The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)(3)

Through this, Lara remained still. Only the knowledge that she was the sole remaining daughter—that she was the last horse left to bet on—kept her from fighting her way free of the carnage and fleeing into the desert beyond.

Erik, the Master of Arms, approached through the palms, blade glistening in his hand. His eyes went from Lara to her sisters’ still forms, and he gave her a sad smile. “I’m not surprised to find you still standing, little cockroach.”

It was the endearment he’d bestowed upon her when she’d arrived, five years old and barely alive, thanks to a sandstorm that had befallen her party on their trek to the compound. “Ice and fire might ravage the world, but still the cockroach survives,” he’d said. “Just like you.”

Cockroach she might be, but that she still breathed was thanks to him. Erik had dispatched her to the training yard as punishment for a minor transgression two nights prior, and she’d overheard members of her father’s cadre plotting the deaths of her and her sisters. A conversation led by Erik himself. Her eyes burned as she regarded him—the man who’d been more a father to her than the silver-haired monarch to her right—but she said nothing, gave him not so much as a smile in return.

“Is it done?” her father asked.

Erik nodded. “All have been silenced, Your Majesty. Save myself.” Then his eyes flicked to the shadows not touched by the table’s lamps. “And the Magpie.”

From those shadows stepped her Master of Intrigue, and Lara coolly regarded the wisp of a man who had orchestrated every aspect of the evening.

And in the nasal voice she’d always loathed, the Magpie said, “The girl did most of the dirty work for you.”

“Lara should have been your choice all along.” Erik’s voice was toneless, but grief filled his eyes as they passed over the fallen girls before returning to Lara’s face.

Lara wanted to reach for her knife—how dare he grieve them when he’d done nothing to save them—but a thousand hours of training commanded her not to move. He bowed low to his king. “For Maridrina.” Then he pulled his knife across his own throat.

Lara clenched her teeth, the contents of her stomach rising, bitter and foul and full of the same poison she’d given her sisters. Yet she didn’t look away, forcing herself to watch as Erik slumped to the ground, blood pulsing from his throat in great gouts until his heart went still.

The Magpie stepped around the pool of blood and coming fully into the light. “Such dramatics.”

Magpie wasn’t his real name, of course. It was Serin, and of all the men and women who’d trained the sisters over the years, he was the only one who’d come and gone from the compound at his leisure, managing the king’s network of spies and plots.

“He was a good man. A loyal subject.” There was no inflection in her father’s voice, and Lara wondered if he meant the words, or if they were for the benefit of the soldiers watching the proceedings. Even the most stalwart loyalty had its limits, and her father was no fool.

The Magpie’s narrow eyes turned on her. “Lara, as you know, Majesty, was not my first choice. She scored close to the bottom in nearly all things, with the lone exception of combat. Her temper continually gets the better of her. Marylyn”—he gestured to her sister—“was the obvious choice. Brilliant and beautiful. Masterfully in control of her emotions, as she clearly demonstrated over the past several days.” He made a noise of disgust.

Everything he said about Marylyn was true, but it wasn’t the sum of her. Unbidden, memories flooded through Lara’s mind. Visions of her sister carefully caring for a runt kitten, which was now the fattest cat in the compound. Of how she’d listen quietly to any of her sisters’ troubles, then offer the most perfect advice. Of how, as a child, she’d given names to all the servants, because she’d thought it cruel that they should have none. Then the visions cleared, leaving only a still body before her, golden hair crusted with soup.

“My sister was too kind.” Lara turned her head back to her father, her heart skittering in her chest even as she challenged him. “The future Queen of Ithicana must seduce its ruler. Make him believe she is guileless and sincere. She must make him trust her even as she uses her position to learn his every weakness right up to the moment she betrays him. Marylyn was not that woman.”

Her father’s eyes were unblinking as he studied her, and he gave the faintest nod of approval. “But you are?”

“I am.” Her pulse roared in her ears, her skin clammy despite the heat.

“You are not often wrong, Serin,” her father said. “But in this, I believe you were mistaken and fate has intervened in order to rectify that mistake.”

The Master of Intrigue stiffened, and Lara wondered if he was now realizing that his own life hung in the balance. “As you say, Majesty. It seems Lara possesses a quality that I’d not considered in my testing.”

“The most important quality of all: ruthlessness.” The king studied her for a moment before turning back to the Magpie. “Ready the caravan. We ride for Ithicana tonight.” Then he smiled at her as though she were the most precious of things. “It’s time for my daughter to meet her future husband.”





3





Lara