“We are in a canoe!” Lara despised the shrillness in her voice. “I fail to see how your skill will come into play in the middle of a typhoon!”
Aren laughed, sitting down on one of the benches. “We’re hardly going to sail into the capital of Maridrina in an Ithicanian vessel.”
“How then?” she demanded. “The bridge?”
Jor snorted and gave Aren a meaningful look. “Better to bypass Southwatch, isn’t it, Your Majesty?”
Aren ignored him, putting his heels up and leaning back against a pack. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Soon enough she was clinging to the edge of the vessel as it skipped across the waves, heeled over so far she was certain a strong gust of wind would capsize them, drowning them in the open sea.
Lara reminded herself to pay attention to where they were going. This is how they infiltrate your homeland, how they spy. Yet as the bridge and its mist faded into the distance and more islands rose up ahead, all she cared to learn was the depths of Serin and her father’s deception.
The Ithicanians dropped one of the sails, the boat easing from its terrifying angle to settle on the sea, and Lara took stock of where Aren had taken her. Columns of rock crusted with green rose out of blue seas so clear that the bottom seemed only an arm’s reach away. Birds filled the air in enormous flocks, some diving into the water only to emerge with a fish clutched in their beaks, which they gulped down before one of their fellows could steal it away. Some of the larger islands had white beaches that beckoned invitingly, and nowhere, nowhere, was there any sign of the defenses that turned the waters around Ithicana’s bridge red with enemy blood.
Lara rose onto her knees to look up as they passed between two towers of limestone. “Do people live here?”
As if to answer her question, when they rounded another island, several fishing boats appeared, the men and women aboard them stopping what they were doing to lift their hands in greeting, many of them calling out to Aren by name.
“Some live here,” he responded slowly, as though the admission cost him something. “But it’s dangerous. If they are attacked, we can’t come to their aid until it’s too late to matter.”
“Are they attacked often?”
“Not since the treaty was signed, which is why more people have settled their families here.”
“Do they leave during War Tides?”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
Lara turned away from the fishing boats to look up at him, a sickening feeling filling her guts. What were the chances that Serin and her father didn’t know these people were here? And what were the chances Aren wouldn’t do everything in his power to help them if they were attacked?
Even if meant weakening the bridge’s defenses.
They meandered through the islands in silence before sailing beneath a natural stone arch into a hidden cove that dwarfed the one at Midwatch where, to Lara’s surprise, several large ships were anchored.
“They’re mostly naval vessels that we’ve captured. We’ve refit several to pass as merchant ships. This one’s mine.” Aren pointed at a mid-sized vessel painted with blue and gold.
“Aren’t they all yours?” Lara replied sourly, accepting Jor’s arm for balance before taking hold of the rope ladder dangling off the side of the ship.
“They all belong to King Aren of Ithicana. But this one is under the command of Captain John, merchant of Harendell. Now come on. That storm’s going to chase us into Vencia if we delay much longer.”
The hold, as it turned out, was full of the very product that Ithicana had been trying to keep from Maridrina: steel. “Can’t keep a hold full of cattle sitting around for these situations,” Aren said. “Plus, steel’s the only commodity worth the risk of a storm season crossing. Or at least it was.”
As they retreated back on deck and into the captain’s quarters, Lara broke off a tiny piece of the root Nana had given her, then chewed on it vigorously, hoping it would quell the nausea inflicted by more than just seasickness.
Opening a chest, Aren riffled around and extracted a set of clothes and a floppy cap, which he tossed her way. “Disguises. If you pretend to be a boy, you’ll have more liberty once we arrive in the city.”
Scowling at him, Lara took the clothes and waited for him to turn his back before shedding her Ithicanian garments. After a bit of thought, she wrapped a scarf tightly around her chest, binding her breasts as well as she could, then donned the baggy shirt and voluminous trousers apparently favored by sailors from Harendell. She twisted her long braid into a coil on top of her head, securing it tightly, then tugged the cap over the whole affair and turned around.
Aren was already dressed in his Harendell attire, a similar floppy hat perched on his head. He frowned. “You still look like a woman.”
“Shocking.” She crossed her arms.
“Hmm.” He turned in a circle, then walked to a corner and rubbed a hand across the floor. “This ship hasn’t gone anywhere for over a year, and I don’t think anyone’s been in to clean.” Retreating across the room, he reached for her.
Lara recoiled in alarm. “What are you doing?”
“Finishing your disguise.” Holding the back of her head, he rubbed a hand that smelled like dirt and mouse shit across her face, ignoring her protests. Stepping back, Aren eyed her up and down. “Slouch a bit. And keep that frown on your face. It suits that of a thirteen-year-old boy forced into the service of his roguish-yet-charming older cousin.”
Lara lifted her hand in a gesture that was universally insulting.
Aren laughed, then shouted out the door. “All hands on deck. We set sail for Maridrina.”
With practiced efficiency, the soldiers-turned-Harendellian-sailors were readying the ship, Jor in conversation with a dozen Ithicanians she didn’t recognize, but who must have been on the island.
“What’s the story, Captain?” Jor called out as Aren and Lara came on deck.
“We saw a break in the storms and risked the crossing for a quick profit. Last chance to make a pretty penny while steel prices are high.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, and it dawned on Lara that they’d done this before. That the most sought-after man in Ithicana had waltzed beneath her father’s nose with no one, not even Serin, so much the wiser. Aren took hold of the wheel at the helm, shouting orders. The anchor was raised, sails dropped into place, then the ship was drifting out of the cove.
“Do you go to Maridrina often?”
Aren shook his head. “Not anymore. Before my coronation, I spent a great deal of time in other kingdoms furthering my education on trade economics.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Jor said as he walked by. “And here I thought all those ventures out of Ithicana were to give you an opportunity to gamble, chase skirts, and piss away money on cheap booze.”
“That too.” Aren had the decency to look embarrassed. “Regardless, all of it ended when I was crowned, but for Lara, I’m going to make an exception.”
She rested her elbows on the rail. “How long will it take us to get there?”
“Either ahead of this storm”—he grinned—“or not at all.”
“This is unnecessary.” She was more worried about what she’d find when they arrived than whether he’d get her there alive.