Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(19)
“Yes,” Margo says without hesitation. And the rest of us follow.
Dez’s brow is set with a tense frown. I don’t foresee any one of us sleeping tonight.
“It’s settled, then. We keep making for ángeles at first light.”
For every league we travel, we sink into a different kind of denial.
Denial that we’ve lost the war to King Fernando and his justice. Denial that each and every one of us is going to end up like Lucia. For most of us, the worst the king could do was lock us up and torture our bodies. But that was before. The idea that our very magics are at stake—the core of who we are? It’s unthinkable. And yet there’s no other explanation for the memory I witnessed. Are they out there now using this weapon to find us? Justice Méndez’s face floats in my vision as we move. His sharp cheekbones, his meticulously groomed black hair shot through with streaks of silver, and gray eyes that noticed everything. I have countless blank spots in my memory, but I could never forget him. The man who was both a captor and a father to me.
I fall back behind the group to compose myself. My heart races too quickly, my breath too sharp. Dez is far up ahead of me, but he hasn’t spoken a full sentence since last night anyway. He still strides with the confidence of a general. Sometimes when I see him, his build, his posture, the way he walks, from this far off, I am reminded all over again of why we are all so willing to follow him, to listen to what he says. Even if we don’t agree with him.
My heart would follow him anywhere. Especially in times as bleak as these.
“Perhaps it’s a trick,” Margo says to me as we make our way across dusty Via de Santos. “A way to draw us out of the Memoria Mountains. The king keeps Moria at his disposal as weapons, doesn’t he? Hypocrite bestae.”
She’s talking about the Hand of Moria. The way he keeps one of each of us, like a collection, for his own purposes, even while killing off or torturing the rest in droves. Four Moria stand behind his throne as a symbol of his conquest over us.
“I saw all the little incendiary saw,” Esteban interjects, keeping his head low, hands gripping the straps of his pack. “Rodrigue’s alman stone was well hidden. The justice did not expect him to escape.”
I slow my pace, spirit as heavy as my boots. This morning’s river crossing has left us with trench foot, but there’s no stopping until we clear the last tollhouse that marks the end of Puerto Leones and beginnings of the Memoria Mountains—all that’s left of what once was the great kingdom of Memoria. The army of Puerto Leones could never navigate the terrain on foot or horseback, but we know the hidden pass. Besides, the mountains are too arid and rocky to sustain our entire population, so they hold no value to the king. I would never tell the others, but I believe that is why the crown has not tried harder to break through the mountains. They’ve already taken everything they think has value.
Walking along these empty roads feels like trekking across the ghost of a country. I have lived in ángeles for eight years. Ever since the Whispers’ Rebellion failed to assassinate King Fernando. But where they succeeded was in rescuing their stolen children.
I wonder, how long have they been working on this weapon? Was the final straw Riomar? What if it started even before that, when I was a child at the palace? If I try to access the Gray, perhaps I could find out—
But what if I can’t control all those memories? Innumerable sights, sounds, and emotions layered on top of my own. I don’t know if I could bear it.
“Illan will know what to do,” Sayida says after a long silence. She tries to stay close to me, but even she gets lost in thought. There’s an emptiness to her words, like she hasn’t yet convinced herself.
The way home feels still too far, and the two safe houses we know of on this route have shut their doors, leaving us in the sweltering heat.
The only way to quickly travel in broad daylight is to disguise ourselves as devout pilgrims, stowing our weapons out of sight of the tax farmers who collect from anyone traveling across the kingdom. We wear itchy black clothes and drape alder-wood prayer beads around our necks that symbolize the Father of Worlds.
The Memoria Mountains are a jagged dark promise on the horizon and the Via de Santos a winding dry road that will lead us there. Pilgrims and citizens of the kingdom stop before the mountain, at the Blessed Springs, whose baths and waterfalls are said to originate at the very body of water where the Father of Worlds emerged into being. We wait until nightfall and sneak past the tax farmers, who are drunk with coin and wine.
No matter how many steps we’ve taken, the mountains never feel closer. Hours later, under the naked sun, sweat drips down my neck and stings my stitched wound. Shouldering the weight of my pack is nearly unbearable, even with Dez emptying half the contents into his, but the only thing stronger than my pain is the fear of what I witnessed. Justice Méndez’s threat: We will find you.
We come upon a hill crest where we’re not the only others on the Via de Santos. A group of shepherds leers as our paths cross, their heads covered with white scarves to protect from the worst of the sun and dust. My heartbeat drums in my ears, louder than our boots crunching on the gravel path. Sayida quickly calls out a blessing to the Father of All, her musical voice and smile disarming them. They mumble a reply and turn their attention back to their sheep while our unit lapses into tense silence.
When the sun hovers over the mountains and the beginnings of sunset bleed into the sky, we come to a stop. There’s nothing around but arid earth, yellow grass, and the via.