Chapter 37 James #3
“Why? Don’t you trust Alexandra?”
Katarina chuckled. “No one knows her as well as I do. It seems like only yesterday when she offered an alliance in exchange for getting rid of Edward’s whore.
” Her black eyes rolled to James as he stiffened.
“Alexandra was young and idealistic once. She believed in love, but Edward soon crushed those dreams to ruin. She blamed your mother and believed that if Siobhan were gone, Edward would come to love her. I warned her otherwise, but…” Katarina waved a hand from side to side.
“You know how that went better than anyone, don’t you, Jamie? ”
He bit the insides of his cheeks, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a response.
“Siobhan’s death put a damper on dreams for peace with Cardiff, which of course was to Amarid’s advantage, but it also gave me leverage over Harendell’s young queen.
For if Edward learned of the murder that bound our friendship, his wrath would have been a thing to behold.
Your father could be so profoundly cruel when he was angered.
” Gold and jewels gleamed as she grinned at him.
“But Alexandra is no longer a young debutante with dreams of love in her heart, and with Edward long in the grave now, she grows bold. You will be the insurance that keeps my dear protégée in check, and Amarid will rise to heights it has never seen when Ithicana falls.”
“Ithicana will not fall.” Ahnna’s voice was frosty, and if James didn’t know her as well as he did, she would have seemed the epitome of confidence. “You’ve tried before. Tried and failed, Katarina. How many ships did you lose in the battle for Eranahl?”
“Many.” Katarina’s tone was unmoved, and James was again struck with how it was like speaking to a corpse.
“But it was because Silas was driven to action when patience would have served him better. Driven, it is rumored, by his own son’s strategy to save Zarrah Anaphora.
Alexandra and I will make no such mistakes.
When Ithicana falls to us, it will not rise again.
The bridge will run through a dead nation inhabited only by snakes. ”
It was final confirmation of Alexandra’s alliance with Silas and Katarina in Maridrina’s invasion of Ithicana.
James’s father had been enraged by the invasion, smashing cocktail glasses and shouting that Silas hadn’t just broken his treaty with Ithicana, but broken his treaty with Harendell as well, his vitriol toward Lara Veliant ferocious in its intensity.
Through it all, Alexandra had stood in near silence, offering only the occasional, Veliants are always the worst sort, darling.
Only to be tolerated, never trusted. You warned Delia time and again, but she would not listen, and it seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with her son, both idealists.
Not once had James ever suspected that she was involved, and it made him realize how badly he’d underestimated Alexandra’s ambitions.
How badly everyone had underestimated her.
Ahnna huffed out an amused breath. “And just how do you plan to achieve that goal when every other nation has failed?”
Katarina rested her hands against the balcony and leaned back, dark eyes calculating and cruel.
“It would be a kindness not to tell you my plans, because I think the knowledge will destroy your mind once you are in a Furnace cell. Yet I am told that it was your actions, Ahnna, that caused my son to lose his eye, so I will show you no mercy.”
Ahnna smiled. “Carlo did that to himself, Your Grace. Perhaps if he’d not been such a glutton and eaten twice his share of my mushroom stew, he’d see twice as well as he currently does.”
Katarina’s right index finger tapped twice on the stone, eyes glittering like onyx.
“All right, Ahnna. I will play the game of hard truths with you. While you and James were galivanting around the Blackreaches, William gave Aren an ultimatum: Deliver you to Harendell for execution or face a blockade. Obviously Aren could not hand over that which he did not have, but he has also stood his ground and refused to name you as Edward’s murderer.
Every bit as loyal as we had heard, which made him so very predictable.
“True to his word, William has put the full might of Harendell’s navy to blockading not just Northwatch, but all sea traffic into the gulf.
An easy enough task given that the Tempest Seas have been fierce in their storms, so Ithicana is entirely cut off from the north.
Those same storms strip the trees and flood the land, but worse, they keep your people from turning to the seas for sustenance.
Silas stripped all the stockpiles and stores, and Aren has had neither the time nor the funds to replenish them, so I expect your people will soon be subsisting on snakes and rats. ”
“The bridge has two ends.” Ahnna lifted her chin. “You’re underestimating my people’s resilience, and we’ve endured similar circumstances before.”
“There is Southwatch,” Katarina agreed. “But Maridrina is broken and suffers its own famine, Vencia still in ruins. Sarhina might have used the power of her crown and name to force her people to supply Ithicana, but instead she has diminished her influence by establishing an elected government. Zarrah may aim to aid, but Valcotta is still reeling from its own war, wasting disease has infected their herds, and her people have no interest in a quarrel with Harendell. Cardiff is flush with Harendellian trade, and Ronan’s daughter sits on Harendell’s throne, so they will not intervene, and the nations of the deep north know better than to involve themselves.
