Incendiary (Hollow Crown)

by Zoraida Cordova

  “If you aren’t scared, why won’t you look into my eyes?”

  My lips tremble, my nostrils flare, but I say, “Is it not enough that hundreds of eyes are already looking at you as we dance?”

  I keep my gaze trained over his shoulder, where I find Justice Méndez watching intently, more intently than the others.

  “I’m used to the hundreds of eyes. I am not, however, used to yours.”

  Something twists in the pit of my stomach, like vipers wrenching themselves into a knot. His breath is cool on my cheek. I shut my eyes and see Dez’s severed neck. The blood that pooled over the executioner’s block. The blood that sprayed Castian’s face, which Davida later cleaned up. Davida, who suffers for this prince. Why? How can he be worth all this pain and destruction?

  Castian grips my waist tighter, and I gasp as he tilts me back and pulls me forward in time to the rhythm of the vielles. I squeeze his shoulder harder than I should, and when he rights me, I look straight into his eyes.

  The blue is fractured with bits of gold and green in the candlelight. I find the cuts, faint scars, from Davida’s memory. The crescent-moon scar Dez gave him. The divot between his brow is pronounced, like he’s trying to place me in a lost memory. But how could he recognize the rebel girl he met, covered in dirt and tears in the forest, in the one I am now, draped in black silk and feathers and platinum, like a promise of death?

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he says, an infuriating victoriousness tugging his full, peach mouth into a smile.

  “I suppose you always get what you want, don’t you, Your Highness?” I match his smile with one of my own. Remember who he is.

  He quietly thinks on this, slowing his steps. We are in the center of the dance floor, but now other couples have joined us, trying to edge closer in attempts to overhear what a prince like him is saying to a monster like me.

  “I fight for what I believe in,” he says, finally. “And I always fight to win. In that sense, I get what I want.”

  “Why bother dancing with someone like me when there are scores of ladies waiting for you? Some of them for several weeks.”

  He grimaces, and I fear I have finally reached the limit of what I can get away with saying. He halts. I stumble, but he rights me with his waiting hand, as if he knew the next step I’d take. He twirls me under his arm, and I feel like a plaything as I spin back into his arms, bracing my red-gloved hands on his chest to keep at least a breath of space between us.

  “Have you not been waiting for me for several weeks?” he asks, guiding me back into the song, out of the ballroom, and through the double doors where the feast spills out into the garden. Couples follow, but here the music is louder and the shadows play with silver moonlight. Here he must lean in closer to speak to me, to see me.

  Could he know why I’ve been here all this time? With what I’ve been able to gather from this dance, he couldn’t possibly have the weapon on him.

  “I am here for the justice,” I answer him. “Justice Méndez.”

  “And I had hoped you’d come here to kill me.” His voice is soft, anguished. The voice of the Castian who broke Nuria’s heart. I can’t marry you. I don’t want to feel sympathy for him. I can’t.

  I harden my heart and remember the words he said to Dez in Riomar. Do you have a death wish?

  His eyebrows are furrowed. His grip tight. I can feel the calluses on his hands through the silk of my gloves. The most delicate thing about him is the golden circlet that crowns his mane of golden hair. He looks nothing like the simple soldier in the forest who captured Dez. There are different versions of Castian walking around the colorless pit of my memories, and yet none of them are the same boy, least of all the one standing in front of me now.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” It’s the voice of the prince who wanted to run away before the battle. Nuria’s betrothed.

  I narrow my eyes. “Are you mocking me, Your Highness?”

  “Actually, I’m told I’m not funny at all.”

  My skin grows hot when I feel the ghost of a tremble against my ribs. Castian’s laughter as he gently nipped Nuria in her room. I gasp and pull out of his hold.

  The song has slowed to a stop, and Castian uses my movement to spin me. I glide, my skirts flaring around me, the motion so fast my novice feet can’t keep up. He’s there to catch me. My heart races from the fear of falling, the fear of this trickster boy.

