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Cattle. Food.According to Serin’s letter, the best of it was finding its way into the holds of Valcottan ships, not Maridrinian stomachs.
Jor held up her blindfold. “Best we put this back on.”
The group’s footfalls reverberated as they walked, Lara’s hand resting on Aren’s arm for guidance, the wind and sea only faintly audible. The bridge bent and curved, rising on gentle inclines and dipping down on declines as it meandered through the islands of Ithicana. It was a ten-day journey at walking speed between Northwatch and Southwatch islands, and she could scarcely imagine what it would be like to be enclosed within the bridge for so long. With no sense of day or night. With no way to get out other than to run toward the mouths of this great beast.
Though therewereways out; she knew that with certainty now. But how many? How were they accessed from the interior of the bridge? Were the openings only to the piers, or were there others? How did the Ithicanians know where they were?
Foreigners from every kingdom, merchants and travelers, traversed the bridge regularly. They were always under Ithicanian escort, but she knew for fact they weren’t blindfolded. Serin had told her and her sisters that the only markers in the bridge were those stamped in the floor indicating the distance between the beginning and end. There were, to his knowledge, no other signs or symbols, and the Ithicanians were apparently fastidious in removing any marks anyone attempted to place. Those caught doing so were forever forbidden from entering the bridge, no matter how much money they offered to pay.
Answers would not be easily gained. She needed to earn Aren’s trust, and to do that, she needed him to think he was winning her over.
“I’m sorry for my . . . loss of composure,” she murmured, hoping the others wouldn’t overhear, though the acoustics made it impossible that they would not. “The sea is . . . I’m not . . .”
She struggled to articulate an explanation for her fear, settling with, “Thank you. For not letting me drown. And for not mocking me mercilessly.”
With the blindfold in place, Lara had no way to judge his reaction, and the silence stretched before he finally answered. “The sea is dangerous. Only war takes more Ithicanian lives. But it’s unavoidable in our world, so we must master our fear of it.”
“You don’t appear to fear it at all.”
“You’re wrong.” He was silent for a dozen strides. “You asked me how my parents died.”
Lara bit her lip, remembering:They’d drowned.
“My mother had been sick for years with a bad heart. She was taken by a fit one night. A bad one. One she wouldn’t come back from. Though there was a storm blowing in, my father insisted on taking her to my grandmother on the slim hope she could help.” Aren’s voice shook, and he coughed once. “No one could say for certain, but I was told my mother wasn’t even breathing when he loaded her into the boat and set sail. The storm came in fast. Neither of them was seen again.”
“Why did he do it?” She was both fascinated and horrified. This hadn’t been just any pair, but the king and queen of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the known world. “If she was already gone, why risk it? Or at the very least, why didn’t he have someone else take her?”
“Moment of stupidity, I suppose.”
“Aren.” Jor’s voice was chiding from where he walked behind them. “Tell it right or don’t tell it all. You owe them that much.”
Lara considered the older guard, curious about their relationship. Her father would’ve had the head of anyone who’d dare speak to him in such a way. Yet Jor seemed to do so without fear; and indeed, she felt nothing more than mild irritation from the king striding on her left.
Aren huffed out a breath, then said, “My father didn’t send her with someone else, because he wasn’t the sort of man to put his well-being ahead of another. As to why he risked it at all . . . I suppose it was because he loved my mother enough that the hope of saving her was worth his own life.”
To risk everything for the slim chance of saving those you loved . . . Lara knew that compulsion because that was how she felt about her sisters. And it might cost her her own life just yet.
“Ill-fated romance aside, my point is, I know what it’s like to lose something to the sea. To hate it. To fear it.” He kicked a bit of rock, sending it rattling ahead of them. “It knows no master, most certainly not me.”
He said nothing more on the issue, or on anything else.
There was no sense of time in the bridge, and it seemed they’d been striding down the path for eternity, when Aren finally came to a halt.
Blind, Lara stood utterly still, relying on her other senses as the soldiers shifted about. Boots scuffed against stone, the echoes making it difficult for her to tell from which direction they were working, but then a breeze brushed against her left hand at the same time it hit her cheek, fresh air filling her nostrils. The opening was in the wall, not the floor.
“The stairs are too steep to navigate blind.” Aren flipped her over his shoulder, his hand warm against her thigh as he balanced her weight. Instinct had her grip him by the waist, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his stomach as he stooped down. Only at the last second did she think to reach out, her hand running the length of a solid slab that must have made up the door. A door that, unless she missed her mark, blended seamlessly into the wall of the bridge.
The sounds of the jungle grew as they went down a curved staircase, then the soft light of the sun filtered through her blindfold.
Aren set her back onto her feet without warning. Lara swayed as the blood rushed from her head, his hand on her back, guiding her forward before she could find her bearings.
“Good enough,” Jor announced from somewhere ahead, and the blindfold was tugged from her eyes. Lara blinked, looking around, but there was only jungle, the canopy blocking even the bridge from sight.
“It’s not far,” Aren said, and Lara silently trailed after him, careful to keep to the narrow path. The guards encircled them, weapons held loosely in their hands, their eyes watchful. Unlike her father, who was constantly surrounded by his cadre of soldiers, this was the first time since their wedding that she’d seen Aren treated like a king. The first time she’d seen them protect him so aggressively. What was different? Was this island dangerous? Or was it something else? There was a crackle in the trees, and both Jor and Lia stepped closer to her, hands going to their weapons, and Lara realized it wasn’t the king they were worried about protecting. It was her.
They skirted the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, the water thirty feet below crashing violently against the rocks. Lara searched in both directions for a spot where men could land, but there was none. On the assumption it was the same way all around the island, she could see why the builders had chosen it as a pier. It was nearly impenetrable. Yet, given Aren had intended to come by boat, there must be a way.
The house appeared out of nowhere. One minute it was trees and vines and vegetation, the next, a solid stone structure, the windows flanked with the ubiquitous storm shutters that all buildings on Ithicana likely possessed. The stone was coated with green lichen, and as they approached, Lara determined it was made of the same material as the bridge, as were the outbuildings in the distance. Built to withstand the lethal tempests that battered Ithicana ten months of the year.
