“Ithicana isn’t supplying weapons.”
Lara detected the heat in Aren’s voice, but the harbormaster didn’t seem to notice.
“Same is same. Shipping them for free. Getting them into our hands. Or would be, if Valcotta weren’t risking their fleet to keep us from making port.” The bitterness in his voice was palpable. “King Silas should’ve bargained for cattle.”
“Cows don’t win wars,” Aren replied.
“Neither do half-starved soldiers. Or those dead from plague.” The harbormaster spat on the ground. “The only good our princess’s marriage has done for Maridrina was line the pockets of the beggars the king paid to sit on the street and cheer her name as she passed.”
Aren and the man turned to the details of offloading the ship. It was nothing but a drone in Lara’s ears as what she’d heard sank deep into her soul. What Serin had told her in his letter about the famine and plague was true, yet . . . Yet if what this man said had any verity to it, she’d been much deceived about who was to blame. Sweat rolled in little beads down her back, making her skin itch.
It couldn’t be true. Aren had hired this man to say these things. It was all lies intended to trick her. A band of tension wrapped around Lara’s chest, every breath a struggle as she attempted to reconcile a lifetime of teaching with what she was seeing. What she was hearing.
With what she had done.
“Have your crew offload it first thing in the morning. This storm is going to make it next to impossible to do it now.”
Lara blinked, focusing on Aren as he shook the harbormaster’s hand, waiting until the man was out of earshot before saying, “Proof enough for you?”
Lara didn’t answer, pressing a hand to her aching temple, hating how it shook.
“Are we going back to the ship now?” Her tongue was thick in her mouth, her own voice distant.
“No.”
There was something in his tone that pulled her from her fugue. Water sluiced down the hard angles of Aren’s face, little beads collecting on his dark lashes. His hazel eyes searched hers for a moment, then he scanned the wharf. “We’ll need to wait out the storm in Vencia. Best to do it in a bit of comfort.”
Her pulse thudded like a drum in her skull as she walked through the market, following on Aren’s heels, the Ithicanians casually walking around them. Run. The word repeated in her head, her feet flexing in her boots, desperate to take her away from this situation. She didn’t want to hear any more. She didn’t want to face the fact that she might not be a liberator. She might not be a savior. Not even a martyr.
She wanted to run from these shards of truth telling her she was something else entirely.
Aren climbed the narrow switchback streets, two-story buildings crammed together on both sides, windows shuttered against the storm. He stopped in front of a door with a sign that said The Songbird over top of it. Music, the clink of glasses, and the collective murmur of voices seeped onto the street. He hesitated with one hand on the handle, then pulled open the door with a sigh.
The scent of woodsmoke, cooking food, and spilled ale washed over Lara, and she took in the common room filled with low tables, most of them claimed by merchant class patrons. Jor and Aren sat at a table in the corner, the other guards taking places at the bar. Fighting to control the turbulent emotions shifting through her heart, Lara took a seat at Aren’s right, slouching in the chair and hoping the rain hadn’t washed away the dirt completing her disguise. A female voice caught her attention.
“Well now, look what the cat dragged in.”
A young woman, perhaps in her early-twenties, had approached the table. She had long hair, a lighter and more golden shade of blond than Lara’s, and a good portion of her generous cleavage was revealed by the low-cut bodice of her dress.
Aren picked up one of the small glasses of amber liquid that a serving girl had brought to the table. “How are you, Marisol?”
“How am I?” The woman—Marisol—planted her hands on her hips. “It’s been over a year since you showed your sorry face in Vencia, John, and you ask how I am?”
“Has it been that long?”
“You damn well know it has been.”
Aren lifted his hands in an apology, giving the woman a charming smile that Lara had never seen before on his face. Flirtatious. Familiar. The nature of their relationship dawned on Lara, her skin turning hot.
“Circumstances beyond my control. But it’s good to see you.”
The woman pushed out her bottom lip and gave him a long look. Then she sat on his knee and wrapped an arm around his neck. Lara’s fingers twitched toward the knives hidden in her boots, fury bubbling in her veins. What was he thinking, parading his mistress in front of her? Was this some sort of punishment? Was he making a point?
The woman then greeted Jor and waved at one of the servers to bring another round.
Jor drained his glass, plucking the next from the server before she’d even had a chance to set it down. “Good to see you, Marisol.”
The woman’s gaze landed on Lara. “Who’s the sullen one?”
“My cousin. He’s learning the trade.”
Marisol tilted her pretty head, eyeing Lara as though she were trying to place her face. “Eyes like that, your mother must’ve been dallying with King Silas himself.”
Aren choked on his drink. “Now wouldn’t that be something?”
“You might have more fun if you smiled a bit more, boy. You could learn more from your cousin than how to sail a ship.”
Lara gave her a smile that was all teeth, but the woman only laughed, her attention back on Aren. “How long are you here?”
“Only until tomorrow, assuming the storm breaks.”
Her jaw tightened in obvious disappointment. “So soon.”
“My presence is required back home.”
“That’s what you always say.” Marisol exhaled softly, then shook her head. “You’ll be needing rooms for your crew for the night, then? And your cousin?”
Lara’s stomach flipped. But not for him. Surely he didn’t intend . . .
“For them. And one for me as well.”
One of Marisol’s eyebrows rose, and Lara fought the urge to punch her in her pretty little nose.
Jor cleared his throat. “He’s gotten himself married off, Marisol.”
The woman stood so abruptly that she knocked against the table, sending liquid sloshing out of the glasses.
Setting down his drink, Aren gave Jor a black glare, but the older man only shrugged. “No sense belaboring the conversation. Now she’s been told, so we can get on with business.”
Marisol’s eyes glittered, and she blinked rapidly. “Congratulations. I’m sure she’s charming.”
“She has a temper like wildfire and a sharp tongue to go along with it.”
Marisol’s gaze shifted to Lara, far too many realizations flashing through her eyes. Rather than staring her down like she wanted to, Lara fixed her attention on a crack in the table. “I’m sure she’s very beautiful,” the other woman said.
Aren was quiet for a moment. “As beautiful as clear skies over the Tempest Seas. And equally as elusive.”
Lara’s stomach flipped as his words registered, a compliment wrapped in a dark truth that she couldn’t deny.