Amarande rolled her own diamonds around in her hand, the stones swirling with captured luminosity.
What was a lie?
What was the truth?
What would be best for Ardenia?
For Luca?
For her?
As she tossed the questions over in her mind, something tossed itself through the window, striking her in the hand. The diamonds scattered, pinging across the marble.
A pebble.
She picked it up, and the diamonds, too. As she stood again, another small rock flew through the window, landing an inch from her foot.
Amarande stepped up to the window and leaned out to the night.
And there, walking in the garden, were Taillefer and his guards, who were carrying something large. None of them were looking up to her window two stories above, but a quick sweep of the courtyard provided no other suspects.
“Taillefer!” The prince turned, as if he did not expect to hear her voice. “Did you just throw two rocks at me?”
“What, me? No.”
His fox smile slid into place with his denial and Amarande wound up to say more, but then the guards turned and the light shifted, and suddenly the shape of what they were carrying became not something but someone.
Even at the distance, even with the falling darkness, even with the angry slash across his chest beside his tattoo, Amarande knew.
“Luca.”
His name was faint on her lips—almost nothing. Only she could hear it, pounding in her ears, over the churning of her breath. Her heaving stomach plummeted; her limbs immediately began shaking; a runaway chill raced across her skin.
Taillefer was prepared for her reaction. Every inch of this moment was orchestrated, she suspected.
“Don’t do anything rash, Princess. He’s only dreaming of you.” The prince’s eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that wasn’t merry. “He will only ever dream of you for the rest of his days. But that was to be the case after the wedding anyway, am I right?”
The princess’s body tensed with the whisper of battle. If the fall wouldn’t kill her, she would’ve launched herself out of the window and onto the stone path before him, hands about his throat to squeeze the answer free.
“Will you speak plainly?” Amarande spat, color rising. From such a distance it appeared as if Luca had been cut open, his heart—the one that loved her dearly—removed. “Is he…? You didn’t…?”
Taillefer’s smile sharpened.
“My brother is a fool, after all.”
And there she was, leaving Luca in the hands of Taillefer, throwing Renard’s words back at him: Remember, Prince, if he dies, you die.
The prince had nodded and said, I would be a fool to test you.
Taillefer didn’t state it clearly. He wouldn’t. This boy loved to live in riddles—straight answers would never be his forte. But he had laid it bare.
Amarande’s fingers clutched the windowsill as it hit her. Stealing her breath, her heartbeat, her everything. Every inch of her went numb as her world crumbled in. The unthinkable proved in the failing light of the worst day of her life.
Luca was dead.
And Taillefer wanted her to know.
Because he wanted to be king.
Because he wanted to see her suffer.
Because he wanted to demonstrate his handiwork—of his own volition or of an order, she didn’t know.
But it didn’t matter.
Renard was to blame. He’d sent Luca with Taillefer. He’d caused Luca’s death.
Orders rose from the nothingness within her. To have the guards take him somewhere she could say good-bye. To make sure he was escorted to Ardenia for burial by his mother’s grave on the grounds of the Itspi. His found family would need to say good-bye, too.
“Guards,” she called, and when they looked up she would’ve been shocked if she’d had the capacity left for it—Luca’s body was being transported by the three kidnapper pirates, all dressed in the colors of Pyrenee. They had always been the enemy, and now they wore the aubergine and gold to prove it. “Take care of him, please.”
The other orders died unsaid. Mostly because they gave away what she knew now in her heart she must do.
The facets didn’t matter. No matter what scenario she landed on, none was better than the next. None had a different path. All had the same conclusion.
She must kill Renard.
Taillefer too.
And maybe the Dowager Queen.
Eradicate them all and leave the throne of Pyrenee bare.
Amarande tore herself away from the window, tears welling in her eyes now, splashing down her face.
It was over. Her love. Her dream. Her motivation.
She bent and pulled the ransom note from the pool of her stained clothes and tucked it again into her bodice, right above her heart. Then she fished her boots out from under the bed. Pulled the knife out of the right one and held it in her hand.
She’d grown into the hilt under her father’s direction. Under Koldo’s guidance. With Luca in their meadow.
And now it would be her revenge. Most likely her death, too.
She slipped the boot knife blade point down in the front of her bodice, working it between the boning of her stays, tight against her sternum, and next to the ransom note that had started it all. A tuck of the sash across her minimal cleavage and it was completely hidden.
“Pyrenee will suffer,” she whispered to herself, wiping at her eyes. She must not let on. She must be calm. She must wait until the right moment. She only had one chance to get this right.
She would make it so—and it would be the last thing she ever did.
CHAPTER
50
FIRST, Luca felt the pain. It came back to him as easily as breathing, though, in truth, it did constrict that. Next, he heard voices.
A boy’s. Maybe two. And a girl. If he were dead, that voice would’ve been Amarande’s, he was sure. Instead, it sounded very much like Ula.
Maybe he was alive.
“No,” the girl said, voice twisted with anger.
“Why are you being so stubborn about this? The garden, your sword, the gold. End of story.”
“No.”
“No, what, woman? If you weren’t so damn good with that sword, I swear I never would’ve been stupid enough to put you on this crew. You do not know your place.”
“His eyelashes just fluttered.” Urtzi’s voice.
Immediately Luca felt a thump on his boot. That kicked his eyes from fluttering to open.
“Luca!” Ula screeched, crashing to his side.
His eyes adjusted until he could see her face. Then Urtzi and Dunixi. And finally their surroundings … not Taillefer’s workshop. The familiar mingling scents of lavender oil, oats, and more than a few horses.
“Are we in the stable?” Luca’s voice was dry and cracking at the edges.
“Oh, here, have some water.” Ula thrust a waterskin in his face. He tried to move his hands, but they wound around in sloppy form. She helped him sit up and, propping him, put the pouch to his lips. After a few great swallows, he looked again to their faces, and then to his clothes—they’d given him a new shirt, something of awful Pyrenee purple. Beneath the fabric, his chest burned, but he felt some sort of lashing around his ribs, covering his wound—dressed. “How did you…?”
“Get you out?” Ula finished for him. When he nodded, her eyes lit up. “With Taillefer’s permission.”