The Queen Will Betray You

by Sarah Henning

“In a stash of terra-cotta pots, over that way.” Taillefer nodded over his shoulder. “By a pair of tunnels. One is caved in; the other appears passable, but I didn’t have time to see where it led after I found the stores. I was worried about you.”

  A cache of food and supplies meant people. And, she hoped, the resistance—who else would leave supplies stored underground but people with something to hide? “Then I suppose that’s where we start in looking for a way out.”

  “Not until you’ve eaten every potato in that pile. Don’t think for a second I didn’t see you nearly fall over just trying to stand. Eat. Regain your strength. Then we’ll go.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “IT stinks, doesn’t it?” Taillefer asked Amarande once their bellies were full, their legs more sure, and they’d found another stick both dry enough and long enough that the princess could also carry a torch. “Sulfur. Feeds the spring that created the slurry that sucked us down here.”

  Amarande held her flame aloft and squinted through the distance, though the light was too weak to see much. This cave was at least three stories high, and the sharp spines of aragonite cave flowers bloomed across what she could see of the ceiling. “The Innkeeper told me that his ‘compost’ would lead to certain death. Good thing he was wrong.”

  “Compost? I believe ‘quicksand’ is the technical term,” Taillefer replied, gesturing to their right. “And there are plenty of examples of certain death in that pile—dead meat but not the kind you’d like to eat.”

  “Are you sure the tunnels are this way? You aren’t turned around?”

  “They are. Just have to move beyond the sulfuric graveyard, first.”

  The stench increased until it made her eyes water. Bones littered the sulfuric mire, and farther on appeared to be a solid wall but was, upon further inspection, silt and slurry, stacked on top of itself all the way to the surface. A handful of skulls in various configurations peered out from the layered mass, which shook with each grinding gulp from the earth.

  “We survived simply by being lucky. We came down on the very edge of that mass and were heavy enough to fall through and bounce to where we landed. I moved you to more solid ground when I realized you weren’t going to wake.” Taillefer paused, pointedly. “You’re welcome. Anyhow, if we’d been dropped into the sand ten to fifteen feet in the other direction, our skin would be broiled off in that slurry.”

  Amarande worked the sequence through in her mind’s eye. Taillefer’s analysis was sound. “The people at the inn knew of the sand but not that it was not equally deadly across its entire surface.”

  “Yes. Quite the favor they did us.”

  “I suppose so.” She turned away. “If only they had listened to reason.”

  “They are not your subjects. They are not obligated to listen to you, Princess.”

  That nearly made her smile. “The past week has taught me that no one will listen to me anyway because I am not a man. It’s enough to drive a woman mad, and I’m the lucky one—the direct heir.”

  “Perhaps it’s no wonder then that my mother and yours are so particularly vengeful.”

  The princess bit back a sorrowful laugh. Yes, queens who would hunt, jail, and possibly kill their own children were shaped into their evil, not born that way. Not for the first time, Amarande wondered what kinds of experiences had so twisted her mother—and how she could avoid the same fate.

  They arrived at the fork of two tunnels. “The one to the left is where I found the potato cache. It seems to veer for a half mile, and then there is a pile of rubble partially blocking it, but given the potatoes were nearby, I believe there is likely a way through the blockage.” That assumption was enough for Amarande. “If you’re thinking the resistance is literally underground, I second that theory—these natural caves have most definitely been augmented with tools.”

  She peered within. “What direction do you think it leads?”

  Tallifer had already done this calculation. “Based on where we started and where we landed after becoming compost, I’d say generally to the southeast.”

  “That is another clue that this might be a structure frequented by the resistance—that direction would put us close to another man I know with a black wolf.”

  “Wait, that was really a black wolf?” He seemed genuinely intrigued. “I thought they’d been extinct for years and that one was a cleverly bred dog.”

  “They aren’t extinct. I met one before. Considering how brazenly pro-Otxoa the breeding of a supposedly eradicated species would be, I’m quite confident that those people back there at the inn were members of the resistance. Now we just need to find more—like the man to the east.”

