But as Lara watched, the young man’s chest went still.
How many more hearts would still when her father made his move?
They are your enemy, she chanted. Your enemy. Your enemy. But the words were profoundly hollow in her mind.
Lara took one step back. Then two. Three. Until she was out of the barracks and on the empty path.
“Lara!”
She turned. Aren stood a dozen paces behind her on the path, the bandage on his arm half falling off as though he’d pushed away the healer working on him before she could finish.
“Wait.”
She couldn’t. She shouldn’t. Not when every bit of resolve she possessed was crumbling to the ground. Yet her feet remained fixed to the earth as Aren slowly made his way toward her, blood running down his arm and dripping from his fingertips.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was shaky. “I’m sorry that all you’ve seen since you’ve been here is violence.”
All she had ever known was violence. It was nothing to her. And everything.
“I wish it was different. I wish it wasn’t like this.”
He swayed, dropping to his knees, and Lara didn’t realize she’d also knelt until the mud soaked through her dress. Didn’t realize she’d reached out to steady him until the hand of his uninjured arm caught hold of her hip for balance. A dance where she led and he followed.
“Eyes just like your damnable father. That’s what I thought when I first saw you. We call it Maridrinian bastard blue.”
He must have felt her flinch, because his grip on her hip tightened, drawing her closer. She didn’t fight him.
“But I was wrong. They’re different. They’re . . . deeper. Like the color of the sea around Eranahl.”
Eranahl? She’d seen that name before, written on one of the pages in his desk . . . Heard it when he’d berated Commander Aster on the beach at Aela Island. Revealing it was a slip on his part, she was sure of it. But she couldn’t bring herself to care as his hand slid to the small of her back. It took all the willpower she had to keep from slipping her arms around his neck, to keep from kissing those blasted perfect lips of his, never mind the blood and gore.
Lara withdrew her hand from his shoulder, but he caught it with his own. Folding her fingers into a fist, he kissed her knuckles, eyes burning into hers. “Don’t go.”
Everything was burning.
Lara’s heart beat frantically, her breathing unsteady, her skin so sensitive that the press of her clothes almost hurt.
Stop! The warning shrieked inside her head. You’re losing control. She tuned the voice out, shoved it away.
Aren’s thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, her knuckles still pressed to his lips, and it sent rivers of sensation running over her skin, the desire to have his hands elsewhere making her legs weak. She swayed and he pulled her against him, both of them unsteady.
“You need to go back to the healers,” she whispered. “You need to let them stitch that up before you bleed to death.”
“I’ll be fine.” He lowered his head even as she lifted hers, sharing the same air, the same breath, the rapid rise and fall of his chest belying his words. He was not fine.
The thought of it filled her with terror. Terror that turned instantly to rage. Why did she care what happened to him beyond the success of her mission? Why did she care whether he lived or died? This was the man who willfully made decisions that caused great harm to the people of her homeland. Perhaps he did so for the sake of his own people, but that did not excuse the complete lack of empathy and guilt he felt in the doing. He was her enemy, and she needed to get free of him before she made a mistake.
Then his lips brushed softly against hers, and it undid her entirely. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she wanted more. More of this and more of him. But instead of giving it to her, he pulled back. “I need you to help me make this stop. I’m tired of fighting against the world, when what I want is to fight to make Ithicana part of it.”
And it was as though reality slapped her across the face.
Lara pulled away from him. “It’s never going to stop, Aren.” Her voice was barren. Dead. Which was strange, because inside her head was a chaos of emotion. “You have what everyone wants, and they’re never going to stop trying to take it. This is Ithicana, and it’s all it will ever be. Live with it.”
“This isn’t living, Lara.” He coughed, then winced, pressing his hand against the wound. “And I intend to keep fighting for a better future even if it kills me.”
Irrational fury surged through her veins at his words. “Then you might as well lay down and die!” She needed to be away from this situation because it was tearing her apart. Rising in a flurry of motion, Lara turned and ran, up the dark path, slipping on the mud and roots, to the house.
She waited in her rooms until the halls were silent, until there was no chance of anyone disturbing her, then crept through the dark hallways and picked the lock to Aren’s room. Vitex sat on the bed, but he only slunk outside, ignoring her as he passed.
Closing the door behind her, Lara brightened her lamp and went to Aren’s desk. She extracted the jar of invisible ink Serin had given her, then drew the stationery box of heavy official parchment next to her left hand, flipping open the lid. Taking the top page, she turned it over so the embossed shape of the bridge was facedown, then she dipped a pen into the ink and began to write in tiny script, the liquid drying invisible as she detailed everything she’d learned about Ithicana and a strategy for taking, and breaking, the Bridge Kingdom. Her hand shook as she reached the bottom, but she only set aside the paper to dry and retrieved another, repeating her message. Then another, and another, until all twenty-six pages in the box contained identical damning words.
It took all her strength not to tear them to pieces as she set everything back and retreated to her own room. Exhaustion weighing her limbs, she buried her face in the pillows of her bed, tears soaking the feathers within. It’s the only way, she told herself. It’s the only way to save Maridrina.
Even if it meant damning herself.
25
Lara
War Tides ended with a typhoon that came in fast and violent, the seas so rough that not even the Ithicanians would venture out on them. Even the bridge was likely empty, Eli told her, the storm too intense for merchant ships to brave the short crossing to Northwatch and Southwatch islands. Midwatch felt profoundly isolated as a result, cut off entirely from the world, and made worse by the fact that Lara was stuck in the house alone with the servants.
Though the fighting was over, Aren was avoiding her. He spent all his days with his soldiers and his nights on the narrow cot in the barracks, not once coming up the path to the Midwatch house.
Even so, she checked the number of pages of stationery in his room nightly, but every last page of the condemning words remained in Ithicana.
As did she.
On the morning after the storm broke, Lara decided it was time. Dressing in her Ithicanian clothes, she filled her pockets with jewels and some of her more favored narcotics, ate as much as she could stuff in her stomach, then told Eli she was going to go outside for some fresh air.
Attempting the seas during a storm would see her dead in truth, so she’d waited for clear skies before enacting her plan to fake her death, knowing that honor would drive Aren to send a formal letter informing Lara’s father of her demise. That Serin, ever watchful, would check the page and discover what she’d written. Then she could only hope and pray that, when she hadn’t shown up after a time in Vencia, her father and Serin would believe she was dead in truth. Then no assassins would come searching for her in Harendell, which was where she planned to go. She could live her life knowing that she’d given her people a chance for a better future.