Incendiary (Hollow Crown)

by Zoraida Cordova

  Margo presses her finger to her lips and points to the far wall, where I move so we cover the most space. If the guard is alone, we can take him. I want to say that we’ve been in worse situations, but this is the dungeons of the palace. It’s the second-worst place to find yourself. The first is Soledad prison.

  The steps drum closer, and through the small rectangular opening on the door, we can make out a hooded figure. I press myself against the wall waiting for the tumbling gears of the cylinder lock that never come. Instead, the rectangular latch on the door swings open and a bundle is pushed through. It hits the floor and the latch is pulled shut, locked, and the cloaked figure moves away down the corridor. I race to the door and grab the bars. There’s only one person I can think of who might try to help me.

  “Leo?” I call out. The footsteps stop for a moment. I want to say his name once more, but then he keeps going.

  “What is it?” Margo asks, touching her foot to the cloth bundle.

  I undo the tie and open it up. I’ve heard of weapons put together by the royal alchemists said to combust, but I doubt that the king would have us killed this way. Not when there’s an Illusionári and a Robári missing from his Hand of Moria. The temptation to tame us, add us to his collection, toys for him to control, is far too sweet.

  “It’s food,” I say.

  I can hear the growl in Margo’s stomach.

  I arrange the meal on top of the thick cloth—a loaf of still-warm bread, a small wheel of goat cheese, sliced pieces of dried meat, a bundle of dark purple grapes, and a pot of honey.

  “Eat,” I tell her. She doesn’t move. Her hands are balled in stubborn fists, but we’ve both known hunger and no matter where this food came from, she can’t turn her nose up at it.

  I take a couple of grapes for myself and the heel of the bread. I have no appetite, but I need to keep something in my stomach. I remember being on missions together, never knowing when our next meal would come. The taxmen at the tollhouses sometimes robbed us of our food when we passed the checkpoints.

  When everything is gone, she tilts the pot of honey, pouring the last few droplets onto her tongue. She shakes the cloth open, but there isn’t any more food. Only something metal that falls on the ground.

  She holds up a small knife to me with a smile. “Supper and a weapon.”

  For a moment, I wonder if she means to use it on me. If I were her, I’d be tempted to. I’m no Persuári, but I can feel how deeply her anger toward me runs.

  She tucks the blade into a hidden pocket on the inside of her dress. “It seems your Magpie has deep influence, Ren.”

  Even Nuria wouldn’t risk coming down here. “No, I think it was my attendant, Leo. He was always kind to me. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him because he was in Justice Méndez’s service, but I do.”

  “Perhaps that was his job. To get you to trust him.”

  “Perhaps.” I push myself up. “But then why give us the blade?” The cold has made my legs numb, and so I pace and pace, telling her about my time here, the search for the weapon. The prince must still have it. We can’t fight back from this cell.

  “Méndez won’t be able to stay away for long,” I say. I know him. He’s going to try to teach me a lesson.

  “Méndez,” Margo says slowly. “Did he hurt you—before?”

  I shake my head. “He has always treated me well. That’s how he won me over as a child, and he thinks I am the same now. But I promise, Margo, I’ll get you out of here even if I have to leave a wake of Hollows behind us. I swore I wouldn’t become a monster. But that’s what they want me to be, so I’m going to give them exactly what they’re asking for.”

  “That’s all we are to them, isn’t it?” Margo asks, and I realize this is the longest we’ve ever talked without fighting. “Truce?”

  It would be nice if we weren’t locked up in this cell. “Truce.”

  After a while, the damp cold weakens me, and we gather on the cot. It has holes and the hay and dirt stuffed inside it is spilling out, but it’s better than the floor. I fight sleep, but a moment later, it pulls me in, enveloping me in total darkness.

  When I wake, I start to my feet.

  “Margo!” I cry out for her, but her reply is muffled by the gag in her mouth. There’s the rattle of chains as she puts up a fight.

  Someone shoves a dirty rag in my mouth and then covers my face with a black cloth. I gag at the putrid smell of it. I kick and punch, but the guard is too strong. They shove my bare hand into a man’s glove and clamp my wrists in irons.

