The captain steps a few paces toward him, leaving little room between them. The prince of Puerto Leones is a head taller, but Argi’s presence somehow dwarfs him. “To protect ourselves from your family.”
“When Castian is king, you won’t need to fear the Fajardos,” Leo says, ever the diplomat.
Castian flashes a smile, but his blue-green eyes darken with doubt. “When my father is gone, it will be a new day for us all.”
“Let’s start by washing your filthy hides in time for supper, eh?” Argi slaps his back in good cheer and guides us around the grounds and back to the living quarters.
Leo is the first to dive into the bathing pools. The steaming water is piped in from nearby hot springs using a mechanism I’ve never seen before. I try to imagine the life of the clerics who chose to dedicate their lives to protecting the Knife of Memory. Isolated, but at peace, they’d wake up every morning surrounded by the healing quiet of green hills and the sea.
After I wash, dress, and arrive in the kitchens to help, Maryam bandages my broken nails and cuts with a manzanilla balm and strips of linen. Leyre and Castian are tasked with preparing the turkey, while Elixa and Leo exchange musical numbers as they chop onions and garlic.
“Imagine living on that ship and only having heard one of Delgado’s operas. And The Nymph’s Reply to the Huntsman isn’t even his best work. You sweet, deprived child.” Leo sighs, eyes glistening with onion tears.
“Why do you look so pretty when you cry?” Maryam asks, genuinely confused.
“He was a stage actor,” I say.
“If I’d only learned all your exhaustive fighting techniques when I was cast as Capitán Brava in For the Love of the Maiden Cuerva,” Leo preens.
Elixa gasps. “Tell us everything!”
Castian and Leyre return in that moment with a decapitated and plucked turkey. He chuckles and says, “Oh dear, he’s got a new audience.”
“You poor souls.” Leyre offers condolences, but winks at Leo.
And then he sings the ballad of a sea captain who fell in love with the maiden of death. I can’t help but glance at Castian. I can’t remember the last time he smiled this way, not peering from the corners of his eyes for danger, and not wearing the illusion of the arrogant, murderous prince. He’s an ordinary man among his friends.
Then I think, No. He’ll never be ordinary, and neither will I.
It was a pretty thought for a while, though.
“You’ll have to take off your ring,” Maryam says, her sure voice pulling me back to the present. She gently taps my index finger, where blood has begun to scab over the cut.
“Some of those alman stones are like spearheads,” I say.
The young Robári waits for me to take the emerald wedding ring off before she coats my finger with a sweet salve. I almost forgot I was still wearing Castian’s ring. He turns to me, and the look on his face is unreadable. I wish he would say something, but instead, he waits for me.
Heat slithers up my spine and settles across my chest as I offer it back to him. “This belongs to you.”
“You’re not truly married?” Maryam asks, and suddenly I realize how young she is, even if she’s sixteen.
Elixa gives her fellow pirate a warning glance. “Maryam.”
“It’s quite all right,” Castian says with a crooked smile. “I’m sure we’re both relieved we’re no longer undercover.”
I remember watching him tie and untie knots on the deck of our ship. That’s what my insides feel like as he plucks the ring from my palm. I force myself to laugh.
“Don’t worry, Lion Cub,” Leyre says, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist. “We’ll find you a right and proper queen consort. There’s a woman in my former unit, heiress to a banana fortune—”
“If you want a marriage of convenience,” Leo says, twisting the cork from a jug of what looks like cider, “I’m fairly certain your stepmother’s cousin is eligible, as they’re all out of princesses. Though that will make for a rather awkward Sun Festival once you depose your father.”
Castian is surprisingly good humored about the subject of his future queen. Meanwhile I’m sure the reason there’s a ringing in my ear is because I’m screaming inside.
“And here I thought you harbored such ambitions for yourself, Leo,” Castian says, leaning against the wall, letting the words fall off him like deflected arrows.
Everyone laughs, but Leo rolls his eyes. “Hardly. I prefer my men with a dash more charm, and you’re far too moody.”
