Amarande tried to gather herself, her footing slipping, and suddenly she had one hand hooked on the bars and her injured hand, linen wrapping and all, clutching the rough edges of the newly splintered hole.
But instead she just hung.
At the top of her lungs she called to her love one final time.
“Luca!”
CHAPTER 50
AMARANDE’S call hit Luca in the gut like a cannon blast.
He withdrew Ula’s blade from the man nearest to him. His opponent fell with a moist thud as Luca’s whole body wrenched toward the sound of his name.
Across the full blaring roar of the fire, farther away from him than she’d been before, the chaos of battle moving him along the diameter of the pit. The cage was there—and honestly he’d thought her to be as safe as could be until he made it there, the reinforced cell keeping others out as well as it kept her in.
But now the whole thing had been shoved aside on its axis. Amarande’s cell angling over the fire, more than half its length balanced precariously in the air, flames licking at the cart as the ashen ground disintegrated under the box’s swinging weight.
Ula thundered in, blood smeared across her brow. “Did you hear it? We need to get there now. If it goes over, there’s no way we can get her out.”
He was already running, sword leading. “Move! Move!” he yelled, though it was no use. Hurtling over bodies, and people. Dodging blades of every shape and stripe as they aimed for others and sliced into the path.
“On your right!” Ula grabbed the empty scabbard that crossed his spine, wrenching him back just in time as a trio of fighters rolled through in a scrum of daggers and fists, all of them barreling straight toward the fire. “Oh stars, the cart’s going. Run, run, run!”
She might have said more, but all Luca could hear was Amarande’s voice. His name. Over and over. It thumped in with each breath as he ran, willing his snakebit leg not to stumble in the stride, the numbness a disadvantage.
Faster now, they edged past where the Warlord’s dais had been, tiptoeing around the bodies, and the cries of those still kneeling at the flames for some sign she might rise from the ashes.
With everything he had, he sprinted toward his love—she could not have the same fate as the Warlord. She could not.
And, as they closed in, he finally knew she would hear him. “Amarande!”
CHAPTER 51
“AMARANDE!” Luca’s voice.
She tried to see him through the hole. He rushed in, the weight redistributing in the cart as he joined Koldo. Another shaking belch and suddenly the whole thing tipped.
“Out here!” Ula’s voice. “Stand on the ramp. Weigh it down!”
The box shifted again, and suddenly Amarande knew all that was keeping her on solid ground was the weight and leverage of the three of them on Taillefer’s cell door, the hinges at the bottom straining against the base of the cart.
More voices. More people. More weight.
A metallic sound. The hinges going, the door pinned down, but the whole cart coming apart at the seams. Pulled in one direction and the other.
“Rope! We need rope!” Luca called. “Now!”
More noise. Voices. Amarande held fast to the bars. Trying to ball all her weight as high up in the cart as possible. She glanced down at the sword. Out at the rapidly disappearing lip, sand and ash spilling into the fire as the stress of the cart pressed its full weight and tipping point leverage into the soft and heated earth.
“I am the rope! Use me as the rope!” Ula cried, kicking her boot out toward Luca. Glancing at Koldo. “Lower me. Now.”
Luca and Koldo barely exchanged a glance before Ula was already on her hands, holding her legs out like she were playing wheelbarrow. Koldo and Luca latched onto the pirate’s boot and she crawled into Taillefer’s abandoned compartment. She lowered the hip belt of her dagger.
Amarande’s fingers scraped at the leather, scrabbling until they gained hold. Ula grunted, trying to reach farther, as Amarande wound the belt around her wrist. Then she slid the linen that bandaged her knife wound around the leather at her wrist and grabbed on to it all as tight as she could with her injured hand, trading the extra protection of the bandage reinforcement for the temporary pain shooting through her hand.
“Good.” Ula’s eyes glittered like stars, all the blood rushing to her determined face, veins and tendons on end. Her hair fell forward in braids, which only served to frame the strain. “Grab hold of my wrist. On three. One, two, th—”
The cart shifted again and the toe of Amarande’s boot dug into the tipping wooden edge. The momentum sent her upward, but the cage shuddered violently as the final push decimated the sand-ash beneath, and a massive chunk of the fire pit lip dislodged and crumbled into the inferno.
