I creep forward and let him touch my temples. His magics burn along my skin, a pressure that builds all the way to the front of my mind. Like someone walking in your skin. Then he lets go with a start.
“You’re a Whisper,” he says, fingers trembling. “We all end up here. All of us.”
“I’m not a Whisper,” I say. “Not anymore.”
He rubs his hands together, trying to keep warm. The tunic he wears is more dirt than cloth, torn at the seams and thin as old parchment. Sun spots mark his pale slender arms. I wonder who he was before he was relegated to this prison.
I take off my jacket and place it over his shoulders. A strange numbness travels across the inside of my mind.
“Renata,” he says, turning his face to the sound of my voice. “I’ve heard of you. Even before I saw your thoughts.”
A cold current runs down my body. I’ve been gone from the palace for eight years. Surely he hasn’t been down here as long as that?
“Who are you?” I ask. “How do you know of me?”
“I worked in the palace before the plague,” he says. A coughing fit racks his frame. He rests a hand on his chest. I watch it rise and fall with what seems like great effort before he can speak again.
“I didn’t know there were Moria in the king’s employ,” I say. This place has a way of twisting minds.
He smiles with black-and-green–stained teeth. “We were on his council once. Before the creation of the Arm of Justice. Back then, Puerto Leones was at war with Empirio Luzou. It was not a war supported by the people. Even those closest to the king could not intervene.”
I have a vague memory of one of the elders saying Luzou has always been the Moria’s greatest ally. But where were they when Riomar fell? I think back to my lessons on Leonesse history.
“The only thing that stopped the fighting was the outbreak of the plague,” I say.
“At least they’ve taught you that.” He sucks in a breath that sounds painful.
“You didn’t leave?”
He shakes his head. “I could not. King Fernando kept me as the Memoria ambassador. I sent the Whispers messages. Up until I was discovered and captured two years ago.” The old man gives a wheezing cough.
“Are you the Magpie?” I ask, thinking of the person who alerted Illan that there was a weapon in existence.
“No.” His voice is gruff. “Illan’s informant is unknown even to me.”
“What did they do to you?”
“I was in Soledad prison for a time.” His bony fingers hover over his shoulder. “When I wouldn’t tell Fernando how to find safe passage through the mountains, I was brought back here. A guard ripped my mark for the Mother of All. Sliced off the skin and then kept digging with his dirty fingers.”
I think of the crescent moon and arc of ten-pointed stars that create the mark of the Mother of All. Elders carry that symbol on their skin when they achieve the highest rank in the Moria orders. I remember Illan’s hopeful face in the tent before he told me Dez’s plan. Does he know that this man is still down here?
Gripping his hand, I ask, “What does Our Lady call you?”
A smile breaks across his wrinkled face and when he blinks, tears fall. “Our Lady hasn’t called me anything for quite some time. But once—I was known as Lozar.”
He turns his face to the side and coughs up mucus and blood.
I’m angry. I am angry at Illan and the Whispers for never telling us of this man. I’m angry at Dez for scheming behind my back while asking me to trust him. I’m angry at the skies, the earth, the sun. I’m angry at existence and this tide for swelling beyond my control.
“It’s all right, Renata.” Lozar’s voice interrupts my rage. I recognize that sensation inside my head. He’s seeing into my thoughts—even in this state his power is strong. I wonder—is that what’s keeping him alive despite the cruelty he’s experienced?
“Was it worth it?” I don’t know what makes me ask this. “You’ve been left here by the Whispers, by Illan—”
“I knew what it would mean to be a spy and remain at court,” Lozar says calmly. “And I’d give my next life to the cause just as readily. As I told the other boy, that time is soon. Now.”
He pulls down the tattered collar of his shirt and reveals a terrible gash. I’ve never seen a cut like that. Even for the justice, this kind of torture is vicious.
“You’re in solitary. What other boy?” I ask.
