AMARANDE’S left hand dragged through the dirt, and her eyes immediately shot open, her body rocketing up until she was sitting, knife out, blinking into consciousness.
It was still dark.
Oh, thank the stars.
There was Mira, up from where she’d lain down the night before, muzzle digging coolly through the underbrush for something worth eating. Right on time.
The princess took a deep breath and squinted over her shoulder—the fire was still burning in the distance, hot enough that if the kidnappers had moved on, they weren’t far. To the right, the horizon beyond the thick cluster of spindly trees was slightly lighter, the first blues bleeding into the night’s endless black.
Relief flooded through Amarande’s body. She blinked again, eyes renewed, though being rested was not something she could claim. Three hours, that was it. But that would have to do, and it would have to last her—the second she had Luca’s hand in hers, they were on the run until they were safe or they were captured.
The princess removed the cowl from Mira’s bridle, looping the excess around her wrist. The horse huffed, hoping for the breakfast Luca always had prepared for her at this hour. “Soon, girl.”
She stowed her boot knife for the moment. The sword stayed on her back as well. She guided the horse through the trees and wound around to the very edge of the slip of forest, walking along the border, feet in the sand that sloped out to the desert she’d ridden through the day before.
Amarande couldn’t risk taking Mira into the kidnappers’ camp. Though she was a very good horse indeed, she was still too loud and too smelly—the other horses would notice her in an instant. What’s more, there were too many variables to getting Luca free from his ropes and onto the horse while potentially fighting three people who likely would only get paid if they held on to Luca—or captured her to go right along with him.
And so the princess tiptoed along the dirt, keeping Mira at a wide berth of the tree line and the crackling debris that would snap under hoof. Then when she was right in line with the orange glow of the fire, she tied Mira to another spindly tree. Not too tight that she couldn’t get her free when she came back to her with Luca in hand. The idea that the knot had to be loose in case she never returned to Mira blinked in the recesses of Amarande’s mind, and she shut it away just as quickly as it came.
Warriors didn’t make concessions like that.
Mira taken care of, Amarande turned her attention back to the fire. Using the orange glow as a beacon, she snuck toward it on soft steps, her movements sharper than they had been only hours earlier, her senses heightened, her focus clear.
The princess’s steps slowed, her center of gravity becoming lower as the fire grew closer. Her fingers slipped into her boot yet again, the knife at the ready as she came within striking distance. She was approaching from an angle that put her between where Luca and the girl had been on the sundial, and the blond boy—the Eritrian, who apparently was giving the orders.
Amarande didn’t know how long the watch shifts were for the party, but she guessed by the conversation between the girl and the Myrcellian boy that it should now be the Eritrian’s turn. And so she scanned the site, hunting for movement, especially from the blond boy, whose form she pinpointed at the tenth spot on the sundial.
No movement.
Good.
She could see the lumpy shadows of the horses and their owners, forged in the fire they’d left burning. They hadn’t left camp, and if they were awake, they weren’t alert yet.
The opportunity was exactly what she needed.
Her father’s words rang in her ears, and it made her smile.
Make the first mark.
Yes, she would.
The princess’s heart kicked into high gear, the promise of a fight approaching. The Warrior King’s blood was her blood, of that there was no doubt, and it sang and danced in her veins with a life of its own.
Her fingers tightened on the knife.
She came to a tree on the very edge of their camp circle. The horses stirred but didn’t alarm, as tired as they were and quiet as she was. That knife tight in her fist, she cataloged each of the people, closer than she’d seen them even last night.
The girl—of Torrent, it appeared.
The tall boy—Myrcellian to be sure.
The blond boy—Eritrian, as burnt as the landscape.
And Luca, breathing but bound, a massive bruise blooming across his temple. That had to be the tall boy’s work. And for that he would pay.
All of them still, but more than that—asleep.
There’d been a breakdown in communication on their watch. The tall boy’s handoff to the Eritrian either hadn’t happened or had and the blond boy fell back to sleep.
Either way, it was to her advantage.
They were sitting—sleeping—ducks, vulnerable in ways that may very well be their end, should her knife blade go to work.
The hesitation that she’d felt when she encountered the robbers crept forward in her mind—that instant when she’d held two swords to one man and hadn’t managed to kill him, getting nothing from him in answer to the question that initially kept him alive, all the while losing her provisions and the security they provided.
She’d most definitely suffered from her choices.
The princess shook free of the thought.
Retrieving Luca was the only goal. Punishment to the kidnappers and anything else would only be secondary.
And so she set her eyes upon Luca with the aim only of getting him out alive. Not starting a fight. Not settling scores.
Just Luca. Only Luca. Forever Luca.
Amarande crept forward, knife out and ready, attention skipping from one sleeping body to the next. She approached in such a way that she could go directly to Luca and meet him where he would see her the second he opened his eyes—approaching him from behind might startle him too much. But with that tactic came an additional hurdle.
The girl.
She was sleeping next to him at arm’s length—close enough that she could grab him if she sensed movement. Which meant to get to Luca this way, Amarande had to step over the girl, or go around her and then squeeze between their bodies, crouching down with either her back or her weak side to a girl who slept with a curved sword of Torrent like it was a babe at her breast.
