It was not Luca.
“They certainly took no chances in disappearing you away, did they?” The young man dropped gracefully to the floor. “High-up tower, under lock and key, chained to a wall while clothed in nothing but a glorified sheet. Your cage is certainly not a gilded one, Princess.”
Amarande squinted across the dim light at this boy who was not Luca. He was dressed in the garnet-and-ivory of the Itspi castle guard, but a guard he was not.
Short blond hair, parted neatly. Blue eyes, the color of a fractured glacier. Jawline as regal as any artist could imagine.
Fox-like smile.
“Taillefer?”
She blinked at Renard’s younger brother, not sure if she was actually awake or if she’d entered yet another dark corner of her blood-soaked nightmare.
“Princess Amarande, your eyes do not deceive you.” The second son of Pyrenee bowed low, sweeping the garnet cape before his body with a flourish. “You are a damsel in distress and I am here to rescue you.”
He was not incorrect, she was a damsel in distress, butheshould not be her rescuer.
Not in a million years.
The last time she’d seen him, he was on the other end of her blade as she tried in vain to plunge it into his heart. She hadn’t killed him, but that did not mean he did not intend to repay the attempt now.
The princess set her feet, legs bent at the knees—ready for action. She bunched the chain in her grip. “You’re here for revenge. I am not a fool.”
Taillefer took a step closer. His dagger and sword remained stowed at either hip.
“I see you are surprised.” He raised his hands, palms out, as if he were approaching in surrender—as if he were the one who was unarmed. “I never thought you a fool and I do not underestimate what you can do even while chained.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“All I have is that and my reason. If you will not listen to flattery perhaps you will listen to reason.”
Amarande tipped her chin toward his belt. “You also have your sword and your dagger.”
“Fair enough.” Taillefer unsheathed both and dropped them into the space between them with a clatter of steel on stone. “Take one or both—whatever you find to be enough collateral that you will accept it when I say I did not come here to murder you.”
The princess dropped the chain and swept up both weapons. Amarande did not trust Taillefer, but whatever his play in disarming himself, she was certain it could not best her abilities, even while chained and injured. She held both the dagger and sword in a high guard stance, the pain in her injured hand all but muted by the deadly Basilican steel suddenly in her grip.
“Do not come an inch closer. Why are you here?”
He cocked a blond brow, and smiled in that deceptively charming way of his that might fool anyone who didn’t know him into thinking he wasn’t completely deranged. “Why did I travel a hundred miles, steal onto the grounds of a highly fortified castle, pilfer an ugly Ardenian uniform, shimmy up a tower, break a window, and melt cell bars all the while balancing on a two-inch-thick decorative ledge for the opportunity to arm an angry, well-trained warrior with my own weapons?”
“Yes, that.”
“Because we are each other’s only hope.”
The princess nearly laughed but instead tightened her grip on her weapons. “I’ve heard this song before and we both know how that ended up for Renard.”
Amarande expected to see him wince, or flush with color, or show some sort of emotion that matched the guilt that was a constant drip in her gut. Taillefer had provoked her into murder and that was something he could not dispute. Instead, he simply answered, “Precisely.”
“For the love of all the stars, state your case plainly, Taillefer.”
The boy straightened, the fox-like grin slipping from his face. “My mother wants your blood. Caught dead or alive, there is a bounty on your head for the regicide of Crown Prince Renard. The same forthe heads of your stableboy and the pirates for aiding and abetting Renard’s murder and your escape.”
“None of this is surprising. Why should I believe you are here for any reason other than to shuttle me from my current prison to certain death in the Bellringe?”
“Because if I show my face at King’s Crest, I will be murdered on the spot.”
The prince gazed forthrightly into Amarande’s eyes. “I have the same price upon my head. Think of it: Two birds, one stone. Execute a traitor and the only person standing in the way of the throne.”
