He placed his hand on the doorknob but paused for final instruction. “We shall wed in three hours’ time.”
Amarande’s heart skidded to a stop, the blood freezing her veins, her breath still.
Three hours and her entire fight was lost.
CHAPTER
44
GUARDS breathing down his neck, Luca stood, bound and aching in every way imaginable—heart, head, body—as Amarande was marched up a set of stairs in preparation for the wedding.
The next time he saw her, she would be married and his love for her would endanger his life for the rest of his days. Where hope had been now was raw agony, a caustic burn at his heart.
As his princess disappeared around a balcony corner, Luca’s chin dipped to his chest. His heart shuddered within.
“I’ve got him, boys.” Prince Taillefer’s voice broke through the pounding in Luca’s ears. “Clean up. Rosewater soap and sparkling whites for tonight’s festivities.”
Luca’s head shot up. He’d been sure Taillefer would prefer to deal with him later, that he would be eager to prepare for the wish he’d made plain that day in the meadow. Instead, the prince smiled, wide and self-satisfied with Luca’s obvious shock, and Luca was struck that Amarande was right—Taillefer did look like a fox. From their limited interaction already, Luca very much expected the prince’s cunning to match.
While Amarande was led into the winding depths of the Bellringe, Luca was marched through a close-set grouping of iron doors, one and then the other, until he entered another courtyard that sat beyond the main footprint of the castle but within the grounds.
“Are you taking me to the stable?” Luca asked the prince, because he suddenly realized that perhaps he wasn’t simply to be kept, but put to work.
The prince’s laugh was immediate and slippery. “And get you close to a mode of transportation that would let you sneak away? I think not.”
“If my princess is here, I wouldn’t leave.”
“But if she made her way to you, you would.”
This was true enough that Luca said nothing.
The stable was up an incline to the left—there was no mistaking the smell trailing to the stone-built structure atop the hill. Even without that clue, castle grooms were marching the Pyrenee party’s horses in that direction in a dusty line of white stallions, the pirates’ horses—Ferri, Laya, Boli—and the mishmash of Torrentian caravan steeds.
Meanwhile, Taillefer swerved them right, through a garden of close-cropped summer roses, somehow cultivated or dyed to bloom the colors of the kingdom—dark purple and shimmering gold.
“Do you like those? They’re my creation,” Taillefer asked when he noticed Luca’s attention snagged on the flowers.
Again, Luca said nothing. The prince smiled coolly and plucked a gold one from the plant closest to him. He held it up in examination.
“They match your eyes,” Taillefer mused just as he tossed it at the boy’s face. Luca’s reflexes, sharp from their time with Ama in the meadow, didn’t fail him—he caught the flower just before its angry thorns could find their mark in the delicate skin of his sun-sore cheeks. Luca held the flower gently in his bound palms as the prince continued, sharpening his smile. “They’ll be in your beloved’s bouquet tonight. Don’t fret; they’ll hold their color until the very end.”
Luca simply dropped the flower.
“My, you are a grumpy boy.”
The prince grabbed Luca by the bindings and led him beyond the roses, through a maze of hedged walls, and then past a fountain, until they were at a small cottage with ivy-blanked windows. It looked like a gatehouse with no gate.
Taillefer unlocked it with a key around his neck, pulled the door open, and switched their positions. “In you go.”
It wasn’t a gatehouse at all, but an entryway. Two sconces weakly illuminated the space, which housed a spiral staircase that led only one direction—down. The prince lit a candlestick with the sconce flame. “I would suggest you not run, nor try to push me down. You will fall yourself and it will be the end of the both of us.”
With each floor, Luca’s heart dropped lower. Not even the dungeons of the Itspi nor the diamond mines of the Ardenian mountains went down so far. Nothing was this deep into the earth, not even the buried bones of those who came before.
They descended five dizzying flights, sconces blazing, and when the stairs ceased and they hit the final landing they entered a room that … Luca didn’t know what to call it.
Shelves climbed to the rafters of the round room, neatly organized with tagged bottles of varying shapes and sizes. Cut plants of all kinds littered a long table pushed against one side, while seedlings sat too close to the fire. And displayed around the room were deadly species of all kinds—scorpions, snakes, spiders, jellyfish, embalmed in such a painstaking manner they looked as if they might escape out the open door.
There were beasts, too, ones no one would accuse of breathing—bodiless heads of great animals, mounted on plates of glass. Bear. Tiger. Shark. The symbols of the other kingdoms of the Sand and Sky. All literally cut off at the head. The mountain lion of Pyrenee was not to be found. But what was, interestingly enough, was the extinct black wolf of the equally extinct Otxoa. Given the timeline of the Eradication of the Wolf, perhaps it was the dead king’s and not something of Taillefer’s making.
The prince caught him looking. “Yes, they’re a metaphor.” Taillefer marched Luca to an examination table in the middle of the room. “I spend much of my time down here studying and thinking, and I find that creatively it pays to remember who else is in the game.” Taillefer tipped his chin to the black wolf and then to Luca, their correlation clear. “And who’s lost it.”
Taillefer drew the sword at his side; like his brother’s it was as gaudy as full coffers could make it—gilded and bejeweled, a mountain lion’s face peeking out from the hilt. He pressed the tip against Luca’s jugular. “Remove your shirt or I will do it for you.”
Luca did as he was told, awkwardly with his arms bound, and the blade barely moved from his skin. He got the tunic up and over his head, but it pooled awkwardly against the bindings at his wrists.
“Now, on the table. Lie down.”
Again, Luca soundlessly followed orders. When he was situated, his bound arms and shirt across his chest, Taillefer advanced and clamped manacles around his ankles. Next came Luca’s bound hands. The prince removed the binds and clamped Luca’s arms at his sides with another set of iron manacles. The tunic and ropes were discarded beneath the table. The prince stood next to the table, heavy eyes appraising every inch of his guest while Luca stared at the shadows combing the dungeon ceiling. Luca had no need to guess as to why they were so far underground.
After a minute, the prince finally spoke.
“What happened to your leg?”
“Grazed by a Harea Asp.”
Taillefer struck out for something on the shelves drilled into the bedrock above a worktable. He returned with a taxidermic Harea Asp, its jaws agape and ready to strike. “One of these?”
Luca nodded.
Taillefer moved the snake’s head as if it were talking, his voice going high and hissy. “Then why are you not deceassssssssed?”