“See the lanterns?” Ludivina told Eva, gesturing to the ceiling, “I enchanted them myself.”
“You know how to use iridio?” Eva asked. It wasn’t uncommon for children to display outbursts of magic. Though it was uncommon to see them exhibit the self-control needed for complex spells, like levitating a dozen lanterns. Inwardly, she beamed at the open use here.
Ludivina grinned. She hadn’t been served the stew. Instead, she had a plate of peeled and cut fruits. “Papi says I’m a natural,” she said. “Do you use it?”
Eva thought of her own ease in accessing the star power. “I… I’m the best at iridio.”
“Amazing,” the girl cooed with wide eyes. “And Don Javier is set to inherit all the iridio in Sadul Fuerte. You’ll have so much of it you’ll never have a need for anything else.”
Eva frowned. Celeste was supposed to inherit it.
Celeste sat across from them; her hand was hidden beneath the table, as was Reina’s. They were probably basking in each other’s attention, pretending to care about the dinner. Don Samón raised a glass in a toast, his jolly gaze set on Celeste. It reminded Eva of the times when Javier had been so sweet and perfect.
Ludivina sighed dreamily and said, “You’ll be such a powerful couple. Do you think I’ll ever find a valco my age?”
All the valcos Eva had ever met were selfish. Why should she assume Don Samón and Ludivina were any different?
“Hopefully—I don’t know,” she murmured and pretended the food was too good to say more.
A wave of servants came moments later to exchange their stews with fried snapper, fried plantains, and a medley of fresh vegetables. By then, Eva had given up hope of Maior joining.
Halfway through the dinner, a band of liqui liqui–wearing musicians joined the hall. They set up against a corner near Don Samón’s throne, with guitars, drums, a harp, and maracas.
Don Samón’s companions raised their goblets and hollered to their host, “Play us el cuatro!”
It only took a few more cheers for Don Samón to leave the table, saying, “All right! All right! But only if you dance.”
One of the musicians gave him a four-stringed guitar. Don Samón handled it like the instrument was another appendage. He sat with the musicians, positioned slender fingers on the strings, and led a lively melody on cue with the rest of the band.
His guests didn’t waste a second before leaving their chairs to dance.
Eva glanced at Javier questioningly.
He whispered in her ear, “‘Heart of the Llanos.’”
The melody was familiar. A hymn she’d heard from the retired soldiers who’d moved to Galeno after the revolution. Maybe the song had united them during those dark moments of war.
“Do you dance?” Ludivina asked her. The girl had hardly finished half her fruit plate.
“Yes,” Eva said, thinking of the Saint Jon the Shepherd parades. Of the electrifying joy the stomping and twirling had brought to her heart. How she could have easily gotten sucked into the parade when she’d fled Javier. “But I only dance alone,” she lied.
The ruffled dresses were suited for the joropo dance. The fashion was made for it. The people in pairs danced with one hand grasping their partner’s in the air above their heads and the other hand placed flush against their partner’s back. They moved in loose circles, their espadrilles slapping the tiled floor in unison. Then they each dropped their hands from their partner’s back and twirled each other, the women’s ruffled skirts surfing the air like stormy waves.
Eva startled when Javier left his seat and for a second panicked at the thought of him asking her to dance.
“You just got to let the rhythm del cuatro guide you,” Ludivina said. “Would you like me to teach you?”
Eva gaped at her. She could only imagine what Don Samón’s guests would think: two clumsy girls tearing through the floor and stepping on each other’s espadrilles. “No.”
Ludivina giggled. “Don’t panic! How about we leave, then? Before someone asks for a dance.”
She pushed off her seat and tugged Eva to stand up. Eva stole a glance across the table at Javier, who was inviting Celeste to dance. His expression was clean of malice, probably because he was gaining something. But what? Eva wondered.
Eva and Ludivina dodged through the dancers before emerging into a small elevated courtyard. There the garden split into hedged passageways leading to several balconies with a view of the beach. The night was bright from the moon, its reflection a giant blurred ball over the Cow Sea, and from Rahmagut’s Claw, which smeared the sky to the other side.
Eva figured she could extract information out of the girl.
“Ludivina,” she said, “have you met Javier before?”
The girl considered it. “Maybe when I was too young to remember? If not, then no,” she said with a shrug.
“What kind of business does he have with Don Samón?” Eva said.
Ludivina was swaying from side to side to the rhythm as the music changed to a new song. Like the dancing was inescapable. “Are you sure you don’t want me to teach you to dance?”
Eva offered her a kind smile of rejection.
“Fine. But you wouldn’t be bad! No Fedrian would ever be deaf to those guitars.”
“But… I’m from Venazia.”
Ludivina just raised an eyebrow. Don Samón joined them before Eva could ask more. He chuckled as Ludivina told him of Eva’s refusal to dance.
“Oh, is that so?” he said, treating them like children, which Eva quite liked. “It’s all right, not everyone has to enjoy dancing. Although you shouldn’t feel shy about dancing with Ludivina. Reina and Celeste are setting fire to the dance floor back there. It’s not the most graceful sight, but my guests are like family. They do not mind.”
“My grandmother would be outraged,” Eva said without thinking, a breeze of jasmine wafting over the balcony.
“Is Reina Do?a Celeste’s lover?” Don Samón asked quite plainly, and Eva didn’t know how to respond.
“Don’t worry, I’m not your grandmother. I won’t be outraged by the answer.” When Eva took too long to reply, he went on: “It used to not be frowned upon, before the colonists came over and forced us to adopt Penitent customs.”
“Was it different before?” Eva said in a small voice.
He glanced up to the moon, caught up in his own musings. “Yes, many things were different before the humans came. Valcos lived in the Páramo, isolated from the nozariel tribes of the coast and the yare kingdom in Las Garras that was the first to fall. This was long before I was born, of course, but I have studied what historians and folklore say on the matter. Our people, the valcos, we stayed isolated for as long as we could, ignoring the enslavement of nozariels and the butchering of the yares. The humans saw we were a war breed, and instead of enslaving us or killing us, they manipulated us into believing their culture was worth trading for and eventually adopting.”
Eva was quiet, remembering every instance when her cousins or aunts used her mere existence against her, making her believe she was wrong for indulging in the desires innate to her blood.