keep an eye on her while my fleet is investigating,” Alaric added. “On the second afternoon of the search, I will conduct a sweep of my own, on the Deliverance, and Her Grace will accompany me.”
That’s preposterous, Talasyn wanted to snap, with a healthy dose of I’m not going anywhere with you thrown in for good measure, but Urduja was swift to proclaim, “I trust that you will not object to the presence of Alunsina’s guards aboard your ship.”
“And my presence as well,” said Elagbi.
Alaric’s jaw clenched. He most likely detested the idea of having more Nenavarene on his stormship than was strictly necessary. “I do not wish to inconvenience you, Prince Elagbi.”
“It’s not an inconvenience.” Elagbi smiled, all teeth. “As a matter of fact, I would cherish the opportunity to spend more time with my future son-in-law.”
Alaric blanched, and some small, petty part of Talasyn couldn’t help but cheer at his discomfiture.
“Lachis’ka,” he rumbled, not quite looking at her, “there will be no training here at the palace. We’ll put it on hold until we get to the Belian shrine.”
“After you’re done terrorizing Nenavar, you mean,” Talasyn muttered. Urduja shot her a warning look, which she ignored.
Alaric shrugged. “Call it whatever you like. It is of no consequence to me.”
And, with that, the signing of the treaty between the Night Empire and the Nenavar Dominion ended on the sourest of notes.
Logically, she knew that her grandmother had a few tricks up her jeweled sleeve, or else she would never have consented to Kesath’s investigation. But logic was no match for fear, and Talasyn spent the rest of the afternoon in a state of barely contained panic. She was jittery by the time evening fell and she was summoned to Urduja’s salon under cover of darkness.
Aside from the Zahiya-lachis, there were two other people in the room when Talasyn entered—Niamha Langsoune and Ishan Vaikar. The latter shot Talasyn a mischievous wink.
“As I see it, Kesath will most likely fail to realize that Sigwad exists. It’s not visible from the westernmost mainland, and the map of the Dominion that we provided them is an older one, charted before the Storm God’s Eye was annexed,” Urduja told Talasyn. “Even if they do stumble upon the strait, we have a way around that. I don’t want you to worry.”
Talasyn would have retorted that that ship had sailed if her attention hadn’t been taken up by what was in the middle of the salon.
A rectangular vivarium constructed from reddish hardwood and crystalline metalglass held one of the brown-furred, palm-sized monkeys that Talasyn had encountered on her first sojourn through the Sedek-We jungle months ago.
The vivarium was connected, via arrays of slender copper wires, to a circle of metalglass jars capped by onion-shaped seals made primarily of nickel and embellished with dials that resembled clockwork gears. Inside each jar was a molten core of sapphire magic speckled with red droplets that dripped and coalesced like mercury.
“What do you know about spectrals, Your Grace?” Ishan asked, gesturing at the creature clinging to a branch.
The little primate blinked at Talasyn with unnervingly large eyes as she replied, “Not much.”
“Well, they tend to vanish when they’re startled—or as a means to escape from predators. After studying them for years, we have determined that this vanishing is actually a method of planar shift,” said Ishan. “In much the same way that you can access the dimension known as the Lightweave, all spectrals possess an inherent genetic trait that allows them to transport themselves to another realm within aetherspace—and back again—at will. We speculate that the dragons utilize a similar mechanism, which could account for their elusiveness despite their size, although of course it is impossible to run our current model of testing on such large beasts—”
Urduja cleared her throat. Pointedly.
Ishan ducked her head, flashing an abashed grin. “I apologize. I get carried away with shop talk.” She gestured at the circle of jars and wires. “This is an amplifying configuration. We can make sariman blood pliable for us Enchanters by suspending it in magic from the Rainspring. We have been able to do amazing things with it. For example, we can retain the sariman’s inborn trait of affecting its environment within a seven-meter radius while at the same time canceling its ability to suppress an individual’s aethermancy. Then, by mixing it with the spectrals’ ability to vanish, we can . . . Daya Langsoune, if you please—”
Niamha stepped into the circle. There was a moment wherein she looked the most uncertain that Talasyn had ever seen her, but it passed quickly. Ishan fiddled with the dials on the onion-shaped caps. Once she was satisfied, she stepped away from Niamha and rapped her knuckles gently on the vivarium.
The spectral’s reaction was instantaneous. It disappeared before Talasyn could even blink. The copper filaments glowed white-hot and aether flowed between the tank and the amplifying configuration like dozens of thin, glittering streams. A reaction rippled through the molten core of rain magic and sariman blood and it blazed amidst walls of metalglass, and then—
Niamha vanished.
There was no ceremony to it. One second the Daya of Catanduc was there, and the next she was gone.
“We have had great success replicating this effect on an outrigger warship,” Ishan said into the stunned silence that filled the Zahiya-lachis’s darkened salon. “There is no reason to believe that it won’t work on Sardovian vessels, even the stormships.” She waved a hand to indicate the vivarium. “The filaments here have also been infused with aether magic extracted from sariman blood. This keeps all those affected by the amplifying configuration invisible, hidden in another plane, until an Enchanter cancels the process.”
With that, she wiggled her fingers, and the molten cores of blood and magic within each jar dimmed. The copper wires hummed one last time before stilling. The spectral materialized as soundlessly as it had disappeared, and so did Niamha, looking somewhat startled but otherwise none the worse for wear.