“Pull!” Ula shouted.
Amarande was aware of Luca and Koldo clearly yanking them back, but as the cart fell away, the narrow opening caught on her shoulder.
For one sick moment, the weight of Amarande and Ula plus the cart was dragging against Luca and Koldo. Ula’s whole body was stretched past discomfort into agony, her fingers slipping, teeth gritting.
“Ula, tell Luca I love him. Tell him I tried. I was coming for him. I didn’t mean for him to do this without me. I’m sorry—”
With a belch, fire tore into the bottom of the cage, eating straight through the door and lock that had trapped her. Amarande screamed and lost hold of one of Ula’s hands, the leather strap protecting the grip on the remaining one beginning to fray.
“You will tell him yourself. Close your eyes!”
With a grunt, Ula unsheathed the dagger pressed against her skin and began driving the blade into the splintering wood next to the hole just small enough to make it impossible to pull Amarande through.
She only got in four whacks before there was another screeching lurch and the entire bottom of the cart peeled away. Flames licked at Amarande’s dangling boots as the cart listed, up and then flat back down, rocking like it was taking on water.
With an earsplitting shake, the whole thing began to slide.
Ula’s dagger skittered away and she grabbed Amarande’s single clinging hand with both of hers. The princess curled her useless arm into her body as tightly as she could … and with a splintering shake the prison cart fell away. Amarande and Ula slipped out of the wooden box as it plummeted, the momentum slapping them against the lip of the pit.
With one terrific heave, Luca and Koldo yanked them back and up until Ula’s belly hit solid ground. So many hands, too many hands, reaching and bracing as Amarande came up over the edge, hot ash in her face and hair, free hand scrambling for the earth.
Her arm was bleeding from her shoulder through the length of her forearm, the wood of the fractured cart taking a sliding bite on the way down. The soles of her boots were melting as she dug them into the dirt, crawling onto her hands and knees before flipping on her back.
Vaguely, she heard a crash—the cart tumbling into the flames.
Father, I almost saw you.
Her body wracked with a cough from the smoke, eyes squeezed shut and watering. And when she opened them, Luca loomed above her.
Dimples and shining golden eyes and sand grit sticking to sweat and blood.
“Luca! You came, you’re here, you’re mine. Luca, Luca, Luca.”
She pressed herself to her hands and knees and then in one great lunge tackled him.
In battle, even like this, every moment felt like an eternity. Action slowing to give every grain of sand in the hourglass its time to shine.
And in that sand grain of time, Amarande was back in the meadow with him. Moments before learning her father had died, she’d outfoxed Luca, trapping him with knees and elbows and practiced skill until his throat sat softly beneath the tip of her blade. She’d wondered then if he would say it. Now she knew not only that he would but also that he’d been saying it all along.
“Always, Princess.”
Luca held Amarande as
they fell back to the sand in a rush. Her body, bloody and covered in ash and shaking with the shock of what had just happened, pressed into his. Her boots knocked his shins, her arms propped against his collarbones, her face cupped in his palm.
Luca was here. He was truly here and hers and alive.
Amarande kissed him then. Eyes closed, mouth hungry, her whole mess of a body folded into Luca’s warmth. His arms tightened around her, a hand snaking through her hair and to her neck.
It felt like an eternity but was simply the space of a few breaths, a forest of people around them instead of their junipers in the meadow—Koldo, Ula, others Amarande didn’t know. Beyond them, the battle was still raging, less of a writhing mass and more hot spots in a forest fire that had spread, taking over the entire encampment and not simply the area by the fire pit.
“Let’s move. We need to move.” Ula’s voice.
Then Koldo’s gloved hand wrapped around the princess’s uninjured arm and began to pull. “Ama, later. Not in the open. Let us regroup. To safety with you. Please, now.”
