In a blur of fur and teeth, the black wolf leapt straight for the stallion’s elegant neck. With a harrowing cry, the horse reared again. Geneva hung tight as the animal jerked back, head waving and mane flying as it tried to dislodge the wolf’s powerful jaws.
In that moment, the snare collapsed.
Geneva’s stallion broke ranks, spinning away so suddenly that it spooked the horse next to her, causing the animal to run headfirst into the firepit, sending itself and its rider into the flaming maw. Geneva spun, trying to get her bearings. Her men were everywhere, steel clashing. More riders entered the fray, but they were attacking her men and women—the flash of a curved sword and a braid, a rider dark and loud and taller than Sendoa.
As her horse’s footing slowed and faltered, Geneva found the leverage to bend forward and plunge the blade meant for Luca into the black wolf’s neck. In a single slice of Basilican steel, the animal fell away in a thick thud.
“Your black wolf is dead, boy, and you will be, too!” Geneva screamed, the symbolism one for the storybooks.
But as Geneva righted herself and her bloodied sword, she saw her men and women on the ground, horses riderless and free, and the Otsakumea and Amarande heaving their blades out of newly made corpses, fending off new attacks.
Geneva made eye contact with the wolf cub as he got to his feet, shoulders heaving and blood sprayed across his handsome face… and then, just as she prepared for another charge, just as Amarande anticipated what was about to happen and lunged in front of Luca, blade raised—her vision skipped to the near distance.
To the base of the Hand. Where Alasne was still ranting taunts at Talmage.
Flaming sunset hair. Back as broad as an ox. Shoulders of a bear.
Ferdinand.
No.He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not yet.
But there he was. Her son, swinging atop Alasne’s horse, capturing a dangling boot heel, and dragging her straight off the Hand and to the brutal sand.
Alasne’s words pounded to the forefront of Geneva’s mind.
You need to kill him or I will.
Geneva’s heart lurched, and her horse veered—Amarande’s renewed block making contact with her passing sword as she spun away. And suddenly the Warlord was no longer facing the young wolf or her wayward daughter, she was chasing after her mentor to protect her son.
CHAPTER 22
FERDINANDdropped the second Warlord without a care as to how she landed and dismounted the stolen horse with a good pat to send her clear of the fighting. As the mare blasted away with a squeal, he bent over the woman on the ground.
Alasne.
Same sun-worn face. Same mouth that never sat straight, always tilting, even as her brain rattled in her skull. Her hair was matted into braids, nearly more salt than strands.
Upon the ground, she was dazed and writhing—likely more vulnerable than she’d ever been in her life, yet Ferdinand’s sword stayed silent at his side, the Hand protecting his back as he glared down upon her. This woman who gave Geneva her mantle and her power in the Torrent.
Her eyes blinked open, and Ferdinand made sure all she would see was his face.
“Hello, Alasne.” The woman’s golden eyes crossed and reset, the blow to the head knocking her off balance as easily as a cask of sagardoa gulped down in the infernal heat of a Torrentian summer afternoon. He waited until she forced her eyes open again. “Couldn’t stay away?”
That crooked grin of hers tore sideways in its usual slant but blood stained her teeth and dribbled out her nose. “At least I came back on the right side,traitor.”
Ferdinand did not blink. Did not raise his voice. Did not smile back.
He knew now from watching Koldo wield the same expressions that came so natural to him that such a calm, even response to vitriol could be more frightening than the same fury mirrored back. “You don’t get to call me a traitor. I never had a choice as a child. Now I do. That’s not treason, that is simply me finally taking my chance to make a choice.”
Alasne rolled her eyes. “Dragon’s piss, just kill me already. I don’t need a child to lecture me before I die.”
The second Warlord got up on her elbows. The blood streaming from her nose rolled faster, and more curled around the sides of her neck to the recess of her throat—the back of her head was bleeding, too.
Now came the blade. Ferdinand pressed the tip of his sword to the soft space below Alasne’s sternum. The sharp steel pinned her in place—prone, vulnerable, and at his mercy. “I will not kill you until you tell me what Geneva offered you. What cards does she have that would make you want to jeopardize your safe pirate’s life to fight and die by her side?”
“I will tell you nothing.”
“Then I will guess.” Ferdinand leaned in close enough that he could see her pupils widen as his shadow fell over her face. “Control of the Port of Torrence rather than simply access? Or perhaps it’s bigger than even that—her brother now leads Basilica. Did she offer access to steel? A cut of the weapons trade to Eritri? Indu? Beyond?”
