A Monsoon Rising (The Hurricane Wars, #2)

by Thea Guanzon

He was wearing his mask when they met again.

Her Grace Alunsina Ivralis of the Nenavar Dominion was crowned the Night Empress of Kesath while a light spring rain fell from the skies above the capital.

Then he knelt before her so that they were almost eye level, his gaze lingering on her bruised cheek with an intensity that was both wrathful and startlingly possessive. His lips were set in a stern line, and his fingers clutched the chair’s armrest, grazing her elbow. The lips that she had kissed, the fingers that had been inside her … The Sardovians she had killed to save herself. The Sardovian she had killed to save him. I am the Night Emperor’s whore, she thought bleakly.

You shouldn’t trust me, she wanted to scream.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Strands of chestnut hair had spilled loose from her braid and were blowing in the wind. The sun brought out the gold in her eyes and danced atop the freckles on her softly rounded cheeks. He was looking at her when he said, “Yes.”

“It’s not time yet,” she repeated softly. “I’m sorry.” The dragon stilled, hearing her crystal-clear through the beating of its wings, through the howl of wind and the echoes of Voidfell. “Everything ends,” she continued, “even the long night, even grief.”

“One day all lands will sink beneath the Eversea,” she told Bakun, in a near-whisper now, “and we will meet again. Go back to sleep, World-Eater. Wait for me.”

Talasyn had rather liked the poetry of being the butterfly to his stag—but then he’d opened his fat mouth.