Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(14)

Sayida gives me a warm smile. “What happened? I’ve never seen you react to a flame that way.”

Sayida never has to use her Persuári gifts to influence my mood. There’s something about her that makes me want to spill my secrets, even the things I can’t always voice to Dez.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “I remembered something from when I was a child.”

Her thick eyebrows arch with surprise. “That’s good, isn’t it? You haven’t been able to access the Gray since you were rescued from the palace, right?”

I hold my hair back and stare at the grass while she cleans and dries the wound. “I’ve been working with Illan to try and recall more from my time with the king’s justice to use to our advantage, but nothing has worked. He thinks that I compartmentalized my memories so my mind wouldn’t crumble. That I created the Gray to hold all my memories from that time. The other elders believe that the Gray is a side effect. A punishment, really, for the Robári who create Hollows. It’s what I deserve, I suppose.”

“Don’t say that, Ren.” Sayida frowns and presses a dry cloth to the flask of aguadulce. I brace for the burn of alcohol. “We all have darkness in our pasts. The goddess says we all deserve forgiveness.”

“I shouldn’t be forgiven just because I hardly remember the first nine years of my life.”

“And look at all you’ve done since,” she whispers, then covers my wound.

My vision flares red and I swallow my scream, if only because I don’t want Margo and Esteban to think me weak.

“Hold still now.” Sayida waits for me to stop wincing, then threads the needle. I shut my eyes and hold my breath as the metal pierces skin. The silk string follows through and tugs.

I breathe hard and fast. My temples pulse with a dull ache. I have to keep the Gray under control. The elders believe that perhaps there’s something there that could help turn the tide of the Moria rebellion against the king. But deep down, I wonder if the reason I couldn’t access the memories with Illan’s training is because I didn’t want anything resurfacing.

Unlike the Whispers, I spent part of my childhood in the palace, not as a captive—as a guest of the king and the justice. A kind of pet, really. Ten years ago, the justice began to seek out Robári children all throughout the kingdom to be used as weapons. And though there must have been a few others like me—Robári are rare, not extinct—I don’t remember them. Maybe they were old enough to refuse the work the justice demanded, and were executed for their belligerence. But I didn’t refuse.

I did as I was told.

Justice Méndez had singled me out. He would sit me in one of the palace’s many parlor rooms and bring trays of delicacies for me to choose from. He told me that my ability to pull memories from people was the most powerful he’d ever seen. I didn’t know then that I couldn’t give the memories back. That I could steal one too many. That when I was finished—when I emptied people of all their memories—I was leaving behind only a shadow of a person. A Hollow.

I didn’t know I was the justice’s greatest asset in the beginnings of the King’s Wrath, when thousands of my kind—including my parents, I later found out—were massacred. The crime was using our magics against the king and people of Puerto Leones.

“There,” Sayida says when she’s finished, applying an herb salve that cools my burning skin. Admiring her work, she smiles. “That should hold you over until we get back to ángeles.”

“If we make it back,” Esteban says, snatching the flask from Sayida’s hand before she can put it away.

“Always the optimist. Have you so little confidence in my ability to get you home?” Dez calls good-naturedly, but I hear the challenge running beneath the question.

“I trust you with my life, Dez, but I worry that scavenger’s mistake will follow us.” Esteban runs a hand over his coarse, curly hair.

“This scavenger also happens to be the only person in ángeles who can read an alman stone,” Dez says, an edge to his words. “Unless you’ve acquired talents I wasn’t aware of.”

“If you call that curse a talent,” Esteban says.

I stand abruptly and leave—but not because of Esteban, whose insults are as familiar to me as the whorls on my palms. I glance at Dez once because I know that he is going to follow.

Treading away from our camp, I keep along the river until we’re out of earshot. Dez’s presence looms behind me, his steps matching mine.

“Esteban was out of line,” Dez says when I finally stop to face him. “I’ll speak to him.”

“Esteban is always out of line,” I say sharply. “And I don’t want you to have to speak to him. I want you to let me deal with him myself.”

Dez glances skyward, confused. “Let me help.”

“Don’t you see what you do?” I take a breath because between running in and out of Esmeraldas and my memories trying to break out of the Gray, I feel stretched too thin. “They’ll never respect me if you come to my defense at every turn.”

“You’re still the most valuable person in this unit. In all of ángeles. Without you we’d be in the dark.”

“You don’t see it,” I say, shaking my head slowly. “I’m not talking about my value.”