Amarande sprang into motion, sprinting toward them. The woman had somehow managed to get the wolf onto solid ground but in the process, the compost had gotten hold of her, drawing her inexorably into its maw.
The sludge belched and burbled as it pulled her entire top half into the sand. By the time Amarande and Taillefer reached her, only the woman’s left boot remained above the sandy surface. The wolf whined, panting hard, caked in wet white sand.
The princess stowed her dagger and sword as she dove for the edge, the fingers of her injured hand brushing the heel of the woman’s boot but no more.
“Stars,” Taillefer swore, dropping his sword. He ripped the cloak from his uniform and shoved one end into Amarande’s hands. He met her eyes. “Don’t let go.”
Then Taillefer dove headfirst into the sucking sand, holding the opposite end of the cloak tight in his grasp.
The cloak stretched taut but it was too short. Amarande threw herself onto the sand, stretching, stretching—trying to maintain leverage as the weight shifted beneath the earth. She dug all her pointy pieces—elbows, knees, boot tips—into the sand, and cursed her damaged hand. Grip weak, it was all she could do to hang on. The bandage on her injured hand slipped off completely, exposing the raw, angry wound to the sun.
Amarande gritted her teeth as the seconds ticked by. A minute.
But then one gloved hand appeared.
And another.
Next the top of Taillefer’s blond head appeared, hair plastered to his skull. With every muscle in her body, Amarande painfully held on to her end of the cloak as Taillefer slowly levered himself out of the sucking sludge, the woman miraculously clinging to his back.
With every straining muscle in her upper body, Amarande pulled as Taillefer gained enough leverage to swing a leg up and over and deposit both himself and the woman onto the safe red sand.
Hacking and coughing, all three lay exhausted, trying to catch theirbreath. The black wolf approached and nosed at the woman’s face, whimpering.
When her breathing slowed, Amarande hauled herself up, checked her weapons, and extended her uninjured hand to Taillefer. He accepted it and stood, eyes narrowed and lips quirked into something like a smile—and proceeded to prove to her that she’d been wrong about him. “You see, I can be selfless and trusted with a weapon.”
“I will admit I didn’t expect—”
“The Warlord shall find you in the stars.”
The man she’d pinned to the wall.
Taillefer’s eyes widened, and Amarande dropped the prince’s hand to address this man—to make her case.
Not a second later his boot connected with her twisting back.
The blow knocked the princess off-balance and she stumbled forward, her exhausted body lunging for solid ground.
Where there wasn’t any.
Amarande’s boot made contact with the white sand and was immediately swallowed, the rest of her body teetering toward it, stretched out, unbidden.
Stunned.
Taillefer tried to catch her arm, but missed as it flailed… just as the woman he’d saved swung a leg out and caught the back of his knees, sending him sprawling face-first after the princess.
And, in one tectonic belch, Amarande and Taillefer were swallowed into complete and utter darkness.
CHAPTER26
THEkiss wasn’t as awful as Inés had expected.
It wasn’t Domingu’s age that had made her dread it—this was a man who had been married five times before and had enjoyed the favors of countless other women. It was that she hated him so much she was not sure she could do it with a straight face. But she did. And for her determination, received much in return.
A new ring sat on her finger.
A new crown in her hair. The castle jeweler made quick work of joining her Pyrenee circlet—aubergine and emeralds—with what had been worn by previous queens of Basilica—moonstone and chocolate.
But more than all that: a new title.