  I can feel my heart in my ears, pumping a warning that I can’t heed because it’s too late. This is how it ends, isn’t it? In the dark, always in the dark.

  “Sit her there,” Justice Méndez says, his voice crisp and cold. “Put the other over there.” The guard shoves me into a chair and ties each of my legs around the wooden posts. I rest my chained hands on my lap. My head covering smells like mold and rot. I wonder if someone died while wearing it.

  “Shut your mouth,” a man’s voice shouts. There’s a slick wet sound, and Margo lets out a muffled shriek. I’ve watched Margo undergo worse and never cry out. But now there’s a whimper that hits me right in my heart. I shake my head, spitting the rag out.

  “Let her go,” I say, trying not to choke on the smell. “I’m the one who fooled you.”

  “I’ll get to you, Renata.” Méndez’s voice is right in front of me. Even with my head covered I can smell his cool breath. “But for now, I’ll give you the honor of choosing which one of your rebel friends gets to die first.”

  The sack is lifted off my head. Sweat blurs my vision, and my hair falls over my eyes. My unit comes into focus.

  Sayida and Esteban are tied to the wall beside Margo. That’s when I realize it wasn’t Margo’s whimper that I heard. It was Sayida’s. Esteban seethes, his mouth biting hard around the cloth gagging his mouth. I let out a cry when I see his injuries. One of his eyes is swollen shut. Blood is crusted on his chin. His dark brown eye looks from me to Justice Méndez, and I see the moment his anger becomes hate.

  “It was very clever of you,” Méndez says, his stare settling on me. “Injuring yourself to save the king. When you returned, I so wanted to believe you were my Ren, come back to me. I let you wander around the palace to see if you’d expose the spy. But even Illan’s informant didn’t trust you enough to reveal themselves. You were alone as ever.”

  He walks up to me and each step rattles my insides. I turn my face to the side and bite down to keep myself from screaming.

  “I am disappointed, Ren. We will work it out later. Right now, what I want to know is how you got your little friends into the palace.” He grabs my chin, digs his fingers into my jaw.

  I spit at him, and he lets go with a slap.

  “You could have done great things, Renata. I was a fool to have believed you could return to me whole. You’re a broken shell of the girl you once were. You’ll never have a home with those who claim to be your people. They’ll never trust you.”

  “You put me in a cage,” I manage to say.

  “And what did the Whispers do? You told me of their cruelty. We verified it with our Ventári. It seems to me you’ve only been moving from one prison to the next. At least here you know where you stand. With power. With loyalty.”

  Castian’s voice breaks through my thoughts. The Whispers taught you to fight well. He has no place here right now.

  “Do not pretend to care for me,” I throw back at him.

  His salt-gray eyes water, but he blinks it away. His lips pull back to accentuate every word he speaks. “I protected you when you lived here. You wanted for nothing. Do you remember how you screamed when they took you away from me? Do you remember how you cried out?”

  My memories push against the Gray, color against the void, and I feel a well of tears prickle in my eyes.

  A tiny girl lost in the woods was lifted onto a woman’s shoulders and taken away. Please don’t take me! Please! Papá!
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br />   I was that little girl. “I remember.”

  His features soften. Fingers caress the side of my face. Gray eyes harden like icebergs.

  “And yet you chose them. You have cut me deeply, Renata.” His calmness evaporates, and I jump from the loud bang as he flips over a small wooden table in rage. “You betrayed me! After everything I’ve done for you. I gave you a home twice over.”

  I writhe against my bonds, but the manacles are tight. “You gave a home to a weapon. That’s all I ever was to—”

  “And what do you think you were to the Whispers?” He chuckles, brushing his disheveled hair away from his eyes. “You were born to be a weapon, Renata. Tell me the Whispers see you as more? Tell me that you’ve felt at home in whatever hovel they decided to sleep in night after night?”

  I catch Margo’s blue eyes. Think of her words. That I was the one who rejected their friendship. There’s some truth to that. But there’s also my truth. I don’t want to hurt anyone else. The only home I ever knew was with my parents. And with Dez. That alone is worth fighting for.

