Illusionary

by Zoraida Cordova

  “Nuria,” Castian says, and the duquesa looks up. The ancient silver-and-cobalt-blue flag of Tresoros spills out of window after window. The people join us and cry out her name, while the cavalry shuffles from side to side as they try to retain control of their mounts. Straggler foot soldiers rush our group, and the people fight with every tooth and nail and machete in their possession.

  “We need to scare the horses,” I say.

  “Hey, Lion Cub,” Margo shouts to Castian.

  “Don’t”—Castian kicks one guard in the chest, whirls around, and stops a second from cleaving his golden head in two—“call me that.”

  Margo’s laugh is wicked as she takes his hand. They combine forces, and the pulse of their magic is instant. A wave crests high above, glistening in the morning light. People scream “Glory to the old gods! Glory to the heavens!” as it crashes down the Calle Oropuro.

  “It’s a trick, you stupid beast!” Pascal shouts at his horse just before he’s thrown off.

  “Last one!” I shout.

  The final barricade is a single line of soldiers that stands between us and the harbor, but then the Second Sweep regroups. Pascal and his cohort are ready to charge. Somehow Alessandro has made it back to the front line.

  “Last one,” Dez mutters, wiping sweat from his brow. He looks down at me and winks, as if to say, That’s all?

  “You have nowhere to go,” the justice shouts. “Lower your weapons and submit yourself as traitors to the kingdom of Puerto Leones.”

  “Never,” Nuria snarls as she marches on. “Your days of cruelty and murder are over.”

  I see the moment Dez looks at her, really looks at her, and falls into place at her side. Castian and I join her on the other.

  “How dare you talk to me like that?” Alessandro spits. “Who are you but the prince’s castoff?”

  “I am the daughter of queens!” Nuria’s voice splits the air. “The Arm of Justice must come to an end. And it starts, dear husband, with you.”

  There’s a guttural sound. An arrow pierces the throat of the man directly beside Alessandro, who lets loose a horrid scream, as if it’s his neck that is spilling blood. As we look around for the source of the attack, a familiar horn splits the air.

  In the harbor is a small ship flying the flag of the pirates San Piedras. Dozens of Moria hang from the rigging and perch on the port rail. The king’s men are confused, turning their backs on us, and we press our advantage.

  “Apologies we’re late, Renata,” Maryam booms, pulling back a hood. “But stealing a ship is no easy task.”

  At her side, Elixa draws an arrow and aims it at Alessandro. “The next one goes in your throat.”

  The justice shouts orders, but it’s no use. We have them pinned down. The pirates San Piedras flow from the dock and soon move like a unified force with Lady Nuria’s soldiers. More citizens pour into the street throwing anything and everything at the justice and the king’s men, all of them shouting the name of Nuria of Tresoros.

  After the Second Sweep is subdued, we leave them at the mercy of the people of Crescenti and board four river boats. We race against the current, knowing we can’t stop until we reach Andalucía.

  PART OF ME ISN’T READY TO RETURN TO THE CAPITAL CITY OF PUERTO LEONES, but I have no choice. Leyre takes command of our barge, calling out the rows. Castian is deep in conversation with Sayida and Maryam, introducing my former unit to the pirates who reeled us in at sea and changed everything.

  “Where’s Captain Argi?” I ask Elixa. We stand at the back of the boat, watching Citadela Crescenti grow smaller and smaller.

  She flashes a smile. The wind blows the nest of curls atop her head over her eyes. “After everything you showed us, we couldn’t stay behind. But you’ve met Captain, she’s set in her ways. She did give me a message for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “She wanted us to thank you for helping her remember.”

  I look back at where Castian sits. We haven’t been able to talk alone since the last night on our ship, but he catches my gaze, and we simply share a moment of relief that we have another day together.

  A sharp cry draws everyone’s notice. “Elixa?”

  My friend turns at the sound of her name. At the front of the boat is Margo. Her eyes are wide, a look of stunned disbelief on her face. That’s when I see it—the same long, pert nose, the same sapphire-blue eyes and dry laughter. All at once I recall feeling like I’d met Elixa before. She’d said she was from Riomar. I remember Margo’s greatest hurt was that she survived when her younger sister hadn’t. But her sister did survive, she was just lost for a time.

