“You haven’t seen what he’s done to Robári like me. Like us.” I shake my head, my voice rising in anger. “Why won’t you help us?”
Captain Argi stands inches from my face. Everything about her is made to be intimidating—the kohl around her eyes, her clothes, and even the way she twists her platinum rings while she deliberates.
Her smile is like the edge of a precipice. “I will show you.”
As the sun sets, the crew gathers on the deck. The Madre del Mar is anchored in the calm sea. Oil lamps are lit in a circle as Captain Argiñe enters the gathering with the weaver Castian spoke to below deck. Her long linen dress flutters in the breeze, and even in the setting sun, the woman’s eyes fall on Castian.
“Are you ready, Euria?”
“Aye, Captain Argi.” The older woman nods, brushing soft, tight curls behind her ears. She extends her arms straight out, palm side up. Two gold cuffs ring her wrists. An Illusionári.
“Then let us show our newcomers what they have come to seek.” Argi touches Euria’s fingertips with her own.
I feel the pressure of magics in the air. The susurration of voices over the rustle of sea. Argiñe’s memory scars light up all at once. There are so many on her skin, it’s as if she has been set aglow from within. Beams of light fracture and waver like sunrays.
And then two figures appear on the deck. A young man with ink-black hair dressed in the Leonesse groom shade of azure. At his side is a young woman with obsidian hair that falls to her waist, crowned by white flowers. It takes me a moment, but I gasp and reach for Castian beside me. He recognizes them, too.
It’s Prince Fernando and Princess Galatea.
As the image takes form, it is impossible to deny they’re really standing there on the deck with us. Our night becomes day. Our sea becomes a garden. We are inside Captain Argi’s soundless memory, brought to life by Euria’s power of illusion.
Prince Fernando and Princess Galatea hold hands in front of a Moria priestess. On Fernando’s sash is a golden lion. Galatea’s robes are the traditional deep scarlet with a pattern of stars at the hem. A young Argiñe is part of the intimate gathering. Her face is free of the hard lines she carries now, and only her forearms show memory scars. Beside her is Illan, barely in his twenties. I recognize a man who looks so very much like the current Duque Arias—his grandfather. The others I do not know.
Fernando says his vows. Galatea holds him fiercely, her radiant joy so pure. The young couple leans forward and shares a deep kiss. Petals rain from the guests. Fernando gathers Galatea by her waist and lifts her into his arms. And when he sets her down, trailing kisses along his face, three arrows pierce her back.
I cry out as the image fades, leaving gray wisps, ghosts of a memory. I reach for Galatea at the same time Fernando does. I can see how shattered he is. A break within him echoes with his silent scream.
“This was Princess Galatea, the last daughter of the Memoria kingdom.” Argi answers the question I can’t bring myself to ask. “Fernando had just been declared heir and Galatea was to wed a Moria lord. They eloped against their families’ decree.”
“Who murdered her?” Castian asks.
A series of hisses comes from the crew. Several of the older Moria press thumbs on their foreheads as a warning sign.
“Your grandfather,” Argi spits, then with a deep shame adds, “aided by Moria loyalists who would not see the union pass. Illan tortured the information out of the archers and discovered Fernando was also a target.”
This is the end of the queen’s flight. Queen Galatea is gone. Those were the last words Admiral Arias wrote in his logbook. He was at their elopement, and he was on their voyage.
Castian’s strong grip around my arm jolts me back to the present. Disbelief is plain as he watches the Moria captain. I know in my gut that she isn’t finished. A fissure of light travels from a scar along Argi’s throat and down to her fingertip.
Prince Fernando appears, incandescent as he snatches a blade made of alman stone from a Robári boy. Fernando’s intention is clear.
Fernando crawls away from Galatea’s lifeless body.
Fernando wraps his fist around the Knife of Memory.
Fernando stabs the Robári boy through the heart.
I gasp. “He tried to bring her back.”
