Again, she was caught off guard. If their places were switched, she would not be so kind. If she could worsen an initial strike while removing her weapon, she would. And she wouldn’t use the term of endearment either. “Why are you being kind?”
“Because you could have slit my throat and escaped the second I walked in and didn’t.”
But… he still hadn’t found the knife. It made no sense. Still, his demeanor was open, calm… honest? She stiffened as he wrapped a hand around the hilt of the dagger. He braced her wrist against the wall with the other hand and, in one smooth motion, removed the blade.
Amarande didn’t cry out, even as stars swirled in her vision and blood began to pour from her hand. Ferdinand removed a handkerchief from his jacket and tied it tightly over the wound.
“I will send for a medikua.” He wiped the bloodied knife on his shirt before dropping it in his own boot, the fallen dagger already sheathed at his hip. “I am sorry about that. I know you do not believe me, but I do not wish to see you hurt, especially by my hand.”
Then, without hesitation, he walked over to the mattress and removed her boot knife from where she’d hidden it. As he tucked away the blade Amarande had carried since childhood, Ferdinand nodded gently. “That is where I would’ve hidden it, too.”
Injured, unarmed, and now a threat to his very crown with her claim and knowledge of his secrets, Amarande looked away from her brother.
Ferdinand moved toward the door, boots collected, too, but then he paused and turned. “Proof of what you saw can be found on Mother’s right wrist. What you find there will tell you everything you need to know.”
With that, he was gone.
CHAPTER10
“ULA, please—tell me of your parents.” Luca hadn’t wanted to pry, because it wasn’t in his nature.
He’d known Ula was an orphan. He’d known she blamed the Warlord for it. King Sendoa, too, for his failure to halt the Eradication of the Wolf or even to mount a proper revenge.
But this? This they had to talk about, if they could.
He now knew his true mother, Queen Elixane, hadn’t pretended to be someone else at the Itspi. She’d died in the Warlord’s burning of the Otxazulo like his father and the rest of his family. And Ula’s mother, Lygia, had saved his life—at the expense of a chance to escape with her own family.
Ula sighed but didn’t speak. Luca asked again. “Please?”
“Tell him or I will,” Urtzi pushed dryly, over the rind of the half wheel of sheep’s cheese he’d finished with Osana in the hours of quiet between Mannah’s reveal of Lygia’s harrowing escape and that moment of tense, Ula-driven silence. “And we both know you don’t want that because I’ll get all the details wrong.”
At this, Ula’s lips quirked. Just a bit. “You would. On purpose—more harm than good.”
“Then consider it a threat. Tell him, or I’ll bungle it all so badly you’ll start shouting at me and wake our host.” Urtzi nodded to the rocking chair where Mannah had fallen asleep while awaiting Erfu, a blanket tight across her lap.
“Fine.”
Her golden eyes glimmered in the candlelit cabin as she glanced at her hands—free now from the sagardon and gauze. They all waited—Luca on the floor near her, bandaged up; Urtzi and Osana at the table. No one said a word as Ula wet her lips and smoothed the knees of her trousers a few times.
“My father and I fled together. Across the Divide to Eritri. He was a blacksmith and found work easily, and so we got a room and just…waited. Every night before I fell asleep we would pray to the stars that Mother would find us. I don’t even know if he actually knew where she was or if she was alive. I just know he prayed with me.”
Ula swallowed heavily, and squeezed her eyes shut as if to stave off tears. After a moment her eyes sprang open and her voice started again, even softer than before. “Then he died—an injury at the forge. I was in an orphanage by four turns of the sun.”
Ula didn’t add more. But then Urtzi whistled from behind. “Where youmetme!”
Amazingly, he earned a laugh. “‘Met me’ means ‘arrived and immediately tried to cut the supper line in front of me.’”
Now it was Luca’s turn to laugh. “I am quite sure that did not go well.”
“Want to see my scar?” Urtzi asked, pointing to the skin on his neck below his ear. “If you look close you can see where she stabbed me with a fork.”
“So your temper started early,” Osana teased.
“As if you wouldn’t have stabbed him in the same situation,” Ula answered. “He was a foot taller than anyone in line and not only did he try to slip in front of me, but also several smaller children.”
“Okay,” Osana relented, “I would’ve stabbed him if I knew how.”
Urtzi smacked the table with both hands. “I didn’t see them.”
