Mischief sparkled in her blue eyes. “Well, let’s go take it back.”
CHAPTER 53
RENARD’Sanger was a living thing. Perhaps the only living piece of him left. It clawed at his flesh, seeped out every pore, leaked from his eyes as they wrenched away from the attack and to Amarande.
He faced her with every ounce of strength he had left. His back was wet with blood he could not afford to lose. He did not need the medikua to tell him that.
He knew it.
Just as surely as he knew his mother was trying to kill him in the same way she’d killed his father. The way he knew Taillefer was being trained by Domingu. The way he knew he had to make the first mark—that he had to poison Sendoa to achieve his future before it was ripped out from under him.
Swallowing, he glared at Amarande. This girl who would not listen, not comply, not just sit down and do what was expected of her or what was best for all.
“I told you the truth, Amarande.” Renard gripped the balcony so hard with his free hand he hoped the old stone would crack. “I told you why I wanted to marry you. I told you what my mother would do. I told you—”
“AndItold you I wanted none of those things.”
Amarande took a step toward him, the torchlight spinning a copper halo around her red-tinged chestnut hair. Her Ardenian military uniform was pristine. Her sword peeked above her shoulder, a warning.
“I told you, I told my people, I told the Sand and Sky exactly what I wanted literally over my father’s dead body. But you wouldn’t listen. They wouldn’t listen. No one was willing to hear me—why on earth should I hear you?”
Another step closer.
“You,who are so entitled to power that you stole away my father’s life simply for a slim chance to claim your thronethrough me.Do younot understand how much you took from me? Tried to take from me? This game is not worth that.”
“It is not a game, and it is worth everything to me.”
“Okay, Renard.” Even as furious as he was, he had to admit she was beautiful when she was spitting mad. “Fight for it. Do not try to win by maneuvering me through laws and technicalities. Do not hide behind the egos and traditions of the rest of the Sand and Sky. Do not run and hide only to appear when you’ve figured out a way to win.”
Amarande drew her sword and pointed it toward his own, dangling in his weakening grip. “Fight for what is worth the most to you. Fight me.”
Renard raised his sword with his single working arm. Even that simple movement sent the blood from his wound pouring out in rivulets. The fever he’d endured since waking flickered, a coolness seeping into his bones through the crevice of his new wound, and the puckered flesh of the old one.
One good hit and it would be over. Anger fed. Revenge achieved.
But he was losing, too. He could hear it in the call of battle—horse hooves and death groans, and a thick fall of bodies, one after another.
He was defeated. But he was not ready for it to be over.
And so, Renard did what he had to do.
He tossed his sword straight at Amarande andranfor the exit before it even glanced off her own blade and clanged to the balcony floor. It was cowardly, but it was a chance. He could make it out, make it away, find a new healer, build a new life and—
“I don’t think so, Renard.”
The king pulled up short as a blade and body filled the doorway he planned to use for his escape.
Luca.
Hands up, Renard immediately backed away, glancing behind him to see Amarande squatting down, retrieving his sword.
“How did you get out? How did they?” Renard gestured toward where the Torrentians were winning with the Ardenians now by their side.
Luca stepped through the threshold and onto the balcony, his dimples flashing. Renard hated the sight. “Your guards really need to learn to check their prisoners better. My loyalists had everythingthey needed to get out of that dungeon. They were simply, as always, waiting for me.”
Torrence’s Otsakumea stepped closer to Renard. He was strong, confident, and defiant. Exactly the epitome of what Renard always hoped to be—his plans achieved, his throne sound, his people showing love with their own bravery and blades.
The anger inside Renard whimpered and lurched, his legs wobbling in retreat. And, in his periphery, the king saw Amarande move away from the balcony, toward the boy who had everythinghewas entitled to but was never able to have for himself.
