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She could not breathe.
Hands grabbed at her tunic, hauling her back into the boat. She slammed into something solid and warm, then someone peeled up the edge of the fabric covering her face, and she found herself staring into the depths of Aren’s hazel eyes.
“I’ve got you.” His grip on her was so fierce it should’ve hurt, but was instead almost as comforting as being on dry land. Behind him was the bridge pier with the opening at its base, so tantalizingly close that her fear eased. But Aren pulled the blindfold back down, plunging her back into darkness.
The loss of her sight sent a wave of dizziness through her. Sweat mixed with the water dripping down her face, her breath coming in frantic little gasps.
She inhaled a ragged breath, fighting for the calm void she’d been trained to find if tortured when one of the guards said, “We could take the bridge. This seems cruel.”
“No,” Jor snapped. “Not happening.”
But Lara felt Aren still. He was considering the idea. Which he’d only be doing if he, too, believed unnecessarily terrifying her was cruel. So she let her fear take hold.
Once she did, there was no turning back. Her terror was a wild beast of a thing bent on consuming her. Her chest clenched, her lungs paralyzed, and stars danced across her vision.
The waves tossed the boat up and down, the spikes set into the sea scraping along the metal-lined hull. Lara clung to Aren, the strength of his arm holding her against his chest and her fingernails digging into his shoulders the only things keeping her from falling into madness.
Vaguely, she heard the group arguing, but their words were a dull drone of noise, as unclear as a foreign language. But Aren’s command, “Just do it!” cut through the fog.
The soldiers around her grumbled and swore. The steel plates on the hull ground against rock, and a second later, the violent buck and swell of the sea ceased. They were inside the bridge pier, but her panic didn’t ease, for there was still water everywhere. She could still drown.
A crackle of a torch. The smell of smoke. The boat shifting as the soldiers disembarked. Lara fought to take note of these details, but her focus centered on the water surrounding her, on what was lurking within it.
“There’s a ladder.” Aren’s chin, rough with stubble, brushed against her forehead as he shifted. “Can you reach up and grab it? Can you climb?”
Lara couldn’t move. Her chest felt like bands of steel were wrapped around it, every exhalation painful. There was a faint repetitive thumping against the bottom of the boat, and it took her far too long to realize that it was because she was shaking and her boot was hitting the hull. But she couldn’t seem to stop it. Couldn’t seem to do anything but cling to Aren’s neck, her knees clamped around his thighs like a vise.
“I promise I won’t let you fall in.” His breath was warm against her ear, and very slowly, she mastered enough of her panic to let go of his neck with one hand, reaching up to find the cold metal of the ladder. But it took all the bravery she possessed to let go of him, to pull herself up, blindly reaching for the next rungs.
Aren stood with her, gripping her waist with one arm, his other braced on the steel. He lifted her up, holding her steady until her feet found the ladder.
“How far?” she whispered.
“Sixty more rungs, from where your hands are now. I’ll be right beneath you. You won’t fall.”
Lara’s breath was deafening in her ears as she went up, rung by rung, her whole body quivering. She’d never felt like this before. Never been so afraid—not even when she’d stared death in the eye when her father had come to take Marylyn from the compound. She continued up and up, until someone grabbed her by the armpits, hauling her sideways, and set her down on solid stone.
“We’ll keep that blindfold on only a little longer, Majesty,” Jor said, but Lara hardly cared. There was a solid surface beneath her hands, and the ground wasn’t moving. She could breathe.
Rock scraped against rock, boots thudded softly, then strong hands gripped her shoulders. Her blindfold was peeled back, and Lara found herself looking up into the King of Ithicana’s worried face. Around them stood the soldiers, three of them holding torches that flickered yellow and orange and red. But beyond them yawned a darkness deeper than a moonless night. A blackness so complete, it was as though the sun itself had ceased to exist.
They were inside the bridge.
15
Lara
“Are you all right, Lara?”
It took several seconds for Aren’s question to register, Lara’s attention all for the grey stone beneath her, which was stained dark with dirt and lichen. The bridge wasn’t made from blocks, as she had thought, but rather a smooth and unblemished material. Like mortar . . . but stronger. She’d never seen anything like it. The air was musty and ripe with the smell of mildew and moisture and manure. Aren’s voice echoed off the walls, asking after her well-being over and over before the sound disappeared into the endless corridor of black.
“Lara?”
“I’m fine.” And she was, in the sense that her panic had settled with the solidness of the bridge beneath her feet, excitement slowly bubbling up to take its place. She had done it. She’d found a way into the bridge.
Everyone was staring at her, shifting their weapons and supplies with obvious unease. Aren had caved to her fear, and in doing so, had revealed one of Ithicana’s secrets. Jor, in particular, did not look pleased.
Aren’s face was unreadable. “We need to get moving. I don’t want to miss the tide on our return.” He frowned. “Not while they’re running cattle.”
