The fringe has a line of posts for horses, as the cobblestone streets are labyrinthine and crowded. The right of way is for pedestrians like those farm girls with small brass libbies in their pockets. Esteban is already tying his horse to a post, the creature lapping up water from a trough. He pretends like he doesn’t know me, which is no different than when we’re in Ángeles.
“Take your gloves off,” Margo murmurs as she comes to a stop beside me. “They’re a dead giveaway in the height of summer.”
I do as she says and ball my bare hands into fists, feeling naked in the morning light.
“Stay close to me,” Margo whispers. She links her arm with mine, and my entire body tenses. Warmth radiates off her, the pull of her magics surrounding me, and when I look down, I stare at my hands in awe. They’re not the flawless, soft hands of a highborn girl, but they aren’t the scarred hands of a Robári either.
“Thank you,” I say. “For this, and for helping me.”
“I’m here for Dez, not for you,” she says. “Though I’ll admit I was impressed.”
“Why?” I’m too tired to laugh, so it comes out as a huff.
“From our lessons, I’ve always thought of you as Illan’s pet. I never thought you’d defy him.”
“Not my fault I’m his most clever pupil.”
“Obedient is not the same as clever,” she says with a smirk. I realize it’s not for my benefit but for the guards changing stations.
In their dark purple-and-brown leather uniforms, they remind me of the men in the forest. The one Margo blinded and the one Dez killed.
We enter the open city gates in silence. Esteban and Sayida keep their distance so as not to draw attention to our group, but we try to remain in one another’s sight.
The capital has a way of making you feel like you’re adrift at sea. There are commotions everywhere. Loud voices shout out the price specials for bright green tomatillos, and dairy farmers offer samplings of salty, stinky cheeses. Vintners from the southwest of the kingdom sell their products by the barrel while wealthy merchant women stroll in high-heeled boots so as not to dirty their fine silk dresses with the sludge that dots every street corner and fills the empty spaces between the cobblestones.
At one point, a child as tall as my knee brushes against me, and I look down in time to see a hand dip into my pocket.
“Hey!” I say, but before I can do anything, the girl darts away, disappearing immediately into the crowd.
“She must be training,” Esteban whispers, coming up beside me. “It’s clear from our footwear that our pockets are probably empty.”
“Training?” I ask.
Esteban shoves his hands in his pockets, flashing an easy smile like we’re two friends at a market. “When you’re small like that, you usually practice on the people who look just as poor as you. That way if you’re caught, you know they’re too poor to bribe the citadela guard to help them.”
I look at him in surprise. “How do you know this?”
“I was the best pickpocket in Crescenti,” he says, his white smile breaking across his brown skin. I can’t remember the last time he smiled at me so often. “Folks were so used to looking away from the poor they didn’t even notice they’d been robbed blind.”
“I didn’t know you lived on the streets,” I say.
“There’s a lot we don’t know about each other.” Esteban picks up a ripe peach from a vendor and throws a pesito in his direction. The sweetness of the fruit’s scent mingles with the smells of the sizzling fried pork belly being readied for the afternoon crowds, the black café beans roasting in a large metal container, and the sewer water that runs in a river along the sidewalks.
“How are we supposed to get to the palace gate?” Margo asks as she sidles up beside me. She pulls out her handkerchief and dabs the sweat on her face.
Sayida and Esteban keep walking to the café vendor. She loops her arm around his to make them look like a couple. She buys two cups, and I don’t miss Esteban’s frown as he empties his wallet.
I take Margo’s hand in mine and point to the cathedral. There are so many bodies gathering for the Holy Day service that they block the paths. Leaflets flutter in the breeze and litter the sidewalks, advertising everything from weddings to the justice’s orders.
“There’s an entrance from within the cathedral that leads to the dungeons.”
Behind me, Sayida inspects her reflection at a stand of hand mirrors. She tilts one this way and that while Esteban holds the two paper cups of steaming café. To a casual onlooker, she looks like a vain farm girl, though even with her dust-covered clothes her features are breathtaking. But her black tourmaline eyes don’t fall on her reflection. Instead, they watch the alley directly behind her. Lowering the mirror, she leans in to the hairy vendor.
