“Forgive her. She loves you.”
He dropped the old woman’s arm, feeling Lara’s gaze on him. Knowing she was listening. “She doesn’t know what love is.”
“That’s why you should forgive her.”
Before Aren could answer, Coralyn extracted a glass jar from the folds of her dress and threw it to the ground, thick, choking smoke filling the room.
They needed to get out. Now.
Lara and her sisters had already taken action, pulling the heavy table over to use as a shield. Racing to the curtains, Aren caught hold of Zarrah’s arm. “Get behind the table and cover your ears!”
Eyes burning from the smoke, he found the bottles the harem had left sitting on the window frame. Tucking two in his pockets, he used the others to set up the explosive, then activated the fuse. Throwing himself sideways, Aren covered his ears.
A deafening boom split the air, the window and the metal barring it exploding outward to rain down on the gardens. Scrambling back to his feet, Aren raced to the opening, retrieving the bottles from his pockets and throwing them into the fountains and pools below.
A hazy mist rose from the water, making it impossible to see more than a foot ahead of him.
“Who is she?” Lara had Zarrah by the arm, both of them coughing.
“Later,” he hissed. “Climb!”
The sisters leapt nimbly onto the blackened ruin of the window frame, disappearing upward into the mist. Ripping the skirt of her dress so that her legs were free, Zarrah climbed after them.
Aren clambered onto the frame, the coughing of those trapped in the room covering the sound of his motion. He climbed the wall of the palace, his fingers finding handholds where the mortar had crumbled, his thin shoes nearly as good as bare feet. Below him, Lara followed, a knife clenched between her teeth.
Reaching the balcony, Aren used the wrought iron railings to pull himself over. One of the sisters stood on the balcony throwing the bells they’d worn into the courtyard, but the rest were waiting inside. He muttered, “This way.”
The alarm bells were ringing, the noise making Aren’s ears ache, but it covered any sound they made as they moved into the empty hallway, the regularly spaced lamps lighting their passage. From behind the doors, Aren could hear the alarmed chatter of women. A crying baby. A child shouting something about a missing toy.
“They’ll stay locked in their rooms until the alarm ceases and they are instructed the palace is secure,” Lara murmured from where she walked on his left. “But Coralyn said we would only have a few minutes before the guards come to check that everyone is accounted for.”
It was strange to hear her voice, and yet . . . not. She’d consumed his thoughts. Consumed his dreams. So it felt almost like they’d never been apart.
His eyes moved to his wife, drinking in the sight of her. The blood covering Lara did more than the ruined dancing costume to conceal her body. The torn silk she wore hung loose to reveal the inner curve of her right breast, her muscled abdomen completely exposed. In one hand she held a knife, and in the other a sword, the knuckles on both split from fighting. What he wanted to feel was repulsed, but instead desire burned hot in his veins.
Annoyed, he stepped ahead to where Zarrah strode, silent on her bare feet. “How much did he tell you?” Keris alone seemed to know all the parts of this plan. All the players.
“Only to follow your lead.”
“Do you trust him?”
Dark eyes looked up at him. “With my life.”
Boots thundering up the stairs put an end to further questions.
They ran down the hall, carpets muffling their footfalls. Rounding a bend led them to a door, which Aren eased open, revealing one of the covered bridges over the gardens. The interior was dark, but the smell of recently extinguished lamps still hung thick on the air. Outside, dense, smoking mist rose from the fountains, the jars the wives had placed in them having dissolved, the chemicals inside reacting with the water. It created a fog as murky as any in Ithicana, and it did an equally good job disorienting the hunting Maridrinian soldiers.
“The harem delivers again,” Lara said, and they hurried across, keeping low despite there being little chance of them being seen.
Reaching the far side, they crept into the tower, and Aren gestured to the staircase. “Up.”
Lara and her sisters took the stairs two at a time, none of them appearing even winded. But a cramp formed in Aren’s side, the long sedentary days he’d spent as a prisoner catching up with him. Up and up, they bypassed each door leading to another level of the tower.
Then the door to Aren’s right swung open, a figure stepping into the stairwell.
Lara shoved Aren sideways, blade rising as she moved to engage the individual. Just before she swung, Aren recognized Keris’s face. Reaching out, he caught hold of Lara’s slender wrist, hauling her backward.
“Who is he?” she demanded.
“It’s been a long time, little sisters,” Keris said, inclining his head to the Veliant women. “I wish we could’ve reunited under better circumstances.”
Lara stared at him, then her eyes widened. “Keris?”
The prince nodded, a smile rising to his face, though he vanquished it a heartbeat later.
“You’re helping us?”
“I’m helping myself,” Keris answered. “But tonight, our interests are aligned.” He shifted his attention to Zarrah, who stepped past Aren.
Keris reached up to touch a bruise darkening the Valcottan woman’s cheek. “Are you all right?”
“It’s nothing.”
Nodding, the prince turned his attention to Aren. “This is where you part ways with the general.”
“I don’t think so. Zarrah’s coming with us. I intend to make sure she delivers on her end of the deal.”
Keris stepped between him and the Valcottan woman, ignoring Lara and her sisters when they lifted their weapons. “There’s too much chance of you being caught or killed. And her life is more important than yours. While everyone is pursuing you, I’ll get her out.”
Aren scowled. “I’m just your goddamned decoy?”
“Precisely. But given my plan is more likely to achieve that which you desire, perhaps you’ll refrain from whining. Time is short.” Keris gently pushed Zarrah toward the open door, but Aren caught her arm.
Her dark eyes met his. “On my word, if I get out alive, I’ll have supplies delivered to drop points in Ithicana where your people can reach them.” Then she touched her hand to her heart. “Good luck, Your Grace.”
Without another word, she disappeared into the room.
“Time for you to carry on,” Keris said. “But before you go, I need you to make it look like I at least tried to stop you.”
“Gladly.” Aren swung, his fist connecting hard with Keris’s cheekbone.
The prince stumbled into the doorframe, wincing as he touched his already swelling face. “You have ten minutes until I start down to alert the guards. Make them count.”
They raced to the top of the tower, reaching a glassed-in room encircled by a wide balcony. The view of the city was incredible, but there was no time to appreciate it. “Where is it?” he demanded.
One of the sisters went to a wall and pulled down a framed piece of artwork. It was pieces of wood and metal laid out in a random pattern, but as the woman pulled apart the frame and dumped the contents at his feet, Aren realized what he was looking at.