my feet. The cut is shallower than it feels, but I swallow the pain and breathe in the putrid scent of wilting flowers around us. I have to help Esteban, but my eyes are drawn to Dez. The blood seeping from cuts on his arms.
Trust me.
“Ren!” Esteban shouts. He’s holding two daggers in front of his face, bracing against the pressure of the guard’s sword.
My vision spins as I race forward and slash my blades across the guard’s ankles. He buckles, and part of me feels hungry with victory. My body is hot, surging with a violent energy I’ve never felt before.
Sayida and Margo have their opponent pinned to the ground, binding him with ropes. He doesn’t fight, and there’s a dreamy glaze to his eyes. Sayida must have compelled him to surrender, perhaps playing on some kindness in his heart. I remind myself that the king and the justice show no kindness, and force myself to look away. I’m brave enough to smile. To take the hand Esteban extends so we can make our way to Dez. For a moment, I think we can win.
But Castian knocks Dez’s stolen sword to the ground, and moves in before I can blink, threatening to puncture his throat.
Dez looks from the sword point to where I stand, then his gaze glides past me.
It’s that look that tells me we’re surrounded before I can see them. Men dressed in the king’s dark purple and gold flank us from all sides. Where were they hiding? How did we not see them? Did they watch Dez and me hide behind the mound, toying with us before revealing themselves? Did they use the justice’s weapon to find us?
There is one guard for each of us. I recognize the boy we left unconscious—he’s sporting a bruised eye and a limp. Sayida reaches for my hand, as if to remind me that I can’t act without thinking.
“Drop your weapons,” Castian says calmly. He winks at Dez and says, “Stay,” before striding in our direction, the four of us standing in a helpless line. My memory—Dez’s memory—is so fresh in my mind that it is like I’m seeing two of Castian. There’s the Bloodied Prince clutching Dez’s throat, so full of rage. Then there’s this Castian, flashing a victorious smile.
A third vision of him sparks like lightning in the dark of my thoughts: Esmeraldas. Celeste. A child’s memory of strangers setting fire to his house. The same voice that’s telling Dez to stay like a dog. No one can know I was here, he’d said. But Prince Castian is known for his pageantry, riding from village to citadela protecting them from the threat of the Whispers.
This Castian looks and sounds like the glimpses I have of him, but there’s something different. An overconfidence that reeks of someone who knows they’ve already won.
“Thank the Father you’re consistent,” Castian tells Dez, tracing the crescent moon scar on his cheekbone. “Nearly a year since we last met and you’ve still got a death wish.”
The casual nature of his voice doesn’t belong in this forest, among our unit, while our lives hang in the balance. I hate everything about him. I want to rip every memory out of his head. The Matahermano’s strange blue eyes settle on me, frowning like I’ve spat in his food, before moving down the line.
“Let them go,” Dez growls. His hands are balled into fists, blood blooming like petals on the sleeves of his tunic. My body lurches forward, but Esteban wrenches my wrist.
“Dez!” Margo shouts, and the soldier behind her yanks her back by her hair.
Sayida throws that slender knife of hers and Margo catches it in the crook of her arm, driving it upward into the soldier’s eye. The man’s screams send birds flying from the canopies. Only one of the soldiers helps him stand.
Dez is still watching Margo and whirls around too slowly as a fresh-faced soldier—the one who nearly severed my neck in Esmeraldas—surprises him with two daggers, one at the neck and one over his heart. Dez’s eyes widen, a new stream of blood running down his neck where the knife-happy soldier has cut him.
“You took my sword,” the boy says.
“Stop!” Castian tries to keep the steel of victory on the smooth plane of his brow, but those eerie blue eyes spark with worry. The prince squeezes a hand into a fist, the spikes across his knuckles poised as a threat to the young boy. “I need him alive.”
We shift ranks, the soldiers