protecting their prince while the four of us keep our weapons drawn in wait.
“They’re nothing but scavengers,” Dez says, and spits a mouthful of blood at the ground. He keeps his arms out wide. “It’s me you want. Take me.”
Castian’s face is bloody from a red cut on the fine slope of his regal nose. I hope it hurts. He flashes a smile from us to Dez. “Why would I do that?”
Dez takes this moment to slam the back of his head directly into the soldier behind him. The young man falls, cradling his face, but doesn’t get up. Dez reaches into his pocket before anyone can advance and draws out a glass vial. Poison made from the olaneda blossom that grows in the highest peaks of the Memoria Mountains. One of our alchemists created it, trying to develop a cure for the plague that swept the continent years ago. Instead he discovered a quick death.
“Dez,” I say.
He doesn’t look at me.
Castian raises a hand to signal his men to stand back. He bites down so hard his jaw tenses. Is that fear in the prince’s eyes? Dez might not be able to remember the way Castian nearly killed him, but I do. I feel it so deeply that it takes everything in me not to scream.
Castian’s upper lip is a snarl. “You wouldn’t.”
“They are worth my life,” Dez says, his words so even and strong no one could doubt it. “I’m the son of an elder. I’m the leader of the Whispers. It’s me you want.”
“You overestimate your value.”
“Then why’d you come looking for me?” Dez asks. “Because the spy is dead. Celeste is dead. But you must know that already. You want me alive to get your revenge for that pretty scar I gave you.”
What Dez said last night before thrums in my mind. Trust me.
Is this what he meant?
I want to believe Dez would never die by poison. There is no shame in it. But if this is the path he chooses, it means that there is no hope and no chance for the rest of us. And yet, he sets the vial between his teeth. He could bite down and break the glass. The poison would work before he even swallowed any glass shards.
Castian’s hands become fists at his sides. I imagine those pointed knuckles driving through Dez’s skull.
“Ren,” Esteban whispers beside me. “What do we do?”
The only thing I can do. I yank off my gloves and hurl myself at the prince. I just need to lay one finger on him and tear out every memory he has ever had until he’s as good as dead. Hollow, through and through.
“Don’t!” Esteban yells, and I pause, confused.
Suddenly, it feels like roots have sprouted from the earth and wrapped themselves around my ankles. My bones heavy as mortar. My mouth numb, my tongue so thick, I can’t utter a word. Useless. And all around me, the air ripples with Dez’s power. He is holding us back.
It takes a second to register that Esteban’s Don’t wasn’t for me at all. It was for what Dez was about to do. He must have skimmed Dez’s thoughts too late.
“That won’t work on me,” the prince says, but he still steps back from my outstretched fingertips.
“Stop it!” Margo protests just as Sayida’s face grows red with the effort to move.
They are being held in place by the force of Dez’s magics, too. Tears sting at my eyes, blurring the image of the guards waiting for their orders. Castian. He’s a ripple of red and gold, but when I blink, I see the fear in his eyes that his prize might expire before he has the opportunity to torture him. Dez with poison between his lips. I shut my eyes and remember those same lips on my skin, smiling, grinning, laughing, living.
How can he do this?
It is the prince himself who steps between us, his predatory gaze flipping between me and Dez. “I accept.”
“Swear it,” Dez says, holding the vial to his lips. “Swear my unit will walk freely out of this forest and not be harmed by you or your guards.”
“I don’t make promises to Moria scum,” the Bloodied Prince says. He assesses each of us, lingering on my scarred hands. “Will there be others?”
Dez sets his teeth together and hisses, “Yes.”
We say nothing, frozen in different stages of outrage. I try once more to break free of Dez’s magics, but it is as if my body is not my own.
I