  Taillefer cut a quick grin. “Well, if we find any, maybe they’ll do something worse to us than fight us, not listen to our pleas, and then banish us to quicksand after we save them and the wolf from the same fate. Like our friends back there did.”

  His brand of sarcasm was as sharp as any blade. And utterly annoying. Amarande ignored this.

  Bowing like the royal scion he was, Taillefer stepped aside and gestured to the tunnel on the left. “After you. Since you have both a torch and the weapons.”

  “I plan to keep them, too.”

  The tunnel was tall enough that neither of them had to stoop, though it was thin enough that it demanded they walk single file, their torches flickering wildly with each damp step. The ground was more solid than within the cavern, but the dirt was soft enough Amarande could easily follow Taillefer’s footsteps from hours earlier as they picked along the path.

  Before they’d even made the first turn, Taillefer was back to asking questions. “Tell me about the man with a black wolf. How did you become acquainted? Was he friend, foe, or otherwise?”

  Amarande wet her lips. “At one point early in my hunt for Luca and the kidnappers, I climbed a large plateau to gain better vantage.”

  “Seems reasonable.”

  “I thought so—a few sore muscles would be worth it for a glimpse of the riders who’d stolen him away or some other clue as to their direction. What I did not expect was that hauling myself over the edge of the plateau would put me face-to-face with the snarling jaws of a black wolf.”

  “I’m unsure if the most unbelievable part of that story is that you were attacked by a black wolf or that this supposedly extinct animal was living atop a plateau.” Taillefer laughed softly. “And, I assume, this one was trained like the one I faced?”

  “You are correct. The wolf’s master shot me with a sleeping dart while I fought his animal. Next thing I knew, I awoke in chains, penance to the Warlord.”

  The prince nodded—the Warlord’s tax was something about which he already knew—and sighed. “I am beginning to suspect you could make an enemy out of virtually every encounter. You’re terrible at making friends, aren’t you? And the pirates don’t count because their change of allegiance was entirely Luca’s doing, not yours.”

  Amarande opened her mouth, then closed it. Was he right? It was true, growing up, she had no real friends other than Luca. But she’d always thought it was because she didn’t need any. Luca was enough.

  She quickened her pace, torch raised high and back stiff. “I suppose you could do better. You have lots of friends. Which was why when you had to flee your homeland they dropped everything and came with you—oh wait.”

  “Very funny, Princess.” Taillefer allowed a dark laugh. “Do not take this the wrong way, but before this journey I’ve never argued so inanely with anyone save for my brother. We used to drive our tutors mad with our bickering when we were little.”

  Amarande did not take it the wrong way. In fact, it made her a little sad that she could picture Taillefer and Renard together as children. Perhaps that latest blow to the head had made her far more sympathetic than she should be to the sons of Pyrenee. “Trading barbs, disagreeing, tenuous trust supported by occasional teamwork and wrecked by constant suspicion—that was your childhood, no?”

  “No.” Taillefer paused
for a long moment. “Yes. I did like him best when I managed to get under his skin. I am sure it’s unhealthy. You have not missed anything not knowing your brother, Princess.”

  She held up her wounded hand. “He’s already literally gotten under my skin.”

  Taillefer laughed. “I am proud to say you have yet to successfully stab me.”

  “I appreciate the ‘yet.’”

  After a pause, Taillefer circled back to the task at hand. “So, the plan currently is to find this man and his black wolf, hope he’s out of sleeping darts and holds off on commanding the wolf to attack just long enough that we can state our case and get you to your love?”

  “Precisely. I will find Luca, warn him, and then fight by his side. The rest of the continent’s concerns can come later.”

  “While I am not denying that is romantic and undoubtedly noble, I still do not understand what we are warning Luca about. The Warlord obviously knows of his existence—the bodies at the Cardenas Scar are proof of the Warlord’s attempt to control the opposition just as the pro-Otxoa rebels overtaking the inn are proof that change is in the air. Movement is happening. If it’s obvious to us, it’s likely obvious to the resistance, if they’re worth their salt.”