Not ideal.
But it was the most direct path to her goal.
The princess crept toward Luca and the girl, sweeping around their feet. She paused in the space between them, squinting at the shadows that separated them. On further inspection, Luca’s binds hadn’t just been attached to a rope that had been tied to a tree, but to the girl herself after her watch, an additional rope tying his bound wrists to her left hand.
Again, not ideal.
But she would make it work.
Amarande crept forward, her footsteps as soft as a wren’s in the mud, though the brush was dry and she had the weight of what she wanted to do pressed down upon small-but-mighty shoulders, her sword, her long gown, and the hidden diamonds.
She swept her skirt close to her body with her non-knife hand, willing the fabric not to splay out and brush the wrong arm, and then sank all the way into a squat—split stance and ready to run. She angled her shoulders so that her left one faced the girl rather than her back, and then brought her hands within an inch of Luca’s sleeping form. So close she caught a whiff of the lavender oil he used on the Itspi’s horses.
Stars, he’s real.
He was really here. This was happening. Her love was before her and they were minutes from going home. She’d have Luca, and Renard would have nothing except a ruined plan.
The princess took a calming breath.
Always forward, never back.
Simultaneously, she gently placed one hand over Luca’s mouth and one on his hands, spreading her fingers so as to keep any startled movement at a minimum.
His eyes flew open, gold and alarmed.
His hands fluttered as she expected they would, and though she kept even pressure, the rope skittered across the dry dirt. She subdued it with the toe of her boot, attention shooting to the girl. She didn’t stir.
When Amarande looked again to Luca, he’d gone completely still, except for those eyes, which rounded.
In recognition. Wonder. Joy.
The princess could feel his lips moving under her palm, and she gently pulled her hand away, revealing a smile and words formed yet soundless.
Ama, you came.
Her own grin was stretching before she could stop it—she was so relieved to see his face, his surprise, his happiness, that she answered his joyful silence with a whisper. “Yes.”
And that was when the princess realized her goal was also her biggest weakness.
Luca’s eyes grew wider, smile faltering at the same time he jerked himself up onto his elbows. “Ama, watch—”
She didn’t hear the rest of it.
Luca yanked hard against the rope with his bound wrists, and suddenly there was a body crashing over Amarande’s upper back.
The princess shot to her feet as the body rolled over her, sending the girl to the ground with a hard thump. The girl managed to keep hold of her sword, and Amarande immediately stomped on it with both feet, pinning it and her right hand beneath it to the ground.
Knife out, Amarande silently beckoned to Luca, using the few seconds they might have before the girl began screaming to draw him close and begin sawing at his binds. He lunged toward her, wrists presented, but Amarande only got in a single hack at the ropes before the girl found the breath that had been knocked from her lungs.
“Attack! We’re under attack! Urtzi, Dunixi! Up!”
The rope binding Luca’s wrists began to fray and Amarande hacked and sawed at it again.
“Wait!” Luca said to Amarande. The princess immediately froze, and Luca lunged back deeply, yanking and twisting with his whole body just as the girl’s fingers scraped the hilt of her pinned sword. The girl’s entire left arm lurched back, threatening to come out of the socket—her wrist still attached by rope to her prisoner. She cried out at the tension, and suddenly Luca was falling backward, stumbling into the Eritrian, who was pushing himself up, out of too-deep slumber.
Luca rolled over the blond boy, shrugging his hands free and apart, the rope dead at his feet. Then he pitched them in front of his body, ready to catch. “Ama!”
And suddenly the princess was back in their meadow, but working with Luca instead of against him. Her boot knife left her grasp without a whiff of hesitation, wheeling hilt over blade, straight for his outstretched hands. Beneath him, the Eritrian boy scrambled to his feet, blood spurting out of his moon-white nose and down into his mouth, the mass of Luca having dealt quite the blow.
“Urtzi!” he screamed in a gurgle at the Myrcellian boy, who clearly woke much easier by touch than by sound.
Hands free, Amarande began to draw her sword just as the girl decided to change tactics and kick backward, curling her legs over her head and springing up from her shoulders, nailing Amarande’s shins with the full might of her tumbling body. Amarande flew back right as, across the fire, the Myrcellian boy jolted up to his feet.
Amarande lost sight of both the tall boy and the girl as she hit the tree behind her hard, shoulder and hand smacking hard enough to shed bark from the trunk. The girl stood, sword out and ready as Amarande rolled off the tree, willing her stinging hand and throbbing shoulder to listen to the commands of her brain and grab the sword at her back. A second passed and the girl took advantage, lunging, curved sword striking straight for Amarande’s heart.
The princess’s left arm shot back, grabbed the sword, and met the girl in a hanging parry. She cut up with all her might, right hand joining the fight, flinging the girl’s sword up and back.
“So it is true—you can fight, tiger cub,” the girl said, bringing in a high guard as Amarande’s sword swung toward her face.
“I am my father’s daughter.”
