Page 54 of The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom 2)

The woman who’d tried to kill him on Midwatch—whohadkilled Eli as well as the boy’s mother and aunt and God knew how many others. The sisterLarahad killed with one snap of the neck.

“I was close with my master of arms. On the first night my father’s party was here, he arranged so that I’d overhear their plans. I discovered that my father intended to kill me and the rest of my sisters the night Marylyn was officially announced as his choice, the costs associated with us remaining alive more than he wished to pay. Which meant I had a matter of days to figure out how to save all of our lives.”

“Your father told me this story.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” A lie. There’d been comfort in his belief that Lara wasn’t the sort of person to risk herself in a rescue attempt. Silas had taken that away. “Why didn’t you tell your sisters and then escape? With your training, it would’ve been easy.”

“Yes, but it also would’ve meant us spending our entire lives on the run unless we’d also killed my father and all of his cadre, which had obvious risks. Plus . . .” She trailed off, giving her head a slight shake. “At that point we all still believed what we’d been told of Ithicana’s villainy and Maridrina’s suffering. To leave would’ve meant abandoning what I believed was my country’s only good chance of healing itself, and I couldn’t accept that.” Her face scrunched up. “It seems so stupid now to have believed that, but I suppose it’s hard to imagine being blind when one can see.”

That was why Silas had kept them hidden away. Not to protect them from assassination, but to keep his daughters from learning the truth. “Why you? You could’ve faked your and your sisters’ deaths and let Marylyn carry on as your father’s choice.”

“There were some logistical reasons.” She bit down on her bottom lip. “But mostly, it was because I didn’t think she’d survive you.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Little did I know I had it backward, and that it would’ve been you who wouldn’t have survived her. If nothing else, at least I spared you from that.” Her voice cracked on the last.

A pair of tears rolled down her swollen cheeks, and it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms. Instead, he rose, tested the water, and found that it had cooled. “Rest your head on the table,” he said, rolling a silk dress into a pillow to place underneath her cheek. “This will hurt.”

She clenched her teeth but said not a word as he carefully poured the water into her bloodshot eyes. Her face was marked with scrapes and bruises, but she was still beautiful.

Would he have fallen for any of the other sisters, if they had been the ones to come? Would he have made the same mistakes?

Maybe, but he didn’t think so. There was something abouther.Something that had spoken to his soul in a way no other woman he’d met ever had.

Ithicana will never forgive her,he silently chided himself. And to ask them to would be to spit in the faces of all his people who’d lost children and parents and sisters and brothers. He couldn’t do it, no matter how he felt about her.

Yet that didn’t mean he needed to continue wallowing in the pain of all the things that could not be undone. The past was the past, and his eyes needed to be on the future.

Reaching into his pocket, Aren pulled out the letter. He read the front and then the back, but for the first time since Marylyn had given it to him, the words failed to ignite his anger. He faced the stove, staring at the flames flickering beneath the kettle of water.

Lara shifted, lifting her head. “What’s burning?”

“Nothing important,” he answered, then continued to watch as the letter turned to ash.

28

Lara

The compound might have savedtheir lives, but it was not their salvation. Not when there was no food. And not when more of her father’s soldiers would be on their way to ensure she and Aren were dead. Which meant the biggest challenge was ahead: how to get out of the Red Desert alive.

Her sisters had stripped the compound of supplies, and what remained was fouled with sand, broken, or burned. Worse, while her sisters had taken the shorter journey north to Maridrina, Lara and Aren needed to head south to Valcotta, which was twice the distance.

“Find whatever you can that will hold water,” she’d told Aren. “And anything edible, though I doubt there will be much.”

She’d been right on that count. Other than a handful of dates, a lone sack of flour, and a jar of pepper, Lara had found nothing to eat. There were several trees that produced fruit on the oasis, but the storm had stripped them bare. The gardens were buried with sand, and what she found beneath was nothing more than inedible pulp. Which meant they were looking at close to two weeks without food.

“Not much to be found.” Aren dropped the supplies he’d gathered on the ground next to the spring, which Lara had been using a shovel to dredge, her dress soaked with sweat from the effort. It was cursedly hot, but they needed clean water more than she needed a wash, and it was a task she was able to do with her eyes closed. Which, given the way they still stung, was a blessing.

Fumbling around for a cup, she filled it and handed it to him. “Water is the most important.”

“It’s also heavy.” She heard him drinking, then there was a splash, and he muttered, “God, that feels good. What I wouldn’t give for a swim.”

“Get out!” she shrieked, forcing her eyelids open, her horror at what he was doing worse than the pain. “It’s forbidden!” Ignoring how he was staring at her as he climbed out, Lara held up a hand, lifting her fingers one by one as she said, “No animals are allowed to drink directly, lest they foul the waters. Only clean vessels are to be used, preferably of silver or gold. And no damned baths!”

“It’s full of sand and there isn’t anyone here but us.”

She glared at him, the effect ruined by the flood of tears running down her face. “How about I don’t want to drink the water that has soaked your sweaty feet.”

He shrugged as though that were the only valid part of the argument. “We should cut back to the coast. It’s closer.”

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