The young maids fall over themselves to attend her. She is kind and generous with her attention. I can understand why the house staff would prefer to spend the day with her than any of the other nobles at court. I wonder what memory plagues her. My curiosity makes me jittery all through the next day.
Leo is unusually quiet as he leads me to her quarters and deposits me at the door. Lady Nuria’s room is in the same tower as mine, but one floor below, a not-so-subtle jab at the change in her social station. But there are no guards posted in front of her rooms.
Lady Nuria is waiting for me wearing nothing but a robe. Her hair tumbles down her back in loose curls. Her feet are bare, but that’s hardly the most scandalous thing she’s done since I’ve met her.
I hate that she makes me feel unbalanced. She is not the person I was expecting. This would be so much easier if she were like Lady Borbónel and the others. I could hate her on sight instead of feeling this pull of her kindness the way I felt with Sayida.
“Sit, Renata,” Lady Nuria says, dropping the formalities. “May I call you Renata?”
“Yes. I am no lady, after all.”
The living room is decorated in simple shades of gray and brown with the occasional green. There is none of the decadent lace or velvet of the rooms I’m staying in. I suppose that’s what happens when you marry someone dedicated to an order of hate.
On the center table is a spread of summer fruits, a carafe of blush wine, a glass teapot with jasmine brewing inside it, delicate confectioneries, and pastries.
She plops a grape into her mouth. “Please, eat. I have it on good authority that you are particularly fond of grapes.”
I shiver in the strange draft of this room despite the shut glass panes and the heat outside. The words escape my mouth before I can stop them.
“Why are you so—” I pause, realizing how they will sound.
“Don’t be shy. I have been called many things.”
“Kind,” I say, whirling around to see her standing in front of me, holding a goblet of wine and offering me another. Her eyes are black and luminous, like beads made of night sky. “How can you be so kind?”
“I choose it,” she says. “But don’t confuse it for weakness. Castian never did.”
Lady Nuria owes me nothing. She is not my friend, and before learning of her engagement with the prince I didn’t think of her as anything more than an heiress. But I can’t understand how someone like her could care for Castian so much. Surely she’s knows what he’s done.
“Why did you return to this palace if you hated Prince Castian?” she asks, stepping around me to return to her table.
“I don’t—”
“All I ask is that you be honest with me about this. I told you. Your emotions are practically written on your face.”
I’m strangely relieved someone is breaking through my façade. I am tired of walking these halls and eating in these rooms and playing a role that has returned all too easily. To tell this girl that I want to kill the prince would only result in my own defeat. And yet, I can respect her. Everything I’ve seen her do is a small defiance of the crown.
“I have nowhere else to go,” I say. “And I am under the order of Justice Méndez.”
“You could have procured forged papers and passage to other kingdoms.”
“I had the chance. It’s almost hard to determine what I’m more afraid of, dying here or starting over somewhere completely unknown.”
“Starting over is never easy. But you chose the most difficult thing anyone can do. Facing your past.”
Can she see through me this easily? Méndez doesn’t seem to be able to. Or is he playing a part, the way Leo once graced a stage?
“I helped spill a lot of blood here. At the very least, I am rooted to Puerto Leones in more ways than I can understand. Even if it does not want me.”
She takes a deep breath. The fireplace crackles with orange flames in the corner of my eye, but somehow I can hear the sharp whistle of wind coming from somewhere. It does not make sense that a girl who is descended from queens would be in this grim and drafty room, but she does not complain. I drink the bitter wine and sniff back the sting in my nose.
“You know you can’t get them back,” I tell her. “The memories.”
She turns her face to the light-filled window opposite the citadela below us and drinks. “I know quite well how your power works. I should tell you, the memory is of Castian.”
“I figured as much.” I bite my bottom lip. Though she is not like other royals I’ve come across, I need to tread carefully when I talk about the prince. “It must be difficult to defend him after you were subjected to humiliation when he ended your engagement.”
Lament fills her eyes. She looks pretty even when she’s sad. “I was impetuous. I was spoiled. I thought I had it all. Others in my position have to choose between an advantageous union for their families or love. I was lucky to have both for a while.”
“And then?”
“He broke my heart. People talked as they always do, and I was made a villain. And yet, I know him. I know the boy I grew up with. Together we mourned the deaths of everyone he loved.”
I stiffen at the sentiment, trying to picture a murderer in mourning. When he killed his brother, did he mourn then as well? As if she were a Ventári herself, Lady Nuria nods her head.
“Yes, including his brother, despite what the rumors may say. The prince knew nothing but violence at the hands of his father. It chipped away at him. Changed him. When he came back from the Battle of Riomar, the change was magnified threefold. We tried but it didn’t work. Sometimes I wonder if only I had tried harder. Done more. But I don’t know how to help him. Didn’t know, I should say. Do you have many regrets, Renata?”
And without hesitating, I say, “Every day.”
