Protection, yes, but there must be more.
Protection not simply from the plagues of the realm but from somethingwithinit.
For fifteen years, he had avoided marriage, even when the possibility was handed to him on a silver platter by Pyrenee.
Amarande knew a lack of love kept him from joining hearts—he would not suffer again or force another to suffer.
But what if it was more than that?
And, why—why—did he not use his influence to change thelaw and allow her to rule in her own right? Instead of setting up a situation where mostly grown men fought over her like a pack of wolves over carrion?
Her father was so careful. Thoughtful. Strategic.
Wasn’t he?
He had a plan. He always had a plan.
Didn’t he?
Amarande’s eyes flew open. She’d come here for her father’s guidance and received nothing but more unanswerable questions, swirling before her mind’s eye, the facets in all their shine blinding.
CHAPTER
8
WITHKoldo already winding her way south with a full regiment, there was only one person alive Amarande could talk to about any of this. The one person who knew her well enough to see the facets through her eyes and listen well enough to help pull her through.
The princess ran through the grass, the knife in her boot thunking soft enough that only she could hear it under the hiss of wind through the juniper trees in the failing light. She paused at the stable’s edge.
“Luca.”
Usually, one time was all it took.
But nothing.
“Luca,” she tried again, louder this time, as she stepped inside, breathing in lavender oil and new hay. The only answer was the stamp and snort of horses, rustling themselves into comfort.
Amarande wondered if he’d gone to dinner. If she’d missed him, and if he was lounging in the kitchens with Abene, Maialen, and maybe old Zuzen and his nightly pipe.
Dinner. Like she was to have with Renard far sooner than she preferred. A meal that could save war on one front but spark one on another, the southern kingdoms joining forces against the two northern kingdoms.
She needed to talk to Luca. Badly. To see his face. The understanding in his eyes as she explained. The flash of a dimple as hebit his lip to think. The tone of his voice as he nudged her toward the type of revelation that always hit her all at once—a dive into an icy lake.
Amarande called his name a third time and knocked on his quarters. The little wooden door opened in answer and she immediately knew she must press again for him to live within the castle. She may not be allowed to rule on her own, but surely she could make that much happen.
The room was empty and she gently shut his door. After she returned to the stable entry, she worked through the wisdom of hunting down Luca and his thoughts while gambling her chance to be on time for dinner with a boy whose army slept at her border.
And that’s when her eye caught it: a scrap of white parchment, folded neatly atop a mess of horseshoes and nails upon the workbench.
AMARANDE.
Luca knew his letters—Sendoa had made sure of that, as he had for all the palace’s children—but that handwriting wasn’t Luca’s.
The tremble returned to her fingers and this time her fear was there, firing up as it should have the second she saw Koldo sprint-stumbling down the hill from the castle the day her father died. It was a new fear—an anticipation of something shocking and awful.
Amarande’s heart rate spiked and her face burned as her fingers fumbled, cold, and she forced them through their tremble to work. She nearly dropped the parchment as it yawned open.
The words flashed before her eyes almost as if she already knew them. As if that new fear had scrawled them on the page itself, dragging the ink through the services of a left-handed scribe.
