Incendiary (Hollow Crown)

by Zoraida Cordova

  I linger in the sky bridge that leads to my apartments. Bursts of laughter come from the gardens and streets on either side of the bridge. A memory tugs at me, one of my own. If I close my eyes, I can recall running through the woods beside Dez and Sayida. The pair of them teaching me how to be swift and quiet all at once. But everything about me has always been loud, the sound of my heart, the weight in my tread, even the cry I always seem to be holding back.

  A washed-out vision of Castian kissing the inside of Nuria’s wrist follows. I punch the tiled pillar to snap out of the memory and regret it instantly. One of the scabs on my knuckles cracks and bleeds. I stare at my injured hand. Come tomorrow I will have no choice but to make a Hollow.

  Run, I tell myself. There is no justice. No prince. The king and queen are preoccupied with their sacred festival that celebrates the defeat of my goddess.

  Soft words that hurt like a deep bruise reverberate through me. Stay for more.

  I have to finish this. I have to.

  I turn and run the rest of the way to my rooms. There’s one guard on duty, and he’s slumped on the floor. I crouch down to better look at his face.

  Hector.

  There are hundreds of Hectors in the kingdom. But the odds that the General Hector in Nuria’s memory is this same one seems plausible. He’d be about the right age. The lavanderas said he fought at Riomar. But how did he go from a general to a patrol guard?

  He smells strongly of aguadulce. A black-gloved left hand rests over his lower abdomen. Like me, his other hand is free. But there’s something stiff about the way his fingers rest there.

  Then his shoulders twitch and the muscles in his thigh spasm. He moans in his sleep, followed by a whimper. So many of the Whispers sleep like this, tormented by horrid memories of the past. Dez did.

  “You’re dreaming,” I whisper. I grip the guard by the shoulder and give him a shake.

  He does not wake. He slaps my hand away, then trembles. Shouting words I can’t understand. He’s crying out for help. Hector’s olive skin flushes red as he struggles to breathe. I try to shake him again, but his hand clamps around my wrist. I gasp as he throws me to the side. I land on my shoulder, and Hector lies on his back.

  I’m overpowered by the guilt of watching him suffer, knowing firsthand just how painful nightmares can be. Now I wonder if this might be the reason he was demoted to a palace guard, if he is the same General Hector.

  Two things occur to me. I need this man’s memories of Castian. But the last time I stole a memory from a nightmare, I got Dez killed. Jacinta was fine because as horribly as Castian treated her, it wasn’t a nightmare for her, though perhaps her infatuation with the prince would increase. I tell myself that Hector is only a palace guard. That I can help him while getting the information I need. That feels wrong even thinking it, but I can’t afford to let this opportunity slip by me.

  My hand trembles as I place my fingers on his temple, heart racing because when I touch him, I see Dez. I push my love’s face aside and dive rapidly into the guard’s mind.

  Hector calls her the melancholy queen, Queen Penelope, though he’d truly like to call her the beautiful queen with her hair of gold and sea-bright eyes. It was his first time in the palace, in the great capital city, Andalucía. How a farm boy was recruited into the queen’s guard is beyond him. The king and his new justice have made great efforts to help the people of Puerto Leones better their stations in life, and for that he is grateful. The wages will help his parents in Citadela Salinas, where work is nowhere to be found. He is going to be the very best, maybe one day rise to the top of the queen’s ranks.

  She has the most beautiful voice. Sweet as the ebb and flow of a calm ocean, soft and pleasant. Her words stick in his head, even when she is not around. Golden star, golden star, take the love within my heart.

  When she sings to her boys he thinks that is what it feels like to be loved. The melancholy queen doesn’t go anywhere without her boys, though the older prince is usually impatient, slapping at the world like a wild thing and shouting at the top of his lungs. But when she sings, he quiets down. He listens. He sleeps.

  Even princes listen to the song of their mothers.

