The crowd gasped, the royal guard of Pyrenee half-rising in their seats, reflexes steering their hands to their scabbards. Dowager Queen Inés was completely out of her seat, a gold-bangled arm thrust to the side to bar their attack, ordering their stillness.
These people had most likely never heard Amarande speak, and they had certainly never seen the girl Sendoa crafted with hours in the yard, covered in dust and bruises and blood. But today they would see exactly who she was.
Renard kept his cool, looking amused, but Amarande was close enough to witness the blood draining from his face. The miscalculation in the cut of his shoulders. She’d embarrassed him by stealing his weapon as easily as he hoped to steal Ardenia’s throne. Amarande bared her teeth into something that would look like a smile to everyone but him.
“I am not ridiculous; I am discerning. I will not settle and neither will my people.”
Silence broke as a clamor arose from the commoners in the stands, the applause drowning out the thunking of the princess’s heart as she stood there, eyes locked upon Renard. The Ardenian royal party on the arena floor—the council, Koldo and her men and women—were forced to applaud as well, though Satordi in particular looked like a marionette, forced into action.
Amarande lowered the sword and again addressed the crowd. “My requirement stands as my contract to the good, strong people of Ardenia. I will not sell you to the highest bidder. I will not allow a usurper to ruin this land with a gold band and some words for the sake of tradition. My father had many chances to join his kingdom with another while he was alive and he didn’t, for the best of Ardenia.” She looked Dowager Queen Inés dead in the eye as she spoke—made sure the older woman knew the princess was aware of the marriage proposals she’d lobbed at her father before her husband’s body was even cold. “And I pledge to my people that I will do the same.”
With this, she presented the long sword back to Renard—gilded handle first, emeralds glinting a deep green in the cutting sun. He reached out slowly to grab it, as if it were a trick, as if he’d lose his arm as easily as he’d lost the weapon in the first place. Amarande had serious doubts he’d know how to use that sword if he managed to keep it in his possession.
The princess’s eyes flashed to the ruthless old Domingu, whose expression had settled into one of calculation.
“Now I am finished.”
CHAPTER
5
IN the moments after the funeral, Amarande was whisked away by the Royal Council, her plea heard, conversations to be had. In Luca’s estimation, she’d been perfect—confident, fierce, lovely.
Stealing Renard’s sword had been a nice touch. Words were worth much, but pressing a man’s own blade to his chest?
A point made indeed.
The smallest of smiles touched Luca’s lips as he trod the path from the arena to the stable. With a little laugh he whispered to himself, “She’s going to kill him.”
It wasn’t funny. Not really. But if the Sand and Sky didn’t change that blasted law, Renard or any other poor bastard who tried to marry Amarande without her approval couldn’t say she didn’t warn him.
And if she did manage to change the law without blood on her hands and became free to rule and marry as she pleased … well, Luca kept the hope in that thought locked far away where it couldn’t annihilate every fiber of his being.
Luca stepped into his stable still dressed in his finest clothes—a hand-me-down cloak, tunic, and trousers from King Sendoa himself, about twenty years and fifty pounds of muscle between himself and the original owner. He strode through the workshop and into his quarters, built off the back of the barn.
Just hours after her father’s death, Amarande had begged, nagged, and ordered him to move into the castle. He’d wanted to say yes. Of course he had. But then who would tend to things here? The horses still needed water, food, shoes, care. And if he didn’t do those things, who would? Luca felt as loyal to the hours he spent here as he did to Amarande, much preferring to earn his keep with hard work rather than with favor.
And so, carefully, he removed the silken clothing and folded it away onto the open shelves and pulled on plain rough-spun work clothes. He had plenty to do before dinner, tending not only to the Itspi’s horses but also to the horses of the men who’d shown up to steal Amarande away.
Her great-grandfather (yes, truly)—King Domingu. The neighbor boy—Prince Renard. The newlywed—King Akil.
Bear. Mountain Lion. Shark.
Again, a smile touched Luca’s lips, because none of them had a chance.
Still, he wouldn’t let their horses suffer. It wasn’t their fault they’d been dragged hundreds of miles into this mess.
He’d start with the purple-and-gold-clad horses of Pyrenee. The soldiers kept theirs close, near the military quarters, but the royal family’s carriage horses made their beds here, in his stable’s guest wing. There were five in all, each of them the color of fresh snow—Pyrenee preferred white horses for official business, and they’d arrived with their undercarriages a ruddy brown from hard travel through the mountains dividing the two kingdoms. Luca had already spent much of the day returning the horses’ coats to their original state.
Usually, all of Luca’s horses received hay, but he’d learned quickly that the high horses of other kingdoms were accustomed to finer things. Horse bread, fresh-cut pasture grass, and, in the case of Pyrenee, oats.
As he finished, Luca realized the cord on the oat bag had gone bald and would need to be replaced—slick rope never knotted tightly. Oats weren’t the price of gold, but they weren’t as easy to find in Ardenia as hay, and he didn’t want to waste them. These horses could be his guests for days before their riders rushed away in failure.
He stepped out of the stable wing meant for guests, fingers still fiddling with the drawstring, the promise of his own dinner on his mind.
His mistake.
He’d only been trained to fight a girl who didn’t want to hurt him.
Luca heard the blow before he felt it, the thick side of his own practice sword cracking him in a wide smack across his back. Tall as he was, the shot sent him off-balance, stumbling forward, one boot dragging a divot in the packed sod. Luca’s hands flew forward, bag of oats and all, but only the bag grazed the dirt, his legs doing enough to keep him from sprawling, face first, on the floor. He immediately tried to rise but was cut down again, this time with a boot to his exposed gut. He fell to the side, rolling onto his back, free hand up in weak defense.
A crush of blood hit all Luca’s senses at once—the sound of it pumping through his hearing, the tang of it on his throat, clinging to any air his bruising lungs were able to capture. Garnet spots slinked across his sight as he opened his eyes to blurry vision.
It was then that Luca felt a sword to his throat—the swooped kind they preferred in the Torrent. Even without full sight he knew what sat across his windpipe, pressing in a curve as deep as the coming crescent moon.
Luca blinked again, and his vision cleared to faces staring down at him. A tall boy, a short boy, and a girl. The tall boy had the tawny brown skin of Myrcell, and sweat-slicked curls hugged the smooth angles of his face. The shorter one had to be from across the Divide: Eritri, most likely, given his features—blunt, broad, and blanched. His hair was so blond it was almost white, eyes a saltwater blue, forehead wide as the sky. The girl, though, she had the burnished skin and honeyed eyes of the Torrent. Like him.