Page 49 of The Endless War

The question wasn’t directed at him, but he didn’t like seeing herthis …rattled.So he said, “I’m not really the ideal messenger for this information, but when a man and a woman—”

“I know how babies are made, Keris!”

He shrugged. “Just checking. There was the possibility that all your training was dedicated to learning how to poke holes into a man and not learning what happens when a man pokes you in—”

“If you say it, I’ll stab you in the face.”

The unease in his guts faded in the face of her anger, and Keris rocked on his heels, eyeing his sister for a long moment before asking, “You don’t want a child?”

“No. Yes.” Lara pressed her hands to her face, then dropped them to meet his eyes. “We were taking precautions.”

“I’ve been told the only certain method is abstinence, though I’m not one to judge.”

Lara glared at him. “The Ithicanians are going to think I got pregnant to protect myself. To earn their favor.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Yes!” Lara paced the room. “To use a child as a shield to protect myself is selfish and disgusting. They already hate me. No need to make it worse.”

Keris hesitated, uncertain of whether this was a conversation that he should involve himself in. But he was so weary of good things being soured by circumstances. “And you thinknothaving a child is going to change the way they feel?”

Lara went still, her cheeks sucking in as though she were biting them.

“You’re the queen,” he said. “Which means the vast majority of your subjects don’t see you as a person. What you think, how you feel, how yousuffer? They don’t give a shit. All they care about is how the choices you make affect their lives. Putting yourself through hell will changenothingfor Lara the queen and destroy everything for Lara the woman.”

Her eyes went distant as his words sank into her thoughts, likely nothing Aren hadn’t already said to her a hundred times before. He watched her see the logic and reject it, frustration building in hisstomach because this had nothing to do with what Ithicana thought of her and everything to do with how she felt about herself. “You deserve to be happy, Lara. If this is what you want, please don’t allow the joy of it to be destroyed by individuals who don’t care about you.”

Silence stretched between them, and he didn’t break it.

“It’s not your problem,” she finally said. “Though I’d ask you to keep this development to yourself. Aren needs to be focused on finding a way to get you out once you’re in, not on my … condition.”

Deception had been her downfall, yet it remained burned into his sister’s soul. She’d been raised on it, learned to live and breathe it, and though she had to know that it did her no favors, Keris could still see Lara clinging to it like an old friend. “Except it’s not just you anymore, is it?”

Lara’s gaze sharpened. “Pregnant or not, I’m the one who will figure out a way to extricate you and Zarrah.”

He did need her. But that didn’t mean he was willing to be used as a tool for her self-destruction. So Keris said, “I’m not going to say a damn thing to anyone, but perhaps remind yourself of the outcome of the last time you kept secrets from Aren.”

The blow struck like a knife, and Lara flinched. “You’re an asshole.” She twisted on her heels and stormed from the room.

Sighing, he followed the thud of her bootheels back onto the deck, watching as Lara strode directly to Aren, who was backlit by the setting sun. The other man set down the length of rope he was holding, brow furrowed as he followed her to the empty fore of the ship.

Keris turned his back on them and went to the rail. “How go the fishing efforts?”

“Got what we need, Your Grace,” an Ithicanian said, gesturing to the bleached trunks of trees fixed to the ship with ropes.

Keris stared at the driftwood bobbing up and down on the sea, the water dark and frigid and nothing like the turquoise oceans off the coast of Maridrina. As deadly as Ithicana’s waters, for the cold was mindless and indiscriminate.

“We’ll tow them as close as we can with the longboats,” Jor said, scowling. “The less time you spend in that water, the more likely you are not to die. Not that I’d miss you.”

Keris was inclined to agree about the temperature. Especially given he wouldn’t be climbing out to warm fires and hot drinks, but rather to face frigid night air and the worst criminals Valcotta had to offer.

“No sense delaying,” Jor said. “Have something to eat. Take a shit. Do whatever you feel you need to do before you get into the water, because there won’t be opportunity later.”

“I’m ready,” Keris answered, the thought of eating turning his stomach. Lifting his gaze from the driftwood, he stared into the fog in the direction of the island. If all went according to plan, he’d be on the same ground as Zarrah within the hour. Beneath the same set of stars, never mind that they were hidden by mist.

A cough broke the silence, and both he and Jor turned to find Lara and Aren standing behind them. Aren was grinning like a fiend, his arm wrapped around Lara. Her eyes were red and her cheeks damp, but the agitation that had radiated from her moments ago was gone.

“You look awfully tickled, given the circumstances,” Jor said. “Why are you grinning like a madman?”

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