It wasn’t easy to walk into a room carrying a platter of bizcochos for the merienda and linger around to hear Don Enrique, having reneged on the plan to betroth Javier to Celeste, bark an order at Javier to find another valco to marry. Or to witness how Do?a Laurel urged Javier to “have some compassion” when the family gathered for supper and the topic of an inquisition by the Pentimiento Church on geomancers came up. Reina had to practically tiptoe on the second-story corridor when, one morning, while fetching Javier, she turned a corner and witnessed Don Enrique’s fist knocking the air out of him.
“Laurel is the do?a of this house, and she will continue to be so for as long as she lives,” Don Enrique hissed to Javier, his vein-bulged left hand lifting his brother against the wall by the neck.
Blue in the face, Javier managed to shove him away. Between splutters for air, he said, “I don’t understand why I have to live surrounded by women leeching off Mother’s legacy—telling me what to do.” He snarled, eyes alight with resentment, “I am also her son!”
A cold indifference wiped the anger from Don Enrique’s face. “If Mother were alive, she would only see you as a disappointment.”
The chill percolated even into Reina, seeing Javier’s gaze darkening and falling to the floor in silence. She scurried down the stairs before they noticed her. The interaction was interesting enough that her grandmother would be content, just as Reina took satisfaction in seeing Javier get what he deserved.
In all these instances, she did notice a difference in him: Javier looked sickly and unkempt, with large circles under his eyes. Eventually, he even stopped attending the sparring lessons.
Reina reported the matter to her grandmother. As reward, Do?a Ursulina gave her a copper ring crowned with a capped top, to put on her ring finger, and offered to teach her geomancia for the first time.
By the third try of entwining her fingers with her thumbs flicking skyward, Reina was able to manage the bismuto spell for opening the eyes. It let her see the iridio zipping through the air in Do?a Ursulina’s study and exuding from the ore, like valcos could. It allowed her to see her grandmother surrounded in the faintest glow of blue, which Do?a Ursulina told her was the litio protection she kept on her at all times.
“When you see geomancia, it manifests in different hues according to the caster’s nature,” Do?a Ursulina said. “It manifests in the red spectrum for the dominant and assertive, like Don Enrique. In violet colors for the supportive and sympathetic, as you’ll see if Laurel ever casts geomancia again. In yellows and golds for the inspiring and persuasive, as is Javier’s geomancia—”
“Javier is inspiring?” Reina blurted out in disgust.
Do?a Ursulina chuckled. “And—” She splayed a slim jeweled hand on the desk to demonstrate her indigo radiance. “Blues are for the cautious and analytical.”
Reina’s copper bismuto ring glowed blue as well. She placed her hand next to her grandmother’s, Reina’s lighter by several shades of brown but marred and bruised, the knuckles rippled with scutes. Do?a Ursulina noticed the blue color as well and, with a raised brow, offered the most minuscule nod of approval. Reina bit her inner cheek to keep her face straight until she was dismissed; then she beamed all the way through the rest of her chores.
10
Sadul Fuerte
The bleak sunlight of a cloudy morning reflected off the silver cups Reina carried from the kitchens to the manor. The yard she crossed smelled of moist earth, as if those clouds rolling down the mountains were unleashing rain that would inevitably reach the estate. Inside the dining hall, her destination, a lighted chandelier of glittering crystal hung over the dining table, where the masters of the house sat on plush brocade seating, the patterns made of golden eagles for the family’s crest. Do?a Laurel’s harpist kept the family company with a crooning melody, and two servers flitted around the table, clearing porcelain dishes where the grilled trout and arepa breakfast had been left half-eaten.
Reina approached slowly, unnerved about encroaching on the family’s privacy while the don and do?a discussed Sadul Fuerte politics. She glanced at Celeste, admiring the thick black hair draping her shoulders and the high-necked vest nearly reaching her back hairline, a style Celeste wore relentlessly. Reina didn’t understand what it was about Celeste that drew her eyes. It couldn’t be jealousy, because she never saw herself in Celeste’s shoes. She didn’t yearn for this life of being the center of attention, of high expectations and of being so beautiful it was an effort to look away. Rather, Reina’s desires inhabited the realm of wanting to demonstrate she had value. And the ?guilas were doing that for her—namely Do?a Laurel, who included her in matters beyond her responsibility as a kitchen wench. As she did now, involving Reina in a secret plot to surprise Don Enrique with the amapola juice presently filling the silver goblets. The juice of a fruit Reina had grown up believing was magic. Do?a Laurel trusted Reina, and it was this trust that made Reina feel so guilty for glancing at Celeste. It made her feel like she was coveting something Do?a Laurel possessed.
“We won the war, Javier.” Don Enrique’s heated tenor snapped Reina out of her thoughts. “It is the victors who decide how the land shall be split, who shall have what, and what the distribution of power shall look like.” His chair scraped the marble floor as he pushed to his feet, ending their breakfast conversation. “And as the victor, I say this land shall have a king, and Rodrigo Silva is the one to play that role. Anyway—I must go. Business awaits me in Sadul Fuerte.”
“So Rodrigo is a pawn, not a king?” Javier quipped from his seat on the table. “Mother would have wanted you to crown yourself. We have all the iridio, escudos, and arms to keep that power. We wouldn’t need anyone’s help, like the Silvas so desperately need ours.”
Reina tucked the information away to share with her grandmother later—the endless debate between the caudillo and his younger brother. Eventually, Do?a Laurel noticed Reina and waved her closer with a smile, her other hand resting on the roundness of her belly, which was swollen as her forty weeks of gestation fast approached an end.
Reina smiled back. With her thoughts, she sent a brief prayer for the do?a. She wished for the Benevolent Lady to get the son she so deeply desired. In fact, she wished for Do?a Laurel to get anything she wanted, for she deserved it all.
“Oh, enough of it already,” Do?a Laurel said. “I grow green listening to your dreams of becoming a prince. We don’t have to concern ourselves with Puerto Carcosa’s politics. We’re in the mountains—anyone trying to get to us will first have to get past the whistlers and the tinieblas. Here we are happy.” She struggled to rise, but Don Enrique rushed to help with a nervousness outside of his character, one he’d donned since the moment they’d found out she was with child. “We don’t need to be kings and queens to live a fulfilling life. Reina, can you bring it now?”
Reina approached with steps quiet as a cat’s. Her heart hammered as all valco eyes landed on her. She presented the first silver goblet to Do?a Laurel and the second to her adoring husband. A honeysuckle-colored juice filled it to the brim, smelling sweet like sugarcane.