This was the perfect opening, almost as if Inés had written it herself. She stood, and with a flourish, produced two scrolls, held high for all to see.
“I have news regarding my leadership and strengthening Pyrenee’s position within the Sand and Sky—regardless of Ardenia’s plans.” She distributed the scrolls to her immediate neighbors. “This is a signed contract and an identical copy. The original was delivered this morning directly from King Domingu, confirming our intent to wed.”
The table gasped. One of the men spoke—typical, given the question and the general tone of disapproval in the noise preceding it. “But the king is already married.”
“He has very recently become a widower for the fifth time.” The Dowager Queen let that meaning hang.
“But we should negotiate.…” This from her master of coin. Of course.
“The negotiation has already been completed. What you see is the final contract.” Chairs scraped back from the table, some advisors getting up to read over the shoulders of those who obtained the parchment first.
After the quiet settled for a few minutes and more people read the terms, the Dowager Queen spoke again. “We leave for Basilica as soon as Captain Nikola presents a plan. Our kingdoms will be joined in a few days’ time. And if Ardenia protests, it shall face the rebuke of our two armies and likely Myrcell’s, as well. After what Princess Amarande did to our beloved Renard, that kingdom has no leg on which to stand.”
Laurent had the stones to question her, his sour expression remaining unmoved as he spoke. “Your Highness, while I do appreciate your quick response upon the matter of our rocked throne, I would like to point out that we should deal with Ardenia first—if that kingdom is threatened, it will attack, whether the princess is within the Itspi’s walls or not.”
“There is more than one way to make Ardenia suffer, and this wedding is my first strike,” Inés answered, with a raised brow and fork. “It will put Ardenia in the position of picking a fight against two kingdoms rather than one, all while in the headless throes of regency.”
Laurent did not budge. “It is a good union and will certainly make a statement to Ardenia, but I am compelled to argue that it is perhaps unwise to become betrothed to a man who killed his own brother to win the throne and has a habit of burying his wives.”
Inés speared a hunk of venison, holding it impaled on her fork—literal dead meat—before answering the old man.
“With all the respect you have not given me, Laurent, you do not understand what a woman can do within the right union. And King Domingu has never had a wife like me.”
CHAPTER 4
WELCOME bells did not greet the princess as she approached the Itspi.
Dusk had fully taken hold, and though Amarande knew guardsmen could likely only see clearly the ghostly white flash of her horse, she was still somewhat disappointed.
Amarande dug her boot heels into the gelding’s flanks.
The entrance was sealed and manned by four guards. Sconces illuminated the touches of gold on their uniforms and the twin Ardenian tigers roaring in tandem from the gate door. Garnets and diamonds twinkled from the animals’ eyes—a sight foreign to the princess. The gate had never been sealed with her on the outside.
Closing the gate and arming the exterior was what one would do at war.
“Halt! Rider, announce your intentions,” a guardswoman ordered.
Amarande nearly thought it was a joke—surely they recognized her at this distance. She nosed her horse closer, hoping to catch the light. The guards drew their swords.
“I said halt!” The woman’s voice carried the edge of action. Her sword did not waver. She was clearly the leader of the group.
Amarande did as instructed, the horse kicking up dust with his firm stop.
“I am Princess Amarande and my intention is to return to my home.”
The guardswoman’s sword faltered, but only slightly. “Your Highness?” She took a step forward, squinting across the distance. Amarande watched the guard register her face, hair, and the wedding gown, deeply stained across the golden lace at the bodice, the dark crust of blood blending with the shadows cast from the castle wall. “Is it truly you?”
“Yes, may I approach?”
The leader nodded, but all swords remained drawn. Amarande tapped the horse into motion and brought herself fully into the sconce light. All eyes went to the blood and the color drained from every face. “Your Highness, are you … all right? That is lifeblood, there.”
