“Just because I see the clouds in the sky doesn’t mean I can predict where the lightning will strike.”
Aren only rested his chin on one hand, tapping his index finger against his lip thoughtfully.
The silence stretched, and to Lara’s surprise, it was the Empress who broke it.
“We have more to discuss, but I believe it a discussion best done in private.” She turned her cool gaze in Lara’s direction. “You will wait here.”
There wasn’t a chance Lara was letting Aren out of her sight. “No.”
The Empress’s eyebrows rose, then she snapped her fingers at the soldier. “Welran, subdue her.”
With a nod, the huge man charged across the room.
40
Aren
Aren struggled to stand his ground as the massive Valcottan tackled Lara, twisting her arm behind her back, her face turning red from the effort of trying to breathe beneath his weight.
The Empress motioned for Aren and Zarrah to follow as she headed for the stairs.
Aren trailed after the women, but paused next to Lara and the guard, Welran. The last thing he needed was things escalating. Pressing a hand against the big man’s shoulder, he said, “I can’t in good conscience go without warning you.”
The Valcottan’s brown eyes darkened.
“She saw you coming from a mile away. Palmed your knife when you took her down. And all that wriggling she’s doing? I’d bet my last coin that the blade is only about an inch from your balls.”
Straightening, Aren started toward the stairs, the sound of Welran’s booming laugh following him upward.
They climbed to the top, the staircase opening into a large room with stained glass windows featuring prior rulers of Valcotta, all with their hands reaching up to the sky. Zarrah stood next to the door, staff still in hand, but the Empress motioned for Aren to sit on one of the many pillows. A servant appeared with drinks and trays of desserts. Though he was not partial to sweets, Aren dutifully ate one of them, washing it down with the sticky wine the Valcottans preferred.
“Let us start first with a discussion of why you are here, Aren,” the Empress said. “I have my own theories, of course, but I’d like to hear it from your lips.”
He nodded. “I think you know that having the bridge under the control of Silas Veliant benefits no one, not even his own people.”
She made a noise that was neither affirmation nor denial, so he continued. “I’ve received word that my sister, Princess Ahnna, has secured Harendell’s support for retaking Northwatch. It is my hope that you’ll see the merit in assisting me in securing Southwatch from Maridrina and reinstating Ithicana as a sovereign nation.”
Picking up a glass, the Empress eyed the contents. “Southwatch isn’t assailable. Or at least, not without an unpalatable loss of vessels and life.”
“It is if you know how. Which I do.”
“Giving up such a secret would make Northwatch and Southwatch forever vulnerable—would make Ithicana forever vulnerable.”
As if he didn’t know that. As if he had a choice. “Not if Harendell and Valcotta are true friends and allies.”
She gave an amused laugh. “The friendships between nations and rulers are inconstant, Aren. You yourself have proven that.”
“True,” he said. “But not so the friendship between peoples.”
“You’re an idealist.”
Aren shook his head. “A realist. Ithicana cannot continue as it has. To endure, we must change our ways.”
Silence sat between them as the ruler of the mightiest nation in the known world ruminated on his request, her eyes distant. Behind him, Aren could hear Zarrah shifting her weight. Valcottan rulers chose their own heirs from their bloodline, and it was known that the Empress did not favor her own son. Was Zarrah to be her choice? Would she remain the Empress’s choice if the woman knew what Aren knew?
“You look like your mother,” the Empress said, tearing Aren from his thoughts. “Though your father was equally easy on the eyes.”
Aren’s brow furrowed. “How could you possibly know that?”
Amusement passed over the Empress’s face—and pleasure at knowing something that he did not. “Surely you don’t believe that I’d bestow friendship upon someone who only spoke to me from behind a mask?”
He’d never gotten a straight answer from his mother as to why her relationship with the Empress was so close, and now Aren was beginning to suspect why. “She visited Valcotta.”
“Oh yes, many, many times. Delia was not one to be confined, and your father chased her up and down both continents trying to keep her safe. I was bested only once in Pyrinat’s games, and imagine my shock to learn that the victor was an Ithicanian princess.” The Empress smirked and rubbed a faded scar across the bridge of her nose. “She was fierce.”
It was an incredible revelation, and his voice was strangled as he answered, “Yes.”
“Is it true your father died trying to save her life?”
He nodded.
Sorrow passed over the woman’s face, and she pressed her hand to her heart. “I will grieve her loss, and his, until the end of my days.”
It was true grief, not merely words said out of politeness or obligation, and though it loathed him to do so, Aren had to capitalize upon it. “If you knew my mother so well, then you had to have known her dream for Ithicana and its people.”
“Freedom? Yes, she told me.” The Empress shook her head. “But I agreed with your father in that it wasn’t possible. Ithicana’s survival was always dependent on it being impenetrable, or at least, nearly so. To unleash thousands of people who knew all of Ithicana’s secrets would see them secret no longer.” Her gaze hardened. “And worse still to allow others a view from the inside. But then, you learned that lesson, didn’t you?”
He had. A thousand times over.
“And yet not only do you allow Silas Veliant’s weapon to live, you keep her close. Why is that?”
“She’s not his weapon. Not anymore.” Aren bit the insides of his cheeks, annoyed that he sounded so defensive. “She broke me free of Vencia, and after that, I needed her to survive the trek across the Red Desert.”
“It could be another ruse, you know. Ithicana has not yet fallen—a fact that sorely grieves Silas. How better to take Eranahl than to deliver into it the woman who cracked the defenses of the bridge?”
Aren considered the Empress’s suggestion that Lara’s motivations were not as they appeared. That his rescue was part of a greater plan orchestrated by Silas or the Magpie in order to achieve what they had failed to take by force. Yet it seemed improbable given the risk both Lara and her sisters had taken—Bronwyn had nearly died. And Lara herself had nearly lost her life multiple times on the journey.
“It would be nothing for us to rid you of that particular problem,” the Empress said. “She could disappear.”
The thought of the Valcottans dragging Lara to some dark place and slitting her throat filled his mind, and Aren’s hands went cold. “No.”
“Your people will never accept her as queen. She’s the traitor who cost them their homes and the lives of their loved ones.”