Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(66)
Prince Castian takes a drink from his goblet and hands it back to his majordomo. He does not speak. Does not acknowledge her fall. He steps over her dress and walks away and into the twisting gardens outside the great hall doors.
She stands, and keeps her teary eyes on the brass of her shoes as she runs away from the cruel smiles and crueler gossip.
I slink out of the memory, but the courtier’s delicate hurt clings to me like wet cloth. I breathe to shake it off, but all I can think is that Prince Castian held a ball to celebrate capturing Dez. Coppery blood stings my tongue where I bite down to stop myself from screaming.
“You clumsy imbecile!” one of the other girls shouts.
“She scratched me!” Lady Garza hisses as they scurry across the sky bridge. “Look! Look! I’ll get rabies. I’ll get the plague!”
“I’ll see to it she’s declawed like the feral bestae she is,” her friend says. But they keep moving, their fans fluttering like petals in the breeze.
I rush over to the side of the bridge and take long, deep breaths. I shouldn’t have done that. The memory was short, but there were so many girls around us. What if they’d noticed?
“You’re late,” says a familiar voice.
I snap up to see Judge Alessandro marching across the bridge. He snatches up my hand, and I yank away because he doesn’t get to touch me this way. “You’re hurting me.”
I hate the weakness in my voice, the way my heartbeat is erratic with his cold, clammy hands splaying my fingers open. That’s when I realize that he saw. He must have seen because his dark eyes are searching my hands for something. Magics. Anything.
A red welt appears on my bandage and blood runs freely from a fresh tear. I cradle my hand against my chest and force him to meet my eyes. “Look what you’ve done. I’ll need new stitches.”
The young judge stutters and flaps his hands like a lost fowl. “Wretched Lady Garza. I’ll be sure to tell the justice. Follow me.”
Even Sula starts at Alessandro’s lie. But she keeps her head down, rubbing her warding pendant the entire way to where the justice is waiting.
Méndez has a weakness for beautiful things.
His apartments within the southwest tower of the palace are as large as any of the ones belonging to the royal family. I still remember the first time I was here. I was given an attendant who was younger than I am now, fifteen perhaps. I don’t remember her name, but I liked her because she reminded me of my mother with her peachy skin and ruddy cheeks, her hair dark and plaited in braids to keep it out of her face. My attendant brought me to these same chambers, where Justice Méndez and his council sorted through our powers and gave us shiny new clothes and stellitas by the fistful.
For two years, I reported to this same place. A thick wooden door with the special cylinder locks Méndez had designed during his creation of the Arm of Justice. A study with leather couches and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Cloth-and leather-bound volumes that date back to the first age of Puerto Leones, when the peoples migrated there from the seas that surround the great island. Maps with faded edges, lines of a continent drawn and redrawn to suit the victors. Globes with tiny swords plunged into the lands where the king and crown have made a conquest. I push it, watching it spin before I make my way through an archway that leads to his prayer room.
It’s been updated to fit the palace’s change of taste to a Dauphinique aesthetic of lace and shimmering embroidery, but some things remain the same. There’s a sword within a circle on the far wall, depicting the symbol for the Father of Worlds. An altar surrounded by candles and incense that was just lit. He was praying. I wonder what a man like Méndez can pray for, but there he is, with his head bent toward the altar, his hands holding open a slender book.
“Wait here,” Alessandro says.
“But the justice is waiting for me.”
“How dare you question me. I said wait here. You, attendant. You may go.” He doesn’t even glance at Sula before dismissing her. When she runs out, I remember Margo and Dez instructing me on my footwork. I wish I could tell them how much easier it is to be silent when I’m not wearing heavy leather boots.
That wish is gone as I press myself against the door, where I can hear their voices. I can picture Alessandro’s dark fluttering robes as he talks.
“Alessandro,” Justice Méndez says, genuine surprise in his voice. Was he not expecting the young judge? Worry pricks at my sides that Alessandro had been following us all along. Was he at my room? How did he know I was late? “I did not expect you back today. Do you have news?”
“Regrettably, no.” Alessandro’s nasal voice grates on my senses. He’s so eager to please. “But we are still searching. We have the forged letters with the royal seal.”
Méndez makes a thinking sound, the way he does when he tugs on the silver wisps in his beard. “It’s not enough. Lord Las Rosas did not act alone. I wouldn’t trust him to find his way out of an open hedge, let alone smuggle a shipful of bestaes.”
“The only people with access to royal documents would be in the palace, my justice. Allow me to conduct interviews with all the staff.”
“And give the spy time to run?” Méndez nearly snarls at Alessandro’s suggestion. “I have other ideas. In the meantime, keep the judges spread out through the palace. Now is not the time to rest.”