The Queen Will Betray You

by Sarah Henning

  “Koldo, she won’t care either way. She will kill him. She will kill Geneva, and then she’ll kill me, and Luca, too. It does not matter who she thinks has the power; she will strike out all the possibilities and take it for herself. The covenants of the Sand and Sky are broken, and no longer matter. All we can do is oppose her.”

  The general shook her head. “Or Geneva will take a run at her, using Ferdinand as a shield. Geneva will assume she still has her puppet here—there will be no one to send a caracara with news of this battle. Secure in her power through Ferdinand, Geneva will challenge Inés. She likely has more claim to Basilica than Inés does through paperwork.”

  This was true. Amarande herself likely had a better claim than Inés to the right ears within Basilica, and that was through Geneva’s Basilican blood.

  “And,” the general continued, the uneasy shock on Koldo’s face giving way to battle-worn sight for the lay of the land, political and otherwise, “if Geneva somehow gets her hands on Taillefer, she could use him to put Inés’s claim of Pyrenee on shaky ground. Conquest steals crowns, but blood is often hard to challenge.”

  “Unless you’re a woman. Then a bastard boy is easier to install.”

  Amarande did not state it in a cutting manner, just as the truth. But tears formed in Koldo’s eyes. “Yes.”

  Amarande watched as this woman, whom she’d never seen shed a tear until her father’s death, began to shake, wetness growing along her eyelashes as she dropped her chin to her chest. Koldo drew in a steadying breath, and when she spoke it was with the precision of the soldier who had been the princess’s surrogate mother. Always so strong, sturdy, direct. Even, it seemed, when she was falling apart.

  “Princess, your father always had a plan.”

  All the air left Amarande’s lungs.

  Her injured hand scrabbled to her waistband. “Before Father’s death, was he planning to go to war with the Warlord?” She pulled the map free, unfolding it. “See this? It’s clear Father knew who Luca was. He knew Geneva was the Warlord. If he knew Geneva was here, he had to know about Ferdinand. What did he want? Why didn’t I—”

  Koldo cut her off with a gentle press of a finger to Amarande’s lips. “Princess, your father always had a plan,” she repeated, tears falling now. “For you. For Luca—for me, even. The only time his plans ever failed was when they were not followed.”

  Amarande tore herself away from the general’s touch. “I would’ve followed! I would have done what he wanted. Luca would have, too, if we had only known. I knew he had to have a plan, but he never told me.” Her voice shook. “How am I supposed to follow it if I don’t know?”

  The general took a deep breath and slipped a hand into her tunic. In one smooth motion, she revealed her own square of parchment. Not a map. Something else.

  “Your father always had a plan for succession. I’ve had it with me since I left the Itspi in the days after your father died. I’ve been quite concerned someone—specifically Satordi, but now Geneva—might burn it.”

  She unfolded the parchment, the last bits of a wax seal crumbling off the tip of the paper with the movement, and offered it to Amarande.

  “Princess, your father saw greatness in you every day. He protected you in so many ways I cannot begin to count.” She nodded to the paper. “He always intended you to rule. He knew the complications that wish would create. The plan was never Ferdinand; it was always you. Of all his plans, you were his best one, and I failed you both by thinking I could repair it myself.”

  The Day of King Sendoa’s Death

  LESS than an hour after the lifeless body of King Sendoa arrived at the Itspi, the Royal Council of Ardenia convened within the castle’s north tower. Councilors Satordi, Garbine, and Joseba seated themselves in their usual spots, right in a row.

  The king’s roaring tiger chair at the head of the table gravely empty.

  And, standing stiffly at attention at the room’s entrance, General Koldo. Not changed from her dusty uniform. Eyes red and swollen from a deluge of tears unlike any she had experienced in the past fifteen years.

  The general approached the table, which held a single guest chair. Tiger’s head carved into the back, but a world less ornate than Sendoa’s former seat. “You did not invite the princess?”

