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Lara continued, “I’ve been taking small doses of several poisons for years to build up my tolerance.” Even still, she had purged herself the moment she’d had a chance, vomiting again and again until her stomach was dry, then taking the antidote, the dizzying malaise the only lingering sign she’d ingested a narcotic at all.
The Master of Intrigue’s tiny frame tensed. “What if the settings had been altered? You might have killed the king.”
“She clearly believed it worth the risk.”
Lara tilted her head, having noted the jingle of bells on the horse’s bridle as her father had ridden up behind, the creature festooned with silver rather than the tin the guards’ mounts wore.
“You guessed that I intended to kill the girls I didn’t need,” he said. “But instead of warning your sisters or attempting to escape, you murdered them to take the chosen’s place. Why?”
Because for the girls to fight their way out would’ve meant a lifetime on the run. Faking their deaths had been the only way. “I may have spent my life in isolation, Father, but the tutors you selected educated me well. I know the hardship that our people endure beneath Ithicana’s yoke on trade. Our enemy needs to be brought low, and of my sisters, I was the only one capable of doing it.”
“You murdered your sisters for the good of our country?” His voice was amused.
Lara forced a dry chuckle from her lips. “Hardly. I murdered them because I wished to live.”
“You gambled with the king’s life in order to save your own skin?” Serin turned to look at her, his expression green. He’d trained her, which meant it was within the king’s right to blame him for all that she had done. And her father was known to be merciless.
But the King of Maridrina only laughed with delight. “Gambled andwon.” Reaching over, he pushed aside Lara’s scarf to cup her cheek. “King Aren won’t see you coming until it’s far too late. A black widow in his bed.”
King Aren of Ithicana. Aren, her soon-to-be husband.
Lara only vaguely heard her father give the order to his guards to make camp, the group intending to sleep through the heat of the day.
One of the guards lifted her off the back of Serin’s camel, and she sat on a blanket while the men set up the camp, using the time to think of what was to come.
Lara knew as much as—probably more than—most Maridrinians did about Ithicana. It was a kingdom as shrouded in mystery as it was in mist: a series of islands stretching between two continents, the land masses guarded by violent seas made more treacherous by defenses the Ithicanians had placed in the waters to ward off infiltrators. But that was not what made Ithicana so powerful. It was the bridge stretching above and between those islands—the only safe way to travel between the continents ten months out of the year. And Ithicana used its asset to keep the kingdoms who depended on trade hungry. Desperate. And most of all, willing to pay any price the Bridge Kingdom demanded for its services.
Seeing her tent was erected, Lara waited until the men had placed her bags inside before slipping into the welcome shade, curbing the urge to thank them as she passed.
She was alone for barely the length of time it took to remove her scarf before her father ducked inside, Serin on his heels. “I’ll have to begin training you on the codes now,” the Master of Intrigue said, waiting until the king was sitting before ensconcing himself in front of Lara. “Marylyn created this code, and I daresay that teaching it toyouin such a short time will be a challenge.”
“Marylyn is dead,” she replied, taking a mouthful of tepid water from her canteen before carefully closing it again.
“Don’t remind me,” he snapped.
Her smile was filled with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Come to terms with the fact thatIam all who remains of the girls you trained, and then I will not need to refresh your memory.”
“Begin,” her father commanded, and then he closed his eyes, his presence in her tent for propriety’s sake, only.
Serin began his instruction on the code. It needed to be entirely committed to memory, as she couldn’t bring notes into Ithicana. It was a code she might never even use, its usefulness entirely predicated on the King of Ithicana allowing her the kindness of corresponding with her family. And kindness, she’d been told, was not an attribute the man was known for.
“As you know, the Ithicanians are exemplary codebreakers, and anything you manage to send out will be subject to intense scrutiny. There’s every chance they’ll break this one.”
Lara held up her hand, ticking off her fingers as she spoke. “I should expect to be completely isolated, from both the Ithicanians and from the outside world. I may or may not be allowed to correspond, and even if I am, there is every chance our code will be broken. There is no way for you to reach me to retrieve a message. No way for me to send something through their people, because you’ve yet to swing the loyalties of a single one.” She balled her hand into a fist. “Other than escaping, which means an end to my ability to spy, just how do you expect me to convey the information to you?”
“If this were an easy task, we’d have accomplished it already.” Serin extracted a heavy piece of parchment from his satchel. “There is only one Ithicanian who corresponds with the outside world, and that is King Aren himself.”
Taking the parchment, which was embossed with Ithicana’s crest of the curving bridge, the edges trimmed with gilt, she examined the precise script, which requested that Maridrina deliver a princess to be his bride in accordance of the terms of the Fifteen Year Treaty, as well as an invitation to negotiate new terms of trade between the kingdoms. “You want me to hide a message within one of his?”
He nodded, handing her a jar of clear liquid.Invisible ink.“We’ll attempt to entice messages from him to give you the opportunity, but he’s not prone to frequent correspondence. For that reason, we should return to studying your sister’s code.”
The lesson was tedious work and Lara was exhausted. It took all her self-control not to sigh with relief when Serin finally departed to his own tent.
Her father rose, yawning.
“Might I ask a question, Your Majesty?” she asked before he could depart.
At his nod, she licked her lips. “Have you seen him? The new King of Ithicana?”
