“Well, with luck I’ll have come up with the nerve it takes to rip apart all chances of happiness with the love of my life!” Georgie threw up his hands. “If not a day, at least give me an hour and a bottle of whiskey. Be a friend.”
James fought the urge to reach for his sword. “Are we friends, George?”
“Yes.” George gripped his shoulders and squeezed. “I have your back until the end. I just need a drink to come to terms with what it will cost me. A drink, I might add, that I’d like to have with you. Let’shead into the house and open my father’s best. You can stay here and get washed up—you both look and smell like you’ve been living rough.”
There was no one else in Verwyrd who could help him. No one else whom James trusted enough with the truth. If it took a few drinks to get Georgie to commit, it would not kill him.
James allowed Georgie to turn him around and start him down the stable corridor.
Only for a familiar equine head to stick his head over a stall door and whicker at him. “Dippy?”
The gelding tossed his head, and then from the stall next to him, Maven lifted her head and looked through the bars.
Ahnna had asked the fate of her horse when they’d been delivered to the Furnace. Had asked where Dippy had been sent.On his way back to Harendell with James’s mount.Carlo’s voice filled his head.Those who sought your deaths will understand the message.
The horses had been sent to Harendell as a message that James and Ahnna had been captured and killed, but they’d not been sent to Alexandra.
They’d been sent to George.
Memory rushed into James’s mind, revealing the moment when he’d seen George after his father’s murder. George’s hair had blood crusted in it, and his throat was covered with a crimson spray that had been smeared, as though he’d tried to clean up hastily. James had believed it Alexandra’s blood, but he now realized his error.
The blood had been his father’s.
James’s hand went to his sword hilt, and he started to draw as he turned.
Only to see a shovel flying toward his head.
James jerked sideways, but the shovel glanced off his temple, pain lancing through his skull as he fell backward. Sparks of light spun in his vision as Georgie lifted the shovel and said as he swung, “I have to say, old friend, Edward put up more of a fight.”
80
Ahnna
Ahnna kept entirely still asthe snake crawled across her legs, the third to do so in the last hour, although a glance downward told her that at least this one wasn’t venomous. It wrapped around her ankle, likely enticed by her warmth, and she whispered, “If you bite me, I will cut off your head and eat you for lunch.”
The snake only rested its head on her kneecap, unmoved by the threat.
Perhaps it knew that if Ahnna moved, it would be her who lost her head. Because she was surrounded by Amaridian soldiers, and their ignorance of her presence was only possible with her continued silence.
For endless days, she had watched the Amaridians slowly take over Ithicana. Watched as the Amaridians took the clothes off Ithicanian corpses to make a show for the Harendellian ships enforcing the blockade.
Ahnna had correctly predicted that Katarina had not leapt to inform Alexandra of the success of her plan, but so far, there was no sign that the Harendellians were shifting their focus north to Cardiff to face James’s claim to the throne. No sign that the most critical part of their plan was taking effect. The ship that had brought him north had recently returned, so she knew that he’d made it to Cardiff, butthere had been no word since. With each passing day, Ahnna’s fear for her husband grew in her chest.
But some things, once put in motion, could not be stopped.
And this plan was one of them. Maridrina’s parliament was traveling to Midwatch, ready to offer a trade deal with the new Mistress of the Bridge.
There is still time,Ahnna told herself even as her heart told her that Katarina would never betray Alexandra with Harendell’s focus firmly on Ithicana.Don’t give up hope.
Voices from above mercifully stole her attention back to the moment.
“Has there been any progress in the hunt for my granddaughter?” Katarina asked.
“I’m afraid not, Your Majesty,” a male voice responded. “It’s my understanding that Ithicanians often feed their dead to the sea, which is why we haven’t found as many dead as we might have anticipated.”
Katarina sighed. “It is a mercy that Carlo isn’t alive to hear that news. Nina always was his favorite, and he did so hate the ocean.”
Ahnna scowled at the false sadness in the queen’s voice. She’d sent Nina into Ithicana to make Aren trust her, full well knowing that her granddaughter would fall victim to her poison scheme. A sacrifice that Katarina had been more than willing to make to secure the bridge, and Ahnna wondered if she knew that it was Carlo’s anger at her for giving Nina up that had made him an easy mark for Ahnna and James.
