The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)(69)

Stepping out into the hallway, she made her way down to the dining room, her sandals feeling strange after so many weeks of wearing heavy boots. The room was lit with candles, the shutters on the large windows open despite the risk the wind posed to the expensive glass. And a soaking wet Eli stood in close conversation with Taryn, whom Lara was surprised to find still in the house. They both turned to look at her, expressions grim, and Lara’s heart skipped. “Where is he?”

“They went on patrol late morning.” Taryn scrubbed a hand along the shaved sides of her head. “No one has seen or heard from them since.”

“Is that normal?” Lara couldn’t control the shake in her voice.

The other woman exhaled a long breath. “It’s not abnormal for Aren to decide there’s somewhere he needs to be other than Midwatch.” Then her eyes gave Lara a once-over. “But I don’t think that’s the case tonight.”

“So where is he?”

“Could’ve been trouble with one of the boats. Or maybe they decided to wait out the storm. Or—”

Horns sounded, and Lara no longer needed Taryn to tell her what they meant: raiders.

“I’m going down to the barracks.” Running to her rooms, Lara replaced her sandals with boots and pulled a cloak over her dress.

Outside, the rain was falling steadily, but the wind wasn’t high enough to cause the Ithicanians any trouble on the water. Taryn at her arm, and the rest of her bodyguard before and behind her, Lara hurried down the dark path toward the barracks.

Where the tension was higher than she’d ever seen it.

“I’ll find out what they know.” Taryn left Lara with the other two guards, who followed her as she skirted the cove, climbing the carved stone steps to the cliff tops, where she could see the sea. Several soldiers knelt behind the boulders they used for cover, spyglasses in hand.

“Anything?” But they only shook their heads.

What if he didn’t come back?

It would throw her plan to shit. Without Aren to write a letter to her father, she had no way to get a detailed message past Ahnna and her codebreakers at Southwatch. Her only option would be to fake her death and escape, then send the information to her father from outside of Ithicana. But then he and Serin would know she was alive, and that meant a lifetime of assassins chasing at her heels. Yet, as she crouched on the ground to watch the blackness of the ocean, it wasn’t solutions to her dilemma that filled her thoughts.

It was fear.

She’d seen so many Ithicanians die in combat, in so many different ways. Run through or gutted. Crushed or strangled. Beaten or drowned. Their corpses danced through her thoughts, all of them now wearing Aren’s face.

“They haven’t sent any word.” Taryn appeared at Lara’s elbow. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than that they don’t want to announce their presence to the enemy.”

Or they were all dead, Lara thought, her chest tightening painfully.

Taryn handed her a folded packet of papers. “This came for you.”

Holding the paper next to one of the jars of algae, Lara scanned the contents. Serin, pretending to be her father, discussed his disappointment in her second-eldest brother, Keris, who was demanding to attend university in Harendell rather than take command of Maridrinian forces like her eldest brother. He wishes to study philosophy! As though there is time to sit around contemplating the meaning of life when our enemies continue to bite at our flanks!

Some of the soldiers stirred, pulling her attention from the letter, and it was some moments before she could refocus. Marylyn’s code felt elusive. Lara’s eyes continually dragged out to sea. But eventually her mind pulled Serin’s message from the drivel. Valcotta has blockaded our access to Southwatch. Famine on the rise.

A wave of nausea passed over Lara, and she shoved the pages into her cloak’s pocket. With its shipbreakers, Southwatch was capable of running Valcotta off, but she could understand their reluctance to antagonize the other nation. Understood what it would cost them for Valcotta to join the ranks of kingdoms raiding Ithicana. But it was her people who paid the price.

They sat in the rain for hours, but no horns sounded. No boats appeared below requesting access to the cove. Nothing even moved in the darkness.

Eventually Taryn shifted next to her. “You should go back to the house, Lara. There’s no telling when they’ll return, and you’ll catch a chill sitting in this cold rain.”

She should go. She knew she should go. But the idea of having to wait for one of them to bring her news . . . “I can’t.” Her tongue felt thick.

“The barracks, then?” There was a plea to the other woman’s voice.

Reluctantly, Lara nodded, but every few paces up the trail, she cast a backward glance toward the sea, the roar of it beckoning, drawing her back.

“This is Aren’s bunk,” Taryn said, once they were in the confines of the stone building. “He won’t mind if you sleep here.”

Shutting the door to the tiny room, Lara set her lamp on the rough wooden table next to the narrow bed, then sat, the mattress rock hard and the blanket rough compared to her soft sheets at the house. It reminded her of the cot she’d shared with him at the safe house. How she’d fallen asleep in his arms, listening to the beat of his heart.

She pulled off her cloak and curled on her side, her head resting on the pillow.