Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(100)

He clamps his fingers around mine, too tightly. We’ve taken two steps toward the center of the dance floor when someone bars our way.

My hands shake, and the air is kicked out of my lungs at the sight of him—wind-tossed golden curls and sparkling war medals on an embroidered blue jacket that matches his eyes: Prince Castian.

At last.

“If I may, Father,” he says in a smooth, deep voice accompanied by a charming smile.

There’s ire in the king’s brow, tightness in his puckered mouth, but he won’t dare make a scene, not in front of all these people. He relinquishes his hold on me.

I’m handed over to Prince Castian like a toy it’s his turn to play with.

The orchestra kicks up a tune that feels more familiar than it should. I’ve been waiting for this moment for days, weeks, and now that it’s here I shake down to the bone. I’m disoriented. I’m a coward. I can’t even look him in the eye.

“You’re frightened,” the Bloodied Prince says, placing a firm hand around my waist. I clench my teeth and keep my eyes trained over his shoulder, to the red-and-yellow starburst mosaic behind him. My fingers close around his arm, perhaps too hard.

“I’m not frightened,” I say, harsh as a winter snap, and I keep a foot of space between us, which makes for awkward dancing.

“When I heard you were here, I knew I had to return.”

“You came all this way to see a Robári do tricks for the court?”

“No,” he says, so earnestly that I refuse to look at him. I have seen the way he kills, the way he makes people forgive him, the way he lures women in and then wrecks them.

“Then why?” I slip and grab his shoulder for purchase.

He flinches. “Careful.”

“You’re injured?” There have been no reports of skirmishes or battles. Where did he get wounded so close to his heart?

He sidesteps the question with the easy shuffle of his feet. When he glides his hand high on my back, images spill from the Gray despite my surge in power from the platinum dress.

Clothes strewn over the bed.

A golden trail of hair over firm muscle.

Queen Penelope pleading with Illan.

The Ventári in the solitary cell.

A wooden box.

Celeste up in flames.

Dez, always Dez.



When Castian pulls me closer, the dancers part for us, and I regain control of the Gray. I push the memories back and focus on the polished tiles beneath our feet, so blue it’s like we’re walking across the Castinian Sea.

“If you aren’t scared, why won’t you look into my eyes?”

My lips tremble, my nostrils flare, but I say, “Is it not enough that hundreds of eyes are already looking at you as we dance?”

I keep my gaze trained over his shoulder, where I find Justice Méndez watching intently, more intently than the others.

“I’m used to the hundreds of eyes. I am not, however, used to yours.”

Something twists in the pit of my stomach, like vipers wrenching themselves into a knot. His breath is cool on my cheek. I shut my eyes and see Dez’s severed neck. The blood that pooled over the executioner’s block. The blood that sprayed Castian’s face, which Davida later cleaned up. Davida, who suffers for this prince. Why? How can he be worth all this pain and destruction?

Castian grips my waist tighter, and I gasp as he tilts me back and pulls me forward in time to the rhythm of the vielles. I squeeze his shoulder harder than I should, and when he rights me, I look straight into his eyes.

The blue is fractured with bits of gold and green in the candlelight. I find the cuts, faint scars, from Davida’s memory. The crescent-moon scar Dez gave him. The divot between his brow is pronounced, like he’s trying to place me in a lost memory. But how could he recognize the rebel girl he met, covered in dirt and tears in the forest, in the one I am now, draped in black silk and feathers and platinum, like a promise of death?

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he says, an infuriating victoriousness tugging his full, peach mouth into a smile.

“I suppose you always get what you want, don’t you, Your Highness?” I match his smile with one of my own. Remember who he is.

He quietly thinks on this, slowing his steps. We are in the center of the dance floor, but now other couples have joined us, trying to edge closer in attempts to overhear what a prince like him is saying to a monster like me.

“I fight for what I believe in,” he says, finally. “And I always fight to win. In that sense, I get what I want.”

“Why bother dancing with someone like me when there are scores of ladies waiting for you? Some of them for several weeks.”

He grimaces, and I fear I have finally reached the limit of what I can get away with saying. He halts. I stumble, but he rights me with his waiting hand, as if he knew the next step I’d take. He twirls me under his arm, and I feel like a plaything as I spin back into his arms, bracing my red-gloved hands on his chest to keep at least a breath of space between us.

“Have you not been waiting for me for several weeks?” he asks, guiding me back into the song, out of the ballroom, and through the double doors where the feast spills out into the garden. Couples follow, but here the music is louder and the shadows play with silver moonlight. Here he must lean in closer to speak to me, to see me.