Luca’s words died as his instincts drove his body into motion. Though his balance was unstable and his bitten leg clumsy, he ducked out of the knife’s way while snagging the hilt, just as he’d done that day in the meadow.
The man was already charging Luca, chasing his knife blade, and going for a tackle.
Luca spun out of the way, and at the same time Amarande launched her own knife—in her boot always—straight for the man’s lanky body. But his frame and his movement meant she missed.
The knife grazed his back and clattered into the red earth. Lucawas ready and closer, launching the man’s own knife back at him in the same instant Amarande’s missed. The knife pierced the man straight along the spinal column. Instantly his body went raggedy, his control lost as he fell face first to the cold earth.
Amarande hurdled the dying fire as Luca gathered her knife. She grabbed all their belongings from the tent, stuffing them in her arms and immediately heading due east. No looking back. Not to see if the man was alive or dead. Not to ask him whom he worked for. Nothing.
No good-byes to Naiara or Señe. Or Mira. Luca tried out a jog, catching up and trading the princess’s knife for his boots and one of the saddlebags.
“Did I… did we… did he?” Luca was gasping and looking back, trying to shrug on his boots without tying them. “Did that man just die trying to takemecaptive?”
Amarande wouldn’t look back. She couldn’t see that body on the ground and guess from this distance whether he was in the middle of bleeding out or if he was about to rise and sound the alarm.
“Someone will find him and know why he joined the caravan. And then, if they didn’t know who we were before, they’ll know now,” the princess said, eyes on the fuzzy line of mountains in the distance. They seemed too far for all they had to outrun—the kidnapper pirates, whomever this man worked for, the murder that may or may not have just occurred, and the elements of the Torrent. Maybe more. There was always more. Amarande caught Luca’s eye. “The sooner we get home, the better.”
CHAPTER
35
GAUGINGby the sun and the landmarks, Amarande estimated they went about ten miles in the first three hours after their escape. Luca kept pace without complaint, but though she could go faster, the princess held back. They had a hundred miles to go, and if she pushed him too hard and infection set in, there would be no one within a day’s walk to help. And though she was strong, she couldn’t carry him.
Up ahead loomed the beginning of the long, thin rock shelf she’d likened to the dragon’s spine during the sprint into the Torrent with Mira. If they could get there, they could find shade if he needed a rest. People too. Maybe some who’d be swayed by her diamonds to sell them a horse.
Or not.
The princess understood now how little she knew about the world outside the safety of the Itspi, but she never imagined a place where diamonds were refused. Especially considering that was one of the reasons suitors wantedher.
Diamonds, an army, another throne—her value in a nutshell.
Though perhaps not in that order. That was certainly not Renard’s order of priority.
Renard.
Amarande hated so very muchwhoandwhatwas waiting for her at home. She snagged Luca’s fingers and cleared her throat.
“How’s the leg?”
“It’s fine, Ama. Just like it was twenty minutes ago and the twenty minutes before that,” Luca answered. He wasn’t irritated, just matter-of-fact. “I promise to tell you if I’m not okay.”
She didn’t believe that for a second—he’d spent his whole life determined not to be a bother—but she didn’t needle.
“It’s notyouI don’t trust; it’s the possibility of infection.” Her mind paged back to one of her father’s sayings—one Luca too knew by heart. Everyone in the Itspi did. “Beware or be deaddoesn’t just refer to battle. It applies to everything. It’s not justiforwhenwe get home together; it’s what state you are in that matters to me.”
“My state is good. Let’s get home.”
Amarande didn’t completely believe that either. But she liked to hear his voice. Though they may have just left a man to die, though they still had a hundred miles to go, when they spoke it was like the old pattern they shared in the meadow when no one was looking and they had hours of training and a fresh slice of lemon cake between them.
“I’m stuck on the timing,” the princess announced, adjusting the fall of the saddlebag over her shoulder so that it wouldn’t snag her hair. “When were the pirates and that man”—she nodded over her shoulder toward their abandoned campsite miles back—“hired? Father hasn’t been gone a week, and the planning of a trade-off points to something even bigger than forcing my hand. Doesn’t it?”
“Yes, but either way I’m just a pawn. Though passing me around does seem a little suspect.” Luca pursed his lips in thought, his dimples winking as his eyes met the middle distance. She didn’t think Sendoa or anyone else would’ve used the diamond’s facets as an analogy with Luca growing up, but just the same, his mind ticked through all the possibilities as they hit the light.
His pace quickened a little as he thought, the rhythm of hislimp blurring into something less exaggerated. “Unless… the plan changed. Not because you came to get me but before that.” Luca stopped dead in his tracks and grabbed Amarande’s other hand. “Maybe the pirates weren’t originally meant to take me. Maybe they were meant to takeyou.”
Oh. Stars. Yes.
The cold possibility of that line of thought sent a shiver across Amarande’s overheated skin. The princess thought back to those days, with the vipers arriving in beribboned groups. Pyrenee first, Basilica next, and finally, later in the same day, Myrcell.
