The drumbeat seemed to come faster with each step, the musicians signaling the time was close. Luca and Ula were careful to walk shoulder to shoulder, but as they passed the intersection of each row more bodies flooded into their path, bumping, jostling.
Ula lunged a full stride in front of Luca. Physically blocking his body, fingers hovering above the sheath that held Luca’s dagger. The flow bobbed along, the stench of the day heavy. The sword at his back made for natural space, but Luca hooked a thumb under the leather strap crisscrossing the front of his body, as the most casual measure of security he could offer.
Luca’s heart beat faster in time with the quickening drums. But the pace slowed as the fire pit and the Warlord’s tent beyond it neared—rows upon rows emptying into one of the throughways to the pit.
Within minutes, the crowd’s clip was an excruciating crawl.
Half step at a time, heart pumping as if he were running for his life.
Sweat crowding his temples, Luca searched his periphery for other members of the resistance. But instead he found nothing but a wall of bodies. Men, women, children. Some armed, some not. Most were of Torrent, with the same dark hair and burnished skin he carried, golden eyes common, varying shades of brown, too.
He saw himself in every one of them.
Even if in mere moments any one of them might try to kill him.
Luca’s height gave him little advantage here, so many of these men grown like the trees of the Oiartzun Forest, bone thin and always reaching toward the sky. Every bit of energy diverted toward the sun, rather than toward filling out. Yet he could see more than Ula, who plowed forward, eye level with the diaper end of a toddler, strapped carefully to his mother’s back. The golden spire of the Warlord’s tent was ahead and to the extreme right.
“Sera,” he said, tugging Ula’s tunic for her attention, the drums loud enough this close that it felt as if they’d originated within his person. “Head right at the next opportunity, would you?”
For several minutes, one staccato step at a time, they inched closer to the fire pit. When the path opened to a large ring around the pit, it felt as if they’d left behind a creek for a delta, plunging into the open ocean, room to breathe, yet the quarters still close.
They wound around, the drums not pausing between strikes now. Fevered, frenzied. The last warning before the lighting ceremony began.
Ahead, the blue-and-gold promise of the Warlord’s tent. A fire burned from within, smoke exiting the vent at the top. And beside it … Amarande.
She was pressed against the bars on the pit side, her face catching the last strains of the sun’s descent. In that moment, time stopped and Luca did, too. His feet no longer moved; he could not turn away. His heart lurched as if it would plow through Ula’s stitches and sprint straight for Amarande, its owner.
She was beautiful of course—anyone could see that.
But he ran for the girl of his heart. Fierce and loving, and so determined. Her bravery etched in every inch of her body. Hard edges and lemon cake and kisses as soft as rain. Wind-whipped cheeks, and whispered secrets, and the breath knocked from him on the meadow floor, her body pinning him there, her dagger pressed to his throat.
Ula yanked his arm nearly out of its socket in an effort to get his attention. “Even the pretty ones burn all the same. Stop looking at her like that, Miguel; it’s embarrassing.”
He laughed, and flashed his dimples, and did everything else onlookers would expect from a boy caught looking at a beautiful girl. But he couldn’t tear himself away from stealing glances as they moved into position, his body feeling as if it were blowing to ashes, littering the sandy russet earth with each step.
Always, Princess. I love you always. I will come for you always.
I am here for you.
Ula yanked his arm again, this time enough to bend his body to her whispering lips. “You are still looking.”
“I’ve never seen a real-life princess before.” His voice was appropriately strangled, no acting needed.
Ula pointedly rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”
They settled in right where Ula had marked on the hand-drawn map distributed among the resistance members in camp. It put them in close proximity to Amarande’s cart, the Warlord’s tent—should she pull the princess away—and was on slightly higher ground. Plus, they were equidistant between both the lip of the pit and the cart set up outside the Warlord’s aegis as a huge, rolling dais.
Guards lined the dais, all women with swords not unlike Ula’s. They were young, too, probably no older than the Warlord herself. Fierce girls, grown into the role, goaded by equal parts honor and fear, most likely. Luca swallowed—not much unlike the conscripts in Ardenia’s great army.
