Incendiary Series, Book 1

by Zoraida Cordova

  Cebrián screams. He pushes me back and expels me from his mind painfully. “What did you do to me?”

  I gasp, still in the grip of the memory. No. I won’t believe it. I can’t.

  “Get out of my head!” I shout at Cebrián.

  The Gray rises all around me, and I sink deeper into the past, trying to recall the boy’s face, but there is only shadow. I close my eyes, concentrate, push past the suffocation and delve deeper, further than I’ve ever gone—into my own past.

  The Whispers are setting the capital on fire.

  The door opens, and footsteps make their way across the room. There is the hiss of a match igniting, the burn of sulfur, and then his face appears behind smoke.

  A young boy.

  The one who did the little magic tricks for me. Our secret.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. There’s a bruise on his cheek, a deep cut above his brow.

  “What happened to you?” I touch his cut with my finger.

  “Nothing. It doesn’t matter,” he says, trying to keep his voice strong. “I’ll get you out.”

  He takes my hand in his and starts to tug.

  I pull back. “Where are we going? What’s happening?”

  He takes a deep breath, that familiar divot between his brows. “The Moria are revolting. It’s not safe for you here. Please, Nati. Please, you have to go.”

  “I don’t want to go. There’s fire outside. I want to stay here with you.”

  “Don’t cry, Nati. You’ll be fine.” He takes out a small key from his pocket.

  “No!” I withdraw my hand. “Justice Méndez says I’m not supposed to—”

  “You can’t go out there with Robári gloves,” he says.

  “I want to stay,” I whimper as he unlocks my gloves. “Don’t make me leave. I’ll help—”

  He grips my shoulders. His face becomes blurry until I blink. “You don’t belong here. You never did. You don’t know what my father is like.”

  I let him guide me through the dark room with nothing but a candle in his fist and a small blade at his side. He draws back a tapestry, my favorite one of the Pirate Brothers Palacio on their ship. There, a brick is slightly darker than the others, and with the brush of his finger, the bookshelf gives way to a secret hiding place.

  A secret room.

  I gasp and take a step back.

  “Come, Nati. We don’t have much time. Don’t you trust me?” His face is golden with firelight.

  I grip his hand because when I am with him, I feel safe.

  “I trust you, Cas.”

  I brace myself on the windowsill and hold on for balance, because it is as if the floor has dropped from beneath me.

  I trust you, Cas.

  The phrase repeats, over and over in my head. His name—Castian—on my tongue. Castian as a child. Castian, my friend.

  Castian, who saved me that day.

  No.

  This is wrong. Perverse. This is not my memory. It can’t be. I could never have pushed something like that so far down. It isn’t possible. He’s the Lion’s Fury. Matahermano. He’s a hundred curses I have yet to speak. The vile, hated killer of Dez.

  This can’t be true. Something is wrong with my memories.

  “You did something,” I say, turning to Cebrián’s ghoulish face. “Fix it.”

  The little boy from my memory—it was always supposed to be Dez. It was Dez who found me during the raid. Dez who helped me up on the horse and stole me away from the palace. It was Dez. Only Dez.

  I pull at my hair. I never let myself think about that night, because I always knew that thoughts of it would tear through me, rip me apart. The night where thousands burned. The night of my own doing. The night Méndez used the secrets I’d scouted for him, from prisoners’ memories, to expose the Whispers’ camp. The Whispers’ attack against the palace. Countless innocent lives lost. All of it because of me.

  But Dez was there outside the palace with Illan, where Castian couldn’t follow.

  I press my forehead on the floor. My memory must be warped. It fused them together. Where one memory ended, the next one began.

  It must be.

  I think of the way Castian looked at me when we were dancing. I shudder hard, sinking against the wall, barely able to stand. And still the thoughts pummel me. The secret study, why it called to me, tugged at my heart and memories. Castian, calling me by my name when we fought. Nati. The name my father used to call me. The name I’d only tell someone I trusted completely, the name I didn’t even tell Dez.

  Dez, the boy who saved me.

  Or was it Castian?

  What if both things are true?

