In the darkness, Amarande swiped for and then clutched Luca’s hand. “How are you here? I saw you, your chest, and I thought you were…”
“Dead?” Luca asked, dimples winking in the moonlight. “I was. Mostly. But the pirates made sure I didn’t take a turn all the way.”
“Your chest, does it hurt?”
“It burns like a million suns,” he admitted as they charged up the hill. His stride was falling apart now as he looked at her instead of his footing. No, it was more than that: His limp had returned, and a new unsteadiness seemed to jostle him, too—a remnant of Taillefer’s handicraft. He’d worked hard to keep his new scars from the surface in the chapel. She held tight to his hand. “Can’t believe I’m on my feet, actually, but I couldn’t let them take you.”
“Never let anyone take either of us again, promise?”
“Always, Princess.”
She nearly lunged at him for a kiss, but she was aware that if she did it might blow their cover and cost her the chance to ever do it again. So, instead, she whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Ama.”
As the princess, her love, and the pirates crested the hill, the light of a torch met them.
“Dunixi,” Ula spat under her breath. Amarande had assumed the Eritrian was waiting for them with the horses, but the way the girl said his name made it very clear she didn’t want to see him. And next to Ula, Urtzi searched her profile for an order, his big hands curling into fists.
Ula held up a hand.
It wasn’t the leader boy—it was a girl.
The moonlight caught the blue of her eyes and the dark fall of her hair. The sword at her side shone in perfect, deadly form.
Osana.
“I know an exit, and I have food,” the girl said, holding up bulgingburlap sacks. Amarande recalled she’d seen the girl stationed by the spread in the foyer. “Please let me come with you?”
All three pairs of eyes shifted to Amarande, looking for confirmation or an order.
The princess nodded and Ula ushered them along. “This way.”
They’d only prepared three horses, but without a word, Amarande and Luca ran to the same horse. As they mounted, the princess looked to Ula. “Where is Dunixi?” The Eritrian’s name was strange on her lips.
The girl smiled. “Sleeping off his greed.”
“If that’s the case, he may never wake,” Amarande said. She looked to Osana. “Lead us.”
The girl did indeed know the way. A mountain stream had eroded the wall surrounding the Bellringe deep behind the stable. The sliver of missing stone was just large enough for a fit horse to scoot through, and hidden by a weeping boulder. Through the wall and onto the other side and they were in a ravine that had clearly been used as a road. Koldo loomed in Amarande’s mind as they crept out, telling her to catalog every inch under the waning light of the moon.
If Father’s maps didn’t hold this secret route out of the Bellringe and off King’s Crest, she would see to it that it was added. And, if it came to it, used later.
Amarande settled in, Luca’s arms about her waist. She wished for the warmth of his chest at her back, but he kept his distance; the press of any weight against his wound would be too much. Their return to the Itspi would be just as she’d pictured it before they’d been intercepted by Renard—Luca to Medikua Aritza’s workshop first to disinfect and redress his wound. Then to the Royal Council to prepare for what was to come.
The ravine bled out into a mountain pass, where, if it were daytime, they could easily see for miles. But in the pressing dark,all they saw was the flicker of torches on the main road below—winding down from the Bellringe. It was the one they’d taken up to the castle and the one they would need to follow to return to Ardenia.
“The castle has sent a party out looking for us,” Amarande said. The others nodded. “They will alert the camps at the border and no road we take will be safe.”
“Good thing we have a ship,” Urtzi answered.
True, not that it did them any good.
“I’m afraid it can’t help us much if it’s on the other side of the continent, Urtzi,” Luca said in his kind way.
“Luca, did you really believe everything we told you?” Ula asked, her eyes alight.
“Well, I didn’t really believe you had a ship at all,land pirates,but I’m giving Urtzi the benefit of the doubt at the moment.”
