The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)(4)

Flames licked the night sky as the group departed, but Lara only risked one backward glance at the burning compound that had been her home, the blood-spattered floors and walls blackening as the fire consumed all evidence of a plot fifteen years in the making. Only the heart of the oasis, where the dinner table sat encircled by the spring, would remain untouched.

It was still almost more than she could bear to leave her slumbering sisters surrounded by a ring of fire, unconscious and helpless until the concoction of narcotics she’d given them wore off. Already their pulses, which had been slowed to near death for a dangerous length of time, should be quickening, their breathing obvious to anyone who looked closely. If Lara found excuses to linger to ensure their safety, she would only risk discovery, and then all of this would be for naught.

“Don’t burn them. Leave them for the scavengers to pick their bones clean,” she’d told her father, her stomach twisting into knots until he’d laughed and acceded to her macabre request, leaving her sisters slumped over the table, the slaughtered servants forming a gory perimeter around them.

That was what her sisters would wake to: fire and death. For only if their father believed them silenced did they have any chance at a future. She would carry their mission forward while her sisters made their own lives, now free to be masters of their own fates. She’d explained all of it in the note she’d slipped into Sarhina’s pocket while her father ordered the compound swept for survivors. For no one must be left alive who might whisper a word about the deception that now journeyed toward a wedding in Ithicana.

Their journey across the Red Desert would be fraught with hardship and peril. But at that precise moment, Lara was convinced the worst part would be listening to the Magpie’s chatter the entire way. Lara’s mare was laden with Marylyn’s trousseau, while she was forced to ride pillion behind the Master of Intrigue.

“From this moment forward, you must be the perfect Maridrinian lady,” he instructed, his voice grinding on her nerves. “We cannot risk anyone seeing you behave otherwise, not even those His Majesty believes loyal.” He cast a meaningful glance toward her father’s guards, who’d formed the caravan with practiced ease.

Not a single one looked at her.

They did not know what she was. What she’d been trained to do. What her purpose was beyond the fulfillment of a contract with the enemy kingdom. But every one of them believed she’d murdered her sisters in cold blood. Which made her wonder how long her father would let them live.

“How did you do it?”

Hours into their journey, the Magpie’s question pulled Lara from her thoughts, and she tightened her white silk scarf across her face, despite the fact his back was to her. “Poison.” She allowed a hint of tartness to enter her voice.

He snorted. “Aren’t we bold now that we believe we are untouchable.”

She ran her tongue over her dry lips, feeling the heat of the sun rising behind them. Then she allowed herself to slip into the pool of calm her Master of Meditation had taught her to employ when strategizing, among other things. “I poisoned the soupspoons.”

“How? You didn’t know where you’d be seated.”

“I poisoned all, save those set at the head of the table.”

The Magpie was silent.

Lara continued, “I’ve been taking small doses of several poisons for years to build up my tolerance.” Even still, she had purged herself the moment she’d had a chance, vomiting again and again until her stomach was dry, then taking the antidote, the dizzying malaise the only lingering sign she’d ingested a narcotic at all.

The Master of Intrigue’s tiny frame tensed. “What if the settings had been altered? You might have killed the king.”

“She clearly believed it worth the risk.”

Lara tilted her head, having noted the jingle of bells on the horse’s bridle as her father had ridden up behind, the creature festooned with silver rather than the tin the guards’ mounts wore.

“You guessed that I intended to kill the girls I didn’t need,” he said. “But instead of warning your sisters or attempting to escape, you murdered them to take the chosen’s place. Why?”

Because for the girls to fight their way out would’ve meant a lifetime on the run. Faking their deaths had been the only way. “I may have spent my life in isolation, Father, but the tutors you selected educated me well. I know the hardship that our people endure beneath Ithicana’s yoke on trade. Our enemy needs to be brought low, and of my sisters, I was the only one capable of doing it.”

“You murdered your sisters for the good of our country?” His voice was amused.

Lara forced a dry chuckle from her lips. “Hardly. I murdered them because I wished to live.”

“You gambled with the king’s life in order to save your own skin?” Serin turned to look at her, his expression green. He’d trained her, which meant it was within the king’s right to blame him for all that she had done. And her father was known to be merciless.

But the King of Maridrina only laughed with delight. “Gambled and won.” Reaching over, he pushed aside Lara’s scarf to cup her cheek. “King Aren won’t see you coming until it’s far too late. A black widow in his bed.”

King Aren of Ithicana. Aren, her soon-to-be husband.

Lara only vaguely heard her father give the order to his guards to make camp, the group intending to sleep through the heat of the day.