  Satordi straightened. No eye contact. “It is not appropriate for her to be here. Not yet. This is no place for a child.”

  Though he was too cowardly to look at her, Koldo bared her teeth. This man would fear her frustration with a turn of tension he could not mute. “She is the last blood of Ardenia; she should have at least been invited.”

  Satordi shuffled the papers in front of him. Slim neck trembling over the bob of his throat. “If you would like to drag her crying from her quarters to the next meeting, you are welcome to do so. I have no time for such hysterics. We must get to the bottom of this.”

  Koldo stared back at the man with as much vitriol as she had left. “Then let’s. We should read the will.”

  The general took the single seat across the table.

  Now that they were on the same level, Satordi hazarded a look at her. Setting the tone, running the meeting, that was all this man knew in Koldo’s estimation. He believed he had power, but he only sat in close proximity. “First, I have a few questions for you, General Koldo, who was within three feet of our king as he died of seemingly nothing at all.”

  Koldo simply stared back at him. Waiting.

  The other councilors remained silent and still. “General,” Satordi said, “did the king share any information with you that you believe could have led to regicide?”

  Koldo said nothing.

  “General?”

  “I do not believe so. No.”

  “It is your opinion that King Sendoa died of natural causes?”

  Again, Koldo said nothing.

  Satordi inhaled thinly. The afternoon light shifted, wind and shadow playing beyond the heaviness within the Itspi. “I shall take that answer as a yes.”

  “No,” the general corrected, curtly. “It appeared to be, but I do not believe it was.”

  The councilor pursed his thin lips. “Fine. If you would like me to understand you the first time, please answer my next question to the fullest of your ability. General, I realize you’ve had a shock, but unless you answer me with words, there is very little I can do to amend this situation.”

  Sendoa was dead. There was no amendment to that. Just stars and rot.

  “General, is there anyone who would wish to see our king dead?”

  There was no shortage. Not really. So many of those who owed their crowns to the Warrior King had obvious motivations if exposed to the right light.

  Bear. Shark. Mountain Lion. And the monster in the desert most of all.

  “Yes.”

  Satordi’s brows arched to the remains of his hair. “Would you care to elaborate?”

  “He is—was—the protector of the Sand and Sky. Every king on this continent owes his neck and crown to Sendoa—”

  “That should prevent—”

  “I was not finished, Councilor.” Koldo stared daggers at Satordi. When his thin lips snapped shut, she continued. “After years of this protection, it is likely that some may have believed he could steal their crowns as easily as he could save them.”

  Garbine was aghast. “Our king never seriously looked at seizing the whole continent. There are some who might angle for that”—some, meaning Domingu—“but Sendoa would have never, and unless you have knowledge otherwise, General, I take that as an offense to my king, whose body is not yet cold.”

  Koldo held up a hand, glove shedding fine windblown mountain grit. “King Sendoa would not have done such a thing and I was not suggesting he would. I was suggesting others thought he would because he could. His reputation itself was a constant, pressing threat to his very life.”

  Silence fell over the room.

  In answer, Satordi gestured to the youngest councilor. “Joseba, read the will.”<
br />
  Doing as he was tasked, the young councilor took a letter opener to the seal, the king’s garnet wax—tiger’s head inlay, naturally—flaking to the table. Joseba unfurled the parchment, short as it was, and read the entirety of the page aloud, in a clear, crisp voice.

  “I, Sendoa, Warrior King of the Sovereign Kingdom of Ardenia, claim the following to be my last will and testament. I decree that, upon my untimely death, my daughter, Princess Amarande of the Sovereign Kingdom of Ardenia, is until her marriage named regent of the kingdom in my stead.

  “If Princess Amarande should be incapacitated, pass to the stars along with me or before her marriage and the end of regency, I decree that my right hand, General Koldo, should be named regent and protector of the Sovereign Kingdom of Ardenia.

