OLIVIA STARED AT the line of warriors in the distance, guarding the Olso border. Did they really think that was enough to stop her?
Behind the warriors were the tallest mountains she’d ever seen. It wasn’t snowing where she was, but the peaks of the mountains were white. She hoped they didn’t have to cross them to get to the Olso castle.
Jacobo stood beside her, his eyes wide with excitement as he surveyed the warriors. Behind her were about two hundred Ruined, almost everyone they’d had in Sacred Rock. Most appeared more scared than excited. They didn’t have anything to be scared of.
Olivia wasn’t happy her sister had been kidnapped, but she couldn’t help the thrill of excitement that shot up her spine. This was her opportunity to show the Ruined she deserved to lead them. She was finally the one doing the rescuing, instead of being the weak one sitting in a cell. Once she defeated the warriors, the Ruined would never doubt her again.
Ivanna fell into step beside her. “You know what Em would do in this situation, right? She would negotiate.”
“Em would negotiate because she’s useless. It’s her only option.”
“It’s not her only option, it’s the one she thinks is best.”
“I’m not Em.”
“You’re certainly not,” Ivanna muttered.
Olivia whirled around. Ivanna took a step back and the rest of the Ruined stopped. Her anger must have been splashed across her features, because several of them avoided her gaze.
“If you don’t want to be here, you can leave,” she spat. “I’m sure Ivanna would be happy to lead you back to Sacred Rock.”
“I’m here to rescue my queen,” Ivanna said quietly.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing! And I’d like to point out that I never wanted help from the warriors. Em wouldn’t be in this mess if she’d listened to me.”
Ivanna turned her eyes to the ground, but several of the Ruined nodded in agreement.
“Nothing is up for discussion anymore,” Olivia said. “I am your queen, and you will do as I say without question. If you have a problem with that, you can go back to Lera and fend for yourself.”
No one moved. She had to resist the urge to look smug. “Good. We are no longer friends with the warriors. Any of them. You will kill all of them on sight. You may take anything you like, but we’ll focus on supplies after we’ve killed the royal family.” Maybe they could even take the castle. She’d never pictured herself living in Olso, but it wasn’t the worst idea. It wasn’t that far from Ruina, and she wouldn’t have to wait years for her own castle to be built.
She looked at the Ruined seriously. “Get behind me and pick off the warriors I miss.”
She turned and strode toward the warriors. The Ruined followed her.
She glanced down the line of red-clad men and women. They didn’t even have the decency to look nervous. Most of them watched the approaching Ruined with interest, like they didn’t think they had a reason to be scared.
Olivia curled her fingers into a fist. She could fix that.
A warrior stepped forward as she approached. “Your Majesty. We have—”
He flew through the air, his screams fading as he shot away from them. One by one, Olivia lifted the warriors into the air and tossed them away. Faces twisted with horror. A few tried to run.
That would teach them not to be afraid of her.
She lifted the last few warriors off the ground and shot them through the air. In the distance, the bodies thudded as they hit the ground.
“That track leads to the castle,” Mariana said, pointing to metal in the dirt. It disappeared in the distance. “I took the rail-car the first time I was here, but it doesn’t look like it’s here.”
Olivia blew out a frustrated breath. There were a few horses tied to a post, but she couldn’t jump on one and abandon the rest of the Ruined. They needed her protection.
She started toward the tracks. “We’ll go by foot.”
A stern-faced woman showed Em to her room. It was impressively big, with a giant bed covered by a fluffy white blanket, a tall wardrobe, and a table along one wall. Fruit, bread, and tea sat on the table, and her stomach growled at the sight.
“Your clothes are in the wardrobe,” the woman said. She stood in front of the door, arms crossed over her chest. “A girl will be in shortly with water for your bath. In the meantime, yell if you need anything.” She left, pulling the door closed behind her. The click of the lock echoed across the room.
Em grabbed a piece of bread and opened the wardrobe drawer. Two pairs of pants and two red tunics hung inside. She sighed, thinking of her pretty dresses in Lera. She wondered if they were still there.
A young woman brought her bathwater and left without saying a word. The water was freezing cold, and Em bathed quickly and put on the clothes. They were soft and comfortable and had two crossed swords—the symbol of Olso—stitched onto the left side. She rolled her eyes. No doubt Lucio had thought he was hilarious.
A knock sounded at the door, and she blew out an annoyed breath.
“I’m locked in, you idiots!” she yelled.
A man chuckled, and the lock clicked. The door opened to reveal George.
“Hello. I’ve been appointed to give you a tour of the castle before dinner. We thought you might hate me slightly less than my brothers.”
“What gives you that impression?”
“Well, I haven’t kidnapped you or threatened to invade your kingdom, so I must be better than August or Lucio.”
“Barely.”
“Wonderful. Follow me.”
She considered refusing, but she really needed to get an idea of how the castle was laid out. Maybe she could even find a sword to take August’s head off.
She trudged out of the room behind George. Two warriors stood outside her door, and they stood up straighter when she appeared.
“Let’s start in the east wing,” George said as they walked down the stairs. “I think you’ll like it.”
They walked through the open room at the bottom of the stairs where Em had first come in. The castle buzzed with noise as they started down the dim hallway. Chatter and laughter followed her, and she cast a look over her shoulder to see a child dart past and disappear.
George opened a door and sunlight flooded the hallway. She stepped inside to find a large room with art hung on almost every space of wall. There was a seating area in the middle, but from the looks of the pristine red chairs, it wasn’t used often.
