She had once called Geneva a friend, long ago, when they were pawns in the same game. When they’d banded together and rebelled, rather than see it through. When they both received not-so-veiled threats from an enraged Domingu.
You chose to make a stand rather than make a move. A mistake.
True.But since then, both she and Geneva had made their moves. Hers within the confines of her cage. Geneva outside of it. But Inés knew her well enough to know the renewed Queen Mother was still playing from outside the house, even as she called the Itspi home each night.
And Inés would use that to her advantage en route to destroying Geneva, her baby king, and a divided and distant Ardenian army.
Next, to the Torrent. The Warlord thought he was safe from the whims of the kingdom states. But that safety dissolved the moment Sendoa had passed away. It was only his disinterest in resolving the problem of the Torrent that kept it going for so long. No one else in the Sand and Sky wanted to waste their armies on the sunburnt belly of the continent—no laws, no resources, no interest in being led.
But now she had an army three times what Sendoa had. And soon his great military would bow to her. Even the rebels circling the Warlord would have to kneel to that.
Or die trying.
“My queen?”
Inés turned at the approach of a Basilican soldier. She addressed him with a taut smile. “Second Captain Micael?”
“My queen, the ships are prepared to disembark at your command.”
Inés looked to her royal ship. The three sigils had been sewn together, the flag heavy but the harbor breeze strong enough to lift it. The heads of the Bear, Shark, and Mountain Lion joined together as one. Below the flag, her remaining councilors, fresh blood from her acquired kingdoms, and Medikua Aritza lined the deck.
“Let us go. The fastest route possible.”
“Yes, my queen.”
Micael scuttled off and Inés turned for the gangplank leading to her ship.
Nikola had not yet arrived. Still out there somewhere with Amarande and Taillefer. That misstep was frustrating. But it didn’t matter.
She had everything she needed to be successful and then some.
The paperwork. The army. The element of surprise.
As she’d calculated back in her chambers at the Bellringe, the figures on the board had been set up—Tiger, Mountain Lion, Shark, Bear. Now only one and a phantom remained.
And she was ready to play.
Nine Years Prior to Present Day
IThad been said the Warlord’s face reflected back the viewer’s deepest fear.
That when meeting face-to-face, the tyrant shifted forms until he was only recognized by the viewer’s soul, making them see the thing that kept them up at night, leaving claw marks on the darkest parts of the mind.
Sendoa, Warrior King of Ardenia, did not believe this.
It was a myth. It was, like everything else in the Torrent, smoke and mirrors designed to protect the leader. A reputation can often be stronger than a suit of armor. This was something Sendoa believed. He knew it to be true through personal experience.
He was a warrior king, and it didn’t hurt to call himself one.
His army was the best in the world, and it paid to regularly make mention of it.
His kingdom was the richest in the Sand and Sky, and as long as diamonds were mined no one weighed the coffers.
And so Sendoa stood in the middle of the Warlord’s camp. A fire pit large enough to swallow any ship in the Port of Ardenia roared at his back. At his side, General Koldo. They were without their swords, the famed blades left with the Ardenian contingent a mile outside of the Warlord’s camp.
This meeting was not on Sendoa’s terms.
Not his land, not his decision, not his advantage.