  “Margolina?”

  They push through the small crowd and hug so tightly that they seem to fuse together. Margo takes the girl’s face in hers. “I thought you were dead—I thought—”

  Elixa touches the scar visible though her peach fuzz at the side of her scalp. “Almost was.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, and I look away. In the barge behind us are Lady Nuria, as well as Leo and Esteban. More soldiers and pirates are packed in the last two boats. The air is rich with dirt and the new green of the season. Thick emerald trees line the shores and frame small wooden houses on stilts. Entire families watch our boats proceed up the river. I wonder if they have an inkling of what we plan to do.

  “This will work,” I whisper to the river.

  “It has to,” Dez says, standing at my side.

  I lean back to stare at him. “Do you remember that fishing village where you hid in a barrel of squid to escape from the soldiers?”

  He smirks, golden eyes sparkling with memory. “Vaguely.”

  “If you could survive that stench, you can survive anything.”

  He picks at a chip in the wooden rail. “How am I supposed to survive losing you?”

  I breathe deeply. If I speak, the emotion in my throat will spill into tears, and I’ve shed enough of those for a lifetime.

  “I will take this moment, however,” Dez continues, “and say that I was right.”

  Of course, he’s laughing—typical Dez. “About what exactly?”

  “Our whole lives you’ve been afraid of who you are.” He takes my hand and cups it in his. The intimacy feels strange. I think of the night we spent by a different river, right before we splintered apart. “But I have always known that you were the very best of us.”

  I bury my face in his chest. I don’t want him to see me cry. I don’t want another reason to be weak when I have to face Cebrián and King Fernando. Dez brushes a hand over my hair and kisses my head.

  I look up. “You will make a great leader, Dez. I always thought so.”

  His lashes appear darker when they’re wet. “When Castian showed me the truth, I thought I’d go mad. Instead, I left. I never got to ask my father if—”

  “Illan loved you. It was a terrible thing that he did, but he loved you.” I give him a nudge. “Look at Margo. She’s found her sister again. Do you know what Castian did for most of our trip?”

  Dez grimaces slightly and leans on his elbows on the rail. “Do I really want to know?”

  I slap his chest. “Be serious.”

  “You were born serious,” he says with a sigh.

  I roll my eyes. “He wanted to know what you were like.”

  I glance at Castian, who watches me with that intensity of his, and I feel drawn to him. But for now, he needs something more than I can offer.

  “Did you tell him about what an extremely humble yet entirely courageous commander I was? About the scores of times I eluded his impudent soldiers—”

  “Talk to him,” I whisper. “Please. The only way this ends is with the three of us. Together.”

  Dez nods once, licking his lip. He doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no either.

  “I’ll try,” he tells me.

  When it’s time to alternate rowing, Dez takes the seat beside Castian. I watch them row side by side staring straight ahead. There is a moment when Dez says something an
d Cas laughs. A sensation pinches my chest, and I don’t have to look to find the memory etching into my skin.

  It takes a day and a half of rowing, but we know we’re there when the river opens onto the lake just south of the capital and the glittering towers of the palace loom in the distance. My heart is a fist beating against my chest until we disembark, leaving the river boats moored in tall grass.

  We march toward Andalucía. Severed heads, fresh and still dripping with blood and sinew, line both sides of the dusty road that leads to the city gates. This is our warning to turn back. Sayida, Margo, and Esteban must feel it, too, because we exchange glances. We have been on this path before, the day we tried to save Dez from his execution. This time we have something we did not have before. This time, we are not alone. Margo, Castian, and Elixa take the lead, cloaking us with their Illusionári magics.

  The long dirt road cuts a clear view of the tightly packed buildings, some with foundations so old that they look like weary travelers slumped against each other for support. Ahead, a line of soldiers bars the gates—King Fernando is expecting us. But that is not the most striking thing about the jewel of the country.

