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But Urduja didn’t immediately start calling for Kesathese heads. She leaned back, her jewel-coned fingers steepled together. “Youcouldlet us fend for ourselves,” she said contemplatively, “but any treaties you’ll draft with other nations won’t be much good in the long run, I fear. We have exhaustively detailed records from all other Dead Seasons in the past. A pattern has emerged. Every time the Void Sever erupts on the night of the sevenfold eclipse, it has a wider and wider area of effect. Last time, the magic crossed the Eversea—into the far waters of the Northwest Continent.”

“That’s why the Sardovian Coast called the amethyst light a warning.” Talasyn’s tone was one of horrified revelation. “It heralded rough seas and months of meager catch. The Voidfell killed most marine life in the fishing holds.”

“Precisely,” said Urduja. “This year promises to be the worst one yet. We’ve calculated that the Voidfell’s flare will wash over the Northwest Continent.”

Mathire sucked in a shocked breath. At the periphery of Alaric’s vision, Sevraim fidgeted; in contrast, he himself had gone still and tense.

“Icouldbe lying, of course.” Urduja leveled an inscrutable gaze at Alaric. “Would you rather find out for yourself? Nenavar knows how to survive such a catastrophe, as we have been doing this for a very long time. The same cannot be said of Kesath.”

Wewon’tsurvive it.The realization sank deep into Alaric’s being, turning him cold all over. There was no choice. The Night Empire was doomed if they didn’t cooperate with the Dominion.

Everything that he had fought for nearly all his life was indanger of being wiped away. Swept into oblivion by a tide of amethyst, of rot.

“Wait.” Talasyn’s brow wrinkled beneath her golden crown. “The nursery rhyme—the one about Bakun—this is what it’s referencing, isn’t it?All moons die, Bakun rises to eat the world above.It’s about the Moonless Dark and the Voidfell.”

Urduja pursed her darkly painted lips and nodded, but didn’t say anything else. It was Prince Elagbi who elaborated, leaning toward Talasyn to speak in a gentle tone. “The myth of Bakun is commonly accepted to be the ancient Nenavarene’s explanation for the sevenfold eclipse and the void storm, yes. What the Northwest Continent calls the Moonless Dark, we callhistime. The Night of the World-Eater.”

Alaric wanted to cut in and ask Talasyn for the specifics of the Bakun myth. But he suddenly felt like an intruder as father and daughter fixed their gazes upon each other. Talasyn looked bewildered and betrayed, and Elagbi contrite.

“Why didn’t youtellme?” she asked him, speaking more softly now. “This was clearly the plan from the start—the very reason for this marriage alliance. How could you keep this from me?”

Elagbi’s features crumpled with obvious shame at having disappointed her.

Urduja sighed. “Do not be too hard on your father, Lachis’ka. Iorderedthat he not tell you. You’ve fought us every step of the way regarding this betrothal, and I feared that you would have been even more unwilling if you prematurely learned that I wished for you to train together with the Night Emperor. But you must understand the gravity of the situation by now, and it is my hope that you will cooperate, as time is of the essence.”

Talasyn’s eyes flitted from one solemn Dominion noble to another, as if daring them to speak up. One after another, they avoided her gaze. By the time she finished, Alaric watched asher shoulders slumped in defeat, all the fight gone out of her. The Talasyn he had come to know never backed down, would never let herself be beaten in this way, and suddenly heloathedeverything about this scene. To his left, Mathire was struggling to repress a smirk at the Lightweaver’s discomfiture, and Alaric felt a wave of revulsion. He shot his officer a glare and she quickly worked her features back into a semblance of neutrality.

And what was it about this moment, Alaric wondered as he studied his betrothed from across the table, that made him understand? Talasyn was hanging her head and he couldn’t see her face clearly, but he somehow knew that she was close to breaking. Had he been here before? Yes, perhaps—all those times when he reached for his father but was bitterly rebuffed. All those times when Gaheris had taken him to task for his failings in front of the entire court. The innocent hopes for a better father soon giving way to self-reproach for not being a better son.

The only way to avoid falling victim to such pain was to become stronger than it. Apparently, Talasyn had yet to master that crucial lesson.

“It’s settled, then,” Alaric announced, commanding the attention of everyone in the room. No one, not even the Lightweaver, should have to endure an audience for this. “Her Grace and I will endeavor to develop this new magic over the next five months. I must insist, however, that the two of us be provided withallnecessary information going forward. Surely there is no more need for secrets between our two realms.”

“Of course,” Urduja replied smoothly. “I shall be the paradigm of transparency from now on.”

There was a limit to how far one’s rage could carry them. Talasyn had spent the past sennight fueled by anger at her impossible situation, but now it had reached its tipping point and drained away. Talasyn was beyond anger. She was beyondsadness or humiliation, even. She had agreed to this marriage not just to save her comrades, but for the Nenavarene—her people, herfamily.Not only had they allowed her to be left in ignorance, her grandmother had chosen to expose this in front of Alaric and the other Kesathese.

She laid numbly in her bed as evening crept in. There was a knock on her door—perhaps Jie, or even Elagbi, but she ignored it. All of the emotions that she should have been feeling—it was as though she viewed them through a sheet of glass, and there was nobody that she wanted to talk to.

Except...

What should I do?she asked Khaede.

Kill everyone,the Khaede who lived in her head promptly responded.

Talasyn almost cracked a smile at imagining that. Usually, whenever she thought of Khaede, it would be with a near-physical ache, but she couldn’t even summon the strength for that now.

Only once the morning’s light crept in through the window did she rise and prepare herself to meet Alaric in the Roof of Heaven’s atrium. She changed into garb that suited aethermancing—a tunic, breeches, boots—silently daring anyone to challenge her on it.

Urduja had informed Alaric and Talasyn that Nenavarene Enchanters would be summoned to the capital to observe firsthand the creation of their light-and-shadow shield. When Talasyn walked into the atrium, Alaric was already present, standing beside a small group of men and women garbed in lengths of vibrant checkered fabric arranged in various ways, a mode of dress characteristic to Ahimsa, one of the seven main islands—a bustling metropolis that served as Nenavar’s center for aethermanced technology.

In his severe black attire Alaric looked practically comical next to the Enchanters, like a dour, overly large thundercloud.But, for some reason, Talasyn was fixated only on his gray eyes. They regarded her with a hint of softness as she approached. Curiosity, maybe, or concern, after yesterday’s events lingered in the air between them. Her face flamed and she determinedly ignored him, turning instead to the woman who led the group of Enchanters.

Ishan Vaikar, the stout and curly-haired Daya of Ahimsa, curtseyed to Talasyn with a slight limp. Talasyn knew that hidden underneath Ishan’s checkered skirt was a golden prosthetic in lieu of the right leg that she had lost fighting in the Dominion’s civil war.

“Your Grace. If you and His Majesty would be so kind as to position yourselves in the middle of the atrium?”

As Talasyn complied, she searched the surrounding windows and balconies for any sign of Urduja or Elagbi, though she knew it was in vain. Security precautions dictated that they be far away when the sariman cages were removed from the Night Emperor’s vicinity, and the atrium had been selected for its distance from the royal family’s wing of the palace.