  Amarande chewed the inside of her mouth as he continued.

  “The point is, Luca is facing the regime, not the person. In the scheme of things, this knowledge does not matter.” The mocking lilt to his tone slipped away, his next question sincere. “What are you not sharing, Princess? Something tells me you know far more than you let on.”

  Amarande picked her way around a bend, stacked with the terra-cotta pottery Taillefer had promised—the rubble must be up ahead. The princess swallowed, hoping to stave off his insistence long enough for the distraction and immediate problem of the blocked tunnel. She couldn’t tell him about her mother’s past. That was just too much—he could use that knowledge against her, gain Geneva’s favor—

  “Princess,” Taillefer prodded. “I don’t know what else I can—”

  A hissing rattle stopped Amarande dead in her tracks. “Is that—”

  In answer, the distinct body of a Quemado Scorpion scuttled out of the pile of rocks that clogged the tunnel. An arm wrapped around her midsection, hauling her back and away. Amarande shoved at Taillefer’s grip. “It’s just one.”

  But then, from within the nooks and crannies between rocks ranging in size from a melon to a pebble, came more rattling. The scorpion’s warning signal before spitting or stinging—or both.

  “Five … ten … no, twenty,” Taillefer counted. “We must retreat.”

  Again, he grabbed hold of her, this time at her wrist. Amarande shook him off hard enough that she ended up scooting forward in the dirt. The frontmost scorpion’s stinger engaged. The princess swallowed, her heart pounding as she glanced between the creatures, fanning out across the width of the tunnel, and the blockage.

  “No.” They were still pointing toward the dragon’s spine and the plateau where she knew the man with the black wolf would be. “We can draw them out, use our flame, kill them—”

  “What?” He nearly screeched at her strategy. “Are you insane? One sting and nothing can help you. Back. Up.”

  “We can make it.”

  “I know these creatures. We cannot.” Amarande remembered what Luca had told her about Taillefer’s workshop in the Bellringe. Brimming not only with potions like the fire swamp, but also full of specimens of all kinds. Stuffed. Jarred. Live.

  Which gave her an idea. “The fire swamp. Use that!”

  “No. It’ll just enrage them further.”

  The scorpions advanced, seemingly working together, forming a line. Taillefer yanked Amarande’s arm hard enough to test the socket. “Not the time for stubbornness, come on!”

  Struggling against the torque of his grip might have flung her straight into the charging, deadly scorpions, and so for once Amarande did as she was told.

  She ran.

  CHAPTER 31

  QUEEN Inés stood on the dock in the Port of Basilica, surveying all she’d gained in a single night’s effort.

  The sea was clean and crisp, the brine and spray permeating air thick with the swoop and call of gulls. The beaches gave way to dark rocks and mountains behind and beyond—hinting of the ore used to smelt the steel that kept Basilica’s coffers ripe and ready.

  Atop one of those mountains—she would either learn the name or change it—was the Aragonesti, her newest home. It was all glittering onyx, a starry night in the middle of the day. The perfect contrast to the pristine white walls of the Bellringe. Her castle homes were polar opposites in both looks and location. Miragua, the seat of Myrcell, was the same shade as the sand beyond it. Perhaps it would be a summer home.

  But that was a premature thought. Restful balconies in the salt air must wait until she reached her final goal—calling every last inch of this continent hers.

  At her back, the royal ships were packed with remaining vials of poison, members of her new court, and, of course, thousands of soldiers, sworn to the new queen of the joined kingdoms of Pyrenee, Basilica, and Myrcell. There had been no time to sew new uniforms, but that did not bother Inés. There were only two sides—hers and the wrong one—and if these men and women didn’t fight for her they would die.

  Ardenia would weed out the skittish ones for her while she marched to victory at the Itspi—the baby king wetting his pants along the way. She might offer to marry him, if he was the malleable sort. Maybe.

