It was the girl who held the blade to his throat, as fierce as anything he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t help but think Amarande would appreciate her if her blade were pointed elsewhere.
The tall boy rapped Luca’s ear with the thin edge of the practice sword. It stung almost more than the pulsing misery of his midsection, front and back. “This can’t be right; he’s of Torrent.”
“Watch your tongue,” the girl snapped, eyes cutting dangerously to the Myrcellian boy. After a nice, hard glance, she turned her attention back to Luca, her lips pulling up at one corner of her mouth. “I’d say general suspicion is correct—look at those cheekbones. What princess is going to turn them down?”
The short boy nodded. “He’s the one. Haul him up. Let’s go.”
The tall one wrapped a mammoth hand around the neck of Luca’s work tunic and used it as a handle to right him to his knees, ripping the fabric in the process. He then bound Luca’s wrists in a length of rope as the shorter boy yanked away the oats—spilling them everywhere as he slung the bag to the girl. She caught the drawstring with a single hand and no comment, stuffing it in a pack slung over her shoulder. Then the girl moved her sword tip to hover directly in line with Luca’s eyes as his equilibrium changed, rotated, reset.
It was then that Luca finally felt he could speak, blood spotting his words, though he couldn’t tell if its place of origin was his chest or his gut.
“Who are you? Where are you taking me?”
“We’re pirates for hire, and you, stableboy, are blackmail,” the short one said. From this perspective he wasn’t actually very short; he just looked that way next to his tall companion. It was clear he was in charge of whatever this was, though Luca was sure the girl could eat him for supper.
“Blackmail?”
The leader boy held up a piece of parchment. The outside was marked in a blunt scrawl: AMARANDE. “Here’s the mail. Now we disappear you away into the black night until your princess takes the hint and marries our guy.”
The sun was still mostly up, but Luca didn’t argue. “And if she doesn’t?”
At this, all three of them smiled, something hard in it. It was the girl who spoke, twisting the tip of her blade into Luca’s sternum as she said the words. “Then I guess you’ll find out what the letter says will be done to you.”
Luca swallowed the blood in his mouth and looked right into the girl’s eyes. So much like his. It was like staring into a pond. “My princess won’t bow to your demands. But what she will do is come for me, which means she’s coming for you, whether I’m alive or not.”
And though he’d addressed the girl with the blade, it was the leader who answered this time, because he seemed like the type who couldn’t help himself.
“The princess will save you. Yes, yes, that’s right. That’s how all the storybooks go.” Laughing, the boy turned his back to Luca, dismissal in everything from his tone to his body language. For someone who let others do his fighting, he seemed to have a dangerous misunderstanding of motivation.
Luca’s eyes narrowed on the back of his neck, which was peeling from days in the open—Eritrians weren’t cut out for direct sunlight. “You don’t know my princess.”
The boy scoffed. “Oh yes, I’m sure she’s different.”
Another dismissal—this one punctuated by the wave of his ringed hand over his white-blond head.
And maybe that wave was more than a dismissal—maybe it was an order, too, because with that the hilt of the stolen practice blade came crashing down on Luca’s temple. Another rebuttal died on his lips, and the world faded to a deep, fuzzy black.
CHAPTER
6
“YOUR Highness, are you mad?” These were the first words out of Satordi’s mouth once they’d reached the north tower.
Princess Amarande had been cushioned by councilors and guards herding her away from the prying eyes of the arena and into the council room. The moment the door was shut, Satordi had turned on her. He didn’t take a seat behind his great table—he was angry enough to stand in front of it, a livid font of static energy beneath his white-and-gold robes. Garbine and Joseba flanked him, jaws working.
“Furious, actually, that you’d trust me to be your queen but not to be present for any of the necessary deliberations, which shouldn’t be necessary in the first place. You refuse to investigate an avenue to change our patriarchal system for the good of Ardenia. You’ve only spent time bartering this country’s future—my future—behind my back.” Amarande stood her ground, Koldo hanging close enough that her broad shoulder armor brushed the princess’s black lace sleeves. “I took my chance and said my piece. And I could have said so much more. It is more than likely one of those people killed my father or placed the order. What they stand to gain is too great for them not to be suspects in the investigation our regent has organized.”
The princess turned to the general, a request for an investigation update ready on her tongue, when Satordi held up a hand.
“Do not change the subject, Your Highness. I realize that you have much to learn, Princess, but make no mistake, your piece was a threat—out in the open, where the stars and every being from here to Indu could hear it. If you’d said such a thing behind closed doors the result would have been more diplomatic.”
“I can’t have a discussion if I’m not invited.”
Satordi’s mouth flattened. “Don’t be a child.”
“I am a child, which is exactly why you believe you can ignore my requests and demands for consent, and simply sell me—and our kingdom—off to the highest bidder.”
“Councilor Satordi,” Koldo started, voice as hard and steady as the Basilican steel in her scabbard. “As regent, I request you include Princess Amarande in the betrothal process. It is a necessary education for our future queen.”
Amarande wondered why Koldo hadn’t inserted herself into the process as well, but perhaps she felt it not her place. They would have to discuss the fault in that logic immediately after the conclusion of Satordi’s current diatribe.
Satordi squeezed his eyes closed. “Very well. Princess, if you’d like to be part of the process, dinner tonight at eight in the red hall.” Satordi nodded to the left of Koldo. “Captain Serville, arrange it that Prince Renard is there at that time.”
That wasn’t what she’d meant at all, and surely that was not what Koldo had in mind, but to push back now really would be a child’s move. She didn’t say no, but she wouldn’t lose an opportunity to force the underlying point.
“That will give me an excellent chance to interrogate him on my father’s death.” Amarande smiled something bloody. “Shall I move on to dessert with King Akil? Myrcell is known to have the highest concentration of hemlock in the Sand and Sky.”
“Princess, your father’s death has nothing to do with whom you wed.” The councilor pinched the bridge of his nose. “We do not have time for this. We simply do not. We have much bigger things to worry about.”
“It has everything to do with it. I do not understand why you keep imploring me to see the bigger picture when this is the picture. He was murdered—what is bigger than the murder of your king? What?”