As the memory fades, there is a collective sorrow across the deck. “Our Lady of Shadows and Whispers created the Knife of Memory to sever her own immortality. As a weapon it is divine. That is why she hid it on this island. But when Fernando tried to bring Galatea back to life, he corrupted its power and erased Galatea’s existence from the world’s memory.” Captain Argiñe crosses the deck to face me. “When I tell you that you will fail, I say it because I have seen it. A power like that can’t be trusted.”
“We have to try,” I say. “Didn’t you listen when I said the king will keep making weapons to destroy the Moria left in Puerto Leones? He’ll control us, the rest of the world.”
Argi pinches the bridge of her nose. “He won’t make another weapon. He can’t.”
“How do you know that?” I shout.
“Because he’d need the Knife of Memory to do it.” Argi’s scars glow, and she claps her hand around my throat. Her magic bores into me, forcing me to relive memories of Fernando’s rage.
The images flash and flash. I shove her off and gasp for breath. I’m aware of my friends being held back by the Moria pirates. Slowly, I get up. Every memory and truth is harder to bear than the next—King Fernando once married a Moria princess. He tried to bring her back to life. But upon seeing the memory again, I recognize the boy Fernando stabbed through the heart. It was Cebrián. Fernando created the Ripper.
“When Cebrián failed to revive Galatea, Fernando tried to wield the Knife himself. Don’t you see, Renata?” the captain says. “I was there. I saw the worst coming, and I knew to take my people and run.”
I turn around and feel their fear and scrutiny. Families and friends bound together by survival—what the Whispers were supposed to be. “I don’t blame you for all of this. But while I look at your faces and I see the sadness at listening to these stories, I know that’s what they are to most of you. Stories. But to me, to my crew, this is everything. You’ve been gone too long to know what it means to be Moria under King Fernando’s rule. It’s your turn to see through my eyes.”
I offer my hand to Euria, the Illusionári. I do not have to reach far for memories of the king and justice’s cruelties. But when I try to share the memories, Euria’s cry of pain ripples through the night. Her illusion crackles the air of the deck, each moment coming too quickly. I yank my hand away and break the connection, and we fall together.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper.
Euria takes up my face in her hands. She kisses the tops of my eyes. Somehow she’s the one crying. “What have they done to you, child?”
Everything. Nothing. I don’t know.
When I look up, Leo, Leyre, and Castian are at my side. The ship’s inhabitants slowly disperse below deck until we are left alone, pariahs, starboard.
“Are you all right?” Leo asks.
“No,” I say. “We’ve never been closer or farther away from the Knife of Memory, and I’m more confused than ever. What about you?”
My question is for Castian, but he gives a small shake of his head, and I know he isn’t ready to face what he saw of his father.
“We can take our chances,” he says, quietly watching the black sea lap against the anchored ship. “Scale these lines back to our ship—”
“You will do no such thing,” Captain Argiñe says, sidling up beside us.
“How can you expect us to do nothing after everything we’ve seen?” Castian asks.
“I cannot simply give you the Knife,” she says. “It requires a cost. And only one of you can pay it.”
Before the captain’s dark eyes settle on my face, I understand she means me.
“You were right, Renata. I do not know what you have been th
rough, and I cannot stop you from fighting a war I abandoned. But I can help you better understand your power so when the time comes, you do not make the same mistakes we did.”
Something like hope ignites in my heart.
“Lift the veil!”
The captain’s call is answered by a series of horns, the ringing of bells. Sails billow against the wind, and the ship soars over an ocean so dark, it is like sailing across the night sky. After a moment, land shimmers where there was none before.
“Welcome to Isla Sombras,” she says. “The last resting place of Our Lady of Shadows.”
THERE IS A MORIA LEGEND THAT SAYS OUR LADY OF WHISPERS WATCHED OVER all of us from her floating temple in the sky. But on nights when there were storms or the sky was not clear, she shaped her shadows into messengers—crows, porpoises, lynxes. The most important was a white peregrine falcon.
