What was a lie?
What was the truth?
What would be best for Ardenia?
For Luca?
For her?
As she tossed the questions over in her mind, something tosseditselfthrough the window, striking her in the hand. The diamonds scattered, pinging across the marble.
A pebble.
She picked it up, and the diamonds, too. As she stood again, another small rock flew through the window, landing an inch from her foot.
Amarande stepped up to the window and leaned out to the night.
And there, walking in the garden, were Taillefer and his guards, who were carrying something large. None of them were looking up to her window two stories above, but a quick sweep of the courtyard provided no other suspects.
“Taillefer!” The prince turned, as if he did not expect to hear her voice. “Did you just throw two rocks at me?”
“What, me? No.”
His fox smile slid into place with his denial and Amarande wound up to say more, but then the guards turned and the light shifted, and suddenly the shape of what they were carrying became not something butsomeone.
Even at the distance, even with the falling darkness, even with the angry slash across his chest beside his tattoo, Amarande knew.
“Luca.”
His name was faint on her lips—almost nothing. Only she could hear it, pounding in her ears, over the churning of her breath. Herheaving stomach plummeted; her limbs immediately began shaking; a runaway chill raced across her skin.
Taillefer was prepared for her reaction. Every inch of this moment was orchestrated, she suspected.
“Don’t do anything rash, Princess. He’s only dreaming of you.” The prince’s eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that wasn’t merry. “He will only ever dream of you for the rest of his days. But that was to be the case after the wedding anyway, am I right?”
The princess’s body tensed with the whisper of battle. If the fall wouldn’t kill her, she would’ve launched herself out of the window and onto the stone path before him, hands about his throat to squeeze the answer free.
“Will you speak plainly?” Amarande spat, color rising. From such a distance it appeared as if Luca had been cut open, his heart—the one that loved her dearly—removed. “Is he…? You didn’t…?”
Taillefer’s smile sharpened.
“My brother is a fool, after all.”
And there she was, leaving Luca in the hands of Taillefer, throwing Renard’s words back at him:Remember, Prince, if he dies, you die.
The prince had nodded and said,I would be a fool to test you.
Taillefer didn’t state it clearly. He wouldn’t. This boy loved to live in riddles—straight answers would never be his forte. But he had laid it bare.
Amarande’s fingers clutched the windowsill as it hit her. Stealing her breath, her heartbeat, her everything. Every inch of her went numb as her world crumbled in. The unthinkable proved in the failing light of the worst day of her life.
Luca was dead.
And Taillefer wanted her to know.
Because he wanted to be king.
Because he wanted to see her suffer.
