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“I dearly hope that such a blissful state of affairs won’t prove to be the exception to the rule.” Urduja paused as though reconsidering her statement, then inclined her head in a thoughtful nod. “Well, up until the endgame, anyway.”

Talasyn’s heart dropped into her stomach. It wasn’t as though she’d forgotten...

No. That wasn’t true. There were moments on Belian when shehadforgotten, however briefly. And last night she haddefinitelyforgotten long enough to come. She’d let Alaric drive all logic from her mind.

“Things will only get more difficult from here, I’m afraid,” Urduja continued. “I will have my people meet with Vela and ask her what she plans to do. The Sardovian remnant cannot hide in Nenavar forever. It would be untenable. We need the alliance with Kesath up until the Night of the World-Eater. Afterwards, though, either the Allfold moves to reclaim the Northwest Continent within a year, or...” She paused again, drawing a measured breath.

“Orwhat?” Talasyn pressed. A horrible suspicion began to dawn in her mind, and it blossomed on her tongue. “Or they’ll need to find somewhere else to go?”

“We’ll discuss that, should it come to it,” Urduja said firmly. “But thereisa limit to the amount of time that I can buy your friends, Alunsina.”

Talasyn began to shake with anger—and fear. “You told us that we could shelter here for as long as we needed to. Youpromised.We made adeal.” A horrifying thought occurred to her and she fired it off like a new arrow from her quiver. “But now the Dominion has a deal with Kesath, too, as well as a mutual defense treaty. So, when the Amirante finally makes her move, whose side will you be on,Harlikaan?”

Talasyn spat out the title as though it were an insult, but her grandmother didn’t even flinch. Urduja’s face betrayed nothing.

“You must learn when to keep your own counsel, Alunsina,” the Zahiya-lachis said after a while. “Never let the enemy know what you’re thinking. For our purposes, Iamyour enemy right now, am I not? You may continue to deem me as such. I can’t stop you. But Icantell you this: I account for everything and so I am caught unprepared by nothing, and I will never apologize for that. No treaty between nations is binding forever, especially once the other signatory is dust. Do I believe that such a fate will befall the Night Empire, that Vela’s fleet can defeat the Kesathese? Not at the moment, no—and that is why I, as I have said, am buying time.” Urduja lowered her voice even further. “Nenavarene shipwrights have completed the repairs on the Sardovian airships. These shipwrights will now work with our Enchanters to optimize the carracks and the frigates, as well as the two stormships that made it to Nenavar. The Allfold’s remaining vessels will be outfitted with as much magic as possible while Vela makes her plans. And, in the meantime, the Sardovians have food and shelter. These are thingsthat I willingly grant. These are things that would normally be too much to ask of any queen, least of all one who took no part in the Hurricane Wars.”

Talasyn was silent. She had no comebacks. It felt as though her grandmother had spun a web of words from which there was no escape.

With the unerring instinct of a spider sensing that its trapped prey could struggle no more, Urduja pounced. “All that is required of you, Lachis’ka, is to hold upyourend of the deal. Keep your head down and be a dutiful heir and don’t be distracted by the Night Emperor’s pretty face. You can’t personally contact the Sardovians anymore, it’s too risky. You will stay here in Eskaya and diligently attend to your lessons and your public appearances—”

The more that Urduja spoke, the more it became apparent that this was what she had been leading up to all along. This whole conversation had just been another way to make sure that her granddaughter remained firmly under her control, and the resentment that Talasyn had been harboring all these months hit its zenith, magnified by her guilt that shehadin fact gotten distracted by the Night Emperor’s pretty face. She’d accused Alaric of being his father’s dog, but he had been right about her, too. She was being manipulated as well, and she kept going along with it because she had no choice.

What Vela had said amidst the mangroves came back to her in this moment.

You aren’t alone.

She had Alaric, if only in the sense that she was married to him. Andbecauseshe was married to him, that gave her more influence than she’d ever had in the Dominion court.

It was something like an epiphany, what dawned on Talasyn just then, and she squared her shoulders and held her head high.

You’re too afraid to do anything for yourself,Alaric had sneered last night.

It was time to prove him wrong.

“I’m not just the Lachis’ka,” Talasyn reminded her grandmother. “Soon I will also be crowned the Night Empress. Because of me, Nenavar is going to have more power than it’s ever known. We will become a major player on the world stage. I’m your one chance for this to happen under your reign, and I’malsothe only chance you have to make sure that your reign remains stable at all. You have no more female heirs, Harlikaan, and no more Lightweavers to help stop the Voidfell. It’s just me.” Talasyn’s words were weighty and deliberate over a fast-racing heartbeat. “And you need me just as much as I need you.”

She watched Urduja like a hawk, searching for the slightest crack in that icy facade. The stern, thin line of the Dragon Queen’s lips twitched, and it felt like a victory, but Talasyn couldn’t be certain of that until—

“What do you want?” Urduja asked, as cold as the Eversea in winter.

It took every ounce of Talasyn’s self-control to refrain from collapsing in sheer relief. It wasn’t over yet. She had to see this through.

“I agree that it’s too dangerous for me to keep going to the Storm God’s Eye. So I won’t. But...” And here she laid down her terms, feeling rather out of her body, that this moment was hardly real, as though she was listening to someone else speak, buoyed by nerves and adrenaline. “I want to be able to go everywhere else in Nenavar. I want to learn more about the technology that’s coming out of Ahimsa. And I want unfettered access to the Belian nexus point.” Urduja’s dark eyes flashed but Talasyn stubbornly persisted. “I’ll attend every lesson on politics and etiquette that you throw at me. I’ll work hard. But in return I want freedom. I want to continue honing my aethermancy; Iwillneed the Lightweave for what’s to come. The Shadowforged are unpredictable, and I’m no use to you if I’m dead.”

And I will learn more about my mother,Talasyn vowed fiercely, silently. She had let her fear of the many ways that the Zahiya-lachis could destroy the Sardovian remnant keep her from delving into the events that had led to Hanan helping send Nenavarene warships to the Northwest Continent, but no more. She would acquire new memories from the Light Sever and she would start asking questions, just as she had with Kai Gitab. She had power now.

She waited for Urduja’s response with bated breath. Even now, there was some small part of her that wished for a semblance of warmth from this domineering woman. That wished for Urduja to assure her that she was her granddaughter, first and foremost.

Instead, the Dragon Queen merely nodded. “Very well.” Her expression was as impassive as the tone of her voice. “So be it.”

It was a small victory. Talasyn left the salon with a strange mix of triumph, vindication, and the unsettling feeling that she had just thrown her hat into the ring of a game that she could barely understand.

Alaric remained in a black mood all throughout breakfast, a mood that only worsened every time he failed to stop himself from glancing over at the girl beside him. His newempress. Her hair had still been braided when she’d so unceremoniously woken him up, but now it hung loose past her shoulders, framing her face in neat curls. She was so beautiful. And he couldn’t get out of Nenavar fast enough.

Talasyn’s obvious discomfort in wearing lingerie had led Alaric to deduce that she was no seductress, despite what his father claimed about the slyness of the women in the Dominion court. But now he wasn’t so sure. She’d left him reeling.

Perhaps shehadbeen seducing him to bend him to her will.