The Crown of Embers

Her eyes drift to Storm’s shackles, then back to my face. “All right,” she says, but her gaze is troubled, maybe a little bit wounded.

“Where is everyone?” I ask, though I think I know.

“Looking for you. Hector is sick with worry.”

I wince, dreading the moment I will face him. I say, “I need to walk. I’ll be at the beach.”

“Do you want something to eat first?”

“No, thank you.” I feel her puzzled gaze at my back as I step away.

The half moon sends ripples of gold across the water. In the distance floats the black, battered shape of the Aracely, her main sail hanging limp in the windless night. The air is hot, the water calm.

On impulse, I shuck my filthy boots and blouse. Wearing nothing but my linen pants and a sleeveless undershirt, I wade out into the warm water.

A strange thing happens. Where the water touches me, it glows, Godstone blue. I lie back and float, waving my arms experimentally. The glow is like a shield wrapping around my body, a clinging aura of power. I laugh, delighted, thinking about all the things I’ve seen lately that glow in this way: my Godstone, when I’m about to release its power. The river of energy. The night bloomers. And now this luminescing bay.

And I realize that the zafira is everywhere. I may have destroyed access to its purest form, but it leaks out all over the world.

I see movement along the shore. A dark shape materializes out of the trees, and I catch my breath. I know him from so far away, just by the way he walks. I’m suddenly desperate to see him up close, to look into his eyes, to hear his low, soft voice, even though I know whatever we say to each other next cannot end well.

I swim toward shore until my feet touch bottom; then I walk from the glowing water to meet him.

He stares at me as I approach, his face unreadable to me again, the way it used to be. When he is only an arm’s length away, I say, “Hector, I’m sorry.”

He studies me thoughtfully. Then my whole body goes hot as his gaze travels—slowly, deliberately—from my neck, to my br**sts, my hips, down to my feet, and all the way up again. My clothes cling to me like a second skin, leaving little to the imagination.

At last he says, “Sorry for what, exactly?” and his voice is cold, cold, cold.

I swallow hard. “For leaving without telling you.”

“A queen need never apologize to a mere guard.” He makes it sound like an insult, and I gasp from the pain of it.

“Still, I should have—”

“You’re my queen, Elisa. You can do whatever you want. You never owe me an explanation.”

He is reminding me, with patient and lethal efficiency, of how much power I have over him, of why we could never be together.

“Now, if we were lovers,” he says, “I might feel angry that you demanded my honesty but refused me yours. I might feel insulted that you slinked away to do something dangerous knowing full well that the most important thing I do is protect you. And I might feel perplexed that you lacked the courage to face me, when all you had to do was give the order.”

I’ve never felt so contemptible and small. Part of me wants to flee, to escape his ruthless gaze. Another part wants to wrap my arms around him and beg forgiveness, for there can be no doubt that I have hurt him deeply.

He can’t help adding, “It’s a good thing, then, that we are not lovers, yes?”

It’s like a dagger to the gut. He means it to be his final rejection. He means to hurt me, and maybe to grasp on to some power of his own. It’s cruel of him, and unworthy of the Hector I’ve come to know. And yet the anger melts out of me as quickly as it forms.

I reach up and cup his face with one hand. It shocks some feeling into his eyes, and I watch carefully as he considers whether or not to recoil from my touch. He doesn’t.

I say, “What I did was weak. Cowardly. Unqueenly. But I learned some things about power when I went to the zafira, and you were right. About everything.” I brush across his cheek, memorizing the texture of his skin, the feel of slight stubble against the pad of my thumb. “I do have power. Enough that I don’t need you. But I will miss you awfully.”

He lurches away, and my heart aches to see the torment on his face. He looks everywhere but at me, running his hands through his hair as if to keep them busy. He says, “How do you do that? You always disarm me. You have from the day I . . . And I hate it. I truly hate it.”

From a place of knowledge as old as the zafira itself, from the depths of a feminine power I’m only beginning to understand, I say with conviction: “No, you don’t.”

