The general took a deep breath and slipped a hand into her tunic. In one smooth motion, she revealed her own square of parchment. Not a map. Something else.
“Your father always had a plan for succession. I’ve had it with me since I left the Itspi in the days after your father died. I’ve been quite concerned someone—specifically Satordi, but now Geneva—might burn it.”
She unfolded the parchment, the last bits of a wax seal crumbling off the tip of the paper with the movement, and offered it to Amarande.
“Princess, your father saw greatness in you every day. He protected you in so many ways I cannot begin to count.” She nodded to the paper. “He always intended you to rule. He knew the complications that wish would create. The plan was never Ferdinand; it was always you. Of all his plans, you were his best one, and I failed you both by thinking I could repair it myself.”
The Day of King Sendoa’s Death
LESSthan an hour after the lifeless body of King Sendoa arrived at the Itspi, the Royal Council of Ardenia convened within the castle’s north tower. Councilors Satordi, Garbine, and Joseba seated themselves in their usual spots, right in a row.
The king’s roaring tiger chair at the head of the table gravely empty.
And, standing stiffly at attention at the room’s entrance, General Koldo. Not changed from her dusty uniform. Eyes red and swollen from a deluge of tears unlike any she had experienced in the past fifteen years.
The general approached the table, which held a single guest chair. Tiger’s head carved into the back, but a world less ornate than Sendoa’s former seat. “You did not invite the princess?”
Satordi straightened. No eye contact. “It is not appropriate for her to be here. Not yet. This is no place for a child.”
Though he was too cowardly to look at her, Koldo bared her teeth. This man would fear her frustration with a turn of tension he could not mute. “She is the last blood of Ardenia; she should have at least been invited.”
Satordi shuffled the papers in front of him. Slim neck trembling over the bob of his throat. “If you would like to drag her crying from her quarters to the next meeting, you are welcome to do so. I have no time for such hysterics. We must get to the bottom of this.”
Koldo stared back at the man with as much vitriol as she had left. “Then let’s. We should read the will.”
The general took the single seat across the table.
Now that they were on the same level, Satordi hazarded a look at her. Setting the tone, running the meeting, that was all this man knew in Koldo’s estimation. He believed he had power, but he only sat in close proximity. “First, I have a few questions for you, GeneralKoldo, who was within three feet of our king as he died of seemingly nothing at all.”
Koldo simply stared back at him. Waiting.
The other councilors remained silent and still. “General,” Satordi said, “did the king share any information with you that you believe could have led to regicide?”
Koldo said nothing.
“General?”
“I do not believe so. No.”
“It is your opinion that King Sendoa died of natural causes?”
Again, Koldo said nothing.
Satordi inhaled thinly. The afternoon light shifted, wind and shadow playing beyond the heaviness within the Itspi. “I shall take that answer as a yes.”
“No,” the general corrected, curtly. “It appeared to be, but I do not believe it was.”
The councilor pursed his thin lips. “Fine. If you would like me to understand you the first time, please answer my next question to the fullest of your ability. General, I realize you’ve had a shock, but unless you answer me with words, there is very little I can do to amend this situation.”
Sendoa was dead. There was no amendment to that. Just stars and rot.
“General, is there anyone who would wish to see our king dead?”
There was no shortage. Not really. So many of those who owed their crowns to the Warrior King had obvious motivations if exposed to the right light.
Bear. Shark. Mountain Lion. And the monster in the desert most of all.
“Yes.”
