A stillness descended over the mountain. The healer ran to the wounded, waving his hands again, manipulating the galio stored within his rings to bring relief.
Reina cleaned the cold perspiration from under her curly bangs. She shoved her long braid behind her, watching Celeste rearrange her clothes and hair the same way.
“Well done.”
“That’s it?” Reina asked in bewilderment, scanning the scree for signs of any remaining tinieblas.
The corpses of the ones they’d slain disintegrated into shadow, then into nothingness, fading back to el Vacío where they spawned from. The other ?guila soldiers were in similar bloodied and disheveled states, and they waited patiently for a turn with the healer. Even the hound, which Reina had thought would die, was back to wagging its tail in anticipation of another hunt. They had no casualties.
“We were lucky this time,” Celeste said, as if reading her mind. “It’s more common that the dogs don’t make it.”
Reina grimaced at that.
“But without them, we’d be scouring the Páramo for days.”
Without much fanfare, the unit commander ordered them to get a move on if they hoped to return to ?guila Manor before nightfall.
No one welcomed them when they emerged from the body of pines bordering the grounds. The yard was free from its usual comings and goings of the help and their children. Wind buffeted the trees, rising a howl of branches and dead leaves.
Something felt different about the manor, though. Reina didn’t have to see it to feel it. A few of the younger maids ran from the corridors to the courtyard, hauling water buckets or bloodied sheets. The goats hadn’t been put up yet, despite how late it was getting, and Reina loathed the thought of having to do it herself because ever since her transplant, they didn’t like her.
Reina and Celeste spotted Javier sitting on a bench on the courtyard that separated the larder from the main building. He was wrapped in a colorful wool blanket like a geriatric, his eyes darker than usual, but with a certain satisfied tilt to his lips.
“What’s going on?” Celeste asked her uncle, likely picking up on the heady apprehension that hung in the air.
Javier coughed but didn’t say a word. The corner of his lip twitched upward. Reina shuddered, like a breath had been blown on her neck.
An older maid crossed the yard to the kitchens, her arms tangled in bloody bedding. She noticed Celeste and said, “It’s Do?a Laurel. She’s gone into an early labor.”
In that moment, as understanding sank in, Reina felt transported back to the Páramo, when Celeste had illustrated a tiniebla ripping out of an otherwise healthy pregnancy. Reina sucked in a breath for her wicked thoughts, fisting her chest and only meeting the gleeful whispers of her fake heart.
She ran after Celeste as the valco sprinted up the stone steps of the manor, two at a time, with strength and urgency pumping through every stride.
A chilling cry echoed through the third-story corridor leading to Do?a Laurel’s room. Reina recognized the sound of excruciating, never-ending pain.
Don Enrique stood next to the bedroom door as the maids rushed in and out of the room, bumping each other in the doorway and sloshing warm water from their pails. He stood like a statue, staring at the landscape painting hanging on the opposite wall, the color drained from his face. He didn’t even notice when Celeste and Reina ran past him and barged into the room.
Reina froze by the door at the sight. There was so much blood that even the air smelled warm and metallic. Do?a Laurel was drenched in it, and in sweat. She gripped the posts of her bed behind her like she was hanging on for dear life, while two women on either side held her legs and massaged her belly. A river of that sticky redness pooled on the sheets between her legs, from where a bald head peeked.
Another keening cry pierced the room. Reina wanted to run to Do?a Laurel. She wanted to come to her rescue and cradle her in her arms, for even in agonizing childbirth, the Benevolent Lady was so lovely. But fear kept Reina rooted to the spot: Fear of trespassing into Do?a Laurel’s space. Fear of the outrage she would incur from the maids for letting her nozariel hands touch the most precious thing in this home.
A moment later Do?a Ursulina entered the room and roared at them to leave. Celeste never made it to her mother’s side. Someone grabbed her from behind, and she thrashed and clawed and bit to be let go. But from Don Enrique’s grip, she never had a chance to break free.
Reina was given an empty pail and ordered to fetch more water. But when she ran back with the pail sloshing and steaming, the old maid prohibited her from even setting foot on the third-story corridor. She said there was no need for it anymore.
Silence and icy rain enveloped the manor that night. The only sounds were Celeste’s shrieks reverberating all the way down to the first floor, where Reina sat in a broom cupboard with her fists shielding her eyes. There she prayed to the Virgin, who was the matron of motherhood, even if she didn’t believe the Virgin would listen. She prayed to Ches, who had opened the world to the sun and had granted them the gift of life—who gave her solace when she felt the most alone. She even prayed to Rahmagut, though he was likely the one who’d taken away the fleeting happiness of ?guila Manor.
Because for a few moments, Reina had been happy.
A hollow like the shadows of twilight settled in the depths of her heart. She remembered how Do?a Laurel had touched her face with dignity and tenderness the very moment she’d come into ?guila Manor. She hadn’t cared that Reina stank of death and writhed like a worm. Do?a Laurel’s light had been too strong to care about that.
Reina plunged into a suffocating ocean of tears.
She didn’t know it yet, but that morning, when Don Enrique and Do?a Laurel had renewed their vows to the magic of amapola, would be the last time Reina saw Don Enrique smile.
The baby boy followed his mother into death before dawn broke the next morning.
Their funeral happened in a whirlwind of red-eyed strangers who rode into the estate to pay their respects. Reina worked tirelessly in the kitchens and in the barn for seven days straight, serving people who’d traveled from all over Venazia. People who eyed her curiously upon realizing she was a nozariel living in Sadul Fuerte. People who never shied from demanding “some other wench” serve them rather than let Reina touch their food.
So she scrubbed floors and pots. She milked the goats and kneaded the maize dough. She burned her hands with boiling water and lye washing clothes. She scurried between corridors, avoiding Javier and Don Enrique and Celeste. Because being tired and sore made it easy to forget her heart now throbbed with a different kind of ache.
Mass was held in the cathedral of Sadul Fuerte in Do?a Laurel’s honor. And again her body was transported back to ?guila Manor, where she was buried in close proximity to Don Enrique’s mother. Reina watched the ceremony of candles and prayers to the rosary from the fringes, clutching her chest and choking with heartache. She stopped leaving bits of her food in the sunlight by the creek, because why should she give offerings if Ches was deaf to her prayers?
On the eighth day, when the last guests packed their carriages and set out to warmer lands, Reina decided to stop hiding from Celeste. Her search ended swiftly, as she found Celeste in Gegania’s underground chamber—in the place where Reina knew Celeste undoubtedly felt closest to the part of herself she had lost.