I want to tell him how much I love him. He deserves to know. But it would be too perilous in this moment. It would sound like I was begging, or saying what he wanted to hear just to diffuse his anger.

So I leave him alone with his thoughts. I return to camp, resolved to face Mara and tell her everything, hoping I can salvage at least one friendship.

Chapter 30

WE spend the next week repairing the ship and gathering foodstuffs. We make a rack of mangrove roots and set it in the sun to dry fish. A pile of coconuts becomes a mountain as we forage. I’ve always been handy with a needle, so I volunteer to repair a rip in one of the smaller sails. All the while, we are surrounded by the sounds of ax and mallet.

Hector is unfailingly polite to me, but I miss the way his warm gaze used to linger on my face, the way his lips would quirk when I said something that amused him. We renew our lessons in self-defense, carving out a space on the beach to work. He demonstrates the places on the human body that are most subject to pain. He shows me how to use my own body weight to throw an opponent to the ground. He explains how to shove a man’s nose into his brain with the base of my palm to kill him instantly and has me practice the motion on an unlucky coconut.

He does all this while managing to never touch me.

And though he says nothing, I’m certain he has decided to leave my service and go home to Ventierra. There’s a desperate focus to his teaching, as if he’s shoring me up with as much knowledge as possible before we part ways.

I dread leaving this place, for it means returning to all the problems I left behind, problems that have inevitably worsened. Our ruse has certainly been discovered by now. I hope decoy Elisa has survived and that Ximena is well. I worry for Rosario and his safety. And I cannot doubt that Conde Eduardo has maneuvered in my absence, that he has found a way to turn the situation to his advantage.

Too soon, Captain Felix declares us prepped and ready, and we weigh anchor and set sail for our rendezvous point in Selvarica. I stand on the quarterdeck, the wind whipping hair into my eyes, watching the island grow small. From this vantage, I can see that one of the mountains is shorter now, with a jagged peak, its zenith a crumbling ruin in the valley I destroyed.

During the voyage, we try to remove the manacles from Storm’s ankles. But the blacksmith cannot forge them open, the cooper cannot pry them open, and though I can make them glow warmly, I cannot force them open by magic. Storm grumbles at our efforts and finally snaps at us to leave well enough alone. “To all my other failures, I must add my failure as gatekeeper to the zafira.” He sighs dramatically.

“I don’t believe you mind so much,” I point out.

He cracks a rare grin. “Truly, I do not.” He pulls himself up to full height. “In fact, I will wear these chains proudly. However, I require salve and a bit of cloth to use as cushioning around my ankles. Silk, of course.”

“I think it’s an improvement,” I tell him. “I’ll never again worry about you sneaking up on me.”

“I hate you.”

I reach up to squeeze his shoulder. “I know.”

The wind holds, and it takes less than two weeks to make port in Selvarica. The land is as Tristán described it: lush and green and gorgeous, not unlike the island we come from.

As soon as we dock, we are greeted by a large complement of solemn-looking soldiers in full armor.

“What’s going on?” I demand.

“Conde Tristán sent us to escort you, Your Majesty,” says one. “This way, please. Quickly.”

Hector and Belén flank me as we hurry down the dock. Mara and Storm, who is cowled once again, follow behind, and Storm’s clattering steps cause dockworkers and fishermen to pause and stare. We reach a waiting carriage, and a soldier assures us our belongings will be collected and sent to us. Then he smacks the horse’s flank and waves the driver off.

A group of soldiers jogs alongside as we travel up a steep drive. I peer out the window and notice fortifications along the road. Temporary walls with arrow slits. A blockade on the side that could be moved quickly to block traffic.

“Tristán is preparing for war,” I say to no one in particular, and my heart thuds. I thought I was done with war. Forever done.

“I see Conde Eduardo’s colors too,” Hector says in a grave voice. “Tristán may no longer be in command of his own garrison.”

