Illusionary Page 8

  “And you?”

  I deflate with a sigh. “A small cabin deep in the Luzouan jungles, perhaps.”

  “And the Príncipe Dorado?” Leo raises his brow suggestively, and I give him a playful shove.

  “Castian will become king, I suppose. We haven’t talked much about what comes after. I don’t know how to talk to him sometimes.”

  “He did kill someone for you,” Leo reminds me. “I know some of his courtiers prefer jewels and excursions to the salt baths of Citadela Zahara, but as you said, you’re not a lady.”

  “A man is dead, Leo.”

  “Believe me, I know that.” He runs his finger through a thick line of dust on the mantel and rubs it into a ball. “I knew Duque Sól Abene well. He was like many of the other elite men in the kingdom, always taking so much from his people. Do you know why his fifteen-year-old daughter was sent to Dauphinique to study?”

  I shake my head, my skin prickling in gooseflesh at the sudden severity in his voice.

  “He’d sold her to a count to pay off his gambling debts. When Lady Nuria and Queen Josephine found this out, they intervened on the girl’s behalf. Duque Sól Abene was punished by having his taxes raised and his daughter sent away to a foreign court. Does that mean he deserved to die that way? I cannot say. I have never killed anyone, but to save us? To save you? I want to think I would have the strength to do it.”

  “Did I mention I’m glad you’re here?”

  “You should be.” Leo begins laying out our bedrolls around the fireplace. “Pardon me for asking, but—what happened to your magics at the stable? Did the justice harm you?”

  The question makes me want to laugh. Méndez surely did, and in more ways than I’ll ever be able to unravel. But I recount to Leo what I can about Cebrián, the king’s twisted Robári whose powers were altered to steal the magics of other Moria. I have to shut my eyes for a moment, and even then, I see the pulsing silver scars that run all over his face and torso like a living alman stone. “Until we figure out what can be done, if anything can be done, Castian and I agreed I shouldn’t take memories.”

  “After what happened with Duque Sól Abene, you’re right.” Leo cups a handful of dust and splinters and tucks it in the center of the tent of logs.

  I use Castian’s fire starter and strike the flint stone against the steel rectangle, then blow gently until the smallest flame bursts and spreads. When I was with the Whispers, little tasks like this helped me focus and keep my memories together. But fire used to be a trigger. One minute I could run into a burning house to rescue someone from within and my memories would stay put. Then I’d see a spark at the corner of my eye, or Esteban would ignite the wick of a candle, and I’d be paralyzed with memories from the Gray.

  Now that I’ve faced the truth of the palace fire that changed my life, I’m not afraid to watch this one catch, even if I fear the way my magics seem to be changing.

  I take a shuddering breath before an occurrence sinks in, as if I’ve conjured it with these flames. The vision pools before me:

  Ladies wearing billowing gowns glide in dancing circles. Two little girls dressed in matching white lace race across the room while adults drink and laugh. In a corner, a young bard sings a familiar song about a beautiful queen lost to sea.

  Hands shake me. Leo’s eyes come into focus.

  “Ren, wake up!”

  Someone is screaming. There’s the sound of glass shattering and curses. Cas.

  “Wait here,” I say. I grab an oil lamp and run through dark halls, following the echo of his rage. Perhaps coming here was a mistake. Perhaps he isn’t ready to face his monsters.

  I find the prince of Puerto Leones in what must have been a nursery. A bassinet is overturned, the white lace brown with age and dirt. Cracked porcelain dolls litter the floor. Broken soldiers. Plush lions with spools of cotton guts spilling out.

  “Cas,” I whisper.

  He whirls around. He’s breathing fast, bright eyes roaming the damage as if he can’t tell what was already destroyed and what he added to the chaos. In the spill of moonlight, I can see glistening tears stream down his face. He focuses on me, and a small figurine clatters to the floor. His arms remain outstretched, ready to strangle every ghost in this place.