  A comforting memory at the forefront of a mind often obscures the one causing the nightmares. Curious that he still thinks of the dead queen after all these years. I move my fingers along his sweating skin and brace for the sting of more memories.

  A bloody battle. Men and women in the king’s army raze a village to the ground. Villagers run from their burning homes and into the forests. Whisper rebels fight back. Faces he doesn’t recognize. Sharp pain and then black. Screaming, thrashing, agonizing pain in a tent. A wound, bloody and bandaged where his hand used to be.

  Hector hisses, reliving the fresh pain. He thrashes so much it is difficult to hold on, but the images flood like rising water in a sealed room. I must regain control, or I will take too many memories. And he will become a Hollow.

  The melancholy queen has been dead a year, and the boy’s rage grows greater still. His body is different, even for a young man his age. All he does is eat and endure the grueling trials every king’s man and guard must pass, like he is carving himself until he is stone, unbreakable. But the boy’s heart is impatient. Hector admires the precision of his swordplay. Out of every boy pulled from farms and mills and wharves, he’d be the one to watch even if he wasn’t the crowned prince.

  Hector shouts an order. “Line up! Find your sparring mate and don’t show quarter. Don’t worry about bruises, fledglings. No one’s kissing your ugly mugs as it is.”

  It elicits bitter grumbles from the recruits. Too young. Every season the justice sends them younger to fight and die.

  Hector was like these kids. He watches them spar with each other in sets of two. His small batch of King Fernando’s vast army.

  A slim figure watches him from afar. Davida, so changed, with a just-healed scar across her face and delicate throat, carries a basket of apples at her hip. Her deep brown eyes always seem to catch when she looks at the prince. He sees them shining with tears and wonders if she remembers the murderous princeling as he was.

  She leaves bits of dried bread for the pesky black birds, hoping that will save the apples. He always admired her kindness. She is still as beautiful as the day he fell in love with her. Her touch always soothed him, like she was parting the dark thoughts from his life and making way for the sun. Of course, that was before he lost his hand to a raid. Before the prince had her punished. His rage at the prince resurfaces, blooms like a putrid sprout in his core. Everything he’s lost has been because of the Fajardos. And yet, he knows he cannot raise a hand to the boy. His future king.

  He can never hold Davida again either. Perhaps one day, they will heal enough to return to each other. One day . . .

  “Good day, Davida,” he calls out to her.

  She starts at the sound of his voice and presses her palm against her chin. Signs her wordless hello followed by his given name. Miguel. Only she calls him that. Only she can.

  Hector wishes he were smoother, softer, not a big stumbling oaf with one hand. Even now, the pain of his time in battle is a fresh wound. He’ll never outlive it. Almost like she can sense his anguish, she touches his forearm. Her fingers, though callused, are gentle. It is like being kissed by a cool breeze on a hot day. Is that love he still sees in her eyes? Because there is a swell of turmoil in his heart. It’s a hundred cords knotted into one. He wants to forget his station, forget his duty; he only wants to fall at her knees.

  And then the knot untangles. Comes undone like a loose spool in his hands. The fog of his anger parts. For the briefest moment, there is only Davida and him.

  Just as he is ready to say more to her, the princeling marches toward him, and Davida lets go. She tucks her head between her shoulders and runs away as quick as her feet can carry her. The absence of her is more than he can put into words, and when Castian stands before him, the anger that is a living thing in his he
art returns.

  “Hector! What is the meaning of this?”

  Hector steadies his breath. He might be Castian’s general, but Castian is still his liege. Murderer or not.

  “The meaning of what, Your Highness?”

  The boy throws his helmet on the ground, the blunt sword along with it. “This! You’ve assigned everyone else a sparring partner but me.”

  “I fail to see the problem, Your Highness?”

  “I am your best fighter.” His blue eyes are cold enough to give Hector a terrible shiver as he steps near. The eyes of a monster. Twisted and broken. And yet, Hector can’t help but think of his mother’s face and hear her soft song and think of how different things were. How different he was. “I’m honorary captain of the forces. Do you expect me to ride into Riomar untested?”

