“Obviously I thought of that. But when have us twelve ever agreed about anything without fighting over it for days?” Lara took a mouthful of her tea, wincing when she burned her tongue. “We would have fought over what to do. Then fought over who should go to Ithicana. Then gone back to fighting over what we should do again. There wasn’t time for it, so I made the call.”
“And we’re all alive because of it,” Sarhina said, shutting down the argument the way she always did. “But to answer your question, Marylyn didn’t say much on the subject until we were out of the Red Desert. Then she said nothing at all, only disappeared in the night. Our first clue that she’d betrayed us was when Father’s soldiers started hunting us.” She spit across the room into the fireplace. “Traitorous bitch.”
“She wasn’t who we believed she was.” Though Lara still felt sick whenever she thought of her sister’s death. Still felt the snap of Marylyn’s neck reverberating up her arms. Still saw the light go out of her sister’s eyes.
“She was Father’s creation,” Cresta murmured. “More than any of us.”
They were all silent for a time, the only sound the crackle of the fireplace and the soft noises Ensel made as he prepared dinner, calloused hands methodically chopping carrots for stew. He was deaf, she’d been told, but Sarhina had been quick to add that he could read lips on a moonless night, and Lara felt his gaze on them as she asked, “How have you remained hidden from Father’s men?”
Sarhina shrugged. “The people of this region are no friends of his—or of Serin’s. When an outsider arrives asking questions, we get a warning. If they get too close, we deal with them. But it’s not sustainable. Serin knows we are in these mountains, and it’s only a matter of time until one of us gets caught.”
“I assume you have a plan for that?”
“We planned to part ways for good come the end of the storm season. Take ships north and south to places away from Serin’s reach.”
Lara glanced at Ensel, then Sarhina. “Even you?”
“Not me. This is my home now.”
A home that would be under constant threat, because all of them knew their father would never stop hunting.
Needing to ease the tension that had built in the room, Lara asked, “How did you two meet?”
A soft smile formed on Sarhina’s face as she looked to her husband, who was watching her lips move. “After we stripped the compound of what we needed, we headed east out of the desert. Once Marylyn left, we decided it was safer if we split into smaller groups, so Bron, Cresta, and I went deeper into the mountains.
“We didn’t have money, so we were hunting what we could and stealing the rest. Mostly from travelers on the road who looked like they could spare it, but sometimes we had to take from the hamlets. Or go hungry.”
Lara’s guilt flared anew knowing that her sisters had gone hungry while she’d eaten her fill on the finest food to be had. That they’d slept in the rain and the cold and the dirt while she’d soaked in Midwatch’s hot spring.
“We had been sneaking into Renhallow on and off for about a week,” Sarhina continued. “Picking vegetables from the gardens. Lifting the occasional chicken.”
“Four chickens, love.” Ensel murmured, then returned his gaze back to vegetables in front of him. “You lasses know a hundred ways to kill a man, but not how to snare a rabbit.”
Sarhina’s cheeks colored. “At any rate, I was about to make it five, but Ensel had rigged a trap outside the coop, and I stepped in it. Found myself dangling upside down with an arrow pointed at my face.”
Ensel smiled. “I thought I’d caught myself a wraith. Little did I know that I’d caught myself something far more dangerous.” Stepping away from the stove, he bent his head to kiss Sarhina, who said, “He won me over with his charming compliments, and I decided to stay.”
And now Lara was here to take her away. To risk her sister and the life of her unborn child in order to rectify her own mistakes. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said, rising to her feet. “It’s not right for me to ask you to help. You’ve moved on with your lives.”
“Have we?” Sarhina’s gaze was unblinking. “Who are you to be the judge of that? And even if we have moved on, that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten what Father and Serin and the rest did to us. No amount of time or distance will allow us to forget it.”
Both Cresta and Bronwyn nodded in agreement.
“Father needs to pay,” Sarhina said. “And I for one would take great satisfaction if he were made to pay with what he trained us to take in the first place. Because knowing you as I do, your plotting isn’t limited to rescuing Ithicana’s king.”
Lara gave her wry smile, then shook her head. “But he is key. For Ithicana’s sake, I have to get him free.” And for her own sake. “But it will be dangerous. He’s locked up in Father’s palace in Vencia, surrounded by guards at all times. The Ithicanians have tried multiple times to get him back, but everyone they’ve sent so far has been captured or killed.” Seeing the cocky glint in Bronwyn’s eyes, she added, “They’re good fighters and even better spies, Bron. That they haven’t succeeded means it might be impossible.”
If anything, the glint in her sister’s eyes only grew. “We were trained to do the impossible. And for better or worse, what you accomplished proved we are more than capable.”
“Father and Serin know I’m coming for Aren. And Serin, especially, knows everything I’m trained to do. How I think. Ithicana didn’t have that advantage.”
Bronwyn tilted her head sideways. “Did you come here to convince us to help or dissuade us? Because it’s sounding distinctly like the latter.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lara could see Ensel watching them intently, reading their lips. So she turned to look at him directly. “Your lives aren’t worth less than Aren’s. And neither is the life of that baby in your belly, Sarhina.”
Ensel’s jaw tightened, his gaze shifting to his wife, the pair exchanging wordless conversation. Then he exhaled and gave a short nod.
“Some things need to be done,” her sister said, “no matter the risk. I don’t want my child growing up with this legacy, Lara. I want them to be proud of their mother. And their aunties.”
Chewing on the inside of her cheeks, Lara considered arguing further, but instead said, “You need to stay out of the fighting. I want your word on that.”
Abruptly, Lara found herself flat on her back, her chair having been yanked out from under her with a quick jerk of her sister’s foot under the table.
“You are such a bitch,” Lara muttered, rubbing the back of her head while Cresta and Bronwyn laughed.
Sarhina circled the table, then bent down so that they were nose to nose. “I’m in charge, Your Majesty. Understood?”
Lara glowered at her, then smiled. “Understood.”
“You two,” Sarhina said to Cresta and Bronwyn, “eat your fill, then pack your things and hit the road. It’s time the Veliant sisters had a little reunion.”
11