Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(118)

“She can’t fight. Her arms.”

“She doesn’t have to.”

Margo’s eyes light up when she realizes what I mean. For the first time, our thoughts are aligned. Together, we dash across the lawn to the other side of the cloisters. A dozen armed soldiers chase us across the green. There’s a small chapel there, and as we get nearer, the doors swing open to let us in and shut quickly behind us.

Sayida, along with dozens of others, stanch their wounds and take inventory of the dead.

“We need to get as many soldiers as we can to stand down. Sayida, gather the Persuári,” I say. “We’re going to create a diversion.”

“There’s too many of them.”

“Not for long,” I say. “Do you still have the metals Lady Nuria gave us? Margo—”

“I know what to do. Yanes, Gregorio, Amina!” Margo rallies her fellow Illusionári. She takes off all the rings on her fingers, except one. Yanes, Grego, and Amina slide them on. For the younger Moria, precious metals are a luxury. I can see them call on their powers, the irises of their eyes sharpening.

With a wicked grin, Margo leads her small group back out to the lawn and whistles between her fingers. The Illusionári spread out. Moving as one, they mirror Margo’s body language, pressing their hands against the air until it ripples around them like pebbles breaking the clearest surface water.

Six purple-clad soldiers advance, and Margo’s foot trembles with anticipation as she waits for them to close ranks. A deep, thundering cry comes from around us. Four spotted lynxes as big as wolves charge forward with bared teeth and sharp claws digging into the air. Their fur gleams in the sun, and they spring, corralling the rest of the soldiers into the center of the lawn.

My stomach tightens with the aftereffects of their powerful Illusionári magics, but it’s working. They’re drawing the king’s soldiers away from the others.

“Stand down,” I say.

Half of them draw their swords.

Sayida and her three Persuári step onto the grass. She shuts her eyes, holds her palms up, and the others follow. This close together, they create a stream of undulating colors. They weave through the air like ribbons, streaming toward the king’s soldiers, into their noses, their eyes, their ears. Sayida always tries to draw out the good in people and so those who did not draw their swords fall to their knees. I think of the guard in Esmeraldas, when Dez made him give up his weapon. Some of the soldiers stand down. A few run.

“Stand down!” I shout again at the remaining soldiers.

They don’t.

“We fight,” Margo says, drawing her short sword. Her unit follows.

We are a fury of metal and bloody fists. Bone ripping through knuckles, the tender skin of lips tearing in half. I shake with the violence that is a living thing inside me. I slip into that rage the way memories slip through my fingers, and as I stand over a fallen soldier, her dark eyes fluttering as my fingers dig into her temples, I know that this anger will be the end of me one day.

It is a cacophony of voices—Méndez, Lozar, Dez—countless others whose names I don’t know.

With my heart on my lips, I let go of the soldier.

She blinks, staring around the lawn. She’s survived.

But we’ve won.



We gather the dead soldiers and dead Whispers in the courtyard. The Whispers still living scream in agony. A Moria woman weeps as she carries a young boy in her arms. She lays him down among the others.

“On your word, Commander,” a Persuári named Victor addresses Margo.

For a moment, Margo’s blue stare falls on me. I see the moment she steels herself, her arms behind her back in the same posture that Dez always took when faced with an impossible task, as if commanding his body to listen to him, to stay still.

“You.” She points to the woman I spared. The soldier sways on her knees.

“Tell your king what has happened here. Tell him that we will not fall. Not now, not ever. The Whispers are alive and together—we make a thunderous voice. Do you understand me?”

She nods rapidly, tears streaming down her face when she looks to the three soldiers who refused to surrender. No one speaks of mercy. Not when the numbers are on their side.

Margo turns to the three, who are silent in their bindings. A part of me wants to stop this. We should be better than the crown. But I have witnessed too much pain. Too much death. We did not start this violence, but we will finish it.

“A life for a life,” Margo commands. “Your king owes us thousands.”

I shut my eyes and hear a series of blades slice across flesh.

When it’s over, there is a line of red where the dead soldiers have fallen across the green field.

In the distance, the soldier Margo set free is a purple dot running south, back to the capital to deliver our message.

For a long time, we stand in utter silence. Barely two dozen of us, lingering like ghosts across a field of horror. Not even the wind howls through the mountains.

Then a young girl runs up to me. She tugs at my hand and her cry drives like steel into my core. “Come quick! It’s Illan.”



Illan lies beside the willow tree where Dez’s headstone is marked. He’s alive, thank the Mother of All, but there’s a dagger driven through his rib cage, his own fingers covered in blood as he tries to stop the bleeding. A young soldier is facedown beside him with a crack on his forehead. A silver fox head split from its cane.