Broken Throne by Victoria Aveyard

Author:Victoria Aveyard [Aveyard, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2019-05-06T18:30:00+00:00

FIVE

Ashe

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

I should throw her in the river and be done with it. Leave her to splash around until her prince fishes her out. Get her away from my keel and my crew. And somehow I just can’t damn do it. Riette and Gill keep watching me like I’m insane. Big Ean has a stupid grin wider than he is. All three of them are probably thinking the same thing. That I’m smitten with the infernal Silver nuisance, and willing to risk all our lives to get her where she needs to go.

Just the accusation, even unspoken, makes me itch.

Easy job, easy river.

Well, this is a difficult fucking job on a suddenly difficult fucking river.

I decide to put as much distance between us as I can, leaving her to watch the stern while I patrol the bow. I point out rocks and errant obstacles on the current far more than I should, especially for Riette and Gill. They’re good enough to ignore my nerves, letting me nanny them through the next few bends.

The sun dips ahead of us, approaching the western horizon. The trees thicken on the Freeland bank, and the Lakeland fields, open and empty, stretch to the north. The current quickens beneath us. Every second feels stolen and each breath is a gasp.

We should be at the confluence by morning, and that’s where I’ll leave her for good. There’s no way I’m taking her to the Gates like this, not with a Lakelander prince lurking river knows where, hunting our ship. He could dry up the riverbed for all I know, leave us stranded in the mud to pick off as he likes. Silvers have done worse. I know it. I’ve seen it firsthand. We aren’t human to them. We’re just things to be used and discarded.

That’s how she sees us. That’s why she’s here, to use us to get downriver.

So why save the kid?

She jumped into the river knowing a nymph was waiting for her, ready to drown her or drag her away. All for some quiet Red kid she didn’t know from a stump. A Red servant’s son, nothing and no one. And a Silver princess jumped into that water to save him, knowing what it could do to her. Knowing the danger. I can’t shake it from my brain, what a risk she took, and for who.

I almost wish she hadn’t. Then I wouldn’t care what happens to her.

I shake my head. Ludicrous.

I’ll dump her at the confluence docks when the borders open up. I’ll give her a chance.

The chance she never gave us.

At the stern, she keeps her back to the keel, vigilant as a watchtower. If only I’d left her ratting on the Ohius docks, begging for passage with the rest. She’d be someone else’s problem instead of mine.

Or she’d be as good as dead, chained to a cruel man, with no life but a cage.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

When I was young, my mother read me stories from her old collection of books.

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