“Don’t look so distraught, Ferdinand; I won’t waste time negotiating. I’ll simply steal back Amarande and repay Celia’s demands with a knife to the throat and a call to the caravan to help fortify the Itspi’s walls.”
That was not the decision he’d expected. It was too overt. “You… would kill Celia and admit to your role as the Warlord simply to add more numbers to our army?”
“Not ‘simply.’ I can’t leave someone who would make such a bold and foolhardy move in power. She’s not fit to be Warlord. Obviously, I misjudged my nieces. First Osana, running off with Amarande. And now Celia. The whole line is out for themselves. My elder brother failed to raise them properly, or perhaps it was the fault of that social-climbing wife of his. Who’s to say?”
Ferdinand swallowed. “What if it is a trap? What if she’s aiming to draw you out to kill you and claim power that way?” Then he added, “It is something you would do—and she learned from you.”
Geneva smirked. “Of course she learned it from me and of course it’s a trap. She knows I will agree to the covert exchange in order to keep my identity as Warlord a secret.”
He nodded. “Then we must work with what she expects but not do what she wants.”
The Queen Mother’s eyes sparked with approval. She sat straighter on the divan and covered his hand with hers. “Go on. What do you have in mind, my king?”
His eyes settled on the figurine of a roaring tiger standing atop the Itspi drawn on his father’s map, staring down the port. More tigers were deployed along Ardenia’s borders, facing off against ranks and ranks of bears and sharks to the south and many more mountain lions to the north.
No, Geneva did not trust him to have the keys to the castle. But Ferdinand still had plenty to work with.
“I will ride out to meet Celia and her party, Mother.” Her eyes lit up—as he knew they would. “She’s expecting a covert exchange. But what if I arrive, a king with Ardenian soldiers at my sides and her sister Osana for trade?”
“Yes, yes, go on.” Geneva got up from the divan and started pacing as Ferdinand continued, laying out his plan.
“Celia won’t expect it, she’ll be frazzled, and our men will do anything to retrieve the Warrior King’s daughter, miraculously alive. We can announce that we’ve vanquished the Warlord and thus gained control of the Torrent and capture Taillefer, too, both of which will surprise and frustrate Inés. Not to mention provide cover for Amarande’s reappearance from the seeming dead.”
Geneva approached Ferdinand, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him soundly on the cheek. “Andboth stories will be confirmed by long-serving Ardenian soldiers of the most unimpeachable honor.”
She tousled his hair as if he were ten years younger and smiled in satisfaction. “I do not care whose son you are, you get your head for strategy from me.”
CHAPTER45
THEintimidation was working.
Amarande sat in her wooden cage, staring at the vast dregs of the fire pit.
A city had once stood here. And now it was nothing but a crater of charred bones and dreams. Everything gone black, decayed. Gone.
Tonight, it would feed on more lives. Send more souls to the stars.
How many lives would it ingest in a single night? A handful? A dozen?
All the prison carts were strung side by side along this face of the pit—the Warlord had confirmed this was a new setup. Inspired by Amarande’s escape with Osana. No more wire and chains. Now carts with removable wheels and built-in dramatics.
Amarande couldn’t watch the other captives, their faces and fears pressed to the bars. Their cries sounded in her ears, yet died in the pit before reaching the other side.
She’d tried to turn completely around, her back to the pit. But the opposite side held a different type of horror. Visitors peering around the guards who stood sentry, for a glimpse at the Princess of Ardenia. Lobbing insults at her, and questions about her relationship with “the wolf cub” and if she’d truly spent her entire life locked in a tower, imprisoned for the Runaway Queen’s misdeeds.
Taillefer did not seem to be of much interest. Perhaps everyone but the Warlord really did think he was a castle guard.
And so Amarande turned her back to the insults and stared out at the pit.
It was indeed the location of her last stand with Luca before giving in to Renard’s demands. Choosing surrender rather than a fight that might have killed them both, or at least her—Renard had made it clear he would let Luca live long enough to take the blame for her death as well as her disappearance.
Their horse’s galloping steps were perfectly intact and visible acrossthe bowl, a huge divot at the base of the fire pit where their horse had stumbled while trying to flee. A deep crescent faced opposite their hard landing, a remnant of Renard’s party. If the angle were better, she might be able to count all seventeen sets of horse tracks, or however many there had been.
What would’ve happened if she’d fought then?
Would she be dead? Would she still have killed Renard? Taillefer? All of them? And have been locked in a tower at the Itspi by someone whom she had always loved like a mother, a brother whose existence she had never even suspected, and her real mother, returned from the dead.
Her father and his tenets appeared to her then, dormant for so long.
