The island was far larger than any they’d sailed past on their journey through Ithicana.
Yet somehow far smaller than Keris had imagined.
“Eranahl Island, Your Majesty,” the captain said. “I’d advise not going closer until the Ithicanians make contact. It’s their territory.”
Keris glanced up at the white flag flying beneath the Maridrinian banner, the wind snapping the fabric with such violence, it was a miracle neither tore loose. Above both of them flew a narrow strip of purple indicating he sailed aboard the ship. It was meant to be a signal according the vessel right of way, yet it felt something akin to painting a target on his back.
Much as he’d painted one on Sarhina’s.
“Our brothers will see you as an easy mark,” he’d reminded his half sister before he’d stepped aboard the ship. “Watch your back. And Sara’s—if I find out one of our brothers has taken her, there will be hell to pay.”
Sarhina had not so much as blinked. “It’s not our brothers who concern me.” She tilted her head, and his eyes flicked to where the majority of the harem gathered together, seeing him off. Lestara stood at their head, her face the smooth mask that politicians wore only when hiding extreme emotion. “She’s going to be a problem.”
“I don’t see how,” he answered, glad that Lestara had dropped the issue of the book. “What is she going to say? That I refused to make her queen above the rest? Either way, she’s your problem for the time being.”
“Along with all the others you’ve dumped in my lap,” Sarhina muttered. “You owe me, Keris.”
He struggled not to smile. “I don’t owe you anything. You can’t wait for me to leave so that you can get to enacting your own personal agenda for the kingdom.”
“True.” She smirked. “So quit pissing around and get gone.”
Given the anticipation thrumming through his veins, Keris didn’t bother responding, only turned on his heel and strode up the gangplank.
“Keris!”
Sarhina’s voice cut the air, and he paused to look over his shoulder.
“Lara has a tendency of allowing her emotions to take precedence over reason. I’d suggest sending someone who is not you in to smooth her feathers before risking your own neck.”
“I can handle Lara,” he answered, then boarded his ship.
The bravado he’d felt in that moment had long since disappeared, but there was no turning back now. “Ready a longboat.”
“Your Majesty,” the captain protested. “We dare not. You can see the shipbreakers and those manning them from here.” He gestured to the tops of the cliffs rising out of the sea. “The Ithicanians have very good aim.”
“Aren isn’t going to throw rocks at me,” Keris answered, taking in the swaths of new growth on the slopes of the volcano, the jungle slowly erasing the damage inflicted during the siege.
“Only because he’d rather strangle you with his bare hands?” Dax asked with a laugh.
Keris glared at him, then said, “He’s a king, not a wild animal.” Though, if he were being honest, killing men with his bare hands was likely something Aren did with regularity.
“He doesn’t like you, does he?”
“Not particularly.”
“What did you do to him?”
Bad things. Unforgiveable things. “I told him he was an idiot.”
Dax barked out a laugh. “Will he attempt to strike back at you as punishment for the insult?”
“Unlikely. My father invaded Ithicana and tried to destroy them so as to possess the bridge himself. He betrayed the Fifteen-Year Treaty and stabbed Aren in the back by marrying him to Lara, who was trained to destroy Ithicana, none of which sat well with our people.”
Dax nodded. “He earned his death.”
“Agreed,” Keris said. “I, however, have withdrawn all of our forces and begun the first steps to creating a lasting peace with Ithicana. Our people know that I have come here to make amends. If Aren were to assassinate me, all the goodwill he has with Maridrina would be destroyed, as would any chance at peace. No matter how much Aren personally dislikes me, he won’t make that sacrifice.”
“Or so you hope.”
The crew eased a longboat over the side of the ship, cursing and swearing as it swung on its cables. “We’re ready, Your Grace.”
Keris gave the captain a short nod. “Let us go see this mythical city Ithicana has kept hidden all these long years.”
Dax clambered inside the longboat, along with a sailor who was staring at the island like a man on the verge of pissing himself.
“We should bring more men,” Dax advised, but Keris only shook his head as he climbed in.
“The only reason I’m bringing you is that I’m too lazy to row. So get to it.”
Dax rolled his eyes skyward as the boat lowered to the waves. “You were insufferable as a prince. Becoming king has only made you worse.”
“Row.” Keris was in no mood to banter, his nerves rising like bile in his throat as the boat hit the water. Everything felt abruptly more ominous, the volcano looming out of the whitecaps, peak lost in swirling rainclouds.
Rubbing at his temples, Keris forced his attention to the island. Sheer cliffs rose out of the sea, waves exploding against them with each surge, the violence breathtaking. Atop them were stone outposts that almost disappeared into the vegetation, and in each outpost, there was an enormous catapult. As Keris watched, one of the catapults rotated, and his skin crawled as he realized they were taking aim at the longboat.
“Look in the water,” Dax muttered, and his attention jumped from the shipbreaker to the waves. To the massive grey dorsal moving past, circling.
It wasn’t alone.
At least a dozen fins of varying sizes moved around the longboat, and a cold sweat broke out on Keris’s spine, his hands ice despite the oppressive heat.
Crack!
A boulder soared through the air, landing in the water perhaps thirty paces from the longboat. Spray erupted, soaking them, waves rocking the boat and threatening to overturn it.
“We must turn back!” the sailor shrieked. “We are dead men! We must turn around, Your Grace!”
“We are not turning back.”
“It was a warning,” the sailor wailed, rowing opposite to Dax so that the boat spun in a circle. “The next will crush us! We’ll be meat for the sharks! We must go back to the ship!”
Run back to the ship. Run back to Maridrina. Run from the fact that Zarrah was imprisoned on an island full of criminals because she’d made the mistake of loving him.
Keris’s temper snapped, and he half rose, looming over the sailor. “You will fucking row,” he shouted, “or I will cut your throat and feed you to the sharks, then row myself! Do you understand?”
The man shrank downward, face pale as he nodded. The longboat resumed its course toward the black opening in the cliffs.
You are your father’s son. Veliant to the core.
“The shipbreakers aren’t a warning.” He adjusted his cloak. “They’re a reminder.”
“And just what is Aren of Ithicana reminding you of, Your Grace?” Dax called over the growing thunder of the waves striking the cliffs. “Because it ain’t to wash behind your ears.”
Keris stared at the opening in the cliff, the entrance to Eranahl drawing closer with every stroke of the oars, the scene wholly wild and unfamiliar. “He’s reminding me that this is Ithicana.” The waves lifted the boat, hurling it into the volcano. There was no turning back now. “And in Ithicana, we play by his rules.”