I wonder if Castian recognizes me from the forest. The prince tilts his chin up. The day’s light bathes him so he appears to be glowing from within. The prince slays the Moria bestae. His eyes are brighter than when I saw him last, like crystal blue pools. For a moment, he looks serene.
Pain splinters under my eyelids, a memory trying to push its way forward from the Gray. Not now, I plead. Hatred snakes through me at the sight of him—his golden circlet bejeweled with fat rubies, dark as the blood splattered on his face.
I want to ruin his serenity. I want to ruin him.
“I will kill you,” I tell him, my voice as calm as the eye of a storm. I’m close enough to the dais that if I can break free, I could tackle him. The guard at my back squeezes my wrists in his rough hands.
But before I can try anything, there’s a blast on the other side of the square. A wave of terror resounds from everywhere at once, and I know I have to take this moment. I throw my elbow back into the guard’s gut, his grunt hot in my ear as he tries to pull me against him. His nervous sweat is slick against my rough palm, and I push my weight forward, slipping free like river trout. Holding out my hands, I steady myself on the ground, then kick back with all of my strength.
I don’t see where I hit him, but I feel my boot landing its mark. I throw my weight and cartwheel into a standing position at the edge of the executioner’s dais, the stained wooden boards at eye level.
Prince Castian is gone.
“No.” My breath hitches. “NO!”
At the bottom of my vision, there’s a dark tangle of hair.
I know I should look. I know I have to look. He deserves for me to look.
But I can’t.
My ears ring amid the screams and cathedral bells. Something sharp in my mind breaks open. The ghost of a voice whispers as my heart pounds in my chest and colors go bright, then fade into gray.
Hands, small and chubby, press against a window. The city is burning.
I wrench myself out of the Gray and train my eyes on Dez.
The strongest man I know, cut down. Blood drips from a severed neck. There’s the white of bone, blood vessels, a mass of tender insides that makes us mortal. Breakable. No matter who we are we are breakable.
I reach. I reach for the tangle of wet black curls.
Something inside me snaps in two, like I’ve been splintered down the center. My fingers graze a single errant thread in the air, and then I drop my hands. I grab hold of the wooden platform because I can’t stand on my own anymore. My hands come away wet and sticky. My screams scrape across my throat like jagged nails.
Strong arms wrap around me, but this time, they don’t belong to the guard.
“I’ve got you,” Sayida says, breathless. “We need to leave, now.”
“No,” I say, helplessly. Lost. Adrift. “I have to kill Castian. I have to—”
“Shhh,” Sayida says urgently. “You’re going to get us killed instead.”
She tugs on me, and I struggle against her, but she’s stronger than she looks. Or perhaps I’m tired of fighting. I can’t do it anymore. My screams dry up, but my throat burns.
We move quickly, hiding in alleys and turning onto narrow streets. She half carries me, half drags me into a building that smells of firewood and fish.
The Gray blurs my sight, billowing like storm clouds.
A little girl points at the sky. There is a shower of stars. Someone picks her up and brings a kiss to her cheek.
The image is sucked back into the Gray and replaced with another.
Small fingers pick at a tray of chocolates decorated with sugar pearls.
“Ren! You have to snap out of it. I can’t—I can’t carry you the whole way.” Sayida’s dark-lined eyes run with her sweat and tears.
I slam my fist into the nearest wall, and the pain that splinters across my knuckles helps me focus. Helps me out of the Gray.
Sayida directs me down a flight of stairs into a small windowless room and locks the door behind her.
Crates of potatoes and jars of olives and pickled fish line the walls. Sayida pushes a rack containing nothing but sacks of flour to reveal another door. A hidden room.
“Where are we?” I ask, and realize I’m shaking.
Margo’s lying on a pile of rice bags, a cloth over her eyes. Esteban sits on the stone floor, his head resting against a brick wall, turning only when he realizes we have returned.
“Ren?” He hurries over to me. “Are you all right?”
At least, that’s what I think he’s saying. His lips move and his voice is an echo that’s already fading.
