Rather than a large slice, they’d each been given a plate of pieces no larger than her thumbnail. Renard took one look at his plate, smirked, and grabbed his single utensil—a spoon. Satordi and the council knew she could do much with a knife and fork.
They could’ve at least hidden their plan by pretending to make lamb stew. This was justovert.
“Odd cuisine you have here, Princess. I have no doubt I will learn to like it in time.”
It was almost funny, how he’d said it, if not for the tinge of entitlement in his voice. But what Renard wasn’t clever enough to recognize was that this meal wasn’t just an indictment of her temper; it was commentary on the fact that he couldn’t protect himself.
Again, her father’s voice clanged in her ears.If you underestimate an opponent, you overestimate yourself.Clearly King Louis-David hadn’t shared the same wisdom with his elder son before failing lungs buried him.
And though she was playing polite, she would let him know he’d misjudged.
She was her father’s daughter, after all.
Coolly, pleasantly, as Satordi would demand, she renewed her smile. “That is assuming much, Your Highness.”
Renard grinned quickly in return, but when he spoke his voice had settled into something cold. “You’ve agreed to dinner with me, and that leads me to assume you’ve read my contract and are considering it.”
Amarande dropped her own forced smile and focused on not diving across the table, tackling him to the floor, and bashing his head against the snow-white marble.
“I’ve read it.”
“And?”
“If you think I’m signing that contract, you don’t know a thing about me.”
Renard settled his eyes fully upon her now. They were the color of a ruined glacier—snowy edges, the deep blue ice exposed and unstable. “Piercing” would be one way to describe them, but Amarande had little belief he had the spine to wield anything with the will to puncture—a sword, a fork, eyes that were stunning, yes.
“Oh, I know plenty about you, Princess. And I admire you. Today you saw your opportunity and you took it—admittedly at my own expense.” He arched a brow. “And now all of the Sand and Sky knows what you want.”
Amarande’s heart thudded against Luca’s ransom note.
“What do you think I want?”
Renard raised his cup and took a long pull of sagardoa. He didn’t wince, though the tart cider was known to peel paint. The prince placed the cup back on the table with steady fingers and dried his lips politely with his napkin.
“The same thing I want—to rule.”
The princess bared her teeth.Oh no.This boy had taken Luca. She wasn’t about to let him draw her in with false equivalence. “You and I are not the same. If we were, there’d be no need for us to be at this table.”
“Oh, but we are, Princess.” His fingers fiddled with his spoon. When his eyes shot up, Amarande felt as if she were peeking behind the curtain, if only for a moment. “The laws do say I shall be king when I turn eighteen—eleven months, sixteen days, and four hours from this moment. That is an eternity as the son of Dowager Queen Inés.”
His voice sliced through the syllables of her name in a way that wasn’t loving.
“My father had an inkling that he would pass early. And so he petitioned the Sand and Sky to allow him to set up a clause allowing my mother to care for the Crown as regent until my eighteenth birthday.” Though she already knew it, Amarande’s heart soured at this—Pyrenee had planned. Why hadn’t Ardenia, who hadgreater need? “A fine arrangement indeed, except he never knew the depths of my mother’s ambitions.”
Ambitions.Inés certainly had them, sending her first proposal of marriage to Sendoa before the party from Ardenia had even arrived for King Louis-David’s funeral. Amarande’s father had never considered that one or any of the dozens that followed. He wasn’t willing to remarry, his shattered heart not in it, even with the promise of power that could come along with vows.
Again, Renard took a long pull of sagardoa. His cup would be empty soon.
When the prince spoke again, his voice was low—matter-of-fact. “It’s not a stretch to imagine my mother in the chambers of Domingu or Akil right this moment, drawing up plans for a marriage that would give either man two kingdoms, and her a chance to steal mine with another heir. A year is long enough to rewrite laws and bear a child.”
Stars,he was right. Surely Inés had pursued Akil before he’d wed his new bride, and now with the chess pieces shifting further on the continent, new paths to greater power had been revealed. And there was nothing Domingu wouldn’t do for a crown—the whole world had known that for fifty years.
“She would circumvent her own son?”
He nodded simply, hair spun gold in the torchlight. “Our arrival in Ardenia has only proved it—she hasn’t met once with your council. She’s too busy making her own arrangements.”
His eyes met hers.
