The words were a slap to the face. “Marylyn, I came here to spare you.”
“Liar.” Marylyn’s voice was pure venom. “You stole what was rightfully mine, then left me to rot in the desert. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get to Vencia to explain to Father what you’d done?”
“I did it to protect you!”
“Lara, the martyr.” Marylyn’s lip turned up in a sneer. “Only I saw through to your true intentions, you lying whore.”
Lara stared at her, dumbfounded. The letter she’d left in Sarhina’s pocket had explained everything. Her father’s intention to have the rest of them killed. That Lara faking their deaths and then taking Marylyn’s place as Queen of Ithicana was the only way to save all their lives, except for perhaps her own. She’d given them their freedom. “He was going to kill our sisters. It was the only way. Why don’t you understand?”
“I understand perfectly.” Marylyn shifted the blade pressed to Aren’s throat, angling the tip upward. “Do you think I didn’t know that Father intended to kill the rest of you?” She laughed. “Do you think I cared?”
This wasn’t her sister. It couldn’t be. Marylyn had always been the sweetest. The kindest. The one who needed to be protected.
The best actress.
“You said your sisters were dead.” Aren’s voice jerked her back into the moment.
“What now, has she been keeping secrets?” Marylyn stroked his cheek with her free hand, laughing as he recoiled. “Allow me to bring you into the fold, Majesty. No one forced Lara to come to Ithicana to spy, she chose to. Except ‘chose’ isn’t even a strong enough word. Lara conspired against us all in order to ensure she would be Queen of Ithicana so that she would have the glory of throwing your people on Maridrinian blades.”
“That’s not true,” Lara whispered.
“That’s the woman you married, Majesty. A liar like none I’ve ever known. Worse than that, she’s a murderer. I’ve seen her kill. Maim. Torture. All in cold blood. All practice for what she intended to do to your people.”
That part was true. Painfully and horribly true. “We all did it, Marylyn. None of us had a choice.”
Her older sister rolled her eyes. “There was always a choice.” Her eyes turned on Aren. “What do you think he would’ve done in the same position? Do you think he’d have slaughtered an innocent man just to save himself?”
No.
“Selfish little cockroach, always putting herself first. Although I can see why you decided to remain around after you plunged the knife in his back.” She trailed a finger down Aren’s bare chest. “What a prize he is. They didn’t tell us that during our lessons at the compound. I might have put him through his paces a few times myself before slitting his throat.”
Fury seared through Lara’s chest, and she unclipped her knife from its jeweled hilt, though the thought of hurting her sister made her sick. “Don’t touch him.”
Marylyn pursed her lips. “Why? Because he’s yours? For one, he’s rightfully mine. Two, even if I intended to leave him alive, which I don’t, do you really think he’s going to want anything to do with you now that he understands what kind of woman you are? When he finds out what you’ve done?”
“I’ve done nothing.”
Reaching into her pocket, Marylyn extracted a heavy piece of parchment edged with gold.
No.
“Recognize this, Your Majesty?” Marylyn held it in front of Aren’s face. “You wrote it last fall in response to my father’s request you hold true to the spirit of the Fifteen Year Treaty. Not the most charitable of responses, although I suppose you did deliver, in the end.” Her whole body shook with laughter.
Not possible.
She’d destroyed all the pages.
“There is a type of ink that is invisible until sprayed with another agent. At that point, it becomes quite visible. If you look in Lara’s quarters, I’m certain you’ll find a jar of it, somewhat depleted.”
Marylyn flipped the letter around, and Lara could do nothing as Aren took in line after line of her neat writing laying out every one of Ithicana’s secrets, a strategy to infiltrate the bridge that was damning in its details.
She’d brought Ithicana to its knees.
“Lara?” Aren’s eyes burned into hers, and the anguish in them was like having her heart carved out of her chest.
“I didn’t . . .” She had. “I wrote it before. Before I knew the truth.” Before he’d risked his life to save hers. Before he’d taken her into his bed. Before he’d trusted her with everything. “I thought I’d destroyed all the copies. This is . . . this is a mistake. I love you.”
She’d never said it before. Never told him she loved him. Why had she never said it before?
“You love me.” His voice was hollow. “Or were you only pretending to?”
“How tragic this is.” The clock chimed, punctuating Marylyn’s words. “Though I suspect it is about to get so much worse given that Keris’s party of courtiers has crossed paths with a weapons shipment from Harendell.”
A horn sounded. A call for aid. Then another and another until the notes were nothing more than a garbled mix of noise.
“Those courtiers exited piers on Aela and Gamire Islands and attacked your guard posts from the rear, disabling their shipbreakers so that Amaridian vessels loaded with hundreds of our soldiers could land unmolested. Even now, many of them are moving on to Northwatch and Southwatch to attack them from behind. And we have men using Ithicana’s own signal horns to ensure no one will come to their aid. That’s only the beginning, of course. Lara’s instructions were quite detailed. Especially in how we might take Midwatch.”
Panic flared in Aren’s eyes, and she knew what he was thinking: All his soldiers—all his friends—were sitting in the barracks, their guard down.
Marylyn continued to prattle, but Lara’s mind raced. If they could get down to the barracks, maybe they could get the chain closed in time. Send a signal to Southwatch warning them. But that was impossible unless she disarmed Marylyn.
“Don’t do this. Don’t be our father’s pawn any longer.”
Her sister’s face darkened. “I’m no one’s pawn.”
“Aren’t you? You do his bidding, and for what? Everything we were told as children was a lie intended to fuel an irrational hatred of Ithicana. To turn us into fanatics who’d stop at nothing to bring our enemy down. But Father was the villain. He is the oppressor Maridrina needs to rid itself of. We were deceived, Marylyn. Why can’t you see that?”
“No, Lara. You were deceived.” Marylyn gave a pitying shake of her head, the back of her leg knocking against the bed. “I’ve always seen clearly. You ask what I have to gain? I bring your heads back to Vencia, and Father has promised to shower me with riches. If I hunt down our other wayward sisters, he will make me heir. I will be Queen of Maridrina and master of the bridge.” She smiled. “Ithicana will be no longer.”
Rage consumed Lara like a sentient beast, prowling through muscle and tendon, making her fingers flex on the knife in her hand. Master Erik had always warned her that anger would make her sloppy. Cause her to make mistakes. But he was a liar. Rage gave her focus. And it was that focus that caught the faint shifting of the sheets on the bed behind Marylyn. That allowed her to hear the faint hiss over the rapid beat of her heart. Aren, born and bred to this wild kingdom, heard it, too.