  “These wishes are unusual, of that I am aware, though I make them of sound mind and body and with the best interests of Ardenia at heart. I believe any other route would result in the end of our beloved kingdom. If the climate on the continent were something other than its current state, I would wish that my daughter rule without marriage as a prerequisite. I have long thought to garner support to change this unfortunate law, but believe perhaps even making such a simple request of the current ruling body would leave me ripe for assassination.”

  Joseba paused for a moment and then said, in a much more timid tone, “That is it. Simply a signature and a date—summer, nine years ago.”

  The young councilor flipped the page around as if to prove it—and Koldo’s attention settled on the king’s signature and the numbers comprising the date.

  Almost exactly a week after Sendoa’s meeting with the Warlord.

  The king had asked Koldo to marry him yet again that week. And, still raw from seeing her son in the flesh, and in the Warlord’s possession, she’d said no. Again. As always.

  “Let me see that!” Satordi spit. He plucked it from Joseba’s hands. The lead councilor devoured the page for a long moment as he reread every word more than once, eyes combing the knife-slash script.

  Satordi dropped the parchment as if it were hot—and Garbine slid it her way with a gloved hand as the lead councilor sputtered. “Sendoa may have aimed to prevent war with this declaration, but it will start one. No one will allow it. No one.”

  Koldo leaned forward, that anger within her rising again. “Why must we let them allow it? It was his wish and it contradicts no Sand and Sky legislation, or decree. He meant to go around the bureaucracy and he did.”

  Satordi shook his head. “Regency by definition is not permanent.”

  “It is permanent if we state it is permanent.” Koldo stood and snatched the paper from Garbine’s hands, dangling in front of the council. “Sendoa declared it is permanent and so it is permanent. Do you dare defy our king?”

  Satordi flung a frustrated gesture in Koldo’s direction. “I will defy him if it means war. Something you should care very much about, General. Do you have the soldiers to protect our borders in a long, protracted attack from three sides, the Torrent—because someone will use it—and the sea?”

  “No.”

  “That is what I thought.” Satordi took back the paper. “Our king meant well, but the best thing we can do is to do as is customary. Marry off our princess so that she may access her power and hope for the best.”

  “There is nothing customary about a kingdom with a sole female heir.” Koldo flung a hand right back at the man. “There has not been a situation like this in a thousand years. You are putting our princess to the gallows. War may begin simply with her choice.”

  Satordi was unmoved.

  “We will make the choice for her. Weigh the options. Do what is best for the kingdom. Stave off war.”

  Koldo shook her head. “And what if one of our union kingdoms murdered our king to set this into motion? What then? Sendoa claimed it in his own words—he believed it to be a very good possibility or he would have asked for a change in law. He knew his situation could mean his death. Just as I suspected.”

  “You are right, General Koldo. But it cannot be undone. All we can do is mitigate it.” Now Satordi made eye contact. “And you must prepare in case we don’t. Conscription at a faster rate. Promotions. Reinforcements.”

  After a long pause, Koldo nodded. As much as she did not like any of this, he was right.

  But that was not all that must be mitigated. “And what do we do until she’s wed? She will not accept any of this. She will want an investigation. To challenge the law. She will challenge any regent you choose—”

  “Would she challenge you?” Garbine asked. Koldo’s attention snapped to the old woman, completely taken off guard by her question. The councilor continued. “If we made you regent, until she’s married, would she object, General?”

  “Over any of you? No. But how would that be better? How would that protect Ardenia from what our king feared? Or the princess?”

  “It wouldn’t,” Joseba answered. “But given the circumstances, you must concur this is our best hope.”

  Koldo laid eyes on the young councilor, not much older than the princess in question. He could barely look her in the eye in return. “Hope is not a plan.”

  “General, I agree,” Satordi said, smoothing Sendoa’s last will and testament against the heavy polished wood of the table, “but in this case, hope may be all we’ve got.”

