Lara frowned, then shoved her hand into the mud, smearing it across her face, hiding the glow of her skin and making her seem wilder. Fiercer. Ocean-blue eyes met his, and Aren’s heart thudded hard in his chest, a familiar aching need taking hold of his body. But he only nodded and started toward the roar of the ocean.
Four soldiers sat in the cover to either side of the shipbreaker, two of them panning the fog with the disinterest of those who’d been at a tedious task too long. The other two faced inland, but they were eating a lunch of bread and dried meat, glancing up only occasionally. Jor lifted his bow, silently nocking an arrow as a throwing knife appeared in Lara’s hand.
But these men weren’t alone. Patrols moved along the perimeter of the island, groups of men with their eyes on the seas, not nearly as distracted as Aren had hoped.
Holding still as a group of men joined the four, Aren clenched his teeth, fighting the urge to attack even though he knew they were grossly outnumbered.
Then the wind began to rise.
Aren heard it before he saw it, the rustle of leaves and branches as the breeze rolled across the island. It gusted again, gaining strength, the mist swirling violently.
An alarm bell sounded from the far side of the island, and Aren smiled.
“Attack! Attack! The Ithicanians are attacking!” The shouts raced across Gamire, along with orders to move to position, the Maridrinian soldiers pulling weapons and dropping low, several scanning the mist, which remained thick on this side of the island.
The wind rose higher, and on the far side of Gamire, it would already have dissipated the fog, revealing the dozen boats full of Ithicanians panicking as their cover was blown away. Or at least, pretending to panic.
Sure enough, the sound of shipbreakers being deployed filled the air with their familiar crack, the Maridrinians lobbing stones at vessels full of Ithicanians well aware of the weapons’ range and exactly how quickly they could be reloaded. Already, they’d be moving inside the weapons’ range, using all the tools in their disposal to make the Maridrinians believe it was a genuine attack.
Not the decoy that it was.
An explosion sounded, then another, followed by the call for reinforcements.
One of the Maridrinians guarding the breaker rose to his feet, then lifted a spyglass as though it could pierce the fog, shaking his head in agitation.
Go, Aren silently urged him, knowing it was a matter of minutes before the wind cleared the mist from this side of Gamire, revealing the true threat. Go!
“Shit!” One of the men in the patrol snarled the word in agitation, instinct warning him where his eyes failed him. But several more explosions and calls for assistance could not be ignored. “You four stay with the shipbreaker,” he ordered. “Under no circumstances do you leave, understood?”
There was a crunch of underbrush as he and the rest of the Maridrinians raced across the island to join the defense.
And not a moment too soon.
The wind was blowing hard and steady now, and Aren’s practiced eye caught movement on the water: Boats silently moving into position.
“What is that?” one of the soldiers manning the breaker said. “It looks like a—”
Aren lunged, the twang of Jor’s bow filling his ears. One soldier clutched the arrow piercing his chest, another falling sideways, Lara’s knife embedded in his spine. The other two soldiers spun around, Aren’s blade taking off one’s head. But before he could kill the other, Lara’s booted foot crushed the man’s throat.
The soldier stumbled back, eyes wide, mouth flapping as he gasped for air, but Lara only twisted and kicked out again, foot hitting him square in the chest and sending him flying off the cliff onto the rocks below.
Aren glared at her, annoyed that she had ignored his plan, but before he could say anything, the boats advanced toward the cliffs, his soldiers deftly leaping off to land on the rocks revealed by low tide. Jor was already removing the shipbreaker’s spare ropes, knotting them to the weapon and then throwing them down to aid the climb.
In minutes, there were dozens of Ithicanians surrounding Aren, and if all had gone to plan, the same would be happening at the breakers the rest of his crew had secured.
“Show them the same mercy they showed us,” he said, then led his army across the island.
48
Lara
Aren had been afraid that his people wouldn’t follow him. That they wouldn’t trust him to lead them into battle. To lead Ithicana back to freedom.
But Lara had never doubted him.
The Ithicanians moved across Gamire Island without hesitation, their king in the lead, confidence radiating from him with every stride as he deployed his army to attack the enemy from the rear.
Lara had been raised to fight. But she hadn’t been raised to lead men and women into battle. Not the way Aren had. And it wasn’t that his strategies and tactics were masterful—though they were. It was that every warrior following him knew that he’d fight for them. Die for them. They knew that Ithicana was everything to him.
And they tolerated her only because she’d brought him back.
Knife in one hand and sword in the other, Lara followed on Aren’s heels across Gamire, moving in the direction of the battle. The Maridrinians had more in numbers, but despite recent history, they didn’t expect to be attacked from the rear.
Fire burned from the explosives that the decoy forces had thrown on land, the haze of smoke drifting across the island on the wind. Every few minutes, one of the shipbreakers launched a projectile, the crack filling the air, but judging from the aggrieved shouts, they weren’t having much success with their aim. Then a familiar voice filled Lara’s ears, and her heart skipped even as Aren stopped in his tracks.
“I’m not helping you attack my own people, you Maridrinian prick.” The woman snarled the words, and through the trees, Lara could just make out Aren’s cousin.
Taryn wasn’t dead.
Lara’s body trembled, and if she hadn’t already been on her hands and knees, she might have collapsed. Before exiling her from Ithicana, Aren had told her that the young woman had been killed by a shipbreaker as she’d tried to escape Midwatch with warning of the invasion, but somehow, her friend was alive. A flood of relief made Lara realize how deep the guilt she’d felt over Taryn’s loss had been. Only to be replaced with the guilt that Taryn had been a prisoner in her own home all these long months.
“Make them work properly, or I’ll slit your throat,” one the Maridrinian soldiers shouted, lifting a knife.
Taryn only squared her shoulders, the ropes binding her wrists doing nothing to diminish her defiance. “They work fine. You lot just have shitty aim.”
The soldier slapped her. Taryn stumbled, then lunged to spit in the man’s face. And Lara knew what she was doing. Knew her friend was trying to get herself killed so there’d be no chance that she’d be used against her people.
But there wasn’t a chance that Lara was going to let Taryn die without a fight.
Ignoring Aren’s frantic hand motions to stay put, Lara moved forward in a crouch, picking up speed as she went.
The Maridrinian soldier lifted his sword, readying to swing when Lara burst from the tree line, her knife flying.
Taryn’s eyes widened as the knife sank into the soldier’s sword arm, but a lifetime of training had her catch the man’s weapon as he dropped it.