“How bold of you to assume your heart is ready to support your body,” Do?a Ursulina said, sweeping inside and closing the door.
Reina’s breaths were weak and shivery, barely enough to supply her newly pounding head. She lowered herself to the plush pillows as steadily as she could manage. “I thought I felt better,” she said once Do?a Ursulina sat on the bedside chair.
Do?a Ursulina didn’t wait for Reina’s permission before unbuttoning her loose cream shirt. The stink of dried blood emerged from her stained bindings. “Do not squander the miracle of your recovery with your foolishness.”
Reina almost grabbed Do?a Ursulina by the wrist to stop her, but she hesitated. She had not heard anyone display concern for her life in years, perhaps since Juan Vicente’s passing.
“The skin is mostly healed, and your body didn’t reject the ore. That is a miracle,” Do?a Ursulina murmured with her gaze on the bandages. She plucked a vial from the bag she’d brought and handed it to Reina. The small bottle was filled with a liquid the color of nighttime, peppered with glittering dots like the ore from her feverish memories of her operation.
“Drink it. All of it,” the witch ordered.
The liquid stung Reina’s tongue with bitterness. She erupted in coughs as heat speared through her body, sprouting from her heart to her extremities. A pain exploded in her chest, like she had been sprinting for hours.
Faintly, she heard the older woman’s command to open up the bandages. Do?a Ursulina didn’t wait for consent, reaching to undo the binding. Addled by the potion, Reina seized Do?a Ursulina’s wrist with the proper strength of a nozariel, stunning the witch.
“Release me, you ignorant creature!” Do?a Ursulina snapped, squirming. “If you break my wrist, no one will treat your heart,” she hissed. “My only interest is in keeping you alive.”
Reina’s eyes were teary and her nose snotty when she let go. She winced but swallowed the tears as Do?a Ursulina cut and peeled away the bandages.
“What did you make me drink?” Reina asked when she caught her breath.
“A tonic of concentrated iridio.”
“Iridio?” she muttered to let it sink in.
A small pouch of iridio powder was easily worth a year of the salary Reina had earned as a criada back in Segolita. She’d once worked in a house where nearly the whole staff was replaced （including her） when a bottle of diluted iridio solution had gone missing. Some people made deals with kilos of iridio instead of gold. The stuff was beyond valuable in Segolita, where it was imported from Sadul Fuerte. She couldn’t believe she had arrived at the source of it, as ?guila Manor sat on top of the only iridio mines on the continent.
She followed her grandmother’s gaze down to her chest, afraid to see the mess it had become, and was swamped by the sickly whispering of a hundred voices when she laid eyes on it. Chills ran through her spine and prickled her skin. What little food was in her stomach threatened to resurface as she saw what Do?a Ursulina had done.
A pressurized crystal contraption sat above her left breast, on the space formerly taken up by her ribs, with the glittering black ore encrusted at the very center. The skin surrounding the crystal was red and inflamed, flaps of it barely shrouding the tubes connecting the crystal to her body. The sight made Reina’s skin itchy, and she felt trapped, for she was forever married to it. She was possessed by the urge to yank the whole thing out, tubes and all, but it would only lead to her excruciating death.
The foreign object was startling enough that Reina didn’t have a thought to feel shame or discomfort from her chest being exposed to this woman.
Merely looking at it, or thinking of it, was enough to rekindle the terrible susurration, the words in unintelligible tongues. The part of her that ran on instincts, that could sniff magic and taste the charged air, warned her there was evil in it. “What have you done to me?”
Do?a Ursulina didn’t look up as she gently poked and prodded at the object of Reina’s horror. “I saved your life. If this ore weren’t supplying the correct amount of iridio to your transplant, you wouldn’t have felt any pain drinking the tonic.” From the drawer of the bedside stand, she withdrew a fresh roll of bandages. Reina sat up, wincing, and helped her bind her chest again. “It is only because your new heart works perfectly that you feel this discomfort.”
“My new heart?”
Do?a Ursulina nodded.
“Why would you do that? Why would I need this?” The panic returned, and Reina had to grip the bedsheets, writhing. “You took out my heart?” Something about saying it aloud made every nerve in her chest flare. She choked down a sudden sob and hugged herself as best she could.
“Are you that ignorant of tinieblas? Don’t you know what they do to people?”
She wiped her eyes stubbornly, angry at shedding more tears in this woman’s presence. “The things that attacked me—you keep calling them tinieblas, but I thought tinieblas were nothing but a story—just a word for shadows. Tales to scare children into obedience.”
Do?a Ursulina smirked. “Horror tales are inspired by reality. They are Rahmagut’s creations, allowed into this world by a cruel, prideful god. And you nearly became their meal.”
Reina ran her hand through her bangs, wiping away the cold sweat. Her gaze skimmed the edges of the black ore poking out of the bindings, spurring the whispering again. How it made her want to scream.
“Why was I attacked in the mountains? I made a long journey from Segolita without a problem.”
Do?a Ursulina leaned back, giving her a long, hard stare. “The Páramo has been a place of many deaths. Of broken promises. And the mountains are home to the iridio star—the mines that make the ?guilas so rich. It’s only natural that they would be attracted to the Páramo.”
“And why me?” Reina was doing what many wouldn’t. She had left the comforts of the familiar for the hope that her luck would change. Sadul Fuerte was supposed to be a fresh beginning. The opportunity to have the family her father had denied her. And just when she was close to making it, the gods had been cruel again. Not even Ches, whom she cherished the most for being the bringer of light and creator of the sun, offered her reprieve. She tried swallowing the despair, but surely Do?a Ursulina saw it written all over her face.
Do?a Ursulina mirrored Reina’s sloped lips and brows. There was supposed to be compassion in her black eyes. And yet Reina was left feeling so cold.
“Tinieblas see no reason,” Do?a Ursulina said. “They don’t pick and choose. They don’t have to have a purpose. They’re pure malignant energy. Rahmagut dabbles in creation just like every other deity. But he cannot make whole creatures, so his tinieblas are ravenous for hearts.”
Reina tugged on the sheets and covered herself up to her nose. “Is Sadul Fuerte overrun by them?”
Do?a Ursulina packed her tools back into the bag. “The caudillo and his army keep tinieblas under control. But they can’t ensure that the mountains are safe for everyone at all times.” Do?a Ursulina’s thin eyebrows arched. “Just be grateful you landed in the hands of the right people. Celeste, who was raised by Laurel. And me, who’s been waiting for someone with your exact condition to attempt this highly theoretical procedure. No one else could have saved you.”