Chapter 55 Ahnna
Ahnna
Stiff winds sent them hurtling down the coast, Ahnna pushing the tiny vessel to the limit of its capacity in her hunt for more speed. First to evade capture, and then because she was on the hunt.
Yet as fast as they flew over the whitecaps, in her heart, she feared it wouldn’t be enough.
The Amaridian merchant ships carrying the grain were built for speed and rough seas, and the captains had the nerve required to open all the sails to the wind. Especially given their need to evade the Harendellians. They also had a full day’s head start.
“Let me fix the splint on your arm.”
These were the first words they’d exchanged that hadn’t been her shouting orders at him like he was a member of her crew, and for reasons Ahnna couldn’t explain, her chest tightened.
Sucking in a mouthful of air, she dug her nails into the wood of the rudder, fighting for composure.
“Ahnna?”
“I didn’t think you’d be alive.” Her voice came out as a croak. “I left you, and I thought I was too late. That he’d…that he’d…”
James frowned at her. “You thought that Carlo would best me in single-handed combat? Carlo, who has only one eye and one testicle, would outfight me? I’m insulted, Princess.”
A laugh that sounded like a sob exploded from her lips. “You’re right. How foolish of me.”
The corner of his mouth turned up, and though James was battered, bloodied, and weeks away from a razor, he was so painfully handsome that her breath caught in her chest. His hand tangled in her hair and he tilted her face up. “Carlo’s dead.”
“Are you sure?” She’d seen the soldiers running to the Beast. Pulling him out of the waves. “Drowning isn’t…it doesn’t always take, you know?” And it felt like Carlo had a shocking ability to survive that which would kill any other.
“I stabbed him in the chest and slit his jugular, so I’m fairly confident it took.” James pulled her against him, and Ahnna rested her cheek on his chest, hearing the steady beat of his heart. “Our list of problems is long, but the Beast is no longer one of them.”
“Katarina will be after our blood for killing her son.”
“Let her come.” James’s hand slid down her right arm, fingers dancing over the splint, which was hanging on by a thread. “Let me fix this.”
“I don’t need the splint anymore, so just take it off. One of the positive things about sitting in the Furnace is that it gave my arm time to heal.”
“Not enough time.” His other hand ran down her back, and an ache formed between her thighs. “It will snap if you put too much strain on it without proper splinting, so let’s fix that.”
What she wanted was to stay in his embrace, but Ahnna reluctantly took a half step back. James knelt before her while she kept her left hand on the rudder, her eyes on the horizon. But her focus was entirely on him.
James took apart the wooden slats that made up the splint, his fingers running over the twin breaks in the bones of her forearm.
The site was still sore, but his touch made her feel things other than pain.
Made her remember the sensation of his fingers inside her body as he brought her to climax in the Furnace.
Reminding her that there were no longer any walls between them, and only open seas surrounding them.
“By some miracle, this is actually healing well,” James murmured as he began resplinting her arm. “How you managed not to rebreak it while escaping from the Furnace, fighting through guards, and swimming through the open sea to commandeer a boat is a mystery to me.”
“Just lucky, I suppose.”
He didn’t answer, and Ahnna tore her gaze from the horizon to look down. James was still on his knees, but he was looking up at her with an expression that made her stomach flip. “What?”
“You are the most stubborn, fierce, and extraordinarily loyal woman I have ever met,” he replied. “There is no woman alive who is your equal, Ahnna Kertell.”
Warmth rose in her cheeks. “I…That’s…If you think that, you haven’t met many women. Lara—”
“I’ve met Lara. My comment stands, and given that Lara once told me that Harendell’s gain was Ithicana’s loss, I suspect she agrees with me.”
Her eyes pricked with tears and Ahnna blinked rapidly, remembering how Lara had been the only one to stand on the pier at Northwatch and bid her farewell.
Remembering the dress she’d sent. The necklace.
A tear rolled down her cheek, because Katarina had taken it, and she had no idea how she’d get it back.
But what she hadn’t taken was the memories Ahnna associated with it, and the sudden desire to make things right with Lara filled her.
“We’ll get there in time,” James said, seeming to hear her thoughts. “You’ll see them soon.”
She wiped her wet cheeks. “I’m afraid, James.
Afraid to hope, because me wanting something feels like ensuring the exact opposite result.
I don’t get what I want, not ever, and part of me wonders if I should stop wanting anything at all.
” The words came out in a flood, sounding like gibberish, but at the heart of them was her fear of hope. “I’m sorry. None of that is important.”
“What you want is important to me.” His voice was low, and Ahnna’s toes curled against the deck. “Tell me what you want. Something that’s small. Something that is just for you.”
She looked behind them at the ship’s wake, hunting for signs of pursuit because it felt selfish to think about small things. But then she whispered, “Lavender soap and warm water.”