  “I thought I wanted to see our old room again,” Castian says. “Then I couldn’t stand to look at any of it.”

  My boots crunch glass. “Because you don’t want to be here or because it doesn’t align with your memories of it?”

  “Both.” He runs his palms down his face. I see the moment an idea sparks. Hesitation. He wants to ask me something but he’s afraid. Somehow, I think I know what he wants, because I would want the same thing.

  “Show me,” I urge.

  Castian extends a palm straight ahead, and the room changes with the threads of his illusion. The chipped paint and cracked walls are whole once again. The rusted door handle shimmers back into a polished lion. The bassinet is white and upright, and a second small bed is beside it. There is the faint image of two boys—Castian with his golden curls and Andrés with the bald head of a newborn. I see a woman with long wheat hair, a crown of emeralds around her pretty head. Her skin is a golden tan, and she walks slowly, as if every step causes a deep ache, but she goes straight for the boys. The image flickers, and before she reaches them, everything disappears into darkness.

  I want to believe that Castian and I are nothing alike, but I felt his rage and hopelessness in his illusion. We are both orphans in a war older than us, and for him to be the leader this kingdom needs, he must be whole. He’s been pretending for as long as I have. Perhaps longer.

  “I never forgave myself for what happened to my parents,” I confess, picking up the figurine he dropped—a wooden soldier. The detail is exquisite, with a tiny sword raised in a fighting stance. “My friend—Sayida—used her Persuári magics to make me remember that even though I was wielded as a weapon, I was too young to control my powers. I don’t know whether that feeling will ever quite go away. I know she’s right, but if I’m honest with myself, deep down I know it’s my fault that I never saw my mother again.”

  “I never went to her,” Castian confesses. “She called for me while she was ill. Even my father ordered me to return. But I wouldn’t. I hated her for being a drunk and treating me like I was invisible. Then she died.” There is so much anguish in his voice. I have felt that way all my life, and I don’t wish that on anyone. Not even Castian.

  “How could she have done this to us?” he asks me.

  I wish I knew. I wish I could understand. When the queen of Puerto Leones conspired with the leader of the rebel Moria to fake one son’s death and blame it on the other, did she realize it could have all gone so wrong? I have never been good with words, so I wrap my arms around Castian. Slowly, he holds me back. His palm is cold against the base of my neck, and I feel his heart beat quickly against my chest.

  “Only the dead can say, Cas.”

  “Do you ever want to be someone else?” he asks softly, his breath warming the skin of my ear.

  I breathe deep and shiver. “Who do you want to be?”

  “A good man, perhaps.”

  I think of how torn Castian looked before killing the duque. I think of the furious, terrible prince he portrayed with illusions. I think of the little boy who was my friend.

  “Do you remember our childhood pact?” I ask.

  “I’m surprised you remember it.”

  “I told you.” I feel my chuckle vibrate between us. “Things have been coming back to me slowly.”

  His whole demeanor changes. “Is it a pact if you stabbed me first and then explained what we were doing?”

  I step back and take his hand in mine, palm side up. At the center is a tiny white scar, like a grain of rice. I have the exact same scar at the center of my right hand. The memory came back to me while we were in that seaside cave after we ran from the Whispers. I used to think it was just another one of the scars that riddle my body.


  “It was your fault,” I say.

  He looks affronted but doesn’t pull his hand from my hold.“Mine?”

  “You were the one who told me the story about two friends who made a blood pact. And I said we should do that. You went somewhere and returned with a… kitchen knife, I think it was?”

  “It was my ceremonial prince dagger,” he corrects, brushing the length of my hand, from my wrist to the tip of my middle finger. “You didn’t even wait for me to be ready. You just stabbed.”

  “Some things don’t change,” I say, and find that I’m smiling. When I look up, so is he.

  “We promised to never be apart. And then everything burned.”

  “We’re here now.”

  When we press our palms together, something strange happens. My magics spark and the light of my whorls come to life. Afraid that I’ll take a memory from him, I jerk back.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  He grasps for me, his hold gentle. “I trust you, Nati. You can’t hurt me with your magics. Remember?”