“I can’t change what Castian has done. I can change the strength of my feelings, but I would need you to take a memory. One that I relive each day, wishing I had listened to his turmoil then. Listened to when he wanted more than this.”
Something in me wants to trust her, or at least wants to try. I’m not a good judge of character, I suppose.
“Have you ever been in love, Renata?” Lady Nuria’s lashes cast long shadows on her cheeks with the firelight.
I don’t answer, but I feel a vein in my neck twitch. I avoid her gaze and think of Dez. I should have told him.…
By the curl of her smile she seems to take this as a yes.
“Then you know how terrible I feel. I have to see him at balls and festivals and every time I walk past the statue of him in the middle of my citadela. All I can think, all I can see is the way he’s changed. See the boy I love become terrifying, all while I have to pretend to love a man whose presence makes my blood curdle. Consider it a trade. I believe you’d be glad to have me owe you a favor down the line.”
I don’t want her to owe me anything and yet I know if I want to get inside the prince’s head more than I already have, if I want to get the weapon, her memory might lead me there. Perhaps one less memory of him will relinquish the hold he has on her and she will be free.
I nod, and she follows me to the long couch by the fireplace. She pulls a heavy blanket over her legs and faces me. “Does it sting?”
“Yes. Only for a moment.” I see the resolve settle over her, eyes focused on me. I flex the fingers of my free hand. The wound at the center of my palm feels stiff, and the fresh bandage doesn’t have any blood on it. I realize I will run out of excuses, and soon Méndez will fit me for the second glove.
“I’m ready,” she says.
I press my fingertips to the smooth skin of her brow, the soft glow of my magics easing her worry.
“Do you have to leave tomorrow?” she asks, lying on her side to face him.
There’s a canopy bed with sheer cream-colored silk around them. She thinks this is what it feels like to be wrapped inside a flower.
“I would stay with you if I could, but General Hector might have
some words with my father,” Castian says. Nothing but a sheet draped over his hips. His golden coloring makes her feel warm inside. The time away training has been good for him. He’s always been tall, but now she can admire more than his sweet-water eyes and coiling gold hair. She can drink in the new muscles of his legs, and when he stretches, the line of dark golden hair at his abdomen.
“What are you looking at, my lady?” Castian asks.
“You,” she says, her heart swelling almost painfully because looking at him is too much.
A smirk plays upon his full lips. He kisses her, and they sink into the bed. She traces her fingers along the muscles of his back. Smooth and unblemished. “Why do you have to fight?”
He sighs, and nestles in the crook of her neck. “Because I am the Lord Commander of Puerto Leones. The king wants me to take back Riomar, and I have to do what the king says.”
He kisses her shoulder and makes his way down to her wrist. She tries to quell that feeling within her ribs, like she might grow too big for her skin because of how much she loves him. She was warned about this. She was warned by her mother and her father, the Duque and Duquesa of Tresoros, that her body would react this way when she and Castian reached this age. That she could not be weak. Queens had to be stronger to outlive their kings.
Though Queen Penelope’s sapphire weighed on her finger, Nuria was not yet queen.
“When you’re back, after we’re married, will you take me somewhere beautiful?”
He frowns again. If he isn’t careful, he’ll grow the same notch between his brows as his father. But his fingers are as soft as petals.
“Citadela Crescenti?” he asks.
“Too debauched.”
He laughs and nips at the warm brown skin of her belly at the same time. She feels him vibrate against her. “Islas del Rey?”
“You, Castian Fajardo, want to sail?” She threads her fingers in his hair.
He looks up at her and grins. “I spent my whole life trying to not fear the water. I suppose now I need to be around it if I am to be king and keep peace with our allies.”
She knows this about him and wishes she could take away his pain as easily as he’s dreamed up their future.
He props himself up and watches her. “Do you ever wonder what would happen if we sailed until we were somewhere far away?”
“How far?”
“Until we find what is in the uncharted regions.”
She coils his golden hair around her finger. “How will you be king if you’re in the uncharted regions?”
“What if I weren’t king?”
“Everyone knows your face, my dear Cas. From here to Luzou and in between.”
“There’s nothing between us and Luzou.”
“You know what I mean!”
He laughs, and the vibration makes her body sing. But then he falls too pensive, too sad. “What if I could hide?”
“Like in that secret room of yours?”
His lips tug into a smile. “In another land, maybe.”
Her eyes flick down to his mouth set in that way he has when he is serious and thoughtful. The face he reserves for the court and public, but not for her. For her he always has a smile—or worse, that smirk that drives her heart and mind to want to do dangerous things.
“Would you come with me?” His voice is a whisper.
She draws herself to him, brushing her lips against his. “Where? To your secret room or to your uncharted land?”
“We can start in my secret rooms. I’ll show you all of them. We can mark each and every room with our love. Starting with the one in your chambers.”
“What’s gotten into you?” She laughs and they kiss again. He holds her harder than ever, like he’s afraid to let her go. Is he scared? Unsure of her? “Promise to return from Riomar whole,” she says.