Amarande nodded and let Koldo pull her up, her own hand out to Luca. He took it but did not put his weight into it, her blood sliding down the injured length of it and onto his fingers. He stood on his own, but as they were ushered away she did not let go.
CHAPTER 52
AMARANDE clung to Luca’s hand as the four of them—the princess, the Otsakumea, the general, and the pirate—ran away from the fire pit and the battle that raged around it. His palm was warm with both life and the thrill of battle and held hers carefully, her blood snaking between them.
They dashed up a row of abandoned tents, the ground clearing of the debris of battle with every step away from the fire. Ula charged ahead, dagger out, Koldo bringing up the rear. The others who’d seemed to surround them when they’d been on the ground fell away.
“Luca, when you revealed yourself I thought it was the end.” Amarande’s voice was too loud for her ears, her breathing heavy with the run and rush of survival. Of seeing him. She squeezed his hand, daring to glance down at it in the jumbling rush of their tandem run, just to confirm her touch hadn’t deceived her.
Luca was here. Koldo was here. Ula was here.
“I thought you’d sacrificed yourself for Naiara,” Amarande tried to whisper, but the healer’s name came out in a sob—she didn’t know if she’d survived. “I thought it was the stars giving me one last look at my love before stealing him away.”
“I did not mean to shock you, Ama, only the Warlord and her cronies,” Luca answered. It was just then that she realized he’d stowed a sword at his back—one just like Ula’s, slick with lifeblood that caught the firelight and moonlight as they ran. “I would never hurt you.”
“But you would sacrifice yourself for another—”
“The timing even had me guessing, and I knew the plan!” Ula called from up ahead. She dodged down a different row. “Over here. There’s water and cover. Princess, sit.”
Amarande wanted to do nothing of the sort, looking over her shoulder to the battling bodies in the firelight, but both Koldo and Luca forced her down. Her back to the cartwheel, as Ula gathered water in clay cups from a covered tanker cart with a spigot, stacked to the side.
Amarande drank deeply, clutching Luca’s hand. “I have so much to tell you.”
“I know, and I have so much to tell you, but I must finish what I’ve started. My people need me.” He cradled the sides of her face, then leaned in and planted a kiss to her brow.
Wait. She pressed her palms to those hands that held her, fingers curling tightly over his. He came away smiling, pried one of her hands away, and kissed the sand-crusted knuckles. His lips were warm.
“I do not want to go, but I must lead. I cannot be away until it is through.” Amarande’s heart caught as he read her face, golden eyes light. “It’s what you would do in the same situation.”
Pride and loss flooded into Amarande’s chest, as equal as they were heavy. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe, yet her grip loosened on his hand, still gently cradling one side of her face.
“I would. But…”
“Amarande, I will come back to you. You know this. I will always come for you. Always, Princess.” He looked to Ula and Koldo. “Stay with her.”
“On my honor.” Ula.
“Of course.” Koldo.
Luca pressed another fevered kiss to Amarande’s lips, the princess shutting her eyes and drinking it in until, with one last gentle sweep of a thumb against her cheek, he drew away. She opened her eyes, willing the warmth of his touch not to fade as he charged back in the direction of battle, the curved sword drawn and out front.
Tears snaked rivulets down her ash-flecked cheeks. “No, no, he can’t go back there. He made it out safe. He can’t go back in. What if…”
Amarande was already struggling to get to her feet, but Koldo held her down. “Ama, he’s won. I’ve seen enough war in my lifetime to guarantee it.”
Ula nodded, pressure on Amarande’s blood-soaked arm. “The moment the Warlord went into the pit, all the fight fled the people who feared her.”
Amarande fought against Koldo enough to sling her clay cup toward the fire and fight, letting it smash against some unseen patch of desert dirt. “But that wasn’t the real Warlord—” Amarande squinted through the night for Luca, but at that distance, all bodies were a smudge of movement. “My mother never relinquished. They’re going to regroup. He’s not safe; he’s not—”
“Amarande, we heard it all—Luca and I,” Ula insisted. “What the Warlord told you. About your mother and the puppet this one was. He knows, but the Warlord’s people don’t.”
