Illusionary

by Zoraida Cordova

  I think about going back to the small house in the woods where I lived with my parents for the first seven years of my life.

  “That’s bleak, Your Highness,” Leyre says. “But you’re right. For some of us home is a fleeting thing. I’m not naive. The Princess of the Glaciers didn’t change because she fell in love. She changed because she needed to survive what should have been unsurvivable. I wonder, what happened to all those people who helped search for her cure? What happens to the people who live? What comes after?” Leyre rests her head against the wall, the room’s shadows hiding her eyes. “I’m here because King Fernando hurt my family. I know my father was no saint, but how many children like me has the king left to drown? So yes, Matahermano. I can avenge the living.”

  Warmth spreads through my limbs, and this time when the ship shakes so hard it feels like it’ll break apart, I count the silence between cracks of thunder. I count the number of times I catch Castian looking at me.

  “Have any of you ever heard of a princess named Galatea?” I ask.

  “Not in Puerto Leones,” Castian says.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Believe me, every single tutor I had made me memorize the royals dating back to the very first of my line who settled in Vahía de Leones.”

  “Galatea of what kingdom?” Leo asks, picking at the fuzzy pills in the velvet.

  Memoria, I want to say. The kingdom that belonged to my people. The temples and sacred sites were destroyed during each war, but judging from Fernando’s appearance, this memory couldn’t have been more than forty years old. Illan would have been old enough to remember her, my own parents would have been old enough to add to their collection of stories.

  “Ren?” Castian calls my name, but they are all watching me now. How do I tell them what I’ve seen without sounding like a lunatic?

  It doesn’t matter, as the storm won’t let me speak. Moments later, the ship rocks, and Leo’s lamp shatters. Quickly, Castian smothers the fire with his blanket as Leo says, “I’m all right!”

  “Hold on!” Leyre shouts.

  I can’t see anything. As the ship heaves, I grab on to the chaise bolted to the wall, but the ridiculous fabric is too soft and I glide right off. I can’t be sure what is up or down or sideways. Lightning cracks so loud that I can practically feel it in my teeth. Then I hit skin and muscle.

  “I’ve got you,” Cas whispers. Calloused hands wrap around my arm, and I crawl to him. For a moment, it’s like the entire ship is flying, weightless. I scream when I slip out of his grasp. He clutches me tighter, pulls me against his chest. We land in a crash, and I thank the Lady that we are in the dark and no one can see the relief across my face as Castian’s weight pins me to the cushions of the chaise. I brush his hair back, and he leans his face into my touch. Heat radiates from the apex of my torso, my pulse a sledgehammer against my ribs.

  “Cas,” I murmur. If the ship goes under, if these are the final moments that I get to spend with him, what do I say?

  “I’m here.” His warm breath at my ear. My arms wrapped around his neck, determined to keep him with me if we get pulled out. I feel the undulation of the waves in the pit of my stomach. Hear Leo’s yelps, Leyre’s laughter, the scream of the storm, my intake of breath as my nose touches Cas’s, and his lips brush mine.

  And then there is silence. The rain stops.

  “It’s over,” Leyre proclaims. I hear her scrambling for the door.

  With the spell of the storm broken, Castian and I leap away from each other. I take in a deep breath and lick salt from my lips. Light trickles in to reveal Leo spread across the gaming table, his white-knuckled grip holding on for dear life.

  “I think I swallowed a set of dice.” He groans.

  “How?” Castian asks incredulously, dusting himself off. There’s a red welt on his back where something must have fallen on top of him. He shielded me. “You know, I’ve learned it’s best not to ask.”

  The prince helps Leo off the table. I follow Leyre above deck to assess the damage. She runs around checking ropes and metal bolts, then inspects the mast and helm while rattling off a list of things for Castian to survey. Never having been on a ship, I don’t know what she’s looking for other than to make sure we can keep sailing. We’re so far out I can’t even guess the cardinal directions.

  “Brilliant, isn’t it?” She admires the storm speeding away from us. Gone is the melancholy that gripped her below deck, but I can’t help but think of the story she told.

  “That’s not the word I’d use.”

