“I suspected not.”
Ferdinand waited for more, but when it didn’t come, he pressed on. “Your Highness, you know why I’m here.”
“I do.”
“Why can’t I see her?”
Though his demeanor was that of a particular type of learned royal benevolence, there was a cold glint to Zavier’s eyes—one Ferdinand recognized from Geneva’s time as Warlord in the moments her mask was pulled aside. “I’m afraid Princess Osana is indisposed with quite the complex treatment for herseriousstab wound.”
Yet another pointed blow, but Ferdinand didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t give Zavier anything at all. If Ferdinand and Amarande shared any trait the most obvious one was that both were more stubborn than the worst mule on earth. He moved to sit where he currently stood. “I will wait for the treatment to be completed.”
Zavier’s lips twitched, and he held out a placating hand. Ungloved, the palm was soft—no calluses from swordwork. For all his bluster, this king likely did nothing more strenuous than paperwork. “That will not be necessary, Ferdinand. The princess will not be available to you tonight. Or before our decampment, I’m afraid.”
Standing tall again, Ferdinand asked, “Why can’t I see her?”
The king chuckled, making a show of his jollity though his eyes remained hard, piercing, angry. “Boy, I told you to keep my daughter safe. I arrived to find her gravely injured and newly sewn up. Survivalis notsafe. You are fortunate I haven’t taken an arm for the danger you put her in.”
The dangerhehad put her in? Zavier couldn’t be serious.
“Did Osana tell you what happened?”
“It doesn’t matter thatyoudidn’t stab her, Your Highness, you didn’t keep her safe. My daughter is stubborn, but I won’t blame her, I’ll blameyou.”
Ferdinand watched this man, who’d sent his daughters into a lion’sden years earlier, knowing exactly what he was doing. Osana and Celia hadn’t come to the Warlord’s camp on a whim. They weresentfor that life. One that would give them a power they could not have as the great-grandchildren of the father-in-law to the continent, and women in a thousand-years-deep patriarchy, besides.
And though maybe once he had wanted Osana to come into her own power through lessons taught by his sister, Zavier now seemed determined to regain his daughter as apossessionrather than allowing her the agency to handle the consequences of her own choices.
“Why not blame Geneva? It was your sister’s man who stabbed Osana.” Ferdinand didn’t care that the king’s men were close enough to hear, to wonder. This was a secret that they should rightfully know if they were to place their lives on an arrow’s tip for this man. “Or is it too inconvenient to believe that perhaps you never should have sent your daughters to apprentice with the Warlord in the first place?”
True anger shaded more than the king’s eyes now. His full mouth stretched into a bloodless line, a muscle working in his jaw. He wore his sword and dagger at his hips, the same as Ferdinand, who didn’t miss the nearly imperceptible twitch of the king’s soft hand toward the Basilican steel. “It does you no favors to question my choices, boy.”
Your choices. Not hers. Never hers.
Ferdinand’s stoic glare didn’t flicker. “It does you no favors to turn a blind eye to your own mistakes, Your Highness.”
Zavier gathered the few remaining hints of feigned geniality and arranged them in his expression and reply, masking the anger poorly. His face was soured into something as disappointing as stale bread. It still looked kingly from a distance, but in truth it was already rotten. “As lovely as this conversation has been I must attend to my supper. Good night, Ferdinand.”
And with that, the king turned, but motioned to the guards to stay, a physical barrier between Ferdinand and the camp.
Between Ferdinand and Osana.
Still, he did not retreat, and instead stood, oxen shouldered and watching the royal tent in the silvering distance. Ferdinand waited, appearing bored, but truly was as attentive as possible, hope clawing at the pieces of his shattered heart as they clattered into something of a heartbeat in his chest.
After several moments, his reward came.
Zavier’s procession was slow and plodding as he wound his way to the inner circle and his tent—no,pavilion,for it was even larger and more imposing than any of the others, having once belonged to Domingu and his ego—and in that opportunity came a little movement from the pavilion’s back corner.
The silhouette of a fancy gown flickered, lopsided with Osana’s one arm still in a sling. Then, with an efficiency and spirit only that girl would have, Osana raised the sword she received from Amarande, holding it up just enough that the shiny tip caught the direct rays of the setting sun, twinkling a secret message just for him.
It was a system they’d used in the Warlord’s camp. When Osana was charged with the duties of a spy simply because Geneva didn’t like the way Ferdinand looked at her. When she was in camp, playing a rancher’s daughter given for penance, she would send him messages with anything bright and shiny. Three blinks, two blinks, one long one—all had their significance in their little world of two.
And this message, one long one, enduring and endearing in its meaning, caused him to nod his head just enough so that she might know it was received and understood:I will come to you.
FERDINANDwaited in his tent for an hour. He didn’t know when Osana would come, only that she would. The problem, though, wasn’t that their system didn’t allow for precise timing. It was that alone with his thoughts, the darkness crept in.
His mother’s dying words.
Her spirit lifting.
