Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(52)
“All you have to do is find this man’s secret. He’s keeping something very dear to me hidden in a place with snow.”
“I don’t know how,” I said, and it was true. I’d never used my power before. My mother explained it once. She said I was blessed with the magics of memory. Only the Lady of Whispers knew everyone’s secrets and it was a gift I had to keep to myself.
I can’t remember how, but I did it. I pressed my unmarred fingers to the bound man’s temples and pulled out a memory of Citadela Nevadas up in the mountain range of the same name. I described the small wooden houses with chimneys puffing out black smoke. Men hauling wood through a snowbank and into a cabin full of swords and other weapons.
Before I could even finish, Méndez shouted, “Citadela Nevadas. Send an infantry right away.”
Now, as I lean back in the chair that I’ve grown into, my eyes flick to the wall behind Méndez. There’s a map of the kingdom of Puerto Leones hanging there. It changes bit by bit every year, erasing provincias. There’s a mountain range west of the capital, the only place in the country where it ever snows. Three years ago, I was sent on a mission to scout Citadela Nevadas.
It was nothing but ruins and I couldn’t remember why, but I knew it was because of a memory I had stolen. I didn’t know it was once a holdout from the queendom of Tresoros, which never recognized the treaty between their former country and Puerto Leones.
I can’t find Nevadas on the map, either, but the mountain range is clearly drawn and capped by white snow.
The justice’s study hasn’t changed in a decade, except perhaps for a different guard standing at the door, and the smattering of gray in Justice Méndez’s dark hair. His sharp cheekbones have a touch of red, as if he’s been somewhere sunny recently. Though he must be in his early forties, he has the wrinkleless face of someone who seldom smiles or laughs.
Méndez takes a white cloth, dips it into a brown jar on the right side of his desk, and rubs the table down with it. The liquid is pungent with lemons and orange rinds. Once the wood gleams, he pats the surface, on which stand neat rows of metal instruments, small knives, vials in clear bottles the shade of pond water, a porcelain bowl full of balls of cotton, long, slender needles, and black thread.
Before Méndez became the head of the king’s justice, in charge of overseeing peace and order, he had been a medic in the king’s army. It’s part of the reason why he knows what is most harmful to the body and how to craft the best instruments of pain. From the drawer, he takes out a clean pair of calfskin gloves and tugs them on.
This would be so much easier if I were a Persuári to guide his emotions or a Ventári to see what he’s thinking.
“Come, Renata.” His storm-gray eyes focus on my face, silently interrogating my features for any signs of deceit. “Your hand, please.”
Dez’s boot knife is in front of me. I consider grabbing it and stabbing it through the thick veins on the top of his hand. It is a wild, sudden impulse that vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Extending my bare hand to the most powerful man in the kingdom, save for the king and prince, I lower my head with shame that is far too real.
My knuckles are a bloodied mess of torn skin, and the gash on my palm has clotted. I can’t help but wince and bite my tongue as he pulls my fingers open to assess the damage.
“Are you afraid?” he asks. Those gray eyes never miss a thing. He did not become this man by believing every story that was brought to him. His body is rigid, but the anger he showed to the guard—the dead guard—has been replaced with careful suspicion. I would be a fool not to be afraid.
Some part of me doesn’t believe that he would hurt me. Not when I am more useful to him alive.
“Yes,” I say.
His cheek twitches. “I must assume the rebels have poisoned you against me.”
“They tried.” My voice grates in my throat, these recollections taking the shape of daggers. “The Whispers kept me among them. I was too valuable to kill. Too dangerous to trust. They—” I cut myself off, letting my rage fill the silence. None of these words are lies and perhaps that is the spark of the anger that makes me tremble. I have not forgiven Méndez for using me as a weapon, and I have not forgiven the Whispers for doing the same.
“Hold still,” he warns. “This will kill any infection you might’ve contracted in that muck. Though I’ll have to keep an eye on it. The skin is too red for my liking. He missed your tendons, thank the Father of Worlds.”
“Thank the Father of Worlds,” I echo.
Then all my thoughts evaporate as he pours a solution over my raw and bloody hand, and it stings so much that I fear I’ll faint.
“Don’t tell me the rebels have taken your courage,” he says.
I frown, shaken by his words. “What do you mean?”
His dark lashes cast long shadows over his cheeks. Of all things, a smile breaks across a face otherwise carved from marble. “When you were eight, I wouldn’t let you go with the other court children to visit Tresoros Manor. You packed a bag and decided to climb out of your window. You got halfway down before you slipped. Broke your arm.” He selects a set of sharp tweezers and points to the pale scars on my right forearm. “You had ten stitches and couldn’t use your magics for weeks. But when I patched you up, even when I set your shoulder back in place, you didn’t flinch. You didn’t cry. There were no tears in your eyes. Not like you have now.”