Fingers snap in front of my eyes.
Suddenly, Sayida wraps her hands around my shoulders, gentle as a caress. Her fingers spread out around the curves of my sweat-drenched back. Her magics flood my body, like a cooling balm on a sunburn.
Dez sits under a tree in San Cristóbal. He cuts the skin of a bright red apple with a pocketknife. There is something about the way he smiles at me—
Dez returns from a solo mission. Before he goes to report back to his father, he finds me in my small chamber. “I brought you something.” He pulls out a box of sweets—
Dez searches for me in the dark and pulls me close. Closer still. “Stay a little longer, Ren.”
“No more,” I beg Sayida. The emotion she’s pulling gathers at the base of my throat. I want to name it, but I can’t. With her power she’s found my memories. I don’t want them. “Please.”
Sayida sits back, rubbing her hands against her trousers. “I’m sorry. I wanted you to find your happiness.”
I turn my face toward her. She’s blurry, as though I’m staring at her through the thin veil of a funeral shroud.
I slowly sink down onto a rolled-out cot on the floor. It hurts to swallow the metallic taste on my tongue. “Even I didn’t know that’s what you’d find.”
When I wake, I snap up and reach for my sword.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Margo asks, standing with her hands on her hips. I can’t meet her red-ringed, swollen eyes for long because they mirror my own.
All three of them are in similar borrowed clothes. Plain loose trousers and white tunics like cantina servers. There’s a bundle at my feet.
“Where are we?”
“My nan’s boardinghouse,” Esteban says.
“You have a grandmother?” He’d said he had family, but I thought that meant a distant cousin. So many of us have lost everyone that the word grandmother sounds strange to say. I never even met mine. I try to picture Esteban having someone to care for him, and a want springs forth that I didn’t even know I had. “I thought you were from Crescenti.”
“My family left after the King’s Wrath,” Esteban says, biting at his already raw cuticles. “I went to the Whispers and Nan came here to help the elders. She’s one of the Olvidados,” he says. There’s the shadow of bruises on his brown skin. One on his cheek and a couple on his forearm, as if someone grabbed him and wouldn’t let go.
“The forgotten ones?” I remember stories about the Olvidados. They were people born to Moria families, but their magics never surfaced. Centuries ago, in the kingdom of Memoria, the old priests and priestesses named them Olvidados—forgotten by the Lady of Shadows.
“My nan’s family didn’t shun her for not having magics,” Esteban explained. “In Citadela Crescenti, Moria born is Moria no matter what, as long as we keep the Lady of Shadows in our hearts. We were separated after the King’s Wrath, but she found Illan and offered to be his eyes and ears in the capital. One of them, at least.”
Margo nods solemnly. “We do not betray the identity of our spies. But—”
Her voice quivers, and she doesn’t have to finish, to say, But under the circumstances. But Dez is dead.
“We shouldn’t be here,” I say.
“She brought us fresh clothes and food for the night. There’s water to clean up,” Sayida says carefully, like she’s trying to keep a wild animal calm.
T
he ceiling creaks beneath the feet of boarders, but the silence in the streets carries its own weight. I need to get out of these moss-covered walls. I need to find him.
“Eat,” Esteban says roughly. He won’t look into my eyes. “Nan was kind enough to bring us dinner. Don’t let it go to waste.”
“I am grateful for that,” I say, sounding like I gargled with sand.
“You aren’t acting that way,” he says.
“I just watched our leader get beheaded,” I snap. “Forgive me if I can’t stomach food just yet, Esteban.”
Margo kicks a sack of rice beside her. “Stop acting like you’re the only one who cared for Dez.”
Sayida steps to the center of the musty room. Her soft black waves are loose, and out of all of us she’s the most calm. What must it be like to be in control of your emotions that way? Can her Persuári magics drown out her sorrow? Could she do that for me? Take my emotions the way I take memories?
“We are all hurting,” she says. “We will all deal with this in different ways. Shouting at each other isn’t going to be one of them. He wouldn’t want that.”
