To Puerto Leones.”
I catch a couple of worried glances when he says “empire.” The rest of the court bursts into reverent cheer. Waiters are ready and waiting with ten bottles of cava so large, it requires three people to open each one.
The king turns around suddenly and raises his glass to acknowledge me. I hold his dark stare as long as I can before I bow.
“Please, enjoy the festivities!” The king speaking now is a different man from the one stewing in anger earlier. Even kings wear masks. He settles back into his chair as the band is escorted into the center of the garden.
Four guitarists and a man with a single drum begin to play. A singer whose voice is heavy with tragedy croons a love song that is popular in the coastal cities. As he sings, a woman in a flowing red dress steps forward. She is statuesque with skin like porcelain. Her hair is smoothed down to one side and braided over her shoulder. Her hands hold shells, which add a clack, clack, clack to the rhythm of the song. Her eyes are rimmed in shadow and her cheeks are apple red. When she dances, everyone follows the stomp of her black-heeled feet, and the rise of her skirts, which spiral outward to show powerful calves.
At her hip is a fan.
From my place on the podium, I see a brief glint and my breath catches. Though I’m not sure that I’m right. This is too bold, too reckless. I look around the garden, where even the guards are transfixed by her long, supple limbs and graceful arms. The singer falls into a sharp wail, lamenting his broken heart, and the dancer throws the shells into the grass and grabs her fan. When she unfolds it, I know I’m right.
There, concealed between the paper-thin folds, is a flash of slender steel with a delicate rose hilt. Only one person I know owns a hairpin dagger. I did see Sayida. Then this dancer must be under an illusion.
She turns to the king, pulling her skirt, distracting everyone from the weapon in her hand. My stomach twists with revulsion.
I have a choice. I could let her kill him. It is what I want most of all. But his death, after the speech he just gave, would ruin everything I came here to do. The weapon would be used before I could get to it. Nuria is right. Lozar was right. I came here for more than my own vengeance.
The guitar strums as fast as my heart. The woman spins, her dress like the bloody red spill of death around her, and when she stops, her arm is raised high.
King Fernando sees the blade too late. Everyone does.
But I didn’t. I’m already moving, lunging between the dancer and the king, arm poised to shield my face.
Pain blooms. Her eyes, familiar and blue, are full of hate. Not toward the king who is screaming orders, or the guards who pin her to the ground. The illusion she’s created around her holds strong, keeping her blond hair dark and cloaking her in front of all these strangers.
“Take her away!” King Fernando shouts. “Take her! I’ll deal with her later.”
“Renata!” Leo shouts, running to me from the other side of the garden.
Where did he come from? Justice Méndez is already at my side. The blade is driven right through my forearm.
There is too much confusion, too much blood, too many people touching me and calling my name. Bells ring throughout the entire kingdom and I know I hear people shouting.
But as the medic tends to me, all I can see is the hatred in Margo’s eyes as she is dragged thrashing and screaming out of the garden.
Chapter 22
I’ve felt worse pain.
One time, on a mission outside the Memoria Mountains, past the Sedona Canyons, I fell into a nest of ice vipers. I nearly died from their poison. It was Margo who knew a cure. A root that grew in the same desert. Dez spent all night digging for it, and she spent the night keeping my body from freezing as the venom lowered my body temperature.
Then there were the thorn reeds that gave me the scars on my back. A group of young boys from a different unit pulled me out of my tent and onto a raft, where I woke, startled, and fell into the tangle of river thorns. Those boys were sent to a separate safe house across the country, but that’s