Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(90)
Davida knows her words are dangerous, but perhaps, if the boy loves stories, then his heart can’t be as wretched and closed-off as his father’s. “How do you know the Knife of Memory isn’t real?”
Castian thinks about it for a bit. He reclines in the chair opposite her, his stockinged feet angled toward the flames. “Because my father says nothing about the Moria is true.”
“Have I ever lied to you?” Davida asks.
“No.”
“Are you afraid of my magics?”
Castian shakes his head. “No, you help me when my father is angry.”
So she starts reading, entertaining the prince with stories to open his mind and his heart. What was done to him was not his fault, and she will use her strength to make him a better man. His face lights up during the Brothers Palacio’s sword fights at the helm of their ship. She holds one of the prince’s toy wooden swords and wields it high above her head. “How could you have betrayed me, brother? The treasure was meant to bring us together!”
“Treasure only tears people apart,” Castian says, finishing the words he knows by heart.
Davida laughs and brushes his tangle of golden curls. “See? You don’t even need me to read these to you. You’ve done quite well on your own.”
“Father says I’m to start military training by week’s end. I won’t have time for stories then,” he says.
The anguish in his voice brings tears to her eyes. She is about to comfort him, to tell him that no matter what he does or where he is the stories will be with him. That she will be thinking of him and wishing that he will keep this heart of his.
But there is a loud smack as the door slams open, and King Fernando strides in, followed by a slender guard riddled with scars on his face.
Davida lets the book fall to the ground as she does her best to kneel before him. “Your Grace. I didn’t expect you.”
“Silence. You’re the reason my son has been crying all over the palace about the start of his training.”
“Father, I—”
The king grabs a vase from the table and throws it against the fireplace. The glass shatters and bounces off the wall. A bit of it nicks Castian’s cheek. The boy wipes the blood with the back of his hand, his mouth open and startled.
“When I say I want silence, I mean it.” Fernando picks up the book at Davida’s feet. Her heart is in her throat as he turns the pages. She knows how this looks. She knows that there is no forgiveness. She knows that these words, these stories, are met with punishment.
“I put my trust in you and this is what you do? Poison my only son’s mind?” He tosses the book into the flames and Castian lunges for it.
“No!” But as his hand begins to reach for the corner, the book is swallowed by the fire, and the king’s fist comes down across the boy’s face. One of the rings on the king’s knuckles leaves a neat slash that draws blood down the prince’s brow.
Castian’s lips tremble as he stands before his father and his father’s guard. He holds in the cry as long as he can, but Davida knows his heart and she knows that this boy is filled with more sorrow than he’ll ever know what to do with. So she rises and she holds him and whispers into his ear. “You’ll be all right, my darling boy.”
She can feel the king’s rage, like a cold snap against her cheek. He motions to the guard, who grabs Davida by her throat. He pulls out a crude iron weapon. A clamp.
Castian screams and kicks at the soldier, but his father grabs him. Holds the boy by his shoulders. Forces him to watch.
“I warned you to be silent,” the king says.
Davida’s anguish licks like fire at my hands. I pull away, knocking into a stack of crates. The top one tips over and cracks, spilling dozens of plums, plucked before they could ripen. I get down and pick them up for something to busy my fingers with.
“I’m sorry.” I repeat it over and over, both of us shaking. She won’t remember that day again, but I fear this is one of the memories that will haunt me forever.
It was the king who did it.
The king ordered her punishment, not the prince. Castian was a boy. Castian, by the looks of it, cared for her, trusted her. How did that boy become the Castian I know now? Why do the stories say the prince had her tongue cut out? I want to wrench out the worry I felt toward him because of this memory. A scared child locked in a library.
Like I was.
And she is not the spy I’m looking for. She’s another Moria who was caught in a war we didn’t start. She could have left with the others. She could have found her way to a safe house. But she didn’t. I shake my head, unable to understand why she’d willingly remain in the palace if not to help the rebels. Some people fight. Some people hide. Some people help in the only way they can. Now I see Hector’s memory differently. Davida wasn’t observing Castian during his training to spy. She was there to see his progress, like a mother watching a child grow up.
“You stay for him, don’t you?”
She nods and holds my hands in hers. Davida taps the space over my heart. Her eyes water. She still has dozens of good memories of that little boy. I think of the words Nuria spoke after I took her memory. The cold, empty room in her mind. Is that what Davida is feeling now? She pats my cheeks with a gesture I want to remember.
In Hector’s memory, he said his favorite quality of Davida was her warmth. Persuári can bring out emotions that exist. Empathy. Kindness. Not just action. What was done to Castian that she would use her power on him?