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It would have been a bloodbath.

Better that things had turned out like this, with the rest of the dragons unscathed, with Kesath oblivious, thinking they had the upper hand.

Talasyn had to learn to look at the bigger picture, as Vela and Urduja did. She took a deep breath and let her anger go.

Alaric seemed to be waiting for some kind of response from her. She couldn’t offer forgiveness, and she truly had no idea if it made a difference whether he’d ordered Mathire to fire or not—but shecouldchange the subject.

“Would you like to pet it?” she asked, gesturing to the dragon.

His reply was immediate. “No, thank you.”

“Scared?” she goaded him.

“Smart,” he tersely corrected.

She smirked. “What if I dared you?”

He exhaled. The wrinkle between his brows suggested that she was about to give him a migraine, if she hadn’t already.

Undeterred, Talasyn grabbed her husband’s arm with both hands and tugged him toward the dragon. In truth, this had the potential to be the worst idea she’d ever had, but she wanted to rattle him, in some petty approximation of vengeance. And she was also curious as to what would happen. If the Ahimsan Enchanters could experiment on the Night Emperor, surely so could his wife.

Still …

“I’d better go first,” she declared.

The wrinkle in his brow deepening, Alaric’s lips twisted into a scowl. “Talasyn, if anything happens to you—”

Her hand came to rest on the beast’s flank.

There were no two ways about it: dragonsstank. They smelled of what they ate—fish and squid, blubber and carrion, with pungent notes of decomposing seaweed and the musk of burning fields. Up close, it would have been enough to make Talasyn gag if not for the feel of the creature against her palm grounding her.

The hard orange scales were surprisingly smooth to the touch, except for the ridge in the middle of each one and the triangular seams where they overlapped one another. The heat given off by the scales was just shy of unbearable; that split-second before one snatched one’s fingers back from a boiling pot, spun out into forever. The dragon seemed to almost lean into Talasyn’s touch as it slept, its hide swelling and contracting against her with every somnolent breath. Aether flowed from its form and into hers, then looped back, a pulsating, endless tide of magic. Fire that gave off light, the sun’s light that stoked a brushfire.

With her free hand, Talasyn wordlessly urged Alaric’s wrist toward the dragon. His palm flattened beside hers on the scaled reptilian flank, their fingers brushing. And aether flowed from him and into him as well. The shadows cast by the sun, the volcanic fire raging in the dark beneath the earth.

Everything was connected. Their hearts and the leviathan’s beat together with the waves. The same light of eternal summer that bent off the edge of Alaric’s slight smile poured into Talasyn’s eyes.

The dragonsnored, long and low, the barbels on its snout twitching.

Talasyn laughed. Alaric’s gaze warmed.

“Almost as loud as you,” he remarked.

“How dare you, I donotsnore—”

“Tell that to my sleepless nights.”

He said it so dryly that she laughed again. There it was once more, that cautious hope, stirring beneath the sun, reveling in theonedifference that she was certain of. He wasn’t his father.

Alaric reached out to brush some sand off her shoulder. Talasyn made a pretense of batting his hand away, but her fingers lingered over his. She glanced up the shore, where Elagbi was hanging back with Sevraim.

Elagbi was staring at her and Alaric. He looked—worried.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

Alaric could still smell the dragon long after it had slunk back into the Eversea. By the time night fell over Nenavar, he could still feel traces of dragonfire against his skin, mingling with the ghost of Talasyn’s touch.

In a few minutes, the night would bring with it the first eclipse of the month. The shores of the tiny island bustled with activity.