Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(128)

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.