Warlord vulnerable at Hand—use river? Converge there?
She traced the letters there.
I did, Father. I did.
And now she was the vulnerable one.
Amarande lifted the hem of the plain tunic they’d given her—very much like what Osana had been wearing when they’d met—and tucked the folded map into the waistband of her breeches. Not as romantic as carrying Luca’s ransom note over her heart, but the size of the map and the basic nature of the clothes did not allow for dramatics, only practicality.
They sat for the next several minutes in silence. The cart creaked along at a lumbering but steady pace, the caravan not slowing for even a brief rest in the heat of the sun. If Amarande pressed her face to the bars, squinting against the blistering light of an unfiltered Torrent, she could glimpse the extent of the caravan—an endless line of riders, carriages and carts pulled by small, hardy draft horses. It wouldn’t be long before they reached the Itspi, and her mother.
Would she again hope Luca would come to her in the tower? Had he made it to the resistance? Did they have a plan? She was blind to him and everything they aimed to do.
As she settled back down against the wall, she remembered something.
“Taillefer?” The excitement in her voice carried his name with an energy she hadn’t had since the churn of battle.
“Princess?”
“If you managed to hold on to the map, what about the vial?”
He did not answer as quickly as she would have preferred. After several moments, he said, “Yes.”
She gripped the bars, the thrill of opportunity coursing through her veins, enough so her fingers began to shake. “Use it! The locking mechanism on the cell. Do yours and then pass it over and I’ll do mine… or I’m sure the wood would react even better. We could burn a hole through the divider wall and then straight through the cart floor!”
Taillefer didn’t answer. Amarande blew out an impatient breath. “Taillefer, give me the vial.”
The cart lurched, men’s voices shouting out loud imprecations around them. Beneath the noise, she could barely hear his response.
“I do not want to escape.”
“What do you mean you don’t want to escape?!” She jumped to her feet, thrusting her hand through the bars and around the corner of the divider. “You literally have our chance to escape in your pocket. Unstopper it and let’s get out of here. I want to get to Luca before—”
“You do not own the monopoly on want, Princess. I am capable of wanting just as badly as you.”
Amarande felt that like a knife in the gut.
For all she’d trusted he wouldn’t stab her in the back, with the next words he ran her straight through.
“As much as you want to find Luca, I want Pyrenee. For my future, for the future of my people,stars,for the future of all the Sand and Sky,” he said. “The seed of my mother’s power is in what she stole from me—without trial, without blood, without the will of the people. She is no better than the Warlord, burning the Otxoa to rot.”
How does someone go from being a conniving, torturing monster to empathizing over the shared loss of a parent to actually pretending to give a spit of sagardoa about anyone other than himself, much less the whole continent?
Amarande ground her teeth in frustration. “Why did you leave then? Why not confront her? Or at least blame me and do just as you did—rescue me, double-cross me as I expected you to do, and then arrive at Bellringe with me wrapped in a bow, your title on the line? Why traipse across the continent on my whims?”
“I thought there was time.” His own anger came through, his words acute and sharp. “I thought the Torrent could be ours—Luca’s.”
“It still can be!” Her voice was raw with the sort of ache neither her effort nor the rush of the wind could conceal. There was doubt in her mind that the prince could hear it. “Give me the bottle and let me escape. Let me save Luca from this trap. The Torrent can be his and—”
“No!” Taillefer shouted. Then, realizing his volume, his voice dropped into a seething whisper. “No.Not with what my mother has done.”
“Taillefer,” Amarande started, not bothering to scrub the pleading from her tone, “come now—”
“I did not realize my mother had the means to outsmart Domingu and claim three kingdoms without a single true battle. But she has, and Imustdisrupt it. I am not sorry about that, Princess. To confront my mother in this present situation, I need youwith meas bait or I am a dead man.” A creak came from his side as Taillefer moved as far from the divider as he could. Away from her. Away from this argument. Away from any compromise at all. “I cannot let you go.”
CHAPTER42
FORall his love of arguments, Taillefer would not be baited.
