Stars, he was right. Surely Inés had pursued Akil before he’d wed his new bride, and now with the chess pieces shifting further on the continent, new paths to greater power had been revealed. And there was nothing Domingu wouldn’t do for a crown—the whole world had known that for fifty years.
“She would circumvent her own son?”
He nodded simply, hair spun gold in the torchlight. “Our arrival in Ardenia has only proved it—she hasn’t met once with your council. She’s too busy making her own arrangements.”
His eyes met hers.
“But our laws also say something else. I may take the crown before my eighteenth birthday if I complete a single task—marry.”
And there it was.
Renard faced her directly now, cheeks reddening as he made his case. His matter-of-fact attitude was gone, passion coloring his features. “You must marry to rule. I must marry to rule. We are alike, you and I. Join me and we shall start a new era—one that weds our countries and keeps our people safe.”
Presentation finished, the boy sat back and drained his cup, eyes pinned on the princess’s face throughout the whole indulgent length of it.
It would be so easy, of course.
To say yes.
To align herself with Renard.
To use their compact to force the southern kingdoms to decide if war would truly win them more power or just cause them to lose a huge swath of population and gold in trade.
To do as the paper folded against her heart required and get her Luca back to her.
But.
This boy owned more of the black that infected his mother’s heart than he knew—or liked to show.
The princess tipped her cup to her lips and took a swallow … and nearly coughed with surprise. It wasn’t sagardoa, after all. No, it was unfermented—juiced apples augmented with a hint of spice. Renard didn’t have the constitution for drink; he had a sweet tooth. Perhaps he thought he was drinking actual sagardoa and impressing her. She nearly laughed before flashing the first smile she didn’t have to work for in the past hour. The prince had drawn his weapon and set his stance, attack chosen. And now she’d tease apart the weak side.
“If we are truly equal, then we must discuss the terms of Pyrenee’s contract, because the text simply doesn’t support your argument.”
The passion leeched from Renard’s face, the painting-perfect exterior back in place. “How so? I believe it does nothing but establish full unity.”
If his mother truly did not want to see him wed, then she didn’t have anything to do with the contract Pyrenee sent over ahead of the funeral—meaning Renard was the one who’d approved every entitled stipulation. Worse, too, he knew what had been written and still seemed to believe what he’d said—that they were equals. But even in the mildest sense of his contract, they were not.
Renard’s blind privilege set something loose in her gut, hot and unsettled. Amarande forced her fingers to do something other than reach into her boot; she picked up her spoon and took a piece of lamb.
“‘Full unity’—yes, I know all about your request for military occupation of Ardenia until I ‘give’ you an heir.”
“Princess, that clause is simply to avoid having Pyrenee’s own Runaway Queen.” Across the table, Renard’s smile broadened—it was a slippery, snakebit thing, and Amarande knew he meant every inch of what he didn’t say outright.
Renard didn’t want his own heir born of a missing bride. But also left unspoken was what so many had whispered since her mother’s disappearance—that Queen Geneva hadn’t run away at all. That she’d been murdered by Sendoa, his tracks covered by a story and his own army vouching for his location a hundred miles away. Renard was suggesting he was “protecting” Amarande from the same fate—at least until an heir was in the picture.
She’d been wrong when she’d thought him to be as boring as blank canvas. There was some color to him, after all. Each one of them dark.
Amarande clutched the fabric of her skirt, the blood under her skin throbbing like a second pulse against the boot knife. “And so you would keep my people hostage like you keep Luca.”
Renard didn’t react to Luca’s name. “Are they not under martial rule already? General Koldo is the designated regent, is she not? A general in charge—martial rule by definition.” He smiled. “They would have it so much better under us.”
Satordi’s prediction of the situation parroted back on this boy’s lips.
The feverish thing in her gut clawed past her heart.
She had to leave now or he was a dead man. Which meant war. Which meant something black for Luca.
Amarande stood. “There is no us. There will never be an heir sharing our blood. You will never touch me. You will never have Ardenia.”
Or Luca.
With that, she lunged for the doors. Renard shot to his feet, cutting her off as she passed him with a hand on her wrist. Squeezing, tight, enough to bruise. “Princess, you won’t get a better arrangement. Your people won’t get a better arrangement.”
“Let go.” Her eyes slid to the sword at his hip, threat clear.
“As you wish.” He dropped her wrist but not eye contact. “But you’re making your path more difficult, my princess.”
Yet it was her path to choose. She would do it her own way.
This conniving boy had stolen her Luca away, and she would steal him right back.
CHAPTER
10
AMARANDE pushed out of the red hall, heart pounding but head up—Renard’s guards waited for her; she was sure of it.
And she didn’t put it past this boy, this snake in silk, to order them to stop her. To put hands upon her in her own home. To carry her kicking and screaming to the Royal Council, some forged contract in hand, and dump her at the feet of her future. At Ardenia’s future.
She stepped into that passageway as if she owned it—she did.
As if she could do as deadly things with her fists as with the knife in her boot—she could.
As if she had her mind made up about exactly what she was going to do—she had.
The guards stood at attention. They weren’t lolling around, deep in cups of actual sagardoa, their own cuts of lamb balanced in plates upon their knees, threatening to stain their silken tunics with savory juice. No. They stood, all four of them facing the great doors, hands on the hilts of their swords. Waiting for a command.
Amarande didn’t hesitate when she saw them. She simply turned that proud chin over her shoulder and said loudly, politely, “I shall see you in the morning, Your Highness.”
The guards didn’t spark at that; they only dipped their heads in honorable nods, spying their master standing—alive—through the glimpse the doors gave as she made her exit as quickly as possible.
With a single word, these men would be on her.
But they didn’t know the castle—not like she did. And thus, they didn’t happen to notice that the princess did not turn left toward her chambers, but right.
She clasped her fingers together, so that the men wouldn’t see them trembling as she walked away, as briskly as possible without breaking into a dead run. Just a princess strolling away for a night of contemplating a generous offer from a boy who would sacrifice her people to satisfy the greed that slunk under every inch of his useless skin.