Then, with a chiming bell, the drums came to an abrupt halt.
The hum and crackle of the crowd, too. A breeze swept through, dormant ash swooping and settling from the sides of the pit, as if the gaping maw were blinking itself out of slumber.
At just the prescribed moment, the Warlord emerged from her tent. She was in yet another shade of electric blue, the crisp waters of the Divide poured into human form in the middle of the desert.
It was striking. And it was meant to be.
The sunset had faded, the stars still shy. The silken fabric pooled and shimmered with the last light before the camp made its own.
The Warlord absorbed that waning light and the silence with her shoulders back and chin jutted out to her people. “Tonight, we—”
“Burn the princess!” a few men shouted.
Laughter erupted. Luca turned away, as if coughing, head over his shoulder. Ula, meanwhile, froze. The joyous noise spread through the crowd, at Amarande’s expense. Until, finally, the Warlord laughed, too—likely a sign she’d spared their lives despite the interruption.
“No, no! Tonight we show Princess Amarande of Ardenia the awesome power of our flames.” The Warlord waved her hands over her head, from her place on the dais, tamping down the tittering wave rolling through the crowd. “Tomorrow, we dangle her life on the doorstep of the Itspi! And if Ardenia cannot comply with our demands?”
“We burn the princess!”
Again, laughter. “No, we burn it all. The Itspi will be the same ash as the Otxazulo. The mountain winds will spread what we’ve done far and wide, and Ardenia will be another piece of the people’s vast empire.”
Laughter gave way to applause. And then chanting. Thousands of voices, clapping and cheering, all within the Warlord’s palm.
“Burn it down! Burn it down! Burn it down!”
Luca’s stomach roiled.
“We have this. Dark. All we need is dark.” Ula’s voice was barely anything at all. But he held on to it, finding Amarande again in her confines. She gripped the bars with both hands, staring daggers at the dais. All her energy and fury targeted at this girl in exactly the way that gave her the power she siphoned. Taillefer sat with his back to the flames. Perhaps he’d hoped he’d been forgotten or was of disinterest.
The Warlord swung her arms above her head again, all her gestures grand for those craning to see. “Tonight, we honor the stars with the lighting of this pit. Our kindling, members of the Serene Caravan, who arrived late to our gathering. When the Warlord issues a decree, I expect full compliance. It endangers all of us when we do not follow the laws of freedom.”
At this, five carts on the end of the row of prisoners were emptied. Members of the caravan were tossed out, into soft ash at the side of the pit. Luca was relieved to see that no children were included. Only adults. It was difficult to gain purchase, and most slid or rolled or were simply pushed down the side to the bottom. They emerged blanketed in ash and pieces of bone.
Ash swirled within the air, wafting up to the crowd before settling back down on the victims. A brave few tried to climb the sides, but most sat in the middle, resigned or too proud to make a show of it.
“Now, I am a woman who does not wish to lose well-meaning people. And so, because I am ben
evolent, and we have guests to entertain—yes, Prince Taillefer of Pyrenee, I have not forgotten you! Yes, that boy believed to be the princess’s guard was actually the young prince in disguise! Curious, no, as last I heard, the princess murdered his brother, the Crown Prince Renard!” The crowd roared—clearly they’d not been privy to that piece of gossip. “Perhaps these two know a good show when they see one, no? And people say politics is boring!”
The Warlord clapped her hands. “Tributes!” She waved to the people below, who peered up at her, weary. “I will spare one of you! To keep your life, all you have to do is survive. Fight to the death—disfigurement, loss of consciousness, and general injury do not count. You have to be the last living, breathing person standing. Go!”
Ula’s breath caught. “Caravans are families. These people are related or know each other well enough that they might as well be. She’s asking them to eat their own.”
Luca swallowed. “And they are.”
Right before their eyes, neighbors turned upon each other. Stealing breath with faces smothered into ash, punches to the gut, kicks to the head, eyes and ears torn at behind furious cries.
