And she had her rage.
Reina charged. When Javier thrust at her to keep her at a distance, Reina seized the blade with her left hand. Acid shot up her arm as the sharp-edged steel slit her palm.
She ground her teeth from the agony. With a roar she yanked Javier by the sword. She brought him close enough that her right fist contacted his sword-wielding left wrist. And the impact sang with the crack of bones.
Javier bellowed as he lost grip of the hilt. It was an opportunity Reina seized to send the blade flying away from his reach.
Javier tried leaping after it, but Reina tackled him down. They fell hard onto stone, wrestling, punching, her tail slapping him in the face, their limbs skinning against the ground as both rolled farther away from either blade.
Reina punched him on the temple. Javier’s knee met her gut and knocked the air out of her—a blazing eruption at her very core. Reina doubled over, vision going black. For a split second, she imagined Javier striking her, but when the blow never came, she opened her eyes and saw him crawling for his blade.
Reina grabbed him by the legs, grappling him desperately. She used her weight as a pivot and swung him to the opposite wall, screaming.
Javier crashed against it. And Reina scrambled to him, dominant hand fisted, and she punched.
The world ruptured and split around her, pain bursting from her knuckles to her wrist and up her elbow as Javier moved away at the very last instant. Instead of his skull, Reina’s fist dented the wall behind him.
“You backstabbing snake,” Reina hissed.
Javier’s forehead smashing against Reina’s was his reply.
Reina climbed on him and pinned her forearm to his neck.
The rat kicked and pulled her braid and raked clawlike fingernails along Reina’s arm, his cheeks becoming blue. All to no avail.
“You don’t deserve mercy,” Reina said close to Javier’s ears, her voice wet from tears, spit, and blood. Her tail thrashed from side to side—a whip on his legs.
“Please—I didn’t mean to.”
Reina compressing on his trachea was his reward.
“Please,” he spluttered.
“That’s why you came with us!” Reina barked. “To do away with her the moment you had the chance!” She let the rage swallow her. She let it burn through her lungs until the ire charred her good sense.
Celeste was gone. It was all for nothing.
“Please—” Javier spouted, “I was cursed—it took over—I—I woke up, and I had her blood on my hands.”
Shut up, Reina thought.
“This—this wasn’t how it was meant to happen. Your grandmother—”
Shut up.
“Do?a Ursulina lied to all of us—”
“Stop talking!”
Javier dug his nails into the bleeding opening of Reina’s left palm. Fire licked the length of her arm. She screamed and sprang to her feet but never gave Javier the chance to recover. Her boot thudded into his side. Over and over and over, even after the sound of a crunch. Even after he sucked in a breath and his eyes closed, shedding bloody tears.
Reina fetched Ches’s golden blade, his coughs and splutters and wheezes for air guiding her back like a waltz. She raised it above him, hatred blurring the corners of her eyes as she watched the mangle of limbs that he was. Still, his chest rose and fell, life ebbing inside him.
Her own breathing was wild, panicked, but she couldn’t make her shaking hands bring the blade down. Her muscles screamed, as did her heart.
She found it pointless, to take his sniveling, worthless life.
Or maybe she was a coward, both useless in protecting Celeste and in avenging—
“Reina!”
A voice cleaved right through her self-loathing.
Exhausted, she turned and saw Eva.
Eva trembled. Perhaps she saw Reina for what she was: a monster.
Eva took in the bodies strewn across the tunnel. Both valco. Both covered in blood. “Maior,” she said.
Reina paused, the shrill of panic coursing through her once again. Reina turned this way and that, desperately searching the shadowed tunnel. Her heart fractured. “Where is she?”
“She walked to the sanctum—I literally could not stop her. Do?a Ursulina can take control of the woman in Maior—of Celeste’s mother. I tried to keep her here, but—it was like she was possessed. She kept on going.”
“And you just let her go by herself?”
“Please help,” Eva begged.
41
The Choice of Family
Reina and Eva sprang back to the sanctum, leaving the mangled Javier and Celeste in the tunnel. All the while Reina’s heart was a rupturing star, its every thump a sear of fire. Maior was out there, enthralled, and entirely alone.
Reina couldn’t be this useless, to also fail Maior.
She flared her iridio—every last droplet of what she had to give. She was so close to running out, but she was also so done being afraid. The strength of each stride doubled, her muscles tired but thrumming, her lungs aching but determined. To her surprise, Eva caught up to her paces a moment later, like she was burning through enhancing bismuto herself.
Do?a Ursulina’s voice flowed from the entryway. “There’s my girl,” she said. “Now, you, we must keep your body intact so the caudillo can shut up about his wife once and for all.”
Reina lunged out of the passageway in a spurt of panic. As soon as she emerged into the chamber, she saw Maior about to cross the stone bridge to the dais with Do?a Ursulina and her small legion of tinieblas. Staining her grandmother’s black boots was a lagoon of blood—the combined lives of the seven women she’d slaughtered.
The sanctum resonated with a hundred hushed voices murmuring in fervent tongues. The whisperings of Reina’s heart, only this time they weren’t coming from within her. The gleeful prayers and disagreeable conversations. The hissing and hemming. They drowned the domed chamber, and Reina could only assume they were the proof of the invocation.
Only one life remained.
Maior stepped onto the bridge, her steps sluggish and unnatural, as if each was a battle of wills. One she lost every time.
“Maior!” Reina’s scream was a thunder, echoing back to her. It was a gamble she had to take. And to her immense relief, Maior stopped.
The whispering paused, as if witnessing the unfolding events, amused. The silence was a brief thing, engulfing the sanctum as Reina met Do?a Ursulina’s unfazed gaze. Reina hoped her grandmother could see the disgust contorting her face. There was no hiding anymore. She needn’t Do?a Ursulina’s approval or anyone else’s. For she carried no fear—and how could she, after failing Celeste?
Do?a Ursulina pocketed a hand and produced a glittering ore from her jacket, which she raised in offering between them. The shape was familiar, designed to fit perfectly in the crevice sitting between Reina’s lungs. “Come, Reina, you have earned this.”
“I don’t want it,” Reina spat.
Do?a Ursulina tilted her head and went on. “Now bring Maior over, and Celeste. Where is she? Her blood was spilled already—I felt it. Bring her here in case her body needs to be on the dais. I’ve already started the invocation.” She took a deep breath through the nostrils, loudly, making a show of it. “Feel the gods and how they listen. Feel Rahmagut’s anticipation.”