When I asked Illan how that was possible, he told me that the goddess was capable of anything, that she had many roles to play in watching her creation. I didn’t truly believe him then, even as a child. But standing on the black sand beach of Isla Sombras, the only thing keeping me going is belief in impossible things.
By the glow of a lighthouse, the canoes that brought us ashore return to the ship for more passengers. Ahead of us a path snakes into the island, where Captain Argiñe says is a small village. Our destination is beyond the settlement, the temple of alman stone that crowns a hill. It glows under the moonlight, an incandescent beacon guiding me home.
The pirates have returned our packs as part of our agreement, and we make quick work of loading two horse-drawn carts with supplies for the four of us, plus Captain Argi and two of her hand-picked pirates.
“How has no one ever put this location on a map of the known world?” Leo asks.
“Moria magics,” Argiñe says, tilting her chin up with pride. “Do you see that lighthouse? That is one of four on the island. Each houses a Moria of our blessed orders. Together they make Isla Sombras virtually invisible.”
Leyre gathers a fistful of black sand and rubs it between her palms. “In Luzou, we have red sand beaches, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Argiñe gives one of the horses a healthy slap. “I’m delighted our volcanic rock fascinates you, but we must begin our trek to the temple of Our Lady. Your training starts at dawn.”
Leo glances nervously at the horizon, where the black blue of night is brightening. “Dawn is fast approaching.”
The captain strides past him, her oil lamp exaggerating her smirk. “Then we’d best make haste.”
Leyre chases after the captain, rattling off questions about sailing to the Icelands, while Leo strikes up a conversation with Elixa—the wheat-haired Illusionári girl of seventeen who struck me as familiar on the ship. The seventh member of our party is Maryam, who glides with the grace of a dancer, her coil of brown hair swinging at her back like a pendulum. She watches me with a curious, if wary, stare. Forgoing a lamp, she lights up the back of our caravan with the pearly white scars of her hands.
Already I have been around more Robári on this trip than in my entire life. I have so many questions, but as we set off on our journey to the temple, I concentrate on keeping up. The way is steep, and I slip in the black sand that covers the path. Castian shoulders my pack for me. I keep pace at his side, the barest thing to let him know he isn’t alone. None of us are.
For the longest time, the temple doesn’t seem to get any closer, but when we finally reach the stone steps, it takes all my strength not to fall on my knees and kiss the ground. There is a murmur in the breeze, seeping right through me, down to my bones—magics. This is a sacred place of power and history. I have longed for a fraction of this sensation, to know that I am connected to something other than just myself.
I am not a wretched power that takes and takes and takes—perhaps I am something more.
I have a vague recollection of falling into a soft bed in a small stone room within the temple. My sleep is a continuous loop of the moment I dove into the crystal-clear waters of the Castinian Sea, the simple quiet of being submerged. Glittering fish and then a second splash. Castian smiling underwater. I have never seen him so buoyant, so happy. He swims to me, and even though we should be surfacing for air, we don’t need to breathe. We only need each other. His mouth presses against mine, firm and sure, just as he kissed me in the belly of our ship—before I ruined it by telling him that I wanted his kiss in order to forget. I don’t want to forget.
And then I plummet, falling straight through until I’m kicking and screaming in a void.
When I wake, I’m on the floor of the room, the linens tangled around my legs. I seem to have only slept for mere moments. As promised, training begins at sunrise. Captain Argi is at the threshold, staring at me with confusion and mild concern.
“Do you always fight with your pillow when you’re dreaming?”
“I never dream,” I confess, rubbing sleep from my eyes, “but that was very much a dream.”
These rooms, originally made for clerics and priests who devoutly worshipped the goddess, house the pirates San Piedras when they return from a voyage—and now us. The furniture is simple but made with great care: a sturdy bed and a narrow table with a water basin. I splash my face with cold water and dress as the stern Moria pirate waits for me.