  I’m distantly aware of people clapping. Castian resting my hands in his. I refuse to shift under his stare or let him intimidate me. So I stare back, and though we are standing still, we continue a different kind of dance.

  “You don’t remember me from your time here as a child,” he says, evenly. His lips too close to my ear. “You never left the library.”

  My heart gives a horrible squeeze. There were dozens of Moria children, but we were never allowed to interact with the royal family. I do not recall a little boy with golden curls or eyes of a vast, brutal sea.

  I can feel the Gray answer me, dark halls twisting and curving to lead me to a pit of memories I may not return from. Is Castian in there?

  “I have no memories of my time here, though of course, I have heard many stories about you throughout the years.”

  “The stories are all half fiction,” he says, arrogant again.

  “That also makes them half-truths.”

  He frowns, but won’t let go of my hand, and with everyone staring at us, I cannot pry myself free. The garden is now populated by even more courtiers than the ballroom, their faces a small mob in my peripherals. I glance up to the night, to the tower. From here I can see the lace curtains of my bedroom—Nuria’s bedroom.

  Castian abruptly releases me, and when I follow his eyes, Justice Méndez weaves through the throng of people to me. He signals the band, and a new song kicks up. People disperse. My muscles relax despite my racing heart.

  “My dear Renata,” Justice Méndez says, a pained smile on his face. “I do hope you are not causing trouble for our young prince.”

  “No trouble at all,” Castian says, never acknowledging the justice, instead, his eyes trained solely on me.

  “If I may,” Justice Méndez says to me, “I have to steal the prince away for an urgent matter.”

  Prince Castian bows to me. It is a brief, curt thing, and I can see he didn’t mean to do it but he can’t take it back. A perplexed Méndez trails at his heels while I’m left behind in the center of the garden.

  A young courtier dances close enough to me that I can smell the sickly-sweet perfume she bathed in. Her hair is in bright blond ringlets coiffed around her long face, which is partially covered by a fluttering purple-and-gold fan. She hisses in my direction, and while she breaks from her partner for a turn, she spits at my feet, her saliva landing on the hem of my skirt.

  Everyone around us has seen it. I clench my teeth and straighten my shoulders. I cannot react. I won’t.

  I turn and walk farther into the center garden, where there are no more torches and the dark can be my shield. I stare at the moon and bask in the silver light. A deep sense of melancholy envelops me, as if all the memories in my head are crying out all at once. The need to be seen. The need to right their wrongs.

  Isn’t that what I wanted? To make right all my mistakes? But I’ve only managed to get myself more deeply ensnared in this glittering fortress. And now I’ll have to face Margo.

  “What do I do?” I ask the sky.

  Looking up to the tower windows, I notice something strange. I count the floor levels over and over again. I’m certain my room is the only one with the delicate lace-trimmed drapes. Beside them is a smaller window that appears shuttered from the inside. Beside that is the library on my floor, still with the window I left open. But there isn’t supposed to be a room between the library and my apartments. None at all.

  I envision the long hallway I take every day and every night. There is only a wall that separates me from the library of my childhood, the place I keep getti
ng pulled back to. A suspicion digs sharp nails into my chest. I think of Castian claiming he remembers me in that library. Him telling Nuria about his secret hiding places.

  My throat tightens as I hear an echo in my head of dice rolling across the floor and a small boy’s voice: What are you doing here?

  When Dez found me that night, he didn’t come in through the main door.

  There’s a hidden room.

  I have to get up there. I slink back into the festival to find the shortest way upstairs.

  Couples dance in wide circles, colorful ripples moving in time with the music.

  Leo is flirting with an attendant, leaning slyly against a pillar while Prince Castian speaks passionately to Justice Méndez in a far-off corner. The justice storms away into the gardens, leaving Castian glowering so fiercely no one comes near him. He’s the rude, petulant prince getting served wine from the first courtier’s memory I stole.

  I am a shadow among their bright jeweled dresses. For a moment, when I look up at the carved pedestals where the Hand of Moria stand, where I would be had this entire Sun Festival not been dedicated to me. My head spins, my stomach aches. The stitches on my forearm itch and pulse. The air itself around me seems to move, as if something is hiding behind a glamour.