Their swords rang out again, and Amarande called out to Luca over the girl’s shoulder. He’d just kicked the Eritrian back to the ground, sending the boy sprawling and more blood spurting. The sky was suddenly a shade brighter, everything coming to light. The Myrcellian charged at him, and Luca held his knife out against the boy, who had no obvious weapon except those meat-paw fists at the bases of his long arms.
“Don’t kill him! We need him! Fists only. No daggers.” The Eritrian blubbered from the ground, trying again to get to his feet but dizzy enough he swayed every time he nearly got there.
“Dunixi, if you haven’t noticed, we’re fighting the princess, so I don’t think we need him any longer!”
“Ula, and here I thought we were friends,” Luca said, and it almost sounded like he was laughing.
Amarande thought she saw a whisper of a smile as the girl met her latest blow. “Nothing personal, but you’re worth the same to us alive or dead at this point, Luca.”
Luca dodged a running swing from the tall boy, the Myrcellian’s long arm finding nothing but air as Luca rolled. Through the movement, Luca’s blade slashed the boy’s shirt from his skin, blood blooming under his rib cage as he shrieked, “If you don’t need me, let us go. I’d rather not hurt any of you.”
That surprised Amarande a little, considering what they’d done to him, but Luca was nothing if not kind to the most difficult creatures—human, equine, or otherwise.
“If we don’t have either of you, we don’t get paid,” the Eritrian bellowed, finally getting to his feet. “Ula, Urtzi, capture them both and let’s collect.”
“Capturing would be much easier if it were three on two,” the girl spat through clenched teeth as she crossed swords yet again with Amarande. Up close, her eyes flashed, furious despite her sarcasm. If Amarande were her, she’d be furious, too.
“Hold the stableboy, Urtzi,” the Eritrian ordered the lanky boy, forearms and hands bloody with more direct slashes from Luca’s knife work. Luca danced around, pulling the Myrcellian toward Amarande, as the Eritrian came their way, drawing a flaming stick from the fire and coming toward Amarande and the girl as if brandishing a torch.
Amarande’s eyes rolled. Just like an ineffective leader—kill it with fire.
Middle guard and cross, and she pushed the girl back toward the advancing boy, so that he’d have to work around the swing of their swords to do any damage. At some point, he’d wiped the blood from his nose into his eyes, and with the change in blocking he misjudged, swinging and nearly catching the tips of the girl’s long hair with the flames. The girl wrenched herself away, giving up ground on Amarande’s advance, and the princess’s sword came down at an angle that grazed her forearm.
As she cried out, the Eritrian tipped off-balance, hitting only air and tumbling forward into some brush, spinning as he fell to keep from landing on his flaming stick. It dropped out of the boy’s hand as he hit the ground with a smack, a violent oooof, and a hiss.
More than one hiss.
“Dunixi!” the girl yelled, her slashed arm really bleeding now. But the boy was slow to take her warning, the air and all his motivation vacating as he landed hard.
And just beyond his far shoulder was the reason for the hissing—three snakes unsettled and unfurling.
Amarande’s eyes widened.
Squat body, zigzag-patterned scales, buzzing hiss—unmistakably Harea Asps.
Owners of the deadliest venom in all of the Sand and Sky.
Able to strike and reset within a tenth of a second.
And very, very easy to anger.
Suddenly the princess was in motion, lunging for the stick and its remaining flame. She scooped it up in her right hand and tossed it at the snake just as it struck at the Eritrian. At the same time, the girl yanked him hard and pulled him toward her. He tumbled into her and in an instant they were both flat on the ground, him pinning her, as the flaming snake hissed back.
The asp’s brethren scattered—right toward where Luca and the tall boy still exchanged blows.
“Luca!” Amarande yelled as he ducked from a long swing of the tall boy’s fist. She ran toward both Luca and the fire. “Move, move, fire incoming!”
The Myrcellian boy just grunted, his attention squarely on Luca.
But Luca had his wits about him, and just like during those faux battles back home in their little meadow, he knew everything Amarande was thinking before she did it.
When the tall boy’s next automatic punch sailed toward Luca’s face, instead of ducking, Luca grabbed his opponent’s fist in both hands and used it to swing them both out of the way. As they stumbled in the opposite direction of where the girl and the blond boy were trying to untangle themselves, Amarande scraped the fat edge of her sword through the fire, scooping up embers and ashes on the thick Basilican steel. In one broad heave, the flaming kindling sprayed the advancing asps with a crackle and hiss.
The snakes shuddered and retreated, scales smoking.
And, suddenly, Amarande and Luca’s window of escape was open.
Luca extricated himself from the Myrcellian and grabbed Amarande’s outstretched hand. She yanked him in the direction they needed to go, sword out. As they ran to the edge of the camp, she dropped his hand and lifted a saddlebag from the ground—the girl’s, her journal spilling to the dirt with a thump. Luca seemed to startle at the sudden loss of her fingers in his until he realized why she’d done it and dipped down to grab another saddlebag, just a few feet away.
Then Luca fell in behind Amarande as she raced them through the forest, freedom stretching before them, his captivity at their backs.