  “Let them go,” I say. “I’ll be your weapon, but let them go.”

  “How noble, but I thought I made myself perfectly clear. I want you to choose. Choose who goes under the knife, Lina!”

  Lina? Our predicament is momentarily forgotten in my confusion. All color drains from Méndez’s face, and his fists clench as he catches his breath, as if he’s seen a ghost. He wrenches his eyes from me and turns to a table against the wall, unfolds a leather roll full of knives and pliers in all shapes and sizes. He picks out a small knife with a serrated edge and a pearl handle. Méndez always loved beautiful things. Deadly things.

  “Bring me the girl,” he tells a guard. “The other one broke too easily.”

  Esteban shakes, and I see the effort it takes not to cry. The guard has been so silent in the corner of the room that she’s almost become part of it. She clears her throat and asks, “Which one, my justice?”

  “The Zaharian with the dark hair. The other one wouldn’t last an hour with the way she looks.” He polishes the blade, then sets it down. Picks up another, with a curved edge and holds it up, candlelight bounces off of it and around the room.

  “Put me on the table,” I plead.

  “Leave us,” Méndez tells the guards.

  “But, my justice, they outnumber you,” the man says.

  “They can’t use their cursed magics on me,” Méndez says, and I wonder if he has the same defense that Prince Castian does.

  When the guards leave, I scan the room for an escape. My hands are in manacles, which are infinitely harder to get out of. If only I had—

  A blade.

  The moment Méndez turns his attention to Sayida on the wooden slab, I reach to the side of my head and pull at one of the skinny pins that still dig into my scalp. Thank you, Leo, I think. I tuck it between my fingertips and angle it into the opening of the lock. I was never as good as Esteban at getting myself out of cuffs. Even now his eyes are wide with frustration, as if he knows he’d be able to do this better. Margo and Esteban struggle harder, shout through their bindings. It is the perfect distraction.

  “You’ll get your turn,” Méndez says, pointing another clean knife at Margo. “You’ve made a fool and liar out of me in front of my king, Renata. That wretched brat of a prince has been looking for a chance to ruin me, and you may just have given it to him.”

  I remember Castian lying to his face after dancing with me. Reprimanding Méndez at the ball. Proud men bruise easily. That’s a wound I can press.

  “Do you know what Prince Castian calls you behind your back? An impotent, ineffective waste nearing the end of his use,” I lie.

  Méndez snaps his head in my direction, and I sit still. A crooked smile plays on his features. “I know you better than you know yourself, Renata. The prince would never confide in you.”

  “How are you so sure? He’s the one who sought me out. He’s the one who wanted to dance with me. You fear getting replaced? Well, you should fear a lot more than that when Castian is done with you.”

  Justice Méndez drags his finger across the table of weapons at his disposal. He selects a long, slender spike and a small mallet that goes along with it. My heart is in my throat, strangling my breath.

  “Use the cure on me!” I plead as a last resort. “I know what it does. Use it on me, and let her go.”

  “The cure? By the angels, Renata, what do you think I was doing when I left? The cure has to be better protected than by a weak prince and new draft of soldiers not yet old enough to grow beards. But if you’re so eager, I’ll make sure you get to see it firsthand.”

  “What?” My heart sinks. I was never going to find the weapon at the palace. But there is hope. There is always hope. Méndez wouldn’t tell me where he went on his trip, but Lady Nuria did. The weapon is in Soledad.

  “You’re not the only Moria I’ve broken, Renata. We know how to get through your mountain pass now. Soon, the entire kingdom will be able to witness Memoria fall to its knees.”

  Margo’s and Esteban’s heads snap up.

  The Whispers are in the mountain. The children, the elders, everyone who is left.

  Méndez takes the bind out of Sayida’s mouth and pulls it down. “This is for your own good, my child.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Sayida says, and the sadness in her voice brings me such a deep ache I feel my heart coming undone. “There’s good inside of you. You weren’t always like this.”

  Use your power, Sayida, I mentally urge. Unless she already is, and there’s no scrap of kindness left to draw out and play upon. But there has to be. Why else would he have been kind to me? To me . . . but not to other Moria.

