Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(35)

If I ripped away Dez’s memory of the code, he won’t be able to break free. If Dez can’t break free from his cell, he won’t be able to find the weapon. And then? He’ll be in his cell the morning of the execution. In two days. We are a full day from the capital. That leaves so little time. I remember again the prince’s white grin as he sparred with Dez. The feline grace of his movements. His preference for blood and spectacle. The way he struck his own soldier when questioned. I don’t make promises to Moria.

I have to tell Illan what I’ve done. But as I scramble out of my bed, wincing at the lingering pain in my shoulder, I realize that if I tell Illan, he’ll have to call a meeting of elders to make a decision. There’ll be a debate, voting, procedures that take time. That’s time Dez doesn’t have.

I have to be the one to go to Dez—no matter what Illan or the elders decide.

No matter that I will never be welcomed back to the Whispers, because once again I’ve betrayed them. What have I done?

My hands shake as I strap my sword back onto my belt and hurry into my boots. The air already feels thinner, the night giving way to the coming day, as I sneak out to the horses, whispering softly to calm them. Dez will die the day after tomorrow, and it will be my fault. The thought is choking, blinding. I have to steady myself. I have to make it to him. I breathe in, breathe out, and mount.

I trust you, Ren. That was his mistake, wasn’t it?

Never trust a Robári.

I can’t think as the horse picks up speed. I can’t feel anything but a dark, pulsing shudder of truth. He will die, and I am the one who sentenced him.

Unless I get there first.





Chapter 9


The first time I tried to run away from a Whispers’ safe house in Citadela Salinas, I was thirteen. Much like now, I stole a horse. The beasts are precious to the Whispers, but I didn’t care. During training the other kids lobbed cruel names when they thought Dez and Illan weren’t nearby. My teachers saw right through me. My parents were dead. I simply couldn’t stay there. So I saddled a horse as best I could and ran. I got far and lost along the Cliffs of Jura, but Dez found me.

Now it’s my turn to return the favor.

I ride.

I ride until my thighs revolt with agony. Until my fingers cramp around the reins. My face burning from the wind. The thunder of hooves against a road I shouldn’t be on because it leads right to Andalucía, the capital of Puerto Leones. My eyes play tricks on me, my skull throbs. People appear like ghosts on the sides of the road and then vanish into sails of the Gray. The land tugs the memories to the front of my mind, forcing me to recall the lives that walked this very same road. The last few days have put so much strain on me that the vault in my head is cracking open. I want to laugh because Illan thought it would be meditation, patience that would help me break through. I should have told him sooner that I needed something inside me to break so thoroughly I could never be put back together. That’s what will happen if I don’t get to Dez.

I hear his voice as I ride. I know you’re afraid. So am I.

Over the years, Illan has never sent me on a mission to Andalucía. I prepare for seeing the towering buildings, the palace that glitters when the sun is out. The jewel of Puerto Leones. I hate the girl I was. I’ve wanted to believe she died in the fire, but a part of me wonders if the reason I stayed away was because I’m afraid she’s still there waiting for me, wretched and destructive.

I know you’re afraid. So am I.

“I’m terrified, Dez,” I say to the wind.

Sounds play tricks on me, too. A great drumming rhythm coming from the east as the sky bleeds with the beginning of morning light. I look behind me, and for the first time in hours, my heart swells like a great wave breaking over me, through me. Because they’ve come.

I’m not alone.

When I crest the hilltop, I pull on the reins to bring my horse to a stop. He moves to the side, kicking up dust on the road that snakes down toward the small town before the capital.

Two horses line up on either side of me. Esteban and Margo on one and Sayida on the other.

“What are you doing here?” I manage to ask.

Margo wears a wide-brimmed wool hat, creating a shadow over her pale blue eyes. Esteban holds the reins around her, a red scarf covering the lower half of his face.

“Same as you,” Margo says, voice hoarse. She must’ve been crying. I can see it in the streaks of dirt on her white skin. “You should have come to us.”

“There was no time.” I breathe hard to stop the swell of emotion. I am not alone. “I didn’t think you’d follow me.”

“That’s my fault,” Margo says. Is it difficult to admit this to me? “The elders are wrong. This is the right thing to do.”

“He’d never leave us behind,” Sayida says, pulling down her indigo-blue scarf.

Except he did leave us. Back in that forest. They don’t know of Illan’s plan. They don’t know that I’ve stolen Dez’s memory, that I’m the reason he won’t be able to get free. My tongue feels swollen with the fear of revealing this truth, so I say nothing.

Instead, we stare at the grim warning laid out before us.

Both sides of the main road that snakes to Andalucía are lined with spikes. Dozens, hundreds of spikes, each one a yard apart. Decapitated heads of captured Moria and other innocents doomed to be displayed beside thieves, traitors, and murderers alike. All of them distorted, with rot and decaying flesh punctuating each stalk. The head closest to us is half-eaten by bugs the size of libra coins, eight legs climbing into an eye socket.