  They say that the Lady of Shadows moves the stars into the destinies of each and every person born under them. Dez said that he trusted me once, and his entire life was utterly changed. What if destiny brought Castian and Dez into my life? Pushed me onto this path with my oldest friend?

  Warmth unwinds from the apex of my chest, as if a spindle is coming undone. I am afraid of this feeling. I am terrified that spending these weeks with Castian has made me soft to his past. But if Castian doesn’t deserve forgiveness, neither do I.

  Castian’s hold on me becomes a caress along my hands. He claims that I shouldn’t be afraid of my magics around him, that he is not scared of me. But doesn’t he know how terrified I am of him?

  “I should find my gloves,” I say, and step back. I welcome the cold filling the distance between us. “Leo will think we’ve been devoured by ghosts.”

  Castian clears his throat. He walks past me, out of the room. “Haven’t we?”

  Back in the sitting room we’ve claimed as camp, Leo has spread our bedrolls near the fire. His suggestive stare slides between Castian and me. I ignore it.

  “Look at what I found!” Leo points to a coppery object with flecks of teal patina. “I haven’t seen an alfaro since I left Zaharina.”

  Castian sits beside him and picks up the small metal dome perforated with dozens of stars. A lamp that marks constellations. “This was in my nursery—our nursery.”

  Leo digs into a pocket of his pack and withdraws a stub of a candle. He lights the wick and Castian places the dome over it. The perforated holes in the copper illuminate the ceiling with stars.

  “I had one when I was little,” I say, and join them, leaning back on my arms to get a better look. “My father made it out of tin. It was supposed to be the constellation of the three maidens, but my mother laughed and said it was a fine, if unrecognizable, attempt. I couldn’t sleep without it because I was afraid of the dark.”

  “Which constellation is this one?” Leo asks.

  Castian watches the stars flicker on the ceiling. “I’m not certain.”

  “Well, in my provincia of Zaharina,” Leo says, “where we invented these—you’re welcome—they’re given as gifts for significant dates. The constellation represents the time and placement of the sky on a worthy occasion. Weddings. Births. Deaths. Though for the death, they’re given to the family, not the deceased, naturally.”

  Castian shrugs as he takes off his boots. “I was born under the Father Giant constellation and my brother under the World’s Star. This is neither.”

  “Perhaps it was your mother’s, then,” Leo says.

  “Perhaps.”

  The rainstorm and roaring fire play a rhythmic beat that makes the silence easy, comfortable almost. I clean my boots and lay out my socks near the fire. Castian sharpens his dagger and stares at the flat of the blade.

  “What happened to this castle?” Leo asks.

  At first, I think Castian is going to ignore the question. He’s quiet for too long. His blue-green eyes are dark pools as he stares at the alfaro between us. “My mother’s family did not survive the plague, and so there was no one to defend the castle during the insurrections around the country. It was not only the Moria rebels but others from provincias across the kingdom who still harbored hatred toward the crown. According to the records at least, a small band of Sól Abene rebels joined them. What was left was taken by scavengers.”

  “That explains what I overheard,” I say, resting my chin on my knee. “Locals of this region are joining the rebel cause. What I don’t understand is why the Whispers would attack Queen Penelope if she and Illan were cohorts?”

  “Only the dead can say.” Castian reaches out to spin the alfaro dome, making the constellation dance. “I suspect that it could have been to throw off her involvement with the rebels or that she had Moria blood, even if she never displayed any power.”

  “She could have been one of the Olvidados,” I suggest. Esteban’s grandmother was one of the forgotten, people born to Moria families but without any magics of their own.

  “Someone in her family must have been. I fear I do not know my mother’s line as well as I should. I’ve been through her possessions and have found nothing. All I know is she was a young queen with a tragic life and an even more tragic end. She remains a mystery to me even in death.”