  I recognize it. Illusionári magics. Margo! Please, Margo, I think. Give me time to find a way to free us both.

  I follow a gaggle of glittering courtiers as they head toward the washrooms, and when they pass an exit, I slip out of the ballroom.

  I make my way back up to the tower, hoping everyone at the party is too distracted by the revelry to notice my absence. At the very least I should have a few moments before they realize I’m no longer there. I head straight to the familiar wooden door that has been gnawing on my memories since I’ve returned. There is no guard in this hallway tonight. The library is unlocked. My eyes get used to the dark after a few quick blinks, but I light a gas lamp on the table. The window is still open, but it is so much colder here, like the cold of Lady Nuria’s apartments downstairs. I think of the noises she heard that I thought might be the memories that haunt me, and she believed to be wind. She was right.

  There was a draft.

  From a hidden room.

  When I close my eyes and move my gloved hands along the platinum, the memory of the day I was taken from the palace wants to step forward. The echo of footsteps. The hinge of metals as a boy speaks to me. What are you doing here?

  I go to the farthest wall of the library, the wall that should be shared with my room, but isn’t. There’s something in between. There has to be. I frantically pull on the tops of books, ripping them off the shelves and onto the floor until I find the one. I push the shelf panel with all my strength, a rivulet of pain shooting from my wound. There’s a trickle of warm blood running down my arm, but I don’t care because the door gives, the hinges sighing from disuse.

  I hold my breath as dust fills my nose, the staleness of ash and furniture swollen with moisture.

  I press my hand to the shuttered window I noticed from the gardens, caked with years of dust. I grab the lamp and frantically search the room. I was drawn here for a reason, to this secret room. I know it’s here. The box, the weapon, their “cure.” Music drifts up from the festival. They haven’t noticed I’m missing. Yet. I turn over the cushions on the moldy furniture, empty the shelves, search behind every hanging painting. There’s a faded tapestry of two pirates at the helm of a ship. I remember them from the storybook Castian was reading with Davida. Does this room belong to the prince? A secret place only he knows about, a place to keep things he’d rather leave hidden . . . My heart slams against my chest as I push the cloth to the side, revealing a shelf built into the wall where a child might place their treasures. I raise the lamp in my hand.

  There it is. I saw it in my stolen memory of Dez and Castian. A slender wooden box etched with gold designs. How Dez cowered from it, repulsed and afraid.

  The hinges squeak as I tip the lid open. It gives so easily that I know something is wrong. My heart stutters when I close my fist around the thing inside.

  An infant’s dress, the white fabric yellowed with time. Beneath that a round, painted portrait that fits in my palm. The king’s soldiers keep ones like this, pictures of their loved ones, usually a lover, in their breast pockets while they fight. This one has two children. One golden-haired and the other one dark. I flip the portrait to find two faded initials. C & A.

  What is this?

  The floorboards creak behind me. I spin around and nearly knock over the gas lamp.

  Prince Castian stands at the threshold. “I knew you’d find your way back here.”

  Chapter 24

  The weak gas lamp strains to burn against the dark of the exposed hidden room. I set it on a table and face my Bloodied Prince. Shadows outline his broad shoulders, his gold curls, the medals over his heart.

  I’m injured, but so is he. I can still fight.

  I throw my weight into my fist and surprise him with a punch. I graze his cheekbone, but it’s a miss.

  He groans but doesn’t step back. He grabs one arm. I swing with my free hand, dragging my nails across his face. It’s dirty, but I hear Dez. It’s your life or theirs. Choose the option that brings you back to me. Except that I won’t be coming back to him this time, will I?

  Castian shoves me but doesn’t try to hit me back. I grab the wooden box and swing it sharply into his side. Whatever he was going to say to me dies on his lips as he clutches his ribs.

  “Stop this!” His voice is gruff and loud.