  Andalucía’s palace is a work of magnificent architecture with four towers connected by sky bridges. Each tower glitters under the sun, a flagrant shrine to the Fajardo family name. I have lived in its rooms, haunted its halls, witnessed its hideous underbelly. But I have never seen it glow. A silver aura surrounds the structure, pulsing like the light within alman stone.

  “What is that?” Dez is awed beside me.

  “It’s Cebrián,” I say. “He’s using the Knife of Memory.”

  “How can you tell?” Leyre asks.

  Leo shrugs and waves a dismissive hand. “I’d say the palace turning into a giant candle may have something to do with it.”

  But it’s more than that. I touch my fingers to the white peregrine falcon on my breastplate, and a ripple of magics passes through me. I have given up my claim on the Knife of Memory, but that connection has left a sliver of itself within me, thin as spider silk.

  Rows of jumpy Leonesse guards flank the entrance gates. They can hear our boots, the rattle of armor, but they can’t see us. Slowly, Castian and the other Illusionári lower the glamour, and then he strikes the first blow, piercing like an arrow through their defenses. The Tresoros soldiers create a wedge for the rest of us to push through the capital’s streets. The stink of gutter water mingles with burning pyres of garbage that warn denizens their city is under attack.

  Leo and Sayida are tasked with evacuating the servants in the palace while Cas, Dez, and I go in search of the king and his Ripper. But now that the time has come I hesitate. I have survived hundreds of fights and skirmishes, but in this moment I feel the love for my companions more than ever before. Perhaps that is the root of what Argi warned me about. And yet, I prefer this version of myself.

  “Go, Renata, now!” Margo shouts, cutting down a soldier with a brutal strike of her sword. She picks up his and pants as she wields both. Something passes between us. It isn’t friendship or forgiveness—it is acceptance. “I’ll see you in the Third Hell.”

  The Third Hell, the one made of eternal white flame, is already here. Cebrián’s silver form is stepping onto the balcony.

  Suddenly, the reverberation of power ripples through me. A cord tugs in my chest. “We have to hurry. Something is wrong.”

  Castian points. “Are those—?”

  Bodies climb onto the sky bridges, onto the ledges of windows, the lip of balconies.

  “Those are Whispers,” Dez says.

  “The north tower,” Cas orders, and we race after him.

  The north tower. Fernando’s throne room. He would be in the place he carved as a shrine to his victories, a place where he has people bow and bleed in his name.

  When we reach the sky bridge, King Fernando’s guards spill onto the opposite end. My body aches from days of motion. Weeks of heartache. Years of clinging to a life I haven’t always wanted. Still I fight, slashing and punching my way to the fate I have chosen. Cutting through the waves of King Fernando’s soldiers is like trying to swim upstream, but we reach the other side, where light shines from the open doors ahead, and I steel myself to step inside.

  King Fernando sits on his throne made of alman stone, leaning on one armrest. He’s dressed in his preferred black silks, and knowing what I know, I wonder if a part of him has never stopped mourning. He leans forward, his eyes tracing the armor I wear. Does he recognize it? Can he? The spell lasts for a moment, and then he lets loose the low rumbling laugh of a victor.

  Spread around the dais are Whispers who chose to follow Cebrián. I recognize Javi, the beginnings of silver veins tracing at the corners of his eyes. Olivia, a Persuári who could scale up any tree or building as if born for the task. Enriqua, a Ventári who always managed to stretch food for days when our stores were down to scraps. More and more of them stand as if they’re petrified in place.

  “What did you do to them?” I ask.

  King Fernando’s black eyes come alive at my questions. “I have improved my Hand of Moria. I was missing a Robári, Renata, but here you are returning to a place you claim to loathe. And you’ve returned my son to me.”

  Cas and Dez exchange a fierce glance, and then the elder prince of Puerto Leones approaches his father. “She brought back both of your sons. Father, allow me to introduce Andrés, prince of Sól Abene, commander of the Whispers Rebellion, and second in line for the throne of Puerto Leones.”

  Dez cocks a smile, drinking in his father’s quiet rage. “I prefer Dez de Martín. We rebels like to be brief as we are constantly on the run.”

