The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom #1)(12)
“Oh, you’re awake!” the woman said with feigned surprise. “You’re in the king’s home on Midwatch Island.”
“I see.” If Midwatch was, as the name suggested, in the middle of Ithicana, she’d been unconscious for longer than she’d realized. They’d drugged her, which meant they did not trust her. No surprise there. “How did I get here?”
“You arrived at Midwatch by sea.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“You weren’t precisely asleep. Just not . . . present.” The woman gave her an apologetic shrug. “Forgive us. It’s in every Ithicanian’s nature to be secretive, and we are still coming to terms with having an outsider in our midst.”
“So it would seem,” Lara murmured, noticing that the woman hadn’t answered her question, though she knew exactly what they’d dosed her with and why. Keeping a person unconscious for days had consequences—often of the fatal variety. Drugging her to wipe her memory was safer.
But fallible. Especially when the individual being dosed had been exposed in the past. Already, shadows of memory were creeping around the edges of Lara’s thoughts. Memories of walking. Walking in ill-fitting footwear on a hard surface. She’d been in the bridge, and at some point along its length, they’d brought her out.
Refocusing her gaze on the woman, she asked, “Why are you wearing my dress?”
“You have a whole chest of them. I was hanging them up for you, and I thought I’d try one on to see if I liked it.”
Lara cocked one eyebrow. “And do you?”
“Oh, yes.” The stranger arched her back, smiling at her reflection in the mirror. “Entirely impractical, but appealing nonetheless. I could use one or two in my own closet.” Reaching up one hand, she pushed the dress’s straps off her shoulders, allowing it to slide down her body and pool on the floor at her feet.
She wore not a scrap underneath, her body all curved muscle, her breasts small and pert.
“Gorgeous gown you wore for your wedding, by the way.” She pulled a short-sleeved tunic over her head, then tugged a pair of snug trousers on beneath. There were a set of vambraces sitting on the floor, and she buckled those on as though she’d done so a thousand times. “I’d ask to borrow it for my own part in the Fifteen Year Treaty, but I’m afraid it took a bit of wear on your journey.”
Lara blinked, realization dawning on her. “You’re the Ithicanian Princess?”
“Among other things.” The woman grinned. “But I don’t want to give away all our secrets. My brother would never forgive me.”
“Your brother?”
“Your husband.” Picking up a bow and quiver, the woman—the princess—strode across the floor. “I’m Ahnna.” She bent down to kiss Lara’s cheek. “And I, for one, am so looking forward to getting to know you, sister.”
There was a knock at the door, and a servant carrying a platter of sliced fruits entered, setting the food on a table before announcing that dinner would be at the seventh hour.
“I’ll leave you alone,” Ahnna said. “Give you a chance to get settled. I’m sure waking up here was quite the shock.”
After years of Serin’s aggressive tutelage, it would take a great deal more than waking in a feather bed to shock Lara, but she allowed a faint tremor into her voice as she said, “The king . . . Is he . . . Will he . . .”
Ahnna shrugged. “Aren is not horribly predictable in his comings and goings, I’m afraid. Better that you make yourself comfortable rather than wait for him to come home. Have a bath. Eat some fruit. Have a drink. Or ten.”
A flash of disappointment surged through Lara, but she gave Ahnna a smile before shutting the door and flipping the latch. She stared at the bit of metal for a long moment, surprised the Ithicanians would allow her privacy, then she set aside the thought. Everything she knew about them was more speculation than fact. Better to approach her circumstances as though she knew nothing at all.
After donning the gown Ahnna had discarded and belting on her knives, which she was surprised to find sitting on top of her trunk, Lara circled the room looking for signs she was being spied on, but there were no holes in the walls or the ceiling, no cracks in the floorboards. Picking up her tray of fruit, she wandered into what she’d presumed to be the bathing chamber, only to discover it devoid of anything resembling a bath, despite the wooden shelves laden with soft towels, scrubs, soaps, and whole collection of brushes and combs. However, there was another door.
Lara pushed the solid slab of wood open, revealing a sloped courtyard resplendent with a lushness she had never seen before. The walls of the building were concealed by climbing vines laden with brilliant flowers of pink and purple and orange, and two trees with enormous split leaves climbed toward the sky, several colorful birds sitting on their branches. A pathway made of square cut stones framed by tiny white rocks meandered through the courtyard, but what took her breath away was the stream flowing through the center of everything.
The building, she realized as she stepped into the courtyard, had been constructed almost like a bridge over a small waterfall. The water cascaded over slabs of rock into a pool below, which flowed through a channel to another pool, and then yet another, before running under the far side of the home to whatever lay beyond.
At the base of the waterfall, by the pool, she noted the curved stone benches beneath the water. This was where one was intended to bathe. Steam rose faintly from its surface and a quick dip of her toe turned her skin pink with heat. There was only one other entrance to the courtyard, and that was a door opposite to the one leading to her rooms.