“What else?”
“My horse.” Her voice cracked, because though Dippy had been sent back to Harendell, she feared for his fate.
James made a noise of sympathy, and she knew he had the same thoughts about Maven.
Ahnna bit the insides of her cheeks, listening to the sound of the waves slapping against the hull, adjusting the rudder as the wind shifted. Words sat on the tip of her tongue, wanting to be unleashed into the silent tension between them, but this want still felt forbidden. “You. I want you.”
James gripped the rudder with one hand, then pulled her left hand free of it.
“James, what are you doing? You’re going to lose the wind and…” She trailed off as he lifted her left hand to his lips, gently kissing her scraped and scarred skin.
“Our future looks bleak.” He brushed his thumb over her knuckles.
“The chances of us surviving this war are not good, and even if we do, I’m not sure what our futures will hold.
But no matter where life takes us, I want to be at your side every minute of it until my heart ceases to beat.
I love you, Your Highness. I love you in a way that will never be eclipsed by another emotion, and I want you to be my wife. ”
The world seemed to stand still. As though it too were taking a breath.
The ship and the sea and the wind all fell away so there was nothing but her hand in James’s, a question she’d never dreamed he would ask on his lips.
Never dreamed of, because those who served the crown as she and James did were not given the opportunity to choose. Especially not to choose the enemy.
But God help her, Ahnna wanted to say yes. Wanted to be his, because she loved him in a way that made her heart burn like the sun.
Even if her own hand was not something she could give.
“It’s not my choice,” she finally managed to say. “My brother. You’d have to ask his permission, and I don’t think—”
“I don’t care what your brother has to say on the matter,” James interrupted. “The only answer that matters is yours. And if you say yes, there is no crown or power in this world or the next that will keep me from wedding you, Ahnna.”
Her whole body was shaking, because her soul wanted this.
Yet to say yes would be the purest form of selfishness, because as Ithicana’s princess, her hand held value.
Even with her name tarnished by Alexandra’s false accusations, Aren could use her to secure other alliances now that everything had fallen apart with Harendell.
For her to take that opportunity away from him, after the hell she’d put Ithicana through, was not right.
Even if doing so would cut out her heart and leave her a shadow of the woman that she was, for Ithicana, she’d do it.
A tear trickled down her cheek. “Every part of my heart says yes.”
James tilted his head, his amber eyes narrowing slightly. “For anyone but you, I’d say that is all that matters, but you’re unwilling to give your heart anything that might have consequences for Ithicana.”
“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we are on opposite sides of this, James.” Opposite sides, yet the idea of pulling my hand from yours is the worst thing I can imagine. “Ithicana and Harendell are enemies now.”
“No.” He gave a slow shake of his head. “The enemy is Alexandra and those who support her schemes. The people of Harendell are as much a victim of her manipulation as we are. They’ve been tricked into supporting a war they never asked for and never wanted, and if they can be made to understand the truth, they will turn on her and this war will be over. ”
Keeping a firm grip on the rudder and their course straight as an arrow shot, James stood.
His fingers trailed up the inside of her arm, the sensation sending sparks of lightning through her body.
“We are on the same side in this, Ahnna. Alexandra arranged for the murder of both my parents, and then tried to trick me into murdering you. She’s torn apart my family and embroiled my people in a war they didn’t want, and I think it won’t be long until she turns on my family in Cardiff.
You and I are allies in every possible way, and I will have your back in this fight, in every fight, until we take our place in the stars. ”
He so rarely invoked Cardiff’s mythology around her, and it made her heart race because it was proof of how deeply he trusted her. That around her, the walls all came down and he gave her, and only her, his true self.
Maybe protocol demanded her fate be controlled by Ithicana’s crown, but it wasn’t just her heart that screamed he was the one for her. Her mind also screamed that there was no man in this world who would be a better ally to Ithicana than James Ashford. “My answer is yes.”
The world was still trembling from the chaos they’d left behind, but in James’s arms, Ahnna found something solid—something she could choose.
Her breath hitched as he cupped her face, not with urgency, but reverence, like she was something sacred, and when his lips met hers, the ache in her chest finally broke.
The kiss was trembling and fierce, threaded with the weight of everything they’d survived and everything they still might lose. “I will be your wife.”
No sooner did the words exit her lips than the wind gusted, tearing at her salt-crusted hair, and gooseflesh rose on Ahnna’s arms. Turning in James’s embrace so that her back was pressed against his chest, she looked up into the clear skies.
“What is it?” James asked. “What do you see?”
Fear pooled in her stomach, and Ahnna swallowed hard. “Tie everything down. It looks like the tempests will go to war against Ithicana’s enemies tonight, and we are going to get caught in the salvo.”