He was prevented from reading the rest, as both Aster and Mara broke into laughter, much of the room echoing them. “Good fortune favors us after all,” Aster finally managed to get out. “Silas thought he was so clever. Thought he’d managed to extract the one thing from us that we didn’t want to give, but neither he nor Maridrina will see any of it.”
Aren hadn’t laughed then, and he certainly wasn’t laughing now. A twig snapped, and he jerked from his thoughts, turning to watch Jor step back out onto the rocks, still in the process of buckling his belt.
“Winds are strengthening,” Jor said. “Storm is going to rage harder before it gives its last gasp. Amarid will have to cool its heels for a few days before they come for blood.” The old soldier smirked at Aren. “It’s an opportune moment for you to go spend some time with that pretty wife of yours. She’s starting to take a shine to you, I can tell.”
“You came to all those realizations while you were taking a shit?”
“It’s when I do my best thinking. Now go. I’ll finish the patrol.”
Rising to his feet, Aren cast his gaze in the direction of his house, then shook his head. Lara was supposed to be the first step toward a better future for Ithicana. But with Amarid about to wage war and Valcotta doing its best to destroy the treaty, a better future no longer felt like a dream.
It felt like a delusion.
21
Lara
Lara rested her chin on her forearms, one eye on the faint glow in the east and the other on the Ithicanians grouped in the clearing in front of the barracks. Rainwater dripped down the back of her neck, but after three nights spent spying from the roof of the large stone structure, she barely noticed the endless damp anymore.
The population of Midwatch had grown by four, if not five, times in the past few days, men and woman arriving by boat to join the ranks. They were civilians—or at least had been until War Tides began—but calling them such seemed a misnomer, as they fell into the efficient routine of Midwatch with practiced ease. Even the youngest, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen, seemed to have arrived fully trained.
Still, the ranking officers—who were all career soldiers at Midwatch—ran them through drill after drill, day and night, leaving nothing to chance.
And anything that happened in the midnight hours, Lara was witness to.
Sneaking out of the Midwatch house was no great challenge despite the number of guards Aren now had posted around the home. For one, she’d earned a bit of trust from them by saving Aren’s life during the battle on Serrith Island, so they were no longer waiting for her to do something nefarious. Two, the clouds from the rainstorms made for the darkest of nights, giving her perfect cover for escape. And three, the Ithicanians were distracted by what they perceived as a far greater threat than a young woman soaking herself in a hot spring:
The Amaridians.
The fleet remained off the coast of Ithicana, though there had been no attacks since Serrith. Eli, the source of much of Lara’s information, had told her that they were unlikely to make a move until the weather cleared. The waters were shallow and full of rocks and shoals, as well as the man-made defenses Ithicana was known for, and unpredictable winds and poor visibility made attacking during foul weather inadvisable.
But the storm wouldn’t last forever, and Midwatch seethed with anticipation of the battles to come. Which served Lara’s purposes well.
Already her head was full with what she’d learned during her venture off Midwatch with Aren, and the past three nights had yielded even more. From her perch, she’d learned much about how the bridge was patrolled, inside and out, where sentries were stationed on the surrounding islands, and the signals they used to communicate with Midwatch, which seemed to function as a central control point for this area of Ithicana. She’d learned about the explosives they used to destroy enemy ships, shot by arrow or launched by shipbreaker and, if the story she’d overheard was true, occasionally planted by hand under the cover of night.
She’d watched them train, working in the rain with only faint lantern light to avoid the attention of anyone on the water. Hand to hand, with blades, and with bow, the worst of them were at least proficient. The best of them . . . well, she wouldn’t want to go up against the best of them unless she had to. Their weapons were all of fine make, every one of them armed to the teeth, the garrison stockpiled with enough to supply them with spares.
Midwatch was only one piece of the puzzle, but if it was the standard that Ithicana held itself to, then what Serin and the rest of her masters had told Lara and her sisters about Ithicana being impenetrable had been alarmingly accurate.
But as to the rest of what she and her sisters had been told about Ithicana . . . that, Lara was questioning. Questioning what was truth and what was lies, because it was impossible that all parties had been honest with her. Not with everyone claiming to be the victim and no one the aggressor.
Someone was deceiving her.
Or everyone was. Pushing back a strand of wet hair from her face, Lara wished, not for the first time, that she’d been allowed to spend time away from the compound. Everything she knew had come from books and from her masters. Outside of combat, she was like a scholar who studies the world but never leaves the library. It was a limitation, and one she’d pointed out to Serin several times, much to his endless irritation.
“It’s not worth the risk,” he had snapped. “All it would take is one slip on your part, and everything that we’ve worked for, fought for, would be undone. Is your desire for a sojourn worth losing the only chance Maridrina has at escaping Ithicana’s yoke?” He’d never waited for a response, only slapped her cheek and said, “Remember your purpose.”
Master Erik had given her a different answer when she’d pressed. “Your father is a man who needs control, little cockroach,” he said, passing a whetstone up and down a blade. “Here, he can control every variable, but outside”—he used the weapon to gesture to the desert—“true control is beyond even a king’s power. Your life is as it is out of necessity, my girl. But it won’t be this way forever.”
His words had infuriated her at the time—a vague non-answer, in her childish opinion—but now . . . Now she wondered if there was more depth to his response than she’d once realized.
Now she wondered if the variable her father had most wanted to control was her.
The main door to the barracks opened and shut beneath her, and Lara’s attention perked as a tall figure exited the building. He had his hood pulled up against the rain, clothing identical to that of every other soldier, but she knew instinctively it was Aren. Something about his stride. The way he held his shoulders. The hint of pride that radiated from him as he surveyed the troops. And something else that she couldn’t quite put a finger on . . .
She knew that what her father and Serin had told her about the King of Ithicana had been a lie—though she understood why. It was easier to stab a demon in the back. A much harder thing to betray a man whose actions and choices were driven by a desire to do right by his people. But she also knew that her homeland and Ithicana were at odds, and what would save one would damn the other. The welfare of her people was her priority, her mission to give them the one thing that would ensure their future. And for that reason, Aren could never be anything to her but the enemy.