Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(87)
“Looks like you were lying on the floor to me.”
One look at my grimace and the servant girl starts. She sets the food tray down and busies herself. Used to her glowering silence, I take my leave and she doesn’t question it.
I hunt for Leo, but he is called to Lady Nuria’s side to entertain her. After the last encounter with the ladies of court, I keep to the shadows. The more crowded the palace gets, the lonelier I feel. Desperation gnaws my insides raw because I am going in circles. I’m a wraith prowling the halls, admiring gilded paintings of over three hundred years’ worth of the Fajardo lineage. I notice there is no portrait of the king’s first queen, but Queen Penelope graces an entire wall. I glide my fingers behind each and every one of them, but none turn into a secret compartment or hidden room.
I linger in the sky bridge that leads to my apartments. Bursts of laughter come from the gardens and streets on either side of the bridge. A memory tugs at me, one of my own. If I close my eyes, I can recall running through the woods beside Dez and Sayida. The pair of them teaching me how to be swift and quiet all at once. But everything about me has always been loud, the sound of my heart, the weight in my tread, even the cry I always seem to be holding back.
A washed-out vision of Castian kissing the inside of Nuria’s wrist follows. I punch the tiled pillar to snap out of the memory and regret it instantly. One of the scabs on my knuckles cracks and bleeds. I stare at my injured hand. Come tomorrow I will have no choice but to make a Hollow.
Run, I tell myself. There is no justice. No prince. The king and queen are preoccupied with their sacred festival that celebrates the defeat of my goddess.
Soft words that hurt like a deep bruise reverberate through me. Stay for more.
I have to finish this. I have to.
I turn and run the rest of the way to my rooms. There’s one guard on duty, and he’s slumped on the floor. I crouch down to better look at his face.
Hector.
There are hundreds of Hectors in the kingdom. But the odds that the General Hector in Nuria’s memory is this same one seems plausible. He’d be about the right age. The lavanderas said he fought at Riomar. But how did he go from a general to a patrol guard?
He smells strongly of aguadulce. A black-gloved left hand rests over his lower abdomen. Like me, his other hand is free. But there’s something stiff about the way his fingers rest there.
Then his shoulders twitch and the muscles in his thigh spasm. He moans in his sleep, followed by a whimper. So many of the Whispers sleep like this, tormented by horrid memories of the past. Dez did.
“You’re dreaming,” I whisper. I grip the guard by the shoulder and give him a shake.
He does not wake. He slaps my hand away, then trembles. Shouting words I can’t understand. He’s crying out for help. Hector’s olive skin flushes red as he struggles to breathe. I try to shake him again, but his hand clamps around my wrist. I gasp as he throws me to the side. I land on my shoulder, and Hector lies on his back.
I’m overpowered by the guilt of watching him suffer, knowing firsthand just how painful nightmares can be. Now I wonder if this might be the reason he was demoted to a palace guard, if he is the same General Hector.
Two things occur to me. I need this man’s memories of Castian. But the last time I stole a memory from a nightmare, I got Dez killed. Jacinta was fine because as horribly as Castian treated her, it wasn’t a nightmare for her, though perhaps her infatuation with the prince would increase. I tell myself that Hector is only a palace guard. That I can help him while getting the information I need. That feels wrong even thinking it, but I can’t afford to let this opportunity slip by me.
My hand trembles as I place my fingers on his temple, heart racing because when I touch him, I see Dez. I push my love’s face aside and dive rapidly into the guard’s mind.
Hector calls her the melancholy queen, Queen Penelope, though he’d truly like to call her the beautiful queen with her hair of gold and sea-bright eyes. It was his first time in the palace, in the great capital city, Andalucía. How a farm boy was recruited into the queen’s guard is beyond him. The king and his new justice have made great efforts to help the people of Puerto Leones better their stations in life, and for that he is grateful. The wages will help his parents in Citadela Salinas, where work is nowhere to be found. He is going to be the very best, maybe one day rise to the top of the queen’s ranks.
She has the most beautiful voice. Sweet as the ebb and flow of a calm ocean, soft and pleasant. Her words stick in his head, even when she is not around. Golden star, golden star, take the love within my heart.
When she sings to her boys he thinks that is what it feels like to be loved. The melancholy queen doesn’t go anywhere without her boys, though the older prince is usually impatient, slapping at the world like a wild thing and shouting at the top of his lungs. But when she sings, he quiets down. He listens. He sleeps.
Even princes listen to the song of their mothers.
A comforting memory at the forefront of a mind often obscures the one causing the nightmares. Curious that he still thinks of the dead queen after all these years. I move my fingers along his sweating skin and brace for the sting of more memories.
A bloody battle. Men and women in the king’s army raze a village to the ground. Villagers run from their burning homes and into the forests. Whisper rebels fight back. Faces he doesn’t recognize. Sharp pain and then black. Screaming, thrashing, agonizing pain in a tent. A wound, bloody and bandaged where his hand used to be.