Which meant one thing.
They would have to do it.
Again, Ferdinand met Osana’s gaze, her expression flickeringwith understanding before they both turned to her father, but Osana asked the question: “Will Basilica grant us horses, supplies, and the return of our weaponry for an immediate journey?”
“Us?”Zavier’s eyebrows shot up and he laughed at his remaining daughter, but answered Ferdinand, as if he were her keeper. “I’m afraid as a princess and heir, my daughter must stay with me. The coronation will be in just a few—”
“Father,” Osana scoffed, “you know I won’t do that.”
Osana might be the only person in the world who could talk to this man this way, and she was not rewarded for her insolence. Instead, the line between Zavier’s eye and temple twitched with frustration.
Still, she stood firm. “Ferdinand and I are a team, and it is crucial we keep Luca safe.”
Too much like Geneva—like Amarande—the king bared his teeth. “You admire the man who killed your sister?”
She did not bat an eye at her father, her stance hardening down to the fingertips in Ferdinand’s hand. “Luca didn’t kill Celia, her ambition did.”
Osana let that truth hang for a loaded moment before another deadly verbal slash. “If Celia had not fallen into the firepit by her own volition, Geneva would have run her through. She had plans to do so—both Ferdinand and I were privy to them. Ferdinand was to kill Celia and instead he managed to free both me and Ardenia from Geneva.”
Zavier’s posture only stiffened with this news. “Osana, this simply confirms that the safest place for you is here with me.”
“No one is safe until we locate Geneva, Father—including you.” Osana took a step toward Zavier, but she didn’t dare drop Ferdinand’s hand. “Herclaim toyourcrown is best the moment you are out of the way. Her own daughter is now a queen without marriage, and Geneva is a woman without a home. There’s nothing that says Geneva won’t stab you in the back to ascend a throne now open to someone like her—she’d easily take you as Domingu took Han a half century ago in that very room.”
Osana pointedly thrust an arm in the direction of the royal quarters to the left. Her father seemed to consider the argument. Again, his gaze dipped to their entwined hands. Had this man not expected that his daughter might make a match while living a life away from home? Or did he think she had simply made the wrong one now thatshe was a princess? Her wedding would be political, indeed. She was no longer a powerless heir who could be sent away to learn a violent-yet-convenient vocation.
“Trust me when I say that I will fight with Ferdinand for Luca, for Amarande, and against the Warlord, whether it be Geneva or any of the others hiding under rocks like Quemado Scorpions. That’s what I’ll do, Father, not sit here in a pretty dress watching your coronation, though I’m sure it will be a lovely ceremony. There’s no time for that. We must leave soon. Now.Together.”
Osana raised their threaded fingers in emphasis.
Ferdinand was braced for an explosion of fatherly temper. It was not something he had experienced himself, but he never would have been able to speak to Geneva like this and he could imagine Sendoa would not have appreciated such a speech from him or Amarande. Instead, Zavier stowed his temper and turned to Ferdinand as if he were Osana’s keeper. Again. As if decisions were only meant for men in this conversation. “Keep my daughter safe, Ferdinand.”
The directive was patriarchal, exclusionary, misogynistic. But it also gave them exactly what they needed in that moment. A case of surviving the battle to win the war—a morsel of wisdom from the father he never knew.
And so, Ferdinand squeezed Osana’s hand, hoping for yet another wordless thread of understanding. And then he met King Zavier with the stern, honorable glare he’d inherited from Koldo.
“I will, Your Highness, with my life.”
CHAPTER 11
THEDivide separated the continent of the Sand and Sky from Eritri like a knife drawn in the sand. The scar was deep as the name suggested, and to those born and bred in the Sand and Sky, Eritrian soil was either a source of frustration or a refuge.
There was very little in between.
Yet as the Runaway Queen stood on the bow of her stolen ship—much better than the one she’d had in those first days, to be sure—run aground in a very specific cove on the southeast side of Eritri, she experienced both sides of the Eritrian coin flip. Geneva finally felt as if she could breathe again, and yet she was irritated by the fact that she had been holding her breath at all.
Cast aside. Misunderstood. Chased away by her children, her legacy, her choices.
Soon she would never feel this way again.
In the feather-light promise of sunrise, the first part of her plan appeared at the mouth of the cove.
The pirate ship was flat black and about as inviting as a firepit itself. It was the kind of vessel that made anyone passing by avert their gaze, lest they attract trouble simply by making eye contact. Just the same, it wasn’t flashy enough to be remembered in great detail, especially when those with weak constitutions or simply a family to feed couldn’t or wouldn’t look at it head-on.
Geneva watched it, of course.
And it watched back, the crew peering through the dawn light to check the figure across the water. The fat mouths of six cannons faced Geneva at a range close enough to destroy her and her ship, and to take a bite out of this lonely section of beach, too. A threat, a promise, an order to stay in line.
This made her smile. Just a little.
