From their location, they had a straight shot to the fire pit, the Warlord’s tent, and the prison carts, all nicely lined up around the ashen lip. Easy kindling for the great flames.
Luca had heard the Warlord’s threat with his own ears, yes. But he would not put it past a power-hungry woman like that not to abandon her own plan and toss Amarande to her death simply for the spectacle. His was a heart that always bent toward the greater good, but by necessity he had to plan for the greater evil and all its whims.
Tonight. Tomorrow. Ever after with Amarande. If all went as planned.
Under the tight panel of linen wrapping his stitched skin and back wound, his breath caught. How had Koldo done this for twenty years? The buildup, the climax and plans and actions of others one could not control? It all felt as if they’d made camp atop the Innkeeper’s vaunted compost pile, grains of sands pulling them to the stars above, or destiny for the ages.
“Miguel, my hands are full!” Ula called from outside the carriage.
Luca undid the latch and held the entrance flap as she shouldered in with a jug of water from the Warlord’s rationed supply, and two plates of stewed meat; cured olives, briny with vinegar; and a pair of small bread loaves, piping hot.
Luca took the plates and set them down as she reached within the folds of her tunic and pulled out a small map. “Petri is off with the map and instructions. Everything will be in its place.” That was a relief—they weren’t sure they’d be able to get a rider out while escaping notice. Ula gestured to the plate before him. “Here, eat.”
Luca didn’t move to feed himself. “And Ama?”
“Tiger in a cage. As gorgeous and deadly as ever.”
Luca’s dimples flashed. “Rub it in that I can’t see her for myself, will you?”
“Had to.” Ula grinned, pouring herself a cup of water as she rattled off all she’d observed. “Injured hand, no weapons, cell cart mates with Taillefer. I didn’t get too close because she had a crowd.”
Of course.
“They took the wheels off her carriage. The other cell carts, too. Locks and guards. Don’t want any Ardenia-hating idiot tipping her into the fire if she’s the ticket to an empire.”
“Or they want to have enough people around to heave her in if her mother doesn’t agree to the Warlord’s terms.”
She mock gasped. “Look at you with the dark thoughts—I never thought I’d see the day.”
Optimism, which had always colored his world, had most definitely taken on a new shade of late. Luca was unsure if he’d actually changed or if the shift in perspective gained through his recent past had darkened the corners.
“It’s hard to see the best in people when those jockeying for power intend to show you their worst.”
“Eyes on the prize, Miguel.” She tossed an olive at him. “When their backs are turned and their eyes blinded by their precious fire, our blades will be ready.”
CHAPTER 44
IT had been days and King Ferdinand was still thinking.
About war—it was certainly coming.
The caracaras—winged messengers—from the watchers in the Warlord’s ring were definitive. Queen Inés had murdered nearly everyone in sight at her wedding. Although she had captured three crowns, her first order of business was to collect a fourth.
In less than a day, her armada would arrive in the port carrying her combined armies whose manpower, if not skill, eclipsed that of Ardenia’s famed army. Which was currently spread thin across three borders. Well, two—the soldiers keeping watch over Myrcell had arrived at the castle. And though these soldiers were of the caliber only Sendoa and Koldo could have created, they weren’t enough.
Not to fortify the port. Not to fortify the castle. And definitely not both at once.
No matter how superior, how well trained, there was no way for the Ardenian army to win against an opponent at least three times its size, if not more.
Ferdinand had laid the whole scenario out on a large table in the king’s sitting room with his father’s maps and figurines—Bear, Mountain Lion, Shark, Tiger—and guessed at the numbers. He had his father’s estimates of the other kingdoms’ resources in the records he found in the library, but Ferdinand did not know how many enemy soldiers sat at the borders, staring down Koldo’s regiments. Or how many had been present at the wedding of Domingu and Inés. Defection was possible, too—these men had offered their lives to fight for King Domingu and King Akil, not the woman who had poisoned their wine and slit the throat of anyone who did not bend the knee.
