“If the ability to imbibe an immense amount of wine is what it takes to be deemed suitable, they are excellent choices indeed.”
His entourage had drank and gambled through the entire day, their laughter raucous and grating, although they’d kept to Ithicana’s rules. “I can’t blame them. This is a terrible way to travel. Walking in the damp and the dark, eating cold food, sleeping on the ground. Never mind the cost in gold.”
Raina’s teeth gleamed white in the lantern light as she smiled. “Pay us or pay the tempests, Highness. Every traveler has a choice.”
“Are the storms really so bad?” They were violent and unpredictable enough along the northern coast of Maridrina, but there were dozens of harbors with storm walls and breakwaters to protect ships from the worst of the onslaught.
She made a soft noise of confirmation. “It is said the bottom of the Tempest Seas gleams with the gold spilled by a hundred thousand sunken ships, and that the treasure is guarded by the countless souls sucked beneath the waves, their greedy fingers always reaching up for more.”
“Then I’ll count my good fortune to have solid stone beneath my feet.” He knocked a fist against the bridge floor. “Even if it makes my back ache.”
The Ithicanian who was standing guard nearest to them coughed, and Keris noted how Raina’s shoulders jerked, her head turning toward the man. Not startled but guilty, fraternization between the Ithicanians and those they were escorting being strongly discouraged.
“It’s late.” She moved to the pallet the other Ithicanian had vacated, pulling the blanket over her shoulders. “You should rest.”
Keris didn’t answer, only picked up the book next to him, angling it toward the light. He was close, so painfully close to escape. When he was on Harendellian soil, he’d be away from his father’s influence.
And only then would he sleep easily.
Keris only caught fits and snatches of sleep through the night, yet again he chose not to ride in the travel wagons but to walk, each step he put between himself and his father like a weight lifted off his chest, each passing hour filling him with more confidence that this wasn’t an elaborate ruse to put him in his place. Another way to bring him low.
To temper his boredom, he examined the interior of the bridge and those who traveled it. The strange stone the structure was made from was smooth and uniform, the only marks the numbers stamped into the floor that appeared to mark distance. Keris counted the paces between them, the consistent number of steps suggesting that they measured distance traveled within the bridge, which snaked and wove between the islands and piers it rested on, rather than the actual linear distance traveled north, making it impossible to determine precisely where in Ithicana they were.
Despite it being the calm season, there was more traffic than he anticipated, the bray of donkeys and the thud of boots rivaling the groaning draft of wind that filled the endless tunnel. Dozens of wagons, some in long convoys, passed by, and while most were loaded with goods being transported from Northwatch to Southwatch by the Ithicanians, there were some with travelers from other nations, predominantly Harendellians. Regardless, the wagons were always escorted by heavily armed Ithicanians, the eyes behind their masks watchful, their hands quick to their weapons at any sudden movements. Only once was his party passed from behind, a group of twelve Ithicanians who eyed Keris’s entourage with interest before jogging ahead, not one of them uttering a single word.
Likely as a result of her comrade’s scrutiny, Raina avoided him for most of the day, but late that night, after she’d returned from watch and curled up on her bedroll, he heard her murmur, “Is it true you’re going to Harendell to study at university?”
Aware that the Ithicanian standing only a dozen paces away could hear the conversation, Keris said, “Yes. It’s long been a dream of mine, though my father only recently agreed to it. We’re both happier to see less of each other, and if I am in Harendell, he need not see me at all.”
“Why?”
“Why do I wish to go to university or why do my father and I not see eye to eye?” Not waiting for a response, he said, “The answer to both is the same: I prefer books to swords.”
Her tone was wistful as she said, “You aren’t alone in that.”
“In having an odious father or in having a fondness for large libraries?”
“Both.” She curled an arm under her head, eyes glinting from behind her mask. “My father was a Watch Commander until recently, so there was never any other option than me picking up a sword.”
“I’m not certain there is any other option for me, in the long run. At some point, I’ll have to come back and take up the fight against Valcotta.”
That endless, pointless war.
Raina traced a finger along the ground, and he noticed that she was closer to him than the prior night. Close enough to touch, though he did not. And would not.
Her hand stopped moving, and for a moment, he thought she’d fallen asleep. Then she said, “When you are king, you will have the power to end the war, if you want.”
Keris laughed softly, knowing it sounded bitter. “War is easy. It’s peace that is the challenge. An Ithicanian should know that better than anyone.”
“We have peace right now.”
Keris’s skin prickled and crawled, and he turned his head to see one of the men in his entourage watching him from his bedroll, the man’s eyelids easing shut under Keris’s scrutiny. “Peace is like a dance,” he said softly. “It only works if both partners are listening to the same music.”
And Maridrina only knew the drums of war.
Three days. They’d been walking in this endless dark tunnel for three days, and the claustrophobia of it was setting in.
As was exhaustion.
Sleep, you idiot, Keris silently ordered himself, shifting on his pallet. But it wasn’t the discomfort that was keeping him awake; it was that he couldn’t shut down his mind. Couldn’t silence the endless thoughts and fears and anxieties that circled his brain. And each time his body forced him to drift off, he’d jerk awake, heart racing in his chest.
Finally, he gave up, rolling into a seated position, blanket tangled around his ankles, the only light coming from the pair of lanterns turned down low. His entourage slept in a row along the side of the bridge, several of them snoring, and all of them stinking of wine, the ground littered with empty bottles. Farther down the bridge, the travel wagons were stopped against the wall so as to leave room for any southbound traffic they encountered—a necessity given that his entourage had begged to stop early that night, pleading exhaustion. Keris thought the Ithicanians had agreed only to silence the whining.
Glancing the other direction, Keris peered at the still form of an Ithicanian sleeping against the wall, swiftly determining it wasn’t Raina. Which meant she was on watch farther up the tunnel.
Keris rose, starting in that direction.