  Leo leans back with his arms behind his head, staring up at the star-speckled ceiling. “When I was a little boy they used to sing songs about the golden queen of Puerto Leones. She is not forgotten. One day they might sing songs of you, too.”

  “They already do.” Castian flashes a wicked grin.

  I throw my sock at him, which he catches. I expect him to grimace, but he only laughs and tosses it back at me.

  “One year, my father banned the bards at court from singing my ballads. I used to think that he hated the sight of me because I reminded him of my mother. But now I think that he was always afraid I would do as he once did. He killed every member of his family with a claim to the throne. After the news of Andrés’s death, I overheard my father telling my mother that perhaps it was for the best.”

  “I will never understand you royals,” Leo says. “King Fernando is certainly going through a lot of trouble seeking your safe return from the rebels.”

  “As long as the people believe the Whispers are holding me captive, I’m an excuse to wage the war he’s always wanted.”

  “He’s more paranoid than ever. Dangerous.” Leo sighs, the fear deeply etched in his green eyes. “This Knife of Memory better be more than a myth.”

  “When I lived with the Whispers,” I say, twisting the ring on my finger, “some of the elders spoke of the great power that our goddess, the Lady of Shadows, could wield. She shared that power with the Moria, but after millennia of life, she created a weapon that would sever her immortality. She hid that weapon, only to be found by the worthy Robári of the Moria people. Most of us believed it was a pretty story to make us forget that we were fighting a never-ending war. But there were others who truly believed its existence.”

  “I heard about it from my nursemaid, Davida,” Castian says, then worry furrows his brow. I remember what the older woman meant to him and how he’s tried to protect her. “Do you know if she’s still at the palace?”

  “I haven’t seen her since the festival, but I believe she left the capital safely with a small band of servants.”

  Castian lets go of a pent-up breath. “Good.”

  “What about the logbook?” Leo asks. “How did you discover that Duque Arias was in possession of such a map? Does he know where it leads?”

  “Arias is a sore loser and a fool, but he’s no traitor. He doesn’t know what he had in his possession.” Castian drums his fingers over his chest. “Forty years ago, my father went on an expedition. The crew consisted of my father, Duque Arias’s grandfather, who was a naval officer at the time, and a command crew. Every name o
n the crew list is now dead, except for my father.”

  “Suspicious!” Leo gasps.

  “If you call murder suspicious,” I say.

  “What does this logbook and voyage have to do with the king and the Knife of Memory?”

  Castian spins the alfaro once more. “I believe the Knife of Memory has been used on this kingdom before by my father. That it could be the cause of everything wrong in Puerto Leones.”

  Leo sits up on his elbow and frowns skeptically. “Are you saying that a mythical knife is to blame for the animosity your family has fostered?” For the first time since I’ve known him, he’s angry. “So my young husband’s death was simply because of magics and not because your father created the order of justice to persecute Moria?”

  “No. That’s not what I mean. It’s more complicated than that,” Castian tries to explain. “I’ve spent years trying to piece together my father. To understand why he is a monster.”

  “Perhaps the wine that year was a bad vintage?” Leo offers.

  But I say, “Monsters are made.”

  Castian looks at me and nods. “This expedition was a turning point for my father. He was a prince. He was engaged to be wed. He was poised to be named my grandfather’s sole heir. But then he returns from the voyage and his betrothed had died of a fever while he was at sea, and he slaughters every Fajardo in sight and crowns himself king. He goes on as if everything before that coronation never existed.”

  Leo is rendered speechless for a moment. The candle in the alfaro sputters and leaves a trail of smoke as it extinguishes.

  “I have been through all the rooms in the library halls and spent years searching records. The year after my father’s expedition, the plague happened. That same year every map in the kingdom was replaced. The Arm of Justice was created. And he married my mother.”

  “It could be coincidence,” I suggest. That’s the first thing I said when Castian gave me the same explanation days ago. “Or King Fernando used the Knife of Memory to change the fate of the kingdom and our history.”