Page 24 of The Twisted Throne

“We’re through the worst of it,” Jor said. “North, Taryn, north!”

Her cousin nodded, gesturing as she explained to James how to tack against the stiff wind, shouting orders to the crew as she did. Jor rose to his feet, and then leaned over the rail to look back in their wake. “Not a glimmer of light,” he said. “I’m sure the pricks are out there, but they won’t be catching us this time.”

Ahnna finally managed a breath that filled her lungs, and she nodded. “Good. As soon as the wind eases, we need to get men in the rigging to see about repairs. I can’t tell what was broken in the dark.”

Jor knelt before her. “I’m sorry, Ahnna. I should have trusted you.”

All her life, she’d sought validation from Jor. For him to care for her the same way he did Aren—like a father, for her own had had little time for her. Yet now that she was faced with it, all Ahnna felt was a wave of discomfort, and she looked away. “It could have gone either way.”

Climbing to her feet, she hissed as pain knifed through her body and pressed a hand to her ribs.

“You all right?”

“Yes.” Mastering the pain so it wouldn’t show on her face, she crossed the deck where James was handing off the ship to one of the crew. “Keep heading north,” she said to the man. “No lights. With luck, we should be in sight of the mainland by morning.”

Then she started walking away.

“Your Highness,” James called out, but she pretended not to hear him because her composure was cracking, and she didn’t want him to see.

“Ahnna!”

She kept walking.

Only for his hand to close on her arm, pulling her to a stop. “I’m sorry,” he said, face lost to shadows as the lights were extinguished. “Going to your aid meant abandoning the helm, and—”

“It was the right choice,” she interrupted, pain and nausea twisting in her core. “Risking the lives of everyone aboard this ship for the sake of mine would have been a fool’s move.”

“Your life is worth more.”

“It’s not.” Ahnna hated that sentiment. Hated the idea that a title and a name made her life worth more than anyone else’s. “Though apparently yours is, and I’d like to understand why Katarina was willing to lose so many men to see you dead. And why she wanted to pin it on Ithicana.”

James let go of her arm like he’d been burned. “I don’t know why they are doing this.”

“Figure it out. Or more people are likely to die.”

Ahnna walked away from him, picking her way through the tangled lines and broken pieces of wood, hardly able to see anything in the darkness. Someone lifted the hatch to allow her to go below, and Ahnna clenched her teeth in pain with each step down, pressing one hand against the wall as she walked the corridor in the darkness until she found the door that belonged to her room.

It was dark inside, and wet, the porthole glass having been smashed in the storm. Feeling around in the dark, she found her chest overturned but sealed tightly. With a grunt of effort, Ahnna righted it, then replaced the soaked mattress on the frame, her ribs screaming.

Climbing onto the bed, she rested her cheek against the sodden fabric. Each breath sent spikes of pain through her as she stared blankly, afraid to close her eyes. Afraid to invite in the parade of the dead who haunted her, who she knew would be joined by those who’d died today at Northwatch. Those who’d drownedtonight in the storm. However, with only the blackness of night before her, the visions didn’t wait for sleep before they came.

Grabbing a fistful of the blanket, Ahnna shoved it into her mouth, and then she screamed.

Screamed until exhaustion took her, and then, in her dreams, she screamed louder still as she knelt before those who’d died because she’d lowered her guard. Those who’d suffered because she’d ignored her instincts. Those who would still live if only she’djust kept watch.

James stared bleary-eyed at thechip in his teacup, one of the few pieces not to have smashed during the storm. Beneath the last drops of reddish-brown liquid, the leaves stirred, and he looked away to avoid reading the signs. Too late, for his eyes had already picked out the pattern.

Strife.

As if he didn’t know that.

He tossed the dregs overboard, and not for the first time, James regretted learning the customs of the Cardiffian side of his family. His mother’s family. When he was a boy, his father had sent him in secret to live for weeks on end with his mother’s brothers, Ronan and Cormac. His uncle Cormac had taught him to see the stories of his ancestors in the stars. To read the future in leaves in a cup. To believe God an amusing fabrication of southerners.

It was the last that formed the wedge between Cardiff and Harendell, the wedge between his father’s people and his mother’s.For while Cardiff cared little for whom or what Harendell chose to worship, the opposite was not the case, and Harendell had tried to force religion on Cardiff’s people countless times.

It always ended in violence. War.

Strife.

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