  “Brief isn’t how I’d describe you,” I say.

  Now it’s our turn to laugh at the king.

  Fernando is rendered speechless. He stands, stepping as close as he can, but careful to remain far enough that neither of his sons’ swords can strike. As the king takes in Dez’s features, there’s a brief moment where he might recognize himself in the shape of his eyes, the set of his lips. But then it’s gone—there is no light in him, no relief that the son he’d believed dead as an infant is standing before him.

  “How?” he asks.

  “It appears my mother thought it best I was raised far away from you,” Dez says. I glimpse at Castian, but his features do not betray emotion.

  Fernando’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’d suspected your mother of being sympathetic to the Moria plight, sending food and aid to rebellions. I blamed it on her weak heart. I had no idea that she’d given me not one but two monstrous sons. Sometimes I regret killing her. But you have freed my conscience.”

  “What did you say?” Castian breathes hard and fast, taking predatory steps toward the throne.

  “I poisoned her,” Fernando confesses, the way someone might say, “I ate supper” or “I went to market.”

  Fernando stands, places his hands on Javi’s shoulders. The boy doesn’t even flinch. He’s a boy made of stone, a weapon. “I needed to secure the Fajardo name with new heirs. The people loved her, and I feared that if I had her committed or her family suspected my involvement, there would be an uproar. Instead, I poisoned her drink myself, every day, little by little. To the court she was simply a drunk, a queen gone mad with sorrow. Pity, such beauty gone to waste.”

  I remember the last memory of Castian’s mother—on the grass of her garden, red, swollen eyes like she’d run out of tears. Poisoned.

  “Puerto Leones continues to owe you a great debt, Renata,” Fernando says coolly, but I see how he trembles. “I have spent decades attempting to harness and tame the power of Moria, but I was never able to re-create the events that led to Cebrián. I suppose I should thank you for your service to the kingdom.”

  “I am going to kill you,” Castian threatens, and I believe him.

  “No, my son.” The king eyes Dez. “My sons. You are going to become my weapons. You along with every Moria on this continent.”

&nbs
p; I think of the Whispers standing, waiting for Fernando’s command, and Margo, Esteban, and Sayida, and all the Moria pirates down in the citadela fighting for our future. I take Castian’s and Dez’s hands in mine.

  I feel the connection of Dez’s Persuári magics, like the brush of a feather along my skin. I am certain he is sharing with me his certainty, his love. And I know that I have to go.

  “Do it!” Fernando commands.

  The living statues come alive. Their eyes are pools of starlight as they attack the king’s sons. I slip between them and climb onto the balcony, shielding my eyes against the light radiating from Cebrián. Hundreds and hundreds of threads ripple from his heart. Each one extends far and wide, connecting every Moria to him. When I look down, I see the faint thread at my own chest.

  “Isn’t it beautiful, Renata?” he asks. “I know you can feel the power of the Knife of Memory. It never truly leaves you. There is always part of you that hungers for that connection. It is—”

  “Like hearing the voice of the goddess,” I finish. Because he’s right. I have felt the voice of the power I gave up. Different voices call to me now—Castian shouting his brother’s name, my friends in the city below. I used to think that if I destroyed the Gray, I’d have room for my own thoughts. Now I know that the strongest voices are sometimes the people we love.

  You’re vengeance in the night.

  This is not your fault. This was done to you.

  The world has never deserved you.

  Where is my Nati?

  I am left with only two options. To sever Cebrián’s connection with the dagger I must either convince him to relinquish it willingly or kill him. I am tired of bloodshed.

  “Cebrián, hear me,” I say. He turns slowly and tilts his head to the side, fists clutching the glowing Knife of Memory against his chest. His liquid-silver irises hone in on mine. “Remember that day in Soledad? Remember how desperately you wanted to leave that place? You escaped, so why did you return to him?”

  Cebrián casts his eyes to the perfect cloudless blue sky that has no idea the world below is burning. “He is all I have ever had. I have no family. I have no one. I have a single memory, one I relive, and that is my own rebirth as what I am.”