Ferdinand knew that life. He did not want it back.
If only Koldo were here. She would know what to do. For twenty years, she had been at Sendoa’s side as they built one of the most dominant military forces ever raised on the continent of Sand and Sky. He was a fifteen-year-old boy pushing figurines about a map in the chambers of the father he never knew between sparring sessions with a mother who’d spent the majority of his life ruling through fear and intimidation—even though she called it love.
Ferdinand shot to his feet. Leaving the maps and strategies and unanswered questions in his sitting room, he struck out for his balcony. The sun had nearly set over the mountains, bathing their peaks in a rich, honeyed afterglow.
It would’ve been beautiful if it didn’t feel like the cusp of the world’s end.
Only days ago, Ferdinand had believed all these new, uncovered truths about his parentage would help bring safety and stability to this dazzling place. But that scenario had bobbled and crashed the moment Amarande returned and the lies began.
A king in name but nothing else. A figurehead whose only role was to legitimize orders filtered through Geneva’s ambitions and his council’s goals.
He literally didn’t have the keys to his own kingdom.
And for that Osana suffered—he’d already tried more than once to order her release, but Geneva blocked his every attempt. The Queen Mother clearly suspected that the relationship they’d forged in the caravan was more than just friendship. The woman knew everything—it was easy to assume she knew that, too. The assignment of Osana to watcher and spy—posing as a hostage—had occurred only a week after Ferdinand worked up the courage to hold her hand one night after supper.
Ferdinand leaned heavily on the parapet of his balcony, willing a savior to come. Koldo, with her measured confidence and experience. Or perhaps the ghost of King Sendoa—the great Warrior King, eager to defend his people, castle, and legacy from even the star-bound afterlife. Or Amarande—she’d gleaned wisdom from both of them and she loved Ardenia more than anyone he knew. If only—
A sound came from his chambers beyond, wrenching him from spiraling thoughts.
“Ferdi!” Geneva called, the massive doors to his quarters crashing closed. She was the only one who would enter the king’s quarters in that way or call him that. “Are you outside? Come in here!”
And her tone was absolutely joyous. That did not bode well in his experience.
Ferdinand reluctantly reentered the sitting room to find the Queen Mother sprawled on the divan, awaiting him as if she were the host and he the visitor. For once, she did not complain about King Sendoa’s vintage furnishings. She was too busy positively grinning.
The Queen Mother held out a slip of parchment, as if it were the most delicious morsel. “My love! Such good news.”
She’d always been this way with political snippets sent from watchers in various kingdoms. A spectator as if in sport, devouring each morsel of information from them all—Ardenia, Basilica, Pyrenee, and Myrcell.
Marriages. Deaths. Raids. Failed crops. Pirates. New trade routes.
She savored all these tidbits with equal epicurean delight.
When word had come of Amarande stealing Renard’s own sword from his scabbard and threatening him with it while giving an impassioned speech about marriage and consent in front of the open casket of King Sendoa? Geneva had literally pantomimed the whole thing for anyone who visited the Warlord’s tent over
the next several hours.
Then word came of Amarande’s disappearance, and suddenly he wasn’t just privy to Geneva’s political conjecture, he was a key player. With whispers only afforded in the Warlord’s tent, she shared in exquisite detail the marrow-shaking truth of his father’s name, her past life, and the unique position they could achieve through the right alliance with the woman who bore him.
Now she jiggled this fresh morsel of news in his direction, as if he wasn’t accepting it fast enough. “Read it, come now, don’t make me wait any longer.”
“News from the caravan?” The absence of the councilors made it a decent guess.
He plucked it from her fingers, but before he even had a chance to unfold the message she was already divulging its contents.
“Celia is headed here. With Amarande.”
Ferdinand’s heart skid to a stop. He’d wanted a savior to arrive, and instead an added disaster was rumbling toward the castle. “What?”
