Enough! She bit down on the insides of her cheeks hard enough that she tasted blood. Focus.
Pausing at the crest of the small slope, Zarrah used the cover of darkness to observe their next obstacle. This was what her mind needed to devote itself to. Coming up with a plan to get as many people as possible off this island alive.
“Thank you.”
Zarrah jumped, drawing her weapon as she whirled to attack the shadow sitting on the rock next to the trail. Only to draw her blade up short.
Keris.
Her body trembled with unspent energy, knees feeling as though they might fail her as she took a steadying breath. Say something. Anything. “Why are you thanking me?”
“You could already be off the island,” he said. “All the dead would be alive, all the injured whole, none of you trapped in this situation. I should probably tell you that you were a fool to come after me, but having faced death, I find I don’t have a taste for it. So thank you.”
In the time they’d been apart, his voice had haunted her, asleep and awake, but there was nothing like the reality of the velvet tone of it. The voice that had both inspired and destroyed her, and Zarrah’s chest tightened painfully even as her pulse roared, panic climbing. For there was no denying that she was drawn to him like iron to a lodestone. While her aunt may have been wrong about Keris coming for her, the way Zarrah felt right now proved her aunt’s words that he had a hold on her. “We still face death,” she finally said, her voice stilted. “So gratitude is premature.”
“Even so.”
A response with more than one meaning, and Zarrah’s hackles rose with the reminder that words were Keris’s greatest weapon, and that he twisted them as readily as he used them to slice. “I want to bring peace to Valcotta, and you are integral to that.”
“You say that as though I weren’t with you when that dream was conceived. As though we weren’t once allies in trying to make it reality.”
So high on your own ideals— Bermin’s admonition filled her head— with no realization that every commanders and not enough soldiers, something she’d experienced often in her career. It never one of them has been planted in your mind by another.
Zarrah’s heart was beating wildly, and she wanted to claw through her skull to extract all the voices inside of her mind screaming that no thought she’d ever had was her own. That her dreams were visions planted in her mind by those who wished to manipulate her. It felt like insanity, but it also felt like the truth. It made her want to fall to her knees and scream for all of them to be silent.
“I’m sorry for all of this,” he said. “By the time I learned Serin knew about us, it was too late to stop the message he’d sent to Petra. I didn’t know what to do or how to help you, and I … I underestimated how angry she’d be. I knew there would be consequences, but …” He hesitated. “The moment I knew she’d sent you here, I made plans to go to Ithicana to gain their help.”
Her breathing accelerated, her mind struggling to sort through the violent twist of emotions. Failing, Zarrah stared at his shadow, so many words needing to pour from her lips that they clogged her much, parts of her at war with themselves so that it felt like she was slipping into throat, and she said nothing at all.
“I know you’re angry about how I ruined your plans at Southwatch, but I’ve made amends with Ithicana. With Aren and with my sister. I’ve tried to fix things, tried to undo the damage I did.” He island, but not one of them had been how she’d react to being back in Keris’s presence, because she’drose from the rock he was seated upon. “Not that it matters much, given where we stand. I should have waited. Should have trusted Lara to find a way in, but I was afraid I’d be too late.”
“My aunt said you were sleeping with Lestara. Revels. Orgies. That you’d forgotten me.”
Immediately, Zarrah bit down on her tongue. Why, of all the things, had that been what had come from her lips? She knew, of course. Though she’d no right to think of it so, learning he’d been with other women had felt like infidelity, a betrayal of the heart, and it had cut her deep. Not only to be replaced, but to be replaced so quickly, as though what had been between them hadn’t mattered at all.
“What? Orgies?” He gave a violent shake of his head. “Either she lied or her spies put stock in untrue rumors.” Keris took hold of her shoulders, his hands hot through the fabric of her wet clothes.
“There is no one but you. How could there be when you hold my heart?”
A quiver ran through Zarrah’s body, the desire to fall into his arms so strong she could scarcely breathe. Instead she stood frozen, trying to unravel the twisted mess of lies and truth, speculation and reality, but it felt tangled beyond salvaging.
“Zarrah, I need you to know that I love you.”
“You don’t know what love is.” The accusation slipped from her lips, more reflex than thought,
“You could already be off the island,” he said. “All the dead would be alive, all the injured whole, because she couldn’t do this. Couldn’t have this conversation while the stakes were so high. “I can’t.
none of you trapped in this situation. I should probably tell you that you were a fool to come after me, I can’t deal with this right now. I need to be able to think clearly.”
Whether she meant about him or the situation, Zarrah didn’t know.
Keris stood unmoving. Silent. Then he said, “We should turn our attention to how we are going to get off this island, for it does not appear anyone else has answers.”
“Agreed,” she rasped, the world swimming in and out of focus.
“I assume the only reason they haven’t cut the bridge ropes is because Bermin is over here.”
“He’s alive,” she said, confirming the unspoken question. Her heart steadied as she refocused on strategy. “His soldiers will have pulled him up before they started back around the spiral to pursue us.”
“Shame,” Keris murmured. “Part of me hoped he’d have to spend time alone on that island with the were Keris’s greatest weapon, and that he twisted them as readily as he used them to slice. “I want to many faces of Flay.”
He was trying to ease the tension, trying to get her to relax, but the fact that he knew precisely how to do so only made her anxiety worse. “The soldiers standing between us and freedom won’t know if he’s alive or dead, though. Bermin’s force has given no signal beyond the horns for a prison break, so with no realization that every if we approach, they’ll cut the bridge. Even if they don’t, we’d lose half our force to arrows trying to get across.”
“Continue around the spiral, then?”
She shook her head. “With the injured, that will take hours. They’ll have signaled the navy ships patrolling the island by now. If they reach us before we reach the pier, it’s over for us.”
“That leaves only retreat in the channels.”
She exhaled, shaking her head, because more than half of the prisoners were injured. Between the plunge into the violent rapids, the cold, and the fact most couldn’t swim, far too many would die.