Luca’s heart told him he could not look. His head told him he had to. This was what he was trying to stop. This was why he was fighting. So that no ruler could do this nightly, a game, for guests.
Amarande had pulled away from the bars, but her hands still gripped them. Facing forward. Forcing herself to watch, too. To feel the anger well within her, fueling every ounce of desire she had to end it. Or at least that was what he felt. And he knew her well enough to know she felt it, too. Yes, he had to watch.
Five minutes into the horror, the Warlord clapped her hands again. “You’re too slow yet again, Serene Caravan. I rescind my offer.”
Stars, no.
Panic began to rise in Luca as the crowd began to laugh. The Warlord nodded to a soldier to the left of her dais, one of a dozen placed at the intervals of a sundial.
Each man held a jug four hands high. As one, they poured the contents into the pit. Though the liquid appeared as clear as water, the air filled with the sharp scent of something not unlike the sagardon Osana and Urtzi had smartly sprayed at the torch-wielding bandits. This was where Osana had gotten the idea—she’d seen it performed nightly.
Ula smashed her face into his side, as if snuggling up, but the extra fabric of his tunic obscured her view. He put a hand on her shoulder, hoping it would appear loving. Hoping that no one who cared was watching close enough to know their internal terror rather than enjoyment.
The jugs were tossed aside, torches raised in their places.
There was no count. There was no bell or whistle or sign. These men did this every night, a service to their leader.
As one, they thrust the torches into the ashen maw.
The victims who were still able to move ran for it.
But it was no use.
In the space of so many dying screams, the entire pit was engulfed in flame.
CHAPTER 47
IT was worse than the princess could have ever imagined.
Human kindling. Hopes and dreams consumed nightly, reduced to flesh, fat, skin, and sinew, until there was nothing left to burn.
The flames flew through the base of the pit, one hot spot human after another until they were one long, writhing asp, twisted in on itself. The screams left with each new curl and dip in the blaze. They seemed to last longer than the bodies themselves. The shrieking still coming long after each victim was unable to rise from the smoldering ash.
The stench was as unbearable as the heat. The stars and their infernal gases seemingly swooping close enough to skim the contents, water off the top of the stream, solar flare billowing back into the cooling desert night.
Tears flushed Amarande’s eyes as she watched the horror below, the ashen lip of the pit so close she could reach out and touch its crumbling banks. The whoops and cheers of the crowd flooded in as the wailing finally began to cease, the humans below either dead or so close they could not go on. The stars receiving new souls.
Her eyes flashed to the crowd. Their faces backlit by the nearly lost sun. This squirming, serpentine mass, of cheers and sound. So fed by fear and the relief that tonight it wasn’t them that they cheered these deaths as if watching a jousting match or other sport.
Bile clawed at her throat, as she allowed the anger within her to spread.
Her mother had sanctioned this exact horrific display every night for ten years. Presiding over the festivities. Living off the fear. No—thriving on it.
And yet her father did nothing.
“Why, Father. Why?” she whispered. Perhaps not even Taillefer, as close as he was—and silent … perhaps he was enjoying it—could not hear.
And yet a sound answered.
The unmistakable sigh of a blade carving the breath from a man’s throat. One. Two.
Two bodies draped gently on the ground. One. Two.
Amarande tensed, her chin creeping toward her shoulder to look out the opposite bars. But then a whisper.
“Do not look my way, Ama. Do not let on.”
Koldo.
Amarande froze. Every cord in her neck tensed. She pushed out a breath and slowly brought her face back forward. Her mind screamed as loudly as any of the bodies in the pit.
The general needed to leave. Now. The dead guards outside Amarande’s cage would be bad enough. And if Taillefer noticed? Called attention? Koldo would be dead for an outcome that would be the same.
Behind her, Koldo was clearly checking the men’s pockets. Foraging for keys on a ring. Finding nothing. Amarande felt the cart shift on its soft bed of sandy ash as the general’s weight went into standing on the cart edge and leaning into the forged steel locks the Warlord had clearly made from the discarded metal wire pen.
