Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(46)

“I know what he said,” the officer snaps, “but I take my commands from the prince, not Méndez. She goes in with the others.”

Something in his words gives me pause. Does that mean that he’s going to call the prince instead? Could my fate be this simple—to meet Castian in these cells? What if . . . My thoughts speed too quickly, trying to make a contingency plan in the event I come face-to-face with Castian instead. Would I be able to prevent myself from draining his memories? I grin at the thought.

“Why’re you smiling?” the officer demands.

I know the justice has all kinds of ways to know every word that is uttered about him, ears and eyes all over this kingdom. I know what happens when his orders aren’t carried out. Gabo trembles, averting his eyes. No. I decide he’s still my best chance.

“Because Justice Méndez is going to kill you for this.”



The torches are few and far between, spotting the muddy stone walls of the dungeons. Water trickles from gaps and crevices, creating puddles. I lose count of the steps we take. The tunnel thins out the farther we go; the walls are closing in. If I held out my arms, my elbows would bend. If I kept running into the labyrinthine passages, the way would become so thin that only a child could slip through. The justice who designed these paths a decade ago used to let prisoners go free. He wanted to play a game. See how far someone could get before they were caught, before they got so lost in the winding dark that they realized it was easier to stay put. There’s no better way to crush someone’s spirit than to give them the false hope of freedom.

The deeper into the bowels of the dungeons we get, the more I begin to realize that if I lost myself to my stolen memories, my mind would be as desolate and gray as this.

Someone down the line retches, and then there’s a series of cries as the guards divide us into cells. They’re little more than cages. They were never meant for long-term prisoners, but now they’re used that way, with humiliating buckets brimming with bodily waste in each corner and hay-stuffed cots ripped at the seams. They fill cell after cell but keep me behind. Anticipation coils in my gut, hoping that I will be brought to Méndez after all.

But when we get to a heavy wooden door studded with iron and a single slat to shove though meal trays, I realize where I am. Solitary.

I sit on the ground, cold and wetness seeping through the back of my tunic. When I look at the ceiling, there’s a dark stain that seems to keep spreading. But everything is dark in here, except for the rectangular window on the door. The door hinges groan as the lock tumbles into place.

I wonder how long someone has to be down here before they’re forgotten and discovered dead. A bead of water drips onto my forehead. At least, I hope it’s water. Footsteps echo in the distance. I wonder if Gabo will defy his officer. The thought brings a bitter laugh, because now I’m the naive one.

I wrap my arms around my knees, thankful I wasn’t stripped of my clothes. The stench conjures a memory of when I was a girl. When I lived in the palace as Justice Méndez’s ward, my rooms were draped with blue chiffon and white ruffled lace imported from the kingdom of Dauphinique east of the Castinian Sea, always an ally to Puerto Leones. Two dozen dolls with real hair on their heads lined my shelves, and wide doors led out onto my own private balcony. Porcelain bowls throughout my rooms were always filled with dried rose petals to mask the smell on the days when there were public executions, though the king has outlawed burnings in the last year. I vaguely remember the small forest cottage I lived in with my parents before that, but they’re only the shadowy impressions of a seven-year-old, so faded that they might never have existed at all.

Back then I didn’t know that I was the first of the Hand of Moria. Moria power, enslaved to the crown, used to do its bidding, used as symbols of the king’s dominance and control, threats to the parts of the known world he had failed to conquer.

I shudder as I push my way out of the Gray. I can’t relive that. But I know that if I’m going to survive long enough to carry out my plan, I may have to eventually. For now I allow myself to recall a moment of the good in my life—Sayida singing folk songs. Dez’s grin before a fight. I fish in my pocket for the token he gave me. I turn the coin across my knuckles, a trick Dez taught me when we were kids. He was always so good at sleight of hand.

A strange noise rattles my solitary cell, and I drop the coin.

I snap up. There’s nothing but my own frantic breath. My hands slapping cold stone until I find the coin and pocket it.

It happens again. And this time, I recognize it as a breath that strains to be taken. My eyes, now adjusted to the dark, see the shadows in the corner move toward the weak light at the center of the cell.

I am not alone.





Chapter 12


“Who’s there?” a man asks, his fingertips tapping the space around him.

Moisture drips from the ceiling, every drop sounds like a hand smacking a tub of water. A draft escapes from a thin crack in the door and whistles.

I sit just out of reach.

The man’s breath is ragged. Understandable, as there are more shadows than air. The cell is musty with the stench of rot and bodily waste. Less understandable, however, is the way the man’s bones jut from beneath his skin. Though the weak torchlight reveals a metal flap in the door wide enough to slide food through, it’s clear no one has in a long time. How could they have left him in here? It seems more cruel than the public displays and executions the justice is known for. The Fajardo reign must end.