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And yet her hands stayed where they were, clasped in his. He didn’t pull away, either. She couldn’t move. She was helpless in the face of all this yearning for what she couldn’t even name.

I don’t know what I want.

I know what Vela and Urduja want. I know what’s best for Sardovia and Nenavar.

But I didn’t know—no one told me—it would be this hard.

If Alaric just looked at her, though … if he would just say something … that might be enough to make it all make sense.

But he stayed silent, refusing to meet her gaze, and Talasyn’s heart sank. He would never choose her over Kesath. And she wasn’t strong enough to fight for this alone.

A soft moan shattered the moment. Sevraim was lying face down on the sand, several feet away. They’d forgotten all about him.

“Don’t mind me, Your Majesties,” he slurred pitifully. “Just trying to stop my world from spinning while you work through whateverthatis.”

CHAPTERFOURTEEN

“Are you positively certain that you don’t need me to stay?”

It was early afternoon of the following day, and out on Iantas’s sand-swept airship grid, Elagbi was peering at Talasyn with unabashed concern in the shadow of the diplomatic schooner that would bring him back to Eskaya. “I can, you know. Your grandmother will understand.”

“I don’t actually believe that she will.” Talasyn grinned to soften the quip. “But I’m going to be fine, Amya. There’s no call to neglect your responsibilities in the capital on my account.”

“I am simply worried. With your husband in such a foul mood …” Elagbi’s gaze darted to the castle windows, as though he expected Alaric to pop up at any moment like a dour wraith.

Talasyn scoffed. “The Night Emperor’s moods are always foul. I can handle him, I promise.”

Only after Elagbi had said his goodbyes and boarded the schooner, and after the schooner had become a palm-sized silhouette above the horizon, did Talasyn allow her shoulders to slump. It was going to be unbearable now that Elagbi had left. Alaric had slept in his study last night, and he’d barricadedhimself in there most of today as well, emerging only for meals, where he glowered at his plate in lieu of saying a word.

Talasyn couldn’t even blame him. The situation got murkier and murkier whenever they were around each other. She was scared of all the things he made her feel, andhewas clearly not happy caring about her well-being and her opinions. There was also this new aspect of their magic to consider: light and shadow feeding off each other even as they remained diametrical opposites, patching over the weakness that each one had inflicted on the other.

So tangled a web. Perhaps it was for the best that they kept at a distance for now.

The beginning of a new sennight brought the royal tailor to Iantas. His name was Belrok and he was in his mid-forties, slim, cocoa-skinned, and bedecked in what was quite possibly the flashiest getup Alaric had ever laid eyes on. Aside from the striped blue-and-pink trim on its sleeves, his moss-colored tunic was embellished with gecko patterns in silver thread that put even Urduja’s most ostentatious dress to shame. The crystal-studded gold sash around his waist glittered so copiously that Alaric couldn’t even look at it in direct sunlight for fear of going blind.

Like all Nenavarene men, Belrok loved jewelry. Several gem-encrusted rings sparkled as they moved through the air on the ridges of the fingers that he was tapping on the armrest of his chair after Alaric had submitted to the indignity of his measurements being taken by a couple of assistants, who were now flanking the tailor in his seat, jotting down notes on rolls of parchment.

“I am sorry, Emperor Alaric, but a plain formal jacket simply will not do,” Belrok was saying, having no qualms whatsoeverabout letting his exasperation show. “The Lachis’ka’s couturier has been gracious enough to send me her design and it is positivelylavish. You would look like a butler next to your wife, Your Majesty. I am afraid that I simply cannot allow it.”

A nerve twitched under Alaric’s left eye. “Very well,” he stiffly conceded, “as long as it is within the bounds of good taste.”

“Ofcourse.” The tailor sounded offended. “Now, let us discuss concept. Your masquerade costume must strike a delicate balance between complementing the Lachis’ka’s attire and not stealing her thunder, so to speak. Would you rather personify the resplendence of the peacock, the raw power of the tiger, the virility of the stag—”

“This was a mistake.”

“Perhaps the ill temper of the swamp buffalo?” Belrok fired back. “The obstinacy of the common ass?”

Alaric smirked. “I’ll have to abstain from those last two options, Belrok. I wouldn’t want to stealyourthunder.”

The two men argued, sniped, and glared at each other for the remainder of the meeting. By the time they settled on a design and Belrok had exited in an icy huff, along with his assistants, Alaric was in the blackest of moods. He prowled the castle in search of Talasyn, fully prepared to rant about the tailor; after all the concessions she’d wrung out of him in the course of this damnable acquaintance, the least she could do was put up with it when he complained.

A servant directed him to the gardens in halting Sailor’s Common, and soon he was walking out into that place of bright light and hibiscus blossoms. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. Talasyn had guests.

Beneath the graceful arched roof of a seashell-flecked pavilion, his wife was having tea with Jie and a gaggle of Dominionnoblewomen. Alaric recognized Niamha Langsoune, the Daya of Catanduc, who had boarded his stormship armed with a proposal of marriage to the Nenavarene Lachis’ka months ago. The others’ names and titles escaped him, but their elaborately painted faces were familiar enough that he knew they’d either been guests at his wedding or spectators to the banquet duel with Surakwel Mantes. Most probably both.

The stream of dainty giggles and chatter tapered off when they caught sight of him. The nobles rose and curtsied, then wasted no time in whispering among themselves and casting speculative looks as Talasyn hurried to where he was hovering at the garden entrance, ill at ease over being the object of so much feminine scrutiny.

“Yes, what is it?” she inquired, politely enough, given that they’d spent the days since the eclipse avoiding each other whenever possible, aside from meals and training.