The queen took a step back, attempting to put distance between them yet hoping that she would not appear to be backing down. This only made his eyes shine with amusement as he caught her wrist and thrust her open palm to his chest. Renard slid her fingers under his doublet, to the thin linen tunic below. His skin was too hot, and beneath the feverish warmth was the unerring drumbeat of his heart.
Strong, true, undeniable.Real.And somehow so much worse than simply feeling his pulse earlier.
No, no, no.None of this could be.
The reflexes Amarande had perfected in the meadow kicked in, her fingertips curling around the fabric of Renard’s tunic. She yanked upward as her other hand scrambled to wrench aside the doublet hem. Suddenly, the naked skin of Renard’s torso was bare in the candlelight.
And there, in the soft spot under his ribs, was proof that Amarande had stabbed him.
The deep wound was rife with sutures and ringed in flat black—the skin deadened like Luca’s snakebit leg.
Amarande blinked at the damage she’d done.
The proof.
The truth.
Renard didn’t move to cover himself. In fact, as her hands fell away, he caught the fabric and pulled off both the doublet and tunic. Tendons firing and muscles flashing lithely under his burning skin, Renard proved in more ways than one that he was vibrant and whole as he tossed the clothing away.
“I’m alive, Amarande, despite all you’ve done.”
She took a step back, head shaking though her vision could not blink free of what should have been a mortal wound.
His heart and lungs, punctured in one fell swoop.
Renard only moved toward her, that smile slipping back into place. The storybook prince and a nightmare in one.
“I am alive. I am king. Andyouare right back where you were after your father’s death. Aprincesswho cannot be queen without marriage, a girl in love with a boy she cannot wed, and a ruler whose kingdom hangs in the balance between what she wants and what it needs.”
Amarande was certain Renard couldn’t properly wield a blade, but there were other ways for him to cut her to the bone. And he was particularly good at using words as a weapon. Not clever like Taillefer. Just mean. Smug. So sure that he had her pegged and put in her place.
Every muscle in Amarande’s body tensed, strong legs drilled into the rugs and sand beneath her boots, as she held her position and snared him right in the eye. “You don’t get to define what I am.”
This only made him break into laughter.
“Ah, but the Sand and Sky does, which means I do have a say.” Renard’s dead eyes smiled, cruel. “Unfortunate for you, Amarande, because it very easily could’ve been us. Us succeeding. Us ruling. Unstoppable us.”
Amarande’s stance grew stronger, her anger replacing her shock like a fresh coat of paint upon a ship’s bow. “It has never beenusin any capacity. It has been you and it has been me.”
Her words only emboldened him. Renard stalked closer, shirtless and dangerous in the candlelight. It forced her back, away from his too-warm, too-naked skin, and Amarande bumped into the chair that would’ve been hers.
“Yes,us.You deny what’s right in front of your face. Our fates have always been tied. We wouldn’t have had to go through all of this if you’d just accepted that I was the best one for you. Your stableboy would’ve been safe, your people, too. Now you’ve chained them to acrown you cannot keep, set them up for invasion, war, or some other travesty. All because of what? Your own rash decisions? Your belief that your love—lust, more like—was worth more than a coolheaded political transaction?”
Amarande’s fists coiled tightly in the swell of her garnet skirts. “Coolheaded political transaction? Is that how you picture yourself when you decided topoisonmy father and set all of this in motion?”
Heat crowded her as it rolled off his skin, and Renard cocked a hip and tossed his head back. “Are we seriously litigating this again?”
Amarande bared her teeth. It was what he wanted—to bring her claws out, to distract her, and yet she did it anyway, because she wanted to lash out. To create pain in the wake of her own.
“It seems no one else in the Sand and Sky will. So,yes,we are litigating this and your plan!” The humid, suffocating presence of him made her blood burn. “You killed my father, and then pursued me. You were never the best for me,Iwas the best for you, given your mother’s inclinations.”
“Ah, so youdosee it.”
“What I see is cold, calculating, and completely and utterly devoid of any understanding of human nature.” Renard had the audacity to chuckle softly, but Amarande wasn’t finished. “If you really believed it could be us against the world, why on earth did you not even take the time to figure out who I am? All you did was push my hand—”
“Taillefer hired the pirates, not me. You know that.”
“I do. He had his own reasons to make you king.” Taillefer’s admission on their raft played in her mind—the cautionary tale of someone who got everything he’d ever wanted and hated every moment of his success. A weight gathered in Amarande’s throat and when she responded, her voice was but a rasp. “And he regretted it in the end.”
