“I will always be at your side… unless I’m dragged away kicking and screaming by a band of kidnappers.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. He laughed a little, too, and then, when it was quiet, reached across the short distance and let his hand graze her face.
Amarande stared back, watching the fire warm his features. She suddenly wished the moon were brighter—she wanted to see this moment as clearly as possible. Instead, it was like the dreams she had—all light and shadows and his eyes watching her like she was the only girl in the world.
“May I kiss you, Ama?”
The princess flashed a surprised smile. “Of course. I kissed you.”
Luca was quiet for a moment. “I’m in a position that I must ask.”
Amarande hadn’t asked him when she’d kissed him after the rescue. She’d just done it. Suddenly it was slightly horrifying to her that she hadn’t thought to ask him at all. Power dynamic, emotions, a mutual understanding… she wasn’t sure what drove her to do it or if any of those things made it worse or generally okay.
Luca’s hand swept down her chin. “Ama, I wanted you to kiss me. But I never could’ve done it first.”
“My answer to you will always be yes.” She swallowed the lump forming in her throat—oh, Luca.“I’m so sorry I didn’t think to ask before.”
In response, he simply leaned in and made the next kiss his own. Soft. Cautious. Amarande’s fingers splayed across his jaw, encouraging him. Her heart seemed to slow in her chest, as if time itself were suspended in amber.
By the time he pulled away, she struggled to open her eyes. She dropped her head to her bedroll with a smile on her face, eyes still closed.
“Ama,” Luca whispered, and she could hear him shift around. “What are we going to do when we get back?”
“Well, deliver you to Medikua Aritza,” she repeated, wondering if the snake’s poison or the anti-venom itself had robbed him of some of his more recent memories, “and—”
“No,” he said, voice so low it barely made it above the crack and snap of the fire. “I mean… about us?”
The princess’s eyes flew open. “I’m not marrying Renard. And if he’s convinced the council that I am, they’re just going to be disappointed.”
Luca drew in a breath, his response measured as always. And quiet. “Even if you tear up his marriage contract and the rest, too, they’re not going to let us be… together.”
“I don’t care what they want. This is what we want. My heart has nothing to do with my ability to rule. They don’t have to like it;they just have to accept that this”—she gestured between them—“is how things are right at this moment in time.”
“And the law?”
If she could get the council to see that Ardenia didn’t need to play by the Sand and Sky’s rules, they’d be so much better off. But if Ardenia balked at the laws determined by the union of kingdoms, so could everyone else. Fissures like that would break the continent apart.
The princess swallowed and set her voice—quiet like his and as firm as she could make it. “I’ll get it to change. I will. I’m not marrying to earn my own power. Not at sixteen, not ever.”
Though Amarande loved Luca, and she was sure of it now, she wasn’t ready to marry him. But she wanted the chance to do so at some point if that was what she chose. More, she wanted to givehimthe chance to chooseher,if he desired it.
What was it about this world that meant neither a princess nor a commoner could have control over their own lives, hearts, choices? Was there anyone who could fully make their own decisions without being beholden to anyone else? Even kings navigated the laws—some were simply more brutal about how to do it than others.
Luca rolled onto his back and stared up at the stars. They seemed so much closer here, even though he and Amarande were thousands of feet below their usual point of view at the Itspi. Amarande rolled over, too, her father suddenly on her mind. Her father—who seemed to trust her to be who he hoped she would be. And yet he’d left open the gap that kept her from getting there.
There had to be a reason.
After a time, Luca’s hand found Amarande’s. He wrapped his fingers around hers and squeezed. “Ama, if you do marry, I’m still going to be by your side. I can watch you from afar and serve you and be in your life as much or as little as you want.”
Amarande had never had trouble explaining herself to him before, but now was a different story.
“Luca, I don’t want you toserveme,” she said, sweeping his knuckles to her lips and kissing them gently. “Yourplacehas never been who you are to me. I want you in my life, by my side, voluntarily. Not because I’ve asked you to be part of my household. Not because I’ve coerced my husband to let you stay. Because it’s you and me, together, in this world.”
Luca shifted again, his eyes finding hers across the starlit dark. “Always, Princess.”
CHAPTER
34
