“Why, Father. Why?” she whispered. Perhaps not even Taillefer, as close as he was—and silent… perhaps he was enjoying it—could not hear.
And yet a sound answered.
The unmistakable sigh of a blade carving the breath from a man’s throat. One. Two.
Two bodies draped gently on the ground. One. Two.
Amarande tensed, her chin creeping toward her shoulder to look out the opposite bars. But then a whisper.
“Do not look my way, Ama. Do not let on.”
Koldo.
Amarande froze. Every cord in her neck tensed. She pushed out a breath and slowly brought her face back forward. Her mind screamed as loudly as any of the bodies in the pit.
The general needed to leave. Now. The dead guards outside Amarande’s cage would be bad enough. And if Taillefer noticed? Called attention? Koldo would be dead for an outcome that would be the same.
Behind her, Koldo was clearly checking the men’s pockets. Foraging for keys on a ring. Finding nothing. Amarande felt the cart shift on its soft bed of sandy ash as the general’s weight went into standing on the cart edge and leaning into the forged steel locks the Warlord had clearly made from the discarded metal wire pen.
Her dagger picked at the lock. Nothing. She would need the keys or something heavy enough to smash the metal in one go. Even her Basilican steel would take several noisy blows.
Amarande took a chance to implore her to go. “I am already to be delivered to my mother’s feet as blackmail. Having you do it yourself will only be more painful. The result will be the same. Leave.”
The general stepped down from the cart edge and sighed, strained. “I did not come here to hurt you. And I will not leave here without you.”
Koldo was generally one of few words. Economy and efficiency were her hallmarks on every level. And yet she sucked in a breath and cracked open Amarande’s heart with the next whispered blow.
“If we survive, I will explain. If I die in the process, please forgive me without my answers. I have made mistakes, but I have always loved you.”
And then she was gone.
CHAPTER48
THEWarlord’s horror show was just beginning.
Once the pit was fully lit, it was as if the sun blew out as easily as a candle, the last rays gone over the edge of the Earth’s turn and the far western mountains beyond.
Though they echoed within Luca’s mind, the screams were technically gone—everyone in the pit kindling, their souls lost to the stars, which were revealed with every coming breath. Millions of lives, sprayed into the inky blue above, the moon shy on the horizon.
His eyes found Amarande again.
She hadn’t ever looked away. Only once did she turn her head, briefly. Spit and fury rolling across her features as the flames grew. They were far too close to her wooden box and metal bars than he would prefer.
Taillefer had finally turned around, watching, too. Luca would have expected that sly grin to mount itself on the prince’s face and never leave, but his expression was blank.
Again, the Warlord clapped her hands.
“Now, we have a few questions, for some of our own.” As she paced the dais, two of the women in her cadre of guards opened the cage next to Amarande’s. On each short end, the guard had to climb atop the wheel-less base, and lean into the keyhole of a giant lock. It was difficult to see from their current angle, but Luca took it all in, knowing Amarande’s cage had the same or worse.
The wood-paneled side popped open and swung down into a ramp. On either side, a woman walked down and into the firelight. The guards ran the women right up to the edge, the ground sloughing off the side under their weight, more ashen sand into the pit. The women tried to inch their way back, balance starting to go, but the guards held fast, not letting them move anywhere.
The flames danced before them, and Luca’s heart plummeted to his boots.
“That’s Naiara.” His eyes shifted to the victim on the other side. “And her apprentice—Señe.”
In her cage, Amarande seemed to realize it, too, one hand to her mouth now, as if stifling a scream. Any action would condemn the woman at a swifter pace. Nothing could save her.
“This can’t happen,” Luca whispered to himself more than Ula.
