Somehow that was easier to say than how we feel about each other and Amarande already worried she might vomit.
But then, with one careful turn and a quick heave, Luca did vomit.
“Are you all right?”
The princess wasn’t the sort to be squeamish. She immediately wrenched around to have a good look at him. Beads of sweat sat atop his golden skin. Amarande brought Mira to a halt and pressed a hand to his forehead—hot enough to fry up a quail egg. Fever.
“Let’s dismount.”
“No, no, I’m just nauseous is all. We can continue.”
Amarande ignored this and pulled him down—he barely resisted. She sat him against one of the trees on the edge of the forest, gave him the waterskin, and picked around the stolen saddlebags for something to eat. She found a pouch of almonds and fed them to him one by one while asking a battery of questions about where things hurt and how long he’d felt this way.
When he couldn’t give her a good answer, she tried a different tactic. “May I have a look at your injuries?” Internal bleeding was her guess, and that wasn’t good—she’d need to get him to Medikua Aritza at the Itspi as soon as humanly possible.
Luca nodded and Amarande carefully rolled up his sleeves, pulled down his collar, and then, with his permission, pulled up his tunic. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she felt her cheeks growing hot at the beauty of him. Hard from work, the ink over his heart darkly perfect against his golden skin. Yes, beautiful by anyone’s definition, though mottled with bruises over his back and shoulder to go with the one at his temple. None appeared to be swollen hard—the indication Amarande knew of internal bleeding.
“I’m fine. Please, let’s keep moving.”
“Does anything I haven’t checked hurt? Even just a little bit?”
“No.”
“No tingling? Burning? Numbness? Swelling? Anything new?”
Luca licked his lips and tried to stand. Amarande grabbed his hand—clammy and cold—as added support. “The almonds helped. Probably just dehydrated and hungry.” He mounted the horse as if to prove just how fine he was.
The princess stared up at him from where she knelt, squinting hard into the sun haloing his head. “Luca, answer my question. Nothing at all?”
Finally, he took a deep breath. “Well, my ankle sort of burns.”
“Which one?”
He gestured to the one right in front of her, his tone somewhat embarrassed. “Probably just scraped up in the fight.”
Amarande didn’t respond other than to say, “May I?” She gestured at his pant leg.
Luca nodded.
With careful fingers, Amarande lifted the fabric, frayed from his life in the stable. And there, right above the lip of his boot, was a scrape, as he’d suggested. Except it wasn’t just red—the edges were as black as his tattoo and swollen fat. Amarande blinked and leaned in closer. And there, it became more than clear the scrape wasn’t just one little cut but two. Just skimming the surface, but in a pattern that made her heart stop.
A snake’s work.
In the tussle, the fangs of a Harea Asp had dragged across Luca’s skin. The princess’s knees buckled and she leaned into Mira to steady herself.
No. I can’t lose him now.
A true bite would’ve killed him within an hour. But if she didn’t find anti-venom in the next few hours, this might kill him anyway.
CHAPTER
30
RENARD wasn’t sure what he’d find when he finally laid eyes on Princess Amarande again, but he knew he’d at least appear ready for it.
His party had swelled to fifteen and was looking mighty impressive as they combed the sun-scraped Torrent for the princess. To the seven original riders the prince had added four hired hands—burly enough to earn their gold—plus the three men who had spotted the princess on the run (the single injured man wouldn’t come alone but didn’t seem bothered by lack of payment for his friends), and the girl who’d spotted the stableboy at the watering hole.
They’d come across several riders in their trip to the Cardenas Scar and stopped for every one of them. Asking questions, inspecting bags, trying to gain more leads. They hadn’t, though, and now that noon had come and gone, the first son of Pyrenee was getting frustrated. Their sluggish pace, the lack of answers, the constant scrutiny of Captain Serville, who rode alongside him, his sword clattering at the hip closest to the prince, a reminder in forged steel that he worked solely for Ardenia—it all grated on Renard.
As the next riders came into view and their progression slowed, yet again, Renard felt the urge to lay his head down on his horse’s neck and softly tap his forehead against it. But then he heard the girl’s voice.
“That’s them,” she announced as they came up on three riders on two horses.
“Are you sure?” Renard asked, because of course it was all wrong—wrong number of people, wrong number of horses, and no one fitting the description of the stableboy. Taillefer had seen the stableboy up close with Amarande the day of the funeral and had been tasked with identifying him—Renard wasn’t about to leave a job as important as that to Serville. Still, Renard had hoped the men who’d seen the princess would spark on something first, but he supposed this was better than yet another dead end. If it was right.
“Yes,” the girl—Osana—said, emphatic. “I’d remember that mishmash anywhere. Sunburnt Eritrian, giant of Myrcell, girl of Torrent with a curved blade. That’s them, minus a horse and the captive boy.”
An important caveat, but she was so convincing that her surety was enough for the prince. Renard tipped his chin at his captain. “Surround them.”
The guards of Pyrenee and the hired hands followed orders, while the pair of princes sat still and inspected. Serville settled in next to Renard, awaiting news of his princess.
As the guards took their places and raised their swords, the party reacted with the fear Renard was seeking. The girl drew her curved blade, the Myrcellian a pair of daggers, and the Eritrian put up his hands.
“How can we help you, folks?” the blond boy asked, an insincere grin sliding across his wide face. The girl and boy behind him didn’t smile from their shared saddle. Renard launched into the description of Amarande that he liked, mostly because it sounded complimentary and maybe even romantic to strangers’ ears.
“We are looking for a girl on a black horse. Hair like an open flame, porcelain skin and rose-touched cheeks, eyes a blue-green only found in the waters of the Divide—”
Taillefer held up a hand and cut in on his brother, having heard his description one too many times. “She’s wearing a red ball gown.”
Renard frowned and continued. “She may have changed, but yes, she is likely clad in garnet lace and silk.”
The blond boy tilted his head. “Funny, because we’re looking for her, too.”
Renard bared his teeth. “What business do you have with her?”
The blond boy hesitated. The nearest guard saw it and pressed the tip of his sword into the soft spot beneath the boy’s ribs. The Eritrian blinked hard and continued, overconfident voice faltering. “We were hired to kidnap her stableboy, to convince her to marry Prince Renard.”