The eye contact the three councilors made with Koldo told the princess that this was not a surprise to the general. It was, however, a surprise to her. This must have been discussed in the meeting they’d had in those hours after the news, while she was a wreck of shock, haunting her chambers with Luca by her side.
And no one, not even Koldo, had thought to tell her.
Amarande swallowed, face placid, not daring to give herself away with a sideways glance to the general. Still, she angled herself toward Koldo and reached up to give her a hearty pat on the back. “See there? We’re far from headless. And with a female in charge of the throne. Was that so hard?”
She said it with all the confidence she could muster, thick with irony, though a tiny voice in her head wondered why her father hadn’t simply assigned her regency and circumvented the whole succession problem. There had to be a reason, but at that moment Amarande was too relieved by Koldo’s new reality to care.
The princess addressed the general. “General Koldo, as regent, you must agree that an investigation into King Sendoa’s death is warranted before we rush into a marriage contract with possible suspects?”
“Of course. I will see to it at once.”
“Thank you, General Koldo. You display such loyalty and leadership. The Kingdom of Ardenia is in debt of your service.”
Three thin sighs came from behind the great table.
“Your Highness, we’re still vulnerable,” Joseba continued in his soft way, cheeks a ripe red. “Regency is meant to be a temporary solution. Not to mention outsiders will see this as martial law—unstable.”
Amarande nearly laughed. “Was my father not called the Warrior King—the ruler of the most powerful army on the continent? Was that martial law?”
Satordi ignored the princess, continuing Joseba’s argument. “Not to mention primitive. Reckless. Weak.”
“Weak,” Amarande echoed, no longer able to hide her anger and disappointment. Every spark within her had become a flame, the haze of the past day burned off, her grief reinforcing her words, her stance, the directness of her tone. “The law is what makes us vulnerable, Councilor. Change the law. Allow a queen to rule in her own right.”
Satordi couldn’t allow that statement to stand. “Princess, you must marry. This is not up for discussion.”
“My mother married for position and left. Left my father and me and never returned.” All three faces behind the table closed up—the Runaway Queen was never spoken of. The king hadn’t allowed it. Amarande speaking of her in front of them trotted a piece of King Sendoa into the room that his advisors never saw. To her surprise, Koldo tensed, too, though she knew all of this and more.
“Though he’d learned to love her, she’d never learned to love him. And it broke his soul to know that she couldn’t bear life with him. He was not enough. I was not enough.” Amarande’s voice had become too loud in her own ears. She swallowed and reset, her tone quieter yet still fierce. Sharp. Splitting. “Never mind what her absence did to my childhood, because she taught me something. I will not give anyone my hand without love on both sides of the contract. I refuse to be broken for status or prodded by duty. I deserve that—Ardenia deserves that.”
She took a step forward and wiped the contract off the polished table, letting it flutter to the marble tile. “If my father’s fine choice of a regent is seen as weak, then change the law and let me lead. Marriage can wait.”
Joseba scuttled around the table and lunged for the fallen contract, as if it would lose its validity if it sat discarded too long. Satordi spoke again as soon as the parchment was safe in the councilor’s soft palms. “Your Highness, to amend the law, we must have the approval of the entire union of the Sand and Sky. It can’t simply be changed on a whim.”
“Stars, Satordi! You’ve had fifteen years of a ruler without a wife. Fifteen years of knowing a male heir wasn’t in Ardenia’s future. Fifteen years to get the union votes and rewrite the laws. Yet you didn’t.”
Yet my father didn’t.
A new tendril of anger snaked up from the pit of Amarande’s stomach, cold water on her flame. She took a deep breath.
“My father’s blood flows in my veins—that’s what is so precious to this kingdom. To this line. To these contracts. I have that blood—what does it matter if I’m a girl? What’s more important? The blood or the law?”
Satordi stuttered, standard answer not getting the strongest start. “The laws of the paternal line were written centuries ago to fortify—”
“‘Fortify’ means to strengthen, does it not? How does this law strengthen the Ardenian position by handing our throne to someone who may have had a hand in murdering our king, rather than delivering it to a ruler of his own blood?”
Amarande let that sit for a moment, watching the council fumble for an answer that didn’t come. “My father commanded the largest army in the Sand and Sky, and you’re saying that, though I am his child, I can’t do so because of my sex? Never mind the fact that my father installed a woman as my regent.”
“Well—”
“Men do not have a monopoly on strength. My father believed that—Koldo was his second-in-command for a reason. And he made sure I knew that—or have you forgotten that my father trained me from the time I could walk to hold a sword, throw a knife, track prey?”
Satordi stiffened. “No one has forgotten that, Princess.”
“Good. Then you know what you’re up against if you want me to agree to this contract or any of the others you’re awaiting. I will always fight for the future of Ardenia. And I expect this council and its regent to fight, too.”
And with that, Princess Amarande turned on her boot heel—meeting adjourned. She nodded at Koldo, who tipped her chin back, and took for the now-closed doors while leaving the regent and the council with the only words she truly wanted them to remember.
“Change the law.”
CHAPTER
3
THEY did not change the law.
The contract did not disappear. It gained company. One from each kingdom, as Amarande expected.
Worse, within days the leaders of the other kingdoms of the Sand and Sky arrived, one by one.
Bear, Shark, Mountain Lion—Basilica, Myrcell, Pyrenee.
Each of them owed their crowns to King Sendoa, their sworn protector of the realm. The man who lent his army to quell the Warlord’s raids from deep within the Torrent, to hunt down the pirates who haunted trade routes through the Divide that separated Pyrenee from Eritri, to clear mountain passes clogged with boulders after a hard snow.
All these people who got far more out of their alliance than Sendoa himself, coming to take more—his crown, his land, his legacy.
At least, that was Amarande’s opinion.
She didn’t want to see these people. These brutal, horrible, hungry people.
Not a one was good.
Domingu—the blue-eyed, craggy-faced king of iron-veined Basilica who’d lodged a blade in the back of his own brother fifty years ago for his crown. Amarande had no doubt that he’d kill the mother of his most recent children for a marriage that might buy him half of the Sand and Sky. His contract promised as much without saying so—that woman was his fifth wife, after all.