The Girl of Fire and Thorns Complete Collection (79 page)

“Of course, Your Majesty,” he says, bowing his head. “Anything to put your mind at rest and aid in your recovery.”

I clench my jaw. He won’t do as I ask because my input is valuable, or even because I am his queen. He’ll only agree to consult me because it will make me
feel better
?

The general turns to go.

“Wait.”

He whirls, and it’s possible I imagine his flitting look of impatience.

God, what do I say to this man?
How can I convey that I am the sovereign and he is not? That even though I come from a foreign land, these are
my
people?

The Godstone leaps in response to my prayer, and an answer floats to me gently on the afternoon breeze.

Sorrow comes easily to my voice when I say, “I lost so many people I loved in the war with Invierne. We all did. But the only reason we survive to mourn is because our army fought bravely and selflessly. And no one fought harder than my own Royal Guard, who held off the invaders at tremendous cost so I could have time to work the Godstone’s magic.” I hope he hears what I’m not saying:
Yes, General, we won the day because of
me
, remember?
“I’ll not see them doubted or disrespected. In fact, I’ll defend each one of them with my dying breath if I must, as they defended me. Am I clear?”

He stares at me as if deciding whether to protest further. But I know I’ve said the right thing because Hector and the guards stand a little straighter, and their eyes glow with pride. I hope they take this back to the barracks, the sure knowledge that their queen would die for them.

Finally the general bows, a little lower this time, and excuses himself.

The moment the door closes behind him, all the fight melts from my body. I cannot fathom why the general would do such a thing. Was he trying to discredit me on purpose? Is this his way of taking power for himself while I am unwell? Was he looking for a scapegoat to assuage the fear of palace residents? Or did he genuinely think Martín deserved to die? A single tear slides from the corner of my left eye.
Oh, Martín, I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.

I am about to close my eyes and meet oblivion when Hector says, “My queen?”

I force myself to raise my head and meet his eye.

“I would like to inquire about Martín’s wife and family. Make sure they are provided for.” Emotion tinges his voice, and his face is gaunt with weariness.

Very few members of the Royal Guard are as young as their commander, were selected and trained by him the way Martín was. I’ve no doubt that Hector grieves deeply for him.

“Thank you. I would take it as a personal favor.”

“I’ll return as soon as I’m able,” he says.

“Take your time. You deserve a respite from being at my side. Oh, speaking of being at my side . . . please tell me, did General Luz-Manuel visit when I was . . . indisposed?”

“Many times. He brought prayer candles and held vigil for hours.”

I don’t believe for a moment that the general wished for my recovery.

“I never left him alone with you,” Hector adds softly, his face unreadable. “Not once.”

I’m not sure what to say, so I just nod gratefully.

Tonight my dream changes. This time I carry a torch, and its warmth and light wrap around me. I think that I am
safe
.

The breeze is gentle at first, lifting strands of my hair, bringing a hint of brine. But the wind grows stronger; the gust becomes a gale. The torch dies, plunging me into darkness. The Godstone turns to ice.

I sob from sudden terror, knowing what comes next, waiting for it. The blade glimmers hot and cruel as it strikes. . . .

My own scream wakes me.

“Elisa?”

I grasp blindly for Hector. He clasps my hand in both of his, trying to squeeze the panic from my body by the force of his grip.

Gradually the pounding in my chest softens, my breathing slows. The high slant of sun through my balcony’s glass doors indicates that I slept well into the morning.

When I can manage it, I say, “Did you find Martín’s family?” I need to talk about something real and solid to shake the dream from my head.

“The Guard took up a collection. I delivered it this evening. In spite of everything, she was . . .” He swallows hard, then says with a touch of wonder, “She was
grateful
.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him for you.”

“Thank you for trying.”

He gives my hand one last squeeze before letting it go. I snake it under my blankets, feeling vaguely disappointed. He has been stiff and uneasy with me since my brush with death. Ximena or Mara would have held my hand as long as I needed.

He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, as if putting a wall between us. “It’s very common for soldiers to experience nightmares after combat,” he says. “Especially if they were injured.”

