THEY did not change the law.
The contract did not disappear. It gained company. One from each kingdom, as Amarande expected.
Worse, within days the leaders of the other kingdoms of the Sand and Sky arrived, one by one.
Bear, Shark, Mountain Lion—Basilica, Myrcell, Pyrenee.
Each of them owed their crowns to King Sendoa, their sworn protector of the realm. The man who lent his army to quell the Warlord’s raids from deep within the Torrent, to hunt down the pirates who haunted trade routes through the Divide that separated Pyrenee from Eritri, to clear mountain passes clogged with boulders after a hard snow.
All these people who got far more out of their alliance than Sendoa himself, coming to take more—his crown, his land, his legacy.
At least, that was Amarande’s opinion.
She didn’t want to see these people. These brutal, horrible, hungry people.
Not a one was good.
Domingu—the blue-eyed, craggy-faced king of iron-veined Basilica who’d lodged a blade in the back of his own brother fifty years ago for his crown. Amarande had no doubt that he’d kill the mother of his most recent children for a marriage that might buy him half of the Sand and Sky. His contract promised as much without saying so—that woman was his fifth wife, after all.
Akil—the boy king of Myrcell, with its lowland beaches snaking across the southern belt of the continent. Twenty and newly married, he’d traveled to the funeral alone, his wife conspicuously absent as her groom angled for a more enticing prospect. Akil had a nice smile and it made Amarande sick that he could wield it along with such cruelty. Did his queen mean nothing to him?
Renard, the first son of Ardenia’s mountain neighbor, a year older and everything a prince should be—clean, respectful, teeth-achingly traditional. He was like a painting come to life and as uninteresting as a blank canvas. Still, he wasn’t yet a king, his mother standing in as his regent until he turned eighteen. Amarande was bitter that Pyrenee—with approval from the Sand and Sky—had obviously changed its succession rules to accommodate his father’s death four years ago, but Ardenia had no such plans.
No, she didn’t want to see any of them, and they apparently didn’t want to see her either, hiding away in the guest quarters of the Itspi. But she knew the Royal Council was meeting with each party, shuttling from room to room, ahead of the funeral. Forging ahead with new contracts, her future—Ardenia’s future—parsed out in lines of looping text. Despite, or possibly because of, her reasonable requests.
It made her livid.
Which meant the princess required two things to mend her frustrations: Luca and cold, hard, deadly steel.
Whenever she came to him this way at the stable, Luca’s answer was the same: “Always, Princess.”
And so, on the morning of her father’s funeral, Princess Amarande stood at the edge of their meadow with a knife in her hand. Before her, Luca set his feet in the shade of a great juniper tree with a peculiar bald spot about six feet up from the ground.
For the twentieth time that morning, he held a sprig of the tree’s berries in his hand and, giving a shout, tossed it over his head—up and up to the branches. The princess tracked it up and then down, drawing back before, in a blink, a knife shot out of her hand. The tip caught the berries through their arterial stem, impaling it in the tree at the same height as the boy’s head, dead center of the bald patch.
Her best one yet.
Luca flashed a smile as warm as the sun before yanking the knife and cluster down with it, berries shaking free and tumbling off the stem and onto the ground below. He tossed the knife back at her, a friendly hilt-facing lob, not a sharp sling.
As she caught it, a slow clap came from behind, the beat of it drumming off the mountains that peered down upon them. Princess Amarande turned, joy wilting.
Prince Taillefer.
Renard’s younger brother by eleven months, blond and fox eyed. Freshly picked sprigs of white flowers were twisted into a vine around his neck. It was no secret that Taillefer had an interest in the natural arts of botany and anatomy—second sons always needed a hobby.
“Well, after that display, I’ll venture to say that if you marry my brother, I’ll be king within the year.”
Not only brutal but also bold, this one. No introduction. No condolences. Simply a grotesque prediction and a sly grin.
Amarande blinked at him, her grip on the knife suddenly mean enough to etch her knuckles in stark white.
“I’m not marrying your brother.”
“Surely we can make a deal,” the prince said, arms going wide. His voice lilted like a market vendor with a far better pitch than wares. “You marry him, bleed him dry, and make me king, and I’ll install you in your Itspi with your stableboy and a firm promise that I’ll never touch you.”
Luca looked away, blush crawling across his high cheekbones. Taillefer smirked. Amarande’s icy façade wavered slightly, her blood suddenly too warm for her body. It was impossible to tell by his fox-like smile if he was kidding, but serious or not, the second son of Pyrenee had hit his mark.
“Much of that deal requires my pain and your promises,” the princess said. “That’s not a balance that can end well for me, Your Highness.”
This only made Taillefer grin more and cock a brow. “You’re suggesting I should take the Domingu route, are you not?”
She wiped the knife blade against her pants. “How you steal the crown is none of my business, but I don’t plan to help you.”
“Fair enough.” The prince took a step toward the castle with its red-stone turrets scraping the clouds. Then Taillefer stopped. “As a point of reference, my brother is two inches shorter than this strapping young lad. Aim low, Princess, or you’ll miss your opportunity altogether.”
And with that, Prince Taillefer dared to turn his back to the Warrior King’s daughter and her knife.
When the second son of Pyrenee had made it up the hill and through the gate to the yard, Luca appeared at Amarande’s side. “Are they all like that?”
The princess’s eyes didn’t waver from the red spires of the Itspi. Her home had become an asp’s nest.
“Greedy? Backstabbing? Opportunistic? Every last one of them. And yet behind closed doors the council bathes them in sagardoa and compliments while negotiating the theft of Ardenia.”
Luca considered that. She’d told him much about the laws of succession that had left the kingdom in such a position. “And they don’t include you?”
“They know I won’t consent—I’ve made that much clear.” Amarande ripped her eyes away from the Itspi and turned to Luca, frustration pinking her cheeks. They hadn’t even involved Koldo, though she was regent. Amarande had seen her around the grounds, working with the soldiers far too much for her to be in those sagardoa-splashed meetings. “And the last thing they want is me making the thieves uncomfortable with my demands.”
Luca paused, snatching Amarande’s hand to make a point. Her blush rose further. “If they won’t hear you in private, you’ll just have to bring your concerns into the open.”
As he spoke, his eyes skipped briefly to the arena, nestled below the castle yard on the other side of the grounds. The site of the day’s funeral. Where royalty and commoners alike would come together to bid King Sendoa farewell.
Yes, that was exactly what she needed to do.