  Sendoa had a plan.

  He always had a plan.

  And though General Koldo hated to go against his wishes with every fiber of her being, she knew deep down they were right.

  The status quo, no matter how unusual it was on their end, would be the best scenario to avoid the end of Ardenia.

  But the general knew how to make a plan, too.

  CHAPTER 53

  AMARANDE sat with her father’s last will and testament in her shaking fingers for several minutes. Koldo did not prod. Instead, she kept her attention on their surroundings, tracking movement. Looking for trouble. All the things she was trained to do.

  After a long moment, Amarande finally spoke. “Father wanted me to be queen, but knew it could not happen peacefully.”

  Koldo shook her head. “Not with the makeup of the continent, no.”

  “And so he made me regent of my own kingdom? But the council did not believe that wise?” Of course they wouldn’t—this was the most easy-to-understand piece of it all. Satordi should rot. “And you agreed?”

  The general shifted, setting her own back against the wheel of the cart. Ula had not yet returned, nor had Luca, and though the night had become much quieter, Koldo’s eyes roved the darkness once more before she leaned in, voice low.

  “I agreed because I knew bucking the laws as written would mean war. What I didn’t know was that it would happen anyway. Like this—three kings dead, two queens standing. And make no mistake, Geneva considers herself queen. She is Queen Mother only in name. She defies Ferdinand’s suggestions at every turn.”

  “You did not account for that.”

  “No.”

  It was equally likely that much of Geneva’s confidence came from the power she had tangentially in the Torrent. She would have reacted poorly to her puppet announcing her intentions for power so publicly at the door of what Geneva was attempting to make a legitimate seat of power.

  Amarande did not agree with the council on many things, but she did wonder perhaps if knowing what Geneva had been up to all these years would have an effect on the amount of contact they gave her with their new king.

  “No,” Koldo repeated. “I did not account for that or for other surprises that came later. I did not account for the kidnapping of Luca to sway your hand. I did not account for your disappearance. I did not account for Geneva’s announcement that she was bringing Ferdinand home. I did not account for the council actually moving forward with her plan.” The general drew in a shaky breath. “I spent my life winning battles on my brawn, and avoiding them altogether as much as possible with my brain, and I’m afraid I have let you down. I have let my
son down. And I have let Sendoa down.”

  Amarande’s head spun with the facets here—all the sides of the diamond, just as her father had explained with so much relish. Every side reflected something new—a new motivation, point of view, decision, lie, truth.

  “You did not answer my questions earlier,” Amarande said, finally, quietly. “Did Father know about Ferdinand?” She gestured to her father’s map. “Even though he knew Geneva was Warlord and planned to overtake her? With Luca. Yes? Why?”

  Koldo smiled sadly. “Your father did not know about Ferdinand. If he knew I was pregnant, he never let on. When it became something I could no longer disguise, I feigned injury during the Divide Conflict, and returned to the Itspi to hide.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him? Then? Or after? He loved you. He could not help without knowing.”

  “I was too afraid of what would happen. To Sendoa. To you. And so I never said anything. Not when my son was stolen away the night your mother disappeared. Not when the first letter from her arrived.” Letters, of course. Blackmail. “I was in such disbelief that he was still alive, it felt like a reward for my silence. If I spoke it into the air, it felt as if he’d be taken from me again. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “When did you find out she was here? If you knew she’d become the Warlord, couldn’t you have rescued him as you rescued me?”

  “I didn’t know where she’d gone, not until we visited the Warlord’s camp.” She nodded at the will. “The week that will was written, I was with your father when he met with the Warlord. As I waited for him, I saw a boy who had to be my son running the grounds and trying to push into the Warlord’s tent. It was obvious that she was hiding in the caravan. And when Sendoa left his meeting with slashes across his cheeks and news that we would no longer pursue relations with the Torrent, I knew she was not simply the Warlord’s guest; she was the Warlord herself. The title had passed.”