“I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”
The girls embraced quickly as a wet sound came from behind, Urtzi ensuring the end of their former leader. Osana’s stab wound was heavily wrapped, but gone was her sling, replaced only with excellent Basilican steel.
Urtzi met them, the knife dripping with water after a quick wash in the stream, confusion coasting across his smooth, brown features. “You knew we were here?”
“No. I just knew Ferdinand was headed this way and figured out the rest when I came to port. By the way, theGatzalis here, too. Told you we’d just borrow it. Anyway, surprise!”
Away from her father, Osana was practically glowing. Ula nodded toward the Bellringe proper, where the bell song had given way to the musical lilt of steel and soldiers clashing. “Let’s go for another surprise, shall we?”
Ula didn’t wait for an answer—they needed to get out of the way.
As if on cue, the sound of horse hooves thundered in the closing distance.
Ula grabbed Osana’s hand to drag her away. Urtzi’s long strides put him ahead in no time, and they were rumbling down the hill toward the hedge maze and rose garden, led by the light of a torch he held in his hand. Over his shoulder he yelled the plan to Osana. “Cut down those who attack, but leave be any castle workers or those who lay down their swords. No innocents will die today.”
CHAPTER 51
THEWarrior King’s children burst out of the cellblock, through both sets of double doors, past the two shocked guards, and wheeled straight for the stairs Amarande had seen the page use.
“Down or up?” Ferdinand asked, keeping pace and looking behind as the guards drew their swords, slow to react.
“Up!”
“You’re sure?”
“Part of the plan. Come on!”
Together, they climbed up and up. Three floors up. Until they’d reached exactly where Amarande wanted to go.
The royal chambers.
A single guard stood outside Renard’s quarters, and upon seeing them racing toward him, knives out, he reached for his sword.
Too late.
“I’ve got him,” Amarande insisted. “You take the two behind.”
Immediately, she rushed the guard and met him in a high cross, sweeping his sword out and off balance before slinging them both around and finishing with a thrust to his side body. “I’m sorry.”
The guard dropped to the carpet runner atop the glittering stone with a muted thud. Amarande wrenched around to Ferdinand, who had one guard down but was facing the second one with his short, bloodied dagger against a longer, lethal sword.
Amarande cursed, bent to her boot, and retrieved a knife identical to the one Ferdinand wielded. In a flash, it sailed straight past him and stuck into the soldier’s chest. The guard fell away, and Ferdinand leaned over him, assassin’s smile set with a blade.
“I thought I had your boot knife,” her brother mused as he got to his feet, rushing toward her.
“Given the circumstances, I thought it best to carry two.” Amarande didn’t tell him it was Geneva’s knife that had saved their lives. That would come later. Instead, she nodded to the guard who hadbeen outside the royal chambers. “Steal his sword, would you? Might come in handy.”
Ferdinand took it, and the man’s dagger, too, dropping it into his boot. He returned Amarande’s blades, which she settled into their sheaths within her boots before they pressed into the royal chambers. The weapons came with a question, “Should I pull the bodies in here? Obscure them?”
“No. We want him to follow.”
“We do?”
From down the hall came running footsteps. Amarande grabbed Ferdinand’s thick wrist. “Yes, come with me.”
AMARANDEwas standing upon the royal balcony when Renard appeared in the doorway.
She was alone. And so was he.
