She was trapped.
The sun beat down on her head, and her brow prickled as beads of sweat formed, mixing with the seawater drenching her hair.
Her growing panic must have been written all over her face, because Aren said, “The snakes won’t come out here. They can swim, but they don’t like to. Jor will come back. He’s just being an asshole. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Easy for you to say.” Lara’s teeth clattered together as though she were cold, but she wasn’t. “You can swim away if you want to.”
“It’s tempting.”
“I’m not surprised. Given how little worth you place on Maridrinian lives.” The words had crept out, but perhaps it was time they did. Perhaps it was time that she called him out for Ithicana’s villainy.
Aren stared at her, jaw open. “Perhaps you might explain to me just what I have done to elicit a comment like that from you? I’ve done nothing but treat you with courtesy, and the same goes for your countrymen.”
“Nothing?” Lara knew she was allowing her temper to get the better of her, but anger tasted better than fear. “You think allowing my people to starve because it’s good for your coffers is nothing?”
Silence.
“You think Ithicana is responsible for Maridrina’s troubles?” His voice was incredulous. “We’re goddamned allies.”
“Ah, yes. Allies. Which is why everyone knows the majority of the food sold at Southwatch goes to Valcotta.”
“Because they buy it!” He threw up his hands. “Southwatch is a free market. Whoever offers the most for the goods gets them. No bias. No favoritism. That’s how it works. Ithicana is neutral.”
“How easily you wash your hands of all culpability.” She was growing furious that he’d spent the day trying to elicit her sympathy for his people, then turned a blind eye on hers. “And how can you claim an alliance in one breath and neutrality in the next?”
Aren swore, shaking his head. “I can’t. I can’t anymore.” He pressed a thumb into his temple. “Why do you think Amarid has been breathing down our necks? It’s because they’re angry about the concessions we gave Maridrina, and which we will give Harendell if Ahnna ever decides to go marry their prince.”
“And what impact have your so-called concessions made? Maridrina is starving, caught between Ithicana and the Red Desert, and I’ve yet to see you show the slightest bit of empathy.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No? I heard you the day I was brought here. Heard you say that concessions you gave to my father were not what you wanted, and that Maridrina would starve before it ever saw the benefit of this treaty!”
He stared at her, face tight with fury. “You’re right. I did say that. But if you and the rest of your people want to cast blame for Maridrina’s famine, it’s best you look to your father.”
Lara opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out.
“Have you read the treaty?” he asked.
“Of course I have. If Maridrina kept the peace with Ithicana for fifteen years, you’d marry a princess of the realm and offer significant concessions to tariffs and tolls on the bridge for as long as the peace between our kingdoms held.”
“That’s the sum of it. And when it came time to negotiate those concessions, I offered to eliminate all costs associated with a singular imported good, believing that I could force your father toward a choice that would culture peace. Cattle. Wheat. Corn. But you know what he demanded? Harendellian steel.”
Her chest tightened. “You’re lying. Everything my father has done is for the good of our people.”
Aren laughed but there was no humor in it. “Everything your father does is for the good of his coffers. And for his pride.” He shook his head. “Our taxes on steel and weapons have always been prohibitively exorbitant because the trafficking of weapons has political ramifications we’d prefer to avoid. Never mind that those weapons were often used, in turn, against us.”
She couldn’t breathe.
“Maridrina has no ore mines, which means the steel for its weapons must be sourced elsewhere. And because your father won’t give up his endless war with Valcotta, he has been forced to import his weapons by ship at great cost. Until now.”
The sun was too bright, everything a blur.
“I’ll continue, since it seems your education in the desert had some gaps.” Aren’s hazel eyes glinted with anger. They were the only thing she could seem to focus on. “War costs money, believe me, I know. But your father doesn’t have the bridge, so he pays for it with heavy taxes that have crippled Maridrina’s economy. So even when its merchants dock at Southwatch’s open market, they are unable to bid competitively. And so they set sail with what no one else will buy.”
Diseased meat. Rotten grain. Lara closed her eyes. If he was telling the truth, it meant that everything that had been fueling her desire to capture the bridge had been false. And all that would remain to justify the fall of Ithicana was the very thing she’d railed against her entire life: greed.
“I’m not the one who has been lying to you. Not that I expect you to believe me.”
Jor and the others chose that moment to circle back around, and the expression on Aren’s face was enough to wipe the amusement off the older man’s. The boat drew closer, and Aren grabbed the edge, hauling himself in. Once Lara did the same, Aren ordered, “Put up the other sail.”
Jor winced. “That eager to get home?”
“We aren’t going home.”
“Oh? Where to?”
Aren cast a glance at the darkening skies in the east, then turned back around. But it wasn’t Jor his eyes went to.
Lara’s stomach flipped as Aren stared her down. Challenged her. “We’re going to pay a visit to Maridrina.”
26
Lara
That he was willing to risk stepping into enemy territory, that he was willing to bring her—who knew so many of Ithicana’s secrets—into that territory, should’ve convinced Lara that Aren’s words were true. That her father, Serin, and all her masters at the compound were liars.
But it didn’t.
Stories of Ithicana’s villainy had been burned into Lara’s soul. Whispered in her ears all of her life. Chanted like a mantra through hours, days, years of grueling training that had nearly broken her. That had broken many of her half-sisters, sending them, one way or another, to their deaths.
Take the bridge and you will be the savior of Maridrina.
To believe Aren would mean changing that chant to something very different. Take the bridge and you will be the destroyer of a nation. Take the bridge and you will prove yourself your father’s pawn. For that reason, she, like a coward, immediately argued against going.
“We are in the middle of storm season.” Lara pointed at the darkness in the east. “What sort of madman takes to the seas to prove a point?”
“This sort of madman.” Aren pulled the line Lia passed him tight. “Besides, the skies are clear in the direction we’re going. And if the storm does catch us, we are rumored to be very adept sailors.”