Keep your eye on the crown…
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Queen Will Betray You, the sequel to Sarah Henning’s The Princess Will Save You—available July 6th from Tor Teen. This won’t be the last you see of Princess Amarande and Luca—look out for the third book in The Kingdoms of Sand & Sky Trilogy, The King Will Kill You, set to release in 2022!
After a thousand years of political stability, the realm of The Sand and Sky is up for grabs. Four kingdoms, four rulers vying for the ultimate prize, sovereignty over the entire continent: A ruthless old king spinning webs, whose schemes encompass generations. A widowed queen whose only credo is all kings must die. A runaway queen whose unexpected return upends everyone’s plans. And a prince-in-waiting determined to wait no more.
Standing against them are a dispossessed princess and her stable boy love with a surprising claim of his own. Their only hope in the face of unspeakable betrayals, enemies hidden in the shadows, and insurmountable odds is the power of true love…
Chapter 1
High in the mountains of Ardenia, a princess and her love stood at a crossroads.
It was time to say goodbye.
Tears hung in the corners of Princess Amarande’s eyes as she summoned the strength it would take to do this. Luca’s jaw worked as she drew a shaky breath. When the words didn’t come, unable to rise past her heart, she took one last look at him.
Luca stood there, clean, tall, broad shouldered, but dressed almost as if in mourning—a boy in black.
Her boy in black.
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The Queen Will Betray You
Amarande, meanwhile, was a bedraggled confection in the blood-stained tatters of her wedding dress. The lifeblood of Prince Renard of Pyrenee never had rinsed clean, the evidence of her first kill running the length of the entire bodice in a rusted chocolate brown. Still, Amarande donned the dress now—it was proof, and if she had truly brought war to Ardenia’s doorstep via regicide, she would need as much as she could get to validate her actions as worth defending.
“Come with me, Princess.”
Luca pressed the back of her hand to his lips. His eyes, golden and as fierce as the summer sun above, never left her face.
Oh, and she wanted to go with him. To the Torrent, this time of his own volition—not tied to the back of a horse, blackmail to force her hand into marriage with Renard. She had him back. Alive, hers, their hearts out in the open under the wide sky. The last thing she wanted to do was to leave him.
But to be together forever, they both knew they must part.
There was no other way. He would go left to the Torrent—the place that should by all rights be his. She would go right to the Itspi, the Ardenian castle they called home.
That was how it must be.
They’d been over it for the last few days in the close quarters of the pirate ship Gatzal. Running through every scenario as they charted a course from the Port of Pyrenee, through the Divide and into the East Sea, sweeping around the lip of the continent of The Sand and Sky to the Port of Ardenia.
Every possibility, probability, facet exposed to the light—sparking full-throated discussion as they ate their fill, cleaned their wounds, and laid on the deck, letting the same sun that drained them in the Torrent recharge their spent muscles and creaking bones.
No matter the way they approached it, no matter how many questions they lobbed, no matter how many reactions they predicted from each of the players—Ardenia, Pyrenee, Basilica, Myrcell, the Torrent—this plan always emerged the strongest.
Amarande first to Ardenia, tasked with stabilizing the throne and shoring up its defenses from Pyrenee’s retaliation for the murder of Prince Renard on their wedding night. Next, she’d join Luca and the resistance in the Torrent, overthrow the Warlord and restore peace and sovereignty to the Kingdom of Torrence. And then, finally, the Princess of Ardenia and the rightful heir of Torrence would stare down the reminder of the Sand and Sky, hand-in-hand.
Never to be apart again.
Amarande drew a breath, this time not so shaky. Her eyes met his, her best friend, her love, her future. Her father, King Sendoa, whose murder had ignited all of this, always had the words for a moment like this—just like he always had a plan. Survive the battle, see the war. “I will come to you.”
Luca smiled, dimples flashing. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
She closed the sliver of space between them. Mindful not to apply pressure to his bandaged chest, she drew her arms around Luca’s neck. His lips met hers halfway, a new familiarity and practice in their movements. Amarande’s eyes closed as she let the rest of her senses record this moment.
The slip of his hands down the small of her back.
The beat of his heart, sure and steady to her ear.
The solid warmth of him bolstered by the spicy scent of the clove oil applied twice-daily to the horror slashed across his chest. The damage Prince Taillefer created with tinctures and madness had been sewn up on the ship, but healing had only just begun.
For a moment, Amarande was back in the foyer of Pyrenee’s glittering Bellringe castle, Renard staring daggers at her as she whispered a very similar goodbye. A different crossroads, that—Luca to confinement under the watch of Taillefer, Amarande to dress for a marriage to Renard she did not want.
What had come next had not gone well.
Torture. Near death. Murder. Near capture.
But they’d survived. They were still standing. So was their love.
And so Amarande whispered nearly the same words she’d said to Luca in that foyer, a plan crafted for success shaping their separation rather than one forged around surrender.
“I love you. Our time apart will not change that.”
“I love you too, Ama. Always, Princess.”
With that, Amarande drew Luca into her and kissed him one last time—hard. As hard as she wished she had before he was kidnapped. As hard as she did when it was clear they’d escaped Pyrenee alive. As hard as she could—this kiss would have to hold her for days if not weeks, or months.
“You can turn around now,” she told the crew, when they finally parted. Amarande met each of them with a measured nod. Ula, a pirate with a gaze as sharp as her Torrentian sword; Urtzi, the big Myrcellian brawler with a soft spot for his fellow pirate; Osana, the Basilican orphan she’d accidentally acquired in her escape from the Warlord—and then bestowed with her father’s sword, Egia, the twin to the one on her back, Maite. “Keep him safe.”
At the order, Ula grinned. “With my life, Princess.” She nodded to her companions. “And theirs too.”
Osana and Urtzi didn’t object. Amarande imagined General Koldo, the current regent of Ardenia and leader of the Ardenian army—would relish immediate loyalty so unwavering. That was something that couldn’t be trained into a person.
Amarande mounted her horse—one stolen from Pyrenee in their escape. She pointed the gelding toward the Itspi; its spires still miles up from the trail on which she stood. The sun was falling toward the jagged mountain horizon, but she’d make it to the castle well before full darkness. The sooner she got there, the sooner she could return to Luca’s side.
Luca mounted his Pyrenee-pilfered horse and pulled next to her. They faced opposite directions, yet their shoulders were in line. Amarande’s eyes met his—blue-green on his gold—and her heart lurched, desperate to go with him. Luca seemed to sense this. “As soon as we connect with the resistance, Ama, we will send word to the Itspi.”
It was a promise as much as it was a plan.
Amarande reached out and touched his face—one she knew as well as her own—his skin warm and true under her fingers. “I shall see you soon, my love.”
Excerpted from The Queen Will Betray You, copyright © 2021 by Sarah Henning
