It wasn’t Koldo’s weapon—and she didn’t think it would be. Koldo would come for her before Taillefer. Even though she’d told her she didn’t want her to.
“Taillefer! Can you grab the sword? We can get out of here if you can—”
“I have my own problems, Princess.” Face smashed against the bars, as she leaned for the weapon, Amarande wrenched around at the sound of his voice. Strangled. Hurt. Stressed. Yet she could see nothing.
Just when she returned her attention to the weapon, two bodies tumbled past. Blond hair, the same prisoners’ garb as hers. The other was another light-haired boy, wrapped in a cloak much like the one they’d stolen, but underneath was a flash of the darkest aubergine.
Pyrenee. They’d truly come for him.
Taillefer struggled, hands in a fury, going for all the soft spots on the soldier’s face—ears, eyes, lips. The prince’s forearm caught the boy’s windpipe, and his head flew back with a crack, sucking cry escaping from his lips.
Taillefer used that opportunity to wedge his knee against his chest and kick the soldier as hard as possible with almost no room. It gave him enough space that he dove for his sword.
As he wrenched it away from Amarande’s outstretched fingers, she felt her chances evaporate, the sword his for his survival alone.
But.
In one quick aside, Taillefer shoved the sword between the bars, straight into her hands.
For a moment their eyes met. “The sword? As you wish.”
Then a huge, hulking arm in aubergine jerked him away. Taillefer spun, ducking, grabbing a dagger straight out of the chest of a fallen man, and, as he was angling for the Pyrenee soldier, was devoured by the retreating crowd.
Amarande blinked as if he’d been swallowed yet again by quicksand, shocked that in that moment he’d helped her. She stared at the sword, almost believing it was a trick. But no, it was true Basilican steel.
A soldier’s sword.Thatsoldier’s sword. The mountain lion crest of Pyrenee stamped at the hilt.
Another blow to the cart knocked the inaction straight out of her. The cart leaned.
She had to get out.
Putting as much of her weight toward the front as possible, Amarande began hacking away at the divider panel. It was thinner than the bars. If she could just bust a hole, she could break open this thin board. She could do it.
She could get out of here. To Luca, somewhere out there, fighting.
A couple of pointed swings of the blade and a narrow hole appeared, Taillefer’s cell and the gaping door free.
“Ama!” Koldo’s voice. She had an entire key ring now, but Amarande’s locked door was now three feet over the edge of the pit. All her weight was in the remaining four feet of her side.
“I changed my mind. Please get me out of here.” She held up her sword. “Help me hack away at the partition.”
Without a word, Koldo sprinted to the opposite side of the cart and began to hack away at the partition with both her dagger and sword. Amarande worked from the corner out toward the center, where the general stabbed the wood with everything she had.
Within a minute, they had two good-sized holes there, but they needed to come together.
“Stand back! I’ve got it,” Amarande announced, lining her blade up with the thin bit of remaining wood. One targeted strike would do it.
The princess wrenched back the sword. On impact, a chunk of wood flew away, creating just enough of an opening that Amarande was sure she could squeeze through.
At once, Koldo came into view. She was bloodstained, wounded in the shoulder and thigh, but standing there, a rare smile on her face. Koldo leaned forward, gloved hand out. “Ama, I am here for you. Not for her. I promise. I will explain—”
The ground shook and the general was tossed to the side. Amarande, too—hard enough that the sword tagged the bars and fell from her grip. It slid to the dangling locked-door side, the blade roasting over the fire.
Amarande tried to gather herself, her footing slipping, and suddenly she had one hand hooked on the bars and her injured hand, linen wrapping and all, clutching the rough edges of the newly splintered hole.
But instead she just hung.
At the top of her lungs she called to her love one final time.