“They don’t see me when they open the doors. They’ve forgotten I’m here a month now. It is solitary to them.” A buzzing sensation blankets the inside of my head. “The boy you’ve come to avenge. He was here. And then he was taken. Andrés.”
I let go of Lozar and clutch my stomach. I press my hands to the floor and let a cold wave of dread fill me. Dez was here. Of course. They would have shoved him in one of the high-security cells. Of course, I am where he was, but too late.
I get up and run to the door. If I slip my hands through the rectangular slot, I could reach the lock. Would they have had time to change the code in all the commotion? “I can get you out of here.”
Lozar wheezes out a laugh. How can he laugh at a time like this? “I couldn’t find my way through the tunnels, let alone make it to a safe house.”
I breathe hard. I can’t let him die. He’s lived through too much and suffered for too long to let this be it. But if I leave, I’ll lose my best chance at reinstating myself with Justice Méndez. I’ll lose my revenge. My eyes burn, and I blink back the hot tears that threaten to spill.
“I can get you out of here and take you to the Whispers.”
“I am slipping away, Renata.” Lozar coughs for a long time. “He wanted to help me, too.”
I would do anything to hear Dez’s voice again.
Without speaking, Lozar squeezes my left hand, free of cuts and blood, and presses it to his temple, the glow from my scarred fingertips illuminating his pale, weathered face. When someone gives a memory willingly, the magics buzz through my veins, images are easy to find, like low-hanging fruit, ripe and waiting to be plucked.
Black as the longest night.
The click of the locks reverberate in the damp cell. Feet shuffle in the corridor. They are bringing another prisoner. Lozar searches for the far end of the wall and makes himself small. He’s lived his adult life invisible to others.
The door creaks open, the wrenching of metal drowned out by guttural cries and fists hitting flesh. Bodies slap against stone walls. From his corner he has full view of the door, his vision cloudy as warped glass. Two men, one a prisoner in chains, one a guard obscured in shadow.
“You don’t have the right!” the prisoner shouts. His voice is hoarse, as if he’s been screaming all day.
The prisoner grabs the soldier by the collar. Lozar wonders if anyone knows he is still down here.
He flinches as the prisoner is knocked to the ground with a knee to his stomach.
“I have every right,” his captor spits back. Faint flickers of torchlight illuminate a small wooden box in his hands. “I have to do what no one else will.”
Lozar stares at the wooden box, transfixed by the gold etchings across the surface. He knows what’s in there. Knows how valuable it is.
“Liar.” The prisoner rises to his knees, his mouth pulled back to show his teeth. “You’re a monster. Get that away from me.”
“You’ll see the light soon enough,” the other man says, then slams the door shut.
The boy rushes it, pounding his fists as if he imagines it is his captor instead. His exhaustion renders him weak and weary near Lozar’s feet. His body shudders with every breath. A copper cuff around his wrist. He mutters his rage.
“What does Our Lady call you?” Lozar asks.
The boy’s face snaps up at the sound of a voice. But his surprise disappears when Lozar comes closer.
“Andrés,” the boy says. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get out of here.”
I wrench my fingers from his temples, break
ing the connection that’s burning new lines of magic across the top of my hands. This is the hardest memory to break free from. Being able to hear Dez once more leaves me shaking. We’re going to get out of here.
“Dez,” I say, sinking back into the sorrow I felt when I first came to, after the execution.
“Dez?” A momentary confusion crosses Lozar’s face as he reaches for his memory where Dez’s name used to be and is now empty. “Is that the boy’s name?”
“Was,” I say softly.
You’ll see the light soon enough, the prince told Dez. That was Castian shoving Dez into the cell in Lozar’s memory. That was him holding the small wooden box that made even Dez flinch, and that was his voice, leaving Dez to his death. Even if I couldn’t see his face well, I know it like I know the hate carved into my own heart. I heard his voice in Esmeraldas. In Dez’s memory of Riomar. Castian was in Celeste’s home. No one can know I was here, he said then. I didn’t understand why Castian would care if he was seen. Then I think of what I saw in the alman stone: Lucia with her blank eyes and strange glowing veins, her lifeless husk of a body, still moving even though her magics had been carved out. Castian wanted to break Dez. He taunted Dez with the weapon before the execution. When will he use it next?