Everyone continues to flirt with the idea of Castian’s future, going as far as planning his next three political marriages. I join in the game because if I stop and think for too long, I will remember that yesterday I let myself contemplate a future with Castian. There is no future—when I claim the Knife of Memory, I will face two paths: I will either pay the cost of its magics or I’ll never return.
When night falls, Elixa ignites torches in the courtyard. Our food is arranged on a long wooden table. Garbanzos and tomatoes dusted in pink salt and coated in chopped herbs. Black and purple olives drenched in oil. Bread slathered in honey and spicy pepper flakes. The turkey is golden brown and stuffed with sweet onions, and after a day of training, we devour the meal and wash everything down with a cold pear cider.
Elixa is curious about our travels, but Argi interrupts by discussing where the pirates have been and how their next voyage will be to explore the unknown worlds, chasing other Moria myths.
“Why not settle here?” Castian asks, his gaze roaming the courtyard lit by torchlight and fireflies.
“There is no farmable land and but a single river and lake for fresh water. Isla Sombras was a place for pilgrimage and worship. It was where we trained future generations of Moria priests and holy orders. Now it is a refuge. But it is ours.”
“How do you account for population growth?” Leyre asks. “What happens to families on your ship?”
“We can only sustain so many,” Argi explains. “Those who want to expand their broods have the option of settling in ports with open borders like Luzou. The rest, so long as they are on the ship, drink irvena tea until they’re ready to decide. Speaking of which—” Argi gestures to Maryam, who runs inside the kitchen and returns with a brewed pot.
Everyone sips their tea, and I can’t help but notice the blush that creeps up Castian’s neck and ears.
“Don’t forget we trade off in seasons between the ship and the island,” Elixa says in her sweet, high-pitched voice.
“But,” Maryam says tenuously, “that will change when you are king, yes? We will be allowed to return?”
Castian sits up taller. The humor in his eyes morphs into an earnest stare. “On my word, whatever that is worth to your captain, I will keep my promise to your people. Our people,” he amends.
Argi doesn’t discourage the girl, but she drinks from her pint instead of acknowledging Castian’s vow.
“Were you born on the ship?” Leyre asks Elixa.
The girl shakes her head, round cheeks turning pink. She touches a pendant I didn’t notice before, tucked in her tunic. A tiny gold seashell. Reaching for Maryam’s hand, they thread their fingers together and share the look of young love. “After my citadela was ransacked, my sister and I tried to hike up the coast, but we were separated. I stole a fishing raft and was out at sea for a day before Mar spotted me from the crow’s nest, where she likes to read the stars. I don’t even know how she saw me, but here we are.”
“I’m slowly starting to believe in impossible things,” I say.
Beside me, Castian rests his forearms on the table. I brush my little finger against his. He’s still for a moment. Then he covers my hand with his. We are pressed skin to skin, our thighs touching. Every time I focus on it, I feel my pulse race because neither of us moves away from the other.
“Captain,” he says softly. “When you captured our yacht, you said something to me. How did you know that I was an Illusionári?”
Argi’s ey
es light up with memory, the glow skating from up her arm along a river of markings. She’s quiet for a long time, and we cling to that silence until she finally breaks it. “After what happened here with Cebrián, I fled Isla Sombras. Made my way back to Puerto Leones, where Illan kept me in a safe house. Your father wasn’t far behind. Rumors had spread of his elopement and his sudden voyage. While he was away, his family spread lies about his wife to keep her identity secret. When Fernando returned, he slaughtered his entire family and had the Moria royals murdered. Illan assured me his rage would quell, and I waited there.
“Over the course of weeks, I realized things were changing. There seemed to be no memory of the Moria royal family or Galatea as Fernando’s first wife. Not even among the Moria. It was like she’d been erased from the world. I believe no one but those of us on that expedition remembered her.”
Our silence magnifies the sounds of the night.
“Months passed,” Argi continues. “There was even a moment where I almost believed I’d made up the entire voyage. We waited for Fernando to strike against our people again. Instead, his patricide was forgotten when he announced his wedding to Penelope of the Sól Abene family.”
