Page 4 of The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom 2)

Ahnna shook her head. “There’s been a bad storm sitting above us for close to a week, so we’re cut off.”

“Then why are you here?”

Taking hold of the bars to the cell with both hands, Ahnna leaned against them. “The whole city is demanding I execute you. Do you know how we deal with traitors in Ithicana?” She didn’t wait for Lara to answer. “We dangle them about hip-deep in the sea and then chum the waters. If you’re lucky, a big one will come along and finish the job quick, but that’s not often how it goes.”

Lara stared at the princess. “Do you intend to accede to their request?”

Ahnna was silent for a long moment, before saying, “I’m going to give you the opportunity to convince me otherwise. I think the best place to start is the truth.”

The truth.

Aren was the only person she’d ever trusted with it, and even still, there’d been much she’d held back. Lara wouldn’t hold back now.

Ahnna listened silently as Lara told her about being taken with her sisters to the compound in the Red Desert. About the ordeal that was their training with Serin, the Magpie. How they’d been brainwashed to believe Ithicana the villain, never once suspecting the true evil was their own father. About the dinner where she’d saved her sisters’ lives by sacrificing herself, and then everything that had come after, sparing no detail.

By the time she finished, Ahnna was sitting on the ground, elbows resting on her knees. “Aren told Jor that you escaped. But I knew as soon as I heard that he’d let you go. Bloody sentimental idiot.”

“He told me he’d kill me if I ever came back.”

“And yet here you are.” Ahnna touched the wound on her face, her eyes distant. Then she focused on Lara. “You said you had a plan? A way to get Aren free?”

Triumph raced through Lara’s core, but she kept her face in check. “To get Aren free, yes. But also to liberate Ithicana from my father.”

Ahnna’s eyes narrowed. “How? The Maridrinians hold all of our garrisons, including Northwatch and Southwatch. They’re protected by all the defenses we put into place, and we don’t have the manpower to break through them. Believe me, we’ve tried. That’s how Aren got caught in the first place.”

“Which is why you need allies.”

Snorting, Ahnna looked away. “You sound like Aren. And that’s the sort of thinking that got us in this position in the first place.”

“Hear me out.” Rising to her feet, Lara paced back and forth across the floor of her cell. “After I fled Ithicana, I went to Harendell. They aren’t happy about Maridrina holding the bridge, because my father’s alliance with the Amaridian queen means Amarid gets preferential treatment at Northwatch and on the bridge. Harendell is losing money hand over fist, and youknowhow they feel about that.”

Ahnna nodded.

“The Harendellians don’t want Maridrina holding the bridge, nor do they want it for themselves. If we go to their king, I believe we can convince him to aid Ithicana in this fight.”

“He’s not going to agree to risk his navy just because we ask him nicely, Lara. Harendell might be losing money in trade, but they stand to lose more if they go to war.”

“He will if you hold him to his word.” Grasping the bars to her cell, Lara met Ahnna’s gaze. “The alliance of the Fifteen Year Treaty might be broken with Maridrina, but it still stands with Harendell. Or it will if—”

“If I marry their crown prince.”

Squeezing the bars, Lara nodded. “Yes.”

In one rapid motion, Ahnna turned away, crossing the corridor to rest her forehead against the opposite cell. Finally, she said, “I’ve never left Ithicana, you know. Not once.”

Most Ithicanians hadn’t, only the select few trained as spies, but given who Ahnna was, the information was surprising.

“The moment my mother allowed it, Aren was off like a loosed arrow. North and south, he went everywhere. And there were years where it felt like he spent more time pretending to be someone else in another kingdom than he did being my brother home in Ithicana.” Ahnna was quiet for a moment. “I never understood it. Never understood why he would want to be anywhere buthere.”

“Because,” Lara answered softly, “he knew there’d come a time when he wouldn’t be allowed to leave. Just like you knew there would come a time when you wouldn’t be allowed back.”

Ahnna’s shoulders trembled, and Lara heard the other woman draw in a ragged breath before turning. Digging in her pocket, she extracted a key, which she inserted into the lock on Lara’s cell. “What’s the rest of the plan?”

5

Aren

It didn’t takehim long to determine that they were keeping him in the inner sanctum of the palace in Vencia—a place reserved for the King of Maridrina, his wives, and his numerable progeny.Whyhe was being kept in this place rather than in a cell in one of Maridrina’s innumerable prisons was less clear.

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