I gave the prince everything he wanted.
I slam my fist into the door.
I feel the pain like nails driving into my arm. Blood runs down my fingers. I stare out the window on the door and watch the flame of the torch crackle. I have to get out of here.
Days ago, I wanted to climb my way up the ranks of the Whispers. I wanted to help get Moria to safe lands while we fought a silent war here. Today, I want to kill Prince Castian, need to kill Prince Castian. I want to see my face reflected in those sadistic blue eyes. Catch him by surprise. Match his violence with my own.
“You can’t do that. Not yet,” Lozar wheezes.
“What?” That sensation is back—one of a buzzing gliding along the inside of my head. I’ve been so consumed in my thoughts, I didn’t realize Lozar was observing them, too.
“You cannot kill the prince—not—” He struggles to speak over my protest, holds a finger in the air. “Not until you uncover where the weapon is kept.”
I pace around the cramped cell. Castian would never tell me willingly. I’d have to rip every memory from his mind until I uncovered his secrets.
“How often do the guards check on you?”
“Before they forgot I was in here?” Lozar asks weakly. “Once every week, maybe longer.”
I don’t have a week. If I break out now, I’ll be outnumbered by the guards before I find Castian. If I stay here until my so-called trial, he could move the weapon before I get to it.
“You know what you must do,” Lozar says. “Stay for more than your vengeance.”
I think of Esteban and Margo. They never trusted me. They never wanted me in their unit. They didn’t believe I was part of the cause. When you’re alone for so long you forget how to depend on others, how to have others depend on you. I don’t know how to be more than myself. The moment I found Celeste dead, I knew things would be different, but I didn’t think it’d be so soon. Dez was my hope. The Whispers’. His father’s, too.
Stay for more.
How can I do more with a power that is only meant to take? Perhaps for the first time, my power is the only thing I can count on to see me through.
We’re silent for a long time, Lozar’s breath so labored I fear he’s going to die before he can get the words out. He says with a small gasp of realization, “You are one of the stolen Moria children.”
“I was.”
“With this weapon—what’s to stop the king and the justice from repeating their sins?”
“That’s why I came here,” I say.
“But your resolve is weakening because of your thirst for vengeance.”
He coughs, blood dribbling down his chin from the corner of his mouth. “He named you, Renata. When he could not escape, he still remembered your name. You must stay for more.”
I shut my eyes against the sting of tears, swallow my guilt. I take a deep breath to steady myself. His words anchor me, and it’s like wading out of the thick fog of my anger.
“I can help you,” Lozar tells me.
When I close my eyes, I visualize my fingers pressed against Prince Castian’s temples. I can see the light of his life extinguished. I see myself retrieving the wooden box and destroying the wretched cure within. I will savor that moment, my last, and give the Whispers a way to keep fighting.
“How?”
Lozar doubles over, nearly coughing up his lung. He’s going to die in this cell, and no one is going to notice. A desperate swell of tears rushes to my eyes. I wipe them away and grab hold of the bars in the narrow window.
“Mercy.”
Slowly, I turn at the word. Watch as he hacks up more fluid. His eyes turn to the sound of my breathing. His extended hand trembles, shaking the rest of him. I force myself not to look away.
Mercy.
“You can’t ask me to do that.” I do not know this man well, but I am sure as the sky is blue that I cannot take his life.
“They have forgotten me. What if they take me when they come for you? The justice loves the sound of screams. They’ll use the weapon. Mercy, Renata.”
My skin feels like thousands of spiders are hatching beneath it. My lungs are tight, straining to breathe through the smell of rot and disease spreading on his chest.
