Page 22 of The Inadequate Heir (The Bridge Kingdom 3)

She opened her mouth as though to respond, but instead stepped backward off the side of the building. He swore as he heard her hit the ground, her feet pounding away before he’d even reached the edge.

But he knew which way she’d go.

Twisting, he raced across the roof to jump to the next, rolling as he hit and then on his feet in a flash, tracing a path across the city. He leapt and climbed, never hesitating because to give up momentum would see him plunge to his death.

His knees ached and his fingers were cramping from climbing by the time he reached the tap house where he’d sat earlier, and dropped into the alleyway. The tables were nearly devoid of patrons now, all the Valcottans wisely having taken their leave when they’d seen the flames.

All, except for one.

His eyes picked up motion in the shadows of a building, her slender form barely visible as she crept down the street, gaze focused on the path leading to the Anriot. But before either of them could make a move, the clatter of hooves on cobbles filled the air, and a patrol galloped into view. “Block the river crossings,” one of the men shouted. “Then we’ll begin a search of the city to find the culprit. His Highness wants the individual on the executioner’s block by dawn!”

Damn Otis and his efficiency.

Keris watched the woman stare at the patrol, weighing her chances of getting around them and across the river without taking an arrow in the back.

They weren’t good.

She was going to get herself killed, and all over Otis’s stupid letters.Don’t do it,he willed her.Think of something else.

She ignored his silent plea, body tense with the stillness of someone about to leap into action. Which left him with little choice.

Shoving his hood back, he shouted, “Goddammit, woman,” then staggered drunkenly into the open. “Where are you hiding? I wasn’t done with you yet!”

He could feel the soldiers’ eyes pass over him, marking his nationality but not his identity before they continued with what they were doing, and Keris broke into a stumbling run toward the woman, catching her by the arm. “Took my coin without earning it,” he shouted, then hauled her in the direction of one of the brothels, keeping himself between her and the soldiers to hide her from clear view.

Kicking open the door, he barely spared a glance for the room full of soldiers and naked flesh before he pressed her against a wall, pinning her wrists above her head and twisting his hips so that she wouldn’t try to knee him in the balls. “Letters. Now.”

She squirmed, trying and failing to slip his grip, but his brother had trained him well. Then she stilled, dark eyes fixing on his for a heartbeat before she screamed, “Thief!”

The shrill panic in her voice caught the attention of everyone in the brothel, and the sturdy madam presiding over it turned and fixed her eyes on them. Though she must have known Zarrah was not one of her girls, there was apparently some unwritten code that demanded solidarity among whores, for she roared, “Not in my house!” then pulled a cudgel out from under a table. Keris yelped, ducking as the heavy wood swung past his face.

The Valcottan woman scuttled into the room, sobbing, “He doesn’t think he needs to pay!”

“Thief!” the madam shrieked at him, swinging her cudgel and forcing Keris to step backward or lose his teeth. “Get out!”

Across the room, the Valcottan woman grinned, then she ran toward the stairs. Cursing, Keris dodged the madam, leaping over whores and patrons alike as he gave chase. A door slammed as he reached the second level, and a heartbeat later, he heard shouts of shock, then anger. Kicking in the door revealed the Valcottan woman on the windowsill about to jump, and he clambered over the trio of naked forms on the bed, reaching for her.

Too late.

He jumped without looking, catching the rooftop and jerking himself upright with a violent pull, and then he was running. Chasing her across the rooftops and through buildings and down alleys as they wove their way upstream, bypassing all the collapsed bridges now barricaded by soldiers, torchlight flickering off their armor.

If she had a plan or a destination in mind, he couldn’t guess it, his focus all for keeping her in sight while maintaining his footing as stone crumbled and roofs threatened to collapse, the darkness hiding countless pitfalls that could send either of them to their deaths.

And then they were out of the city, the woman racing along the edges of the swamp toward the distant bluff. At the top, there was a large lake formed by a dam. She’d have to circle it, and on the open ground, he could risk the speed he’d need to catch her.

The roar from the dam’s spillway grew in intensity, the air tasting of water as they ascended the bluff. But as she reached the top, instead of heading around the lake, she cut right. Keris’s stomach dropped as she raced along the dam to where the crumbled stone fell away, nothing but blackness and water in front of her.

“Valcotta!” he screamed, “don’t do it!”

12

ZARRAH

Cramps tore apart her sides, her throat burning with each rapid breath, but there was no time to pause. No time to rest when she could hear the Maridrinian in fast pursuit, never allowing her to get far enough ahead to hide.

Without the ambient light of the city, it was a struggle to see in the dark, and Zarrah tripped and stumbled over deadfall and debris, reliant on the roar of the waterfall to guide her in the right direction as she scrambled up the slope.

As she burst from the trees, she saw the moon gleaming off the small lake formed by the ancient dam. She limped along the top of the dam itself, the rocks crumbling with age and slick with moisture from the waterfall’s spray. At the center of the dam was the gap that formed the spillway. She knew it was eight feet across, but now, standing at the edge and watching the dark waters roar through it to plunge thirty feet onto broken rocks, it seemed infinitely wider.

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