Ula froze, still as the Hand.
Luca continued, speaking quickly. “She told Amarande her father had sold her to the Warlord’s men and then those men killed her father, and escorted her to the Warlord. Which was when she would’ve seen us at the watering hole. She did not react as one would to seeing those men again. What’s more, on our journey she has made it clear she knows quite a bit about the Warlord despite being a new captive.”
The pirate chewed her lip, her golden eyes in the middle distance, jaw working as her grip tightened around her sword hilt. “If you think she’s a watcher for the Warlord, why did you accept her offer to go after Amarande? Is that why you sent Urtzi along?”
The carriage jostled, cutting him off as Luca was about to reply. Both of them got to their feet, angling for the drawn canvas. Ula pushed Luca back into his seat.
“Stay there,” she ordered in a fierce whisper.
He did as he was told, steadying himself against the seat as the carriage jolted before coming to an abrupt stop. With careful nonchalance, Ula pulled back the canvas and peered into the black night, her sword tightly concealed in her grip. A few words of Old Torrentian floated in the breeze, too low for Luca to make out.
Ula withdrew from the window, stowed her sword, and rolled the canvas back down tight. “It’s the Isilean Caravan, up ahead. We’re going to merge onto its tail.” In a lurch, they were moving again. “Beyond them is a light that can only be a fire pit.”
CHAPTER35
EYESheavy with uninvited sleep, Amarande didn’t notice the darkness fading from pitch to pewter until the raft began to stutter, scraping soft earth below, the water petering out.
The princess hauled herself to attention, willing her eyes to focus, the torchlight long blown out. They’d run aground in another stalactite-studded cave, yet the coolness of a morning in the desert whipped at Amarande’s face.
Fresh air.
“Taillefer,” she breathed, shoving his shoulder where he lay curled up in a ball, paddle tucked under his cheek like a pillow. “Wake up.Daylight.”
Whisper quiet, she edged to where cave rock met the open sky. Thin lines of smoke curled in the near distance—campfires edging on cold. The morning was still more black than blue, though true daylight came closer with every breath.
If it was the right camp, they might get information leading to Luca and the resistance. And if not, no matter who it was, they would have horses, food, and waterskins. They had nothing left to trade or barter, Taillefer’s coin and her mangled necklace back in the saddlebags still on their horses at the Warlord’s Inn.
“A camp?” Taillefer asked, crouching next to her and peering out. “Do we stroll up to the first person we see and ask if anyone’s seen Luca?”
“You know, the wrong person might read your sarcasm as stupidity. Come on, let’s get closer.Quietly.”
The underground river trickled out of the cave and into a dry creekbed, silt soft and narrow. There were no clues about the rebels as they abandoned the raft and exited the cave—no other rafts, no footprints, no potatoes, no pottery, or any other signs of life. It was a slight disappointment—just the ghosts of their movements. No clues, a trail gone cold.
Silently, they crested the eastern bank, pressing their bodies into the russet silt, eyes peering over the side.
The camp laid out before them was massive. It curled around the Hand, which they’d been blind to before, up and to their left, its fingers collecting the coming dawn. From there, it blanketed desert landscape far enough to the east and north that it seemed to stretch past the curve of the earth.
In the distance, before them and to the right, where Amarande had thought dawn was beginning, it wasn’t just the sun lighting up the horizon. There, too, were the white flames of a massive blaze.
A fire pit in use.
Immediately, she searched the spread of tents for the large blue one she’d seen that night with Osana. Even in the low light and at a distance, she found it easily, towering against the southern edge of the camp, near the fire pit, the golden top of its center pole collecting the flame light—a blinding brass beacon.
A confirmation.
“The Warlord.”
Amarande’s blood sparked as the tyrant’s name died on her lips. She peered back at Taillefer, surprised to find his face obviously ashen even in the low light. “What?” she asked, startled—he wasn’t one to telegraph emotion. “The Warlord has no quarrel with you.”
He shook his head—that wasn’t it. When he explained, his whisper was as equally drained as his features. “You said at some point that the king’s supporters built the Hand out of the ashes of the Otxoa castle.…”
Amarande nodded. “The Otxazulo. Yes. It was burned to rubble and re-formed by the rebels to create the Hand.”
Taillefer tipped his chin the opposite direction of the camp, past the other bank of the creekbed. Amarande followed his gaze to where the Torrent’s cracked landscape pooled into a shallow, extended indentation like a thumbprint on a slice of lemon cake.
“I think this was where the castle must have stood.” He began to, very quietly and carefully, unfold his map. “I bet you that underground river fed into the castle, not only providing a water source but also possibly providing entry and exits.”
This hit Amarande as a likely truth—the tunnels they’d traveledwere so well formed, they’d likely been there much longer than the resistance itself.