We reach a carriage house, where we are quickly unloaded and ushered through a servants’ wing, across an inner courtyard with marble fountains and tiled pathways and hanging plants, and into a long dining hall with an enormous low table, much like the one in my own council chamber where the Quorum meets.

A handful of people already sit on cushions around the table, and they look up when we enter. I am so very glad to see Tristán, Iladro, a few of my own Royal Guard, and . . . my eyes sweep the room looking for her. There! Ximena leaps to her feet and barrels toward me, arms outstretched for an embrace. I fall into the hug easily and gratefully.

She pushes me back to arm’s length, and her eyes are wet with tears when she says, “I’m so glad you’re safe and well, my sky.”

A puckered redness slashes across her cheekbone—a clumsily stitched wound that will leave a large scar. I point to my own cheek. “Ximena, what happened?”

“Later.” She guides me by the shoulders toward the table.

“And the girl?”

“Dead.” She sighs. “I’m sorry.”

I swallow hard against the sudden knot in my throat. Another innocent person added to my wake of bodies. I’m torn between writhing guilt, and gladness that Ximena survived.

Hector and his men greet one another in a fierce demonstration of backslapping. Then Hector and Tristán clasp forearms while Mara and Ximena embrace. Finally we all settle onto our cushions.

I lean forward, elbows on the table. “Tell me at once what is going on.”

Tristán rubs wearily at his temples. “Franco came after the girl,” he says. “It happened very publicly, with an arrow to the neck. We had no choice but to reveal that she was not you, that the queen still lived. As planned, Father Alentín began circulating the rumor among the priests that you were on a mission from God himself.”

“And Franco?” I ask.

“Disappeared.”

“Was he working alone or on Eduardo’s orders?”

“We don’t know.

Ximena says, “Conde Eduardo came south not long after we left Brisadulce. He began asking, in the politest way possible, of course, if you had abandoned Joya d’Arena. He claimed distress over your choice to pretend to court a southern lord, only to disappear. Without ever saying it straight out, he convinced a lot of people that the south had been dealt an insulting blow.”

All the decisions of the last few months are like a millstone about my neck. I don’t need them to explain the rest, because it all clicks together in my head until I am sick with it.

“The southern holdings were already in tumult,” I say. “They blame the arid north for draining the country’s resources. There has been talk of seceding, like the eastern holdings did.”

“Yes,” Tristán says.

“Eduardo wants a civil war.” I hide my hands under the table so no one can see how much they tremble. “He wants to be king of his own nation. It’s what he wanted all along. He tried to have me killed. When that didn’t work, he did everything he could to weaken me, especially in the eyes of the southern holdings. That’s why he was so set on me marrying a northern lord—to keep my southern alliances thin. That’s why General Luz-Manuel had Martín executed—to weaken and dispirit my guard. The two of them must be working together.” My heart pounds with certainty and dismay. “The general is the one who has ordered these fortifications, yes?”

The ensuing silence is heavy and thick.

I whisper, “What about Rosario? Is he all right?”

“We don’t know, Your Majesty,” Tristán says.

I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to the boy.

“Captain Lucio will have gotten him to safety,” Hector says. “At the first sign of trouble.”

Even as I meet his gaze and nod my thanks, I pray to God that he is right.

“So, Your Majesty, what do we do?” Tristán asks.

This is it, then. The moment I must think like the girl who led a desert rebellion and won a war for her husband. Like a queen.

I rise to my feet and begin pacing, worrying at my thumbnail with my teeth. I need allies. Resources. I must turn sentiment in my favor, at least long enough to stall the conde’s inciting efforts, long enough to prepare my own fortifications.

My pacing quickens. The first thing I’ll do is announce Conde Tristán’s nomination to the Quorum. Maybe it will bury the “insult” a little, bely Eduardo’s claim that I have abandoned the south. But that will only go so far.

Then what, Elisa? You need a demonstration of your commitment to the south. Something permanent. You need . . .