He entered through the open door, and though it had been cool beneath the canopy of trees, it was almost cold inside the building. Dark, too, the only light coming from a lamp that sat on a rough wood table in the center of the main room. The back wall was lined with doors, one of which was open to reveal a narrow cot.
Barracks.
Keris’s focus moved to Lara, who was taking a bundled infant from Aren’s grandmother. Amelie was much changed from when he’d last seen her, skin ashen and shoulders stooped, and though her eyes flickered with recognition when she saw him, Amelie said nothing. Jor took her elbow and led her to the corner, and Amelie’s face crumpled at whatever he told her. It was as though the spirit had been drained from everyone in the room, making the cold and dim space all the more oppressive.
“This is the most secure location in the north that we can be sure the Harendellians don’t know about,” Lara said. “Not luxurious, but safe.”
“Safety is a luxury.” He went closer to take a look at his niece, who was fussing the way babies did when they were hungry. Delia was a sweet little thing with a full head of dark hair, but it was the hazel eyes looking back at him that held Keris’s attention. “She escaped the curse.”
Lara’s mouth crooked up in a half smile, understanding his meaning. A certain stigma came with having eyes of Veliant blue, and Keris didn’t wish that legacy down upon his niece.
Delia chose that moment to let out a hungry howl, and Keris moved to join Aren at the table.
“Drink?” Aren asked him.
“Water, if you have it. I’d be less thirsty after a week in the Red Desert.”
Aren picked up the pitcher and filled a chipped cup with water, handing it over before he sat on one of the chairs. He rested his elbows on the table, staring blankly at the scarred surface.
Keris sat across from him. “You’ve not heard anything from Ahnna? You have no idea where she might be?”
Aren gave a slow shake of his head. “I don’t even know if she’s alive.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
Keris listened in silence as his family filled him in on everything that had happened since Ahnna had left for Harendell, as well as the details that had been gleaned about Edward’s murder. Halfway through the story, he took the now-fed Delia from Lara and circled the room with his sleeping niece, pausing from time to time to read the spy reports Lara fished from her stack, the full scope of the situation forming in his mind.
It was damning.
Ahnna had a motive. There were witnesses, not the least beingJames Ashford. But perhaps the most damning of all were Alexandra’s injuries, which Keris had seen with his own eyes.
Passing the sleeping baby to Amelie, Keris rested his hands on the table. “The only person who knows what really happened is Ahnna, but I think it fair to say the truth does not matter. Harendell believes she is guilty, and I don’t think there is a way to prove otherwise given that her word means nothing to them. My question is whether what Ahnna has to say matters toyou?”
Silence filled the room, and Keris felt a sudden urge to drag everyone outside into the jungle. To find sunlight and open air, because the shadows felt as though they might consume everyone.
“Of course it matters,” Aren finally answered. “I’m not allowing my sister to be executed for something she didn’t do.”
“What if she’s guilty?” Keris didn’t enjoy pressing this issue, but someone had to. “Will Ithicana go to war to protect Ahnna if you know for certain she murdered Edward and then attacked Alexandra?”
Aren blanched, his skin turning ashen in the dim light. “I…” He looked away. “I need to hear Ahnna’s explanation. I need to hear her voice. I can’t make a decision without seeing her.”
“Except you don’t have that option.” Keris buried his guilt at pushing his friend in his time of grief. “No one knows where she is, and Harendellian patience is wearing thin. If you don’t at least denounce her, they will assume that you are complicit. You must decide your course with the information you have.”
“She could already be dead.” It was the first time Bronwyn had spoken, and she stepped away from the wall she’d been leaning against. “Which means you’re risking Taryn’s life, your wife’s life, your daughter’s life—the lives of everyone in Ithicana—for a corpse. I looked James in the eye when he delivered his message: He’s not going to stop his hunt, and if he finds her, Ahnna won’t make it to execution. That kind of anger is only sated by blood.”
Keris remembered a report he’d read from one of Valcotta’s spiesin Harendell. Much of it had detailed the commotion that Lestara had been causing in Edward’s court, but tacked on to the end was an account of an incident in Sableton the night Ahnna had arrived in Harendell. James had been involved in a brawl in the tenderloin district after patrons of an alehouse had laid hands on Ahnna. The two had subsequently quarreled, and then, in full view of everyone on the street, James had slung Ahnna over one shoulder and carried her away in a manner that the spy had interpreted asdecidedly familiar, especially for a Harendellian.Before Keris had left for Ithicana, more reports had arrived full of rumors and speculation that Ithicana’s princess had seduced Harendell’s most eligible bastard. If that was true, then Keris was inclined to agree with Bronwyn that James was out for blood.
For there was no more intense hatred than one born out of love gone sour.
A sharp knock sounded on the closed door of the barracks, echoing against the stone walls. At Aren’s nod, Jor opened it and a sodden Ithicanian stepped inside, along with a gust of wind carrying heavy rain. “Word from Northwatch via the Amaridians.”
Aren stood so abruptly that he jostled the table, toppling two cups of water. “Ahnna?”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The man wiped his face, a puddle forming around his boots. “The Amaridians say that she was spotted in Sableton but evaded capture. Every ship is being searched by soldiers and bloodhounds before departure, but the gossip in the city is that she subsequently ran afoul of civilian militia in the foothills. Prince James apparently left Sableton at a gallop and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Anything else?” Aren demanded, but the man only shook his head.
“Ahnna’s aiming to cross the Blackreach Peaks,” Keris murmured once the man had departed, drawing a map of the continent in front of him. “She’s trying to get to Amarid.”
