“I wish I could say you didn’t have to do that,” Reina uttered as the choppy ride out of the ?guila grounds began.
Celeste tilted her head. “Who knows? Papá seems to be in a good mood. Maybe you didn’t need the help at all.”
Reina allowed the bumps of the ride to shimmy her closer to Celeste, their shoulders grazing. In such proximity to her, Reina was warm. “Celeste,” she said softly, “what does Javier have?”
Celeste frowned at the curving path as their caravan zigzagged down the mountain and entered the shadows cast by the introduced conifers. “He seems odd, doesn’t he?”
“He wastes the day away in his chambers. Sometimes I bring him food, and it’s left uneaten.” Reina only cared for his health as a factor impacting the careful balance she had carved for herself within the household. And because it was a curiosity Do?a Ursulina would want to know about.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with him. He looks like he might be ill, but you can tell he still has his strength.”
Reina agreed. It was indeed strange. She thought of the illness of mal de ojo, of the fatigue, loss of appetite, and sleeplessness, which could be the reason for his maladies. But out of all the ?guilas, why should Javier be the one receiving someone’s envious ill wishes?
“I think he is just angry at my father. Javier wanted us to be betrothed, did you know that? He has this twisted idea that my grandmother somehow wanted it so we could preserve the valco blood.”
Reina chewed on the insides of her lip and feigned ignorance. “And you don’t agree with that?” The question came with a tightness in her heart, one that loosened as Celeste shook her head.
“I wouldn’t do it, even if mi papá wanted it. I think there were just worries about the longevity of our breed. But…”
“But Do?a Laurel is going to have more children,” Reina finished for her.
“Exactly. And even if my grandmother was the last full-blooded valco in Venazia, there must be others out there, in Fedria, for example. I’m sure of it. There may just be mixed-breeds, like us and like the Liberator. Did you know that when we were little, the Liberator sent us a coffer of presents?”
“Like all the other gifts you get?”
This won her a laugh from Celeste, who went on, “He sent us pearl necklaces from the waters of the Cow Sea, where he lives, and woven little dolls with valco antlers, and rattan baskets, and bocadillos of guava preserved in sugar and wrapped in bijao leaves.”
Celeste’s face lit up as she recalled the distant childhood memory, and Reina decided she could hear her talk all day long and never grow tired of it.
“He sent us a lovely letter with it. In fact, I think I still have it. He said we were the future of valcos, and so we had to protect each other. Mi mamá reckons the gift was a gesture we should have returned for his daughter, but sometimes I get the impression that mi papá doesn’t like him very much.”
The cart gave a bump, and Reina gripped the edges of her seat to stop herself from sliding into Celeste. Celeste merely nudged her shoulder against Reina’s, unbothered and giggling.
“How could anyone dislike the Liberator?”
“Right?” Celeste chuckled in agreement. “Did you ever see him in Segolita?”
A flush crept to Reina’s cheeks. “I only got a small glimpse of him many years ago, at the welcoming parade when he went to marry his new wife at the cathedral,” she said, deflated at her inconsequential experience. A glimpse was a stretch of the truth, for Reina had been just a child lost in the sea of people who agglomerated outside the palace’s studded gates to welcome their war hero into the capital. Amid the shoulders and heads of excited revelers, Reina had scored a look at only the tip of his antlers. Even that had been a morsel, enough to fill her with the shared pride of the independence he’d fought for.
“But he doesn’t live in Segolita,” Reina added.
“He lives in the Cow Sea, no?”
Reina shrugged, recalling Do?a Ursulina attesting the Liberator lived in Tierra’e Sol. “I have no idea why he wouldn’t live in Segolita, where everyone loves him.”
Celeste held her gaze, unabashedly so, a comfort they had earned in their nearly yearlong friendship. There was no need for words, as Reina could tell they shared the same observation: how the Liberator chose to hide away from his deserved role in Fedria’s governance, while the ?guila caudillo placed himself and his family at the apex of Venazia’s political machinations.
Idle chatter carried them through the next hour as the caravan took them farther down the mountains. The drizzling clouds were left behind, and the sun neared its zenith as the stone walls of Sadul Fuerte loomed at the end of the road.
The city stood on a valley, the conucos and farmland enshrouding the hills like a quilt of colors. The tallest point of the domed cathedral, its golden Pentimiento cross, stood out amid the endless rows of clay-roofed townhomes and beard moss–covered trees. Banners were perched on the city’s fortified stone walls, but the highest and most notable of all was the golden eagle on ivory of the ?guilas.
The open city gates allowed them into busy cobbled roads where the women dressed in an overabundance of skirt layers and the men wore hats and walking sticks marked with the symbols of their family crests. Greens and wildflowers painted every balcony and terrace, bursting between sidewalk cracks or climbing up brick walls. People yelled from one street to another, advertising their specialized goods or attempting to converse over the ruckus of guitar-playing panhandlers. Don Enrique’s convoy was immediately recognized by the people it passed, sparking interest, reverence, and fear. Reina’s armpits grew hot as curious gazes surfed from the stunted antlers of the ?guila heiress to her before flitting to the rest of the company.
Their destination, the Palace of Commerce, hugged a magnificent plaza, where the bronze statue of a warrioress with large valco antlers was perched at the center of an aesthetic formation of red coral trees. The town square was blocked by other buildings with exquisite architecture in the style of the Segolean imperialists: white-painted spires, golden trim, tall windows, and wrought iron balcony railings wrapped in pampered gardening. The cathedral of Sadul Fuerte faced the plaza, a baroque architectural feat with a brightly blooming garden fenced in by hedges. On the opposite side of the cathedral, across the plaza, was a multistory building with gilded frames—the Governor’s Palace. As the party unloaded near the gates of the commerce building, Celeste pointed out the plaza’s statue for Reina, calling it the ancient valco Sadul, from whom the city took its name.
Inside the Palace of Commerce, the door attendant cowered before Do?a Ursulina, who led the vanguard, while Don Enrique lagged behind as he was approached for greetings. Reina followed like Celeste’s shadow, stepping farther back whenever someone nodded a bow to Don Enrique, then delightedly kissed Celeste’s hand. Celeste kissed the cheeks of the young people her age, other heirs and heiresses who beamed as they reunited with their social kindred. Reina pretended not to notice when Celeste sought her gaze, likely trying to introduce Reina to her attractive friends.
Reina forced her tail to walk in the same rhythm as her legs, to minimize people’s shock at seeing the extra appendage. But the farce evaporated the moment the humans turned around and glimpsed the truth of what she was.