“Where is everyone going?” she asks sweetly, with a flutter of silky black lashes.
“The execution square,” the vendor says, leering at Sayida, who tenses just as I do. Margo and I exchange wary glances. “A pretty thing like you don’t need to see such a thing. You can wait right here till the crowds settle.” He pats his thigh and cocks a lascivious smirk.
Sayida sets down the mirror, hard enough to crack it, then stomps away into the alley while he’s too stunned to react. I grab her hand and we fold into the swell of people entering the market. As the vendor searches the rising tide of bodies for a guard, we slip away.
“The execution square,” I say, stopping at the mouth of an alley. I press my hands against my stomach to stop them from trembling. Behind me, rodents scavenge through piles of garbage and the hot smell of urine clings to the air.
“I thought—” Margo starts, but doesn’t finish what we all believed. The execution is supposed to happen tomorrow at dawn, not today.
Sayida looks grim, her eyes drawn to a rustle of parchment on her boot. A leaflet, the bottom half wet with sewer water.
I snatch the parchment from her hand, stained with oil and dirt, and there’s a crude drawing of a man with demon eyes and long fangs. At the top, there is a title: Príncipe Dorado Slays the Moria Bestae.
Skimming down the print, I realize it is an execution rhyme. The words jumble together, refusing to form sentences because all I can see is one name repeated over and over again in the ballad: Dez de Martín.
Andrés de Martín. I think his true name.
I crush the parchment in my hand, but we’ve all seen it. My mind is going to break open. I can feel the memories strain against my temples, each one a blade trying to cut its way out. Trust me. Trust. Me.
“Executions don’t happen on Holy Day,” Margo says. “We were supposed to have another day!”
“They knew we’d never surrender. Not even for Dez,” Sayida says.
Esteban makes a choking sound. “Think of the crowds. The people who will be present. Everyone from farmhands to lords all attending the same service. What better spectacle than to kill the leader of the Whispers?”
They’re going to kill Dez. The reality of it feels like that gut punch on the balcony. I’m desperate and need to breathe, but I can’t. Castian’s going to kill him because Dez couldn’t break out of his cell. Castian’s going to kill him because I stole Dez’s means of escape.
Trumpets sound in the distance, and this time, the four of us gather in a closed circle, while rivers of people make their way past the narrow alley and toward the cathedral to the execution square. Some carry baskets of rotting food, garbage not good enough for even rats to eat. Others clutch glass bottles of holy water blessed by the royal priest himself. Anything and everything they can throw, they bring with them.
“This changes nothing,” I say breathlessly. “I don’t care if I have to rip Dez off that platform and kill the executioner myself.”
Esteban balls his hands into fists. “Look around. We’ll never break through the crowds.”
“We don’t have to get through,” Sayida says, running to the dead end of the alley. I see what she sees. A metal drainpi
pe. “If we can’t walk the streets we will race across rooftops.”
In the dark shadow of the alley, we grab the rungs on the side of the pipe that empties out the eaves trough on the roof of the building, and climb up. Everyone is so preoccupied with the idea of a Moria Whisper’s death that they don’t bother to look up.
When I get to the top, I balance on the lip of the roof, and a wave of vertigo hits me as I take in the scene. At first, the dark mass in front of the cathedral looks like a hive. There are so many of them that they can hardly move. Vendors put away their wares as people fill every single space of the market square. It’s as if they taste the blood in the air, the wrath that comes from a crowd this large.
From where we are, we can see everything. There’s a row of nooses that dangle in the breeze. But what my eye goes to is the thick wooden block at the center of it all, where a judge sharpens a blunt executioner’s sword.
The shock of it leaves me cold and struggling to breathe.
They’re going to behead him.
“We have to get closer!” My voice strains as I fight to be heard through the noise of the capital. I sprint and jump across the foot-long space between this roof and the next. My boots splash through murky puddles, stick to the grimy black surface. The blazing sun radiates against it, making steam rise. On the next roof, the surface is so slick, I can’t catch my footing. As I fumble, Sayida is suddenly there, holding my hand and pulling me forward. From here, we have a better view of the block.
