Rae Carson - The Crown of Embers

His sloppy grin makes my stomach clench, not unpleasantly. “You faced him down like a seasoned warrior,” he says.

“Only because I had your daggers at my back.”

“Always.”

“Do you think he was telling the truth? About the spies? About why he wanted to warn me?”

Hector shrugs. “Alejandro and I used to speculate that the Inviernos are incapable of falsehood. They tend to go silent and refuse to speak rather than lie. He was wrong about one thing, though. Someone wants you dead, as your wounds attest.”

Reflexively, my fingers find my Godstone. Then they shift left, skim my bodice. It’s thin enough for me to feel the ridges of my new scar. Another possibility occurs to me, and I gasp in surprise.

“What is it?”

“Hector, what if it wasn’t an assassination attempt. Is that possible? Did someone mean to take me alive ?”

His dark eyes seem to whirl as his considerable intelligence chews on the idea. Without breaking my gaze, he says to the remaining guard, “Lucás, step outside and watch the hallway.”

“Yes, my lord,” comes the voice. The door creaks open, bangs closed.

Hector and I are alone.

I’M suddenly aware of the silence; no creak of armor, no footsteps, no quiet chatter. Just his breath and mine, steady and even. It’s the first time I’ve been alone—truly alone—with anyone in weeks, and it feels as though we are sharing a secret.

He says, “I don’t care to discuss what happened that day in front of my men.”

“Why not?” Looking up at him is giving my neck and shoulders a crick, so I stand and stretch my arms to the ceiling, careful of my mending side. Softly, I say, “What did happen that day, Hector? Were you the one who found me?”

He turns, putting his back to me. “The general held me back after the Quorum meeting,” he says. “I let myself get distracted. I didn’t go after you right away.” When he turns back around, his face is stricken. “Elisa, I’m so sorry.”

“Just tell me.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “You left, and I was about to go after you, but the general grabbed my arm. He wanted to discuss a new rotation near the amphitheater—a collaboration between the Royal Guard and his own soldiers. It was ten minutes or more before I followed you.”

“I see.”

“I let myself get distracted. It won’t happen again.”

“I’m not angry.”

He sighs as if exasperated. “You’re rarely angry. Even when you should be.”

“I’m angry all the time!”

“Not at me.”

“No, not at you. I told you I wanted to be alone that day, remember?”

“Yes.”

“How can I be angry when I got my wish? I was the foolish one, not you. You warned me. And I’m sorry about that. I caused a lot of trouble, especially for you.” He starts to protest, but I put up a hand and look him straight in the eye. “Do you think Luz-Manuel drew you away on purpose?”

“How could he know you would go to the catacombs?”

“Well, I had been making a regular habit of it. Maybe it was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity.”

He looks off into the distance, worrying the pommel of his sword with his fingertips. “A few weeks ago, I would never have considered it,” he says. “I’ve always thought him a devoted Joyan who would give his life for his country.”

“And now?”

“Now I’ll make sure you are never unguarded, even in your own palace.”

Again I touch my forefinger to my waist, to the scar there. I shudder to remember the blade, how it felt plunging into my abdomen. “Were you the one who found me?”

He rubs the back of his head as if suddenly exhausted. “I called your name, but there was no response. Then I saw your foot, poking out from behind one of the pedestals. I ran over, and . . . God, Elisa, I thought you were dead.”

I clasp my hands together to keep them steady.

“You had stopped bleeding,” he continues. “I’ve seen it in battle; a wounded soldier often stops bleeding when he dies. But then . . . you breathed. A big, strong breath. So I gathered you up and got you to Doctor Enzo as quick as I could.”

I whisper, “Thank you.”

He stares at me, and I stare back. His lashes are short but thick, and he has a tiny freckle at the crease of his left eye. He has the deepest eyes I’ve ever seen on a person, like a whole world goes on inside his head.

He says, “I think the Godstone protected you. Or started to heal you. Enzo didn’t realize how badly you’d been stabbed until he broke the scab and cleaned the wound. At first he thought it was just the bump to your head that had sent you into a coma.”

Hearing his account, it seems as though I barely escaped death. But something about it feels strange. Something doesn’t add up.

“Is it possible my assassin knew exactly how badly to wound me without killing me? Was there any indication that he didn’t leave me for dead? That he planned to take me alive?”

“No. Wait. Maybe. There was blood all over your face, even though your face wasn’t anywhere near the pool of blood. And the floor was streaked. I thought you had managed to crawl away before collapsing. But what if—”

“What if I was dragged? What if by coming to look for me, you interrupted something?”

Hector moves to the windows, paces back and forth between them. “This might be a good thing,” he says. “Kidnapping you requires planning. Finesse. Merely killing you is easy by comparison.”

“Oh?” The last thing I want to hear is that killing me would be easy .

“An abduction requires getting very close to the victim,” he muses. “Nothing long range. They’d have to draw you away from your protectors. . . .”

An idea slams me. I turn it over in my head, considering it from different angles.

“Elisa?”

I led a rebellion, defeated sorcerers, became queen. I can do this too. I push my shoulders back, raise my chin, and say in my best queen voice, “Teach me to defend myself.” Before he can protest, I add, “I’m not saying make me into an elite soldier. Just teach me to survive a close-quarters encounter. Teach me to evade an attacker. I’m a very good student. I can learn anything if I study hard enough.”

He nods. “I know you can. But what about your injury? Shouldn’t you—”

“We’ll start slow and easy.”

He grasps the pommel of his sword. “If you had been raised to the throne, you would have learned basic techniques anyway.”

“We’ll need space. Privacy.” I don’t want to be clumsy and awkward before my entire guard.

“Alejandro’s suite?” he suggests. “It’s quite large, especially if we moved the bed to the side.”

“Good idea.” I grin in anticipation.

His lips twitch as he fights very hard to not grin right back.

The next day, the guards rearrange everything in the king’s suite to open up space, shoving the absurd tower bed against the wall. Several rugs cover the floor in an array of sunset colors and textures. The guards start to remove these, too, but Hector stops them.

“You’re mostly likely to be assaulted in the palace,” he says. “So we’ll practice with the rugs underfoot at first. And it’s not just assassins I’m worried about—a queen can just as easily be killed by a mob. So we’re going to focus on close-quarters encounters.”

Hector dismisses all the guards except for Fernando, telling them to take up their regular posts in my own rooms. He orders Fernando to guard the door outside the king’s suite.

I’ve given Mara the hour off, but Ximena settles on the bed to watch. Hector eyes her warily but says nothing. I sense the tension between them, but it is right that Ximena be here.