“Would you not have me otherwise?”
She doesn’t want to talk of such things. She doesn’t want to imagine him not coming back at all. “I would have you, Castian.”
There is a flash of sadness in his eyes, but it’s replaced with something else when he watches her, like she is made of wonder, a promise yet to keep. She would give anything to have him look at her like this always. Her prince. No, her king.
She tugs at the sheet that covers him.
The memory undulates like light on water.
Castian stands in the garden. He’s avoiding her. Their wedding is in ten days, and he hasn’t completely healed from Riomar.
“Cas,” she says.
She startles him. He grips the branch of a tree for support instead of her. She wants to go to him but can’t. He won’t look at her. He won’t speak to her.
When he turns around, she hardly recognizes him. He doesn’t smile the way he used to. His eyes have lost their warmth. He looks at the space between them and neither takes a step to bridge the distance.
“I can’t do this,” he tells her. “I can’t marry you.”
“Cas.”
Cas, she says, over and over. Each time she says his name her heart breaks.
I stumble back, wrenching my fingers from Lady Nuria’s mind. My heart races, just like hers did. Her lingering feelings of desire and heartbreak cling to me like sewage water. I grab a glass of water and drink it in a continuous, long gulp.
Lady Nuria smirks, pouring herself more wine from the carafe. “Are you quite all right, Renata?”
“Yes, my lady,” I say, breathless.
“Please, call me Nuria.” She reaches for a tiny round cake puff filled with custard and licks her fingers. “It’s strange. I thought there would be something left of what I wanted to show you. But it’s more as if there’s an empty room, cold. Is that what it’s like for everyone?”
I shake my head. It shames me that I’ve never asked. “I’m not sure. Everyone can be different.”
“Please stay and eat,” she says, her voice soft. “I hate these rooms. I can hear the wind in the middle of the night, and it always feels like there’s someone there.”
It’s a relief to know that it isn’t just me that feels this way. We eat in silence at first, but I think Lady Nuria feels she needs to fill space, and so she talks about the queen’s reception and the Sun Festival following it. At some point I’m sure she says she’ll send me a new dress, but my mind is consumed with her memory, now flashing through my mind as if it were my own.
Nuria was different. More innocent in her love for him. Did she look back on that day and see the misery in his eyes? What did the prince have to run away from when he secured his own rule long ago? Still, I understand her need to feel like she could have changed things.
I can hardly believe that Castian changed his course. He worshiped her. He looked at Nuria the way Dez looked at me. That was real. Then he went to Riomar, nearly died, and returned a different man. Dez did, too, and he still managed to pick himself up. Something else happened. I feel it in the marrow of my stolen memories.
Castian said he spent his whole life trying not to fear the water, but why? Does he see his dead brother every time he’s near it? And what did he say about the hiding places in the palace? I know all of them.
“I owe you a favor, Ren,” Nuria tells me as I leave. “Don’t forget it.”
That night in my bed, I listen for the arrival of the guards outside my door. They’re coming from somewhere. A trapdoor. A hidden stairwell. I’m sure I never hear them walk the corridor.
In my dreams, I see Castian. He’s that boy in my memory about to kill Dez on a balcony one moment and the next he’s holding flowers in the dark, running from me.
I will find what you’re hiding, I promise.
I will uncover everything he’s locked away, and there will be nowhere safe for him to hide.
THE NEXT DAY, I STEAL MOMENTS ALONE TO TOUCH THE STONE WALLS OF LADY Nuria’s former chambers, searching for hidden doorways. I wonder if the prince made good on his offer to show them to her. I long to ask her, but it’s too great a risk. I look behind every pai
nting, every rug, drapery, book. I push against the brick walls and wooden panels. I rummage under the bed. When, at the end of my search, all I end up with is dirty fingertips and a splinter, I lie down on the floor. I fish Dez’s coin from under the mattress and hold it for strength.
Castian wouldn’t have lied to Nuria. Not in that moment. There has to be something I’m missing.
“What are you doing?” Sula asks.
I scramble off the floor and smooth my deep blue skirts. “Nothing.”
“Looks like you were lying on the floor to me.”
One look at my grimace and the servant girl starts. She sets the food tray down and busies herself. Used to her glowering silence, I take my leave and she doesn’t question it.
I hunt for Leo, but he is called to Lady Nuria’s side to entertain her. After the last encounter with the ladies of court, I keep to the shadows. The more crowded the palace gets, the lonelier I feel. Desperation gnaws my insides raw because I am going in circles. I’m a wraith prowling the halls, admiring gilded paintings of over three hundred years’ worth of the Fajardo lineage. I notice there is no portrait of the king’s first queen, but Queen Penelope graces an entire wall. I glide my fingers behind each and every one of them, but none turn into a secret compartment or hidden room.
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.
Incendiary Series, Book 1 Page 26
