Page 80 of The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom 1)

Outside, his guard reported, “She’s walking up the main boulevard. Gorrick is tailing her.” He handed Aren his bow and quiver.

Aren took the weapons without comment and started up the street, Jor on his heels. Vencia was crowded as always, and it took him a bit of time to find the tall Ithicanian tailing his wife. “Go back,” he muttered to Gorrick once he had Lara in his sights. “We’ll take it from here.”

The man opened his mouth to argue, then saw the expression on Aren’s face, and faded into the crowd.

Lara strode up the center of the street, still wearing her disguise, which meant the drunks and rabble-rousers left her alone. Yet as they tailed her, he wondered how the disguise fooled anyone at all. Every time she turned her head to regard something that had caught her interest, torchlight framed the delicate lines of her face, her full lips, the long column of her neck, the rounded curve of her ass. The slight sway to her step. No Harendellian ship boy he’d ever met walked likethat.

She was so painfully beautiful, and even knowing that she’d used it against him didn’t lessen how powerfully he was drawn to her.

He silently pleaded:Please let me be wrong about what you intend to do.

But there was no denying the route Lara was taking, up the switchback streets in the direction of her father’s palace, that blue and bronze testament to his hubris and greed.

Jor cursed as he, too, realized which way Lara was going. “We need to stop her.”

Aren sidestepped a drunken pair and moved into the shadows closer to the buildings. “Not yet.”

The farther they climbed, the fewer people filled the street, but Lara hadn’t once looked back. As though it hadn’t even occurred to her that he might have her watched.

“What are you doing, Aren?” Jor hissed.

“I need to see if she’ll betray me if given the chance.”

But what he hoped was that the truth had turned her. That, now awake to her father’s deception, she’d turn her back on whatever purpose she’d been set to. If she was the sort of woman he believed, no,prayed, her to be.

She kept walking toward the gate, the guards flanking it regarding her with bored interest, a lone youth of no concern to them. Aren stopped in the shadows where the guards wouldn’t see him, pulling a single arrow from his quiver. The bow was his own, but the wood felt strange and unfamiliar beneath his sweating fingers.

Jor reached for his weapon. “Let me do this for you.”

Aren stepped sideways, nocking the arrow as he shook his head. “No. I brought her into Ithicana. She’s my responsibility.” Lara wasn’t slowing, and the guards at the gate perked up as she approached.

One of the guards called out to her. “What are you about, boy?” Lara didn’t answer.

Again, Jor tried to take the weapon. “You’re half in love with the girl. You don’t need this on your conscience.”

“Yes, I do.”

She stopped a dozen paces from the heavy iron gates.

“State your purpose or be on your way,” the guard shouted.

Aren slowly drew the bow, aiming the arrow at the center of her slender back. At this range, it would punch straight through her heart. She’d be dead before she could damn him, and Ithicana, more than she already had.

Aren’s heart was wild and frantic in his chest, hot sweat mixing with the rain running down his back. As he blinked, he saw her fall. Saw her blood spill out in a pool around her. Saw those cursedly beautiful eyes of hers lose their spark. Then he blinked again and she was standing motionless in the darkness. She took a hesitant step forward. His arm quivered.

Another step.

The bowstring dug into his fingers as he slowly began to straighten them, knowing that despite having no choice, he’d never forgive himself for killing her.

Her body rocked and his heart skipped. Then lightning flashed and Lara whirled, sprinting away from the gates. Jor jerked Aren deeper into the shadows as she passed, heading back into the city. He took a step to follow before everything he’d eaten for dinner rose in his throat. Bracing a hand against the wall of the building, Aren puked his guts out onto the street.

“Follow her,” he managed to get out. “Make sure she gets back safe.”

Only when Jor had disappeared down the street did Aren rest his head against the slimy wet stone. A half a second. That had been the difference between her running into the night and her lying dead on the street. Half a second.

The stench of vomit filled his nose, but that wasn’t what made his eyes burn. He scrubbed at them furiously, hating the King of Maridrina to the depths of his soul. The alliance between Maridrina and Ithicana made a mockery of the word, for it felt Aren had no greater enemy than Silas Veliant.

“You,” someone shouted. “No loitering. Get on your way!”

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