Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(53)
I try to swallow, wet my tongue, but everything is dry. I don’t have this memory, but as he gently, meticulously plucks splinters from my knuckles, I believe him.
“Pain takes a toll on everyone,” I say.
He makes a noncommittal sound. I take the moment to study him.
Gray eyes. Graying hair. Graying beard. It’s like he’s been coated in salt from the middle valleys. His touch is soft, holding my hand as if he’s putting together pieces of fine Andalucían glass. When he at last sets the tweezers down, he washes my wound once again with the burning solution and turns my palm faceup. The cut extends from the base of my fingers to just above my wrist, red at the sides but no white or green of infection. He takes a breath, as if relieved, before threading the needle. Kisses the tip in the candle burning on his desk.
“Tell me, my sweet Ren,” Méndez asks, “how did you escape?”
Without warning, he pushes the threaded needle into my skin. The thread follows through. My heart spikes. I bite down on my molars. Does he want me to be that fearless little girl once again? I don’t want to remember her. But if this is the way to get closer to the weapon and to Castian, then so be it.
“Illan’s son,” I manage to say. I feel a hitch in my throat and take a moment to smooth out the wrinkles in my lies. “His capture had the rebels distracted.”
“I was surprised to hear Illan wouldn’t surrender for his own son,” Méndez says. “But the bestaes do not value life the way we do.”
Can he really forget that I am Moria, too? Was I such a good traitor that he counts me in his terrible we?
The tendons of my throat hurt. For a moment, I think of Dez’s caress along my jaw, down to my clavicle. Embarrassed, I focus on the map behind Méndez. There is an empty space in the north of the kingdom where I know the Memoria Mountains to be. Is it that easy to wipe out the memory of a place? Simply redraw lines and leave gaps in the world?
The next stitch is followed by a cold numbness. I wonder if Dez would be proud of me. I didn’t even flinch that time.
“They’re unraveling,” I say. “I saw a chance. I knew I wouldn’t get another. They don’t allow me in meetings, but I listen when I can. No one was afraid of me going anywhere.”
There’s a green fleck in one of his gray eyes. Was that always there? “Why was that?”
“I suppose,” I say, “because I had nowhere to go.”
It isn’t wholly a lie. All truth changes depending on who tells the story.
He holds my hand hard in his. I stare into his eagle eyes, probing into mine to find the betrayal. “You could have returned to me.”
“If I could have, I would have been at your side. As long as I can remember, one of the Whispers has been with me.” Dez rarely left my side when we were children. Even when I wandered around the San Cristóbal ruins, there was always someone there, watching. I look at my hand, where his fingers leave imprints. “You’re hurting me.”
He lets go, breathing hard, like he’s shocked at his own display of emotion. It’s hard to look at him this way. It’s worse to think that he actually cares for me.
“A few more,” he says. As he adds stitch after stitch, I remember a time I walked with Justice Méndez in the palace gardens, forbidden to all but the justice of the crown, and he let me read under great gnarly trees draped with Leonesse moss and pale cosecha flowers. When the wind sailed through them, pink petals rained on me, so at night I had to untangle them from my braids. I would soak my hands in rosewater and powdered gold like the other girls at court to get rid of blemishes and impurities on their skin. It never worked on me. I am a network of scars, and I fear I’ll never be much more than that.
Finally, Méndez lowers the needle, and wipes away the excess blood that bubbles up. “It’ll scar.”
“It’ll blend in. Thank you, Uncle.” I let my voice soften even more. “I’m sorry, I meant my justice.”
“You must understand, Ren,” he says, holding my hand the way one might cup the severed head of a rose, afraid the petals will come loose and spill. “Now that you’re here, you will face an audience with the king. You will be under my protection, but you must prove yourself.”
I nod quickly. “It’s why I came back. You don’t know how lonely I’ve been.”
He doesn’t respond, but I see his brow set with resolve. I remember the way his silence meant he was planning, always planning. What will it take to gain his trust?
Then his eyes snap to the door. Loud footsteps march in, the ragged breathing of someone who just finished sprinting. I whirl around to find a young man in the deep black-and-red robes of a judge, the rank that makes up all in the Arm of Justice who are waiting to take Méndez’s place upon his death. He’s got thinning brown hair the color of sparrow wings and a ruddy complexion. His brown eyes flare wide when he takes me in. Nearly tripping on robes too long for his average height, he makes a beeline for us.
“Is this it?” he asks. I’ve heard bleating goats with less grating voices. “A real Robári for the Hand of Moria. King Fernando will finally be pleased with our efforts.”
Does he not know I can understand him? My every muscle is tense. I want to smack him for referring to me as it.
“Alessandro!” Justice Méndez snaps. There’s a crack in his calm exterior. And I realize, perhaps the real reason he’s so happy to see me, so ready to present me to the king, is because he needs me. “I do not remember summoning you.”