And with that Geneva vanished.
Koldo willed her arms to move, to prop her up, to get a bead on where Geneva had gone—that was always it, wasn’t it? Chasing that woman down? But Koldo’s arms did not obey. Her legs would not kick out for leverage. Her neck remained glued where it was, sand grit caking her skin, her braid strung out akimbo as if it were trying to slither away. She could inhale gulping breaths but every one of them hurt and none of them seemed to fill her lungs. They rasped through the limp movement of her chest, the involuntary minimum only.
A pounding came to Koldo’s ears. A beat stronger than her waning heart, pulsing from noise to vibration under her leaden bones. Then the thumping stopped altogether, and the blue sky shifted, shading coming in from the corners.
Pressure clamped to her side. Someone’s hands, grip, force. Koldo tried to turn her head, but it wouldn’t heed her command. It did not matter, though, because in that instant the perfect blue of a Torrence morning was replaced by the face she’d dreamed of all those years.
Ferdinand bent over her, green eyes wide and searching. For a way to stop the blood. The pressure at her side came now to her middle. He laid both of his big hands over hers, over the wound. Trying to staunch the flow.
Too late.
Koldo felt her life lifting at the edges, curling in, ready to be rolled up and stored away, in the stars for eternity. The shadows crawled closer to Ferdinand’s face. Blotting out the haloed edges of his sunset hair.
He was safe, uninjured, and watching her with all of his being. “Mother?”
Yes, I am.“Always, my son.”
The person she loved most in the world was the last image her vision registered before it died out completely.
CHAPTER 24
THEair was heavy with smoke and blood.
Amarande let both pass through her lungs as she dug her heels into the horse she’d borrowed from Urtzi after the pair of them plus Luca and Ula had dispatched the rest of Geneva’s men. Seven run through, five dumped into their own firepit.
Now, Luca held fast to her rib cage as they raced in the direction of the Hand—the direction they’d seen Geneva ride. But, as they forged through the smoke and chaos toward the open palm of the Hand, they came not upon the Runaway Queen-turned-Warlord. They came upon Ferdinand—alone—crouched over a body in the sand.
Full garnet-and-gold regalia, dark braid, lifeblood spilling unbidden.
“No, no, no, no, no…”
Amarande’s breath caught as a frigid jolt bolted from her gut straight through to her quivering heart. Without another word, she hauled the horse to a halt, shoved the reins into Luca’s hands, and jumped to the sand. Her feet barely hit the red earth before she was in a mad sprint, straight for her brother’s broad back and heaving shoulders.
For the woman who’d raised her.
“General? Koldo?” Amarande’s voice began to falter along with her stride, as she got close enough to see Koldo could not answer her, let alone hear her.
Dark hair. Dark eyes. Broken nose. Scarred and freckled from service, from love. She lay so still. Unguarded.
She was always on guard.
But now she was just herself, the rancher’s daughter who’d become Ardenia’s fiercest general. The Warrior King’s most loyal advisor. Her father’s best friend. His love.
Amarande’s forward momentum stalled out, her sprint dwindling to an ambling shuffle-and-stop. A rush of blood in her ears muffledevery sound, her breath crashed shallowly in her lungs, her lips trembling as her eyes attempted to register the impossible.
Koldo—defeated and gone.
Ferdinand nestled his face between the crook of his mother’s elbow and her rib cage. Frozen, Amarande watched the stillness of the general’s body as her son cradled it—within that rib cage, Koldo’s heart and lungs should’ve been ticking through their life rhythms. Breath on her lips, blood in her veins.
But there was nothing—nothing but his words, soft, but a cannon blast in Amarande’s muffled world.
“Mother, I’m so sorry we didn’t get more time.”
Then, Koldo’s son began to cry. His wall crashing down, dust to dust. It was as if Ferdinand’s grip upon Koldo’s hand was the only point tethering him to this world. The battle was done, the death and destruction, and all the meaning over. Nothing mattered except Koldo’s last exhale, at one with the wind on this earth between her face and the stars above.
Cold, everything was so cold, dulled. Terrible. And then, in one great starburst, something broke within Amarande and she sped into motion. Dropped to the earth beside Ferdinand, hand upon his trembling back. Nestled on bent knees, she ran her other hand along Koldo’s temple to the curve of her jaw, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “What happened?”
Amarande’s voice was heavier now, despair and all the years she and Koldo had shared together drawing her down—years her brother would not have. Amarande was not shocked when Ferdinand didn’t stir at her question—he couldn’t look anywhere but at his mother’s face. So peaceful. Not yet pale. Quiet with all the moments they would never share.