Mercy.
It is a lovely thing to call murder.
As much as I want to turn away, to call for guards, I know that if they come they won’t lift a finger to help Lozar. The justice has dozens of ways to keep a body alive in order to inflict pain. I cannot save this man. But I can’t deny him this.
Mercy for Lozar. I’ll use up whatever mercy I have so that I won’t have any left for the prince or myself. My arms shake, my legs give beneath me.
“You must do something for me first,” I say.
The cell feels darker somehow. He touches my hand, and I feel him in my thoughts again. “You need the justice to trust you. This is a start.”
“I must prevent Justice Méndez from being able to use my power. I will show you mercy, if you will do this for me.”
Lozar nods. “I have no strength left. But Dez. He dropped a weapon here. He couldn’t find it before they took him.”
I crawl to the corner where Lozar was when I first noticed him. When I pat the ground for what feels like forever, something pricks me. I wrap my hand around a small dagger. Even before I bring it to the center of the room where there is the faintest light, I know it is the knife Dez carried in his boot. The handle is a rough wood, nothing ornate. But it’s the first knife he ever made. Even if he’d found it, what could it have done against all those guards?
“There might be another way,” I say.
“There is nothing left of me, Renata. Do not suffer my fate.”
I wrap my arms around his body.
His heartbeat murmurs against my skin. He lets go of a sigh, relaxing into my hold. When I first got to the Whispers stronghold in Ángeles, I was too angry to be around the other children, and so I worked in the kitchen. It was Dez who taught me to hunt wild game—rabbits, turkeys, deer. It was the cook who taught me how to snap their necks. At the end of the day, we are as frail as our prey.
I hear a rattle down the corridor, another sharp breeze, and I know the guards would rather leave this man to wither away than to show mercy.
Mercy.
It was Dez who taught me the Whispers’ songs. He and Sayida and I would hum as we returned from a hunt after days, shoulder to shoulder in the tall grass hills of the Memoria Mountains.
And so I hum to Lozar, whose fate is forever linked to mine in a way that I didn’t expect to find down here. He sings along, a hoarse sound, a rebel’s final yell.
“Mercy,” I whisper.
There’s the crunch of his bones. I remember the firs
t time I snapped a hare’s neck in my hands.
A dull pain seizes my heart and holds on until I’m singing alone, and the only heartbeat I hear is my own.
I don’t notice the people that have gathered at the cell door until I hear the sharp clicks of the cylinder keys falling into place. A voice I have not heard in a long time calls my name.
I drop the man in my arms, and Lozar’s body slumps into a corner. I make a silent promise. No one will bury you, but I will remember you as long as my memories are my own.
“What in the Father’s name?” The sergeant stomps in, splashing through the filthy puddles. Torchlight floods the dark cell. His bewildered stare takes in the dead man in the center of the room.
I must be a sight to behold. My left hand is a bloodied mess. Moments after Lozar passed, I grabbed the boot knife and stabbed it through my hand. One of the elders, a medicura who once taught in the university, showed us where in the human body to strike to kill swiftly. Where to make it bleed the most. Where to injure but not cause permanent damage. After all, we were not the monsters.
The guard picks up Lozar’s limp hand. The dagger I placed there falls with a light ping. It is the same older guard with the pox scars on his face who walked me down here. He snatches me up by my shirt and shakes me. Pain splinters from my palm and from the sudden jolt of my neck. Blood trickles down my chest where one of the stitches must have come undone.
“Stand down, you fool!” the familiar voice says.
Justice Méndez sweeps into the cell with Gabo at his heels. The justice’s fine leather shoes slosh through the muck covering the ground. He was never afraid to get dirty. At the sight of him my heart revolts against itself. His gray eyes take in Lozar’s body, the knife, then the mess of me. His hand is extended, as if he can create a wall between me and the officer. Then he seems to remember himself, his elegant features turning to stone.
Incendiary Series, Book 1 Page 15