This was why she’d worn the dress—there was an undeniable truth to it. Renard’s face flashed in Amarande’s mind—pale and stunned, just before his body fell to the dais. Her first kill, demanding to be sharp, clear, unforgotten, and always present on the backs of her eyelids. She swallowed.
“It isn’t my blood.”
The guard seemed to take her at her word but exchanged glances with her subordinates. “My apologies, Your Highness. It is simply that we were informed just last night that you were presumed dead.”
* * *
“SECOND Captain, I assure you I am not a dead woman walking,” the princess reiterated as the guardswoman, Pualo, escorted her to Councilor Satordi, who had apparently been the one to announce to the castle guard and staff her presumed death.
Though the lead councilor would be tasked to make such an announcement given the current state of the Itspi, the fact that he would do so made no sense. Who would have told the Royal Council such a thing? Certainly not Renard—he’d needed her alive and would’ve been more likely to send word of their marriage before it actually happened than of her untrue death. And as for those remaining in Pyrenee, there would be so much more they could gain from using her as a pawn than from pretending she no longer drew breath. And where was Koldo on this? Surely the general would not agree as Ardenia’s regent to such an outrageous announcement. Would she?
They passed not a soul as they marched past the red hall, into the north tower. But instead of continuing up the stairs to the council room, the guardswoman led Amarande straight through to the residential wing, which housed her father’s advisors. All members of the council—Satordi, Garbine, Joseba—as well as Sendoa’s other top confidants, General Koldo, Captain Xixi, and the highest-level castle guards, like Captain Serville.
At the very last door, Pualo knocked three times rapid-fire. Footsteps rang against the floorboards on the other side—juniper parquet, rather than the marble in the public spaces and royal wings. The wooden panel covering the peephole slid back, and dark eyes Amarande recognized as Satordi’s flashed from within.
Immediately, the door was wrenched open. Amarande’s lips parted to greet him, but instead the councilor barked at the guard, “Who saw you?”
“Only my company, sir.”
“Good. Ensure their silence.”
Aghast at Satordi’s order, Amarande started, “Councilor—”
“Not here!” With more strength than Amarande would ever have anticipated, Satordi grabbed her arm and jerked her over the threshold before slamming the door.
She ripped herself free and wheeled on the man. “Satordi, I realize you are angry with me for my disappearance, but do not put your hands upon me without my consent. Though you’ve apparently announced that I am a corpse, I am still alive and still your princess. As my councilor, I expect you to treat me with respect.”
Satordi stood as tall as his wiry frame allowed. “Your Highness, I apologize. Your safety outweighs formality at this moment.”
“My safety? I was with a castle guard—I’m the safest I’ve been in a week. You have no idea what I’ve just been through other than you somehow believed I didn’t survive it.”
“Accept my apology or do not, Princess, we have much to discuss.”
“Yes, we do.” Amarande put a hand back on the door handle. “And I would prefer we get to it in the council room—call Garbine and Joseba immediately. Is Koldo here or at the front? We need her. Captains Serville and Xixi, too. As many strategi
c minds as we can get at this hour. Pyrenee is on my heels, bringing war to the Itspi’s walls.”
Satordi blocked the door. “It is best we remain here, Princess.”
Amarande’s frustration simmered over. Satordi never listened to her—princess, heir, alive, dead, his reaction was always the same. “Your quarters are lovely, Councilor”—she gestured to the sitting room beyond—“but this is highly—”
“Imperative. It is highly imperative we remain here.” The voice was a woman’s, regal and direct—but one the princess did not recognize.
Amarande whipped around, her retort dying on her lips. Standing in a doorway between living spaces was a woman with a cascade of dark hair, wrapped in a shade of blue that complemented her skylight eyes.
She was the most familiar stranger Amarande had ever seen.
The princess’s heart faltered as she recognized her own rosebud lips, high cheekbones, and strong-but-petite frame. And the stance—shoulders back, legs firmly planted, chin tipped up—that was purely hers, too. Amarande blinked rapidly as if sand had sprayed her eyes, sure the woman would vanish.
