Page 108 of The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom 2)

She somersaulted over the railing, plunging downward. Icy water closed over her head and she struggled upward, kicking hard.

Her head broke the surface only for a wave to wash over it. Choking and gasping for breath, Lara caught hold of some debris, clinging to it as she rose and fell on the violent swells.

The shipbreaker made a resounding crack, a rock crashing into a longboat. Then another into the wake of the ship. Then another into another longboat. Then it went silent.

Because the battle was over.

Everywhere Lara looked, ships were flying across the whitecaps, sails full with wind as they tried to outrun the storm that had fallen upon them with wicked fury. There were still sailors in the water, men screaming for the ships to turn back, for their comrades to save them, but one by one they were jerked down.

And around Lara, fins circled.

Her breath came in panicked little gasps as the sharks moved closer, a sob tearing from her throat as something thudded against her ankle.

“Swim, Lara! Swim!”

The sound of her name pulled her eyes from the fins to the Ithicanians standing on the cliffs above, the wind tearing at their clothes. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. And Ahnna and Taryn were shouting at her, gesturing to the cavern below. “Swim!”

There was no chance that she’d make it. No chance that one of the sharks wouldn’t take her down or that she wouldn’t bleed to death.

But Lara started kicking.

Clinging to the wooden debris, she churned her legs, ignoring the pain and keeping her eyes fixed on the cavern opening. The screams of the abandoned soldiers fought with the storm for supremacy, lightning bolts crisscrossing the sky in violent succession. Fins circled her, enormous sleek shapes darting in only to veer away at the last minute.

They came closer, tails knocking into her legs as they thrashed away, and each time she waited for teeth to slice into her flesh. Waited to be pulled down and torn apart or drowned.

But she kept swimming.

Waves exploded against the cliffs, but the screaming had ceased, Lara the last person alive in the sea. Her arms trembled with the effort of holding onto the debris, her legs hanging uselessly as the waves flung her into the mouth of the cavern.

All around her was blackness filled with a deafening roar of wind and sea, and Lara felt herself falter. Losing her grip, she went under, only to struggle upward long enough to gasp for breath.

Keep fighting,she ordered herself.You will not give up. You are too close to give up.

Ahead, she caught sight of the faint glow of light, then the sea surged again, and Lara screamed as she was thrown into a web of twisted metal.

62

Aren

It was hard to see.

But he didn’t need to see to know that the enemy was clambering over the gap between the top of the twisted portcullis and the cavern ceiling. He could hear their muttered voices. The grunts of effort. The splash when they landed on the other side and began to swim.

Only to find Ithicana waiting.

Aren slashed at any sign of movement, his arms numb from exhaustion, his motions weak and clumsy.

But he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop when they kept coming, the water thick with bodies and swimming men. They swamped the boats, hands reaching up to grab at his clothing, pulling him overboard and down into the depths.

Part of him wondered if he was already dead, if this was some form of hell.

A slice of pain across his forearm snapped him back into the moment, and Aren fought to the surface of the water, bodies bumping into him on all sides.

“Retreat! Retreat!”

“No!” Aren choked out the word. “We will not retreat! I will not retreat!”

And then he realized the voices shouting the words were Maridrinian. He felt theshiftas the enemy tried to pull back. Tried to climb through that small gap above the twisted steel.

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