  The truth has been inside me all this time, buried in the ash of the past, the ash of that most horrible of all nights. Cebrián’s memory of Castian. The greatest of all illusions.

  Castian is a Moria.

  An Illusionári.

  “I can feel your magics again,” the Robári says, his hand reaching for mine. Hunger is heavy in his voice. “I bet it tastes divine.”

  “No! Don’t! I’ve changed my mind.” I scramble back so hard I hit the window. It rattles.

  Cebrián charges at me, but I leap to the side. He rams into the windowpanes and cracks the wooden slats in half. He bleeds from a cut on his shoulder, seeping through his tunic. I reach to help him, but he slaps my hand away.

  “You did this to me!”

  Why does everyone blame me for things I can’t control?

  Cebrián rips the windowpane from the hinges. Five long metal bars stand between him and the outside world. The sea wind blows in, and he leans toward the breeze, like he’s memorizing the feel of rain and wind on his skin. He looks at his hand, suddenly becoming aware of his strength. He grips the iron, his hands white where they press hard. Then he rips the bars apart.

  Rain beats onto the floor, and for a moment, Cebrián holds up his hands to cover his face from a flash of lightning. But that doesn’t last for long. This time, when Cebrián looks at me again, his eyes are as silver as the bolt. A sinister smile breaks over his features, and in the next moment, he throws himself out of the open window.

  “No!” I shout, fearing that he’s jumped to his death. I stick my head out the window to see he’s landed in a perfect crouch on the narrow cliff’s edge. An impossible feat. Whatever they’ve done to him, he’s fast and inhumanly strong, and he runs into the dark, sniffing the air as if he can smell magics calling out to him. What if he’s going to chase after the Whispers?

  I curse as I realize that my only escape is out this window. I know that if I jump, I’m not going to land on the narrow patch of ground that separates the prison from the sea. When I look to either side, I do notice the winged beasts that decorate the sides of the building, like stepping-stones.

  Angels, I tell myself, grabbing for the correct word. “They’re angels.”

  I take a couple of deep breaths to give myself courage. One slip, one hard gust of wind, and I’ll be carried over the cliff and out to sea.

  I grab hold of the first stone creature, swinging my feet out of the window. I grab, then step, grab, then step. There’s a moment when the old building betrays me. The stone breaks off under my foot, and I swing outward, a sensation that is as close as I’ll ever get to flying. But the next step is solid earth. I crouch down and press my forehead to the sodden ground, breathing in the stability of dirt like air to a strangled man.

  I run around the building to the carriages and horses. In this storm, the pampered justice will be staying inside. My fingers are stiff with cold, but I get the ropes undone, and the carriage crashes to the ground. A roll of thunder is my cover as I saddle the stallion and take off into the night, my thoughts reeling.

  Prince Castian was the boy who helped me escape the palace.

  Prince Castian is a Moria.

  Prince Castian—who was captured by the Whispers.

  He’s one of us.

  I kick my stallion. I have to get there before the
council executes him, before Margo tortures him beyond recognition. I have more questions than answers, and only he can give them to me.

  I pray I get there in time to save him, my greatest enemy.

  My oldest friend.

  I CLAMP DOWN ON CHATTERING TEETH AS I RACE ACROSS THE MUDDY ROAD that leads back to Sól y Perla.

  “Please be alive,” I whisper to the storm that follows me.

  When the ground becomes a wooden boardwalk and the rain tapers to a fine mist, I know that I’m close. This weather does nothing to keep the people of this citadela from being out on the streets. A little water doesn’t bother seafaring folk is what Dez would have said. My heart stutters in confusion. How could the boy who led me out of the palace be the man who killed Dez? But then—there’s the memory I stole from the guard. Dez was standing on a ship. Memories can’t be altered. But never in his life had Dez been missing part of his ear. I need answers.

  I am afraid that if I stop moving, I will shatter into so many pieces that none of this will matter. Not the Whispers. Not the Robári. Not this never-ending war. Nothing.

