Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(119)

“No.” The cry trembles through me as I crouch beside him, pressing my palm over the knife wound in his stomach.

I know I should say more. I owe him my life. I owe him—

“Renata. I must show you this before I go. . . .” Illan takes my hand in his and rests it over a heart that struggles to beat.

I remember his face eight years ago, eyes fierce with rebellion. Hope. He carried me out of the palace himself, and I thrashed and screamed in his arms because I didn’t want to go, didn’t know he was saving me. He changed my life forever.

“Sayida!” I shout even as I’m already surrounded. “De—” I catch his name on my lips. It feels wrong that he’s not here, not by his father’s side.

“Please,” Illan whispers. His throat makes a gurgling sound. Blood filling his chest, his throat. He guides my bloody hand to his forehead, and when my slick fingers make contact, I know what he wants me to do.

Tears slide down my cheeks, my fingertips glow, as I send a pulse of magic to retrieve the memory he offers.



Queen Penelope is going to change her mind. He can see it in the way she paces the reading room, her golden hair hazy in the sun, like a halo. The hatch under the rug is still open, and dust clings to his hair and clothes.

“Your Majesty,” he begins, but she cuts him off.

“No, you do not get to placate me,” she says, settling fierce blue eyes on him.

“I only mean to remind you that this is how we end the bloodshed. The king must have a single heir. An heir he can trust, he can mold. An heir he thinks will carry on his legacy. But you will be there, by the prince’s side, keeping his heart full. Our next king must have a full heart.”

Queen Penelope takes a deep breath. The daughter of old kings, her bloodline tied to this earth. She lifts her golden circlet and places it on her regal head. “I promised my father we would end this war.”

“We will meet by the river at sunset.” Illan grabs her hands and climbs back down the hidden stairwell.



“What if the child will not come?” Celeste asks. Disguised in common servant clothes, the spy twists her copper ring, the only sign that she is nervous.

“He will. You’ve mastered the art of turning emotion into color. No child could resist.”

Celeste nods and marches into the wood, where the golden-haired prince sits at the bank of the river. He can’t be more than four, but his entire childhood will be gone after today. The prince throws stone after stone while a smaller boy cries beside him.

“Shhh, Mamá is on her way back,” the prince says. The second boy tries to crawl away.

“Hello, young one,” Celeste says.

Prince Castian looks up from the baby. “Who are you?”

“I am a sorceress.” Celeste waves her fingers in the air. She pulls at the boy’s feeling of wonder, bright blues and greens swirling all around. “The most powerful in the land.”

The prince’s eyes widen. “Can you teach me?”

Celeste nods. “But you know what the king’s rules about magics are. You must not tell a soul. Do we have an agreement?”

Castian steps forward and holds out his tiny hand. “Wait. I have to watch my brother until my mother returns.”

Celeste glances up and sees the queen watching from afar, concealing herself behind thick oak trees, profound grief already etched across her face. “The child will be safe and sound in the basket. Or do you not wish to learn?”

The prince has doubts, but his curiosity wins, and he follows Celeste into the thicket of trees, chasing the colorful ribbons in the air. His small fingers try to grab hold of them, but he can’t. She uses that innocence, that wonder, and lulls him into a transfixed state.

It is in that moment that Illan must do his part. He breaks for the second boy and lifts him into his arms. He throws a bundle into the river, then hurries through the forest, this life pressed against his chest.

He pauses for a moment, then looks back to the shore. The queen’s cry rings out, true and broken, never to see her second son again. The blankets bob in the rushing waters. Celeste vanishes into the forest. The prince weeps as he watches his mother break apart.

“What have you done?” the queen shouts over and over. The prince would never know she wasn’t shouting at him, but at herself.

Illan can’t stomach the scene, knowing the pain he’s caused, despite the desperate reason. He broke the queen’s heart, took half of it away from her, and carried the missing piece into the forest, never to look back again.



When I pull away, Illan is no longer breathing. His eyes stare at the sky, mouth slightly ajar with a trickle of blood flowing from each corner.

“Illan,” I say. I shake him, my fingers wet with blood and still trembling at the memory he just showed me.

“He’s gone, Ren,” Sayida whispers beside me.

I know it. And yet, I cannot move. No one can.

I’m momentarily paralyzed by grief, and speechless in my confusion. Prince Castian didn’t murder his brother. Illan took him. To what end? I know what this means, but I can’t face it. I think of the memory I stole from the garden, the secret rendezvous between Illan and Queen Penelope. Illan said it was to save their lives. From who, the king? Illan said they needed to give the king a reason to trust the prince, someone to mold in his own image. And what better way to mirror such a tyrant than a boy who murdered his own brother.