Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(32)

Chapter 8


When I open my eyes, it is dark once more. I register a tent. A low—burning lamp on the floor beside me. My lashes brush against soft fabric, not the dusty blanket I’ve been carrying for a week. The skin at the base of my neck is tender, the stitches like cords strung too tight. I let out a pained wail as the last thing I remember crashes over me. Dez’s voice rings in my thoughts.

Remember, Dez said.

“Dez.” I sit up and blink to adjust to the light.

Sayida presses her hands on my chest, and immediately my breaths slow as her Persuári magics move through me in a warm pulse. She’s always described her power as seeing the colors that make up human emotion. I wonder what color mine is right now.

“Stop,” I say, and she does.

I try to stand. Instantly, a wave of dizziness makes me sway.

Sayida puts her hands on my shoulders, gently guiding me back down to the cot. “Please, Ren, you have to stay still.”

“Where’s Dez?”

She pauses, sighing slowly, as if to hold back tears. “You know he isn’t here.”

“I don’t need magics right now,” I say. I need Dez but I can’t say that, even to my own friend. “What happened?”

Sayida hesitates. “You were cut with a poisoned blade. Alacran venom mixed with blood roses, judging from the scent. Illan says you need to lie down.”

“Illan is here?” I ignore Sayida and remain sitting. “And the units? Are they ready to counterattack?”

Shadows of trees playing against the tent’s canvas walls. The same creatures I heard last night when Dez and I . . . We’re still in the Forest of Lynxes.

Over Sayida’s shoulder, Esteban comes into focus. He isn’t looking at me with his usual contempt, but his arms are crossed over his chest to keep his distance. He’s shaved the scraggly beard, leaving smooth brown skin. Softly, he says, “The entire council is here, Renata.”

Renata. Esteban never says my whole name. Incendiary. Scavenger. Hells, even You.

“Am I dying?” I ask Sayida.

She shakes her head and smiles despite the sadness that weighs her down. “Illan got most of it out. But he couldn’t do anything about the nightmares.”

I close my eyes again and I can smell it, like someone holding a poultice under my nose. My stomach lurches. I’m ravenously hungry and nauseous at the same time. I don’t remember nightmares. That’s the thing about the Gray and the more recent memories I’ve taken. They’re always there when I’m awake or sleeping. On the rare occasion I do “dream,” I’m recalling stolen pasts.

“I feel like I was trampled by a bull,” I say. I run my tongue over the inside of my mouth where there’s a touch of numbness. “How long have I been asleep?”

“The better part of two days.”

The Príncipe Dorado’s voice rings in my ear. This rebellion is over or your prince of rebels dies without a trial. I’ll expect your complete and utter surrender in three nights, or he will be executed on the fourth day.

“Two days?” My chest hurts. Blood pounds in my ears, making it hard to think. I press my fists on the cot to try again to stand, stretch my aching leg muscles. “Have they sent a rescue mission to the palace? We can’t surrender, but we can’t let Dez face trial. No one is ever found innocent.”

Esteban’s frown deepens while Sayida looks down at her lap, twisting her copper ring.

“We’ve been ordered to wait,” she says quietly.

“Wait for what?” I shout. She flinches, but she won’t yell back, I know she won’t. Sayida is all softness and warm light, and I am hard edges and shadow. What did Dez call me? Vengeance in the night. “We have to save him. Dez would do it for us.”

Someone pushes back the tent flap, a hand gripping the silver handle of a cane.

“There will be no surrender.” Illan’s voice cuts like the sharpest blade. The elder strides inside, his thick powder-white hair nearly grazing the top of my tent. Eyebrows the same stark black as Dez’s knit together at the sight of us. His cane digs into the forest ground, and he grips the silver fox head even tighter. The mark of the Mother of All, a crescent moon surrounded by an arc of stars, dances across his right shoulder, exposed by the drape of his tunic. All the elders bear this mark.

Illan de Martín, elder and leader of the Whisper rebellion, and the most powerful Ventári alive. He inhales deeply, as if he’s taking the strength out of the tent. “And there will be no rescue mission.”

“But—”

Illan throws up a hand, and the sleeve of his tunic slides back. “If anyone disobeys me, they can take leave of their unit and the Whispers’ safe houses and never return.”

I fight a surge of rage that bubbles in my veins. “He’s your son.”

The silence in the tent is resounding. Sayida and Esteban keep their gazes pointedly away from mine while I glare at Illan. The elder isn’t known for being gentle, but he is known to be just. It doesn’t make sense. He’s staged far more dangerous missions. Like when we snuck into Citadela Crescenti to find the descendants of an old Memoria high-born family. Or when Dez and I attended a masquerade ball at a lord’s estate while two units robbed his stores.