  Hector’s anger needles at him, and so he says, “Honorary captains do not see battle, Your Highness. How can I allow the king’s son to arrive at the council dinner with a black eye?”

  He expects the boy to yell. It would be easier to bear. Instead, his blue eyes are calculating as he stares back and says darkly, “When I retake Riomar, I will be the fiercest warrior of Puerto Leones. And when that day arrives, there will be nothing honorary about my title, do you understand?”

  Hector nods. He understands many things about the prince, who will always be a prince, and perhaps earn his title of Lord Commander. But to Hector, he will always be the boy who drowned his own brother.

  Hector gasps, awakening from his dream. He cradles his wooden hand as he stands, stepping away from me. I have so many questions I want to ask him. Does he know that Davida still attends the prince? I wonder if Hector found her the night of the half-moon celebration.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, shaking. “I found you on the floor.”

  “No,” he answers, a stare that sees through me. The guard’s fear of the boy, of Castian, lingers in my heart, and so I stay where I am, watching him breathe. “I do not believe I ever will be. I beg your pardon for my impropriety, miss.”

  He’s never spoken to me this softly or this long. Though the anger he felt settles on me like a blanket infested with ants, I want to tell him that I feel the same. That I understand feeling as if you’ll never be whole again. But we go back to being strangers, shadows sailing past each other in a dark that will swallow us both whole.

  I shut the door and lock it behind me. Hector’s memories fill my mind. There is so much hate and anger there. The only time it vanished was when he saw Davida. After all this time, he still loves her. The way she touched Hector tells me that she feels the same. At least she did, in that moment. How much time has to pass before love fades? Will I forget Dez in five years? Ten? Or will I be like Hector and dull my senses with drink and nurture my sorrow?

  My eyes feel too big, swollen. My heart seizes as if I’m having an attack. I go to the basin and splash water on my face. I jump into the bed and crawl under the covers with my head pulsing so much it feels like there’s a creature in there trying to break out. A memory slips from the Gray. It repeats over and over.

  A set of silver dice rolling across a wooden floor.

  Dez’s voice shouting, “Come on, we have to hurry!”

  But I never catch up.

  That’s not how our escape from the capital was supposed to go. We rode on horses. Does this mean I’m dreaming? I’m not supposed to dream, I think. But when I turn into a bird and take flight all the way to the San Cristóbal ruins, I know that something has gone wrong in my mind. Perhaps I’m finally breaking. Perhaps I’ve taken one memory too many.

  Then I realize what kind of bird I have turned into: a magpie. And I’m eating out of Davida’s palm.

  When I start awake, I know who Illan’s spy is.

  Chapter 20

  I tell Leo I’ll be down in the kitchens to make myself useful for the festival preparations. I’ve seen Davida a few times since the first day in the courtyard, helping the majordomas cook and feed the lavanderas. She’s been at the palace for decades. She’s watched Castian grow up. She’s got access to all the levels of the household, even the prince himself.

  In Hector’s memory, he and Castian were the only ones who noticed her. But there was something about her touch that was familiar. Hector had a respite from his rage. Not just because he saw Davida. I call the memory forward and sink into the calm he felt. I’ve felt that way before—when Sayida and Dez used their magics on me. It was like being able to come up for air while drowning.

  By the time I get down to the lower level, I am sure of myself. Who else but a Persuári living in the palace might have access to information worth smuggling to Illan? She was feeding black birds while she kept a watchful eye on Castian. My heart races like their wings. Wings that had single white feathers. Magpies. What better spy could Illan have asked for than someone like Davida?

  I find her in the empty kitchen, eating her meal alone in one of the storage closets atop crates of jars.

  “Davida?” I knock on the wooden door. The scent of baking bread fills the air.

  She glances up with pale brown eyes. Honey eyes. Dez. They are nearly the same shade as his, and I have to brace myself against the doorframe for balance. Remind myself of why I need her.

