The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom #1)(65)
“Jor!” Lia jabbed him in the arm. “A goodly number of our fallen were women. I’m sure at least a few of them liked men. At least let them be surrounded by—”
“Perfect cocks?” Nine sets of surprised eyes turned to look at Lara, who shrugged.
“Where mortal life fails, the Great Beyond delivers,” Jor intoned, and Aren flung his boot at him.
Lia threw up her hands. “People died. Show respect.”
“I am respecting them. Disrespecting them would’ve been toasting their sacrifice with this sludge.” Jor plucked a bottle of foggy Maridrinian wine from the crate. It rattled, and he gave it an incredulous glare, eyeing what appeared to be a rock sitting in the bottom of the bottle. “Not bad enough by itself, they need to put bits of rock in it?” His eyes flicked to Lara. “Is this some strange test of the fortitude of Maridrinian stomachs that I haven’t heard about?”
Everyone smirked, then Gorrick roared, “To Ithicana!” They all repeated him, lifting their glasses.
As Aren swallowed the wine, which was very good, he heard Lara murmur, “To Ithicana,” and take a small sip from her glass.
Refilling the glasses, Aren stood. “To Taryn, who slaughtered our enemy. And to our queen,” he pulled Lara forward, “Who saved our comrades.”
“To Taryn!” everyone shouted. “To Her Majesty!”
The wine disappeared within minutes, for despite the flippancy, today had left its mark. It was how they managed—by pretending not to care, but Aren knew that Jor would make time for each of them, helping them come to terms with what they’d witnessed. And with what they had done. He was captain of the guard for a reason.
Lara was hugging her arms around her body, shivering despite the wine. The wind and rain had been colder than Ithicana normally saw, and her clothes were soaked through. He watched her eye the other women, who were stripped down to trousers and undershirts, and then her hand went to her belt.
His heart skipped, then raced as she unbuckled it, setting it aside along with the Maridrinian marriage knives she habitually wore. Then she unfastened the laces of her tunic at her throat and pulled the garment over her head.
The safe house went completely silent for a heartbeat, then filled with the over-loud clatter of weapons being cleaned and mindless chatter, everyone looking anywhere but at their queen.
Aren could not seem to do the same. While the other women wore thick standard-issue fabrics, Lara’s undergarments were the finest ivory silk, which was soaked, rendering it effectively transparent. The full curves of her breasts pressed against the fabric, her rose-colored nipples peaked from the cold. There was, Aren thought, nothing the Great Beyond could offer that would be more perfect than her.
Realizing he was staring, Aren jerked his gaze away. Snatching up a thin blanket folded at the end of the bunk, he handed it to Lara, careful to keep his eyes on her face. “It will warm up in here with all the bodies—I mean, people. Soon. It will be warmer soon.”
Her smile was coy as she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, but her mirth at his discomfort fell away as she caught sight of Jor examining one of her knives.
He had the jeweled thing out of its sheath and was testing the edge. “Sharp.” He used it to cut the wax off a wheel of Harendellian cheese. “I thought these were supposed to be ceremonial?”
“I thought it wise to render them somewhat useful,” Lara replied, expression intent.
“Barely.” Jor balanced the weapon, the gem-crusted hilt making it heavy and cumbersome, though the blade itself looked well made. “We could sell these for a fortune up north and get you something you might actually be able to use.”
Lara was shifting and swaying as though she wanted nothing more than to reach over and snatch the knife back, so Aren did it for her, wiping the cheese off the blade with the side of his trousers before returning it to her.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “My father gave them to me. They’re the only thing he ever gave to me.”
Aren wanted to ask why that mattered. Why she cared at all for anything to do with the greedy, sadistic creature who’d sired her. But he didn’t. Not with everyone listening.
Jor picked up the bottle of Maridrinian wine. “Desperate times. Desperate times.” Then he popped the cork and poured, something landing with a splash in his tin cup. “Now what do we have here?”
“What is it?” Lia asked.
“It appears a smuggler’s prize has lost its way.” The old soldier held up something that glittered red in the lamplight, then he tossed it Aren’s direction. “There’s a buyer at Northwatch who’s going to be very dissatisfied with his wine purchase.”
Aren held up the large ruby. He was no expert on gemstones, but judging from the size and color, it was worth a small fortune. A very unhappy smuggler, indeed. Shoving it in his pocket, he said, “This should cover the taxes the individual was trying to evade.”
Everyone laughed then dug into the supplies, all of them battered and half-starved after a day of fighting and rowing and almost dying, more interested in shoveling food down their throats than in conversation. Lara sat next to Aren on the bunk, balancing on her knees a spread of cured meats, cheeses, and a tin cup of water as she ate.
Her slender hands and fingers had an assortment of old scars, nicks and lines, and one knuckle that was slightly larger, suggesting it had been broken at one point. Not the hands one would expect of Maridrinian princess, but whereas before he’d questioned what sort of life she’d been living in the desert to earn those scars, now he was having very different thoughts about those hands.