Sparkling white joined the black circling her vision as the princess’s hands began to falter in their reach for the guard who held her. Her movements slowed with her breath.
A body appeared in the shadows at the edge of her vision.
A blade shimmered in her periphery. Basilican steel. There was a reason the metal was the gold standard for every serious swordsman—its quality was unmatched. Nothing was more effective when it came to doing the worst.
Death would be quick.
Luca, I shall see you soon.
The princess closed her eyes.
The blade scraped across the skin of her throat, but strangely, she felt no pain.
Death, as it turned out, did not hurt.
Amarande felt her body drop, and she hit the floor with a thud, her frame collapsing as the press of darkness closed in, surrounding her in a shield from the chaos of what remained in life.
The princess waited for a light to come. For something to pull her from this existence into the next one.
And then she heard the whisper of a familiar voice. Smelled a whiff of lavender—and something else. Cloves. Wine.
“Ama, open your eyes.”
And there was a ghost.
Luca.
Clutching her boot knife in one hand, her father’s sword in the other. His face split into a smile, dimples flashing, golden eyes alive. He was bent before her, a Bellringe guard’s helmet squashed over his dark hair. Next to him was Ula, her golden eyes mirroring Luca’s—and her blade point sitting gently across the princess’s neck.
“Can you see him?” Amarande asked the girl, who to her knowledge was not a ghost.
“Yes. He’s alive and he’s yours.”
“AmIalive?”
“For now,” Ula answered, removing her sword tip from the princess’s throat. Vaguely then, Amarande realized the giant boy from Myrcell—Urtzi, to use his name—was at her back, his grip lessening on her bodice. Air finally flowed into her lungs. “On the count of three, Princess, we run for the exit.”
“Am I playing dead?”
“No, there’s been enough of that,” Luca whispered. “You’re cutting down as many of these bastards as possible.”
“One. Two. Three.”
All at once, the Myrcellian unhanded Amarande, Luca thrust her father’s sword into her hand, and the group rushed down the aisle.
“Wait! The princess is alive!”
“Get them! They’re helping her!”
“To the exit! The exit!”
Before her, Ula dispatched one man and then another, her curved blade making quick work. Amarande batted away a guard who came lunging toward her left. Luca sank her boot knife into the eye of one who went for his helmet, trying to throw him off-balance. From behind, Urtzi grunted as he shook off man after man.
As they sprinted through the foyer, Amarande had an idea. “The tables. Toss the food!”
The four of them spread out, each grabbing the end of a table and flipping it, sending food tumbling over the marble, wine splashing and slick. They raced around the mess and into the night. The rose garden was quieter than expected, the guards stationed outside long gone, the guests and the Dowager Queen nearly to the Bellringe’s inner wall. The party moved in a rowdy swarm, looking ahead but not back at what had just happened.
“This way. Our horses are ready,” Ula whispered to the princess as they turned a hard left and ran toward a hill.
