“Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Celeste shook her head. “I want things to go back to the way they were. We’ll go back home and have a new life like none of this happened.”
But that was the one thing Reina couldn’t grant her. “I can’t do that.”
“You said you were my best friend. We shared the amapolas.”
It struck Reina as odd, how suddenly Celeste had this desire for her to stay.
She considered her reply carefully.
Yes, she was terrified of the uncertainties of what was to come. She was orphaned, without a grandmother, because she had killed her. Without a home. Without the future she’d thought guaranteed. But she knew one thing with utmost certainty. “I meant everything I said to you that night. My feelings. My hopes. That I loved you. I meant it all. And so did you.”
She tried not to remember how Celeste’s reaction had hurt. How it had been like a knife twisting in her gut. Even as Celeste’s brows bunched up, confused, Reina didn’t let it deter her. She had to be true for their sakes.
“Everything you said, it came from your chest. You meant every word of it.”
“Yes, but things were different then. I was mad because I felt like I couldn’t trust you. I couldn’t believe you were working for that witch.”
Even hearing it now felt like salt in the wound. “And now?” Reina asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t be alive if you weren’t to be trusted,” Celeste said airily, as if her answer had to be obvious. It was her turn to grip Reina’s hand. “But not knowing if I was going to make it or not—it’s had an effect on what I want.”
Reina hated the answer. How it reminded her of Do?a Ursulina, who’d always leaned on the idea that Reina ought to be happy for how little she got. She shook her fingers free and rose from the edge of the bed. “No, Celeste. I’m tired of never being enough.”
“That’s not it—Reina, come on.”
“And it’ll always be that way between us. I came because I care about you. I want to see you well. But nothing will ever be the same.”
She headed out of the room, but not before Celeste’s last words caught up to her. “What else do you have?” Another knife.
Reina fled to the labyrinthine garden paths and found an empty nook where she surrendered to the hollow pain. She cried for her grandmother, finally, and the twisted future she had offered Reina. She wept, for she hadn’t bothered to build anything else outside of her devotion to Do?a Ursulina and Celeste.
Hope wormed into her chest then, reminding her of the friendships she’d gained along the way. Maior. And Eva, who had helped her against the tinieblas and Do?a Ursulina more than once.
Once the tears dried, Reina wandered aimlessly to the dining hall, swallowing down the hurt and building a wall of ice around her.
A small team of servants bustled about the hall as she entered, moving the main table and chairs and arranging dinnerware, perhaps for an early lunch. One of them caught Reina’s eye and quickly scurried to her, telling her the Liberator had summoned her to his workshop. Telling Reina to go see him, when she was ready.
Reina had a moment of remembrance. She stood there thinking of the day another valco had summoned her to his study. How terribly everything had gone from that day on.
The Liberator’s office glowed orange from the candles placed around the room; it was warm, unlike Enrique’s cold den. The candles stood on shelves and over the desk, casting shadows like flickering dancers, dim in the window’s natural light.
Don Samón was engrossed in drafting a letter when Reina welcomed herself in. He wiped the tiredness from his eyes and beckoned her to sit across from him. Then, as Reina hesitated, he said, “Or not. It’s all right. I can keep this brief.”
Reina recognized pity as what touched Don Samón’s eyes.
“I’m not sure what you intend to do in the future or if you’ve thought about it at all.”
Reina paused, her chest constricting. Everything he said threatened to fissure the ice molded around her. The structure keeping her composed—but also numb.
“I know it’s much too soon to bring this up, but I must get something off my chest. I just finished speaking with my generals—the men who inspected the tomb and assessed if there was any hint of the gods left. The things they told me, of what must have transpired—it’s impressive. What you and Eva did back there was impressive.”
Reina’s mouth dried.
“I believe you would make quite the capable soldier, and I would loathe for you to leave my home without at least considering the opportunity to work under me.”
Hope simmered inside her, thinning the wall of ice until it fissured.
“Every day, good diplomacy and luck is all that remains between Fedria and another bloody war. The neighboring colonies haven’t yet reached their independence, so Segol’s influence is still right at our borders. Not only that, but now we’ve got the awakening of the gods of the sun and the Void to contend with. I don’t know what will happen. What I do know is that I will accept all the help I can get, to maintain this fragile balance.”
Reina gripped the chair’s backrest, her wounded hands protesting the strain. There was no balance in her life.
“My wealth is not as great as the wealth of the caudillo of Sadul Fuerte. My coffers feed his; it’s the only way I can replenish all and any iridio my men need. This country is poorer than Venazia, our people humbler, but I can promise you a breadth of opportunities—”
“I accept, but I will need to be paid in iridio.”
Don Samón faltered. For the first time, he was caught without a reply.
Reina spared him, saying, “Don Enrique banished me. I have no reason to go back.”
Once, Segolita had been like a hell. Now this hell was Sadul Fuerte, with the memory of her grandmother and Don Enrique’s ambition. With Celeste treating her like a minion.
Don Samón did little to veil his smile. “Yes, we can certainly procure the iridio if you prefer that to gold.”
She did very much. She needed it to live. Though ever since coming out of the tomb, a lot less so, it seemed.
“You’re an impressive woman, Reina, tougher than some of my strongest. You’ll accomplish great things, and I want to be there to see it.”
Reina fought with all her might not to let that fissure spread—not to shatter the wall she had built and crumble in the presence of the Liberator. She gripped the handle of the blade Ches had gifted her. It had to be one of the reasons why Don Samón was welcoming her like this.
It surprised Reina that Maior would linger outside her door after knocking, waiting for a reply.
“It’s never been a problem for you before: bursting into my room,” Reina said with a smile as she opened the door for the short human. She chuckled at the red blush of Maior’s cheeks and her surprise.
She was glad to see Maior’s injuries from before had finally been treated by the medic. For a while Reina had been meaning to reassure her that the delay had nothing to do with Maior and everything to do with how the whole world regarded Celeste: as first for everything.
Maior mocked a laugh. “Very funny. At least I learn from the things people tell me.”