Castian leans forward at the mention of his mother’s name. Argi sips her cider and rubs her lips together. “I began my network of Moria spies while Illan still pretended to be loyal to the king. When Queen Penelope had you, Castian,” Argi says, “she discovered that you were an Illusionári. There must have been Moria blood in her family, though she did not have magics herself. She confided in Illan, and together they schemed. I grew tired of the Whispers and their inaction. I bought a ship and convinced Penelope to leave with us. She was afraid, and by then she was pregnant with your brother. Illan convinced her to stay. They devised a new plan to keep your magics secret.”
Castian blinks away the emotion in his eyes and retracts his hand from mine. “Did the Knife change him?”
“That’s difficult to say for certain.” Argi takes a deep breath. “When King Jústo wouldn’t sanction his marriage, Fernando eloped. When Galatea was murdered, Fernando tried to wield a sacred power that did not belong to him. When he failed to revive his love, Fernando slaughtered those responsible for her death. The Knife of Memory magnifies power, but it cannot change a person’s heart.”
“Are you worried it will change me?” I ask Castian.
His body goes rigid, and all I want to do is wrap my arms around him and tell him that I’m going to be fine. But looking at Cas, I see an anger I know is mirrored within my own heart. What if the Knife of Memory manipulates that into something terrible? I remember what Argi showed us on the ship—Fernando’s desperate need to control life and death was the beginning of a long road of cruelties. What will make me different if I use the Knife to destroy him? What will it do to Castian when he kills his father?
“What if—” I begin. I can feel the absence of every memory I’ve culled and placed in alman stones today. “What if instead of erasing Fernando from existence, we show the kingdom who he really is?”
“Hmm,” Argi rasps.
“Is it possible to create such an illusion?” Elixa asks her captain, considering the possibility. “The way you and Euria taught us has its limits.”
Leyre’s catlike eyes go from face to face. “But isn’t the Knife of Memory divine?”
“You’d need a powerful platinum catalyst,” Argi says, tugging her chin in thought. “Which the Knife does have in the hilt. And more alman stone to create the refracting light, as well as an Illusionári to stand with you.”
“I will be with her,” Castian says, then glances at me. “I will be with you.”
“It could work.” Argi grins and taps the surface of the table for luck. “Renata and I are working to make sure she is prepared to claim the Knife.”
“What does that mean?” Leo asks. “You’ve said that before.”
“The Knife of Memory requires a connection between itself and the Robári who claims it. Wielding it requires great power.”
“I’ll be ready,” I say.
“Well, good,” Elixa says, picking at the meat on the turkey bones, “because we were going easy on you today.”
Leo chokes on his cider, and Cas gives him a gentle pat on the back.
“There’s one thing you should know about sharing magics,” Argi says, her eyes cut between Castian and me. “The projection requires trust. The question is, do you trust each other?”
I feel the pressure of his knee against mine. His eyes, so full of conflict, rake across my face. And together, we say, “Yes.”
LATER THAT NIGHT, WHEN I CAN’T SLEEP, I WALK BAREFOOT DOWN THE HALLS OF the temple and trace my fingers along the smooth stone. Though there are no lamps, the warm glow of memory within the stone lights my path. I make my way back to the kitchen and find that I’m not the only person who is awake.
Castian startles when he sees me, very much a mouse caught nibbling on cheese, which is exactly what he’s doing. He’s in a pair of sleeping trousers. His tunic is inside out, as if he threw it on in a hurry.
“Hungry still?” I ask, sitting across from him on the rickety table.
“Ravenous.” He finishes eating the cheese, drizzled with honey, and licks his fingers. I grab a clay mug and pour myself water from the pitcher. I remember the two of us as little kids sneaking off into the palace kitchens. My breath hitches as the memory lights up on my index finger, where my memory marks are thinning into delicate silver whorls.
“Nati?” Cas reaches for me.
“I’m all right.” I put up a hand and smile.
