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Her actions on Aela Island had accomplished what she’d feared impossible: earning Aren’s trust. And not just his trust, but that of all the soldiers who’d fought in the battle. Their expressions in her presence had gone from distrustful to respectful, and as one, they’d stopped questioning her right to go where she pleased. A right she’d instantly abused. No one had questioned her when she’d stepped away from the healers and the injured after the battle. No one had stopped her or followed her when she’d walked to the base of the bridge pier, where she’d found the nearly invisible entrance, which she marked with a few carefully placed stones that would mean nothing to the Ithicanians and everything to the Maridrinian soldiers when they took Aela Island.
Inside the pier she’d also hidden three of the horns she stolen off corpses on the beach, ready to misdirect Ithicanian reinforcements when the time was right. A strategy that Aren had practically explained to her in his attempts to coax her away from the injured and into a boat. Which he’d only done because he believed she was coming to love them the way he did.
Do not falter,she silently chanted, eyes fixed on the sky as she floated her still aching body in the hot spring.Do not fail.
Biting at a hangnail on her thumb, Lara considered what she’d learned. Considered whether it wasenoughfor Maridrina to take Ithicana. Enough to conquer the unconquerable, and enough to give Maridrina the bridge that would be its salvation.
It was enough.
All that was left was to get the details of her invasion plan to Serin and her father, then for her to fake her death and escape Midwatch and Ithicana and, hopefully, her father’s inevitable assassins. Where she’d go, she didn’t know. To Harendell, perhaps. Maybe once the dust had settled, she’d try to find her sisters. Make a life for herself. Though try as she might, she couldn’t envision what a life beyond Ithicana might look like. A life withouthim.
Lara’s eyes stung, and in a flurry of motion, she climbed out of the spring, reaching for the towel sitting on the rock. Over a week had passed since the attack on Aela, and yet she hadn’t taken one step further to putting her plan into motion. She’d told herself it was because the muscle she’d torn in her shoulder during the battle needed time to heal before she would be strong enough to make her escape. But her heart told her that she was delaying for other reasons. Reasons that put her whole mission in jeopardy.
But tonight was the night.
Aren had sent word from the barracks via Eli that there was going to be a storm this evening, and that he planned to dine with her. And if he was with her, that meant Taryn, who still insisted on sleeping outside her door, would take a break from her bodyguard duties. A double dose of a sleeping narcotic in Aren’s wine after dinner, and then she’d have the whole night in his bedchamber to work with no fear of interruptions.
Already clouds were rolling in, the wind blowing, for even in the calm season, the Tempest Seas were not without teeth. Lara worked methodically on her appearance, drying her hair, then using a hot iron to create coils that hung down her back. She darkened her eyes with kohl and powders until they smoldered, and stained her lips a pale pink. She chose a dress she hadn’t worn before: dark purple, the silk scandalously sheer, her body revealed beneath whenever she passed in front of a light. On her ears, she wore black diamonds, and on her wrist, the clever bracelet that concealed the vials of narcotics.
Stepping out into the hallway, she made her way down to the dining room, her sandals feeling strange after so many weeks of wearing heavy boots. The room was lit with candles, the shutters on the large windows open despite the risk the wind posed to the expensive glass. And a soaking wet Eli stood in close conversation with Taryn, whom Lara was surprised to find still in the house. They both turned to look at her, expressions grim, and Lara’s heart skipped. “Where is he?”
“They went on patrol late morning.” Taryn scrubbed a hand along the shaved sides of her head. “No one has seen or heard from them since.”
“Is that normal?” Lara couldn’t control the shake in her voice.
The other woman exhaled a long breath. “It’s not abnormal for Aren to decide there’s somewhere he needs to be other than Midwatch.” Then her eyes gave Lara a once-over. “But I don’t think that’s the case tonight.”
“So where is he?”
“Could’ve been trouble with one of the boats. Or maybe they decided to wait out the storm. Or—”
Horns sounded, and Lara no longer needed Taryn to tell her what they meant:raiders.
“I’m going down to the barracks.” Running to her rooms, Lara replaced her sandals with boots and pulled a cloak over her dress.
Outside, the rain was falling steadily, but the wind wasn’t high enough to cause the Ithicanians any trouble on the water. Taryn at her arm, and the rest of her bodyguard before and behind her, Lara hurried down the dark path toward the barracks.
Where the tension was higher than she’d ever seen it.
“I’ll find out what they know.” Taryn left Lara with the other two guards, who followed her as she skirted the cove, climbing the carved stone steps to the cliff tops, where she could see the sea. Several soldiers knelt behind the boulders they used for cover, spyglasses in hand.
“Anything?” But they only shook their heads.
What if he didn’t come back?
It would throw her plan to shit. Without Aren to write a letter to her father, she had no way to get a detailed message past Ahnna and her codebreakers at Southwatch. Her only option would be to fake her death and escape, then send the information to her father from outside of Ithicana. But then he and Serin would know she was alive, and that meant a lifetime of assassins chasing at her heels. Yet, as she crouched on the ground to watch the blackness of the ocean, it wasn’t solutions to her dilemma that filled her thoughts.
It was fear.
She’d seen so many Ithicanians die in combat, in so many different ways. Run through or gutted. Crushed or strangled. Beaten or drowned. Their corpses danced through her thoughts, all of them now wearing Aren’s face.
“They haven’t sent any word.” Taryn appeared at Lara’s elbow. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than that they don’t want to announce their presence to the enemy.”
Or they were all dead,Lara thought, her chest tightening painfully.
Taryn handed her a folded packet of papers. “This came for you.”
Holding the paper next to one of the jars of algae, Lara scanned the contents. Serin, pretending to be her father, discussed his disappointment in her second-eldest brother, Keris, who was demanding to attend university in Harendell rather than take command of Maridrinian forces like her eldest brother.He wishes to study philosophy! As though there is time to sit around contemplating the meaning of life when our enemies continue to bite at our flanks!