I stare at the cold ground between my feet. I let my heart slow down, the vines tighten around it. I know that I’m the only one who can move forward from here. I know that none of them understand, not even Sayida. Dez was all I had, and I killed him.
“We can’t stay here,” I say as I lace up my boots. I ache from my fingertips to my toes. I ache so much that if I stop moving I might not get back up.
“We can’t return to Ángeles yet. There are sweeps all over the city,” Margo says, anger shrouding her words.
“I’m not going back there. I’m going to the palace. I’m going to kill the prince.”
“We barely got out of there alive.” Margo steps to me like a challenge. “They’re looking for us, even now. They know Whispers were there for Dez.”
I laugh, a cruel sound. “We weren’t there for Dez. We—I failed. Dez is dead.”
The three of them trade glances seeped with the same guilt I feel.
“You’re hurting,” Sayida says softly. “But now is not the time to act without thinking. We give it some time. Head back to Ángeles.”
“Illan told us not to come back.”
“He will forgive us,” Sayida says. “I’m sure of it. We can make it to the ship heading to Empirio Luzou. It’ll be safer on the coast with the guards concentrated in the capital. We’ll endure Illan’s punishment.”
“And let Dez’s death go unpunished?” I demand. Standing, I wince as a dozen new bruises make themselves known.
“The Whispers need us.”
“For what? It’s over.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Margo asks. “Is this what Dez would want? This version of Renata Convida? The rebellion doesn’t die with him.”
“All the more reason to stay,” I practically shout. I do know what he wanted. Dez always walked around with his heart for the world to see. “To complete his mission.”
“It was Illan’s decision.” Sayida tries to comfort me. “He gave the order.”
But her words are far, far from comforting. Dez didn’t die because I wasn’t fast enough. He died because I stole the key to his freedom.
I cannot return to the Moria. I don’t belong with them. As a child, I wanted to please my palace captors. I caused the deaths of hundreds, thousands, and turned hundreds more into Hollows. But I didn’t belong in the palace either. I don’t belong anywhere.
Deep in my heart I know there’s one thing I can do to make things right. I can make sure that Dez’s murder was not in vain. Somehow, I have to get into the palace and finish what he started.
“We can’t even bury him,” I say. The end of my words gets caught in my chest and I take deep breaths to steady myself. Behind my closed eyelids I can see my fingers reach for a strand of black hair. The hesitation. I couldn’t even bring myself to touch him because I’m a coward.
The other three don’t say anything. They just stare back at me, pity in their eyes. Except for Margo, who seems to look at me with disdain.
“We’re mourning him, too,” she says, her eyes sharp as sapphires in this light.
Trying to ignore them, I pour myself a glass of water from a metal pitcher in the corner. My body craves food, but I can’t bring myself to take a piece of bread.
“Two days’ time,” Esteban says. His eyes sweep the small hidden room. “That’s how long Nan can give us. Then we head back to Ángeles.”
We’re supposed to be a unit, but we aren’t. We’re a bunch of broken pieces trying to fit with one another because we don’t belong anywhere else. That isn’t a reason to stay together.
“Be safe on your journey,” I say, finally. “Trust no one, not even our allies. Make straight for Ángeles.”
Sayida frowns. “You’re really not coming with us?”
I shake my head. This is my burden, and I can only carry it alone. If we go in a group, Justice Méndez will suspect something is wrong. A plan moves in my head, stacking and restacking what needs to happen in order to be in the right place at the right time. Justice Méndez is my way to the weapon and to Castian. But Sayida won’t give up on me, so I must give her a reason to.
“You can’t think I’d be welcomed back with open arms? After all I’ve done? You’ve said it yourself, Margo, Esteban—I should never have been on this mission. I should have stayed rummaging through the garbage where I belong.”
Margo makes an ugly scowl I didn’t think was possible. “I shouldn’t have said those words to you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s done.” I practically spit out the words. “Even you three can barely stand me on a good day. And now this is all my fault—”
“It’s not—” Sayida tries to protest again.
