“Really? Princeling, I assume you know that your mother has wed?”
“Yes. To Domingu.” He sounded purposefully bored, repeating what Renard had feared as if it were old news. “They plan to have an heir to displace me before I come of age.”
“Not quite.” The Warlord straightened, blade nicking the soft skin under Amarande’s chin as it withdrew, sharp as it was. “That may have been the plan once, but it is not what happened. The doors were barred during the wedding reception, and when the hall was open again, two-thirds of the attendees were dead, including Domingu and all of his kin, and standing tall was Inés, proclaiming herself leader of Pyrenee, Basilica, and Myrcell, too—King Akil also perished.”
Amarande gasped.
Domingu—the most ruthless of them all—gone? At his own wedding reception?
Taillefer coughed again—blood now dribbling down one corner of his lips—and shook his head. For once, he was not smiling. “No, that can’t be. She doesn’t even have rights. I am the heir to Pyrenee. She can’t make claim to any of that by way of regency to my crown; she cannot—”
“She did. The councilors of Pyrenee confirmed you disowned ahead of the marriage proceedings. Power by conquest does not have to be taken with war. Sometimes all it takes are a few ink strokes and cups full of poison.” The Warlord made it a point to catch eyes with Amarande. “We can only assume the same one killed your father.”
The princess thought back to her only true audience with Inés, when the Dowager Queen had snuck into her chambers at the Bellringe before the wedding. She’d told Amarande then that she did notkill Sendoa. Amarande had believed her then. But now? Inés was suspect number one. Perhaps she’d also poisoned the watering hole—a warning shot to both the Warlord and the resistance.
“Being Warlord comes with extreme advantages, including aegis over a vast network of watchers, and our fleet of trained caracaras that deliver news far faster and less obtrusively than riders clad in the colors of a kingdom. So, yes. All of this is true.” The Warlord took a large step back toward the fire, blade still ready, surveying the disowned prince and discarded princess before her. “Right this very moment, Inés is using her new power—legal or not—to collect her army and bore down upon Ardenia. And when blood stains the halls of the Itspi, she will turn to the last piece: the Torrent. And then the continent will be under her command.”
Here, the Warlord most definitely smiled beneath the thin fabric.
“But the thing about taking power by conquest is that as long as blood is around, there will be questions. Inés, for all her charms, has justveryrecently gained two-thirds of her army. And those soldiers, dutiful creatures that they have been trained to be, are going through the motions for her, no passion in it. Assurance stokes that passion, and she can get that with the death of any question of blood.” She pointed her blade at Taillefer. “And that means, she needs you, safely put away in her possession. To kill, to torture, whatever. Neutralized.”
Yes, tried for treason and murdered. Out of the way, no matter the paperwork.
“And so we are to be handed to my mother? Blackmail to keep the Torrent?” He nodded to himself, not really asking questions so much as working through a problem in his mind. This boy and his strategies and games. “If you think I am valuable enough on my own to keep my mother’s ambitions out of your hair, then you do not understand the depths of that woman.”
Perhaps he wanted to keep them together. Thinking he could lessen his punishment with the hand that killed Renard under the same roof. But it would not work.
“No,” Amarande answered, voice resigned. “I am headed to Ardenia.”
Taillefer’s strategic mind whirred ahead. “But Ardenia’s plans to aid the resistance died with Sendoa. Geneva and Ferdinand have noreason to tussle with the Torrent, especially when they learn of what my mother has done.” He straightened himself a little taller on his knees, imploring. “Handing Amarande to Inés only furthers your requests of autonomy and peace.”
The Warlord spun on Amarande, her head tilted to a viciously questioning angle. “He has come all this way, and yet you have not told him, Princess?”
Amarande felt Taillefer’s eyes settle on her profile. She steeled her breath, turned to him, and answered resolutely, “My mother was the previous Warlord.”
Taillefer did not react except to widen his eyes—it was possible this boy had never before felt true surprise.
“I am headed to Ardenia because the Torrent and Ardenia are now aligned,” she concluded. “It is an act of allyship, not barter.”
The Warlord shifted on her feet. “That isalmostit.”
Amarande slowly raised her eyes to the girl—what did she miss?
At first, she did not believe the Warlord would give her a true answer. But then the girl’s anger got the best of her in the way it would not an older, true leader.
“Your mother has left me to guard her interests as her proxy. We had a ceremony, made announcements—” In a flourish, she held up her wrist and pointed to a smudge of ink there. “She even pretended to brand me with the tattoo every Warlord has carried through the years. But the ceremony was for show. The power is hers. I am but a vessel. That is much different than giving me the power I deserve.”
Amarande’s heart slowed to a stop. Her mother wasn’t just looking out for her best interests. She was still pulling the strings. From the throne room of the Itspi.
Stars.
Now Taillefer spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Princess, it certainly sounds as if this Warlord is insinuating she is acting regent and your motheristhe actual Warlord in addition to being the Queen Mother of Ardenia.”
Both girls ignored him.
“Your mother has not relinquished the title to me.” The Warlord let her sleeve fall back. “You, Princess, will buy me the Torrent.”
Yet again, Amarande was something to be bartered. Claimed. Won.
