“You’re wrong.” He was silent for a dozen strides. “You asked me how my parents died.”
Lara bit her lip, remembering: They’d drowned.
“My mother had been sick for years with a bad heart. She was taken by a fit one night. A bad one. One she wouldn’t come back from. Though there was a storm blowing in, my father insisted on taking her to my grandmother on the slim hope she could help.” Aren’s voice shook, and he coughed once. “No one could say for certain, but I was told my mother wasn’t even breathing when he loaded her into the boat and set sail. The storm came in fast. Neither of them was seen again.”
“Why did he do it?” She was both fascinated and horrified. This hadn’t been just any pair, but the king and queen of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the known world. “If she was already gone, why risk it? Or at the very least, why didn’t he have someone else take her?”
“Moment of stupidity, I suppose.”
“Aren.” Jor’s voice was chiding from where he walked behind them. “Tell it right or don’t tell it all. You owe them that much.”
Lara considered the older guard, curious about their relationship. Her father would’ve had the head of anyone who’d dare speak to him in such a way. Yet Jor seemed to do so without fear; and indeed, she felt nothing more than mild irritation from the king striding on her left.
Aren huffed out a breath, then said, “My father didn’t send her with someone else, because he wasn’t the sort of man to put his well-being ahead of another. As to why he risked it at all . . . I suppose it was because he loved my mother enough that the hope of saving her was worth his own life.”
To risk everything for the slim chance of saving those you loved . . . Lara knew that compulsion because that was how she felt about her sisters. And it might cost her her own life just yet.
“Ill-fated romance aside, my point is, I know what it’s like to lose something to the sea. To hate it. To fear it.” He kicked a bit of rock, sending it rattling ahead of them. “It knows no master, most certainly not me.”
He said nothing more on the issue, or on anything else.
There was no sense of time in the bridge, and it seemed they’d been striding down the path for eternity, when Aren finally came to a halt.
Blind, Lara stood utterly still, relying on her other senses as the soldiers shifted about. Boots scuffed against stone, the echoes making it difficult for her to tell from which direction they were working, but then a breeze brushed against her left hand at the same time it hit her cheek, fresh air filling her nostrils. The opening was in the wall, not the floor.
“The stairs are too steep to navigate blind.” Aren flipped her over his shoulder, his hand warm against her thigh as he balanced her weight. Instinct had her grip him by the waist, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his stomach as he stooped down. Only at the last second did she think to reach out, her hand running the length of a solid slab that must have made up the door. A door that, unless she missed her mark, blended seamlessly into the wall of the bridge.
The sounds of the jungle grew as they went down a curved staircase, then the soft light of the sun filtered through her blindfold.
Aren set her back onto her feet without warning. Lara swayed as the blood rushed from her head, his hand on her back, guiding her forward before she could find her bearings.
“Good enough,” Jor announced from somewhere ahead, and the blindfold was tugged from her eyes. Lara blinked, looking around, but there was only jungle, the canopy blocking even the bridge from sight.
“It’s not far,” Aren said, and Lara silently trailed after him, careful to keep to the narrow path. The guards encircled them, weapons held loosely in their hands, their eyes watchful. Unlike her father, who was constantly surrounded by his cadre of soldiers, this was the first time since their wedding that she’d seen Aren treated like a king. The first time she’d seen them protect him so aggressively. What was different? Was this island dangerous? Or was it something else? There was a crackle in the trees, and both Jor and Lia stepped closer to her, hands going to their weapons, and Lara realized it wasn’t the king they were worried about protecting. It was her.
They skirted the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, the water thirty feet below crashing violently against the rocks. Lara searched in both directions for a spot where men could land, but there was none. On the assumption it was the same way all around the island, she could see why the builders had chosen it as a pier. It was nearly impenetrable. Yet, given Aren had intended to come by boat, there must be a way.
The house appeared out of nowhere. One minute it was trees and vines and vegetation, the next, a solid stone structure, the windows flanked with the ubiquitous storm shutters that all buildings on Ithicana likely possessed. The stone was coated with green lichen, and as they approached, Lara determined it was made of the same material as the bridge, as were the outbuildings in the distance. Built to withstand the lethal tempests that battered Ithicana ten months of the year.
Coming around the house, she caught sight of a stooped figure working in a garden fenced by stone.
“Brace yourself,” Jor muttered.
“Finally deigned to grace me with your presence, Your Majesty?” The old woman didn’t rise or turn from her plants, but her voice was clear and strong.
“I only received your note last night, Grandmother. I came as soon as I could.”
“Ha!” The woman turned her head and spit, the glob flying clear over the garden wall to smack against a tree trunk. “Dragged your heels all the way here, I suspect. Either that or the weight of your crown is making you sluggish.”
Aren crossed his arms. “I don’t have a crown, which you well know.”
“It was a metaphor, you fool.”
Lara lifted a hand to her mouth, trying not to laugh. Somehow, the motion caught the old woman’s attention despite her back being turned. “Or is my grandson’s tardiness the result of him tarrying to wipe puke off your face, little princess?”
Lara blinked.
“Smelled you from a hundred paces away, girl. All those years in the dunes gave you no stomach for the waves, I take it?”
Flushing, Lara glanced at her clothes, which were still damp from falling out of the boat. When she looked back up, Aren’s grandmother was on her feet, an amused smile on her face. “It’s your breath,” she explained, and Lara struggled not to stomp on Aren’s foot when he covered his own mouth to hide a smirk. The old woman noticed.
“A little seasickness wouldn’t have killed her, you idiot. You shouldn’t have caved.”
“We took precautions.”
“Next time let her puke.” Her gaze shifted back to Lara. “They all call me Nana, so you can, too.” Then she pointed a finger at one of the guards. “You, pluck and dress that bird. And you two”—she jerked her chin at another pair—“finish picking these and then wash them up. And you.” She leveled a steely gaze at Lia. “There’s a basket of laundry that needs scrubbing. See it done before you go.”
Lia opened her mouth to protest, but Nana beat her to it. “What? Too good to scrub the skids from an old woman’s drawers? And before you say yes, remember that I wiped your shitty ass more times than I care to count when you were a babe. Be grateful that I can at least still do that much for myself.”