“I will be there. As will the others. Listen close; this is what we will do.”
CHAPTER60
THEItspi was completely different from when Luca had last laid eyes on it.
Then: open gates, commoners and highborn alike in mourning, the grounds sunny despite the heaviness of King Sendoa’s funeral.
Now: closed gates, soldiers marching in military precision, every square inch of the grounds flooded with a bloodred mass of bodies, sprawled across the rock-bitten hills and summer dry grass.
One last breath from Sendoa and truly everything had changed. A thousand years of peace bought with brutal patriarchy, and in the scheme of a fortnight all pieces shifted.
For the better, Luca hoped.
Koldo’s plan was a solid one. All the tactical brilliance he’d only witnessed tangentially on display. It was exactly the best course of action to negate the threat of Geneva so that they might focus upon the threat of Inés and her new power, churning in the harbor.
What she was waiting for, Luca didn’t know. Inés was simply a named storm, power gathering on the horizon.
Hand looped in hers, Luca held tight to Amarande as they wound through the grounds, trailing her brother’s lifted chin, sunset hair, oxen shoulders. Luca wondered how Amarande could set her eyes upon Ferdinand—even from his position adjacent to the family, it was unsettling to be within the king’s orbit.
So familiar yet so much not. Not Sendoa. Not someone either of them really knew at all.
Amarande had made it clear that she’d literally spent about ten minutes with her brother, only a few tense sentences between them. Luca knew he’d trusted many—most recently Tala—with less than that because it was his nature. The fact that Amarande, always so suspicious,was notmade him apprehensive, to say the least.
“Ama,” he whispered, as Ferdinand greeted the guards stationed at the entrance to the inner walls of the Itspi, the winding sandstoneand marble halls beyond, “I know it is not usually my role to be wary, but do you trust him? Really?”
Amarande licked her lips, not meeting Luca’s eyes, only watching her brother ahead, saying all the prepared things to the castle guards carefully eyeing the pair of them. “I have you. If he breaks our trust, we will fight our way out together. Yes?”
His thumb swept across the top of the hand that twined with his. “Always, Princess.”
The king signaled them to follow. “The Queen Mother will receive us in the council room.”
That was not the plan.
It had been to meet in the throne room. Or the red hall. Somewhere with space to fight and more than one exit for escape if things went south.
Uncertainty clawed at Luca. The dagger in his boot pressed against the tendons at his ankle as he took step after step toward a swiftly pivoting plan. They would not receive the Queen Mother alone. The Royal Council and their opinions would be there. Along with the external threat of Inés, the internal threat of Geneva’s status as Warlord, and whatever secrets hid within the king.
It was impossible to say if he truly was more loyal to his natural mother or the one who’d raised him. If Ferdinand were actually his father, this conundrum would be much easier to parse. If the king turned out to be as greedy and backstabbing and brutal as every other royal in the Sand and Sky, Amarande would likely be the one to take him out herself.
The party wound through the castle, past guards running this way and that. As they passed the red hall, the great tiger’s head doors swung open, revealing officers bent over lines of tables, carved wooden figurines of the sigils of each of the kingdoms of Sand and Sky.
Geneva first.
Inés second.
That was the plan, though it was difficult not to be distracted by the buzz of unease and anticipation wafting from the red hall and into the stones at their feet. Luca hoped this would be quick. And if not, that it could be effectively tabled as they united for a common enemy, the subject of which crown sat on whose head saved for later.
They moved swiftly up the stairs of the north tower. Luca’s heartthumped wildly as they pushed into the council room, four guards stationed at the entrance. He’d never been allowed within before. Yet here it was, all regal tapestries and dark window light, the Royal Council positioned as a tribunal at a highly polished table. The doors swung shut.
“I have returned with Princess Amarande,” Ferdinand announced. The line was what had been rehearsed and seemed a little stilted and obvious, but he delivered it, shoulders back as he stood tall before them—the three council members and the Queen Mother, who resembled Amarande so much, Luca’s breath caught.
“Our princess, returned to us. What a surprise. And Luca by her side,” Garbine cooed. The older councilor’s voice was one of show. As if everyone in the room did not know what they’d done to Amarande when she’d last appeared in this place.
Amarande cleared her throat. “Before you lock me away, we have much to discuss. No, notdiscuss.You have much to hear from us, if you can bother to listen.”
Satordi tented his fingers, elbows smashing down the parchment he’d been reading.
“Welcome back, Princess; I did miss your gift of conversation.” Satordi’s dry admonishment of Amarande earned him a wry smile from Garbine. Joseba wilted farther into his robes, appearing as if he wanted to melt into the marble floor.
