Do?a Ursulina approached. Reina couldn’t keep herself from gulping, her nozariel instincts begging her to flee. But she shoved down the fear and merely looked up at the taller woman with her best excuse for courage.
“And I’m glad you did, my granddaughter.” The word sounded odd coming from Do?a Ursulina’s lips. Perhaps Reina just needed to get used to it.
“I just want to know: Why didn’t you ask for me sooner? I missed out on knowing you for nineteen years.”
Do?a Ursulina’s expression was like smooth stone, utterly unreadable. “I would have been in your life earlier, were it not for your father. Did he talk about me?”
Reina shook her head. “Never.”
The woman furrowed her brows at the admission.
Reina stared down at her hands to avoid the hurt of losing Juan Vicente from creeping back into her chest. She had gotten so good at not missing him. It worked best when she didn’t talk about him at all. “Why did you summon me here?”
Do?a Ursulina let out a sigh. She ran a hand down the refined braid framing her temple. “You can say I crafted that invitation in a moment when I grew tired of being alone. I did so blindly, because I had no idea what state you would be in; if Juan Vicente raised you to hate me; if you had passed away, like him.”
Reina clenched her jaw. Both had indeed been possibilities.
“I did it because I knew I would need a successor for the legacy I’m building here. That was supposed to be Juan Vicente’s role, until he denied me.”
Reina’s eyes rounded, but she hid the hunger for information before it became obvious. “Well, I’m glad I’m here. I would like to stay,” she offered. “As your granddaughter, I mean.” Her new heart thrummed uncomfortably. She was laying bare all her desires, opening herself up to this stranger.
“It won’t be easy. You’re half nozariel in a country hostile to your kind.”
“I can’t go back,” she said quickly. “Let me prove to you that I can be worthy of the Duvianos name.” Reina didn’t know what possessed her to say those words, but as Do?a Ursulina’s eyebrows rose, she knew they were the right ones. “I don’t know what happened between you and my parents. I don’t know if I’m like them. I can be a clean slate. I can be whatever you need me to be.”
The seconds that passed during Do?a Ursulina’s deliberation felt endless. It was unsettling to look at her this deeply. To see her unlined countenance and come to terms with the fact that there was no way she could look this young naturally.
Do?a Ursulina nodded. “Good. I will vouch for you to the ?guilas, but you will have to prove yourself trustworthy.”
Reina nodded eagerly.
“We will have to train you—make sure you can read the written word and defend yourself from the creatures thirsting for the iridio in your heart. Turn you into something proper, so the society in Sadul Fuerte can overcome…” Do?a Ursulina paused, her eyes landing on Reina’s tail switching and turning in anticipation, “The sight.”
Do?a Ursulina’s bejeweled hand took a gentle hold of Reina’s braid, running her thumb along the coarse texture of the hair, turning it over. Reina felt the sting of a challenge, of her invasion of space, but she remained frozen, as was her place.
“If you want to cement your position in this house, you must make yourself necessary to its masters. That includes Do?a Laurel, Celeste, and Javier and Don Enrique.”
Reina nodded obediently.
“But most importantly, Reina, I summoned you because the day I finalize my legacy will arrive soon. It will come as a reward from a god.” Do?a Ursulina’s nod was sure, firm. “You’re here to be an instrument for that legacy, which you will benefit from if you do exactly as I say.”
“Sí, se?ora.”
“Remember that you are a Duvianos before anything else. I was the one who saved your life, and it was Juan Vicente who gave you his name.”
Reina curled a fist over her chest, the back of her hand feeling the raggedness beneath her clothes. With the iridio heart, she was a monster. She was everything the humans feared. And perhaps her grandmother wouldn’t have accepted her any other way.
6
Gods for Worship
Ever since coming to ?guila Manor, Reina had mornings when she woke up from a recurring dream of following a path to a lagoon. In it, she trekked a canopied trail through the jungle with the radiant sunlight at the end guiding her forward. But despite the path’s unfamiliarity, deep in her bones, Reina knew the way. When she woke up, warm as if showered by the light in the dream, she couldn’t decide if the journey was a fragment of her dreaming imagination or a childhood memory long since forgotten.
There was magic in ?guila Manor, from its proximity to the iridio mines. Perhaps the dreams were spurred by it. And it was magic to be alive after all that pain, with a new heart. Now Reina could walk, could breathe, could put her hands to good use earning the ?guilas’ trust by working as part of their staff.
She was alive. She had a second chance. She had a family.
Two months into her employment, Reina kneaded the maize dough with all the grateful energy she had to give. When the head cook walked behind her to inspect it, stuck his fingers in the dough to see if it had chunky clumps of corn, and instead found it smooth from her grinding and kneading, Reina beamed in self-satisfaction at his approval.
The staff wasn’t particularly friendly to the newcomer, but her ties to Do?a Ursulina inspired them to treat her decently. Reina had soon learned they did this out of fear. Do?a Ursulina was Don Enrique’s left-hand woman, with tales told about her from even before the revolution. Everyone from the Páramo to Sadul Fuerte, except perhaps for the master of the house, cowered before Do?a Ursulina. Reina quickly came to see how the servants preferred to swallow their disdain for the nozariel newcomer than to cross the woman rumored to have one foot in this world and the other in the Void.
Around Reina, the kitchen bustled in preparation for breakfast. The head cook was back at his station by the fire pit, leaning over a large cauldron and stirring the thick bean soup inside. A big woman entered the kitchen from the back, carrying a large sack of moras, freshly gathered from the plantings bordering the estate. She scattered the fruits on her workspace and began crushing them in a bowl. Reina watched her curiously, wondering what they did with them.
Reina had been doing that a lot lately: asking questions and studying Don Enrique’s staff to learn their strange habits. Like when they dropped a pinch of salt into Don Enrique’s, Javier’s, and Celeste’s wash water, but they didn’t do it to Do?a Laurel’s because they believed it was bad luck for a human to clean with salt water—and conversely that the salt water granted well-meaning wishes on valcos. （It didn’t make sense to Reina, because Don Enrique and Javier were half human, and Celeste was even more so.） She’d also learned the recipe for their special kind of arepa, made from wheat, like bread, instead of making it from a mix of maize, milk, and eggs, as she’d grown up seeing it in Segolita. Or how the servants placed wooden bowls with small portions of food in the corners of rooms, tucked behind pieces of furniture to conceal the icons of Ches, even though Do?a Laurel and her highborn friends only prayed to the Virgin and the Pentimiento saints.