She could see the lumpy shadows of the horses and their owners, forged in the fire they’d left burning. They hadn’t left camp, and if they were awake, they weren’t alert yet.
The opportunity was exactly what she needed.
Her father’s words rang in her ears, and it made her smile.
Make the first mark.
Yes, she would.
The princess’s heart kicked into high gear, the promise of a fight approaching. The Warrior King’s blood was her blood, of that there was no doubt, and it sang and danced in her veins with a life of its own.
Her fingers tightened on the knife.
She came to a tree on the very edge of their camp circle. The horses stirred but didn’t alarm, as tired as they were and quiet as she was. That knife tight in her fist, she cataloged each of the people, closer than she’d seen them even last night.
The girl—of Torrent, it appeared.
The tall boy—Myrcellian to be sure.
The blond boy—Eritrian, as burnt as the landscape.
And Luca, breathing but bound, a massive bruise blooming across his temple. That had to be the tall boy’s work. And for that he would pay.
All of them still, but more than that—asleep.
There’d been a breakdown in communication on their watch. The tall boy’s handoff to the Eritrian either hadn’t happened or had and the blond boy fell back to sleep.
Either way, it was to her advantage.
They were sitting—sleeping—ducks, vulnerable in ways that may very well be their end, should her knife blade go to work.
The hesitation that she’d felt when she encountered the robbers crept forward in her mind—that instant when she’d held two swords to one man and hadn’t managed to kill him, getting nothing from him in answer to the question that initially kept him alive, all the while losing her provisions and the security they provided.
She’d most definitely suffered from her choices.
The princess shook free of the thought.
Retrieving Luca was the only goal. Punishment to the kidnappers and anything else would only be secondary.
And so she set her eyes upon Luca with the aim only of getting him out alive. Not starting a fight. Not settling scores.
Just Luca. Only Luca. Forever Luca.
Amarande crept forward, knife out and ready, attention skipping from one sleeping body to the next. She approached in such a way that she could go directly to Luca and meet him where he would see her the second he opened his eyes—approaching him from behind might startle him too much. But with that tactic came an additional hurdle.
The girl.
She was sleeping next to him at arm’s length—close enough that she could grab him if she sensed movement. Which meant to get to Luca this way, Amarande had to step over the girl, or go around her and then squeeze between their bodies, crouching down with either her back or her weak side to a girl who slept with a curved sword of Torrent like it was a babe at her breast.
Not ideal.
But it was the most direct path to her goal.
The princess crept toward Luca and the girl, sweeping around their feet. She paused in the space between them, squinting at the shadows that separated them. On further inspection, Luca’s binds hadn’t just been attached to a rope that had been tied to a tree,but to the girl herself after her watch, an additional rope tying his bound wrists to her left hand.
Again, not ideal.
But she would make it work.
