“You’re deluding yourself.” Lara watched the shifting shape. “Father knows that you’re a mad dog. And once you’ve done his dirty work for him, he will have you put down. Or I could do it for him.”
She threw the knife.
The blade sliced through the air, missing Marylyn, but sinking deep into the bed, the sheets now a flurry of motion.
“Lost your touch.” Her sister cackled even as Aren leaned back, shoving his weight against her. They toppled against the bed and the injured snake struck. Marylyn screamed as its teeth sank into her shoulder. Twisting, she released Aren and stabbed her blade into the snake, pinning its body to the mattress.
Lara was already across the room. She slammed into Marylyn, sending them both rolling. They grappled, fists and feet flying with the intent to injure. Maim. Kill. Blow after blow, both of them equally well trained. Yet when it came to this one thing, to violence, Lara had always been better.
Catching Marylyn’s head in a lock, Lara whispered, “You are queen of nothing,” then jerked her arms and snapped her sister’s neck.
The light went out of the other woman’s eyes, and time seemed to stand still.
How had it come to this? It seemed a lifetime ago that she’d made the decision to sacrifice herself in order to save her sisters. To be Maridrina’s champion. To break the Bridge Kingdom. Everything had changed since then. Her beliefs. Her allegiance. Her dreams. Yet now one of her sisters lay dead at her hands, and Ithicana was on the brink of falling beneath Maridrina’s yoke.
Despite everything, her father had still won.
“What have you done?”
The horror in Aren’s voice made her teeth clench. “I didn’t intend for this to happen.”
He had a machete in his hand, but his arm shook as he leveled it at her. “Who are you? What are you?”
“You know who I am.”
His breathing was ragged. Eyes never leaving her, he reached to retrieve the piece of paper that was Ithicana’s damnation, rereading the lines, his thoughts scorched across his face. They couldn’t fight this.
There was a commotion outside. The sounds of men shouting.
“I’m not leaving you behind to damn me further,” Aren hissed.
Lara didn’t fight as he bound her wrists with the tie for one of the drapes. Or when he pulled a pillowcase over her head and dragged her out of the room, even as soldiers spilled into the house. Ithicanian voices, at first. Then Maridrinian. Then chaos.
Screams cut the air, blades against blades, and she was jerked this way and that. Horns still sounded, filling the air with the call for aid that would never come. Night air filled her nose, and she was falling, knees banging painfully against the steps. Arms pulling her upright, then they were running.
Branches whipping her face, roots tripping her feet, the ground slick with mud.
Hissed voices. “This way, this way.”
The shouts of pursuit.
“Down, down. Did you gag her?”
Her face was pressed against the ground, wet earth seeping through the pillowcase. A rock dug into her ribs. Another pressed sharply against her knee. All of it felt distant, as though it were happening to her in a dream. Or to someone else.
They carried on through the night, the heavy rain helping them avoid what seemed like countless Maridrinian soldiers hunting them across Midwatch, though logically she knew it couldn’t be so many. By now her father’s elite would’ve discovered Marylyn’s body—and the absence of hers and Aren’s—and there was no doubt that finding them would be nearly the same priority as taking the bridge itself.
Only as dawn came, filtered grey through clouds and the sodden fabric covering her face, did they take cover. There were familiar voices in the group. Jor and Lia. Others from the honor guard. Her ears strained for Aren’s, but not once did she pick it out amongst the whispers.
Still, she was certain he was there. Sensed his presence. Felt the guilt and anger and defeat radiating from him in waves as he came to terms with the fall of his kingdom. Knew, instinctively, when he sent everyone away so that he was alone with her.
Lara waited for a long time for him to speak, braced herself for the blame and accusations. Aren remained silent.
When she could take it no more, Lara pushed upright, lifting her bound wrists to tug the pillowcase from her head, blinking in the dim light.
Aren sat on a rock a few paces away, elbows braced on his knees, head hanging low. He was still shirtless, and the rain ran in torrents down his muscled back, washing away smears of blood and mud. A bow and quiver rested under the shelter of an overhang. A machete was belted at his waist. In his hand he held her knife—the one she’d thrown at the snake—and he was turning it over and over as though it were some artifact he’d never seen before.
“Did anyone get out?” Her voice rasped like sandpaper over rough wood. “To warn Southwatch?”
“No.” His hands stilled, the blade’s keen edge glittering with rain. “Taryn tried. The Maridrinians used our own shipbreakers with shocking proficiency. She’s dead.”
Sharp pain dug into Lara’s stomach, her mouth tasting sour. Taryn was dead. The woman who hadn’t even wanted to be a soldier was dead, and it was because of her. “I’m so sorry.”
He lifted his head, and Lara recoiled from the fury in his eyes. “Why? You got everything you wanted.”
“I didn’t want this.” Except she had, at one point. Had wanted to shatter Ithicana. That desire had gotten them to this point, no matter how much she regretted it.
“Enough of your lies.” He was on his feet in one smooth motion, stalking toward her, knife in hand. “I may not have a full report yet, but I know the bridge has fallen to your father using a plan to infiltrate our defenses that was better than I could’ve come up with myself. Your plan.” As he raised his voice, she couldn’t help but flinch, knowing they were still being hunted.
“I thought I’d destroyed all the evidence. I don’t know how it got away from me—”
“Shut up!” He lifted the blade. “My people are dead and dying because of you.” The knife slipped from his fingers. “Because of me.”
Wrenching the damning piece of paper out of his pocket, he held it up to her face. Not the side she’d written on, but the one he’d written, the script flowing and neat. Words persuading her father to reconsider his war with Valcotta and to put his people before his pride. Her chest hollowed as she read the end.
Let it be said, however, that should you seek to retaliate against your spy, Ithicana will take it as an act of aggression against its queen, and the alliance between our kingdoms will be irrevocably severed.
Aren dropped to his knees in front of her, gripping the sides of her face, his fingers tangling in her hair. Tears glinted in his eyes. “I loved you. I trusted you. With myself. With my kingdom.”
Loved. Past tense. Because she’d never deserved his love, and now she’d lost it for good.
“And you were only using me. Only pretending. It was all an act. A ploy.”
“No!” She wrenched the word from her lips. “At first, yes. But after . . . Aren, I love you. Please believe that, if nothing else.”
“I used to wonder why you never said it. Now I know.” His grip on her face tightened, then he jerked his hands away. “You say it now only because you’re trying to save your own skin.”