Page 17 of The Endless War

I’m the Empress’s niece,she reminded the voice.My imprisonment is personal; theirs isn’t.

Are you sure?

Zarrah was forced to abandon the inner argument as Daria said, “People disappear from the island all the time, so it’s possiblesomeonehas escaped, and we just don’t know. It isn’t as though the guards keep the inmates apprised of current events, you get my meaning?”

“Do the guards converse with you?” There was opportunity there, for it was possible that Zarrah might know one of them. That they might be willing to help her.

“Converse is a stretch, but there’s a certain exchange of dialogue that occurs,” Daria answered, speaking louder as the roar of water grew. “We’ll have to see how chatty they are today.”

They broke out of the trees, and Zarrah’s stomach flipped as she stopped next to a cliff edge. Beneath, the seawater raged in its swirling cycle around the island, but it was to the far side of the murderous channel that her eyes went. About every hundred feet was a stone guard post, a pair of sharp-eyed soldiers minding each of them, bows in hand.

“Morning, cunts!” Daria shouted across the gap, lifting her hands to flip her middle fingers at the closest guard posts. “Care to take your best shot?”

Zarrah shifted uneasily because there was nothing to stop either guard from shooting them, no cover to take. And given that the gap between cliff tops was only about thirty feet, it was an easy shot. But the men only gave Daria sour glares, as though this were an old and tired exchange. “They don’t ever shoot?”

“Oh, they do.” Daria cut left and walked along the edge of the rocky cliff with no regard for the deadly plunge at her right. Casting a vicious grin at Zarrah, she added, “But it gives us something to shoot back, and we’ve got archers here with better aim. So they only shoot when some fool tries to get across.”

“Does that happen often?” Zarrah watched the other woman flip her fingers at the guards at the next post, with a similar lack of effect.

“Every time a tree grows tall enough,” Daria answered. “This place does strange things to the mind, and there are some who spend their days nurturing trees, waiting for them to grow tall enough, believing they will be delivered from this horror if only the tree will grow. More still who take great glee in cutting down said treesjustbefore they reach that precious length.”

Zarrah shivered, for there was a certain madness in both behaviors.

“In truth, those who try are only hastening their end, because there isn’t an inch of the cliff tops that the guards don’t watch,” Daria continued. “Day and night. Night and day. Rain or snow or sun, they watch.” Lifting her hands, she screamed “Pig fuckers” at the next guard post.

These guards only laughed, and though logically Zarrah knew that every criminal in this place deserved to be here, her hands still curled into fists because it felt as though they laughed at her, too.

She moved her attention to the next guard post. To continue their circuit of the island, they’d have to cross the low wall of stones she’d tripped over in her flight from the other group of prisoners.

The barrier between territories.

Instead of crossing it, Daria cut inland, the wall now on her right rather than the plunge to the sea, but Zarrah didn’t miss how the woman’s tension grew. As though what lay past that wall was infinitely more dangerous than a fall into a whirlpool down to hell. The other warriors grew equally wary, their weapons held at the ready,eyes skimming the trees on the far side of the cut line.

“How many …” Zarrah trailed off as she searched for an appropriate term, then decided on, “organized groups are there on the island?”

Daria snorted in amusement. “You mean gangs? Two. Though we call them tribes. There are also the lone wolves, who are the true death dealers on this island. Monsters who do things that would strip the breath from the devil’s chest. You get caught by Flay or Butcher or Ladyfingers, find a way to end things yourself, and quickly.”

Zarrah swallowed hard because those names were familiar to her, as was the nature of their crimes.Monsterwas a weak word, and she was now imprisoned on the same island as them.

They’d nearly reached the summit of the island, the trees falling away completely as they approached the barren stretch of land, allowing Zarrah time to truly take in the prison. Her eyes followed the gap of the ocean channel as it spiraled outward in three loops before reaching the sea. Rope bridges connected each ring of rock, allowing the guards to move from the garrison at the pier to the innermost ring, the land naked of trees or brush or structures beyond a few rocky outcroppings. “Is it truly a whirlpool?”

“Yep,” Daria answered. “Though it’s really more of a drain for those who don’t wish to endure their punishment any longer. I’d show you where the water goes under, but it’s in Kian’s territory. Not another place in the world like it.”

Because Devil’s Island was not a creation of nature.

No, much like Ithicana’s bridge, this island was formed by the giant hands of a god for one purpose and one purpose alone.

To ensure those condemned to its shores would never,everget out.

KERIS FROZE ASthe blade angled, pressing hard enough that blood trickled down his throat but not hard enough to kill. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had so many women in my room. Hopefully this encounter will prove more fruitful than the last.”

She chuckled softly. “A foolish hope, Your Grace. I’ve no taste for incest.”

Keris’s eyes narrowed. One of his half sisters, then. Undoubtedly one of the ones who trained with Lara in the Red Desert, which meant she was far more dangerous than any of his idiot brothers. His eyes flicked to the mirror, the reflection revealing a fair-skinned woman of average stature, her hair dark as night. Not one of the ones who’d been with Lara the night of the rescue, but given her coloring … “It’s been a long time, Sarhina.”

If it moved her that he’d guessed her identity, Sarhina didn’t show it. “Yes, Bronwyn told me that Coralyn had involved you in our plans.”

He opened his mouth to point out that it had beenherwho’d been involved inhisplan, but instead said, “If you wanted to talk, you couldhave made an appointment. You and the rest of our sisters are in no danger from me.”

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