Will met his gaze, and there was an unfamiliar coldness to his brother’s stare. “Quite right. Ahnna is beneath me. I’m here for other reasons.”
“What reasons?”
William scowled and faced south. To the gray seas of the gulf and Ithicana beyond. “Ithicana attacked us, James. Attacked us in a way that hasn’t been seen in generations, and they must answer for it.”
Unease pooled in James’s stomach as his brother’s hand drifted to the hilt of his sword, and he said, “We don’t know that for certain. She may have—”
“You dare to defend them?” Will’s voice seethed with derision. “It was Ithicana who pushed us to take her. Ithicana who sent herto get close to us. Do you truly think that Aren didn’t give her orders?”
“I’ve no doubt he did, but this doesn’t feel like a well-thought-out assassination, Will. It was impulsive and poorly planned. An act of anger, not strategy. Don’t—”
“Don’t think to tell me what I should and should not do!” Will snarled, rounding on him. “Ahnna murdered our father and cut up my mother, and you barely seem angry.”
An accusation that couldn’t be further from the truth, but he could see that Will’s control over his temper was fraying at the edges. “Bronwyn Veliant is on a ship to Northwatch as we speak. She has a message for Aren Kertell, which is that he must hand his sister over to us for execution or face the consequences. If he refuses to do so, you will have your answer on Ithicana’s culpability in her crimes, and I will gladly put a sword through Aren Kertell’s chest in your name.”
His brother seemed to calm, tension easing in his shoulders, and he gave a small nod. “Grief causes me to say things I should not, James. You’ve never given me cause to doubt your loyalty before, and I know you’ll not give me cause now.”
“Will you return to Verwyrd?”
William shook his head. “No. We will remain here. I feel war brewing, and a king belongs on the front lines.”
Clouds swirled over the gulf, and James half imagined he could see theVictoriasailing toward Northwatch where one man would determine whether William’s words were hyperbole or prophecy.
But in his heart, James already knew the answer.
4
Aren
King Aren Kertell stared atthe gray seas before Northwatch Island, half imagining that he could see the continent in the distance. The storm had passed, the threat of wind and rain and wave vanquished for the time being, and yet every instinct in his body screamed that danger was at his doorstep.
“We’ve had five Harendellian ships miss their port times,” the harbormaster said from where he stood at Aren’s left. “No sign of them on the horizon.”
“Perhaps they delayed over concerns with the storm.”
“The Amaridians came in on the heels of it with no trouble,” the man answered. “The missing vessels know these seas as well as we do, Your Grace. They know how to chase a squall, do business, and then get back to safe harbor before the next winds rise. One or two ships missing I might excuse, butfive?”
Aren didn’t disagree, and he fought the urge to reach for a weapon, his hackles up. His gaze flicked to the two Amaridian vessels moored at the piers. Their crews were busy unloading barrels of wine that his soldiers were checking to ensure their contents sloshed.Fool me once, shame on me, but fool me twice…“Any gossip?”
“None,” Lara said from behind him. Aren turned to watch his wife approach, Jor and Lia at her heels. As was her custom, Lara had Deliain a sling that held their baby as close to her as the weapons sheathed at her waist.
She stopped next to him, nodding at the harbormaster, who inclined his head and went back to work.
“The Amaridian crews said little of interest,” Lara murmured once the man was out of earshot. “What could be gleaned from them about Harendell is all old news and of little consequence, but they saw no reason that merchant ships would have delayed making the crossing to Northwatch. They said nothing about Ahnna.”
She lifted her hand to pat Delia’s bottom through the sling, swaying back and forth to keep their baby asleep. “Their silence is telling. Never have I known a ship to arrive that wasn’t peddling information as much as wares, and for not one of them to have a coded message from our spies is equally concerning.” Lara’s blue eyes met his, her face shadowed with unease. “Something has happened on the mainland, Aren. I feel it in my bones.”
Lara validating his trepidation only made the crawling sensation across his skin worse. “I should have made Ahnna come back with me. Should have dragged her home by her ankles, because Iknewshe was somehow twisting Harendell’s sentiment toward Ithicana.”
His wife shot him a dark scowl. “No onehas reported anything to validate that thought. Quite the opposite: All reports speak of Edward’s fondness for her.”
“They also speak of his bastard’s fondness for her.” Aren scuffed his boot against the pier and scowled. “James acted like Ahnna washis.I know what that sort of possessiveness looks like, and it’s not how a man acts over hisbrother’sfuture wife. If there is something untoward between them, it would explain her refusal to return with me.”
“Untoward?” Lara gave a soft laugh. “How very Harendellian of you. Maybe you’re right and James is taken with her—it would be understandable, because Ahnna is a very beautiful woman. Or maybe his good Harendellian manners demanded he intervene given that youapproached your conversation with Ahnna with all the tact of a battering ram. Did you really expect him to do nothing when he came upon you ordering her about in the dark corner of a tavern, your words having reduced her to tears?”
“I expected him to mind his own business.”
Lara snorted and rolled her eyes skyward. “You disliked him from the moment you met him.”
