“Not likely.”
He paused. “At least anyone hunting us won’t find us down here.”
That was true, though Amarande would risk any possible hunters if it meant they could find their way out of this accursed tunnel and back to the surface.
Another hour and their underground track began to angle uphill. A new burn settled into her calves and thighs and a new hope came with it—that perhaps they were climbing toward the surface and with it fresh air and a sense of direction.
At the crest, Taillefer paused for a moment to touch a particularly low stalactite that glistened in the weak firelight. He rubbed his gloved fingers together and thensniffedthem.
“Taillefer, what—”
“I think it’s water.”
The princess immediately reached out to touch the damp rock. Her fingers came away wet and she sniffed—there wasn’t a trace of the sulfuric stench from the cave. “Do you think there’s more?” she asked, but Taillefer was already on the move, the torch held high, following the glistening promise of drops beading along the stone surface.
In a few lunging steps, he was jogging ahead, one hand trailing along the tunnel wall.
“More terra-cotta. There! Look. They marked it.”
Indeed, ahead the tunnel widened to a round little space, a burrow set with flat-topped rocks, jugs of pottery, and—jutting from the glistening wall—a spigot.
While Taillefer went to stow the torch upright between the flat rocks, Amarande lunged at the little steel spout, turning the lever until a trickle of water spilled out. She cupped her hands beneath, barely waiting for her palms to fill with more than a sip before gulping it down. The water slid cool and lovely down her parched throat. Asshe shoved her palms beneath for another delicious drink, Taillefer appeared beside her, gloves removed and two terra-cotta cups in his hands.
“This is perhaps more efficient, Princess.”
“Perhaps.”
They drank their fill—two, three, four cups—before inspecting the site further. There was no additional food, nor any additional clues as to where they might find the resistance, other than in this spot at a time that was not the present.
“May I ask you something?”
Taillefer’s voice pulled Amarande from her thoughts. “My preference in regard to answering has not stopped you from asking before.”
It was the tart reply she thought he deserved, but then when she glanced up after the words slipped from her mouth, she regretted them. On the flat rock across from her, Taillefer sat, eyes reading his hands, a blush sweeping his newly cleaned face in the firelight. Sheepish—that was what someone would call it with literally any other boy. Amarande’s smirk sank and she swallowed, waiting.
“It’s just that… is Luca really your true love or just all you’ve known?”
Amarande stared. “Of all your ridiculous questions… are you really asking me this now? Amid a days-long journey to findmy true love?”
Taillefer wet his lips and turned to her, that glimpse of shyness gone, the brilliant blue of his eyes austere. “I am really asking, yes. Because I believe it’s a fair question. How many young men orbit your star, Princess?”
He helpfully picked up the torch and waved it in a little circle that framed her face—as if she were the sun and it the earth. Amarande scoffed and looked away. “There need not be any. Because I have Luca.”
His lips quirked at her stubbornness, his typical sardonic delivery building with each word. “Assuming he is accepted as the true heir of Torrence—ifthe resistance somehow manages to overthrow the Warlord, that is—do you plan to marry him? What is so special about him that you would risk so much, never having spent time with other eligible suitors?”
Amarande wound her arms across her chest. “Taillefer, I realize you don’t know what it is to be a princess, but you do realize that the last thing the phrase ‘eligible suitors’ typically amounts to is true love.”
“I do not deny it,” Taillefer agreed. “But I do,respectfully,wonder as to why your father allowed you, the future of his kingdom, to have a relationship of quite possibly amorous intentions with his stableboy.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “You know why. My father could see the ink on Luca’s chest just as easily as you.”
“Ah, so you do plan to marry him.”
Amarande snatched the torch from his hand and began to stalk away, deeper into the tunnel the direction they had been going, her voice stubbornly tossed over her shoulder. “He is aprince—and one coup away from being a king. Therefore, a marriage between us would fulfill the necessary requirements as dictated by law allowingmeto rule Ardenia. If I must marry for my power, my true love is the obvious choice. My father knew that.”
The prince didn’t immediately follow. Taillefer avoided fights; he lashed out with words instead—she could feel him winding up like a catapult, all tension and inert energy. He had truly been thinking on this for a long time. Amarande sped up.
“You are telling me you believe your father staked the future of his kingdom and legacy on the hope that you’d found your true love in a hidden prince. And then the two of you would beat a system designed for strategy and not love to create a marriage that joined two kingdoms, including a fallen one?” He had the gall to laugh. The sound reverberated off the walls. “I am one for long games, Princess, but that, my dear, is unfathomable.”
