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“I know,” said Elagbi. “That’s why I worry about you.”

“Do me a favor.” Standing just beside the open doorway to the salon, out of Elagbi’s field of vision, and speaking in a nearwhisper so he couldn’t hear, Alaric gently seized Talasyn’s arm before she could head upstairs. “Rescue me in two hours. Say we have aethermancy training.”

She blinked up at him. Those eyes were far from the worst sight a man could take to his grave, and that lifted his spirits slightly. “Should you return and discover that I have gone to the willows,” he drawled, “well, it would be no great mystery who did it.”

“You’ll be fine.” Talasyn looked at his hand on her arm, then back at his face. There was a ruefulness to the small smile that she flashed; it gave him the disquieting sensation that she was viewing him from some far-off shore. “I’ll see you in two hours.”

She left him then. Alaric took a calming breath before entering the salon, where Elagbi was retrieving the promised bottle of rum from the liquor cabinet, along with two crystal snifters, and placing them on a golden tray.

Alaric sat down, not saying a word as the Dominion prince claimed the chair across from him and poured them each a generous inch of the spirit, which had a brown hue so warm that it was almost red.

“Sugarcane rum,” Elagbi announced, “from the endless fields of Vasiyas, and the finest liquor produced in Nenavar, in my opinion. One more thing that we cannot afford to lose to the Voidfell.”

“Talasyn and I will do our best to save the rum.” Alaric took a tentative sip and nearly spat it out. “On second thought, perhaps not.”

Elagbi smirked. “It’s potent, I’ll grant you that. However, there is an intriguing sweetness, once you have grown accustomed to it.” He raised his glass. “To your health, Emperor Alaric.”

The way he said it—it was a prelude to a duel. Alaric wasn’t about to back down. He clinked his glass against the other man’s. “And to yours, Prince Elagbi.”

The rum began to taste good somewhere around his fourth pour. The deep molasses note might have come through sooner if not for the fact that his father-in-law set a pace that offered little opportunity for the drink to be savored. As a result, His Majesty Alaric Ossinast of the Night Empire and His RoyalHighness Elagbi Silim of the Nenavar Dominion were—as the masses would say—three sheets to the wind.

“Two sheets,” Alaric corrected his own thoughts out loud. “Perhaps one and a half.” He was, after all, still in full command of his senses, even if these were drifting further and further out of reach.

Elagbi’s brow creased as he poured himself another glass. “Beg pardon?”

“Never mind.” Alaric looked down his nose at the shimmering droplets that Elagbi had clumsily spilled on the floor. “You’re quite inebriated.”

Elagbi snorted. “You’re the one going on about blankets apropos of nothing, my good man.”

Alaric finished off the remnants of his drink, hissing through the burn in his throat as he placed the empty snifter on the table with a dull thud. “I’m not a good man.”

“Certainly not good enough for my daughter!” Elagbi cheerfully agreed. “This may be an important political alliance, but you donothave my blessing.”

“I don’t require it,” Alaric declared with smugness. “I already married her.”

Elagbi swore at him in the Nenavarene tongue, then scratched his head. “The translation escapes me … ‘May lightning burn your milk,’ something to that effect …” The quandary apparently robbed him of steam, for he slumped in his chair and tipped more rum into Alaric’s glass. “Do you remember when we had wine on your stormship—ancestors, why are you and I always drinking—and I said you had good taste in vintages?”

Alaric nodded warily, squinting to see the trap, wondering where it could possibly spring from. Perhaps more rum would help him spot it. He downed a new mouthful.

“You reacted so awkwardly,” Elagbi mused. “As though you weren’t sure how to respond to such a small compliment.And I found myself wondering then—when was the last time anyone had a kind word for this boy?”

It was scarcely conceivable how one sentence—one simple question—could unlock a door in the human heart. Alaric truly couldn’t remember when his own father’s praise had not been mingled with admonishment. His eyes watered and he scrubbed at them, horrified, but Elagbi was thankfully too busy taking another swig to notice.

“That was the only time I was ever sympathetic to you!” slurred the prince. “You … you—daughter-defiler!”

Alaric thought about the fading love bites on his chest, the scratches on his back. “If anything,shedefiledme—”

The sun chose that moment to walk into the salon.

“Amya, I must insist on retrieving the Night Emperor, we need to get some more training in …” Talasyn trailed off, looking mystified at the sight of her husband and her father clinging to the furniture, a half-empty bottle of rum between them, as though it was the most peculiar sight she had ever witnessed in her twenty years of existence.

Alaric automatically rose to his feet. It was simple good manners, but it took more effort than usual, as did the act of turning to face his wife. His very beautiful wife. She made his world spin.

No, scratch that—the room wasactuallyspinning—

Talasyn hurried over to him, subjecting his features to intense scrutiny. He smiled at her.

She reeled back in shock—which, in all honesty, hurt his feelings a little, surely his smile wasn’tthatbad—and then she rounded on Elagbi. “You got himdrunk?”