Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(30)

But Castian knocks Dez’s stolen sword to the ground, and moves in before I can blink, threatening to puncture his throat.

Dez looks from the sword point to where I stand, then his gaze glides past me.

It’s that look that tells me we’re surrounded before I can see them. Men dressed in the king’s dark purple and gold flank us from all sides. Where were they hiding? How did we not see them? Did they watch Dez and me hide behind the mound, toying with us before revealing themselves? Did they use the justice’s weapon to find us?

There is one guard for each of us. I recognize the boy we left unconscious—he’s sporting a bruised eye and a limp. Sayida reaches for my hand, as if to remind me that I can’t act without thinking.

“Drop your weapons,” Castian says calmly. He winks at Dez and says, “Stay,” before striding in our direction, the four of us standing in a helpless line. My memory—Dez’s memory—is so fresh in my mind that it is like I’m seeing two of Castian. There’s the Bloodied Prince clutching Dez’s throat, so full of rage. Then there’s this Castian, flashing a victorious smile.

A third vision of him sparks like lightning in the dark of my thoughts: Esmeraldas. Celeste. A child’s memory of strangers setting fire to his house. The same voice that’s telling Dez to stay like a dog. No one can know I was here, he’d said. But Prince Castian is known for his pageantry, riding from village to citadela protecting them from the threat of the Whispers.

This Castian looks and sounds like the glimpses I have of him, but there’s something different. An overconfidence that reeks of someone who knows they’ve already won.

“Thank the Father you’re consistent,” Castian tells Dez, tracing the crescent moon scar on his cheekbone. “Nearly a year since we last met and you’ve still got a death wish.”

The casual nature of his voice doesn’t belong in this forest, among our unit, while our lives hang in the balance. I hate everything about him. I want to rip every memory out of his head. The Matahermano’s strange blue eyes settle on me, frowning like I’ve spat in his food, before moving down the line.

“Let them go,” Dez growls. His hands are balled into fists, blood blooming like petals on the sleeves of his tunic. My body lurches forward, but Esteban wrenches my wrist.

“Dez!” Margo shouts, and the soldier behind her yanks her back by her hair.

Sayida throws that slender knife of hers and Margo catches it in the crook of her arm, driving it upward into the soldier’s eye. The man’s screams send birds flying from the canopies. Only one of the soldiers helps him stand.

Dez is still watching Margo and whirls around too slowly as a fresh-faced soldier—the one who nearly severed my neck in Esmeraldas—surprises him with two daggers, one at the neck and one over his heart. Dez’s eyes widen, a new stream of blood running down his neck where the knife-happy soldier has cut him.

“You took my sword,” the boy says.

“Stop!” Castian tries to keep the steel of victory on the smooth plane of his brow, but those eerie blue eyes spark with worry. The prince squeezes a hand into a fist, the spikes across his knuckles poised as a threat to the young boy. “I need him alive.”

We shift ranks, the soldiers protecting their prince while the four of us keep our weapons drawn in wait.

“They’re nothing but scavengers,” Dez says, and spits a mouthful of blood at the ground. He keeps his arms out wide. “It’s me you want. Take me.”

Castian’s face is bloody from a red cut on the fine slope of his regal nose. I hope it hurts. He flashes a smile from us to Dez. “Why would I do that?”

Dez takes this moment to slam the back of his head directly into the soldier behind him. The young man falls, cradling his face, but doesn’t get up. Dez reaches into his pocket before anyone can advance and draws out a glass vial. Poison made from the olaneda blossom that grows in the highest peaks of the Memoria Mountains. One of our alchemists created it, trying to develop a cure for the plague that swept the continent years ago. Instead he discovered a quick death.

“Dez,” I say.

He doesn’t look at me.

Castian raises a hand to signal his men to stand back. He bites down so hard his jaw tenses. Is that fear in the prince’s eyes? Dez might not be able to remember the way Castian nearly killed him, but I do. I feel it so deeply that it takes everything in me not to scream.

Castian’s upper lip is a snarl. “You wouldn’t.”

“They are worth my life,” Dez says, his words so even and strong no one could doubt it. “I’m the son of an elder. I’m the leader of the Whispers. It’s me you want.”

“You overestimate your value.”

“Then why’d you come looking for me?” Dez asks. “Because the spy is dead. Celeste is dead. But you must know that already. You want me alive to get your revenge for that pretty scar I gave you.”

What Dez said last night before thrums in my mind. Trust me.

Is this what he meant?

I want to believe Dez would never die by poison. There is no shame in it. But if this is the path he chooses, it means that there is no hope and no chance for the rest of us. And yet, he sets the vial between his teeth. He could bite down and break the glass. The poison would work before he even swallowed any glass shards.

Castian’s hands become fists at his sides. I imagine those pointed knuckles driving through Dez’s skull.