Amarande slowly let go of the pestle and plucked out two bottles—sagardon to kill the infection, and clove oil to add more antiseptic powers while sealing the wound. Clove wasn’t necessarily better than basil, but it reminded her a little of Luca and that was no small thing.
Her mother accepted the bottles and moved the basket out of the princess’s reach. But Amarande estimated that at the chains’ full length, she could reach it with her foot if she stretched far enough. Heel strike to the jaw to send Geneva sprawling, then an easy loop of outstretched toes. Bottles tossed and smashed as both offense and distraction, then thrust the incapacitating blow with the pestle. Even with her right hand damaged, she had options.
And yet the princess didn’t move.
Her mother drew closer, taking Amarande’s injured appendage in hers, and inspected the wound. Ferdinand’s handkerchief had helped, yet blood plated in a thick crust over the vertical wound, perfectly situated between the tendons that ran across the top of Amarande’s hand.
The princess had examined it much in the long hours since Ferdinand’s visit. A smidgen to the right or left and she could have lost the use of her hand. And yet he’d purposely kept her tendons intact, and her hand functional. He was younger than her by a year, but her brother was clearly coolheaded enough, mature enough—or merciful enough—to avoid inflicting permanent damage in the heat of battle.
Amarande didn’t know if she should be impressed, relieved, cynical, or all of the above.
Geneva seemed to admire her son’s handiwork as she applied the sagardon. Tears flooded Amarande’s eyes as the liquid burned through any infection under her skin, but she didn’t say a word. Her mother applied another round of antiseptic and Amarande tried to ignore how much the woman’s hands looked like her own.
“Ferdinand said you asked to speak with General Koldo. Is that true?”
Amarande didn’t move. Her mother lifted a brow and corked the sagardon. The clove oil was next. “I understand why you want to speak with Koldo—you feel betrayed. I know. But don’t expect her to come and comfort you—or to apologize. You know soldiers, always compartmentalizing their emotions. Assuming Koldo has any to speak of.”
Her mother laughed a little at this. Amarande did not join her, and when Geneva was through, her lips stayed quirked at the corners. Her eyes flashed up to meet her daughter’s. “She is not here, but I am. Isn’t there something you want to ask me?”
Once, Amarande would have. She would have asked all the questions that had plagued her ever since she was old enough to remember missing her mother.
The questions that had run through her head in that first breathless moment when Geneva revealed herself in Satordi’s chambers. Questions that waned the moment Ferdinand stepped into the room. Questions that died altogether when she’d learned what her mother had done.
Now every question was but ashes upon her tongue. This woman had already proved herself not to be an ally to Amarande, no matter her reasons for leaving long ago. Therefore, her answers were unimportant. Now all that mattered was getting free and reuniting with Luca. Her true family.
Amarande stubbornly returned Geneva’s gaze, holding her face still as stone, not speaking a word. As the silence stretched between them and no questions came, the expectant look in her mother’s eyes faded away and walled over.
Geneva secured a roll of gauze and pulled out a length—purposefully making it short enough that Amarande wouldn’t be able to use it as a weapon. She took her daughter’s fingers in her own and tied up the gauze with a knot cinched against Amarande’s outer wristbone. “Your hands are so much like mine. See?”
Something like delight flickering in her blue eyes, the first crinkles of crow’s-feet accenting her long eyelashes as she held up a hand—small but dexterous, knuckles prominent in ode to their surprising strength. Amarande couldn’t disagree—she’d already tried to ignore yet another physical similarity between them.
Amarande reached for Geneva’s hand, as if to press her palm into her mother’s in comparison—but didn’t. In a swift movement, she changed course and pinched the elegant fabric at her mother’s wrist, hauling down the sleeve.
And there, in satiny black ink not much different from Luca’s own—flames leaping toward the sky. A fire pit.
“It’s true. You are the Warlord.”
Her mother did not flinch, did not move to conceal the ink or deny its meaning. “Ferdinand told you.”
He hadn’t, but he’d given her the lead.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.But she would never admit it to Geneva. For some reason Amarande felt protective of that.
“No. Isawyou.” She raised her eyes to her mother’s. “I was a prisoner in the Warlord’s camp, you know.Yourcamp. I told your guards my name.”
If Geneva truly wanted a relationship with the daughter she’d abandoned fifteen years ago, then returned to, only to imprison her in a tower—truth was the only way forward. In watching her mother ponder her choices—would she lie, or confess?—Amarande wasn’t sure which she preferred. She knew the truth; what was more?
Geneva made her choice. “Four people in all the world carry this tattoo. Each of us has been the Warlord. I was not the first and I will not be the last.”
Four.All the timeline questions Amarande could never justify were swept away in this single revelation.
“The Warlord’s power lies in the name and reputation. As long as both are intact, so is the Warlord’s power; it does not matter who wears the mask, per se.”
Amarande wasn’t sure how she felt about being correct, or that her mother had chosen truth. A new question rose where the others had once been. “You are no longer the Warlord?”
“I have retired. I was the third Warlord and the longest serving—ten years.”
Ten years.Amarande’s mind reached back for her father’s face. The scar on his cheek—a gift from the Warlord. At least, that was the story he’d told. She couldn’t remember when he’d gotten it exactly. Had it been within the last decade? Most likely. Which meant…
“Did Father know?”
