Reina’s muscles ached, and the fabric of her leather and wool clothes itched the cuts and gashes that were constant companions to her body. Her feet were blistered from the long trek, but she kept on going, eager to rid herself of the sack she carried. A simple rough-spun bag hiding terror within its folds.
Her throat closed up as the large hand of shame clutched her neck. She tried not to think of it, but it was impossible to blot out the memory of when she’d arrived at the marked clearing, parting marcescent trees to make way, and was slapped in the face by the sweet decay of the leftover gore. The blood-drenched fabric was the sign the test of the blessing had failed.
The cold remains of a babe without a heart weighed her bag, staining the fabric red much like the sunset stained that far-off sky. Without a dama’s blessing, life didn’t prevail in the higher elevations of the Páramo, especially not unprotected, innocent lives. It was clear a tiniebla had gotten to the babe.
She remembered the babe’s mother. A girl younger than Reina, banished from her baker father’s home once the size of her belly made it hard to conceal the undeniable truth. Reina and Do?a Ursulina had heard about the scandal. They were around when the girl was thrown out of her home by a father more concerned about the neighbors’ whispers than about his daughter’s well-being. Reina loathed witnessing it from the shadows of a nearby alleyway, the urge to console the girl bright in her heart. She hated the father’s conviction and how the pious people watched, reminding their own daughters in hushed voices that they would do the same if a child were conceived out of wedlock.
Do?a Ursulina took notice of the girl. She had lingered in Sadul Fuerte for several more days, asking about the girl’s new home, if any, so that when the nine months were up, she could whisk away the newborn babe in the height of night. For a babe born to a destitute single mother was the perfect candidate for Do?a Ursulina’s tests.
No. On second thought, what Reina despised most was how she was complicit. She didn’t murder the babes—the monsters of the Páramo didn’t need any help with this—but she was no better than a murderer for leaving them in the lonesome company of frailejones at her grandmother’s command.
The first time she’d done it, there had been the promise of safety, of the ritual succeeding. And it did. But the other times afterward quickly unveiled how imprecise Do?a Ursulina’s methodology for detecting the Damas del Vacío was.
Do?a Ursulina kept the process hushed up, as if the methodology were proprietary and ran the risk of being copied by potential rivals also following Rahmagut’s legend. From what Reina glimpsed, lingering after being dismissed from the laboratory, Do?a Ursulina used a spell of iridio not unlike what simmered beneath Gegania’s foundations. As the reincarnated wives each had a piece of Rahmagut’s power, they wielded magic with a certain signature, which was what Do?a Ursulina sought in her scouring of geomancia metals coursing through the earth. Do?a Ursulina had an instrument she had created for the deed, and she fell into a trance when she used it, with the whites of her eyes stained an inky black. She would skip meals or spend days in deep mediation, searching the land for the damas’ signs. Once she found a candidate, she tasked Reina and Javier to deliver her to the manor.
But the process lacked precision. Sometimes the scouring of iridio identified the wrong geomancer. Moles and freckles could easily be confused with the birthmark of a constellation. It was at the final step, when the blessing imparted behind closed doors ought to have protected the innocent babes from the mountain’s demons, that Reina discovered Do?a Ursulina was often wrong.
There had been terrible moments of doubt on nights not unlike this one. The first time Reina protested abandoning a babe for the ritual, Don Enrique had ordered Javier to do it instead, and he’d handled the babe without any kindness. Then Don Enrique had called Reina a duskling, useless in the assignments he asked of her, and offhandedly pointed out her enslavement to iridio ores, of which he was the master. And Do?a Ursulina had offered Reina no comfort, warning that her dissent would achieve nothing outside of proving she wasn’t a worthy successor.
The scent of manure tickled Reina’s nose as she entered the far-off perimeters of ?guila Manor. Beyond the line of pines, she spotted the smithy’s smoke curling up to the sky. It was a familiar sight, one she had seen many times when descending these same trails with a similar sack in hand. For there had been other babes—too many to count. And so far only seven of them had survived the night. Reina had carried them down to ?guila Manor, the babes bawling and clinging to the folds of her clothes as she cooed with whatever pretense of motherhood she could muster.
When they were alive, Reina brought them to her grandmother, who would then arrange for their return: under the veil of shadows, to families who merely saw it as another act of the Virgin answering their prayers.
When they weren’t, Reina brought the bodies down to the small chapel flanking ?guila Manor for a burial. For even her heart, with all its wickedness, ached at the idea of abandoning them in the mountains forever.
The stars were out by the time Reina finished patting down the last of the moist, fresh dirt outside the chapel with a shovel. She’d buried the babe’s remains beside the small spaces taken up by the others. Then she plucked a wildflower from some nearby weeds and placed it atop the fresh mound. She didn’t bother offering a prayer, for ?guila Manor was a home with a god who didn’t care for prayers.
A servant coursed the corridors lighting candles and giving life to an otherwise empty home when Reina entered the manor. Inside, there was no warmth. All the walls did was block out a howling wind that had picked up during the rising night. In the vast dining hall, Reina found Celeste sitting beside the head of the table. She was barely visible behind candles and gilded centerpieces. Porcelain dishes, crystal goblets, and gold utensils covered the length of the table, as every nook of the manor was populated by some extravagance or another; excuses to spend escudos they simply couldn’t fit into their vaults anymore.
Celeste left her seat as Reina crossed the distance to her. Reina threw her arms around her, warming from the slow return of the embrace. She curved around and buried her nose in Celeste’s long rivulet-like hair, inhaling the sweaty, oaky musk of home.
Celeste peeled herself away first. “Your grandmother is looking for you.” Her voice was incense and smoke. Lustrous and graceful. An amalgamation of a valco’s severity and the grace she had inherited from Do?a Laurel. “Earlier this morning she said she’d found the eighth dama.”
Reina stepped back with her jaw clenched. “Already? There’s no way she’s found another girl so soon. I just came back from looking for the last baby.”
Celeste sneered, baring sharp white teeth underneath the plum lip paint she overused, its pigment so rich the stain persisted even after she wiped it off. She was dressed in sparring clothes, always with that high-necked vest style of hers. The leather straps of her scabbard still hung from her hips. And the baby hairs along her temples clung to her hairline from dried sweat. As she whirled back to her seat, she said, “Was the baby protected? Did the girl turn out to be a wife?”
The hand of shame constricted Reina’s throat again. She flexed her jaw and stared at her muddied boots. Celeste could probably see the answer in the worn lines of her eyes.