“You could get word to Keris,” Aren said, rising to pace the room. “If Silas knows the Empress’s intent, he’s not going to leave his capital undefended. The threat of her attacking might be enough for him to withdraw from Ithicana without a fight.”
Zarrah snorted. “Don’t tell me you honestly believe that? Silas has dedicated more than sixteen years, countless of his children, and bankrupted his kingdom in pursuit of Ithicana’s bridge. And now he has it. He won’t give it up without a fight; you know this. You know him.”
“He’s not going to let Vencia burn to keep it.”
“Are you so sure? He’s allowed Maridrina to starve and be ravaged by plague for the sake of this bridge—do you really think he wouldn’t allow a city to burn?” Zarrah stared him down, willing Aren to remember the man who’d kept him prisoner for months. Yet at the same time, part of her prayed that he would see a way through this that she hadn’t.
He exhaled, shoulders slumping. “You’re right. Shit. Shit.”
The fear she was fighting so hard to contain started to climb up her guts, and Zarrah clenched her teeth, forcing it down. Not allowing it any control. “If I do this, Aren, it’s over before Silas has a chance to empty his garrisons. My aunt’s plans to invade will be ruined, and Ithicana will be liberated.”
“And you’ll be executed for treason.”
She would be. The Empress had proven her willingness to cast Zarrah aside for the sake of her pride, and there would be no greater blow to her pride than Zarrah willfully thwarting her plans to destroy Maridrina. But she couldn’t allow her aunt’s pride to force Valcotta into dishonor. Couldn’t stand by and watch Ithicana fall beneath Silas’s heel. Couldn’t stand by and watch her aunt raze Vencia to the ground. Couldn’t stand by and watch the Endless War orphan another generation of children.
Her honor would not allow her to stand by any longer. Not when she had the power to take action.
Zarrah closed her eyes, seeing Keris’s face even as she felt her dreams of them creating peace together slip away. “Some things are worth dying for.”
79
KERIS
Not all of his resistance to going on patrols had been moral high ground—a good portion of it could be attributed to the task being godawful tedious and even more uncomfortable.
Keris scowled as mud soaked through the knees of his trousers when he knelt, his eyes, and those of all the men around him, on the beach below. One of their vessels on the water had signaled that a Valcottan ship had been spotted heading inland, and Keris was using Zarrah’s tactic of meeting them head-on. A good, clean battle that would show the Valcottans that Maridrina’s hold on the border was as strong as ever.
Unfortunately, it meant he was going to have to fight.
You can do this, he silently told himself, trying to ignore the beads of sweat running down his back. It isn’t as though you’re entirely incompetent with a weapon.
A fact of little comfort, given the only real battle he’d ever been in was the taking of the bridge, and he’d been next to useless. It made him wonder if things would’ve gone differently for Raina and the rest of the Ithicanians if he’d been more skilled. Whether he’d have had the power to turn the tide.
Probably not.
From the water, Keris faintly made out the sound of a longboat being lowered. Of oars being placed into locks. Then there was only the soft roar of the gentle surf rolling against the shore.
“Only one longboat,” Philo muttered from his left. “Might be scouts checking that it’s safe to land before the rest come to shore. We should maintain cover and wait for them to give the signal, then attack when more hit the beach but their forces are still split. They’ll take heavier losses.”
Keris’s jaw tightened, because a better option would be to scare off the scouts and reduce the body count to nil. These were Zarrah’s people, and even if she was far away in Pyrinat, he still didn’t want to be responsible for their deaths. “They might just be smugglers. Let’s see what they’re up to.”
Ignoring Philo’s protests, Keris moved closer to the beach, several of the men following at his heels. They reached the edge of the tree line as the longboat hit the beach, four people getting out. It was too dark to see anything more than their shadowy outlines, their voices muffled as they exchanged a few words; then one headed in his direction.
Keris motioned to his men to keep down, then went still himself. The Valcottan who approached made not a whisper of noise until she paused, almost within arm’s reach of Keris. She rested her shoulders against a tree before bending double.
“Just do it, you coward,” she whispered. “Just get it over with and go—goodbyes will only make things worse.”
Her accent wasn’t Valcottan; it was Maridrinian. And there was something else… something familiar that he couldn’t place…
Out of the corner of his eye, Keris saw one of the woman’s companions climbing back into the longboat, another pushing it out onto the surf before returning to join the fourth.
But it was hard to focus on them with the woman standing so close he could hear her breathing, so ragged he thought she might be on the verge of tears.
She abruptly whirled and headed back down to the beach, where the trio conversed briefly before one of them headed north along the waterline.
Something brushed against his arm, and Keris jerked, turning to find Philo at his elbow. “Not raiders,” the man whispered softly. “Spies. We need to capture them to see what we might learn of Valcotta’s intentions.”
Something felt off, not the least of it that the woman had been Maridrinian. Yet the vessel on the water was without a doubt a Valcottan ship. Keris needed to get closer, needed to hear what the remaining two were saying.
Moving silently, he edged down to where the remaining two—the Maridrinian woman and an exceptionally tall man—were now arguing.
“Let Keris earn that crown he wants so badly—it’s about time he got his hands dirty.”
All the blood rushed from Keris’s skin, his hands turning to ice. Not at the mention of his name or his plans, but because he knew that fucking voice. That was Aren Kertell on the beach, which meant the woman had to be Lara. And they’d come off a Valcottan ship, which meant…
His skin prickled, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Philo and several of the others with bows in their hands, the weapons drawn.
Panic tore through his body, because that was his goddamned sister they were going to shoot in the back. That Lara might deserve it barely registered in his mind as he jerked his knife free of its sheath. Stabbing Philo wasn’t a viable option, so Keris angled it into the faint moonlight, trusting that Aren would see.
Trusting that he’d save her.
The Ithicanian king reacted in an instant. Diving, he knocked Lara over, the pair of them rolling behind a boulder as arrows flew.
“Attack,” Philo snarled, and more arrows arced through the air even as men slid down the slope to the beach. Keris held his ground, his mind racing as he thought of ways to get Aren and Lara out of this, the loud crunch of underbrush telling him that his men were pursuing the pair north.