My chest lurches just to think about it. “Oh?”

“And sometimes it helps to talk about them.”

“Do you have nightmares?”


“Yes.” His voice is hardly more than a whisper.

“And do you talk about them?”

He turns his head to avoid me. “No.”

I study his profile. He usually looks so regal, even with the crisscross of scars on his left cheek. But the light pouring in from my balcony softens his features and makes him seem almost boyish. I say, “But you’d like me to talk about mine.”

“Only if you want to.”

“We could trade. A nightmare for a nightmare.”

His gaze turns inward while he considers. When he finally looks at me, I catch the barest shift of his eyes as he studies every part of my face.

He opens his mouth. Closes it. At last he says, “I think it would be best if you discussed your dreams with Ximena or Mara.”

The hurt that wells up my throat is unexpected and inexplicable. “Maybe I will,” I whisper. “Thank you for your counsel.”

During the next couple of days, I think hard about what Hector said. I try, twice, to talk to Ximena about my dreams. But the words clot in my mouth. It’s not fear so much as shame that stills my tongue. I can’t bear to be weak and frightened in front of everyone. I am queen now. I should be so much braver, so much stronger.

But then comes the night when the knife is so real, so cold and sharp against my skin for the barest instant before it is an exploding fire in my belly. Then the nightmare flashes to a different place, a different knife, a different terror. I am helpless, my limbs leaden, as the dagger pricks at Humberto’s precious throat. “You could have stopped this, Elisa,” he tells me, just before the blade whisks across his neck and Humberto’s hot blood spurts all over my crown, which is suddenly in my hands.

This time, my waking screams are cut off by vomit spewing from my mouth.

Mara and Ximena rush to help me clean up. I try to rise, and they hold me down, insisting they will have me set to rights in no time. But I thrust them back with more strength than I ought to have. Clutching the bedpost, I drag myself over the side and gain my feet.

My legs quiver with disuse, but they do not betray me. “Find Hector,” I order to no one in particular. The vomit is already a cold plaster gluing my nightgown to my skin, and my nose stings from the rotten-spice scent. “I’m going to wash,” I tell them. “And then . . . and then . . .” I have no choice. I have to face this black monster of terror before it eats me from the inside out. “And then, I must return to the catacombs. Tonight.”

I bathe quickly, with Mara’s help. Ximena plies me with a gown, but I refuse. “Pants,” I say. “And my linen blouse.” I’ll not be hampered by a skirt—it’s all I can do to remain steady as it is—and I know I’ll feel more comfortable, more capable, in my desert garb.

Hector arrives as Ximena finishes lacing my camel-hair boots, and I rise to greet him. “Sorry to rouse you,” I say. I feel guilty that I’ve decided on an excursion during the one night he allows himself to rest.

“A queen needn’t ever apologize to her guard. Where are we going?”

“The catacombs. I need to . . . to see the place again.”

“We scoured it a dozen times. We found nothing.”

Ximena weaves my hair into one long braid down my back. I have so much hair that she usually weaves two, one atop the other, but she senses my urgency. “
We
found nothing? Or the general?” I ask. “Forgive me if I don’t trust him to be thorough.”

Hector opens his mouth as if to say something, but changes his mind.

I wave off the question. “Also . . . there’s something else. Like a memory that’s almost there but not.”

My nurse ties the end of my braid and gives my back a gentle pat. Hector says, “Then we go. But do let me carry you if you tire.”

“Of course. Thank you.” I turn away to hide my flushing face, remembering how he carried me in our failed rush to save Martín. It would be easy to let him do it again. For a moment, I consider pretending to be weaker than I am.

But I shake it off. I’m already in danger of being thought a feeble queen, and I will not pretend weakness. Not ever, not for anyone.

I hold my head high as my entourage—Hector, Ximena, Mara, and a handful of guards—array themselves in a protective circle around me. In careful formation, we exit the suite and hurry to the ground floor.

A sentry I’ve never met before stands in Martín’s place. Anger at him boils up inside me, but I recognize the feeling as unfair and manage a nod as he bows low. Hector insists on leading us into the stairwell, and I let him. The steps are tricky, and my legs feel like date jelly, but I put a hand on Hector’s shoulder and use him as a crutch as I descend.

