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Ahnna crept through the dark alleys of Sableton, heading toward the glowing port.

She’d lost track of the number of days since she’d fled Verwyrd. The number of days since Edward had been assassinated. The number of days since Alexandra had framed her for the deed and James had chased her into the night. All she knew was that every one of them had been spent on the run, chased by men on horseback and their dogs, she and Dippy pushed to their limits to stay ahead of them.

Exhaustion weighed upon her like a shroud, her body aching from new injuries and old, but Ahnna pushed her personal suffering aside as she hid next to a wall, waiting for a pair of soldiers to pass.

They were everywhere.

With the speed of boats on the river, James had been able to beat her to the coast, and every man who could be spared was hunting her. Yet it was the civilians who’d kept her from making an escape.

Edward had been a much-beloved king, and the fury over his assassination that had exploded across Harendell was unlike anything Ahnna had ever seen. Militias patrolled the streets of even the smallest hamlet, the beaches up and down the coast guarded day and night. Vessels even patrolled the water, because she’d heard more than one person claim that she had the capacity to swim back to Ithicana, if given the opportunity. Worse still were the things they promised to do to her if they managed to catch her.

The soldiers moved out of earshot, and Ahnna continued her progress down to the water. It was a long shot, but she was hopeful that in the bustle of ships that were still, despite the impending war, doing busy trade with Amarid, she might be able to sneak onto a vessel destined for the other nation. From there, she’d be able to catch a ship to Northwatch, or steal something she could sail herself.

Because there was no traffic between Harendell and Ithicana.

All trade had been halted, and when Ahnna thought too hard about how much that would be costing her people, it brought tears to her eyes.

She darted between two buildings, moving closer to the noise of the port, which was loud even though it was the dead of night. Trade never stopped. Work never stopped—not here.

Many of the civilians wanted a blockade on Northwatch. More still felt retaliation was in order, but with Amarid having invaded the precious Lowlands, that was where Harendell’s armies would surely focus.

Revenge on the Ithicanians can wait, she’d heard men and women say. They are going nowhere.

Or worse, Once Amarid is defeated, Ithicana will be a prison of its own making, and we can starve them to death.

Which meant that the true horror was yet to come.

All beneath William’s rule. Which meant all beneath Alexandra’s rule.

It had been sour medicine to swallow to understand that she’d been nothing more than a scapegoat that allowed Alexandra to rid herself of Edward with no consequences. Ahnna had been perfectly set up to be the obvious villain with such mastery that she finally understood the true depths of Lara’s warning. Of Keris’s warning. Yet even if she’d heeded them, Ahnna wondered if it would have made a difference. For the queen hadn’t been the only one with schemes in play.

Ahnna had been in a tangled web of plots with more than a few nooses closing around her throat. She saw that clearly now, as one so often did when looking back. It felt much like the hindsight she’d experienced after the invasion, and the emotional toll of it happening again dragged her down and down.

She moved through another series of alleys, ignoring the squeaks of rats and the mutters of those who slept in the shadows, then paused next to a large stone structure. From inside emanated the rushing noise of overheated air in bellows and the clang of hammers. One of Harendell’s many foundries, but Ahnna kept moving past it, only to draw up short at the sight of another patrol.

Waiting, her mind again went back to Alexandra. It was no struggle to understand why the queen had wanted to be rid of Edward. He’d been a poor husband to her, his heart with James’s dead mother. To learn of the conspiracies he’d been executing behind her back must have been a knife to her heart. Edward’s choice to marry William to Siobhan’s niece had probably been the final straw that had driven her to murder. Still, there were parts of her strategy that troubled Ahnna, not the least of which was that an alliance with Cardiff had to be the last thing that Alexandra wanted, which meant she’d be sure to put a stop to all of Edward’s plans for trade flowing north. Yet in using Ahnna as her scapegoat, she’d also destroyed Harendell’s capacity to trade south, and the cost to the people that would come as a result would be astronomical. It would not be long until the people turned on William, demanding he offer a solution, and it struck Ahnna as strange that a woman as clever as Alexandra would not have considered this element.