She did not.
And so Amarande gathered every ounce of the courage her father told her she had and asked a question that broke her heart as much as it gave her a new, unexpected hope.
“Mother?”
CHAPTER 5
HOW many nights had Amarande dreamed of this face? Of this moment?
Her mother, Geneva—the notorious Runaway Queen—standing before her. Not a dream. Not a ruse. Not some fuzzy figure on the edge of memories she couldn’t latch onto, no matter how hard she tried. Days ago, while escaping the Warlord’s camp with Osana, Amarande had been sure the woman in the Warlord’s tent was her mother, some unnamed feeling in her gut hinting at something her memory could not confirm.
But in this moment feeling was replaced by reality.
For the first time in fifteen years, Princess Amarande of Ardenia and her mother were in the same room. The mother who had left Amarande before her first birthday, on the same night that Luca’s mother had died.
Fifteen years.
Of wondering why her mother had run. Was it because she hadn’t loved her father, and wanted to escape their arranged marriage?
Of wondering why she wasn’t enough for her mother to stay, to fight, or to take away, too.
Of wondering if her mother was truly alive—or dead by her father’s hand as the rumors whispered, not that the princess ever believed those.
And now, in Amarande’s absence, her mother had returned to the Itspi. Was this simply because the princess had disappeared, or was there another reason that now, after all these years, this woman had walked out of Amarande’s imagination and into her life?
The princess’s reflexes were razor sharp, her body always knowing exactly what to do when facing any threat—and yet she was suddenly frozen to the spot. Her breath faltered while her heart continued to pound. As in the moment when Renard’s guards had dealt her what she believed to be a death blow, Amarande felt as if she were floating outside herself. Above, in the rafters, watching as a tentative smile spread across her mother’s beautiful face. Counting the steps as her mother crossed the room, flung her arms out, and embraced the still form of her sixteen-year-old daughter.
The princess lost her voice to a gasp as Geneva drew her close. This woman was real, her body warm and solid as she enveloped Amarande. She smelled of firewood and rose water, her skin soft with creams and care. As the embrace waned, mother held daughter at arm’s length, brilliant eyes inspecting every inch of her girl.
“Look at you, Amarande. As beautiful as I’d expected.”
Stunned, Amarande could only blink back. Gently, the Runaway Queen smoothed a lock of hair away from Amarande’s brow as if she’d wanted to do such a thing every day they were apart. “My dear daughter, we have much to discuss—but first, what is this blood? Do you need a medikua? And what is this of Pyrenee on your heels?”
Amarande’s suspended consciousness lurched into motion. Her breath returned, her heartbeat, her voice. “Mother … why are you here? Now?” It wasn’t the most elegant question for this reunion, ham-fisted and too direct, but suspicion was quickly overtaking shock within Amarande as her pulse skittered and skipped. She speared Satordi with her attention—he had faded into a corner as her mother had approached. “Councilor, why did you tell the guards I was dead? What is going on here?”
Satordi glanced away, meeting her mother’s eyes before her own. “I myself am very glad to see you alive, Your Highness,” he said, adjusting the collar of his ivory-and-gold robes. “But you have arrived at a very awkward time.”
The strangeness of that statement shook Amarande loose of her mother’s palms. “Awkward? This is—”
Her voice died as another figure stepped into the candlelight. Amarande stumbled backward and the hilt of Maite, her father’s sword, clanged into the stone wall behind her. The figure—a young man—came to a halt. Fully illuminated, he was the spitting image of the twenty-year-old coronation portrait hanging in the castle foyer.
This boy was King Sendoa come to life.
The princess steadied herself against the wall. “Who are you?”
Geneva tilted her head, smile suddenly not so tentative. “Come now, darling daughter; you know who he is.”
Amarande’s gaze didn’t waver from the familiar green eyes, sunset hair, and hulking shoulders. Yes, she knew. But she wanted to hear it from the boy himself. “I addressed him.”