“Geneva didn’t relinquish power? Are you certain?” This from Koldo.
Amarande shook her head but then thought better of it as a wave of nausea passed over. “She didn’t. This Warlord planned to march me to the Itspi and bargain for her power.”
Ula squinted at the princess. “Why were you with Taillefer? You should be with Osana and Urtzi. Who is Ferdinand?” She spun to Koldo. “And who is this?”
Where to begin? The princess had so many questions for Koldo herself. About her motivations. Her relationship with Amarande’s father. Her relationship with Amarande’s brother. Stars, her relationship with Amarande herself. She had all those questions, but she had the most basic answers to share in this context. None of that had changed.
“It’s a mess of complication, Ula, but in short, this is General Koldo. My father’s best friend, my surrogate mother, and the actual mother of my half brother, Ferdinand, who is sitting on the Ardenian throne.”
Ula drew her knife. “Can we trust her?” She addressed Amarande but thrust her dagger across the princess’s body, holding it a whisper from Koldo’s throat. “Why are you here?”
“I am here because I love the princess and I was concerned for her safety.”
Ula’s eyes cut as deeply as that blade could. “But if your son is sitting on Amarande’s throne, your loyalty is suspect.”
“Ula, I trust her,” the princess insisted. She didn’t know where Koldo’s heart sat, but she knew she was here and, even if it was simply powered by memories and what they’d just been through, that she still had faith in her. “I trust Koldo now because of where we’ve been, same as you.”
The pirate removed the dagger from the general’s throat. “Fine. But you have not earned my trust yet. Princess, let me inspect your arm.”
“My arm is a mess, but it can wait—Ula, can you find Taillefer? A Pyrenee soldier stole him away. We need to find him.”
“He needs to find his head on a pike for what he did to Luca,” Ula seethed.
“I do not disagree, but we need him if we are to confront Inés.”
“Inés?” Koldo asked.
Amarande nodded at her but addressed Ula. “Please, I’m safe with Koldo. See if you can find him. If you can’t, or if you find his body, we’ll come up with another plan.”
“You want him alive?
I can’t guarantee it.”
“If I managed not to kill him during our time together, I believe you can resist.”
Ula gave a final warning glare to the general, reached into her boot, and pulled out a second dagger. “If I am to leave you with your trust and a trained soldier, I’m at least arming you.” She handed the knife to Amarande without dropping her steeled stare from Koldo’s face. “I will come for you if anything happens to her.”
In a flash, Ula was gone, jogging back toward where the prison cart had been, prepared to retrace Taillefer’s steps.
“Where did Luca find her?” Koldo asked, her general’s mind admiring the soldier running away, even as her skin blushed red from Ula’s blade.
“He didn’t. She found him—one of his kidnappers. The story is long but not nearly as important as the rest I must tell you.” Amarande clutched Koldo’s arm. “Inés and Domingu conspired to marry and join their kingdoms—with Renard dead and Taillefer disowned, Inés now rules Pyrenee.”
“Can’t say that I am surprised. They were brewing up something at the funeral.”
“Yes, but there’s more—somehow Inés slaughtered not only Domingu but Akil, the heirs that were at the wedding, and all of the sycophants who wouldn’t switch allegiance.”
“What?”
“Inés has declared herself Queen of Pyrenee, Basilica, and Myrcell, and has an armada headed for Ardenia.” She snatched Koldo’s hand. “Straight for Ferdinand. And with three kings fallen, I highly doubt she’s looking to acquire rights to Ardenia through another marriage.”
Shock did not sit well on the general’s features. It typically had no home there, and even now it was subtle. “But we have no soldiers there. Only castle guards who still wet the bed. They’re sitting ducks.”
“Inés knows that. She knows our soldiers are at the borders. What she doesn’t know is that if she storms the Itspi, she might have what she needs to declare the continent hers.” Amarande drew a steadying breath—it didn’t do much.
“She can’t, though. We know Ferdinand is illegitimate. Stars, you heard him; he abhors the lie. He will tell anyone who will listen, including her.”
The Queen Will Betray You Page 30