“Wait,” Margo says, pointing to the wooden watchtower beside us. Guards have climbed it to survey the crowds. “We can’t go farther yet.”
A loud cheer goes up as the prince is announced by dozens of trumpeting horns. Common doves take flight from the streets and search for higher places to roost. It has been three days since I laid eyes on the Bloodied Prince. He’s not dressed in the sullied armor he wore in the forest.
The prince rides out on his horse. Brilliant rubies drip from his circlet and the sun catches his gold crown, creating a halo—an angel of death. He’s decked in deep red finery tailored to his large frame.
People make a path for him around the block. His steed trots back and forth, and then the Príncipe Dorado gives them a devastating smile. A smile that says he knows something the rest of us don’t. That he lied. He broke his word. What good is the word of a royal? When he rejects the executioner’s weapon for his own bejeweled broadsword, the crowd goes wild with adoration.
The disgust at the display makes my stomach roil. I taste the wretched market air and bile, but I can’t break apart yet.
“We have to go,” I say, my voice rising. I whirl on Margo. “Can you cloak me and create a diversion for us to make a run for it?”
Her eyes are glassy with tears, and a deep line cuts across her forehead. “Renata Convida, I am not that powerful.”
“You have to be,” I whimper.
There’s a loud ripple of voices down below, and automatically, we all look back to the crowd. The people below move back and forth like a tumultuous sea, churning and churning, until a hush falls over them as Dez is brought out.
Even from this distance, I can tell he’s hurt. He can barely stand on his own. Despite all of that, my body relaxes at the sight of him alive. While he’s alive, there’s still hope.
The guard who holds him is an ogre of a man, with a bald head and brown skin covered in scars and tattoos. He grips Dez around the neck with one beefy hand and parades him up and down the platform.
I want to look away. Dez would want me to look away. He wouldn’t want me seeing him like this, brought to his knees by the thing he hates the most. But I let the sight fuel my fury.
He’s pushed forward, and then the royal priest hobbles onto the platform. He holds a golden chalice and begins the blessing ceremony of the prince, his sword, and the hungry onlookers who gather at the platform edge like vultures.
I have as much time as I’ll ever get—but I have to do it. Now.
I break away from my unit, leaving them behind in a flurry of shouts. By the time I hop onto the next roof, their pleading is nothing but a distant echo. This is my mission, not theirs.
I run from one end of the roof and jump across to the next. The closer to the center of the capital, the more the houses are pressed against one another. My fear of falling threatens to grip my heart and render me useless. But my fear of losing Dez overpowers my senses, my reason, my everything.
A volley of cheers goes up as the blessing’s end is announced by trumpeting horns and the royal priest’s handheld bell. The sound chases pigeons from the streets, where they’ve been dive-bombing the rotten food in baskets. The crowd brandishes tiny purple-and-gold flags bearing the lion crest—the flag of Puerto Leones, as if Dez’s blood and bones weren’t born from this very earth, too.
I need to jump six more roofs to be close enough to make a run for the executioner’s dais. I take my wrist knife and throw it at the nearest guard across the street. It hits him right in his shoulder, and he goes down to his knees.
Suddenly, there’s a shout, and the crowd below seems to change slightly. But I can’t afford to stop and watch what’s happening. The trumpets that blast a call for quiet only make the crowd grow louder still.
I leap over the next roof and the landing rattles my spine. And that’s when I hear it, a cry of “Fire!”
Stumbling a second, I look back.
From the rooftop where I left my unit comes a billowing cloud of smoke, black snakes twisting around each other. And as I watch, the smoke begins to unfurl from other rooftops nearby, until it looks like the whole city is on fire.
I smile. The smoke simply hangs there, endlessly twisting, and as the dark cloud rolls toward my current rooftop, I feel no scorching heat. Smell no ash and hear no crackle of flames.
It’s an illusion. I can feel it in the seesaw feeling in my gut that comes with it. Illusionári magics. Margo’s work.
