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Taristan’s black eyes met her own, his expression stony as ever. She read nothing in him, but he held her gaze for a long moment, longer than she expected. And then that red sheen moved in the shadows of his dark eyes, barely a glimmer, but more than enough.

The Prince of Old Cor rose to his feet, still grasping her fingers.

“Your Majesty,” he said, his voice as rough as his hands.

“Your Highness,” she answered, allowing herself to be led from the bridge and the arrows. He seemed eager to push her away from danger, small as it was.

The simpering priest shuffled over the moment they were off the bridge, his white-blond hair falling into his eyes. Erida weighed the cost of stepping on the hem of his robes and letting him fall on his face.

“I require a word with you both,” he said, bobbing his head in a poor excuse for a bow.

Erida offered him her worst smile. “Hello, Ronin.”

He matched it, his thin lips pulled over uneven teeth. It was like watching a fish try to fly.

“At once, if you please.”

Taristan stood between them but said nothing, glowering in his usual way. He kept his body turned sideways, refusing to put Rouleine at his back. No matter his title, no matter his blood or his destiny, Erida knew Taristan was a survivor first, born of hardship and long, rough years upon the Ward.

Thornwall cleared his throat. “I suggest it wait until we offer terms,” he said, eyeing the city gates. Then he bent forward, careful to offer Taristan a proper bow. “Your Highness.”

“Lord Thornwall,” Taristan answered stiffly. To Erida’s pleasant surprise, he dipped his head in return. Though Taristan sneered at seemingly all requirements of court or any kind of simple etiquette, he seemed to be learning in spite of himself. “You think they’ll accept terms?”

Erida shrugged, adjusting her cloak so it fell neatly about her shoulders. The clasps, two roaring lions, gleamed golden in the sunlight.

“It is tradition to make such a show of things, even if it is useless.”

A look of utter confusion crossed Taristan’s face. “It’s tradition for the monarch to pretend to negotiate before a battle she is certain to win?”

She smiled wryly. “I suppose there is nothing traditional about this war of ours.”

To say the least.

Taristan pressed his lips into the grim line she now recognized as his smile.

On the walls, the archers drew back behind their ramparts, and the gentle patter of wasted arrows on the bridge died away. Then there was a rough, scraping noise at the gate, and the shriek of iron chain as the portcullis drew up.

Someone is coming.

Erida whirled to the sound, her heart leaping in her chest. She wished for more armor, or a sword at her side. Something to mark her as the conqueror she was to become, someone older and more fearsome than who she was now.

The Lionguard reacted as trained, six of them drawing their swords. Four behind, one on either side of Erida and Taristan. After so many years of rule, she barely noticed them anymore. The glare of sun on golden armor was far too familiar.

“This is a waste of time,” Taristan growled under his breath, so low only Erida could hear him.

She shot him a look of frustration. Even if he was right, she wanted to enjoy this moment. And no bad-tempered prince of Old Cor was going to stop her.

The truce flag appeared, shoved through the narrow gap between the thick, wooden gates.

Half white, half red.

Half peace, half war.

Any person who walked beneath a truce flag could not be harmed until negotiations were ended, for better or worse. It was less defense than a white flag of peace, but enough to dare thebridge, and one thousand Gallish soldiers.

The herald was freckled, overtall, with a neck like a swan and thinning orange hair. Beneath his tunic, burgundy and silver for Madrence, he wore loose chain mail, too short at the wrists. It was clearly not his own.

Taristan saw it too.