“Where are my friends?” I ask, tying laces.
“Maryam and Elixa have taken them to the sparring grounds.”
“Sparring grounds? In a temple?”
“Long ago, before the Knife of Memory was more than a myth, the priests who lived here were guardians. Each of them would have had to fight.” Captain Argi shrugs, and I realize she’s holding two tin cups in her hands. She offers me one, and I inhale the rich dark smoke of black, bitter café.
“I thought the island was invisible.” I scald the tip of my tongue but keep drinking.
“Virtually invisible,” she amends. “Those stationed at the lighthouses are but the first line of defense.”
I follow her through the wide halls burnished in pink-and-orange sunrise. The alman stone is so full of memories that it feels like it’s whispering to me. I run my fingertips along the cool surface and feel the energy.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“At the height of the kingdom of Memoria, all our temples were built of alman stone. What better way to honor the goddess than to give her a capsule of memories for her worship?”
We step into an enclosed garden. The air smells like salt and wisteria. White clouds gather overhead.
“The priests who lived on this island must have had strong legs,” I say, panting as we trek to a rectangular sandpit enclosed by tall columns. Captain Argi barks a surprised laugh. She rolls up the sleeves of her red tunic to her elbows. Her curls spill over her shoulders like black and silver ribbons.
“So would you if you climbed this hill every day. Now, tell me. Who are you, Renata Convida?”
“I’m a Robári,” I say.
She sucks her teeth, kicks off her boots, and walks barefoot in the black sandpit. I follow her lead, positioning myself in front of her.
“Who are you in here?” The captain taps her gut.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to answer with your instinct.”
Brown larks flutter on thin branches, and insects cluster around the wildflowers while Captain Argi circles me like a hawk. The same whorls of magic that have burned my hands look different on her, like delicate carvings instead of scars. They glow and dim against her tawny brown skin.
“How are you doing that?”
“I think of one memory at a time.”
The idea of that leaves me dumbstruck for a moment. I turn my hand over. “You can identify your memories to your scars?”
“Scars?” She frowns at the word. “I suppose they are scars. I’ve never given them a name. Blessings. Markings. Simply memories.”
My markings
stop just above my wrists and they’re thicker, raised and angry. “Why did this happen to me?”
“The easy answer is that this happened to you because they did not train you. But the real question is, why weren’t you? The kingdom of Memoria had been weakened by civil war before the bloody Fajardo lions, and then it was beaten and erased and starved. Plague. Murder. War. The king and justice wanted living weapons, and they started with children like you. It is immeasurably complicated trying to understand our history, Renata, but the only thing you need to know, the only thing that matters, is that this is not your fault. This was done to you. Now tell me, who are you?”
“I’m a killer. I’m a weapon.” I choke on the emotion welling up in my throat. “I’m no one.”
“That is what they tried to make you. That is not who you are.”
“What else do you want me to say?”
“Who are you?” Captain Argi kicks the sand and paces around me fast, demanding. “Answer me!”
“I don’t know!” A hammering sensation pounds at my temples. Cracks of lightning strip the landscape of color.
Captain Argi’s laughter makes larks take flight. “If you want the Knife of Memory, you’re going to have to face the parts of yourself that keep you up at night.”
Who am I aside from a girl made a weapon, vengeance in the night? There are things I have never spoken out loud. Not even to Illan, who was my mentor. Not even to Dez, who was my everything. But in this ancient place, hidden in the middle of the sea, I tell Argiñe San Piedras everything because I do know who I am. I am just afraid it won’t be enough.
“I lived in a log cabin in the woods with my parents,” I begin, taking careful steps in the sand. “I strayed from home, and soldiers found me. They took me to Justice Méndez. I became the perfect doll, the perfect weapon.”
My scars light up as I speak. “The first time I stole a memory the magics burned me. The first time I made a Hollow I cried for days, but then Justice Méndez gave me treats, and I quieted. Then I had to do it again.”
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