“No, we won’t. You will be protected,” Reina spat.
Don Enrique showered the damas with silk and luxuries in their captivity. He had all the escudos in the world to spare, and he did spend them, feeding the damas expensive cuts of meat and all the sugary desserts the baker could come up with. The servants dressed them in embroidered garments, draped them in ruanas spun from fine wool, and scented their bathwater with fuchsia and coral tree flowers. Then, once they were full of contentment, Do?a Ursulina made them docile with a never-ending sleep.
The woman clawed at Reina’s hand. “If you’re mad enough to kidnap me over a stupid tale, then you’re mad enough to kill me for it!” Her nails drew blood. “Let go.”
“You don’t know what the legend is about,” Reina said.
“Let me go, you dirty duskling!” Her voice reverberated down the corridor.
Reina let go, but not from the command. Heat bloomed from her belly up, making her ears burn. She reacted without thinking, shoving the woman against the wall and drawing so close she scented the sour fear in her breath. Reina was wicked, this part was true—for abandoning the babes in the mountains, for taking innocent women away from their lives. But hearing the slur from this woman, a human clearly coddled all her life who didn’t understand the things Reina had to go through to be here, seared her.
The woman’s pulse thrummed with terror beneath Reina’s grip.
“Listen to me,” Reina hissed. “Your freedom is gone. You’re a prisoner and property of the caudillo of Sadul Fuerte. He doesn’t care what you have to say about it. Blame your birth or Rahmagut, if you want to blame anything.”
The woman’s eyes grew glossy. Reina had the gut-wrenching realization she had terrorized her into silence. To the woman, Reina was probably a monster, well deserving of any insult.
She took a deep inhale and shoved off her. Regret draped her shoulders, weighing her down with shame as she took in the tremulous expression in the woman’s face. When this all had started, Reina had made an oath to give them kindness and patience, and in a single stroke, she had shattered her promise to herself.
The silence was thick and painful.
“Despite what you believe, I don’t enjoy this,” Reina admitted with a side-glance. She shoved her bangs away, feeling how oily her hair was.
Dirty duskling.
“Is that supposed to be a reassurance? Because it’s not working,” the woman said, squaring on her two feet as if she honestly believed she could stand up to Reina.
“I’m not asking you to expect roses.”
The woman’s glare deepened.
“Whatever happens, I’ll be the one to take you to your new bedroom. And if you need anything—anything at all—you can ask me. I’ll try my best.” Never mind explaining how little sway she had over Do?a Ursulina’s whims.
“My new bedroom? How generous of you. What’s your name?”
“Reina. Reina Duvianos.”
“You’re related to the Duvianos?”
Reina grunted. One day, she would be able to answer what her heart ached to see true: that she was the future of the Duvianos name, that she had a place and home in Sadul Fuerte, and that she belonged.
The woman snorted. “I didn’t know the Duvianos bedded nozariels.”
They don’t, Reina thought bitterly. She motioned to the dark staircase, where the air clung to her skin like wet ice. The smell always reminded her of dead frogs.
“And yours?” Reina said, descending.
“Maior.”
“Maior what?”
“Maior de Apartaderos.”
De Apartaderos. The woman was a bastard, unclaimed by a parent and forced to use her birthplace as a surname.
They descended the steps in pitch-blackness until the soft orange of the torches on the underground level spilled onto the steps. The narrow antechamber was lined in heavy doors. They were the rooms of the other damas and Don Enrique’s treasures. The first door led to Do?a Ursulina’s laboratory.
Maior sensed Reina’s hesitation. “What’s going to happen to me?”
Reina’s keen hearing picked up Maior’s terrified heartbeat—the tha-thump in her neck.
“Do?a Ursulina’s going to verify you are who we want.” Reina paused, considering whether to divulge the details of the test. “She does other things, sometimes.”
Maior’s question came out as a croak. “What things?”
Before Reina could answer, Do?a Ursulina’s door creaked, tugged open by the strings of iridio she maintained so abundantly in her laboratory.
“Come on in, darling,” came Do?a Ursulina’s satisfied voice.
A slim bed was perched in the corner of the room, by the potion desk. It was where Do?a Ursulina put the women for their examination. And beside it was a small crib, a mound of blankets tucking in another innocent babe her grandmother had procured for the occasion.
All paled in comparison to Do?a Ursulina. Today she was dressed in a luxurious white gown embroidered with mother-of-pearl, her hair hidden beneath a silky head wrapping. It was the kind of outfit she would wear when visiting the gentry of Sadul Fuerte.
Do?a Ursulina offered them a smile Reina knew didn’t reach her heart. “So Javier delivers—unlike yourself,” she quipped.
“I was searching for the other babe.” Reina’s eyes were on the crib, her thoughts imagining the mother’s horror upon realizing the person she loved most was gone.
“Oh, that? As soon as I found the sign for this girl, I knew the other one was to be disposed of. Waste of our time, really. You, too, can stop wasting our time with your sentimental antics. Nature is perfectly capable of removing the evidence. Honestly, Reina, you’re slipping.”
Reina clenched her jaw to stop herself from reacting. She had been doing this a lot lately—pretending to be all right with the awful things they did.
Do?a Ursulina beckoned Maior with a slender hand, saying, “Come on now, you’ll be fine.”
“No,” Maior said.
“Sweetheart, being a Dama del Vacío is the most fascinating thing that will ever happen in your life. Reina, allow the girl some privacy, will you? And don’t go too far. Today I have something different I want to try—something that won’t take very long. She might need extra attention afterward.”
Maior clamped a clammy hand over Reina’s wrist. “Don’t leave me! Please.”
Reina stared at the spot where their skins touched. Her heart fluttered unexpectedly, the urge to reassure sharper than ever. Maior’s eyes rounded with pleading expectation, as if she understood Reina was the lesser of two evils.
She was wrong.
Reina peeled Maior’s hand off. And Maior pleaded again, Reina’s name rolling from wet lips, that desperate gaze begging for an ally. Reina yanked her toward Do?a Ursulina; no matter how much Maior squirmed and tugged, she was just a soft human under Reina’s steellike grip.
Reina pretended not to hear Maior while shutting the laboratory door behind her. She pretended the twisting and wringing in her chest was nothing more than pity. The memory of all the other instances when she had brought the suspected girls lanced through her, mocking her. She had done it over a dozen times, with the seven they had found and all the others who had been mistakes. So why, today, was she plagued with so much regret?