The king kicked the bars again.
As a new clang reverberated, Renard tilted his head, chest heaving. He was perfectly tailored but there was a wildness about him, as if he really were a mountain lion ranging about King’s Crest.
“Don’t give me that. The contents are no longer potent.”
The king held up several vials in his hand as both a demonstration and a threat—his fingers wrapping around the glass and squeezing them together as if he could crush them in a slurry of shards and serum.
“Perhaps you didn’t use enough,” Geneva taunted, wryly, from her corner. “Drink a little more of the hemlock. Surely it’ll kick in sometime.”
CRASH.
Shattered glass dusted the cell floor, green tincture oozing out. A flaccid curl of smoke rose upon contact, but then died nearly as soon as it was ignited.
“That should have immediately swallowed the floor and both of you with it, all the way down to the gold mine veins in the belly of this damn mountain!” Renard shouted, finger stabbing at the puddling green ooze before slicing toward Ferdinand. “Out with it, Prince. Now.”
Ferdinand sat up, forearms encircling his shins. Even if he were interested in lying, there was no point to it. The truth of it was sitting with no effect in the middle of their cell, even if he’d kept Amarande from telling him explicitly what she’d done. “The bottles have been tampered with, yes.”
He didn’t see Renard’s reaction because the moment the words were out, Geneva laughed loudly and shot to her feet, drawing the attention of them both.
“Oh, come now, boy, I won’t let you take my credit!” Her blue eyes glittered at Renard as she tauntingly leaned in like a fishwife sneering over a caught thief. “Idestroyed the tinctures.”
Renard’s upper lip curled atop his white teeth in disbelief. “You?”
Geneva straightened, yet again every inch the Warlord she’d been for so long. “Yes,me.Sendoa was poisoned, Domingu and Akil, too. Do you think I was going to give Inés the chance to do me in? Or take out this lout?” She jabbed a thumb at Ferdinand.
The timing didn’t make sense for anyone who knew what had really happened—where the vials had been, where she’d been, about her exit from the Itspi, and on and on.
But Renard knew none of it.
And Geneva knew how to construct a lie.
It was like breathing to her at this point, inhaling the hints she had about what happened to the vials, and puffing out nonsense so fast that Ferdinand had to jog to catch up.
The king peered at her. “Then why did you want them back? Why did we catch you stealing Ferdinand’s load?”
Geneva tossed her head back with a guttural laugh. As if she couldn’t believe her luck to be stuck with two arrogant know-it-alls who only had a sand grain of critical thinking skills between them. “Haven’t you figured it out, boy? The Warlord traffics in fear. Justhavingthe vials is worth so much more thanusingthe contents.”
“Do not call me boy.” Renard’s teeth flashed, bare and brutal. “I am a king, and right now I hold your fate in my hands.”
Geneva smiled. “Do you know how many dead men have believed the same? You have no power over me,boy.”
“I have every power over you.”
The points of her grin only sharpened as the king sought to provehis statement by wrenching open the exterior door again, drawing the cell keys and a dagger from the startled guard, and returning, the guard in tow.
Renard thrust the key into the lock, and came in, dagger out, backing Geneva immediately against the wall. On instinct, Ferdinand stood, tension thrumming from his boot tips to the crown of his head. His wrists were still bound with rope, but there was enough damage he could do with bare hands, anger, and all the hard surfaces in the cell. This Renard knew.
“Come closer and you’ll lose an eye before you land a punch.” He gracelessly pointed to the guard, who drew another dagger and stood at the cell door with it pointed straight for Ferdinand. The prince’s hands went up, placating, though his mind was spinning with ways to provoke the guard into throwing the dagger and missing.
“You need me,” Geneva sneered, visibly unafraid as Renard advanced with his own knife. Even backed against the ancient stone, she did not stand down. “You need me to threaten Luca. To threaten the happy ending Amarande wants. You need meto win.”
Renard raised the dagger, the tip an inch from her proud throat.
“I don’t need you. Killing you would be a favor—to Luca, to Amarande, and to the continent I will come to rule.”
Geneva doubled over with laughter, palms slapping against the leg of one of her trousers, eyes twinkling and mean. “Dream big,boy—dreamland is the only place you will ever achieve anything.”
Anger drew his dagger back, and as Renard angled for the release of a furious, deep stab instead of a quick, unsatisfying slice, the Warlord made her move.
