Reina’s voice deflated little by little as she said, “We shared the amapolas.”
“But I told you,” Celeste hissed, “I wanted to share it as friends, not like my parents shared it. Yet you turned my gesture of thanks into your declaration of love.”
Reina remembered this tension that was cramping up her core. The same geysering anger she hadn’t had the courage to express when the caudillo had accused her of disloyalty. “Then why did you let me kiss you? Why didn’t you ever push me away?”
“I let you kiss me because you’re my best friend—or were. All this time I’ve known how you feel. Only a fool wouldn’t see it. I let you have that—I let you have tonight.” Clarity dawned in her eyes. “And I also allowed myself to toy with the possibility, but it’s not what I want. I can’t help how I feel.”
“Can’t help but feel that my life is secondary to yours?” The words salted the open sores Reina had wistfully licked and tended to, over and over again, dreaming her destiny went beyond what their births dictated.
Celeste’s countenance came alight with malicious spite. She looked like Javier. “Well, isn’t it? Aren’t you collecting me and Maior so you can claw your way to a better station? Didn’t you cross the Páramo to have me as your damsel in distress, playing the role of savior before handing me over to your grandmother for butchering?” Celeste faced her with the full weight of her anger. “You want to end my life to get a new life. How am I supposed to be included in that equation?”
Reina paused, her brows knitting in confusion.
And Celeste saw it written all across her face. “You don’t know, do you?” she said on a shuddery laugh. “Rahmagut’s nine wives, the Damas del Vacío, they must give their lives. There is a sacrifice that must be given—a complete blood sacrifice.”
“It’s—it’s just a—a bit of blood. I would never—”
Celeste’s laughter rang cold like the buffeting winds of the mountains where she’d grown up. “You’re nothing but a tool to your grandmother. You believed every lie that witch fed you, and you never considered finding out for yourself if any of it was real.”
There was no rebuttal. Reina was empty. The same whimpering, unintelligent fool she had always been. Ches’s golden blade didn’t change that. Slaying tinieblas and making it to Tierra’e Sol didn’t change that.
“Did you really think I wasn’t aware the tomb was here? I came despite it, because the Liberator is the last person my father would cross. He knows the tomb intimately. He wants to end iridio—the thing you need to live.” Her lips curled in animosity. “I did think you would come as my friend to help me piece together my life after this mess, not as this fool who wants to hand me over to Do?a Ursulina. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Soon that comet will finish traveling the skies and all this will be behind me.”
Celeste didn’t spare her a final look before storming down the garden’s labyrinthine paths, back to the safety of Don Samón’s party.
Reina watched the moon alone, paralyzed, accepting the mockery of its bright shine reserved for lovers. She curled both fists and pressed them against the throb in her chest.
She was a fool. For loving Celeste so much that every moment without her was an ache in her bones. For adoring her since the very first day they’d met and dreaming it had to have been fate, this crossing of their paths.
But most importantly, she’d always been a fool for trusting her grandmother, when she’d never hidden her true nature from Reina. The conditional approach to saving her life. The rotten food she’d given her. Her methods of finding solutions in darkness. Her advice that was a double-edged blade.
If Reina were smarter—more capable—better, she would have seen it from the moment the ore was wrenched from her chest. For Do?a Ursulina wasn’t asinine like her spawn. She’d noticed Reina’s gaze as it lingered over the last precious thing in the manor. She’d caught the signs and left Celeste for last, for she knew Reina would never go so far if she’d known the truth of the end.
All this time, she had been the pawn to the scheming masters of the manor. A game piece to be manipulated and used. The whispers, which had conveniently quieted from the moment she’d set foot on the island, stirred in delight and agreement. She dug into her chest and wished she could rip out her heart. Of course, she was too weak to even do that.
She straightened, pushing her curly bangs out of her eyes, feeling naked without the ever-present straps of her new blade. So what came next?
Traitorously, her thoughts flitted to Maior. The woman who worried about keeping her fed and healed, who fussed about replenishing her iridio. She had been absent all throughout the party, even as Don Samón had the courtesy of reserving a seat for her to Reina’s right.
Reina let out a shuddery breath, worried. All this time she hadn’t spared Maior a thought, too distracted with Celeste.
Maior’s absence wasn’t just because she’d seen Reina kiss Celeste, as Reina had assumed. She was gone because Do?a Ursulina was on the island—somewhere—preparing to spill the blood of all nine wives. “In the tomb,” Reina mouthed.
Perhaps the thing she needed to do was to confront her grandmother herself.
38
Master of Tinieblas
Don Samón pushed himself off the seat as if he could taste the change in Eva’s demeanor.
Eva stuttered, unable to conjure the right words. “A-are you sure? That’s how it must be done?”
He approached her with warm eyes. “Positive. I mean—there are some words to be said, reaching into el Vacío and conjuring void magic, but nothing beyond Ursulina’s capabilities. I just can’t believe Enrique would go to such lengths. I wonder what they think they will gain from it.”
“I—I don’t know them,” Eva lied, turning to the door, swallowing a panic rising like salivation.
“Back in the day, Ursulina was Feleva’s pillar, I remember that. She is not someone to be underestimated.”
And yet that was exactly what Javier wanted Eva to do. She ground her teeth.
“She’s mighty, like the mighty Do?a Antonia,” he said, pointing between them as if sharing an inside joke. He followed Eva to the door, the sconces snuffing behind him. “I’ve met your grandmother, did you know?”
“You have?” she said in the high pitch of surprise, “How?”
They walked into the garden paths, reentering a world where the air smelled sweet as it carried the sounds of the faraway harp and cuatro. Eva caught the pointed trajectory of a slim heron as it sliced through a moonlit night. She was glad Don Samón could take her cues of wanting to leave. She needed to see where Maior had gone. It was a wretched thing to hope a broken heart was the only reason the human had skipped on the dinner…
“I visited Galeno when I was young and na?ve—at the height of my campaign,” Don Samón continued.
“Did you ask her for support?”
He chuckled. They reemerged on the same balcony they’d met on. “Your grandmother didn’t hate me as much back then. She was quite diplomatic, throwing me a banquet before kindly showing me the door. When I was there, I met the sweetest woman in the world.”