  Méndez holds the spike over her forearm. The mallet right over its head. “I know you want to think that, but your magics won’t work on me.”

  He slams the mallet on the metal spike, and it drives through Sayida’s forearm. Blood splatters across her cheek and on his face. Her scream pierces the deepest recesses of my mind. Sayida, whose smile could convince flowers to bloom. Sayida, whose touch could bring peace to the most troubled soul. The nightingale of the Whispers.

  “Stop it! Stop it, please!” I shout. My hands are sweating so much I drop the hairpin. I have to focus. I have to somehow get free before he can hurt her again.

  There’s a moment of stillness as Méndez selects a second spike. Sayida has her head turned to the side. Her body shakes with sobs, and she tries her best to stay silent. I wish I could take her pain as my own.

  “Now, dear,” Méndez tells Sayida, and I can’t imagine how anyone can be so calm while impaling another. “Who else is in the palace under Illan’s order?”

  Sayida shakes her head. “We acted alone.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Méndez readies the second spike on Sayida’s other arm, and a single whimper escapes her. “We could save a lot of time if only you’d tell the truth. I want a list of all of Illan’s spies and allies. It seems that you, Renata, were not very honest with me when you arrived here. Every safe house you gave me was a dead end. Empty.”

  “We don’t know Illan’s spies!” I shout at him. But my thoughts scream, Nuria Nuria Nuria, because I want him to stop. “He would never tell us. He’d never endanger them! But it doesn’t matter to you, does it? Sayida could shout anyone’s name, she’d shout Castian himself to get you to stop!”

  The mallet slams down, and this time Sayida’s shriek is so loud that it echoes long after she’s done. My entire body has turned hot. My power sears across my skin, stronger than it’s ever been. I can feel the light running patterns across my flesh as the metal around my hands grows hotter and hotter, fabric dissolving and stripping away. My screams join Sayida’s.

  I can feel the power burning through my skin and as the pain grows unbearable, I yank my hands apart as hard as I can. The red whorls carve across my flesh. Then I feel the sudden weight of my arms as the metal breaks free.

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sp; I freeze in shock. What did I do? I slowly look down at my tattered dress, the platinum still shimmering in the dim light. Bits of cloth and leather stick to my buzzing flesh. This is something new. Something dangerous.

  I let the chains fall onto my lap so they don’t rattle. I undo the ties around my legs with trembling fingers, but the chains slip and clatter to the stone floor. Méndez’s head snaps to me.

  “What are you—” He rushes toward me, but he’s too late, I’m already free. He swings the mallet at my head, but I duck to the side. I hit the floor, then scramble and pick up the chair to throw at him. He uses the mallet as a weapon but cries out as the wood strikes his shoulder and his weapon slips out of his hands, falling with a resounding thud.

  “Guards!” he shouts, but his eyes widen, because we both know the mistake he made in sending them away. Not even the guards like to stick around to hear the screams.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I tell him. My heart is a mangled, wretched thing and I want to blame him, I do.

  “Your magics don’t work on me.” But even as he says it, it dawns on him that I’m wearing platinum, and there’s a spark of doubt in his eyes as he backs away.

  I am the thing that everyone fears. The creature in the shadows, the warning whispered on lips across the entire court and kingdom.

  “You’ll never be free, Renata. Not as long as you carry that curse with you.”

  “I stopped looking for freedom a long time ago,” I say, my magics surging to my fingertips. “Do you know what I want now?”

  “What?” He looks over his shoulder but there is nothing except a wall. His weapons are out of reach, and he’s not a fighter. He never was.

  “I want to be the Whisper that silences you,” I say, reaching for his throat with my bare hand. My blood rushes to my head in an almost exhilarating way the moment I touch him, but he barrels into me, pushing us to the ground. I struggle to get ahold of him; his skin is slick with sweat and blood. I can’t breathe with his knee in my abdomen. I take his hand and fight dirty. I bite so hard I taste blood as it breaks the skin. He cries out and crawls backward like a crab across a sandbar.