  “Where is it?” I’ve already gone too far. If I stand down now, I won’t get the weapon, this curse that brought me back to this place, that lured Dez to his death. I have to best him because the other option is to turn Margo into a Hollow, and if I don’t win this fight, there is no doubt I will be sent to the executioner’s block. Would Castian behead me himself the way he did to Dez? Would they let me rot in a cell like Lozar? A terrible thought comes to mind—is his corpse still down there?

  Castian recovers from my blow, putting distance between us. He unbuttons his beaded and embroidered jacket, his tunic open to the curve between his chest muscles. He tosses the jacket to the side, where it lands on the molded couch.

  I undo the clasp that ties my cape around my neck, and it falls to the ground. Pull the corset strings so I can breathe. I try to remember if I saw any weapons, but the room was full of books and old toys. If I could get my hands free from these gloves, I could rip the answers out of him.

  Instead, I size him up the way Margo showed me. Think of what I know of him. He’s quick on his feet, and he carries his power in his broad arms. When he steps to the right, I step to the left, and just like that, we are dancing again. I channel all the rage I’ve had to push back as I was paraded before the king and his court and thrust it into my fists.

  Castian blocks my jab to the left of his chest. I don’t want him to know I’m going to go for his weak spot yet. Bright lights dance in front of my eyes as the tonic that dulled my pain begins to wear off. He grabs hold of my wrists and pulls me to his chest. I kick my legs, knees raising so high that he’s forced to use his hands to block, freeing my hands in the process.

  I land a punch on his nose, but though he’s bleeding, he shakes it off and grabs hold of my shoulders. He shoves me against the tapestry wall. The air rushes out of my chest as he slams me a second time. His belt presses into my stomach, his breath is sweet with wine and warm in my face.

  He wants to best me. I can see it in his eyes as he holds my left arm against the wall and digs a thumb into the wound on my right. Slick, hot blood trickles where my stitches rip beneath the glove.

  My vision is white with pain, but I grind my teeth and grunt through it. I breathe fast and hard, preparing myself first, then I bash my head into his and take his moment of disorientation to dig my fingers into his chest wound. I can play his game, too.

  Castian cries out and drops down to his ha
nds. I grab a fistful of his hair and slam his face against my knee. I yank his head back so he can look at me. You won’t look at me, he said.

  Well, here I am, looking at you now.

  “Surrender.”

  He spits a wad of saliva and blood to the side but doesn’t admit defeat.

  “The Whispers taught you to fight well,” he says, with a chuckle. “Did they ruin your life first? Make you think you were going insane?”

  “The Whispers saved me from your father.” I yank on his hair, but all he does is grunt. I can’t listen to him. He’s all lies and false smiles. “Where is the weapon?”

  And just like that his fist slams into my gut. I let go of him and cradle my stomach. Fall to my knees. Breathe. I can’t breathe.

  “If you’d just listen to me, Nati—” he says, blood spilling into his mouth from his nose.

  “What did you call me?” I shout.

  My body locks. My throat closes. The memory of my father calling me that name renders me useless. I slam my hands against the stone floor, snapping myself into the here and now. How did he know? How could he possibly know?

  I suck in tiny bits of air until I can take a single long gulp. When I press my hands to push myself up I fumble into the gas lamp. I stomp out the flame before it can catch on to anything, then close my fingers around a pointed piece of glass. There’s the faintest light coming from the open library. My eyes adjust to the low flame. I breathe through the ache in my body, the dizziness that comes with the rush of adrenaline. I watch the outline of his muscles, the way he staggers for breath.

  Castian gives me a wide berth, keeping his back against the wall. His hand rests over his shoulder, where blood seeps through the bandage and shirt.

  “We never agreed on weapons,” he says. There’s still that humor in his voice that lights me up with rage. He pulls out a small dagger concealed in his boot and throws it on the floor.

  Since he’s discarded his, I should give up mine. That would be the honorable thing to do. If that was in his reach this whole time, why didn’t he use it when he had me pressed against the wall? Why didn’t he end it?