The only thing untouched is the cathedral and whipping post in front of it. God and torture: the two things the king of Puerto Leones holds dearest to his heart.
There’s something familiar about the bone-white stone of the cathedral, nearby flames glinting off the stained-glass windows. Though I’ve never been to Esmeraldas, I can’t shake the impression of having walked this very street before.
I brush away the feeling and make my way toward the whipping post. Occasionally, if there is time, doomed Moria hide messages or small parcels in the last place the king’s men would think to look—and what better place than where the accused are taken to die?
Alman stone isn’t conspicuous on its own, though when it captures memories, it glows like it’s been filled with starlight. Before King Fernando’s reign, it was common, but now, with temples desecrated and mines run dry, Moria are lucky to find it at all. If Spymaster Celeste had enough warning, she would’ve hidden Rodrigue’s alman stone for the Whispers to retrieve.
“What happened to you, Celeste?” I ask aloud, but only the crackle of fire answers, and I continue my search.
The executioner’s block has dozens of long grooves from where a killing blade struck. The wood is dark, stained with dried blood. As I run my hands along the base, I am thankful I always wear gloves. The thought of heads rolling—of bodies hanging, of people locked into the paddocks and beaten senseless—makes my stomach turn and my legs tremble. My body reacts the same way to blood as it does fire. And that is precisely why I force myself to be here.
I move to the hangman’s noose. Esmeraldas is such a small village. I wonder when they find the time to practice so many forms of execution. Kneeling, I run my hands along the wooden boards beneath the noose for a break or a loose slat. Nothing. I walk around the whipping post, but all I find is a thin leather cord with a long strip of skin dried to it. Bile rises to my throat. I drop the whip, and when I do, the strangest sense of remembrance moves through me, and a vivid memory—one that does not belong to me, but is mine anyway—bursts into my mind.
I squeeze my eyes shut and palm my temples. It’s been months since I’ve lost control of the memories living in my head. Silent smoke gathers in my mind’s eye, then clears to reveal a scene drained of all color, and I’m forced to relive a stolen past as the Gray cracks open. I see the same street, the same square, but as it was once before the fire—
A man adjusts his grip around a freshly cut tree and drags it down this street. His shoulders ache, but his thin gloves protect against splinters. His mud-covered boots stomp blue-and-gray cobblestones into the heart of the village. A crowd gathers in front of the cathedral. It is the sixth day of Almanar, and his neighbors carry branches, broken furniture, cut trees. They stack and stack the pyre until no one can reach the top. Music spills from open cantina doors. The drummers have come around, slapping leather skins in time with the festive songs. Couples dance as torches are lit. He sees the faces he’s been waiting for—his wife and child run to him. They help him drag the tree onto the pyre—their offering for the festival of Almanar. Together, they sing and dance and watch the pyre burn.
Now I know why Esmeraldas felt familiar. Every memory I’ve ever stolen is a part of me. It’s taken years of training to push them back, keep them in locked compartments. But sometimes, they find a way out. I should thank the stars that the memory that has spilled from the vault of my mind is a joyous one. A rural harvest where everyone comes together to burn the old year away. And yet, my hands tremble and sweat drips down my back. I don’t want to look at it anymore. I force myself out of the Gray, shoving the memory back into the dark where it belongs. I’ve heard it called the curse of the Robári. Curse or not, I can’t let it get in the way of finding the alman stone.
My eyes sting from smoke and the piercing pain that stabs my temples. I push my weary bones to stand. There is no alman stone here. If I were Celeste, where would I have run?
Then I hear it. A single sound pierces the air.
At first, I think it’s from another unwanted memory slipping out of the Gray, but it grows clear as cathedral bells on Holy Day. A voice crying out for help.
Someone in Esmeraldas is trapped.
Chapter 2
They say it didn’t use to be like this. That there was a time when the kingdoms of Puerto Leones and Memoria were at peace. Were prosperous. Even when Memoria fell, conquered by the family of lions, there was a treaty. Order. My kind didn’t hide our magics, our bodies, our everything, in fear of a king. This is what we tell our children. Stories. The elders of the Whispers say a lot of things to make the days and nights pass by more quickly, but for many of us the world has never stopped burning.
It was a fire just like this one that changed me from the inside out. Even now, eight years later, that fire lives within my bones and blood and muscle. It’s brighter than this, brighter than the colorless Gray of my stolen memories. What I told Dez about forgiveness was the truth, but deep inside I know that I’ll always be trying to outrun flames that will never be extinguished.
I swallow the ash that forces its way into my nose and mouth, and race down a narrow street, following the desperate voice. I hurl myself over the debris that blocks my way. My scarf keeps sliding off. Smoke obscures my sight, and I nearly collide with a horse charging down the road. I skid into a muddy bank to avoid it.
A door swings from a nearby empty stable—it is here in front of a small house where the cry is loudest. The flames have burned through everything, and I have a feeling this is the origin of the destruction.
The door hangs slightly ajar, and footsteps large and small go in both directions. Who would return to a burned house? I toe the door open and wait a breath. The roof has already caved in over the living space. The white walls left standing are striped with black.
“Hello?” I call out.
No answer.
Behind the rubble is a hall that still holds. For how long, I can’t be sure.
“Where are you?” I shout again, forcing my way down the hall and into a small kitchen.
The room is hazy with lingering smoke and smoldering embers. I chance another step, my eyes sweeping the room. An upturned wooden table and roughly carved chairs, one of them broken into splinters. My next step crunches on broken glass and I make out various sets of footprints, dark with mud and something wet—oil? Blood? I crouch down and touch the substances. When I bring them to the tip of my tongue, I taste both. I spit on the floor.
There must have been a terrible fight here.
“Hello,” I say again, but my courage slips from me.
My attention snaps to the kitchen door swinging open and closed in the breeze. A chill passes over my skin, prickling with warning when I turn to the fireplace. A large bundle lies on the ground, bits of glass strewn all around it.
I stumble backward so quickly I fall.
It’s not a bundle.
It’s a person.
When I close my eyes, my own memories are bright flashes that suffocate me. The blazing orange and red of fire, like the great mouth of a dragon, devours everything in sight. I slam my fist into the floor and the shock of pain snaps me back to the here and now.
My morning meal comes up until there is nothing but bile on my tongue. I wipe my face on the sleeve of my tunic. This can’t have been the sound I heard. I tug at my hair, fearing I’ve followed one of my vivid memories by accident, like the time I swore a woman was drowning in the lake and I dove in and found nothing, or the time I didn’t sleep for a week because I was certain there were children playing in my bedroom, singing a lullaby that kept me up all night. I live a life with the ghosts I’ve created, and as this house groans against the wind I swear my power will one day lead me to my death.