  “You’re lucky.” She slaps me square on the back. “I’ve been through worse. But the Great Tortuga’s blessed me yet.”

  Castian and Leo join us on deck and help raise the sail. I try to meet Castian’s eyes, but his brow is furrowed, and his every movement is focused on the ship. The sun emerges from behind mammoth white clouds and dries the rain off our skin and clothes. When we’re finished, Leyre fetches her satchel, and Castian, the logbook. Together they chart the course that will take us farther and farther away from home. I remember the princess who became part ice, who changed to survive. I can only hope that when we return, there is a home to come back to.

  BEING AT SEA IS AS WONDROUS AS IT IS TERRIFYING. EVERY DARK CLOUD CAUSES my body to clench with nerves, anticipating another storm. At night, the sky and sea are so infinitely black that the moon looks like silver flames illuminating the surface and brings a different kind of fear, the fear of falling into a void and losing control of myself. But there are moments—when Leo is up in the crow’s nest with a spyglass, or Leyre and Castian are chasing the coordinates using the sun and stars, when I do my part by keeping the deck and cargo hold clean, when Castian sings along to Leo’s filthy chanteys during supper—that I can’t imagine another place I’d rather be.

  For days that is our routine. Castian and Leyre spend most mornings poring over Admiral Arias’s logbook and the maps in the captain’s quarters. But the way to Isla Sombras is shrouded in more than the myths of the Moria. Combining the coordinates with Leyre’s maritime knowledge puts the island between the kingdom of Puerto Leones and her home of Luzou, right in the middle of the Castinian Sea.

  “How did the Moria hide an entire island?” Leyre asks on the third day. She attempts to instruct me on how to navigate with the sextant. But when I touch it, I feel the strange spark of power coming from the miniscule alman stones embedded in the metal. Even thinking of culling the memories summons an ache behind my eyes.

  “The same way we’ve hidden from a murderous king for decades,” I tell her, and hand the sextant back. “Magics and a stubborn will to live.”

  Despite the certainty with which Castian and Leyre navigate, I can see the doubt that plagues them. The fourth day arrives, and there is no Isla Sombras. Nothing but ocean for miles and miles.

  After that strange moment we shared during the storm, Castian and I haven’t been alone together. If there is a task that needs doing, I partner with Leyre or Leo, and he does the same. With a crew of only four, there is always something to do.

  On the morning of the fifth day, Leo shouts, “Land!”

  We all gather along the starboard side of the deck. But Leyre slams her spyglass shut and rubs her lips into a taut line. “It’s a sandbar.”

  Castian rakes his fists through his hair and leans on the taut rigging. “We should be there.”

  “Do you see any other land nearby, princeling?” Leyre challenges. “By all accounts we should have seen first signs of Isla Sombras yesterday. Have you heard of this before, Renata?”

  “A vanishing island?” I shake my head. “Before Castian, all I knew of the Knife of Memory was that it was a story. So much of the Moria history was lost.”

  “Perhaps it’s the logbook,” Leyre suggests. “Half his notes are ramblings about the fortitude sea air gives men. The rest are too vague to make sense of.” Leyre clears her throat and takes on the voice of an old aristocratic Leonesse man and quotes it from memory. “We fo
llowed the fixed point of the Marinera star until the island appeared, shrouded in mist and moonlight. Though I fear for the girl, the king is pleased. We carry on.”

  I bite the inside of my lip. “Was the girl ever named?”

  “No,” Castian says.

  I go over what we’re sure of once more. “King Fernando traveled to the Isla Sombras with a crew who died during or immediately after the voyage. We know that for some reason, he has not returned to claim the Knife of Memory despite having the sextant. We know that though it does not appear on any map in the known world, we are at the coordinates of the island.”

  “What are we missing?” Leo asks.

  “We aren’t missing anything,” Castian answers. When his eyes fall on me, it’s like he can’t look away fast enough. “We’re lost.”

  While Leyre and Castian figure out where we went wrong, I head below deck to prep for lunch. There’s something soothing in the monotony of peeling potatoes, even if part of me imagines different faces with every jerk of my knife. King Fernando. Méndez. Alessandro. Margo. Dez. Cas, even.