The boy sank into the nearest chair. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, failing, very much like her father had, at making himself seem small. “My name is Ferdinand.” Even his voice sounded like Sendoa’s. Shock ran ice cold down Amarande’s spine. “From what I understand, Princess, I am your younger brother.”
With the confirmation, Amarande’s world shifted again. She had a brother.
Her mother had run while pregnant. And then stayed away. But … why? How? And did Sendoa know? More questions stacked upon the teetering pile she kept for her father’s star-bound ghost. Atop it all—what was his plan? And now—was this part of it?
Three rapid knocks and General Koldo entered the room in full garnet-and-gold regalia.
“Koldo!” Amarande lunged for the woman she’d always considered a surrogate mother as much as a friend. The general was just as surprised to see the princess. Still, Koldo was as quick as ever, catching her in a natural embrace, while casting a questioning eye over Amarande.
“Princess, you’re hurt. I shall call for a medikua.”
This struck Amarande off guard—there wasn’t a medikua; there was the medikua, Aritza. Yet her mother had used the same descriptor. How much had the castle changed in the past few days?
“No, no, it’s not my blood. It is Renard’s.” That drew a sharp inhale from Satordi. “It can wait—please, regiments from Pyrenee may be upon our door in hours, if not this very minute.”
Her mother, her brother, the general, and the councilor stilled.
“Speak first, Princess.” Koldo led Amarande to a chaise across a low table from where Ferdinand sat. “The rest can come after.”
The general sat next to the princess, never letting go of her arm—not that Amarande wanted her to. She needed Koldo’s steadying touch, the one that had guided her through so much. Geneva chose to stand behind Ferdinand, her small hands resting against the seat back of his chair. Satordi remained standing. Amarande’s world swayed.
“Fetch the princess water, Councilor,” Koldo commanded, and Amarande was mildly surprised when he listened, moving to a small cupboard against the far wall. “Your Highness?”
“I left the Itspi unannounced on the night of Father’s funeral because kidnappers stole away.…” Amarande’s eyes found her mother’s, and her brother’s, as she grappled for a way to describe him that didn’t make her feel so naked to these all-but-strangers. “Luca, my … my best friend … to push me into marriage with Prince Renard—the crown
prince of Pyrenee.”
“Is this the boy from the Torrent?” her mother asked. “Lygia’s son?”
Amarande was surprised again by her mother’s voice—and her knowledge. How long had they been at the Itspi? What did they know? Koldo nodded in answer. “Yes, a stableboy. Sendoa took a liking to him and allowed him to be a companion to the princess.”
Something passed over Geneva’s eyes, but Amarande pressed on. She shouldn’t be surprised her mother remembered Lygia from her castle days, as they would’ve been a similar age—seventeen or eighteen. Luca’s mother had died of a lung infection the same night Geneva had disappeared. Losing their mothers on the very same night was one of the strange coincidences that twined them so tightly. It was one thing to both not recall their mother’s face; it was quite another for the person closest to you to feel the exact same thing for the exact same length of time.
“After failing to make a diplomatic peace with Renard, I felt I had no choice but to rescue Luca myself. I left immediately and covertly because I feared him to be in grave danger. After a few obstacles, I rescued Luca from the kidnappers, who had pushed deep into the Torrent. On our return, we were intercepted by Renard, his brother Taillefer, and several guards and hired hands.”
“Prince Renard was intent on rescuing you.” Satordi set a crystal glass before the princess. She didn’t drink.
“Know that is a lie.”
“I am aware.”
“Rather than escorting us back to Ardenia, as I’m sure you expected he might, he insisted we turn for Pyrenee, where the two of us could be wed. I refused, of course, and when I did, he threatened to kill me and blame Luca if I did not do as he asked. Outnumbered, and surrounded in the bottom of a fire pit, I felt I had no choice but to go with him.”
“He threatened to kill you or be married to you?” Ferdinand asked. “That is quite the gamut of choice.”
The Queen Will Betray You Page 3