The commotion below grows louder and louder. “Fire! The city is on fire!”
I resume my sprint across the rooftops, rage fueling my legs. How many times has the justice set fire to villages across the kingdom? How many people have they burned to ignite fear among others? These people know nothing of fire. Know nothing of how it actually feels.
Cathedral bells begin to clang, tolling out a warning. I take loose bricks and iron tubes and anything I find on top of the roofs and fling them off into the crowd, adding to the chaos.
Then I run, and hop over to the next roof, keeping out of sight.
I trust you. His voice rings in my ears.
You shouldn’t have, I think as I reach the sixth house and look at the dais. Prince Castian is shouting at the crowd, pointing his finger at the guards nearest to him.
Then there’s Dez, smirking—recognizing the smoke for what it is.
My heart soars for a moment, and then I realize, even if I get to the street, I’ll have to barrel to get across the throng of people between us.
I open the rooftop access of the building and scramble down two flights of steps. There are women screaming in the bedchambers. Others standing outside rooms with long cigars between plump red lips, wearing nothing but undergarments and heels.
I kick open a door, and the morning light is blinding compared to the dark brothel. I run across the plaza, holding my arms up to protect my face, weaving through people hurrying away from the executioner’s platform. Dozens of Leonesse flags litter the cobblestones along with spoiled food meant to be thrown at Dez’s lifeless body. I slip occasionally, skidding on peels and pungent juices as I batter my way through a sea of legs and elbows.
I can see him clearly now.
Dez is chained to the platform, but he pulls against his restraints. He’s always been a fighter, and he’ll never stop fighting. The guard next to him kicks his back, forcing Dez to stay kneeling over the wooden block.
Don’t look away, I tell myself.
A large man barrels into me, nearly knocking me over,
but I grab hold of a woman’s hair and pull myself up. She screams and lashes out with her nails. They draw blood on my cheek. I throw my weight at her and slam her to the ground.
A purple blur reaches for me—a guard, his dirty hands grabbing my sleeve and pulling me down. There’s something wrong with his face. His mouth is wide open as he falls to his knees, and then forward. A slender knife juts from his back; the rose carved on its hilt glints. Sayida’s knife. I am not alone.
There’s another bell, and I spin around.
Dez sees me. I know he sees me. He blinks. Then he opens his eyes again, a look on his face as if he’s seeing a mirage. I need him to know it’s me.
“Andrés!” I shout.
One of his eyes is nearly swollen shut, but the other is trained on my face. His dry, bleeding lips move. Ren, they say.
Ducking and dodging, I climb over falling bodies. Prince Castian raises his sword, and I draw the dagger at my hip and bite down on the flat blade. I hurl my entire body forward. The tips of my fingers grip the edge of the dais. Lift my left leg to get up and over.
Dez shuts his eyes.
Hands, brutal and rough, grab hold of my neck. My dagger falls when I throw my elbow back, rivulets of pain spreading from the stitches at my neck.
Too late. You’re always too late.
I scream until my throat is hoarse, until Prince Castian raises his bloodied sword back in the air, until something hard rolls across the dais, and until the final bell stops ringing.
Chapter 10
Prince Castian tightens his grip on his sword. His sweat runs in rivers down his face, tilted toward the body slumped at his feet.
Dez’s body.
I shut my eyes for a moment because I can’t look. Can’t move. Can’t breathe. The ground beneath me seems to be moving, but when I force myself to see, I’m the one off-kilter. My hand breaks my fall, and I start at the pain that stabs up my arm as sharp gravel breaks the skin. It helps me focus on Castian.
Slowly, the prince—the Lion’s Fury—turns his attention to the fire that appears to be spreading toward the square. Citizens scream, fighting one another as the royal guard descends on the marketplace and around the executioner’s block. Yet despite the commotion, Castian’s shadowed gaze cuts to me. It’s impossible that he’s spotted me of all people in the throng of bodies that run like a disturbed ant colony, but he takes a step forward into a puddle of blood.
Incendiary (Hollow Crown) Page 12