  But she was done with needing a man to help her achieve her goals. And the baby king did not rule in Ardenia. The true power behind the throne belonged to a woman, the Queen Mother, as Geneva now styled herself.

  No, control over the continent of the Sand and Sky was down to its two remaining queens. And it would be a battle, indeed.

  She had once called Geneva a friend, long ago, when they were pawns in the same game. When they’d banded together and rebelled, rather than see it through. When they both received not-so-veiled threats from an enraged Domingu.

  You chose to make a stand rather than make a move. A mistake.

  True. But since then, both she and Geneva had made their moves. Hers within the confines of her cage. Geneva outside of it. But Inés knew her well enough to know the renewed Queen Mother was still playing from outside the house, even as she called the Itspi home each night.

  And Inés would use that to her advantage en route to destroying Geneva, her baby king, and a divided and distant Ardenian army.

  Next, to the Torrent. The Warlord thought he was safe from the whims of the kingdom states. But that safety dissolved the moment Sendoa had passed away. It was only his disinterest in resolving the problem of the Torrent that kept it going for so long. No one else in the Sand and Sky wanted to waste their armies on the sunburnt belly of the continent—no laws, no resources, no interest in being led.

  But now she had an army three times what Sendoa had. And soon his great military would bow to her. Even the rebels circling the Warlord would have to kneel to that.

  Or die trying.

  “My queen?”

  Inés turned at the approach of a Basilican soldier. She addressed him with a taut smile. “Second Captain Micael?”

  “My queen, the ships are prepared to disembark at your command.”

  Inés looked to her royal ship. The three sigils had been sewn together, the flag heavy but the harbor breeze strong enough to lift it. The heads of the Bear, Shark, and Mountain Lion joined together as one. Below the flag, her remaining councilors, fresh blood from her acquired kingdoms, and Medikua Aritza lined the deck.

  “Let us go. The fastest route possible.”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  Micael scuttled off and Inés turned for the gangplank leading to her ship.

  Nikola had not yet arrived. Still out there somewhere with Amarande and Taillefer. That misstep was frustrating. But it didn’t matter.

  She had everything she needed to be successful a
nd then some.

  The paperwork. The army. The element of surprise.

  As she’d calculated back in her chambers at the Bellringe, the figures on the board had been set up—Tiger, Mountain Lion, Shark, Bear. Now only one and a phantom remained.

  And she was ready to play.

  Nine Years Prior to Present Day

  IT had been said the Warlord’s face reflected back the viewer’s deepest fear.

  That when meeting face-to-face, the tyrant shifted forms until he was only recognized by the viewer’s soul, making them see the thing that kept them up at night, leaving claw marks on the darkest parts of the mind.

  Sendoa, Warrior King of Ardenia, did not believe this.

  It was a myth. It was, like everything else in the Torrent, smoke and mirrors designed to protect the leader. A reputation can often be stronger than a suit of armor. This was something Sendoa believed. He knew it to be true through personal experience.

  He was a warrior king, and it didn’t hurt to call himself one.

  His army was the best in the world, and it paid to regularly make mention of it.

  His kingdom was the richest in the Sand and Sky, and as long as diamonds were mined no one weighed the coffers.

  And so Sendoa stood in the middle of the Warlord’s camp. A fire pit large enough to swallow any ship in the Port of Ardenia roared at his back. At his side, General Koldo. They were without their swords, the famed blades left with the Ardenian contingent a mile outside of the Warlord’s camp.

  This meeting was not on Sendoa’s terms.

  Not his land, not his decision, not his advantage.

  It was not ideal, but he’d worked for six years to have this meeting. And he would have it. Unarmed and alone was worth it for a chance at peace. To finally negotiate with this person who had orchestrated the murder of his royal friends. Whose very leadership led to bandits and raiders crossing into Ardenia to steal from people whose peaceful existence made them a target.

  “Koldo” He nodded to his general, a lock of sunset hair falling forward, the words both a good-bye and an order. No matter what happened inside that tent, the general would keep Ardenia safe. Keep Amarande safe.