Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(45)
My lungs long for the clean air; my heart craves light. For a moment, I try to imagine that I’m back in ángeles, in my drafty, small chamber in the San Cristóbal cloisters with creaky wooden floors, a window narrow but tall that lets in the sun to wake me up. I’m never going to see that room again. I’m never going to walk through the wide halls or sit in the library with a stack of parchments the elders encourage us to read. Learn our histories before they are rewritten by the Bloodied King, they said. I’ll never sneak down the turret to meet Dez at the waterfall, or skin my knees falling during sparring drills. I will never.
I made that decision, but a shudder rips through my lungs because also I never thought I’d be back at the palace. I picture a younger version of myself walking hand in hand with Justice Méndez. A rag doll in Dauphinique lace and satin gloves.
The wagon halts, and there’s the rattle of a cylinder lock’s keys turning until they sigh with release and reveal the guards in the flickering light. The first guard, the one with a gap-toothed sneer, gives his torso a bit of a stretch. He’s dramatic in all of his movements, like he’s taunting us with his ability to move freely. I can tell he likes to cause pain. I’ve seen that look before. Castian had it in his eyes when he fought Dez in Riomar and when he drove his spiked gloves into his own guard’s face.
I’m dragged out of the cart with the rest of the prisoners, and that’s when I finally place the smell: incense. The stench of it does little to cover up the filth of the capital and the dungeon. For a moment I see nothing, only feel the steady beating of my heart concentrated in my ears.
I promised myself I wouldn’t come back here. If my old mentor could see me now—what would he say? Méndez is not a man with remorse. But he was never cruel to me. Would he order me killed on sight or chain my hands and use me for my power once again? If I managed to sneak into the palace, he’d never believe that I was there of my own free will. No, this deception has to start in the belly of the palace.
My palms itch with the anticipation of magics. Castian’s face takes up most of my waking thoughts. He clouds everything. Worse than the other memories and the Gray. The promise of emptying the prince’s mind and leaving him in a comatose state thrills and horrifies me. I will be the monster I’ve feared. The kingdom will mourn their prince, and I will live with the memories of Dez’s killer. At least I won’t have to live with them for long. But the walls in my mind darken. There is a shadow around my vision. I do not, cannot, see another way out.
You are not a girl. You are vengeance in the night.
That’s what I have to be for Dez.
The dungeon’s gate nestles in a depression that links the palace and cathedral as the kingdom’s reigning power structures. The Second Sweep hands us over to the two guards posted at the entrance, though I know there are more waiting inside. There’s a metallic moan as one of them turns the keys in the lock and opens the gates up, like a sea monster’s mouth ready to swallow us whole.
It’s time.
I watch the guards. The second one averts his eyes as more bodies stumble out of the wagon. My instinct tells me that he’s the one I need to go to. When I take a step closer to him, I can see he’s young, with the dark brown complexion of Tresorian ancestry, like Esteban. This soldier’s face is too soft, delicate. He probably couldn’t buy himself out of the draft like the wealthy merchants and lords of his provincia, and now he’s here, leading us into our cells. Or perhaps I want to imagine that there’s an innocence in his large brown eyes that isn’t there.
He seizes the chain of my manacles and yanks me forward to the open gate leading into the dark tunnel, but I grab hold of his hands. His dark eyes flick to the whorls that cover my hands, and he stiffens, eyes wide as if I’ve already started to drain him of his memories.
“Let go! Let go of me,” he says, a scared boy who dwindles in stature at my barest touch.
“I must see Justice Méndez,” I say, digging my thumb into the inside of his wrist. My nearness sends him into a stuttering frenzy because he knows exactly what I can do to him if I want. I’ve always hated that reaction, but now I’m counting on it. “I don’t belong here.”
Behind me a commotion erupts. I whirl around as an older guard with sweat-matted brown hair and a long scar across his chapped lips pushes the other prisoners aside to get to me. He snatches a fistful of my hair and tugs. His olive skin is covered in dozens of tiny scars, and I’m surprised they’d let a survivor of the plague enlist.
“What’s the delay, Gabo?”
Gabo yanks his hands from my grasp. “She says she wants to see the justice, Sergeant.”
The sergeant arches a thick brow, studying me. “In a hurry to have your trial?”
Raising my chin so that it’s out of his grasp, I gather all the strength I can into my voice. “Tell Justice Méndez that Renata Convida has returned to the fold.”
There’s a moment of silence between the guards, as they consider my words. Gabo seems truly terrified. No one—not even the magicless Leonesse—would willingly seek out Justice Méndez. I note that his name still inspires the same fear, perhaps worse than before.
“Maybe we should get the justice, no?” Gabo whispers to the sergeant. “Look at her hands. Her scars. Méndez said to send all possible Robári to him as soon as—”