A tall painting immediately caught her eye. It was on the wall to her left, so big it ran floor to ceiling. The woman in the painting wore an elaborate black dress and lace gloves, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She had one hand on her waist, and she stared out of the painting with a look that was somehow both amusement and disgust. Em knew the expression well. It was her mother.
“Why do you have a portrait of my mother?” She strode across the room to it.
“It was a gift.”
“From who?”
“From Wenda Flores.”
Em tried to hold back a laugh. “My mother sent you a painting of herself?”
“She was a special kind of woman, wasn’t she?” George asked with a grin.
That was one way to put it. She tilted her chin up to stare at her mother’s face. It was a good likeness of her, and Em expected a surge of sadness. Instead, she shifted uncomfortably and rubbed a finger across her necklace. Olivia looked very much like their mother. They were so alike, in so many ways.
“When did she send this?” she asked.
“It’s been almost ten years, I think. My father loved it. He thought it was hilarious.”
“Really.”
“He did. He had it on display in his library for a while. He showed it to everyone.”
“Nothing like an alliance with Wenda Flores to terrify guests.”
George chuckled. “Exactly. But Lucio is less fond of it. He had it moved in here. He says her expression makes him uncomfortable.”
“I’m sure that was her goal,” Em murmured.
“Come on. Lots more to see. You can come back in here after dinner, if you’d like.”
She followed him out of the room, looking over her shoulder at the painting as she left. Truth be told, her mother’s expression made her a little uncomfortable as well.
George led her around the castle, to the meeting rooms and ballrooms and training rooms (there were many of those). She spotted a letter opener on a desk in one of the meeting rooms and pocketed it. She could cut open August’s neck with it, if she really put some muscle into it.
The family was already seated when George took her to the dining room. A servant led her to the chair between Lucio and his wife.
“How was the tour?” Lucio asked.
“It’s not nearly as nice as the Lera castle,” she said with a smile. Across from her, August rolled his eyes.
“That’s our castle now anyway,” he said.
A staff member put a plate of food in front of her. Em picked up her knife and stabbed the chicken with more force than was necessary.
“The chicken is already dead, Em,” August said. This elicited a round of laughter from his brothers and their spouses.
“I was pretending it was your face,” she said to August.
George threw his head back and howled. “I like her, Auggie. It’s too bad you couldn’t convince her to marry you.”
“I shouldn’t have had to convince her of anything,” August said.
Em cocked an eyebrow at him. August laid his fork down, leveling his gaze with hers.
“Uh-oh,” Dante said. The second-youngest Olso prince snickered as he looked between them.
“You should have been grateful I wanted to marry you,” August said.
“Yes, yes, I know. You were such a kind soul to agree to marry me, and I should fall at your feet and thank you for kidnapping me.”
August’s nostrils flared. “Betrayal has a price.”
“You’re all about to find out just how high that price is,” Em said.
“And even putting aside the political benefits, it was still better for you,” August said, ignoring her last comment. “You’re not that pretty, and you’re Ruined. There’s still a chance you could develop some of those hideous marks and look even worse than you do now.”
“August,” Lucio said sharply. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“I’m never developing any Ruined marks,” Em said. “But if I’d known you found them so unattractive I would have wished for them harder.”
August muttered something she couldn’t hear.
She leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table. “Let me ask you a question. Did you kidnap me because I betrayed you, or are you simply throwing a tantrum because I don’t like you?”
His sour expression hinted that it was the latter, and she laughed as she picked up her fork again.
“So what does Casimir have that he doesn’t?” George asked, amusement in his voice. August frowned at him.
Everything? She didn’t know where to start. She didn’t have words for Cas anymore. Kind and reasonable and thoughtful didn’t even seem enough now. She could spend an hour explaining everything about him—his willingness to stay with her, his strength when he decided to go back to the fortress, the way his lips turned up in a smile when he woke up with her by his side, the determination in his expression when he said he was going to kill Jovita, even though she knew, deep down, he would never do it—and no one here would even begin to understand him.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she looked up from her plate, letting the table see them. Let that be the answer to George’s question.
“Stop teasing our guest,” Lucio said.
“Prisoner,” she corrected.
George laughed and clapped Dante on the shoulder. “What about Dante, Emelina? Do you like the look of him? I’d really like to marry you off to one of my brothers. Dinner would be so much more interesting.”
“I will pass on that charming offer. You’ll all be dead once Olivia arrives anyway.”
Lucio’s wife paused with her fork halfway to her mouth and shot her husband a worried glance. He shook his head and patted her hand.
“Besides, I think my sister was right,” Em continued. “I shouldn’t have considered the alliance. You did nothing to save us when the Ruined were being exterminated. You only want our help when it’s convenient for you.”
George had the decency to shift in discomfort, but Lucio waved his hand dismissively. “We weren’t in a position to help then.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
Lucio changed the subject, and Em took a bite of her meat and tuned them out. What would have happened if she’d listened to Olivia and sent the warriors packing? She wouldn’t be trapped in the Olso castle, for one.
But she wasn’t sure they would have been able to successfully invade Sacred Rock. Or maybe the Vallos soldiers might have taken the city back when they attacked. The Ruined might have simply starved to death without the warrior’s supplies.
She was grateful to August for that, at least. Not that she would tell him that. His head was big enough without any help from her.
She looked up to see him watching her, and a smile spread across her face.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m just so grateful I don’t have to marry you. I’m feeling really smug about how smart I am.”
The table burst out laughing again.