“That dragon lady is our new captain and you best shut your mouth,” the annoyed one spat. “Just row. We’ll switch off if you get tired.”
They started to row. Darting after the boat that had been above them, which was already making good time in its earnest chase for the shore.
And then, clinging to the paddles they had stolen for extra flotation, Ula and Urtzi swam after the very last rowboat and toward land.
CHAPTER 40
THEPyrenee mountains looked near the same as the Ardenian mountains to Ferdinand.
Perhaps this was how Torrence appeared to those who didn’t know it—endless and identical, with very little variation. To him, during his childhood, the sands had rolled like water and every drop was unique. He knew his location by the faint changes in color, the depth, the way it packed underfoot or devoured a boot. The brush helped, too—clawing up from the dust like a boy’s first whiskers, or grown and bushy. And then there were the trees, of course—those always surprised visitors—and the rock formations in all their near-sentient glory.
Here, deep in Pyrenee, so said the maps and the border marker, these rocks were the same shade and thickness as the ones miles away in Ardenia. Eventually he’d learn, especially if he ran the kind of plans for Amarande that Koldo had for their father—always on the move, always for the best of Ardenia.
Ferdinand wasn’t sure what he wanted in life, but he knew he’d do what was best for Ardenia. He had a faint hope that it wouldn’t include living within the Itspi as a figurehead simply because the kings of the Sand and Sky demanded he sit on the throne rather than Amarande. He much preferred to be on the move, as he’d always been, the cause and destination different, but the churn of it the same.
The small retinue of soldiers who traveled with him—four of them, three women and one man—insisted these mountains were different, and that by the time they arrived at King’s Crest and the Bellringe, there would be no mistaking the snowcapped majesty of the northernmost kingdom.
They were on one of the main roads, traveling two in front of Ferdinand and his cart and two behind, and though the trip hadn’t been packed with travelers—the threat of war wasn’t exactly enticing to trade—the pullback of Ardenian soldiers from the border had indeedled to more regular merchant patterns. The diamonds of Ardenia often sat best in a setting of Pyrenee gold, and even a war couldn’t keep that profitable partnership apart.
And so, on the second day when they came upon a merchant with an overturned cart on the side of the road, it wasn’t a surprise. The merchant was headed in the direction of Pyrenee and was likely of Ardenia. As such, he excitedly took in the five of them in garnet and gold.
“Thank the stars. Our cart tipped, and my brother is underneath. I fear he may be dead. He hasn’t moved in an hour and—”
“You haven’t seen anyone for the past hour?” This question came in a clear, challenging voice from Second Captain Mirande, the retinue’s highest-ranking officer. She stared him down, her face not betraying the dozen travelers they’d passed in that amount of time.
“Come now, Second Captain, surely we have a moment to help,” mused the only male soldier, Polde, from his spot in the rear. He began to dismount.
Osana’s words from the Hand rang in Ferdinand’s ears.
If a man asks for help, it’s a trap.
That advice was given in the middle of battle, but the situation was startingly similar.
“Lieutenant Polde,” Ferdinand started, “stay on your horse—”
A dagger whistled through the air, lodging itself in Polde’s outer arm, knocking him to the ground, and stealing the rest of Ferdinand’s command straight off his tongue.
“Down!” someone cried, as a dagger pierced the cloak of the other rear soldier.
The man by the roadside was rushing forth with another—presumably the “brother” who’d been under the cart. With brutal efficiency they sliced the straps keeping the saddles on the front two horses straight off, sending the two soldiers sliding in their mounts as they shifted their weight to draw their swords. Before their blades were fully revealed, both were struck with daggers straight in the stomach. The front soldiers lurched, grabbing at the blades, off balance. Immediately, they lost their reins to another pair of men, appearing from the trees.
Ferdinand got his sword up and ready, but no one engaged him—the length of his reach only long enough to slice at his own soldiers as they struggled.
Weapon out and blood pounding in his ears, Ferdinand searched the thick junipers—each dagger had seemingly come from a different direction. There were at least eight opponents on the ground now, and he was crowded in between his own soldiers and his cart behind—too heavy to make it easy to outrun anyone should he push through the crowd, especially given the steep nature of their current switchback climb.
He’d known this was a possibility.
He’d asked for a retinue because of this.
And yet he didn’t think it would happen. Not until he met Renard face-to-face with the bounty he so desperately wanted. What was the point of Pyrenee taking the vials now, in this way? Didn’t theywantArdenia to publicly deliver? Or perhaps that was it—another lie to be told about Ardenia not giving over the goods, relayed with a wink as the vials in question sat deep within the Bellringe.
Ferdinand wasn’t sure, and so, he squinted through the white light of the noontime sun and into the shadows of the pines that grew so close they spent their entire lives combed together, and simply asked.
“What do you want?”
The shadows flickered—there were more of them. Not just these eight. Of that, he was sure. But he was blind to it. And though he’d voiced the question, Ferdinand understood that if he was uninjured, it was because theywantedhim uninjured.
His query was rewarded with a laugh coming from the northern tip of trees. High and delightful and so familiar Ferdinand’s blood froze to crackling sheets in his veins.
