Page 104 of The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom 2)

Lara

She was falling.

Then her body jerked to a stop, a strong hand gripping her wrist.

Looking upward, Lara saw Ahnna’s face. The princess smirked. “We just can’t get rid of you, can we?”

With a violent heave, Ahnna pulled Lara upward, another Ithicanian helping to haul her over the edge, where Lara lay gasping for breath on her back before slowly climbing to her feet.

Ahnna stood with several Ithicanians, all of whom Lara recognized. They were bloody, shoulders bent with exhaustion. But their eyes still gleamed with defiance that said they had no intention of conceding this battle.

“Should we send someone to tell the king?” one of them asked.

“Aren’s here?” Lara blurted out.

Ahnna gave the slightest shake of her head at the soldier, then turned to Lara. “He left you behind for a reason, Lara. You aren’t wanted here. Tell me why I shouldn’t toss you into the water with the rest of your people.”

“I’m here to fight for Ithicana.” She was here to fight for herself.

Ahnna looked her up and down. “You can barely stand.”

Straightening her shoulders, Lara met the taller woman’s gaze. “Care to test that theory?”

Before Ahnna could answer, a loud screech of metal split the air.

“What the hell was that?” one of the Ithicanians demanded, but Ahnna only blanched, then took off at a run.

Lara sprinted after her, leaping over debris from the rockslide as they rounded the island. The sun was up now, but in the distance, a wall of storm was racing toward Eranahl, the black clouds dancing with bolts of lightning, the wind howling.

They reached the edge of the rockslide, finding themselves in the thick of the fighting, Ithicanians going hand to hand against Maridrinians and Amaridians, the slope littered with bodies.

Lara threw her knife into one soldier’s spine, then sliced her sword across the back of another’s knees, not stopping to finish him off as she raced after the princess. The stitches in her leg were giving and tearing, blood running in hot rivulets down her leg, but she ignored the pain.

Ahnna didn’t stop to fight, only cut down those who got in the way of her wild race around the volcano. And at the cliff’s edge, more and more of the enemy were climbing over, then diving into the fight.

“Ahnna! We need to push them back!”

But the woman ignored her, pressing onward, a flurry of fists and steel that left corpses in her wake. Then the princess skidded to a halt.

“No!” Ahnna shrieked, and Lara tracked her gaze, her stomach dropping as she caught sight of the ship with its sails full of storm winds, ropes stretched out behind it and disappearing into the harbor cavern.

They were pulling out the portcullis.

Another grinding screech pierced Lara’s ears, metal dragging along rock, twisting and warping under the strain. And the moment the Maridrinians got it free, the cavern would be flooded by the countless longboats filled with soldiers.

Ahnna abruptly threw herself into the fray, hacking and attacking anyone that stepped into her path. Lara kept on her heels, guarding the woman’s back as they pushed toward a large group of Ithicanians defending the cliffside over the entrance to the cave.

“Taryn!” Ahnna shouted her cousin’s name, the ranks parting to reveal the young woman working on a shipbreaker, the wood charred, its ropes frayed and blackened. “You need to get that breaker working!”

Taryn shook her head. “I need time, Ahnna. I need to replace the ropes.”

“We don’t have time! If they pull the gate clear, Aren will be overrun. We have to take out that ship!”

Aren was down there.

Stepping away from the argument, Lara raced to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There were hundreds of soldiers in the boats, all armed to the teeth. If they made it inside the volcano crater, the battle was over.

Wind whipped at Lara’s hair, tugging it this way and that, her ears filling with the crash of thunder. The overfilled longboats rose and fell on growing swells, water spilling over the edges. And beneath, shapes moved, large fins cutting through the waves. Even fifty feet above them, Lara saw the fear on the soldiers’ faces. Yet none of the boats turned back.

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