Amarande nodded feverishly, hoping to will the others into doing the same, though also knowing it might put them off because of her perceived power. She didn’t care.
It was a perfect idea.
Luca grinned a little sheepishly and tight-lipped as others began toconfirm their agreement. “And, selfishly, it would also allow Torrence to fully and publicly embrace its reentry to the Sand and Sky as a standing kingdom.”
“Basilica agrees to this plan,” Kirana announced, the remaining male Basilican councilors nodding with her.
“And Myrcell.” Sumira did not even look at Calan before answering.
That left Pyrenee. And even Menon and the sour cut of his expression could not say no. “Pyrenee will attend.”
Luca nodded. “It is done. In a week’s time, the Kingdom of Torrence will happily welcome our sovereign sisters within the Sand and Sky.”
And though no one raised a glass—and they might well not for many years after the disastrous wedding of Inés and Domingu—his words were as good as a toast to new beginnings.
CHAPTER 4
THEBellringe was not as Renard had left it.
His brother was gone. His mother was gone. And all the councilors who trailed in her wake, too. The soldiers hadn’t returned from the front. The castle guards not about.
It was odd—but so was everything.
Renard had this ringing sensation as if his own mind were stuffed to brimming with both linen and anger. His memories were clouded and dark. His orientation was off. He felt almost as if he were the maiden from a tale his governess Alisea used to spin when he couldn’t sleep—a girl who was bewitched to dream a thousand years while the world lurched forward without her.
The best clue was his rage. Threaded through with memories built in flashes.
A knife. Blood. Amarande’s furious eyes.
I would rather die.
The sutured skin under Renard’s ribs proved the princess had wanted to die only after killing him. The wound was precise—angled so that her blade would find his heart and lungs with no pesky bones to impede its aim.
And yet, he breathed. His heart beat. His anger pulsed.
Renard’s mind grasped at the edges of life, his body stiff from disuse and recovery. But he did not know how many days had passed. Or what had happened after his lifeblood left him. Or truly if he was alive at all—hefeltalive, and when he caught his reflection in the chapel windows, it was haggard but there, just like his thoughts.
And so he haunted the grounds of King’s Crest for clues as much as answers, inspecting the chapel where he’d been kept, the food that had been laid out for the wedding in the antechamber rotting into the fine rugs. The chapel itself had also been left in disarray, pews knocked over, blood trailing across the floor and through the aisles.But he had awoken on a table laid out on the dais as if at a morgue—or in Taillefer’s workshop.
Renard descended the steps to the workshop carefully, as if they might lead straight to the underworld, one final step for him and his grave injury. Rather, the stairs came to an end five flights down, just as they always had. The door to Taillefer’s chamber was unlocked, and, in fact, propped open. Inside, every bottle had been removed from the shelves along the curved walls. His inspection table was clear, the blood and sweat of the stableboy still marring the straps Taillefer had used to hold him down.
The anger that thrummed under Renard’s skin spiked then, fury a current in his bones as sure as his blood still moved.
He should have killed the stableboy when he had the chance.
He should have killed Amarande.
He should have killed his mother.
Though it should have been, his wound was not painful. Nothing hurt. Yet everything hurt.
As he left the echoing quiet of Taillefer’s workshop, Renard realized there was one place within the castle grounds where he might find people willing to give him answers. Not just willing—motivatedby the same fury that propelled him.
Everything was fuzzy at the edges, yes, but people were all the same. They wanted to survive. They wanted revenge on those who wronged them. They wanted the freedom that seemed to come with both.
And so Renard ascended to the grounds, wove his way through the rose gardens Taillefer had carefully cultivated to reflect the aubergine and gold of Pyrenee, and descended another set of deep and winding stairs. These led into the lowest bowels of the Bellringe, down to where one would find veins of gold if his family hadn’t bought their riches with it long ago.
There was no guard posted, yet the torches flickered—the dungeons were occupied. Not by the stableboy and the princess, nor anyone else of note—his mother and brother certainly weren’t rotting away in here. No, nearly everyone currently ensconced were members of his hired princess-retrieval crew.
