A Monsoon Rising

The second installment in the Hurricane Wars series continues the conflict between the Night Empire of Kesath, whose Shadowforged warriors wield shadow magic, and the conquered Sardovian Allfold, once defended by Lightweavers who channel light magic. When combined during a lunar eclipse, these opposing magics create a barrier, the only defense against the Voidfell, a catastrophic eruption of death magic threatening the world during a rare sevenfold eclipse called the Moonless Dark. To forge a truce with the Nenavar Dominion, a powerful island archipelago, Night Emperor Alaric Ossinast married Talasyn, a Lightweaver raised as a war orphan who is actually the heir to the Nenavarene throne. Their marriage is strategic, though both harbor unacknowledged feelings for each other.

At the Kesathese Citadel, Alaric's father, the Regent Gaheris, reveals his post-Moonless Dark plans: Talasyn will be lured to the Continent, held hostage, and permanently stripped of her Lightweave using a sariman, a rare Nenavarene bird whose presence nullifies all magic. Gaheris then intends to invade Nenavar. Horrified, Alaric conceals his reaction and confides in his closest companion, the legionnaire Sevraim. They agree to hide knowledge gained in Nenavar about weaponizing sariman blood, and Alaric privately resolves to prevent another war.

Meanwhile, Talasyn communes with the Light Sever, a nexus of light magic at a shrine in the Belian mountains, and glimpses a memory of her nursemaid abandoning her as an infant at a Continental orphanage far from where they were supposed to seek safety. Yanme Rapat, a former general and confidant of Talasyn's late mother Hanan Ivralis, warns Talasyn that Hanan and Queen Urduja were at odds and that Hanan never wanted Talasyn declared heir before she could choose for herself. Talasyn also secretly meets Ideth Vela, the Sardovian Amirante (military commander) hiding with remnant forces in the Nenavarene islands, to plan a future alliance against Kesath.

When Talasyn travels to the Citadel for her coronation, the ceremony is disrupted by a rebel attack. The surviving Sardovian stormship Chiton attacks alongside ground forces. When Talasyn runs toward the rebels hoping to broker a retreat, they brand her a traitor, and her uncontrolled Lightweave kills four of them in self-defense. She also kills another rebel to save Alaric's life. Gaheris destroys the Chiton by summoning an enormous horde of shadow chimeras. The attack inadvertently strengthens Talasyn's cover as a loyal Night Empress.

That evening, Gaheris punishes Alaric with shadow magic for perceived failures, leaving him covered in deep lacerations. Talasyn finds him collapsing and tends his wounds. Weakened by pain and valerian tea, he begs her not to leave, calling her "Tala." They kiss before he falls asleep, though he will not remember it. At the coronation gala, Talasyn extracts information about the prison layout from a drunk general.

Back in Nenavar, Talasyn briefs Vela and tentatively suggests that Alaric might be turned to their side, given the abuse he endures. Vela responds with horror, revealing she once witnessed Gaheris brutalizing young Alaric, an experience that drove her to hide her own Shadowforged abilities and defect. She warns Talasyn that Alaric will never choose them over Kesath.

A month later, Alaric arrives in Nenavar. His ship is rerouted to a village devastated by a Voidfell flare from Aktamasok, the volcanic crater housing the Void Sever, a magical seal restraining the death magic. Talasyn announces the survivors will relocate to their castle at Iantas, and Alaric agrees without hesitation. During eclipse training, Ishan Vaikar, an Ahimsan daya (a Nenavarene noblewoman and Enchanter), discovers that only Alaric and Talasyn can cast the eclipse shield together. Maintaining the barrier causes extreme reactions: Talasyn burns while Alaric freezes, symptoms relieved only by physical contact. Ishan determines that the amplifying configuration has altered their magic permanently, bonding them at a molecular level.

Prince Elagbi, Talasyn's father, reveals painful family history: His brother Sintan launched a civil war against Urduja, and Talasyn's nursemaid may have been loyal to Sintan, deliberately bringing the infant to the Continent. When Talasyn abruptly departs for Belian, Alaric sails alone to the Shadow Sever, the shadow-magic nexus on Chal, ignoring weather warnings. Talasyn flies through the monsoon to find him, nearly drowns in the flooding cave system, and is pulled to safety. Trapped together, they argue and trade painful truths: Alaric reveals that her missing friend Khaede escaped an internment camp and was last seen commandeering a coracle. After the storm, he confesses there has never been anyone before Talasyn, and they have sex for the first time. They continue the relationship at Iantas, though Talasyn is wracked by guilt over her planned betrayal.

When Alaric returns to Kesath to oversee evacuations, Talasyn achieves a breakthrough at the Belian shrine, learning to cast a large dome of Lightweave without amplifiers. She negotiates with Vela for a critical condition in the coming counterattack: Alaric's life must be spared. She argues that killing the man who saved Nenavar from the Voidfell would prevent lasting peace. Allied nations pledge warships. At the Citadel, Alaric takes custody of the ailing sariman to protect it, charges Sevraim with safeguarding Talasyn should he die, and privately vows that Kesath will fight no more wars. Before the Moonless Dark, he shares his vision of the future with Talasyn: crushing the Sardovian resistance and reforming Kesath together. She cannot reveal the alliance when he insists on destroying the resistance first.

On the Night of the World-Eater, the Voidfell erupts far beyond expectations. Death magic scars Alaric's face with black whorls, and Talasyn's arm develops branching red marks from channeling the barrier alone to shield him. With thirty minutes of eclipse remaining, the Void Sever deactivates and Bakun the World-Eater, the first dragon of Nenavarene legend, erupts from the crater: a colossal white-scaled leviathan breathing void magic. Talasyn leaps onto Bakun and, through ancestral visions of Iyaram, the first Zahiya-lachis (ruler of Nenavar), understands that the World-Eater has been grieving Iyaram's death for millennia and that the Voidfell is its breath turned lethal by grief. She soothes the dragon in Nenavarene, and it dives back into the crater.

At the post-Moonless Dark masquerade, Surakwel Mantes, the young Nenavarene lord allied with the Sardovians, delivers Vela's new orders: Talasyn must return to the Continent to disable the central power source that replenishes Kesath's void hearts—the aether crystals powering their death-magic weapons—before the allied attack. Alaric's legionnaires Sevraim and Ileis arrive with news that guerrillas freed all captured rebels from the Citadel during the eclipse, using insider knowledge of the prison layout.

Before Alaric can share this, Nenavarene assassins storm the masquerade. A sariman nullification field, amplified by devices on the surrounding terrace, strips both Alaric and Talasyn of their magic. Rajan Ito Wempuq, a prominent Nenavarene nobleman, is killed by a stray void bolt. They fight without magic until Prince Elagbi destroys the sariman amplifiers from an airship, restoring their powers.

Talasyn spots Oryal Wempuq, the slain rajan's daughter, fleeing in grief and follows her. Oryal reveals she wields the Tempestroad, a lightning-based magic, and accuses Urduja of killing Talasyn's mother. She strikes Talasyn with a paralyzing blast and injects her neck with sariman blood suspended in Rainspring magic, a medium that enables the nullification. The injection agonizingly strips Talasyn of the Lightweave. As she loses consciousness, Oryal sneers that no true Nenavarene courtier would have fallen for her deception. Talasyn's final thought reaches for Alaric before everything goes dark.