“I love you, too, Ama. Always, Princess.”
With that, Amarande kissed Luca one last time—hard. As hard as she wished she had before he was kidnapped. As hard as she did when it was clear they’d escaped Pyrenee alive. As hard as she could—this kiss would have to hold her for days, if not weeks, or months.
“You can turn around now,” she told the crew, when the kiss was finally done. Amarande met each of them with a parting nod. Ula, a pirate with a gaze as sharp as her Torrentian sword; Urtzi, the big Myrcellian brawler with a soft spot for his fellow pirate; Osana, the Basilican orphan Amarande had accidentally acquired in her escape from the Warlord—and then entrusted with her father’s sword, Egia, twin to the one on her back, Maite. “Keep him safe.”
At the order, Ula’s gold eyes flashed. “With my life, Princess.” She nodded to her companions. “And theirs, too.”
Osana and Urtzi didn’t object. Amarande imagined General Koldo, the current regent of Ardenia and leader of the Ardenian army—would relish immediate loyalty so unwavering. That was something that couldn’t be trained into a person.
Amarande mounted her horse—one stolen from Pyrenee in their escape. She pointed the frost-coated gelding toward the Itspi. The sun was falling toward the jagged mountain horizon, but she’d make itto the castle well before full darkness. The sooner she got there, the sooner she could return to Luca’s side.
Luca mounted his similarly pilfered steed and drew up alongside her—opposing directions, but still close enough to touch. Amarande’s eyes met his—blue-green on his gold—and her heart lurched, desperate to go with him. Luca seemed to sense this. “As soon as we connect with the resistance, Ama, we will send word to the Itspi.”
It was a promise as much as it was a plan.
Amarande reached out and touched his face—one she knew as well as her own—his skin warm and true under her fingers. “I shall see you soon, my love.”
CHAPTER2
ONCEagain, Luca galloped toward the Torrent with three companions. But this time, everything was different.
First, he was conscious.
Second, he was willing—untied and on his own horse.
Third, rather than acting as bait, he was acting as the leader.
Technically, Ula and Osana led the way as they wound through a particularly steep pass through the summer-dry mountains of Ardenia, but they were less than a mile from where they said good-bye to Amarande before Luca was asked to provide direction.
“What is the plan, Luca?” shouted Urtzi from behind, where his broad shoulders protected the rear of their single-track procession.
This was not a question Luca had ever been asked.
It was true, he maintained the Itspi’s royal stable, but he was nothing more than a wheel on the cart—he was not the driver. Someone who coordinated with others within the castle, most notably old Zuzen, who, beyond being the de facto educator of the palace’s children, oversaw the much larger military stable on the grounds. No one, not even Amarande, had ever seriously looked to Luca for a strategy.
Luca hesitated. It wasn’t meant to be a test—Urtzi wasn’t the type to lay a trap. He was straightforward, steadfast, and stubbornly loyal when it came to taking orders. As usual, Urtzi was looking for guidance.
Looking to him—the Otsakumea, the wolf cub, the heir to the throne of the fallen Kingdom of Torrence. The proof was in the wolf tattoo above his heart, a symbol in ink that he was the last of the Otxoa, ruling family for a thousand years of what was now the Torrent. He could hardly believe it, and yet they’d planned it all out on the ship—a way for him to gain both his birthright and Amarande’s hand by joining a pro-Otxoa resistance that had been simmering since the Warlord’s Eradication of the Wolf. If all went well, soonit wouldn’t be just a few friends who looked to him for guidance; it might be an entire kingdom.
Luca wet his lips, gathered his thoughts, and delegated power with his first decision as an actual leader. “The plan is to follow Ula’s direction and connect with the resistance.”
As he answered, Luca turned on his horse to better see the boy behind him, his eyes automatically shooting over Urtzi’s shoulder for any sign of Amarande’s white horse. They were too far, though, and all Luca saw was dusky sky and the silhouettes of the mountains that somewhere beyond view cradled the Itspi in its spiraling red turrets and cloud of juniper trees.
“Well, Ula?” Urtzi called when she didn’t automatically respond. The big Myrcellian had made it no secret he preferred to be a follower, and he had always followed Ula, his longtime partner in the pirate life. They hadn’t once mentioned their former crew leader Dunixi, whom they’d followed right up until the point they abandoned him, leaving him unconscious on the floor of the Bellringe’s royal stable. “Where is the resistance?”
It was a valid question—from Ula’s description, the pro-Otxoa resistance had formed in the days after the Warlord killed the royal family and burned their castle, the Otxazulo, to ash. But not once during his schoolroom lessons at the Itspi had Luca ever learned of the resistance’s existence, or where those loyal to his family hid. For all he knew, they might not even be in the Torrent proper, but somewhere else, safer and away from the Warlord’s deadly fire pits, which were lit nightly with the bodies of dissenters used as kindling.
“Good question. One we need to find the answer to.”
“How—”
“Don’t be so impatient, Urtzi; I was just going to tell you. We begin at a market.”
A laugh played on Osana’s lips as she caught Ula’s eyes over her shoulder. “Does the resistance maintain a stall?”
Osana was new to the group, but Amarande trusted her—despite the fact that the Basilican orphan had switched sides more than once—and given the princess’s natural propensity to wariness, her seal of approval was enough for the rest of them.
“Yes, they’re openly selling their wares of anti-Warlord policy alongside freshly baked bread and strawberry jam,” Ula replied, digging ahunk of stale bread out of her bag. She playfully lobbed it at Osana, who plucked it out of the air right before it would’ve dinged her between the eyes. The group laughed as Osana gnawed off a hunk and Ula turned to Luca. “Where’s the nearest one?”