  Leo knocks on the threshold of the mess hall. The skin around his nose is burned and peeling. He says nothing but picks up a brown spud and joins me.

  “I used to hate peeling potatoes as a boy because my mother told me they had eyes.”

  “Once when my unit was trapped in this tiny town in Provincia Tresoros, we had potatoes for every meal. For weeks. I could barely stomach them after that.”

  He points to the sacks of potatoes. “Well, I hope you learn to love them again.”

  I wipe my brow and stab my knife through the same potato he’s been delicately cutting since he sat down. “Out with it, Leo.”

  “I can’t help but notice that you and Castian have been rather quiet since the storm. You barely look at each other, though I certainly haven’t missed the longing glances you cast when you think no one is watching. You even chose to sleep down in the hammocks with us though he offered you the captain’s quarters! Hells, I’d pretend to lust after the prince to have a nice mattress—”

  “Leo,” I groan, gutting a potato. I want to deny everything he says. We’re lost, possibly off course because of the weather, and there is a war waiting for us back home. But right now, Castian occupies my every thought. I want nothing more than to tell someone about it, and Leo already knows how conflicted I am. “There was a moment during the storm.”

  Leo smirks knowingly, but keeps cutting, and the sound is oddly calming. “Go on.”

  “We nearly kissed.” Saying it aloud forces me to relive the very moment. My belly squeezes with the sensation of being heaved into the air by the waves.

  “Is that the first time this has happened?” he asks.

  “No.” Heat scrapes across my neck at the memory of him hacking away at firewood outside Doña Sagrada’s inn, the way he practically growled as he kissed me back. I touch the base of my throat as if I can still feel the strain of his grip. “But that was under duress. And he asked me not to do it again.”

  Leo raises a skeptical brow. “Are you certain those were his exact words?”

  “He said not to use him that way.”

  “Ah, that’s different.”

  “I know this is the worst time to figure this out.”

  Leo sets a naked potato on top of my small pile. “I’m not sure I agree with that. In order for you and Castian to succeed, you have to be able to look each other in the eye. If there’s anything you should have learned from your journey, it is that you work best when you communicate. Otherwise, what is all this for?”

  “The future of the kingdom.”

  “Pardon me, Lady Ren, but you are used to fighting a battle you thought you’d never win. You always felt apart from the Whispers, and so you didn’t let yourself truly imagine a future beyond the next spy mission. Here, I have chosen you. Castian has chosen you. Even Lady Leyre. You and Castian—that is no easy thing. Your hearts are entangled by your pasts, his brother, the future.”

  “I told you before, those complications are precisely why I can’t imagine a future. Not with him. Not with anyone, really. Castian is going to be king. What will that make me? Royal spy? The king’s former best friend and pretend wife?”

  “You have to imagine a future.” For all his humor, Leo understands me, deep down into the sad, ugly parts I don’t want anyone to see. “Even one without Castian because I can’t imagine a kingdom in any of the known world in which you aren’t in it.”

  I pick up a new spud and squeeze it. I wish emotions were as easy to be rid of as memories.

  “I suppose I’m trying to rationalize the feeling that came over me in the storm,” I explain. “I’m familiar with the anticipation of a catastrophe. It can make anyone act impulsively. Back when I was with the Whispers, the rebels coupled up before a dangerous mission. Nearly every kiss Dez and I ever had was because we thought we were going to die. Being with Cas makes me wonder if any of that was real.”

  Leo thinks for a moment, rhythmically cutting a continuous peel. “No matter the circumstance, it was real to you at that moment, was it not?”

  “Yes it was, but I don’t want to have the kind of heart that is easily changeable.”

  “I may not have known you for long, Lady Renata, but of one thing I am certain—when you love, you do it with your whole being. From the tips of your toes to the untamed baby hairs at your temples. You love so fiercely, that you would let it destroy you. It seems to me that there is a difference between being easily changed and being forced to outgrow that which harms you.”

  I haven’t felt such ease with someone since I used to spend quiet evenings in the old rebel fortress with Sayida, doing simple tasks just like this. But my old life is still a fresh wound. It’s been days since Dez chose to stand aside and let those Whispers take me. Esteban, someone who was nothing but rude to me for years, had urged me to run. But Dez, the boy I turned into my reason for fighting, just stood there as if our decade of friendship meant nothing.