“Don’t say things you don’t know,” I respond shortly, ignoring the wounded expression that flashes across her face. I look deep into her eyes, daring her not to look away. “Without Dez, there’s no reason for me to stay with you.”
“You don’t mean that,” Sayida says.
Margo crosses her arms over her chest, long wheat curls tumbling down her back. “Of course she does.”
“Very well,” Esteban says. “You’d be a burden to shoulder with your weak, simpering whining.”
I clench the sword hilt in my hand and take a hard step in his direction, when there’s a knock on the door.
The four of us jump, tensing into fighting stances. A tall, broad-shouldered woman peeks her head through the crack. Her hair is covered with a scarf, flour dusted on her black skin.
“Nan?” Esteban steps forward, his face slack with relief.
“There’s a patrol making their rounds up the alley.” She speaks quickly, wringing her hands. “They’re arresting everyone and anyone who has so much as a hair out of place.”
“You have to go,” I tell the others. “Now before it’s too late. You can’t risk being taken.”
Sayida grips my shoulders. “Please don’t do this, Ren.”
I feel a cold shock in my mind, the sensation of being watched. “Get out of my head, Esteban!”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” he mutters. “Everyone is thinking so loudly.”
“What are you planning, Ren?”
“She’s going to get herself killed,” Esteban answers. “You can’t seriously think of returning to the palace alone. They’ll be waiting for a counterattack.”
“If I don’t, they will move the weapon,” I say.
“You don’t know that,” Margo snaps. “We have to think. We have to plan.”
“By all means,” I say. “Make your own plans. I know how Méndez’s mind works. After all, I was one of them.”
They avert their eyes. Are they embarrassed that I’ve said what they must be thinking?
“Very well. Imagine you find the weapon,” Margo says, exasperated. “How will you get out?”
“She doesn’t plan to,” Sayida says.
I hate putting that h
urt in her voice, but it’s easier this way. If I go back, Illan will read the truth of what I did. He’ll see that I destroyed Dez’s only escape. They’d be right in blaming me. To try me for a crime against our own. This way, if I stay, my death will have a purpose. “Esteban is right. I’d be a burden. This is the only way I can help the Whispers. Go, now.”
“The girl is right,” Nan says, anxiously twisting her apron into a rope. “The Second Sweep will be here in moments. My boy—” She reaches for Esteban’s cheek, the gesture so tender that I have to look away. Did my mother ever hold me that way? Surely she did, but—
“Ren,” Sayida says.
“This is your best chance,” I say. “Take it.”
There’s silence, except for the faint trickle of water from a leak in the corner. Then finally, Sayida nods. Without speaking, they shuffle toward the hidden door, their weapons clinking gently as they stoop to exit. I stare at the low beams of the ceiling, holding back my tears.
There’s a small thud as the door closes behind them, then quiet again. It’s a silence so long that my chest tightens. I feel their absence in ways I will never admit aloud.
“They’re gone,” Nan says upon her return, her voice like a splash of cold water. Sayida and Margo called her Lydia.
“We must move quickly,” I say, and I walk out of the hidden room and into the storage area. There’s a coil of rope hanging on the wall, and I grab it. “You must tie me up. Tell the guards that you found me stealing from your stores.”
Lydia sets her brown eyes on me, the deep lines of someone who once loved to laugh crinkling her face even without a smile. Now her features are like stone as her gaze moves to the rope in my hand.
“My boy told me about Dez,” she says softly. “There’s another way for you. I know what it’s like to lose your love, but you don’t have to lose yourself along the way.”
I want to tell her that I didn’t lose him, that she knows nothing about me, but even in my grief, I won’t talk back. She’s sheltered and fed us and showed me kindness even though she didn’t have to. For a moment, when I watch her, I think of the grandparents I never met. Would they risk everything for me like this, knowing the powers I wield? Are they still alive somewhere?
Incendiary Series, Book 1 Page 13