  I yank the reins and slow to a trot around the back of Duque Aria’s house. I swing off the horse and tie it at a post next to an angled wooden structure meant for storing grain. Under the gray cover of dawn, I ascend the back stairs.

  My legs tremble with each step. I remember you. I want to scratch the sound of his voice from the inside of my ears. I want to shake him until answers fall out of him like ripe fruit from the vine. But first, I have to get inside.

  I peer into one of the windows, but the curtain is drawn. My heart thuds rapidly as I step inside and keep to the walls. The commotion coming from the study masks the tread of my boots as I reach the stairs. Margo’s voice escalates as Amina tries to explain something to her. I turn to keep following the muddy footprints, but hearing my name makes me stop. The floorboards wheeze under my weight.

  “I never agreed to leave her behind,” Sayida says. Her voice is calm, but there’s an edge to it.

  “Renata knew the dangers,” Filipa says.

  “We can’t risk more lives for her,” Margo adds.

  They conspired together, and it is a small relief Sayida was not part of that decision.

  Esteban’s voice surprises me the most. “She risked everything to return to us.”

  There’s a strong back-and-forth, Margo the loudest. It sounds like a nest of wasps in my ears.

  “Maybe,” Margo says, “but we can’t know where her loyalty truly lies. Now that we know the Robári are used to make the weapons, everything has changed. These magics are foreign to us. She’ll be sympathetic to that thing. That current weapon. Ren was already lost to us.”

  I think of Margo in the cell with me. Truce. I guess that peace is over now.

  “Or you just handed the justice a new Robári to torture,” Sayida snaps.

  “I agree with Margo,” Filipa says, and the room quiets at the authority in her voice. “We have the prince. This can be our chance to renegotiate our treaty.”

  There’s dead silence from the study until someone clears their throat.

  “What of the Ripper?” Amina asks.

  “Is that what you’re calling him?” Esteban mutters.

  “Cebrían—the Robári—will have to die,” Filipa says.

  “No!” Sayida shouts along with two others. I recognize Esteban but not the other. “We would be turning into the justices!”

  “I’m sorry, Sayida,” Margo says, softly.

  I’ve heard enough.

  I make for the stairs, hoping I’m not too late. I can’t be. They would know the value of Prince Castian, of keeping him alive. And anyway, the prince I’ve met would have fought back.

  Pathetic, a voice tells me, and the voice sounds surprisingly like Dez. The prince you’ve met? You’re defending him already.

  I push open the first door, but the room is empty, the furniture covered in white linen. I move on to the second room and find a group of the fledgling Moria sleeping. I leave the door as is, so it doesn’t creak and wake them. There’s only one door left, and I know I have to be prepared for what I see.

  Come, Nati. We don’t have much time. Don’t you trust me? he’d said.

  We were just kids. Both so scared. And yet he saved my life that day—he set me free.

  A well of strange emotion hits me. Loss for the boy I knew. Anger for the man he became.

  As the door swings open, and I step inside, I am faced with both of those feelings.

  Castian is bound and gagged in an armchair, his hair matted to his temples with sweat and blood. Still wearing the clothes from the Sun Festival. He makes a guttural sound when he sees me, his eyes darting to his legs. His legs? The boot!

  I pull up the hem of his pant leg and feel for the blade sheathed there. He leans back, exposing his throat with relief. He’s relieved to see me and that makes all of this so much worse.

  “Thank the Lady they were too sleep deprived to search you, eh?” I press the edge of the blade against his throat and stare into Castian’s eyes. I see him now. The boy in the study who whispered with me in secret, cupping his hands around the set of dice.

  There and then gone.

  He says nothing, doesn’t even try to scream through his gag. He just watches me. I don’t want him to. But I know that if I want answers about Illan and Dez and the weapon, I need to free him.

  I cut Castian from the chair with trembling fingers. He rubs his wrists and stares at me with impossibly startled eyes as he rises to his feet. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and I see the moment he searches for the words to thank me but can’t.

  “You saved me,” he says skeptically. “Why?”

  “You saved me first, I suppose.”