  “What did that potato ever do to you?” Leo asks, gently placing a hand over mine before I slice my fingers off. I was still cutting the white flesh in a single strip. Leo surveys our small mountain and grabs a pot to begin the fish stew.

  “This is a lot of potatoes,” I admit.

  “I hope you’re hungry.”

  There it is, the sensation I couldn’t quite name—hunger. I’m hungry for so many things I didn’t let myself feel before. Happiness. Laughter. The easy quiet of understanding. Friends, real ones. Kisses traded in the dark. Am I allowed to want these things at all? I suppose none of it matters if we can’t find Isla Sombras. Leo’s right. Castian and I work best when we communicate. And if he won’t be the first one to talk, then I will.

  I climb out the hatch and scan the deck, but Castian is nowhere in sight. Leyre is at the helm. When she sees me, she points to the captain’s quarters. I knock, but he doesn’t answer. I consider barging in, but then I lose my nerve. I have broken into cathedrals to steal back Moria treasures, sneaked around the palace of Andalucía, but talking to Castian evokes this response from me? I rub my palms on my tunic, suddenly remembering that Leo said I have unruly baby hairs. I feel utterly ridiculous and decide to turn around.

  But before I do, the door swings opens, and Castian fills the doorway, surprised to see me. His golden hair is mussed, and I imagine him combing his fingers through it while he tries to think. He holds my stare. It is the longest we have looked at each other in days.

  “I was coming to look for you,” he says, something like dread and hope in the way he speaks.

  “I’m here.” I wince at how bright my voice is.

  He beckons me forward. “Come in. You need to see this.”

  There’s a hammer on the bed. The sheets are pulled tight around the mattress, and I can’t tell whether he makes his bed every morning or simply hasn’t slept in it. The cabin smells of leather and salt. I remember being in Castian’s rooms, searching through his things for
a hint of the king’s weapon, before I discovered the weapon was a person. I was overwhelmed with the smell of the ocean. Now, that scent is everywhere all the time.

  I point at the hammer. “Usually I’m the one ready to break things.”

  Castian brushes back his hair and smiles with his whole body, appearing just as relieved as I am. He crosses the room to a carved armoire bolted to the wall and fingers the new nails on the doors. “These swing open and creak all night. At the very least it’s one thing on this ship I can fix.”

  “I thought you don’t sleep.”

  He shrugs, and a sad smile tugs at his lips. “I still have to try, I suppose.”

  That falling sensation returns. I breathe deeply. “That’s what you wanted to show me?”

  “No. The reason I was going to look for you, well, it’s what I just discovered.” He walks around the captain’s desk covered in maps, metal ships, several compasses, and a spyglass. Cas points to a page in the admiral’s logbook. “I found her.”

  I feel a pressure behind my eyelids the moment I take the book in my hands. I’ve held it a dozen times since we left Little Luzou, but I don’t remember this drawing in runny blue ink of a bird with spread wings, a long beak, and a fan of tail feathers. Beside it, the words This is the end of the queen’s flight. Queen Galatea is gone. This is my—

  The ink, which has been darkening with each passing second, is smudged, as if the quill had been dragged. The writer stopped midsentence and never finished. I flip to the next page, and the one after. Ten pages left and nothing. After a moment of stunned silence, a smell hits my nose.

  “Aguadulce?” I hand the logbook back.

  Cas nods. “Last night Leo and I were having a drink—”

  “You and Leo?” I repeat. Is that why Leo came to find me this morning?

  He smirks. “Are you jealous I’ll steal your friend?”

  “No, Cas. It’s about time you had people around that you trust.”

  “Well, he can’t hold his aguadulce.” Cas slaps the logbook against his open palm. “He spilled a glass on the pages, and I set it in front of the fire to dry. I didn’t notice the change until today. When we were boys, Duque Arias spent a summer writing love letters to girls at court using invisible ink he stole from his grandfather. He was insufferable. But he did tell us that when exposed to heat, the ink appears. Admiral Arias was going to write more. An obituary? Something about this person.”