The soldiers had passed, so Ahnna crept onward. She glanced backward at a particularly loud bang and saw the name Cartwright on a large sign above the door. She scowled, remembering the name on the endless crates of weapons that the Harendellians had shipped through the bridge. Weapons that Silas used in his scheme to take the bridge.

Cartwright. She drew up short. Cartwright Foundries.

C.F.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

Then a shout echoed up the street: “It’s her!”

Panic rolled through Ahnna as soldiers raced toward her, and she broke into a run. A dead sprint through the alleys she’d just crept through, the soldiers racing in hot pursuit.

Jumping, she caught hold of the bottom of a balcony and hauled herself up, still-injured shoulders screaming. Ahnna ignored the pain and clambered onto the roof.

Below her, the soldiers raced past, and Ahnna caught her breath before pressing on, keeping to the rooftops as she moved to the edge of Sableton.

Cartwright Foundries. C.F. That’s who Alexandra had been paying through William’s accounts, and the timing couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Reaching the edge of the city, Ahnna made her way through the darkened woods and pastures, heading to where she’d left Dippy loosely tethered in case she managed to find a ship. Her horse nickered softly as she approached, and she swiftly put on his stolen tack, mounting as the glow of dawn began to light the sky.

Aren had approved the trade of weapons through the bridge before the invasion as part of his agreement with Silas. They were supposed to be shipped dull, but instead it was discovered they were razor-sharp, used to great effect against Raina and her men who’d been escorting Keris’s entourage of soldiers in disguise. It had always been assumed that Katarina or Silas had made that arrangement, paid off the right inspectors, but now Ahnna suspected differently.

It was Alexandra.

Alexandra, who’d received rubies as a gift from Maridrina. Alexandra, who’d exchanged those rubies for silver with the jeweler, and then used that silver to pay Cartwright to violate the terms of trade, ensuring Silas’s soldiers had the weapons they needed to invade.

What is Cardiff compared to the bridge and its access to Maridrina and Valcotta? He would have us trade our steel for sealskin when we might trade it for rubies.

Sickness roiled through Ahnna’s stomach, the pieces of the puzzle finally coming together, and the picture they revealed terrified her. Because if Alexandra had been allied with Silas in a plot to take the bridge, that meant she was allied with Katarina. Every instinct in her stomach told her the two women had not let their aspirations go, and that whatever overtures Amarid had made to Aren had been with a mind of feeding Harendell’s spies and manipulating Edward.

Which meant the war for the Lowlands was nothing more than a distraction while the two queens made plans to achieve their real goal.

Ahnna reined Dippy through the trees, then drew him to a halt when she reached the road. James was on the coast hunting her, but his life was in as much danger as her own. Alexandra hated him, and that she allowed him to still live had to mean he had a role to play in her schemes.

I need to warn him.

Her eyes burned as her mind filled with a vision of his face, marred with the hurt of betrayal. Sickness rose in her stomach at the fate he faced, because her heart still refused to let him go. Refused to forget every moment that had passed between them, and Ahnna knew that no matter how many years went by, she’d never feel like that about a man again.

Because she’d never allow herself to do so.

Love had made her blind, and the consequences of her refusal to see James as a threat were proving catastrophic. Love had allowed her to be turned into a pawn in a years-long gambit to take that which was most precious to Ithicana.

The bridge.

Wheeling Dippy around, Ahnna headed west toward the towering mountains, on the other side of which was Amarid. Alexandra had been right when she’d said that Ahnna was not her mother. Her mother had dreamed of peace, but Ahnna knew only the nightmare of war. Lived it and breathed it, and there was no one who knew how to defend Ithicana better than she did.

Alexandra knew it. Was prepared for it.

What she wasn’t ready for was Ahnna bringing the fight to the gates of the Sky Palace itself.