Reina descended the trails again for a brief bath and a dinner of leftovers. Sleep comforted her only for so long, before her anxieties spat her out of her dreams when dawn was a few hours away. She reasoned, as she groggily peered at the grandfather clock in the dining hall ticking past the witching hour, that it had been long enough for the test to count.
Reina hiked up those known and worn trails of the Páramo beneath the stars’ watchful eyes. Marcescent leaves tugged her trousers and dead shrubs snapped under her weight. A lone breeze sang past the sparse trees, then chilled her to the bone. Her hand found the hilt of her machete on its own, the feel of it a reassurance, despite the perspiration clinging to her palms. And as she walked, as the air grew colder and she hiked higher still, Reina couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed.
She clutched the hilt tightly as she paused to listen, taking in the hummocky landscape. She listened to the wind whistling between tall grass and frailejón trees. Crickets committing to their chorale around her. Some fox-like animal yapping in the far distance.
Suddenly a shadow shifted from the corner of her eyes, falling beneath the view of the knoll. A movement a human would have missed.
The tall grass stopped breathing. Or maybe she did.
Reina leapt away from the pursuer, scrambling over stumps and slippery, mossy rocks.
With a bold arc, she swung the machete around. She parried out of instinct. Then her breath died at the depths of her throat as she realized who hunted her.
Her attacker froze, recognition washing over their face. A scythe clanged against Reina’s machete, stopping but a hair away from the tender flesh of her neck. Celeste gasped a cloud of condensation. “Por la Virgen.”
“Celeste,” Reina said, “you nearly killed me.”
Crescent moonlight bathed her and turned her stunted antlers into a silver crown. Celeste shoved her scythe away. “No, you gave me a fright! I thought you were… something.”
Reina took a shaky step back, her heartbeats calming. “I should be telling you the same.” She sheathed her machete. Her gaze lingered on Celeste a little too long, so she looked away. But no matter how often Reina was entangled in this dance, in this realization of her staring, Celeste’s face always drew her back.
Reina said, “Just the other day, I think I saw the madwoman Luz Caraballos.”
“It’s but a tale.”
“She looked real to me.”
Celeste pursed her lips. A cloud covered the moon, so Reina couldn’t tell if she was smiling, but her voice sounded like she was. “We’re a little too old to be scared of ghosts.”
“I think I’ve surpassed you with the things I’ve seen in these mountains.”
Celeste chuckled.
“So why are you here?” Reina asked, withholding the urge to remind her of how the caudillo had banned her from trekking up the Páramo. Celeste should be tucked in her bed right now, warm and dreaming in the safety of ?guila Manor. This was Reina’s job, not hers.
“I came to intervene,” Celeste said.
“Intervene?”
Celeste sidestepped Reina up the scree-side path. “I’m sick of this… ritual or whatever. I’m sick of living in a house of kidnappers and murderers. Father has lost his mind and all honor—all for this… this insane legend.”
Reina followed her like the puppy she was. “Wait—you can’t. Maior is the eighth, I know it.”
“Maior?”
“The woman Javier brought tonight.” Reina hiked behind her, climbing on a slippery rock and extending a hand to Celeste. Thunder rumbled in the distance, despite the glow of the crescent moon and her shimmering companions.
“If you’re already on a first-name basis, shouldn’t you be a little more concerned that she’s a prisoner?”
Something about her tone made Reina clench her jaw. “I don’t decide how they’re kept. Do?a Ursulina does.”
“Spoken like a true lapdog.”
Reina stopped, gave her a look. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the words, and it never hurt any less.
Celeste sighed loudly. She reached out to squeeze Reina’s arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. But she’s not an object for keeping. None of them are. They’re people. Look, don’t fight me on this. Go back to the manor, and pretend you never saw me.”
“Do?a Ursulina will want to know the results.”
“She’s not getting her results,” Celeste snapped.
Coldly, like the wind enveloping them, Reina said, “If she can’t prove Maior is a Dama del Vacío tonight, then she will steal another unbaptized babe, and she will repeat the ritual until she does. Someone else will lose their child, Celeste.” Don’t be na?ve, she thought. Besides, they were running out of time.
“Head back to the manor. I command it.”
The words were icy water. Heartless, like her uncle. Tyrannical, like her father. They reminded Reina that she could never be an equal. For if Reina ever disagreed, a command could simply wipe her opinions away. But she didn’t move, because she already carried someone else’s command. She had chosen this path, and her hands were too dirtied for her not to see it through.
“You should have tried to change the caudillo’s mind sooner,” Reina said bitterly, “but you didn’t. You also want to see your mother alive.”
“Don’t talk about my mom.”
Reina’s chest tightened. She’d regretted it as soon as she had said it. “Celeste, we’re so close.”
Celeste whirled up the path, hissing, “Not if I have something to do with the matter.”
Nightly silence enveloped them as Celeste rushed up, her boots crunching on rocks that Reina later stepped on. Part of her wanted to toss Celeste over her shoulders and haul her all the way back down to the manor—to lock her in her room so she couldn’t play at this game where so much of the future was at stake. It was so easy for Celeste to wake up one day and decide she wanted something completely unattainable, to demand the people around her provide it to her, and actually get it. Celeste had never learned the disappointment of a no, and Reina feared even their friendship wasn’t strong enough to change her mind.
A soft whistling brought Reina back to reality. The breeze stopped and the night became truly quiet. It was the melody of climbing notes, one over the other, coming from far away like they were being whistled by an unsuspecting traveler. But she knew this melody—had heard it once before.
Reina and Celeste paused beside a tall, lanky frailejón.
“Did you hear that?” Celeste whispered.
Reina glanced to her left and right. They stood on a path with a slopping scree to one side and plentiful frailejones to the other. Standing in the shadow of a moon hidden behind clouds, the trees were an easy place for a creature to hide in plain sight.
Moments passed and the whistling faded. Stopped. Then it started again, faint and broken as if coming from very far away. A swoosh cut the air behind them, and Celeste gasped, yanking Reina forward and out of the way.
The sound was sucked out of the night as Reina whirled around to face the bipedal fiend. A tall whistler emerged from behind a crooked tree, hunched, claws outstretched and ready for a second strike. Its eyes were shrouded in the shade of a straw hat, the bottom half of its face gnawed bloody, probably by another whistler it had encountered. Caked blood stained the sides of its lipless mouth, trailing down to the tattered clothes of a farmer.