“She captured both Amarande and Taillefer at the Hand. You’ll see she is demanding I cede permanent power in exchange for your sister.”
Ferdinand blinked at Geneva, trying to read into her thoughts and how she might respond. Though he knew her better than anyone else in the world, he was completely uncertain as to her next course of action. “What will you do?”
She examined her nails and sighed as if she hadn’t already made up her mind. “If I don’t, I’m sure she’ll march down to the port to greet Inés with yet another weapon to add to her arsenal. And Inés will take it.”
Ferdinand did not blink. His mother would not cede power. Ever.
Since the first whispers of Amarande’s disappearance, Geneva’s plan had remained the same: Stabilize and gain full control of Ardenia, then properly, publicly, claim the Torrent.
A wise set of ideas until Amarande arrived and the Otsakumea was confirmed to not only exist but also be activating his base.
“Don’t look so distraught, Ferdinand; I won’t waste time negotiating. I’ll simply steal back Amarande and repay Celia’s demands with a knife to the throat and a call to the caravan to help fortify the Itspi’s walls.”
That was not the decision he’d expected. It was too overt. “You … would kill Celia and admit to your role as the Warlord simply to add more numbers to our army?”
“Not ‘simply.’ I can’t leave someone who would make such a bold and foolhardy move in power. She’s not fit to be Warlord. Obviously, I misjudged my nieces. First Osana, running off with Amarande. And now Celia. The whole line is out for themselves. My elder brother failed to raise them properly, or perhaps it was the fault of that social-climbing wife of his. Who’s to say?”
Ferdinand swallowed. “What if it is a trap? What if she’s aiming to draw you out to kill you and claim power that way?” Then he added, “It is something you would do—and she learned from you.”
Geneva smirked. “Of course she learned it from me and of course it’s a trap. She knows I will agree to the covert exchange in order to keep my identity as Warlord a secret.”
He nodded. “Then we must work with what she expects but not do what she wants.”
The Queen Mother’s eyes sparked with approval. She sat straighter on the divan and covered his hand with hers. “Go on. What do you have in mind, my king?”
His eyes settled on the figurine of a roaring tiger standing atop the Itspi drawn on his father’s map, staring down the port. More tigers were deployed along Ardenia’s borders, facing off against ranks and ranks of bears and sharks to the south and many more mountain lions to the north.
No, Geneva did not trust him to have the keys to the castle. But Ferdinand still had plenty to work with.
“I will ride out to meet Celia and her party, Mother.” Her eyes lit up—as he knew they would. “She’s expecting a covert exchange. But what if I arrive, a king with Ardenian soldiers at my sides and her sister Osana for trade?”
“Yes, yes, go on.” Geneva got up from the divan and started pacing as Ferdinand continued, laying out his plan.
“Celia won’t expect it, she’ll be frazzled, and our men will do anything to retrieve the Warrior King’s daughter, miraculously alive. We can announce that we’ve vanquished the Warlord and thus gained control of the Torrent and capture Taillefer, too, both of which will surprise and frustrate Inés. Not to mention provide cover for Amarande’s reappearance from the seeming dead.”
Geneva approached Ferdinand, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him soundly on the cheek. “And both stories will be confirmed by long-serving Ardenian soldiers of the most unimpeachable honor.”
She tousled his hair as if he were ten years younger and smiled in satisfaction. “I do not care whose son you are, you get your head for strategy from me.”
CHAPTER 45
THE intimidation was working.
Amarande sat in her wooden cage, staring at the vast dregs of the fire pit.
A city had once stood here. And now it was nothing but a crater of charred bones and dreams. Everything gone black, decayed. Gone.
Tonight, it would feed on more lives. Send more souls to the stars.
How many lives would it ingest in a single night? A handful? A dozen?
