The Crown of Embers(75)

I freeze, and my fingers dig into the tent fabric. Humberto used to do the same thing, to protect me from the others. I look into Hector’s eyes. They’re steady and fierce, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I could always tell what Humberto was thinking.

Hector is so much more complicated, and though he is less a mystery to me than he used to be, it feels like I could spend years peeling back the layers, trying to learn his whole person.

When I don’t answer right away, he says, “Please let me do this.”

One thing I am certain of: I trust him utterly. “Thank you,” I say at last. “I’ll sleep easier knowing you’re there.” And it’s the truth.



Riding in the servants’ carriage is as awful as I anticipated. In no time, my back and rear ache from being jostled against the wooden bench, and I am crazy with heat, for we deliberately chose carriages with only small, curtained windows. Sweat pools between my breasts and soaks my hairline, curling wisps of hair that have escaped my plaits.

There are two nice things about the arrangement, though. One is that Hector sits beside me, and our thighs brush with every jolt of the carriage. When one wheel hits a large stone, the carriage lurches to the side and I slide along the bench until our hips collide. The carriage rights itself quickly, but neither of us bothers to move away.

The second nice thing is that it gives me a chance to talk with Storm for the first time in days. He sits on the bench across from us, and he is so tall his head nearly brushes the roof. He has pushed back his cowl, and sweat glistens on his near-perfect skin. He fans himself with a dried palm frond.

“Are you enjoying our journey so far?” I ask with no small amount of amusement.

He hisses, and his green eyes spark with fury, or maybe loathing. I feel Hector’s body go taut.

But I am no longer afraid of the Invierno. Logic tells me to consider him a threat, to remember that he might even be the assassin who stabbed me in the catacombs. But my instincts say otherwise. Perhaps it’s his transparency that makes me feel safe with him. He is one of the few who never bothers to hide his true thoughts from me. Maybe the only.

“This desert is God cursed,” he says.

“Your people do not seem well suited to it,” I observe.

“Indeed not. Our skin cracks and dries; our feet blister. There are days it feels like my blood is boiling. I found much relief from the wretched climate in my cavern hideout.”

I scowl at him. “And yet you marched an army of thousands across the desert to try to overrun us.”

“Well, we skirted it to the north and south, but yes. It was a difficult journey. Hundreds perished from the heat alone.”

“Your own country is much cooler by comparison?”

“Cooler. Wetter. Lovelier. Better, really, in every possible way than this forsaken blight that you rule.”

I surprise myself by laughing.

I’m further surprised to see his lips twitch with a hint of a smile. He says, “So tell me, Your Majesty. Why do I have the displeasure of your company today?”

“I yearned to bask in the light of your empathy and good cheer.”

“Sarcasm again. I thought you would tell me you had decided to hide like a frightened rabbit from the group following us.”

“I’m hiding like a wise rabbit.”

“Do you think they are the conde’s men?”

“I do, though I can’t be sure. One of them, a tall, quiet man, has been seen with the conde before.”

He starts forward so abruptly that our knees collide.

Hector’s dagger is at his throat in an instant. “Back. Away.”

Storm edges back, resumes fanning himself with the palm frond. His face becomes a mask of calm, even as he keeps a careful eye on Hector’s dagger. He says, “Describe this person to me.”

So I do, trying to remember Belén’s description exactly: Tall, hair slicked back, young looking, a close adviser. Storm coils in on himself, growing tighter and tighter with the telling until he looks like a cornered cat.

“What is it? Do you know this man?”

“I have to get away,” he says. “At the soonest opportunity. Leave me at the next trading post. No, leave me when we get to a large port. I’ll need a place big enough to disappear in. I can make my way back—”

“Storm! Do you know this man?”

He inhales deeply, and the mask of calm settles over his uncanny features once again. “I do know him. Franco, right? That’s not his real name. His real name, in God’s language, is Listen to the Falling Water, for Her Secrets Carve Canyons into Hearts of Stone.”

I gasp. “An Invierno!”

“A spy,” Hector says.