Her dagger picked at the lock. Nothing. She would need the keys or something heavy enough to smash the metal in one go. Even her Basilican steel would take several noisy blows.
Amarande took a chance to implore her to go. “I am already to be delivered to my mother’s feet as blackmail. Having you do it yourself will only be more painful. The result will be the same. Leave.”
The general stepped down from the cart edge and sighed, strained. “I did not come here to hurt you. And I will not leave here without you.”
Koldo was generally one of few words. Economy and efficiency were her hallmarks on every level. And yet she sucked in a breath and cracked open Amarande’s heart with the next whispered blow.
“If we survive, I will explain. If I die in the process, please forgive me without my answers. I have made mistakes, but I have always loved you.”
And then she was gone.
CHAPTER 48
THE Warlord’s horror show was just beginning.
Once the pit was fully lit, it was as if the sun blew out as easily as a candle, the last rays gone over the edge of the Earth’s turn and the far western mountains beyond.
Though they echoed within Luca’s mind, the screams were technically gone—everyone in the pit kindling, their souls lost to the stars, which were revealed with every coming breath. Millions of lives, sprayed into the inky blue above, the moon shy on the horizon.
His eyes found Amarande again.
She hadn’t ever looked away. Only once did she turn her head, briefly. Spit and fury rolling across her features as the flames grew. They were far too close to her wooden box and metal bars than he would prefer.
Taillefer had finally turned around, watching, too. Luca would have expected that sly grin to mount itself on the prince’s face and never leave, but his expression was blank.
Again, the Warlord clapped her hands.
“Now, we have a few questions, for some of our own.” As she paced the dais, two of the women in her cadre of guards opened the cage next to Amarande’s. On each short end, the guard had to climb atop the wheel-less base, and lean into the keyhole of a giant lock. It was difficult to see from their current angle, bu
t Luca took it all in, knowing Amarande’s cage had the same or worse.
The wood-paneled side popped open and swung down into a ramp. On either side, a woman walked down and into the firelight. The guards ran the women right up to the edge, the ground sloughing off the side under their weight, more ashen sand into the pit. The women tried to inch their way back, balance starting to go, but the guards held fast, not letting them move anywhere.
The flames danced before them, and Luca’s heart plummeted to his boots.
“That’s Naiara.” His eyes shifted to the victim on the other side. “And her apprentice—Señe.”
In her cage, Amarande seemed to realize it, too, one hand to her mouth now, as if stifling a scream. Any action would condemn the woman at a swifter pace. Nothing could save her.
“This can’t happen,” Luca whispered to himself more than Ula.
She answered anyway. “It’s going to. The Warlord does not deal in mercy.”
He shook his head, though he knew Ula was right.
Naiara had saved his life. And countless others, to be sure.
He could not let this happen.
He would not let this happen.
Stableboys could be chosen ones. Heroes, even. But what kind of hero did not try to save a good person’s life?
On the dais, the Warlord leaned against the railing. She smiled at the healers, who did not look at her. They did not even look in the pit. Naiara watched the stars with determination. Señe’s eyes, though, were tightly closed, her shoulders quaking.
“Where is Luca?” The Warlord’s first question seemed to echo off the distant mountains, irritation already in her tone. “Where is the Otsakumea?”
A sob escaped Señe’s lips, but no more. Naiara did not even flinch—silently, she watched the stars. Praying, perhaps, her lips moving in the leaping flames’ illumination.
The Warlord did not appreciate the silence. “Old woman, you called his name. You referenced the princess in our company, who is known to be his companion. Where is he?”
When they did not answer, the guard behind Señe shoved the girl. The apprentice’s eyes shot open as she lunged forward, bare foot suspended over the pit for one sick moment as she cried out. The guard at her back grabbed her arm to keep her from falling in, but the torque of it all meant both feet lost purchase and she was left dangling against the soft bank of the pit. Flames licked at her feet and trousers, the ash clearly hot as she tried to pull her way up the guard’s grip.
The Queen Will Betray You Page 28