The yawning jaws of the Hall of Skulls seem to pulse in the flickering candle flames. Mara is rigid beside me, and I find strange comfort in the fact that someone is as frightened as I am.

But the fear dissipates as we enter Alejandro’s tomb. It’s so different than in my nightmares, crowded with my companions this time, several bearing torches. It’s bright and warm, the air still. I feel everyone’s eyes on me as I wander through the caskets, my fingers brushing the silk banners. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to find, how this excursion will help. When the toes of my boots encounter a large dark stain on the stone floor, I freeze.

My blood.

My fingertips find the wound at my side, then the bump on my skull. I fell and hit my head, Doctor Enzo told me. But that’s not right. I fell onto my side. Now that I’m staring at the exact spot, I remember my cheek splatting in my own blood. How, then, did I get such a terrible knot on the back of my head? What really happened here?

I mutter, “Something isn’t . . . I don’t remember . . .” I’m not sure what I’m trying to say. That I didn’t hit my head? I obviously did. Maybe I tried to get up and then fell a second time. I lost so much blood, it’s a wonder I remember as much as I do.

“Elisa?” Hector says.

I look up, startled by his voice. The torchlight makes hollows of his cheeks. “I’m not sure. I . . .” Something about the light. The way it’s moving. So different from my dream. My gaze moves to the torch he carries. “Your torch.”

He waits for me to puzzle it out, familiar by now with the way my mind works.

Think, Elisa!
And then I have it. “Your torch flame isn’t moving.”

“No,” he agrees. “It’s very still.”

Everyone is watching us, watching me. Perhaps they’re worried that my injuries have addled my mind, that, as Doctor Enzo suggested, there is permanent damage. But my thoughts are clearer than ever.

“In my dream—no, in my
memory
—there was a breeze.” I close my eyes, listen to the underground river wash through the caverns. I remember the brush of air against my face before the torch winked out. “It was more than a breeze. It
gusted
. My torch was sconced in the wall. And when the wind blew, it died.” I open my eyes.

It’s such a small thing, the slightest sliver of strangeness, but I am queen and they must take me seriously.

“Maybe someone opened the entrance upstairs,” Ximena suggests.

“Or what if someone walked by?” says one of the guards. “In a hurry.”

“Her Majesty said it
gusted,
” Mara says. “Walking by would not cause a torch to go out.”

“Maybe he had bad gas,” says another. “Have you seen what they feed us in the barracks?”

“Fernando!” Hector snaps, but I chuckle. It’s not particularly funny, but everyone joins me, and I allow myself to keep at it because in spite of the pain, it also feels really nice.

Finally I catch my breath and say what everyone is surely thinking: “I suppose we ought to consider that there is a hidden entrance to this chamber.”

Chapter 6

THINKING
of the escape tunnel Hector and I used to reenter the palace, I realize that of course my new home would have other secrets, many of them forgotten, perhaps lost to centuries of restorations and additions.

Ximena brushes past me and begins searching the stone wall with her fingertips. “If there is another way in, we
must
find it,” she mutters. She’s right; we dare not leave any entrance to the palace unguarded.

Everyone jumps to help in the search, and my nurse directs them with strategic efficiency. Within moments, each section of wall and floor suffers the scrutiny of prying fingers. I itch to join them, but it’s all I can do to prop myself upright against an empty casket.

“Search quietly,” Ximena says. “Tell me if you hear something or feel air movement.” It comes as no surprise that my guardian knows something of secret passageways. She probably knows as many ways to exit a fortress as she does to kill a man.

Mara is crawling on the floor when she says, “I feel something. A breeze maybe.”

I start forward too quickly, and pain shoots down my side. Hector is at my elbow instantly. I lean into him.

“Which direction?” Ximena asks.

“Not sure.” Mara looks up. “I felt it against my left cheek.”

One of the guards crouches beside her with a torch.

“Watch the banner,” Ximena says as the flame comes dangerously close to the casket’s silk covering.