Which means that Ithicana, for all intents and purposes, stands alone. ”
The wind blew in from the sea, lifting Katarina’s crimson hair around her like a fiery halo before settling, all while the gulls cried above. Ahnna swayed slightly; James tried to move to her, but his guards yanked him back.
“Alone. Hungry. Broke. Desperate.” Amarid’s queen punctuated each word with a tap of her index finger on the balcony. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Ahnna, so if Amarid comes with a compelling offer of aid, are you so sure that your brother won’t take it?”
“Aren knows you are a liar who cares only for achieving your own ends,” Ahnna hissed. “He’ll never trust you. Never let you in.”
“Because you warned him?” Katarina slipped a hand into her pocket and withdrew a glittering ruby necklace. Closing the distance, she fastened the choker around Ahnna’s neck, and to James, it looked for all the world like her throat had been slit with the way the gems glittered in the sunlight.
“Alexandra and I were both delighted at the cleverness of your warning,” Katarina said, stepping back.
“What a bright girl you are to put together the pieces that even great minds like Edward never considered. Shame it didn’t work out, because I’m sure Lara, at least, would have taken the message to heart.
She’s another clever one, though she lacks your honor. ”
James could see Ahnna’s pulse throbbing rapidly above the choker, betraying her distress even as her face remained unmoved.
“Lara won’t trust you,” Ahnna retorted. “She’ll see right through your offers.”
“But will she trust her brother?” Katarina gave a soft chuckle.
“Bronwyn told me that Keris planned to go to Harendell, and I can only imagine that his ears are being filled with slander against my name, against Amarid’s name, all of Harendell’s woes cast at our feet.
He is clever, but my protégée is unmatched at her ability to manipulate the truth.
How long, do you think, until Keris suggests that an alliance with Harendell’s oldest enemy might be the path to salvation? ”
Ahnna blanched.
“Lara is distrustful, that is true. But her dear half sister Bronwyn has been my honored guest, and I have been a paragon of sympathy over James’s cruel treatment of her and his imprisonment of her lover, the lady Taryn.
Over glasses of wine, I confessed to her all my attempts to put James in the grave, but also my aim to prevent an alliance in Cardiff.
I filled her ears with my fears for Amarid’s sovereignty now that such an alliance has come to pass, for how long until Harendell and Cardiff’s united force takes not just the Lowlands but also Riomar itself?
” A tear cut down Katarina’s waxy makeup, and she flicked it away with one painted nail.
“Fear does unite even the most unlikely of individuals, no?”
James felt as ill as Ahnna looked, because Katarina was displaying what made her and Alexandra infinitely more dangerous than Silas had ever been.
“But there are those in Aren’s council who may not be swayed by the advice of two Veliants,” Katarina continued, her smile again revealing the strange fabrication that encased her teeth. “Thankfully, James provided us with the trump card. Come!” She gestured to both of them. “Come stand with me!”
The guards shoved at both him and Ahnna, and James reluctantly shuffled to stand at Katarina’s right while Ahnna moved to her left. The queen linked her arm through his, and if James’s wrists hadn’t been chained to his ankles, he’d have bodily flung the old woman over the edge and to her death.
Instead, he was forced to stand motionless, his eyes moving across the wide moat encircling the prison to a broad expanse of gardens.
Men and women promenaded together along the cobbled paths, servants holding sunshades over the ladies’ heads.
A band of marching musicians in matching outfits struck up, drums and cymbals banging, and the nobility laughing and clapping in delight.
Then Carlo appeared, walking next to two women who were arm in arm.
One of the women was Bronwyn Veliant.
James squinted and leaned, but the Beast blocked his sight of the other woman as they walked down the edge of the garden. Carlo wore a patch over his ruined eye and he was laughing and gesturing at the band, adeptly performing the role of courteous prince.
“Alexandra and I had mused over how best to deliver my overtures of alliance,” Katarina murmured. “Who in our arsenal would Aren trust? Who would his council trust? No one quite fit; but then you, James, delivered to us the perfect messenger.”
His hands turned to ice, because James knew.
The Beast stepped sideways and gestured to the distant prison as though explaining its purpose. Revealing the other woman’s face.
“Your cousin, Princess,” Katarina said. “Taryn Kertell.”