His hair is tousled around his shoulders. There’s something so vulnerable about him, and the more I look at him, the longer I hold my breath.
After a stretch of comfortable silence, I ask, “What’s keeping you up, Castian?”
“Other than knowing the Whispers and my kingdom’s army are marching toward each other and we may not arrive in time to stop it?”
“We will,” I say, surprising even myself.
He exhales, but his posture is still tense. “I’ve always known there were things about my father that I would never understand. That there were secrets there. But I did not imagine this. It’s like he’s two different people.”
“I used to think that about you.”
He looks up, like I’ve struck him.
“I only mean that you lived under an illusion. And the man you are is different from the prince the kingdom knows.”
Cas runs a hand through his gold waves. “My father would have killed me if he knew the truth. My mother, for all her faults, tried to protect me and Dez. I’m beginning to understand that, perhaps.”
I break off a piece of bread going stale and drizzle honey on it, then lick the excess off my thumbs. “It startled me how much Dez looks like your father when he was younger.”
Castian scoffs. “I think my brother would murder us both if we said that to him.”
I laugh and remember how Cas asked me in Acesteña to tell him about Dez. I couldn’t do it then. But after the confrontation with Dez in the Little Luzou marina, something inside me broke and relinquished the guilt in my heart tied to him.
“When I was about twelve,” I say, plucking a grape from the bowl between us, “a group of boys invented a game called wreck the Robári. It involved finding anything they could throw—large rocks, bottles, even a very big, very rotten pumpkin once. They’d aim these things at me when I walked from the dormitories to the training grounds.”
Castian’s face turns to horror, then anger. He begins to curse their family lines.
“It gets better,” I say, somehow unbothered by the occurrence anymore. “When Dez found out what was happening, he made a list of every single boy. Then he filled their waterskins with his own urine.”
Cas chokes on a grape and slaps the table. “Truly?”
“Illan gave him six licks in public, one for every boy. Dez didn’t even cry—he laughed the entire time, which is terr
ifying in its own right.”
“And here I thought court was ruthless,” Cas says, shaking his head. “I know he’s my brother, but that’s disgusting.”
“He grew out of it,” I continue. “Mostly. He had this thing he’d do to every king’s guard he’d beat. He’d relieve them of their sword, raise it, and just before landing a killing blow, he’d spare their lives and say, Remember that it was a Moria bestae who spared your life.”
Cas bites his bottom lip and sighs. “He kept the sword, didn’t he?”
“Naturally.”
“I used to feel sorry for the soldiers who returned to me with their reports after facing him.”
“When did you find out that he was your brother?” I ask.
Cas touches the scar on the left side of his rib. A hot flash spreads across my body as I remember touching the twin of that scar on Dez. “During Riomar. I wanted to be alone after the battle. I had to relive every life I took. I hated the destruction of the day, while my men wished to celebrate. And the next thing I knew—”
I have this memory. Dez shared it with me. “Dez was climbing over your balcony and challenging you to a duel to the death.”
Cas shuts his eyes, as if he would like to banish the incident. “You and Dez have that in common at least. And neither of you has defeated me.”
I feel my mouth hang open with shock. When Cas taps my chin closed, frustration and desire coils in my belly.
“I saw the medallion he was wearing, and it was identical to mine. A gift from our father when we were born. Dez had his the day I thought he drowned. Then Illan arrived. I recognized him from the palace and I knew. I knew in my gut that my brother hadn’t died. I spent months trying to piece together what happened.”
“I’m sorry, Cas.”
“So am I, Nati.” He rips another grape from the cluster. Rolls it between his fingers.
I get an idea and rest my hands on the table in front of him, palm side up. “Can I try something?”
He nods and reaches for me without question.
I pull memories, only this time, they’re my own. The heat of my magics move in soft lines across my skin, calling forth a series of memories of Andrés, the lost prince of Puerto Leones. Dez, commander of the Whispers Rebellion. I share my memories of the boy I loved. The man he was before his world shattered. The man I hope he still can be. Joy and anger. Purpose. Defeat. Hope. It’s all there.
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