All the prison carts were strung side by side along this face of the pit—the Warlord had confirmed this was a new setup. Inspired by Amarande’s escape with Osana. No more wire and chains. Now carts with removable wheels and built-in dramatics.
Amarande couldn’t watch the other captives, their faces and fears pressed to the bars. Their cries sounded in her ears, yet died in the pit before reaching the other side.
She’d tried to turn completely around, her back to the pit. But the opposite side held a different type of horror. Visitors peering around the guards who stood sentry, for a glimpse at the Princess of Ardenia. Lobbing insults at her, and questions about her relationship with “the wolf cub” and if she’d truly spent her entire life locked in a tower, imprisoned for the Runaway Queen’s misdeeds.
Taillefer did not seem to be of much interest. Perhaps everyone but the Warlord really did think he was a castle guard.
And so Amarande turned her back to the insults and stared out at the pit.
It was indeed the location of her last stand with Luca before giving in to Renard’s demands. Choosing surrender rather than a fight that might have killed them both, or at least her—Renard had made it clear he would let Luca live long enough to take the blame for her death as well as her disappearance.
Their horse’s galloping steps were perfectly intact and visible across the bowl, a huge divot at the base of the fire pit where their horse had stumbled while trying to flee. A deep crescent faced opposite their hard landing, a remnant of Renard’s party. If the angle were better, she might be able to count all seventeen sets of horse tracks, or however many there had been.
What would’ve happened if she’d fought then?
Would she be dead? Would she still have killed Renard? Taillefer? All of them? And have been locked in a tower at the Itspi by someone whom she had always loved like a mother, a brother whose existence she had never even suspected, and her real mother, returned from the dead.
Her father and his tenets appeared to her then, dormant for so long.
Always forward, never back.
Did he truly always look forward and never back? Even when her mother left them? Surely he had a pile of mistakes as large as his victories. Mistakes were the seeds of regrets. Weren’t they?
How could one truly live and not wish for some things to go differently?
Wasn’t that how you became a better leader? A better person? By learning from your mistakes and the residue they left on your soul in the form of regret?
But just as with her father’s plans for her future, for Luca’s future, for all her father had taught her, she was simply left with questions. Questions, piled so high now, they towered over her, closer to her father in the stars than her world on the continent.
The
Warlord’s bell clanged across the camp.
The fire drums began.
The princess opened her eyes.
CHAPTER 46
AT the sound of the drums, Luca peered out into the falling night.
He wore the filthy, wide-brimmed hat he’d donned that morning. New tunic and pants, though—all the same sandblasted fabric. Ula’s kerchief was gone, and her usual braids were in place. She’d switched to a different tunic from the one she’d worn while picking up food and surveying the camp. Again, she wore his dagger and he carried her sword. This was necessary to avoid attention, but that didn’t mean Ula appreciated it much. “You are the only man I would let touch that sword without first feeling the power of its blade across your skin.”
“You forget that I’ve had it pointed straight at my heart.”
“Didn’t draw blood.”
“I will treat it kindly,” he assured her, stepping out of the carriage.
“You better, Miguel.”
The drumbeat fell in a relaxed rhythm, a heartbeat to the teeming masses traveling as one under the Warlord’s flag. A city had once stood here of stone and memories, but in only a few hours a fresh one had risen, thousands strong. The sheer vastness of it all was just as impressive as the surprise of a city’s worth of rebels living underground.
It might be that optimism that he wore with his heart on his sleeve, but not-so-deep down, Luca hoped these people would be spared. They’d already given so much to fear, fighting for the person who wielded it against them felt like the cruelest way to die.
No, more cruel still, they would die enveloped in a lie.
The Warlord was a symbol, no more than the one on his chest. But where his tattoo told a long-lost truth, this Warlord would stand in front of the crowd tonight, elevated by power she did not actually possess. This Warlord lied to her people as much as the one who sat beside Ardenia’s throne, pulling strings.
The Queen Will Betray You Page 27