“If you’re asking to be knocked out, it’s too late.”
Luca leaned in farther, his whole body a vise, the strength he’d earned in the Itspi’s stables doing what it could to keep Amarande still. “You are really terrible at being injured, Ama. It doesn’t suit you.”
His thumb brushed the ragged linen on her injured hand. “What happened here?”
Luca was trying to distract her. Despite the pain, Amarande forced out the words, “My. Brother.”
Luca smoothed the gauze back down. “He must be a little like you, then.”
“A. Little.”
When the last stitch was finally tied off, Amarande forced her jaws apart. “I am no good at being injured mostly because I am terrible at being still. I cannot be stationary when a woman mad with power is bearing down on Ardenia with a threefold army. I may not be queen, but I must protect my people.”
Koldo shook her head. “The timing is disastrous. Our regiments at the borders will not make it to Ardenia fast enough to beat theships. And those border regiments are likely engaged with the soldiers who have been stationed there since the funeral.”
Stars, yes.War may already have begun. Two-against-one at the crossroads between Ardenia, Basilica, Myrcell. Bile licked at Amarande’s throat.
Koldo continued to lay out Ardenia’s weaknesses with her usual military precision. “Based on when Inés left, she will likely arrive at the Port of Ardenia before sundown tomorrow, even with all those ships and unfavorable winds.”
“And if the winds are favorable?” Amarande asked.
“Dawn. Ships can march all night.”
A few hours from then.
Amarande chewed her lip, feeling just a twinge of guilt about what she was about to say next. “If only we had Taillefer as bait.”
“That is the only way I’d put up with him,” Ula spit, shoving her medical implements a little too hard into her kit. “Looked everywhere for that blasted blond creep. No sign of that psychopathic scoundrel or the man in Pyrenee purple who retrieved him from the prison cart.”
The princess sighed. “We know where he is. Either the guard is delivering him to Inés’s feet or he is going on his own accord to fight for the power he feels she’s stolen from him.”
Koldo did not lose a hitch in her renewed steps. “If he’s truly disowned, the second son has no power, no matter the tantrum he throws.”
Amarande shook her head. “One would assume. But with Taillefer assume nothing.” She waved her good arm and stood, feeling better on her feet than she had in hours. “Let us forget him. He is the key to Inés, but we cannot even think of confronting her without first confronting my mother.” Amarande caught eyes with the general. “And Ferdinand.”
“I will handle Ferdinand,” Koldo insisted, as smoothly as she would take an order. No one dared object. “The princess is right. Ardenia must come first. It will be much easier to defend from the inside.”
“Yes, except my mother and brother have told the entire Sand and Sky I am dead to pave the way for his coronation—”
“Princess, to be fair, your brother wanted no part in that. He wished to tell the people the truth, as he told you.” Koldo was not one to interrupt. Here, she did so with unwavering attention, nearly pleading for Amarande to understand her son was not part of the lie.
Amarande accepted Koldo’s defense of Ferdinand with a nod. “I believe that, but his affection for the truth will not protect me any more than it will protect you, General. If Geneva finds it most convenient that either of us are dead, every blade but Ferdinand’s will be drawn in an attempt to make it so.”
“She wanted me to return you alive.”
“She’s my mother; she’s supposed to say that,” Amarande answered, blood hot in her cheeks. “But we all know it is clearly a much larger task to properly hide me away alive than it would be trotting out my body and blaming the madwoman who has come to conquer.” Amarande laced Luca’s fingers within hers. “Not to mention what she would do to Luca once she is finished with me.”
Koldo rolled her shoulders. “I could return you alone, as ordered. She will not know we are on the same side. We gain entry, seek audience, and then—Princess, I do not mean to disregard your very complicated feelings for her—dispose of the Queen Mother.”
The heaviness in Koldo’s clinical delivery was the only indication that the general had been mullingdisposingof the woman for years. It was the cleanest thing to do, and yet even the idea of it triggered the image of Renard in Amarande’s mind. Decisions like that could not be undone.
Luca gently kissed the back of Amarande’s entwined hand. “General, with all due respect, I’m not sitting this one out. If Amarande is going to Ardenia, I am going by her side.”
“Then we fight.” Ula drew in a deep breath. “This woman is not just your mother. She is the Warlord. We have the army we need to topple the castle.”
Yes. Of course.
Luca and his people had won the battle, but they had not won the war. Not yet.