  “Do you remember me?” I ask.

  Davida nods and pats the seat beside her.

  “I’ve come to ask for your help.”

  Everything about her is gray. Her washed-out skin, her hair, her clothes. All except the red scar on her lips and the faded one on her throat. But her eyes are still a bit fierce, angry. I can use that. In exchange for her help, perhaps there is something I can do for her, too.

  Davida presses her lips together and turns her head. I recognize the sign for What? I don’t understand.

  I cannot deceive this woman, and I cannot wrench a memory from her the way I did with Jacinta and Hector.

  “We have an enemy in common,” I say. “The person who hurt you also took someone from me. I need your help getting a message out so the others know that I will finish what Dez began. If we work together, we can find the weapon before it’s too late.”

  Her eyes widen at my words. She shakes her head and grabs my shoulder, glaring at the closed door. The others are busy around the palace and it is well past midday meal. I know we’re alone, but she must be afraid.

  “It’s all right,” I assure her. “All I need from you is to know where Castian might keep things hidden—secret—where no one but he would find them.”

  She’s flustered, taking my bare hand in hers. She shakes her head.

  “I won’t hurt you. I came to say that I can take your painful memory of that day. Of the prince’s cruelty.”

  At that her face is overcome with sadness. Her shoulders tremble. A tear runs down her cheek as she guides my fingers to her temples and nods.

  “Thank you,” I whisper as my glowing fingertips take the memory she offers.

  Davida can never say no when the prince asks for a story.

  He’s getting too old for the same tales, already ten, but he loves them, and while the queen mother is in her sickbed, she knows he needs all the cheer he can find.

  “Read me the one about the brother pirates.”

  “That one again?” She chuckles and settles into the large armchair in front of the fireplace. The first winter winds are beginning to whistle, but at least the queen’s library has a fireplace. “Are you certain you don’t want me to read the one about the Knife of Memory?”

  Castian’s cheeks are flushed with cold. His summer-bronzed skin has all but faded as the days grow shorter and darker. “I don’t think I believe in that one anymore. It’s too fanciful. But pirates, pirates are real.”

  Davida knows her words are dangerous, but perhaps, if the boy loves stories, then his heart can’t be as wretched and closed-off as his father’s. “How do you know the Knife of Memory isn’t real?”

  Castian thinks about it for a bit. He reclines in the chair opposite her,
his stockinged feet angled toward the flames. “Because my father says nothing about the Moria is true.”

  “Have I ever lied to you?” Davida asks.

  “No.”

  “Are you afraid of my magics?”

  Castian shakes his head. “No, you help me when my father is angry.”

  So she starts reading, entertaining the prince with stories to open his mind and his heart. What was done to him was not his fault, and she will use her strength to make him a better man. His face lights up during the Brothers Palacio’s sword fights at the helm of their ship. She holds one of the prince’s toy wooden swords and wields it high above her head. “How could you have betrayed me, brother? The treasure was meant to bring us together!”

  “Treasure only tears people apart,” Castian says, finishing the words he knows by heart.

  Davida laughs and brushes his tangle of golden curls. “See? You don’t even need me to read these to you. You’ve done quite well on your own.”

  “Father says I’m to start military training by week’s end. I won’t have time for stories then,” he says.

  The anguish in his voice brings tears to her eyes. She is about to comfort him, to tell him that no matter what he does or where he is the stories will be with him. That she will be thinking of him and wishing that he will keep this heart of his.

  But there is a loud smack as the door slams open, and King Fernando strides in, followed by a slender guard riddled with scars on his face.

  Davida lets the book fall to the ground as she does her best to kneel before him. “Your Grace. I didn’t expect you.”

  “Silence. You’re the reason my son has been crying all over the palace about the start of his training.”

  “Father, I—”

  The king grabs a vase from the table and throws it against the fireplace. The glass shatters and bounces off the wall. A bit of it nicks Castian’s cheek. The boy wipes the blood with the back of his hand, his mouth open and startled.