“Sounds wonderful,” she mumbled. “I could use some respite from the sun.”
“Sounds like a tomb,” Sarhina replied.
Sarhina’s concerns had mattered little at the time, but as Serin had intensified the sisters’ training, making them complicit in one another’s torture, Lara had come to understand Sarhina’s fear. Had watched her sister break down in the pit while the others had rained shovel after shovel of sand on her head, burying her alive. Watched her plead and offer any information in order to extract herself from the situation.
Serin had only thrown his hands up in disgust, screaming at Sarhina that the Ithicanians would bury her alive in truth if she confessed, then ordered her tossed back in the pit to repeat the exercise. Time and again until Sarhina learned to master her terror. To hide it. To compensate for it.
But never to defeat it.
Which was why Lara stood at the highest point in Maridrina: the Kresteck Mountains. The range ran down the eastern coast, craggy and wild, filled with glittering lakes, rushing streams, and the crisp scent of pine. It was thinly populated, mostly hunters and trappers living in isolation in their rough cabins, the few hamlets tucked in valleys and on lakeshores rarely home to more than a hundred people. The range was dangerous to traverse, prone to rockslides, flooding, and in the winter, avalanches, all of which was made worse by the highwaymen who haunted the few established routes running north and south.
A dreadful place in Lara’s opinion, cold and unwelcoming. But the peaks reached up to the sky, the view wide and open for miles and miles around, and in her heart, Lara knew this was where Sarhina had gone.
Tracking her, however, would be quite another matter. In the days before that fateful dinner in the desert oasis, there’d been no opportunity to consider how she might reunite with her sisters in the future—not without revealing her plan. Which was why she was dependent on Sarhina finding her. The other girls knew their father wanted them dead. Quite possibly they knew that the cover Lara had given them had been compromised by Marylyn. Either way, they’d be prepared for pursuit. And would be equally prepared to deal with anyone who came looking for them. Like Lara, all the Veliant sisters were hunters; she needed only spring one of their traps.
And given she’d been tipped off in the last town that there might be a young woman of Sarhina’s description in this place, Lara was certain that she’d finally done just that.
Dismounting, Lara tethered her mountain pony far enough away from the path that he wouldn’t be seen, then started toward the hamlet. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the houses, and she spotted two men stretching hides over frames to dry, the fur destined to travel through the bridge and eventually be sold to line the cloaks and gloves of Harendellian or Amaridian nobles. Another man, fine of form and stripped to the waist, chopped wood to add to a formidable pile. An old woman crouched near a fire, basting the meat turning on a spit, and behind her, a gaggle of children raced through buildings, their laughter drifting through the trees to reach Lara’s ears.
She circled the town, marking each individual and the weapons they wore as well as the best routes for escape if the situation escalated. The mountainfolk were peaceful enough, but necessity made them both wary of strangers and capable fighters. No one had troubled her yet, but that could change in a heartbeat. And the last thing she needed was word of a woman of her description reaching Serin in Vencia, especially if it was paired with the information that she was searching for women fitting the description of a Veliant princess.
Satisfied she had the lay of the land, Lara took a step toward the town, the story of her search for a lost sister sitting on the tip of her tongue, when the door to one of the homes opened and Sarhina stepped out, a basket under one arm.
Lara froze mid-step as she watched her sister stroll across the common area to the man chopping wood. He paused in his task, wiping sweat from his brow before bending to whisper something in her ear. Sarhina’s laugh spilled through the air and she leaned back, her cloak parting to reveal two marriage knives belted above a swollen belly.
Lara could not breathe.
Casting a flirtatious wink over her shoulder at the smiling man, Sarhina continued down the path toward the forest, cloak flowing out behind her.
Lara didn’t move, the slow realization that things had changed seeping into her mind. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she’d envisioned finding her sisters as they had been: warrior princesses vying for the right to defend their country. As though they’d existed in some sort of stasis. Except it had been over a year and half since she’d left them at the oasis, and Sarhina, at least, had moved on.
Had gotten married.
Was pregnant.
Had made a life for herself.
Just as Lara had hoped her sister would. How could she disrupt that now? How could she risk everything that Sarhina had built for herself, the lives of the people she clearly loved, for the sake of rectifying Lara’s mistakes? For the sake of saving one man?
Lara’s eyes closed, tears seeping out to fall on the scarf around her neck. She knew that she needed to walk away. To leave her sister in the peace she’d bought for her. To try to find one of the others . . . Cresta. Maybe Bronwyn.
Or maybe none of them.
Maybe this was something she needed to do herself.
Then a blade pressed against her throat, and a familiar voice said, “If you thought to catch us unaware, Marylyn, you’re even crazier than we gave you credit for.”
9
Lara
“Marylyn’s dead.”
The woman holding the knife gave a sharp intake of breath, but the blade remained against Lara’s throat even as her hood was jerked back to reveal her face.
“Lara? We thought you were dead.”
“The little cockroach is hard to kill.” She turned her head, able to see her taller, brunette sister out of the corner of her eye. “You mind moving the knife, Bron?”
“Not until you explain what you’re doing here.”
“Drop the bloody weapon, Bronwyn.” Sarhina’s voice cut through the cool air. “If Lara wanted you dead, that knife of yours wouldn’t stop her.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to make it easy for her.”
“Relax, Bron,” Lara said. “I’m not here to make trouble.”
“All you do is make trouble.”
Not an inaccurate statement. Sighing, Lara snapped her arm up, catching hold of Bronwyn’s knife hand, which she jerked down against her chest even as she rotated under her sister’s arm. But instead of using her momentum to shove the blade between the other woman’s ribs, Lara let go and backed away. Across the clearing, Sarhina made her way toward them, an amused Cresta dogging her heels.
“Should’ve listened to me, Bron.” Sarhina rested one hand on her hip, basket still hanging from her elbow. “Spared yourself that bit of embarrassment.”
“Noted.” Bronwyn rubbed her wrist, glowering.
“Is that real?” Lara gestured to her sister’s swollen belly, unable to take her eyes from it.
“Better be,” Cresta said, a smirk rising to her lips. “No other explanation for the quantity of wind she’s been passing.”
Sarhina rolled her eyes. “You’ve got another three months of it.”