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“You need a pillow. Maybe you’ll get lucky and the storm will linger long enough for you to sleep this off. But I doubt it.”
Lara made an angry sound against his chest, but it was more for herself. At the ease with which she curled against him. At how appealing a few more nights with him would be, despite knowing that it was only delaying the inevitable.
“Did the whiskey help?”
“No.”
“It’s never helped me much, either.”
A tear leaked onto her cheek, and she turned her face into his chest to hide it. “I’m sorry I’ve been so terrible. You deserve someone better than me.”
Aren exhaled, but said nothing. The methodical movement of him climbing the stairs lulled her, consciousness slowly fading away. She didn’t fight it, because against all the odds, she trusted him implicitly. Still, she was aware enough to hear him, his voice hoarse as he said, “Since the moment I set eyes on you in Southwatch, there’s been no one but you. Even if I’m a goddamned fool for it, there will never be anyone but you.”
You are a fool,she thought as darkness took her.
And that made two of them.
29
Aren
He’d never beenable to sleep past dawn on a clear day.
How his sleeping body knew the winds had died and the rain ceased was a mystery. A sixth sense from a lifetime in Ithicana that warned him when the Tempest Seas lowered their guard, and that it was time to raise his. So when his eyes snapped open with the faintest glow on the horizon, Aren rose from where he’d slept on the floor, dressed silently so as not to disturb Lara, who was still faintly snoring into her pillow, then ventured downstairs for something to eat.
It was as though a burden had lifted from his shoulders. Coming to Vencia was always a risk, but it had been a thousandfold more so with Lara in tow. Yet it had been worth it. Worth having her discover the truth of the circumstances in Maridrina with her own eyes and ears. Having her understand that it was herfather,not Ithicana, who was the oppressor of her homeland. Having Lara finally see with eyes unclouded by whatever bullshit her mind had been filled with over the years.
Those things had been worth the risk that she’d turn on him and spill every cursed secret she’d learned. Worth those torturous moments when Aren had believed he’d have to stop her.
Worth the moment when Aren became certain that her allegiance had, if not entirely turned to Ithicana, at least abandoned his enemy.
That she’d made that choice had been clear from the time he’d watched her sitting at the bar, drinking whiskey like her life depended on it. Aren knew his wife well enough to tell when she was pissed off. That silent simmering burn that caused any sane individual to give her a wide berth, whether they realized it or not. Last night, she’d been furious. But for the first time, it wasn’t at him. No, when she’d turned around and saw him, her anger had been vanquished by another emotion entirely. One that he’d been desperate to see in her eyes for longer than he cared to admit.
Down in the common room, Jor was seated with Gorrick, but Aren only gave them a nod and took a seat in the corner by himself, content to watch the comings and goings while sipping the coffee that Marisol brought him, his friend and former lover too busy with the rush to do more than squeeze his shoulder in passing.
The room was half filled with traveling merchants. Some wore the clear gaze of those keen to make a profit once the markets opened. Others wore the blurry eyes and green faces of those who’d enjoyed a night out in Vencia and were awake only because they feared their masters’ wrath.
Aren had far more in common with the latter group. Since he was fifteen, he’d been venturing out of Ithicana. Ostensibly, it was to spy. To learn the ways of his kingdom’s pseudo-allies and clear-cut enemies, but there was no denying that he also used the trips to step away from the ceaseless burdens that came with his title. Vencia had always been his favorite, and he’d rode out a dozen or more typhoons drinking and gambling and laughing in one common room or another, more often than not with a local girl to warm his bed, no one believing him to be anything other than a son of a successful merchant.
While the Kingdom of Maridrina was a thorn in Ithicana’s backside, the Maridrinian people had long been friends to Aren, which created a certain conflict. He was not supposed to like them, but he did. Liked how they haggled and argued about every damned thing; how they were brash and brave, even the most cowardly of them prone to picking fistfights to defend a friend’s honor; how they sang and laughed and lived, every one of them with grand ambitions formore.
Vencia itself was a beautiful place, a hillside of whitewashed buildings with blue roofs that always seemed to gleam as he approached from the sea, its streets thrumming with people hailing from every nation, north and south. A metropolis that thriveddespiteits king, who ruled with an iron fist and who used taxes to all but plunder his own people.
No, if Maridrina found itself a new ruler and Aren wasn’t the king of his own kingdom, he’d be happy to make a life in Vencia. Sometimes he wondered if that was half of what his council feared about opening up Ithicana’s borders and allowing its citizens to leave: that they’d see how bloodyeasylife was in other kingdoms, and never come back. That Ithicana wouldn’t be conquered, but rather slowly fade from existence.
Except he didn’t think that was how it would go. There was something about the wild thrill of living in Ithicana that spoke to the souls of those born to it, and neither people nor kingdom would ever willingly let each other go.
Aren’s thoughts were interrupted by a shadow falling across his table.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” a nasally voice said. “I hope you’ll forgive me for interrupting your breakfast.”
Aren’s fork hesitated halfway to his mouth, and it took a great deal of effort to swallow his mouthful of eggs. He lifted his head. “I’ve been called a great many things in this room, but never that.”
The Magpie gave a thin smile and took the seat across from Aren. “I appreciate the game as much as anyone, Your Grace, but perhaps we might forgo the pretense that you are anyone other than the King of Ithicana.” His smile grew. “For expedience’s sake.”
Aren set down his fork and leaned back in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jor and Gorrick lift their heads, Serin’s face deeply familiar to them. But they’d only seen Maridrina’s spymaster from afar, because never,never,had their cover been compromised.
Every Ithicanian spy knew going into enemy territory that if they were caught they should fall on their own sword before giving up their kingdom’s secrets, and Aren had no doubt that everyone with him would do just that. Except, perhaps, for the woman upstairs.
