“I’m fine.”
Lara barely heard the woman’s retort, her eyes fixing on a gouge in the wooden table, blood roaring in her ears. Aren was inured to the casualties of battle, but this? Having his people’s corpses shoved in his face and knowing they’d died trying to save him? The guilt would destroy him. “I told you to stop with the rescue attempts. You’re going to push him over the edge.”
“Better for us to do nothing, is it?” Lia snapped. “Or is that all part of your plan, Your Grace? To distract us with promises until it’s too late to do anything at all?”
Lara’s skull throbbed, and she rubbed her temples, attempting to drive away the visions flowing through her mind of Aren taking his own life in a desperate attempt to keep any more of his people from dying. He was no coward. If he thought there was no other way, he’d do it. “We need to get him out.”
“Where are your sisters?” Jor demanded. “How much longer until they get here?”
“I don’t know.” She should’ve tried to get him out herself. Alive wasn’t good enough. To save Ithicana, Aren needed to be strong. Unbroken. “They’ll come.”
They had to come.
“This is a waste of time. I’m going.” Lia rose, turning as she did.
Only to find herself face-to-face with Athena.
Known to her sisters as the wraith, Athena had hair the color of ash, her ghostly white skin courtesy of a mother from somewhere north of Harendell. She could move through an open space in full daylight without the sun noticing her enough to cast a shadow. As she had just proven.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Jor demanded, rising to his feet. Only to find Cresta and Shae flanking him, hands resting casually on their hips. Behind them, Brenna and Tabitha were sitting on the bar, smiles plastered on their faces. “What sort of devilry is this?”
“No devilry.” Sarhina pushed back her empty bowl even as Katrine, Cierra, Maddy, and Bronwyn strolled into the common room. “Just good planning. Now how about we all sit down and figure out a strategy for kicking our father where it counts.”
“What matters is rescuing Aren,” Jor said. “You must put him ahead of your desire for revenge or this isn’t going to work.”
“Two birds,” Sarhina replied. “One stone.”
And if there was one thing Lara knew for certain, it was this: the Veliant sisters had very good aim.
13
Aren
Aren’s guards led him into a dining room that was heavy with incense. The chains between his ankles rattled noisily despite the plush carpets lining the room. He’d been polished within an inch of his life, a dozen armed men watching apprehensively as the king’s own barber had shaved him. The man’s hand had trembled so hard that Aren had held his breath as the razor scraped over his jugular, wondering if Silas intended to get rid of him and claim it an accident. But he’d made it through unscathed and, dressed in a green coat, black trousers, and ridiculous shoes because the manacles wouldn’t fit around boots, Aren was finally deemed fit to dine with the King of Maridrina.
Pushing him down into a seat, the guards fastened his chains to the legs of the table so that Aren could reach no farther than his own wine glass, which one of them eyed for a moment, then removed, ordering a passing servant to retrieve the child-size tin cup that was all they’d allow him.
There were several Maridrinians seated at the table, all of whom were watching him out of the corner of their eyes while they attempted to maintain conversation. At the far end, Prince Keris, nose in a book, sat next to Zarrah, both of them studiously ignoring each other. Zarrah rose to her feet and pressed her hand to her heart in acknowledgment of Aren. Keris only turned a page in his book, frowning at whatever he read.
The room itself was dimly lit with no visible windows, although they could be lurking behind the dark folds of velvet concealing the walls and draping the ceiling. Everything but the table was plush and padded, the air thick and warm, giving Aren a faint sense of claustrophobia.
“It’s rather like being stuffed back inside the womb, isn’t it?”
Aren blinked, turning to regard the plump woman who had sat at his right. She was perhaps Nana’s age, although considerably less weathered. Her golden-brown hair was laced with gray, her shoulders slightly stooped, and wrinkles creased the skin to either side of her green eyes. She wore a gown of red brocade that was stiff with golden embroidery, her wrists were heavy with bracelets, and a ruby the size of a pigeon egg decorated one of her fingers. A woman of wealth or rank. Probably both. “A poetic way of describing it.”
She chuckled. “My nephew is always trying to foist his poetic nonsense on me. What’s the term? Metaphor?”
“Simile, I believe.”
“An educated man! And here I’d been told that you were nothing more than a vicious beast prone to fits of violence.”
“Contrary to the beliefs of some, they are not mutually exclusive characteristics.”
She chuckled. “My nephew would argue with you, but then again, he argues with just about everyone, though he doesn’t call it such.”
“Debate.”
“Indeed. As though the semantics change the nature of the thing. Passing wind smells just as bad as a fart.”
Despite himself, Aren laughed, her remark reminding him again of Nana. But his laughter faded at the thought of his grandmother. He had no idea if she was alive. She and her students hadn’t been in Eranahl when the bridge fell, and Lara’s letter had included details of how to access Gamire Island using the pier. That same letter sat in his pocket now, never away from him, and he touched it, using the paper to reignite his fury. To remember his purpose. “You know who I am, but I’m afraid I can’t claim the same of you, Lady . . . ?”
“Coralyn Veliant,” she supplied, the answer lifting both of Aren’s eyebrows. She was one of Silas’s wives—the first he’d seen who wasn’t at least twenty years the man’s junior. The woman’s mouth quirked at his reaction. “One of his father’s. He inherited me, much to his chagrin.”
The prior king’s harem . . . Nana had spent a year in that harem as a spy before making her escape. Did they know one another? The thought teetered around Aren’s mind, tempting him with the possibilities. “An . . . interesting custom.” So caught up was he in the chance there might be a link he could exploit that the sarcasm slipped out before he could curb it.
Lady Veliant twisted in her seat, resting one elbow on the arm of her chair in order to lean back and look up at him. “A law that keeps men from tossing the old out into the street. So, please contain your derision toward that which you don’t understand.”
Aren considered her words. “My apologies, Lady Veliant. I was raised to respect the matriarchs of my people. The idea of doing otherwise is beyond my understanding because understanding implies a degree of sympathy for a behavior I find reprehensible. So my derision, I’m afraid, remains intact.”
“A smartass with a backbone is a terrible thing,” she muttered. “Truth be told, I was only twenty-three when the old bastard died, and I’d have been happy to make my own way in the world, if not for the children.”