  His eyes find me. The furrow returns to his forehead. “You remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We have to go.” Castian grabs his knife back, marches across the room, and opens the window. He’s got one foot out, and his hand is extended to me, a lifeline I never thought I’d ever want, or need.

  I hesitate, my hatred wrestling with my need to know the truth. He sees it in my face. “Live one more day with me, or stay and die at their hands. Your choice.”

  “That’s not much of a choice,” I mutter.

  Choose the option that brings you back to me. Could it?

  Then I follow him out.

  This prince whose friendship made the palace a little less lonely for a Moria girl. The prince whom I’ve spent half my life hating.

  I’m halfway out the window when I hear her whimper my name. I’d recognize her voice anywhere.

  “Ren,” she says, and I can’t help but look back as I continue my escape. What I see I know I’ll never forget: Sayida’s face as I choose betrayal.

  WE RUN IN THE DESOLATE, RAINY STREETS UNTIL WE LOSE THE TRAIL. MARGO is the best tracker, but we have two advantages: It’s raining, and there’s a surge of patrol guards searching for the Robári and the kidnapped prince.

  For now, I follow Castian at a distance. I want him to answer my questions. I want to know how he did all this. How did I get here?

  Every time I’ve tried to prove my loyalty to the Whispers, I’ve failed. To them, I will always be a treacherous Robári. Fine. Let them think that. In my heart, I know who I am. The only thing I don’t know is who this person is walking beside me.

  “Stop,” I say. I yank on the back of Castian’s bloodied tunic, and he turns around with an angry ridge on his forehead. How could I not remember? “I can’t keep walking behind you like a lost dog. Where are we going?”

  “It’s only a little bit farther.”

  “What is only a little bit farther?”

  He steps closer, his hands on his hips. There’s still blood caked along his hairline that he tried to wash away by cupping salt water from the sea. He looks like the picture of the Bloodied Prince I’ve heard so many stories about. But is he?

  “A hidden place,” he says.

 
; I am tired of hidden places and jumping out of windows. I am tired of running. I take a deep breath and keep my anger on the surface. “I want a weapon.”

  The prince hands over his only dagger without a word. He hops off the boardwalk and onto the sand, where the coast becomes rocky, and leads us to tall, dark caves. The citadela is barely visible on the horizon. For the first time the dread of what I have done ebbs into panic. I am alone with Prince Castian. I have chosen him.

  When the tide moves out, it reveals a path of shells, broken coral, and stones packed into the rock, leading to the mouth of a cave.

  I shouldn’t follow him in there. This might be his insidious plan. Recapture me. Make a new magic-stealing Robári. Another weapon. A Ripper. I quickly remind myself I’ve already lost everything there is to lose and follow him inside.

  “Who are you?” I ask the moment we’re inside. “You’ve had half the day to think about something to say, and I swear if it isn’t the truth—”

  “You’ll slit my throat?” His stare dares me.

  “Yes.” But even I can hear how my voice wavers.

  He sighs, and it is so weary that my own abused body does the same. He reaches up above, along the cave wall, and retrieves a dark piece of stone. He takes his knife back from my belt. Before I can protest, he strikes flint and steel until the sparks catch on a torch hooked into a steel loop embedded in the rock. For once, the sudden spring of fire doesn’t make me jump. He hands the knife back, and then walks deeper into the cave without waiting for me.

  We keep wading into the tunnel in silence, accompanied only by the trickle of water rising at our heels and the snap of the fire in his hand.

  When we arrive at the place Castian promised, I breathe a little easier. The cave widens all around. There’s a small iridescent pool of water surrounded by sharp rock formations, like we’re inside the mouth of a giant shark.

  Castian finally comes to a stop at a smooth groove in the cave where there’s a cot, weapons, and crates of food. I don’t know what’s worse, my hunger or my exhaustion.

  “Sit,” he says. “I’ll take the floor.”

  I don’t argue. I pull off the stolen doublet, and even the smallest movement hurts. I sit on the cot with my back against the wall. Castian slides to the floor beside me. This is worse than the Gray. Worse than remembrance, because it isn’t like I’m in someone else’s life. I am very much here and very much not.