After her eyes adjusted, her gaze fell on her hands. They pulsed. Not just from the rush of what they’d endured, but with a tingling, the beginning sensations of hives breaking out on her skin. It was magic that throbbed fiercely, capriciously, on the verge of turning black and seizing control from her.
She shook her hands, unsettled. But the confusion was pushed to the back of her mind as noises stirred across the chamber. Maior beside her, Reina farther down the tunnel near the collapsed entryway, and Javier and Celeste at the other entrance. All were covered in dust and debris.
Eva scrambled to Reina first. The memory of her ferocity when she had been under Do?a Ursulina’s thrall chilled Eva. She was too strong to be left unchecked, so Eva needed to be sure whose side she would wake up on.
Eva brushed the dust and pebbles off Reina, then turned her over carefully. Reina was inflamed and bloody, her eyes closed and her face glistening with fresh cuts. Her eyes fluttered open without the help of galio. They were confused and groggy, but she looked like herself. For this, Eva huffed in relief.
She then rushed to Maior, who was pale and blood-stained. Eva gave her a soothing spell, to wake her up and numb her ache. The magic rushed through her in capricious waves, stronger than she intended. Startled, she shoved it down.
What was happening to her?
“We have to get out of here,” Eva muttered as another tremor shook the tunnel, pebbles and dust descending on her brows and making it impossible to breathe right.
Reina limped to Maior before kneeling and running the back of a filthy hand against her cheek. “I think it’s over,” she told her.
Maior grabbed her hand and offered her one of those adoring looks.
Eva looked away. She was ashamed to be there as a witness to their intimacy. There was a weight on her chest, one she couldn’t shake even as they helped each other to their feet. Perhaps it was her conscience, for her role in this whole mess.
She led the way to the other end of the tunnel, where Celeste lay in a puddle of her own blood. Eva sucked in a breath, ashamed. Just hours ago Celeste had been twirling in her Tierra’e Sol dress, laughing heartily at Don Samón’s charm.
Eva avoided where the ground was soaked with her blood and knelt close. How were they going to take her body out of here? And how cruel that it would fall on Reina, merely for having the strength to do it. No, Eva was just as capable of wielding bismuto’s enhancement. The least she could do, for the hand she’d had in all this, was carry Celeste’s body.
Eva pressed her grimy palms together, summoning the strength from her bismuto rings, but paused halfway. She watched, stunned, at the slightest movement of Celeste’s diaphragm pushing up her chest. Eva gasped.
She threw her ear over Celeste’s mouth, confirming the slightest tingle of her breaths surging in and out. She felt the airflow, faintly, like the insignificant flutter of a butterfly’s wing.
Eva barely registered her scream.
Reina rushed forth, Maior at her heels. The nozariel woman cradled Celeste’s face, her own cheeks streaked with tears of relief. And Eva backed away as her heart imploded, her knees buttery, because Celeste lived.
Maior met her gaze as Eva retreated with a hand draped over her lips. She was surprised, her smile quivery with the disbelief in herself. And Eva squeezed her until Maior yelped from her own wounds. But what she really deserved was to be lifted up into the air in worshipping thanks. This was a gift, impossible had it not been for Maior—for the skill everyone had underestimated.
“You saved her,” Eva whispered, and Maior burst into tears of relief.
Finally, when the tremors of the tomb couldn’t be ignored a second longer, Reina lifted Celeste in her arms. She regarded Eva and Maior with a clenched jaw and hardened eyes. “We have to go.”
Eva nodded in agreement. But there was one more thing she needed to do.
A stirring in the corner caught Eva’s eye—a body within the rubble. Eva’s chest fluttered foolishly. She saw locks of starlight, and her breath dislodged.
Javier.
Maior tried tugging Eva along, but she broke free, scrambling through rocks and stones to the caved-in debris. Her heart squeezed, like a lemon for juicing—like it cared.
He still lived. And of course he did. Reina wasn’t a murderer.
She ran to him, nearly losing balance as the world rocked beneath them.
“Eva!” Reina called out. She said something else, but it was lost in the groaning of the tomb.
Eva skidded to a stop beside him. How she hated him. How she relished the sight of his beating. But… how the possibility of not seeing him alive again made her heart ache.
She cradled his face, her fingers slicking with his blood.
His eyes opened. They were inundated in black, yet she could see the crimson of his irises. He was possessed but also half in control.
“Eva Kesaré,” he whispered. “You’re here. Look—look at you, so beautiful and powerful,” he said between coughs. He reached out and managed to graze her curls. “A true valco.”
Flecks of dust fell on her face. She rubbed her eyes, smudging the dirt with her sweat and tears. “You’re a monster. I—I should leave you to die.”
He wept. He believed her. It made her feel even more wretched to have the choice in her hands.
“All I wanted was to be cleansed,” he said with difficulty, the very motion of drawing a breath paining him.
“But you weren’t cleansed!” she said, and the earth clamored, on cue, like she had forced it herself. “And you almost killed Celeste.”
Eva gulped to blot out the memories—of witnessing Reina’s despair.
“But that wasn’t my intention—you did this to me!” He coughed. “You.”
All around her the tomb rumbled in a threat. If she didn’t act now, she was going to be buried forever.
And he was right. She had toyed with his life and his curse. If anyone was to blame, it was her.
“I should leave you to die,” she told him again. If she did, no one would ever know the truth.
Tears brimmed his eyes. His brows bunched up, despairing.
With a simple choice, she could undo every wrong turn she’d taken ever since leaving Galeno: her marriage; her culpability in Javier’s turning and Celeste’s wound.
But how could she be so cowardly and despicable? If she were a great valco, she would face what came after with her head held high.
“But I won’t. You’re my husband,” she said, pressing her hands together and performing a lackluster galio incantation. Just enough to ease his pain. She knew she could close some of the wounds. The power swirling within her was overflowing. And galio was nothing compared to when she conjured the power of the stars.
Javier clung to her desperately as the walls shifted inward, the debris falling from the ceiling growing painful and incessant.
“More!” he demanded as the threads of galio wrapped around his limbs, his face, and his swollen eyes.
“No!” She yanked him by the arm and commanded, “Now get up!”
Like the tiniebla in him had obeyed her, so did he.
“Go,” she said, watching his frail body step over uneven rock. The thought to test him crossed her mind.
“Stop,” she said sharply.
His body yanked to a halt. He turned to her with a sneer.